Synopsis:
Professor Travers has found the body of Private Weams, smothered in web, and beside it one of the small Yeti models. One of the robots suddenly looms out of the shadows and attacks him...
Anne rushes to help but is thrown aside by the Yeti, which then drags the unconscious professor from the fortress.
The Doctor has been reunited with Jamie and Victoria, who are accompanied by Driver Evans. He is concerned that Chorley is going to try to steal the TARDIS. They make for Covent Garden where it was left, only to find the way blocked by a mass of the fungus-like web. The Doctor decides to take a sample of the substance, which he deposits in Evans' tobacco tin.
In the tunnels, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and Staff Sergeant Arnold meet up with Captain Knight's party. They have separately been trying to get to Holborn but have found more web blocking their route. They decide to join forces and try to reach the station using another line.
They then come upon the Doctor's party, and on hearing that they have also encountered the web they decide to retreat to the fortress where the Doctor plans to show the web sample to Travers.
They arrive to find the doors open and soldiers dead, smothered in web.
Anne recovers and tells them of the Yeti attack, and they learn of her father's abduction.
The Colonel is informed that the Doctor and his companions were absent during the attack as they were hunting for Chorley. He fails to recall Evans from the ambushed convoy.
Corporal Blake then reports that the web is on the move again, slowly closing in on their location.
Thoughts turn to who among them might be working against them, and the Colonel enquires if it may have been Travers. Chorley is another obvious suspect, whilst the Doctor has quietly noted the Colonel's failure to recognise Evans.
He tells the Colonel about the Great Intelligence which is behind the Yeti and the web, and how it attempted to ensnare the TARDIS. On learning of the ship, the Colonel asks if it could be used to take them all to safety.
The Doctor leaves to check on Anne and to resume her father's work - seeking a means of blocking the Yeti control signals - whilst the Colonel notifies Knight that he intends to retrieve the TARDIS. The captain is dismissive that such a craft could exist, but Lethbridge-Stewart seems to believe the Doctor's story.
The Doctor is impressed with Anne's work, and offers to help finish it. Evans appears and hands the Doctor one of the small Yeti models, saying he found it beside the body of Private Weams. The Doctor is shocked as he knows these are being used as homing devices for the robots - and the driver has just given it to him. They then discover that the other models have disappeared.
The Colonel has formulated a hazardous plan which will entail going up to street level at Covent Garden. Arnold will lead a second party through the tunnels with a trolley on which to place the TARDIS, using respirators to try to get through any web they encounter.
Knight will stay behind to protect the civilians.
The Doctor decides to examine the sample of web with Anne - only to find that the tobacco tin is empty, casting further suspicion on Evans. He, meanwhile, will be joining the TARDIS recovery mission in Arnold's party, much against his will.
The Doctor realises that he will need some electronic spares if he is to complete Anne's signal blocking device. He and Knight will also have to go up to street level to obtain this from a shop.
Anne, Jamie and Victoria will need to lock themselves in the fortress until their return.
Arnold's party are heading through the tunnels with the trolley. Donning their respirators, Arnold and Corporal Lane enter the mass of web, whilst Evans plays out a safety rope behind them. On hearing screams, Evans pulls the trolley back - only to find Lane dead and Arnold missing.
The Colonel and his party are moving through the market area when they find a party of Yeti waiting for them. A fierce battle ensues, in which Blake is killed along with the rest of the soldiers - leaving the Colonel the sole survivor.
In a shop nearby the Doctor is gathering equipment when another Yeti appears. It kills Captain Knight. As soon as it leaves, the Doctor finds one of the missing Yeti models in the soldier's pocket. He hurries back to the fortress, where Evans has returned alone.
The Colonel turns up soon after, distraught at losing so many men. On hearing of the ambush, the Doctor has him search his pockets and they find the other Yeti model.
The doors suddenly burst open and a pair of Yeti enter.
Everyone is horrified to see Travers appear between them - possessed by the Great Intelligence...
Written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
Recorded: Saturday 3rd February 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 24th February 1968
Ratings: 8.4 million / AI 53
VFX: Ron Oates
Designer: David Myerscough-Jones
Director: Douglas Camfield
Critique:
The draft script had a wounded Corporal Blake urge the Colonel to make his escape after the battle in Covent Garden, staying behind to give him a chance to get away.
After rather stupidly telling Chorley about the TARDIS last week, Victoria was going to tell Evans about it in this episode. To save reusing the fortress entrance set, a scene with the Colonel and Blake preparing to lead their party to street level was dropped.
It had originally been hoped that filming outside Covent Garden station might take place on Sunday 17th December, showing the Colonel and his men assembling, but this was dropped when it became clear that London Transport would only allow work on their premises for too high a fee.
Instead other locations around Covent Garden would be used on what would be the main location filming day - covering the big battle sequences between the soldiers and the Yeti.
All four of the creatures would be required, and it was discovered that the costumes - though made sleeker than the original ones seen in The Abominable Snowmen - were still very restrictive for the performers. It had been hoped that they would be able to pick up the soldiers and throw them about, but this proved impossible.
Whilst he looked forward to seeing the Yeti in action in the darkened tunnel sets, Camfield found them rather dull to shoot in broad daylight.
The main location venue was the yard of TJ Poupart, off Shelton Street in Old Covent Garden. This lies to the north of the Underground station and runs from Monmouth Street in a north-westerly direction to Drury Lane. Some filming took place at the junction of Shelton and Neal Streets, with the Yeti performers being filmed from different directions to suggest greater numbers.
Filming on a Sunday morning, commencing at 8.30am and in an enclosed yard, reduced the risk of interruptions from the general public.
Dialogue had explained that the deadly fog covering London was confined to a ring around the city centre, to explain why the location was mist-free.
Only Nicholas Courtney and Richardson Morgan (Corporal Blake) were required of the guest cast, so this marks the first occasion on which Courtney portrayed Lethbridge-Stewart - the character who would make him famous. It was also the first occasion on which he worked alongside John Levene, who was playing one of the Yeti.
Even though he wasn't featuring in these scenes, the location was attended by Frazer Hines. He and Levene would later share the anecdote that an impromptu ballroom dance competition was held between them, with his Yeti having a number on its back as on the popular Come Dancing TV series.
A number of the HAVOC stunt team were on hand to play soldiers, including Derek Ware, Tim Condren and Derek Martin. Actor Bernard G High, playing one of the troops, was due to participate in the location filming but had to drop out. He appears in studio in other episodes, and will later play a UNIT corporal in Terror of the Zygons, so was presumably another of Camfield's repertory of actors.
Unfortunately, filming in December meant little daylight and Camfield was disappointed not to capture all the action he had hoped for.
A photographer from The Daily Mirror was on hand to capture images of the Yeti in the street, including posing with a passing dog-walker.
A small amount of filming also took place on Wednesday 20th December on the backlot at Ealing Studios, of a scene involving the Colonel, Blake and one of their men in an alleyway.
Camfield was then able to complete his action scenes back at TJ Poupart on Sunday 14th January.
This episode went into studio shortly after the broadcast of the opening instalment. Two of the Yeti were required on the night - played by John Lord and Gordon Stothard.
It was light work for Jack Watling as he was only required for a reprise of the previous week's cliff-hanger, which was re-enacted, and then Travers' reappearance at the conclusion.
The first recording break took place immediately following the re-enactment, to allow Watling and the Yeti to move from the ops room set to the corridor. Watling adopted a rasping voice for when possessed by the Great Intelligence, recalling Wolfe Morris's performance as Padmasambhava in the previous Yeti story.
The body of Private Weams was never shown properly, to avoid having to rehire Stephen Whittaker.
For the sequence in which the Doctor procures a sample of the fungus, latex webbing was hung across the set and the stock footage of cells dividing, used for end credit sequences, was superimposed over the shot.
This was also used over the scene where Arnold and Lane pass into the web with the trolley. A second recording break allowed for the bodies of the soldiers to be covered in the latex webbing. Another allowed for Rod Beacham, as Corporal Lane, to be covered in the substance. Other breaks were for cast movements from set to set.
A distinctive piece of music was used for the start of the Covent Garden battle sequence - Space Adventure Part 2, by Martin Slavin. This piece of library music had become synonymous with the Cybermen, having been used by Morris Barry in both The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen for their appearances.
The day after recording, the regular cast travelled down to Margate for two days of location filming for the next story, still titled "Colony of Devils" at this point.
With the death of Corporal Lane in the tunnels, all of the named soldiers we first met in the opening instalment have now been killed apart from Staff Sergeant Arnold, who is missing, presumed dead. Craftsman Weams bought it in the previous episode, and now Captain Knight and Corporal Blake have perished. We've gotten to know and like these characters - especially Knight - and this would have been quite shocking at the time. It's a while since we've had such a high death count amongst the non-villain guest characters.
It is this darkness - both literal (gloomy tunnels and fortress sets) and figurative (death and paranoia) - which leads many to regard this story as one of the very best of the Troughton era.
For only the second time in the series we have a major pitched battle between soldiers and monsters - and yet again it takes place in the environs of Covent Garden (the other occasion being the confrontation with The War Machines).
The whole "who is the agent of the Great Intelligence" plot strand is further developed, with an increasing list of suspects. The Doctor remains unsure about the Colonel, who can't recall Evans and who is quick to believe the Doctor's story about the TARDIS - as though he already knew it existed and wanted it for himself? He's the only survivor from the battle as well.
Or perhaps he can't recall Evans because the driver was never there at Holborn... Evans also hands the Doctor one of the Yeti models, which mark people for death, and the fungus sample goes missing from his tobacco tin. Evans is also the only person to return unscathed from a mission.
Chorley doesn't appear at all this week, but he's another obvious suspect anyway - someone else who is looking for the TARDIS.
We see Lane killed by the web, but Arnold simply disappears - the man who seemed to know that the Yeti hadn't caught or killed the Doctor in Episode 2. And now this week we have the Colonel suspecting Travers. Has he been abducted, or has he been removed from the fortress for some other purpose?
Data:
- The ratings see a big improvement this week of nearly 1.5 million, and the appreciation figure also rises by a couple of points.
- Had David Langton not pulled out of playing the Colonel, this might have been the second time that Nicholas Courtney's character got killed off in the fourth episode of a story directed by Douglas Camfield.
- This episode was singled out for praise by Huw Wheldon, controller of television programmes, at the BBC's weekly review meeting the following Wednesday.
- Radio Times had two Doctor Who items this week. The first was a feature on Frazer Hines, which included a photograph taken during the making of the previous Yeti story - a photo they had only used a few weeks before. He was describing the location filming on the story that was to follow...
- Whilst the other was a small item about guest artist Tina Packer and an earlier Dickens adaptation she had appeared in:
