Q is for... Quarks

Diminutive but powerful robot servants of the Dominators, a war-like race of people who claimed to be the Masters of the Ten Galaxies.

Quarks were squat box-like bipedal machines, with spiked, spherical heads. Their arms folded into their bodies and were designed to hold a variety of tools and weapons. They could communicate verbally, having a shrill, child-like voice.

One drawback to the robots was that they had limited energy levels and had to recharge frequently. Quarks could distribute power between themselves to equalise their energy levels.

The Doctor and his companions encountered a party of Quarks when a lone Dominator spaceship landed on the tranquil world of Dulkis, determined to assess its population as suitable for slave labour. Probationer Toba used them to kill a party of young thrill-seekers who had wandered too close to the island where their ship - and the TARDIS - had landed. This angered his commander, Rago, as it used up valuable power and deprived them of natives to interrogate. Toba repeatedly went against Rago's orders to further kill prisoners and destroy infrastructure on the island - to the point that the Quarks' energy levels were threatened. When it became clear that the pacifist Dulcians were unfit to be enslaved, it was decided to destroy the planet by transforming it into a radioactive mass - fuel for the Dominator war fleet. Quarks were instructed to prepare drill sites around a central borehole. They were also used to oversee Dulcian prisoners who were forced to assist this work.

Jamie and a rebellious young Dulcian named Cully were able to use a laser weapon from a war museum to destroy a Quark, whilst others could be easily overcome by blinding them - throwing a cover over their head - or tripping them up - tying a rope round their legs. Clearly they did not have all-round vision.

Later, the Doctor developed an explosive which was used to deplete the Quark force further. Those remaining were called off search-and-destroy work to finish the drilling - the plan being to trigger a volcanic eruption into which an atomic seed capsule would be dropped.

The Doctor was able to slip this capsule onto the Dominator spaceship just before it took off - destroying it along with the remaining Quarks and their Dominator masters.

Played by: John Hicks, Gary Smith, Freddie Wilson. Voiced by: Sheila Grant.

Appearances: The Dominators (1968)

• It was an argument over the commercial exploitation of the Quarks which led to writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln finally falling out with the Doctor Who production office, after the BBC had allowed them to feature in TV Comic without consulting them. They had created the robots specifically with the intention of exploiting them financially themselves, having seen what Terry Nation had earned through the Daleks.
• In these comic strips, the Quarks are a fully autonomous force of aggressive invaders, no longer under the control of the Dominators.
• The Quark performers were all schoolboys.
• Voice artist Sheila Grant would later be seen on screen as Jane Leeson in Colony in Space.
• We see two different techniques used for the Quark weapons. The first is when they kill Cully's friends, where the flesh appears to burn and melt momentarily. This sequence was achievable as on film, but in studio the simpler and quicker method of pumping smoke through the victim's costume was used. At one point Cully is wounded by a Quark, but only suffers a temporary paralysis. 
• A Quark featured as one of the cards that came with Weetabix packs as part of their first Doctor Who promotion:

• The replica Quark which featured in the Doctor Who exhibition at Peterborough Museum in 2025:

P is for... Pyroviles

Huge rock-based creatures with a molten magma core, who formed a bridgehead in the Campania region during the height of the Roman Empire, following the loss of their home planet Pyrovilia. They could kill with an incinerating blast from their mouths.

Their intention was to boil away the Earth's oceans and make the planet more habitable for them as a new home. They were susceptible to the cold water, and sufficient quantities could cause their exoskeleton to solidify and shatter.

On first arriving on Earth, they crash-landed their escape capsule and were reduced to dust.

The earthquake of 62AD in the Pompeii area triggered their awakening.

Their dust could infect human beings, causing them to slowly turn to stone themselves after first becoming their mental servants. They had the ability to psychically affect certain individuals with latent abilities in this area. Through a human agent named Lucius Petrus Dextrus who was a powerful local official in the city of Pompeii, they commissioned rock-based circuitry which would help them harness the energies of Mount Vesuvius in order to further their plans. 

The High Priestess of the Sibylline Sisterhood was also infected with their rock dust, and was now almost fully composed of stone.

In order to stop the Pyroviles, the Doctor was forced to trigger the devastating eruption of the volcano in 79AD, knowing it would kill thousands of men, women and children - their deaths being the price to pay to save the entire planet. This was a fixed point in time, which he could not alter.

It would later transpire that Pyrovilia had been taken by Davros to power his Reality Bomb, and the Doctor and Donna Noble were able to return it to its proper place and time.

Appearances: The Fires of Pompeii (2008).

• The design of the adult Pyroviles was based on that of a Roman soldier, whilst that of the Sisterhood priestess was based on the plaster casts of the victims of the volcanic eruption which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum.
• If Pyrovilia was put back where it came from, then these Pyroviles would never have fled from it and so come to Earth and tried to conquer it - so there would have been no reason for the Doctor to deliberately trigger the eruption of Vesuvius and destroy Pompeii. As it is historic fact, however, this must surely mean that it was simply a natural disaster.

P is for... Pye, Reginald

Projectionist at the Palazzo Movie Theatre in Miami, Florida, in 1952. He alone had survived the sudden disappearance of 15 audience members during the screening of a Mr Ring-a-Ding cartoon short.

Though the cinema had now been boarded up by the police, the Doctor and Belinda Chandra discovered that Reg remained inside, playing movies to an empty auditorium.

When they broke in, he tried to warn them into leaving. The reason he stayed to run the features was because he was enslaved by Lux, God of Light, who fed on the projections. He had taken on the form of the cartoon character, and sought to gain corporeal form in order to leave this place.

Reg had lost his wife Helen in a car accident a short time ago, though she was preserved on celluloid, captured from his old home movies. Lux threatened to destroy these memories of her if he failed to obey, but would be rewarded by him recreating Helen in 3-D form from the images.

He attempted to help the Doctor and Belinda by running the cartoon, knowing that Lux was compelled to sing along - distracting him long enough to allow them to escape. However, they were caught and turned into celluloid figures themselves. After escaping, Belinda encouraged Reg to help destroy Lux and, inspired by Helen, he agreed - sacrificing himself to set light to the mass of flammable film stock. This blew out one of the walls, which allowed Lux to be swamped by sunlight - eventually drawing him away from Earth towards the sun.

Played by Linus Roache. Appearances: Lux (2025).

• Linus is the son of Coronation Street icon William Roache, who has played the character Ken Barlow in the soap since its very first episode in December 1960.
• Between 1972 and 1975 Linus played Ken Barlow's son Peter in the series, before returning in 2010 as a different character.
• His first big film role was as the conflicted title character in Priest, in 1994, who struggles with his sexuality.
• Genre appearances include Batman Begins (as Bruce Wayne's father) and The Chronicles of Riddick.
• On screen he has played Vincent Van Gogh (Omnibus), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Pandaemonium) and Robert F Kennedy (in Oliver Stone's JFK).

P is for... Purcell

Jim Purcell was the bullying and obnoxious landlord of Alex and Claire, who lived with their son George in a high rise flat. Purcell lived alone with only bulldog Bernard for company. George was really an alien child who possessed remarkable abilities. Terrified of rejection, he was constantly afraid and could banish the objects of his fears - containing them within an old dolls house in his bedroom cupboard. Purcell represented one of these terrors for the boy, and he found himself suddenly sucked down into his carpet one evening, as though into quicksand. He then found himself in the dolls house where he was attacked by the wooden Peg Dolls which inhabited it. He was transformed into one of the creatures.

Once George overcame his fears, everyone was returned to normal, including Purcell. The experience would hopefully have made him a less unpleasant individual.

Played by: Andrew Tiernan. Appearances: Night Terrors (2011).

• An early film role for Tiernan was as Piers Gaveston in Derek Jarman's 1991 film of Marlowe's Edward II.
• He played doomed astronaut Victor Carroon in 2005's live remake of The Quatermass Experiment.
• Other film roles include 300 and its sequel, Interview with the Vampire and The Pianist, whilst TV appearances include Jonathan Creek, Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War and Dalziel & Pascoe.

Time Museum Bookazine

The next bookazine from DWM, due in June, is The Time Museum, which considers the history of the series in 100 objects. It promises many rare photographs.

What's Wrong With... Battlefield

When a story's own author - Ben Aaronovitch - says there's a big issue with it then you really can't argue about the problems of Battlefield. (He even struggled with the novelisation and someone else had to step in and write it).

Season 26 suffered from a particular problem throughout - and that was poor work on the part of Andrew Cartmel. A good script editor knows how many characters to have, how many sets / locations are needed, and that the story then has to fit into the allotted time slot on the day, ensuring that all the salient plot points needed to satisfy the viewer are present and correct. Robert Holmes and Terrence Dicks understood this, as did most of Cartmel's predecessors. (They also knew not to use the exact same plot twice in the same short season, less than a month apart).

Just about every episode of Season 26 over-ran in terms of the scripts and rather drastic cuts had to be make to ensure the episodes fitted their evening time-slot. (We've now seen a lot of this material as "Special Editions" of the stories).

This had been going on since Cartmel arrived. At a DWAS convention following Season 24, one writer answered almost every question put to him by telling the audience to read the novelisation. If the episodes as broadcast can't tell you what you need to know, and you have to rely on buying a book to understand the plot, then there's something very wrong with how the story was structured and presented.

And a lot of that is down to the script being edited efficiently in the first place.

Battlefield's main issue was that it just about worked as a three-parter, but Aaronovitch had to stretch it to four. It's not just a case of dragging out or padding the plot, this upsets the whole story structure.

As for that plot...

There are far too many characters included for a start. As well as incorporating Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart we have to introduce a second Brigadier, an archaeologist, the archaeologist's assistant, a pub landlord, the pub landlord's wife, various UNIT underlings, a demon, a heroic knight from another dimension, a villainous knight from another dimension... and his mum.

There's so many characters but we can't have them all meeting at once, so some can only appear in the first half then be shunted out of the plot, and the more significant characters have to wander about a bit so that they don't meet up too early, because they're needed for the climax.

It is high summer by the looks of it, yet a scenic location with lake, forest and ruined castle isn't teeming with tourists.

We visit the pub a couple of times and yet it doesn't appear to get many visitors - local or tourist. Warmsley and Shou Yuing appear to be about the only customers. 

Whilst the landlady, Elizabeth, gets a small part to play in the plot - a bit of character development for Morgaine - there is absolutely no point of including husband Pat in the story.

We know how Morgaine and her knights get through to our world, but how exactly did Ancelyn manage it, and why didn't he bring any support with him?

Attempts to discuss the concept of military honour are another inconsistency. The scene between Morgaine and the Brigadier at the war memorial is very good, but she kills the unarmed Laval, before then restoring Elizabeth's sight just to pay for a round of drinks. 

Brigadier Bambera fails to have the Doctor and Ace instantly locked up when they try to access a restricted area with outdated UNIT passes. It's only afterwards that she's told about the mysterious scientific adviser from Lethbridge Stewart's time. How did she ever achieve that rank without knowing about the Doctor anyway? Why are UNIT doing mundane military work when they were set up to deal with alien threats in the first place?

Being a great fan of Time Team, the archaeological dig bears little resemblance to fact. The idea that a single individual, with just one assistant, would undertake a site of such a scale (and supposed importance) is unrealistic. The site really ought to be crawling with student volunteers, or at least a few local ones. There are groups all over the country.

Vortigern does not necessarily mean "High King". Vortigern was a king who, according to Bede and other early chroniclers, invited the Saxons into Britain to help repel attacks by the Picts and Scots, rewarding them with land in Kent.

The Doctor deduces that the spaceship will open at his command as his future self would have programmed it to obey his voice - and yet he doesn't think to tell the automated defences to stop attacking him. And what exactly do these snake-like defences do, apart from bumping into people?

And if he arranges all this in the future, why doesn't he remember then to make sure not to do something silly like endanger his earlier self who is going to blunder into this?

You can see the notorious crack in the glass when Ace almost drowns.

The script is inconsistent on the effectiveness of the knight's armour. Bullets bounce off when the script needs them to, but the knights die from ordinary gunfire when it doesn't. 

And just how does 1980's UNIT manage to defeat a warrior class of knights, armed with futuristic weapons, anyway?

Does the Doctor know that he's going to meet a demon who is susceptible to silver? How does Ace know about the bullets' significance?

The Destroyer is one of the most impressive monsters ever seen in the series, yet he doesn't get to do a lot. Maybe a bit of destroying might have come in handy to make his inclusion more worthwhile.

One of the biggest issues for me was what happens to Morgaine at the end. She can summon demons, traverse dimensions, teleport around, and bring down helicopters with her fingers, so I hardly think Holloway Prison is going to hold her for long. Was it too much to ask to see her and Mordred banished back to their own dimension at the end, instead of that painful sit-com walkdown at the Brig's house? They could have been honour-bound not to return to this dimension, just to draw a line under their involvement.

Episode 204: The Wheel in Space (1)

Synopsis:

Jamie watches as Victoria's image recedes on the TARDIS scanner. Upset by her departure, he cares little about where they will end up next. The Doctor reminds him that he was fond of her too.

The ship materialises and the Doctor detects that they are surrounded by metal. The scanner, however, shows a tranquil outdoor scene. The image changes and suddenly it is a night scene. As other pictures appear, the Doctor realises that the TARDIS is trying to tempt them away from here because of some threat it has detected.

He asks Jamie to check the fault locator and it indicates an issue with the fluid links.

A section of console suddenly explodes and the room begins to fill with toxic mercury fumes. The Doctor quickly opens a panel and removes a metal rod from the compartment within as he pushes Jamie outside.

After emerging from the TARDIS, the Doctor informs his companion that the rod is the Time Vector Generator, and its removal has caused the internal dimensions to reduce to match those of its external shell. 

They find themselves in the corridor of a spacecraft and go in search of mercury to replenish the faulty fluid links.

The spaceship has a number of locked doors, including the one leading to the control cabin. Operating a monitor which shows the cabin interior, they realise that the vessel appears to be deserted and they are drifting aimlessly through space. There are odd rectangular tracks on the floor.

They can find no mercury and so go to the crew room to look for food - unaware that a squat Servo Robot has just been activated in the control cabin.

It begins to operate pre-programmed settings, indicated by a clock-like display on the control panel. A countdown commences.

From the number of bunks, the Doctor deduces that this ship ought to have a crew of four - two on duty and two resting. They enjoy a meal from the automated food machine, unaware that the Servo Robot has left the control cabin and moved along the corridor. It welds shut the door to the motor room in which the TARDIS stands, before returning to the control cabin.

Having heard sounds, the Doctor leaves the crew room as Jamie sleeps on a bunk. He spots fresh tracks and follows these to the control cabin, but the monitor now only shows static. The Servo Robot has plugged itself into the vessel's computers and activates the engines. 

As the ship makes a sudden movement, the Doctor stumbles and hits his head. The movement has woken Jamie, who sees the Doctor stagger in and collapse.

The Servo Robot has opened the airlock door in the cabin, and from a large metal box a number of small white globes emerge and begin to float out into space. It then moves back along the corridor where Jamie finally sees it. He throws a blanket over it, blinding it temporarily. The Doctor is still dazed but is able to instruct him in using the Time Vector Generator to unseal the motor room door.

The Servo Robot throws off the blanket and moves towards Jamie, who is forced to use the Generator as a weapon to destroy it.

The Doctor has now lost consciousness.

Jamie is looking out of a porthole and spots a large structure floating nearby - a wheel-like space station...

Commander Jarvis Bennett and his command team - Dr Gemma Corwyn, Leo Ryan and Tanya Lernov - are observing the spaceship closely. It is the Silver Carrier, a supply vessel which was reported overdue at Station W5 several weeks ago. Attempts to contact its crew have proven unsuccessful, and Bennett is sure that no-one can be left alive on it due to the timescale and distance it must have travelled to get here. He is concerned that its motors may have guided it here automatically - and they could fire again without warning, putting it on a collision course with this station. 

This is W3, known simply as "The Wheel" to its crew.

The crew note small drops in pressure as the white globes reach the Wheel's hull before being absorbed into it. Bennett suspects that some small objects have been cast adrift from the Silver Carrier, but Corwyn reminds him that they would be drawn to the ship and not to them. Bennett, however, dislikes anything which cannot be explained rationally.

He then orders the X-ray laser be made ready, and informs his crew that they are about to witness a rare event - the destruction of a vessel in space...

Data:

Written by David Whitaker (from an idea by Kit Pedler)

Recorded: Friday 5th April 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 27th April 1968

Ratings: 7.2 million / AI 57

VFX: Bill King / Trading Post

Designer: Derek Dodd

Director: Tristan de Vere Cole

Guest cast: Michael Turner (Bennett), Anne Ridler (Gemma Corwyn), Eric Flynn (Leo Ryan), Clare Jenkins (Tanya Lernov), Donald Sumpter (Enrico Casali), Freddie Foote (Servo Robot)

Critique:

With the Daleks having been withdrawn by their creator Terry Nation, the Cybermen had become the new popular recurring monsters in the series. However, during 1967 a dispute had arisen between the production office and writer Kit Pedler over the rights to the creatures. This was resolved in September when Pedler was awarded an equal share in the Cybermen with the BBC.

Nation's attempts to establish the Daleks in their own series had failed, and so he was approached through his agent to see if they were available to return to the series this year. The idea of a story which featured both them and the Cybermen was also mooted.

Nation responded that he had no problem with the Daleks being used once more, but with conditions. He should be given first refusal on writing any new stories, and under no circumstances were they to appear with the Cybermen. He was too busy to write anything himself at present, however. Additionally, he was not keen on David Whitaker handling the Daleks any more as he had been unhappy with certain aspects of both The Power of the Daleks and Evil of the Daleks.

The Daleks were put on the back-burner for now and Pedler was asked to come up with a new adventure pitting the Doctor against the Cybermen - one which would act as the final story of the season. As such they would top and tail the season.

Previously Pedler had collaborated with Gerry Davis but he had now moved on from the series. As he wasn't an experienced writer himself, it was felt necessary to partner him with an old hand - Whitaker. Pedler proposed the space station setting, as well as certain scientific elements such as an X-ray laser and neutron field barriers.

The prominence of the fluid links and a search for mercury, mention of the fault locator, plus a scene revolving around a food machine clearly represent input from Whitaker. All had featured in The Daleks, which he had story-edited, and two of these also featured in The Edge of Destruction, which he wrote. 

Discussions between Pedler and Whitaker took place before Derrick Sherwin joined the programme as Story Editor, and he was unhappy with the story which Peter Bryant had already commissioned.

Sherwin's priority was the introduction of the new companion in this story. It was Peter Ling, then working on a story provisionally titled "Man Power", who came up with the name Zoe. More on her next week.

In the original version of this episode, there was more dialogue about the TARDIS scanner sequence. The Doctor told Jamie that he had accidentally switched on the automatic defence network - "an optional extra on these models". He usually had this disconnected as he would never leave the ship otherwise.

The Wheel crew had different names. Dr Corwyn had the forename Nell, and Leo Ryan was Tom Stone. Tanya had the surname Lerner. Radio operator Harry Carby became Enrico Casali, and a character named Ken was renamed Chang. These changes were the input of director Tristan de Vere Cole, who wanted the space station to have a more international make-up.

The robot was simply known as "the Servo" and the Time Vector Generator was described as being a gold rod with black tips at either end.

Originally planned for studio, it was decided to pre-film a lot of the solo Servo Robot material on the Silver Carrier set at Ealing. This may have been to reduce the pressure on Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines, who would have to carry the bulk of the opening episode alone. There were some laser effects, such as when the robot welded shut the door, which were also more manageable at Ealing.

Playing the robot was 15 year-old Freddie Foote, from the Barbara Speake Stage School. The fibreglass shell of the prop had been constructed by freelance contractors Jack and John Lovell and included flashing lights. The Lovells would also provide the new Mark III Cybermen - more of which later when they turn up.

This material was filmed between Monday 18th and Wednesday 20th March.

The white globes were balloons, manipulated on fine wires.

The set was dressed with distinctive large metal circles. These were commercial kitchen dish covers.

The BBC VFX department were particularly busy at this time and unable to work on the programme, so another of their external contractors was called upon to help out. Bill King's company Trading Post were responsible for the model work seen in this episode. This included the Silver Carrier rocket and the Wheel itself. 

The model filming took place at the BBC's puppet theatre on Thursday 21st March. This small studio got its name from having been the one in which Muffin The Mule had been produced. It was notorious for having a structural pillar in the middle of the workspace, but would come to be used by the VFX team for much of the model work seen on Doctor Who throughout the 1970's.

Also recorded were the Servo Robot exploding, close-up shots of the food machine in operation, and the mercury leak in the TARDIS. Shots of the "eggs" were also filmed, emerging from a model of the control cabin airlock and moving through space.

The Lovells were annoyed when only Bill King and his company were credited on the programme.

Most of this story's guest cast had worked with de Vere Cole before on episodes of Z-Cars.

Rehearsals began on Monday 1st April, when Troughton expressed his dissatisfaction with the scripts. During the afternoon of recording back at Lime Grove, he and Hines posed with Foote in the Servo Robot costume for publicity images.

The episode began with footage taken by Hugh David for the previous story, of Victoria on the beach as filmed from a helicopter. This would be shown on the TARDIS scanner. Debbie Watling was credited on the episode for this one sequence, as new companion Wendy Padbury wouldn't be making her debut until Episode 2.

The other images which appeared on the TARDIS scanner comprised various items of stock footage, including a yawning hippopotamus from a David Attenborough wildlife film.

A flash charge was detonated on the TARDIS console and the first recording break allowed Troughton and Hines to move from that set to the Silver Carrier motor room. This entailed the pair emerging from the Police Box prop in which a smoke machine had been set up. Hines burned his arm on this, which caused a delay while it was attended to.

A TV monitor in the corridor set was fed still pictures of different sections of the spaceship, including the control cabin.

A recording run-on allowed for the welded-shut door to be replaced with an open one, with smoke effects added.

The episode ended with a close-up of the unconscious Doctor's face. 

After completing recording, Troughton embarked on a week's holiday as the Doctor did not appear in the following week's instalment.

This episode is unusual in that for much of its running time we follow only the Doctor and his companion, with just the non-verbal Servo Robot for company. The crew of the Wheel are only introduced around the 19 minute mark, to set up the cliff-hanger as they prepare to destroy the Silver Carrier with the TARDIS travellers on board.

The TARDIS tries to warn its occupants of danger but in a cryptic manner - just as it did in The Edge of Destruction (Whitaker again). The scanner throws up images of more attractive locations.

Quite what the danger is, we're not entirely sure. Is it the proximity of the Cybermen, the Servo Robot, or is it simply the imminent technical fault with the fluid links? We no longer have this episode, and there are only a handful of telesnaps from the opening TARDIS scene, but the dialogue seems to suggest that the fault locator is now incorporated into the console, contained in a black box with a lid according to the script.

One thing which is odd is that instead of stating that the interior is now the size of a Police Box, the Doctor suggests that it has reverted to its original Police Box interior - which implies that the TARDIS used a real one as a shell rather than simply disguising itself as one. Did Whitaker think that it had somehow materialised within a Police Box back in November 1963?

Apart from the glimpse of Victoria on the beach at the start of the episode, this is the first time in a long time that the TARDIS has left Earth. It was last on an alien planet - Telos - in The Tomb of the Cybermen. Since then we've had four six-parters, all Earthbound. We won't actually visit another alien world until the start of the next season. Here, we are about to be spacebound for the entirety - something which was actually rare for the series in its early years.

As you can see below, Radio Times had already flagged up that this was going to be another Cyberman story, but they won't be along for a while. Instead we are introduced to the Servo Robot which, thanks to a number of publicity pictures (two of which appeared as full page posters in DWM's 1982 Winter Special), has become better known than it really ought to be - as it only features in this one episode.

It looks like a stereotypical man-in-suit robot, like many seen in movies and TV shows since the 1950's - and yet there's something especially endearing about it. I think it's the relatively small size, which gives it a certain childlike quality. 

In terms of the story, we don't actually know the Robot's origins. Do they come as standard machines on these spacecraft, and it has been reprogrammed by the Cybermen? Or is it actually an early example of their own developments in robotics? We will see them employing androids in a later story after all. The designation "Servo Robot" does suggest the former.

Jamie seems to have picked up some anachronistic phrases on his travels, such as describing a meal as coming "with all the trimmings". His choice of meal is roast beef with potatoes and cabbage, followed by fruit cocktail, whilst the Doctor opts for pork, potatoes and carrots, followed by ice cream.

"Trimmings" as pertaining to a meal only came about in Victorian times, and the invention of the traditional Christmas dinner. Interestingly, he says "potatoes" and not "tatties" like a good Scot would.

Jamie also knows the phrase "a square meal". Whilst long thought to refer to meals being dished out on square wooden plates on sailing ships, the earliest known recorded mention of the phrase is in the 19th Century - so after his time.

Trivia:

• The ratings get off to a good start, with a small rise on the previous week's episode, and the appreciation figure remains healthy.
• In the run-up to the return of the Cybermen, presenter David Coleman revisited the controversy about the violence in Tomb of the Cybermen on the Talkback programme. The TV review series was coming to an end and this was part of an overall round-up of previous items.
• Early fandom would have had you believe that Eric Flynn was the son of the Hollywood movie star Errol. His dad was in fact a government official - a customs officer in Hong Kong - and Eric was born in China in December 1939. Prior to his only Doctor Who appearance he had played Alan-a-Dale in A Challenge for Robin Hood (which starred Barrie Ingham in the title role), and Germanicus in The Caesars. 
• Like Flynn, Anne Ridler was also born in China, in 1930. She had been a regular on Dixon of Dock Green.
• Clare Jenkins had previously played Nanina in The Savages.
• Donald Sumpter will be back as the submarine commander in The Sea Devils and more recently as Rassilon in Hell Bent. He also appeared as Erasmus Darkling in The Eternity Trap, one of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• Radio Times gave the game away as to the nature of the threat in this story, by including artwork depicting a Cyberman doing a Tommy Cooper impression, and a Cybermat. Spoilers weren't so much of a thing back then - it was more important to advertise the return of a popular monster to attract the viewers.

• The original Servo Robot prop, minus its legs and feet which have been lost over the years, featured in an exhibition in Bradford, Yorkshire, which I visited in February 2014: