What's Wrong With... Mindwarp

One of the problems with this story is the one which Colin Baker often mentions in interviews - namely what is going on with the Doctor when he acts in a hostile manner towards Peri and sucks up to the Mentors? Having asked the usual "What's my motivation in this scene" question of director Ron Jones, he was told to ask the script editor. When he asked Eric Saward for an answer, he was then asked to speak to the writer - who referred him back to Saward. There are three possibilities as to what is going on:

1. The Matrix is lying and has been tampered with,

2. The Doctor is only pretending to be nasty in order to curry favour with the Mentors so that he can undermine them,

3. His brain has been frazzled by Crozier's equipment.

Left with no answer from anyone else, Baker opted to play it as No.3.

We, the audience, are left asking the same question as Baker - why is he acting like this? He made up his own answer, but it's never explained to us what's happened.

Once again we have to question the Gallifreyan legal system. As mentioned last time, they seem to be able to make it up as they go along, so that an investigative tribunal can suddenly become a trial. The Doctor was brought here because of his continued meddling / interference in the affairs of others - but suddenly they bring up the fact that Crozier's experiments could change everything across the entire universe - and they appear to be blaming him for this. 

If they knew about Crozier's work, why not put a stop to it themselves? If they used the Doctor as an unwitting pawn once again, then they sent him to Thoros Beta in the first place - so they can hardly accuse him of interfering in this instance.

In fact, rather than allow the Doctor to put a stop to the scientist's work, they actually pull him out of the situation and opt for a less than subtle assassination, involving the deaths of bystanders.

The Valeyard accuses the Doctor of abandoning Peri - when it was the court which dragged him away and prevented him rescuing her.

The process which takes the Doctor out of time results in short-term memory loss - so is it really fair to put someone through a legal process which involves answering lots of questions about recent events when they know their memory of these is impaired?

The Inquisitor is supposed to be impartial, but she suddenly announces that she knew all about Crozier, the assassination and Peri's death all along.

The stupid thing is that we'll later discover that none of this part of the story happened anyway. Just where does the story actually end, and what's Matrix manipulation?

(How can the Time Lords even know what happened once the TARDIS leaves, as that's what's supposed to be providing the pictures?).

It's not just the Gallifreyan legal system that varies from minute to minute. Crozier is supposed to be a brilliant brain surgeon, but next thing he's able to transfer the contents of the mind into a new brain - which I would have thought must be an entirely different medical discipline.

Can't be many surgeons who allow food and drink - or exposed brains - in their supposedly sterile laboratory.

The idea that someone can transfer their mind into another body is hardly universe-shattering stuff. A giant slug was able to do it in Baker's very first story, and we've seen lots of instances of possession over the years - certainly since the Hinchcliffe-Holmes days.

Talking of mind transference, Sil seems to have undergone a personality transplant. He's quite a different character in this from when we first met him on Varos. He looks different as well - smaller cranium and he's changed colour.

And what were the chances of finding a dead marine Mentor who is the spitting image of Lord Kiv?

A few other questions: why does the Doctor leave the TARDIS door open when the ship has landed in the middle of the sea?

Why are there never any guards at the big metal door to Crozier's laboratory, despite the importance of what is going on and who is in there?

Why does Frax think that the Lukoser will kill the Doctor and Peri when (a) it's chained to a wall leaving room to get past, and (b) is quite a nice bloke really? Has he killed others? Just how many prisoners manage to escape from Frax's guards and get along that tunnel?

If Crozier is employed principally to save Kiv through brain transplantation - and there's urgency to do so, at the cost of his own life - why is he messing about making wolfmen, pacifying warlords and aging rebels?

Episode 177: The Abominable Snowmen (4)

Synopsis:

Victoria enters the chamber where the Yeti has been lying dormant. However, the metallic control sphere has found its way to the creature and is back within its chest unit. It comes back to life and breaks free of the monks' ghost-trap...

Thonmi answers her screams and sends her to fetch Khrisong as he tries to fend it off, sustaining a minor injury as he does so. The Yeti forces its way to the courtyard where Thonmi and Victoria open the gates to allow it to depart before it can cause any further harm - but against Khrisong's wishes.

On the mountain, the Doctor and Jamie pause for a rest - worried that they have not seen any Yeti for some time.

Two of the creatures are standing near the cave entrance, observed by Travers. He sees Songsten arrive with another two Yeti. One leaves, whilst the other three remain as sentinels outside the cave as the abbot enters.

The Doctor and Jamie reach the TARDIS - only to discover a Yeti standing guard right beside it.

In the inner sanctum, Padmasambhava is alone, but he is communing with the unseen Great Intelligence - asking when it might complete its work and so set him free.

Songsten places the glass pyramid in the centre of the pyramid of spheres and withdraws. The pyramid begins to glow. After he and the Yeti have gone, Travers ventures inside.

The Doctor tests a theory by throwing a stone at the Yeti, noting how it does not respond. He realises that it is currently dormant and awaiting orders, so is safe to approach. He is able to remove its control sphere and takes it into the TARDIS.

In the cave, Travers is overpowered by a strange throbbing vibration as the pyramid splits open - emitting a steady flow of glowing liquid. He crawls outside.

The Doctor exits the TARDIS with a hand-held detector. The sphere begins to bleep and this registers on his device. However, the sphere starts pulling towards the Yeti. At one point the Doctor comes between them and is almost crushed, but he gets Jamie to insert a rock in the chest cavity - cutting off the signal. He realises that the sphere back in the monastery will have also tried to reunite with its host and so they rush back down the mountain, taking the sphere with them.

At Det-Sen Khrisong is angry with Thonmi for disobeying his instructions. He is criticised by Sapan and Rinchen for having little authority over his warrior monks. They are also worried about the two young people, suspecting them of some plot.

Nearing the monastery, the Doctor's device picks up another signal - one of Songsten's Yeti turning back - and realises that he may be able to locate the source.

Back in her cell, Victoria tells Thonmi of how the stranger who took the Ghanta and the Doctor are one and the same, despite the passage of 300 years. She explains how he has a time machine. The young monk has no difficulty in believing this as it is said that Padmasambhava can free his mind from his body, to travel great distances.

Khrisong wonders where the abbot has got to all this time, but Sapan and Rinchen suspect he has been with the master. After they leave the courtyard, Songsten arrives at the gate, and once again hypnotises Ralpachan into forgetting that he has seen him. He goes straight to the inner sanctum where Padmasambhava tells him that the Great Intelligence is now taking on form, and all the monks must leave this place - as well as the Doctor and his friends.

The Doctor and Jamie are confronted by Yeti and find themselves trapped between them. The Doctor decides to throw away his sphere in the hope that they will go after it - and fortunately this proves to be the case.

After being brought some food, Victoria falls ill. However, it is just a ruse and she slips out the door and locks Thonmi in the cell.

Songsten informs the monks of the decision to leave Det-Sen as they cannot defeat the Yeti. Khrisong argues that the Doctor has just returned with equipment which will help them, and vows to stay and fight. It is reported that Victoria has escaped, and Sapan and Rinchen are convinced she is evil. They believe she deliberately released the Yeti from their ghost trap, and then allowed it to leave the monastery.

They demand that the Doctor and Jamie be confined until she is found. Travers arrives at the gates and once inside he collapses, after first mentioning a pyramid.

Khrisong is still insisting on staying to fight, and Songsten tries to remind him of his vows of obedience.

Padmasambhava communes with his abbot, telling him that if the monks will not leave then they must be driven out. On his map, he positions four model Yeti by the entrance to the monastery.

Alone in the courtyard, Songsten opens the gates.

Victoria meanwhile has approached the inner sanctum once more. This time, Padmasambhava invites her inside...

Data:

Written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln

Recorded: Saturday 30th September 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 21st October 1967

Ratings: 7.1 million / AI 50

VFX: Ron Oates & Ulrich Grosser

Designer: Malcolm Middleton

Director: Gerald Blake

Critique:

In the initial draft of this episode it was the warrior monk Khedru, not Ralpachan, who was hypnotised into allowing Songsten to pass unnoticed back into the monastery.

An extra cell scene saw Thonmi tell Victoria that the master lama was 300 years old, and she realised that he must therefore know the Doctor. She wanted Thonmi to warn Padmasambhava about the robots. In this version Thonmi already knew that the Doctor was a time-traveller.

This episode contains a considerable amount of the filming which took place in Snowdonia in early September, particularly around the location where the TARDIS prop had been set up. Troughton and Hines are mostly only seen on film throughout this episode, with only the closing monastery courtyard scenes recorded in studio. This is the same for Jack Watling.

In a 1985 interview with Doctor Who Monthly, Frazer Hines recalled how members of the public used to congregate to watch location filming. On one occasion during the making of this story, Gerald Blake decided to have a bit of fun and started acting like a Hollywood movie director, shouting out "No, I want that mountain moved seven inches to the left".

Prior to going out on location, filming had taken place at Ealing on Friday 25th August for scenes in the mountain cave, involving Charles Morgan and Jack Watling.

The small perspex pyramid prop was rigged to split apart on cue with an electronic detonator, and then fire-fighting foam was pumped up through the larger pyramid of spheres. This effect was supervised by Bernard Wilkie, joint head of the VFX department. The BBC had recently acquired the foam producing machine, and it had already been used for the dying Cyberman in The Tomb of the Cyberman. We'll be seeing quite a bit of it this season, and into the next...

Monday 25th September was supposed to be a day off for the regular cast, but Troughton, Hines and Watling attended Ealing for pre-filming on The Ice Warriors that day - with Watling also being taken out of rehearsals on the Thursday and Friday.

So confident was he of the success of this story that Peter Bryant, on Wednesday 27th, commissioned a sequel from Haisman and Lincoln for broadcast later in the current season.

Only a single Yeti was required in studio on Saturday 30th, with Reg Whitehead playing the creature which comes to life and escapes from the monastery in the opening section.

Wolfe Morris appeared on screen for the very first time at the conclusion of the episode, portraying Padmasambhava. He was given an aged and wrinkled latex mask which increased the size of his head - noticeable around the mouth area in close-up.

Despite much of the episode having been pre-filmed, there were still eight recording breaks planned, mainly to allow actors to move from set to set or to reposition cameras.

Two small deletions were made in editing. The first was to the sequence in the cell where Victoria and Thonmi talk about the Doctor and Padmasambhava, with him questioning why she should be encouraging him to disobey his superiors. The other was part of a filmed sequence of the Yeti moving over the mountainside, just before the Doctor and Jamie became trapped between them.

As middle episodes go, this one isn't simply watching the plot tread water for 25 minutes.

We finally get to see the mysterious Padmasambhava for the first time, and he's a very creepy figure - lit by torchlight in the darkened inner sanctum. For the first time also we hear mention of the Great Intelligence, which is apparently behind these events and is manipulating the ancient lama, and through him the abbot. 

There's a lot of nice location filming on show, and the Yeti feature prominently, having only really been used for the odd set-piece up to now.

Victoria continues to annoy, however, going so far as to trick the one person who has been going out of their way to be friendly towards her.

This instalment also contains some classic Doctor / Jamie dialogue:

Jamie: "Have you thought up some clever plan, Doctor?".

Doctor: "Yes Jamie, I believe I have".

Jamie: "What are you going to do?".

Doctor: "Bung a rock at it".

We also get a variant of his famous "When I say run, run. Run!".

Trivia:

• The ratings remain stable, though the series dropped from 51st most watched programme for the week down to 60th.
• It was around this time that the production team were informed that the series would be continuing into 1968, and plans for a replacement series dropped - allowing for the commissioning of the second Yeti story as well as Victor Pemberton's "Colony of Devils".
• One other story being considered around the time that The Abominable Snowmen was being produced was a submission from Douglas Camfield, whose last work on the series was as director on the mammoth The Daleks' Master Plan. Writing in partnership with Robert Kitts, he had proposed "Operation Werewolf". This was a historical story with sci-fi trappings, rather than a supernatural tale. The TARDIS would have brought the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to Normandy on the eve of the D-Day landings, where they would have uncovered a plot by the Germans to transport an invading force of their own into England using a transmat system. The time-travellers would have joined forces with the French Resistance and a descendant of Jamie - Fergus McCrimmon - to defeat the scheme. Only a draft first episode was ever written - "The Secret Army". Other episodes would have been "Chateau of Death", "Lair of the Werewolf", "Friend or Foe", "Village of the Swastika" and "Crossfire".
• Following the criticisms levelled at the series during the recent Talkback programme, Junior Points of View on Friday 29th September reported the response from 278 children praising the series, compared to 31 against. 12 year old viewer Anthony Smythe also featured, bravely attempting to explain how the Doctor could travel through time.

The Art of The Abominable Snowmen

Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen was written by Terrance Dicks, and was the first ever Second Doctor adventure to be novelised by Target. It was published in November 1974, with cover art by Chris Achilleos.

The producer of the series at the time, Barry Letts, was a practicing Buddhist and he was unhappy that real figures from the history of the religion had been used to name the characters in the TV story, so Dicks subtly changed them - usually shifting a single letter (Thonmi becoming Thomni for instance).

The portrait of the Doctor comes from a publicity shot from The Three Doctors, whilst the Yeti derives from a Radio Times photoshoot from around the time that Pertwee was cast as the Third incarnation. 

Jamie and Victoria come from a photograph taken on location for this story, omitting Travers standing beside them, pointing.

This was one of Achilleos' favourite covers for the range. He particularly liked the Troughton image, stating that he liked to see cover figures engaging with the buyer of the books by looking straight out at them - and the fact that he looked so stern.

The book contains internal artwork, six scenes in total, by Alan Willow. He has clearly had access to some visual reference material as he gets the monks' outfits spot on.

Achilleos' work adorned the Turkish version of the book, above, but other countries adopted their own artwork - such as this from Portugal...

Or this from France, presentent par les jumeaux Igor et Grichka Bogdanoff. As with some of their other Docteur Who books, the Doctor has a long scarf no matter what incarnation...

The novel was reprinted in 1983, this time with cover art by Andrew Skilleter.

It's rare that I ever like reprint artwork, especially if the original artist was Achilleos, but I like this just as much as his cover as it's a beautifully atmospheric painting. It's the same source image for the Yeti, but placed in the context of a full nocturnal landscape setting. The Yeti are said to have red eyes in the novel.

The soundtrack was released, with the usual photomontage cover, in January 2005. An old publicity shot of Troughton from his very first story is accompanied by the same shot of Jamie and Victoria which Achilleos had used for reference, this time retaining Travers. The Yeti is given bigger claws to make it look a little less cuddly. 

The narrator is Frazer Hines.

The soundtrack was released on vinyl from Demon Records in September 2019. Unfortunately, the Yeti looks like it's just come out of the shower and can't do anything with its hair... A demonically possessed Womble springs to mind. It is based on a location photograph. The pattern on the transparent vinyl itself was described as "Tibetan Blizzard" for an Amazon exclusive limited edition (500 copies). Everyone else just got white vinyl I believe.

The orphan second episode first appeared on The Troughton Years VHS tape (1991), and later on the Lost in Time DVD set (2004). The scene with the missing dialogue was cut entirely on the former.

The story finally arrived on DVD and Blu-ray in animated form in September 2022. 

There's zero comparison with the Achilleos or Skilleter artworks. There is a problem with the reversible sleeve, in that the BBFC classification symbol obscures the title on the spine if you opt for the old roundels version.

As the cover shows, the quality of the animation is terribly basic (or basically terrible) - as usual - but the biggest annoyance is with the great liberties taken with all of the Tibetan characters - entirely ignoring the actors who portrayed them. Padmasambhava is rubbish in comparison to the creepy character seen on TV. The mood and atmosphere of the televised episodes are lost entirely. If you must watch it, choose the B&W version. (I now only watch the telesnap version with the original Episode Two and avoid the animated instalments).

As usual, there was an expensive steelbook version available...

Am I missing something with the inner cover of this? It looks like a rather dull landscape to me. Were there letraset transfers of Yeti and warrior monks that you could stick on it to make your own adventure? Do write in and let me know. To think people actually pay extra for these things... (Regular readers will know I'm reluctant to buy the Blu-ray versions of the animated stuff since they're 2-D animation, and the orphan episodes will be out in The Collection boxsets eventually anyway).

And finally, back to decent art and the Achilleos cover is retained for the audiobook of the story, as read by David Troughton. This was released in January 2009, originally with the TV Movie logo but I rather like the 60th one. It's a pity, though, that the logo and title take up so much of the cover - the superb artwork losing much of its impact.

Inspirations: Dark Water / Death in Heaven

Dark Water / Death in Heaven formed the two-part finale to Peter Capaldi's first season, and reintroduced the Master in a new incarnation.

Interestingly, RTD had first retooled the Daleks when he took over, then the Cybermen and then the Master over the course of time - and now Moffat has done the same during his few series in charge: the New Paradigm Daleks in Series 5, the "Iron Man" Cybermen in Series 7, and now a female Master in Series 8.

Those new Cybermen also appear in this. This makes it the fifth time they've turned up in the penultimate episode of a series.

The episode begins with a bit of a shock as semi-regular Danny Pink is killed in a road traffic accident. Clara wants the Doctor to intervene and save him - something which takes us right back to the origins of the series. In The Aztecs, the Doctor tells Barbara that they cannot change history - "not one line!". He doesn't elaborate on why this should be, but does state "believe me, I know" - suggesting he has tried and failed to change something himself, or it is something which was explained to him back on his home planet. There appears to be some sort of law, but whether it is natural or manufactured and imposed isn't explained.

When we get to The Reign of Terror just a couple of months later, we learn that it does indeed seem to be some natural force - as though "Time" itself can intervene. There's talk of how trying to shoot Napoleon would inevitably see every attempt fail. This, of course, contradicts The Aztecs, where the Doctor fears that Barbara really could alter history.

When it comes to the deaths of Katarina and Sara Kingdom, the idea of using the TARDIS to somehow save them isn't even considered.

The next companion death isn't until Adric's in Earthshock and here the Doctor specifically states that he cannot (or will not) change what has happened. (Might just be he's glad to see the back of him, mind you...). Tegan and Nyssa ask him to intervene, and he angrily tells them never to ask him to do anything like that again.

The "deaths" of Amy and Rory are different. Here they have gone back in time and died natural deaths, and there's some business about the TARDIS being unable to visit New York due to all the temporal paradoxes. (What was to stop the Doctor simply landing somewhere else that year and fetching them back by train, car, steamship etc is never explained).

In this story, Clara tries blackmailing the Doctor into changing Danny's fate, and he refuses - though only to see how far she will go to force him. He doesn't try using the TARDIS to go back and stop Danny being run over, however. Instead he decides to use Clara's link to the telepathic circuits to bring the ship to where he now is, which he believes is the Afterlife. 

Which is a long-winded way of getting us to the first big inspiration on show - the myth of Orpheus in the Underworld. Greek myths had formed the basis of Doctor Who stories in the past - especially if Anthony Read was involved. He had script-edited Underworld and written The Horns of Nimon. A Gorgon had also featured in The Mind Robber, as had a Minotaur - creatures which have popped up a few times in the series over the years.

Musician Orpheus is wed to Eurydice, a wood nymph, and one day she is bitten by a viper and dies. He uses his skills to charm Cerberus to get into the Underworld to find her and bring her back. Hades allows this - on the condition that he does not look back but trusts her to follow him. He can't resist a peek just as they are about to leave the domain, and so he loses her forever.

Here, Clara fulfils the Orpheus role - going in search of her lost love. As with the Greek myth, they are reunited only for her to ultimately lose him - Danny electing to free another "soul" from the Afterlife in his place. This is a boy whom he inadvertently killed whilst on active service, and it has been hinted throughout the series that he was suffering from some form of PTSD relating to is time in the army.

It turns out that the Afterlife isn't any sort of spiritual domain, but an artificial one - Gallifreyan technology based on the Matrix (first introduced in The Deadly Assassin, in which the villain is also the Master in a new form). 

Many fans guessed the identity of the mysterious woman who had been turning up throughout the series. Moffat was originally going to call her Misty.

A potential deflection was naming the founder of the 3W institute Dr Skarosa (suggesting a Dalek connection)

Moffat claimed that he had always wanted to write a Cyberman story (the previous ones during his tenure having been written by Gareth Roberts and Neil Gaiman) as they were his favourite monsters.

The image of the Cybermen in their tanks derived from memories of them in their niches on Telos in The Tomb of the Cybermen. 

He wanted a big cinematic story, so a series finale was the obvious choice. He also recognised the fact that these tended to be weak in the second half following a great opener and so decided that the cliff-hanger should see the story go off in a new direction (even though this was often the reason for the failings in the past).

Michelle Gomez had been offered the role of Miss Delphox in Time Heist but had been unavailable, but expressed an interest should anything else come up. Moffat saw the opportunity of matching the Glaswegian Doctor with a Glaswegian Master too good to miss, but elected to do something different with his arch-enemy. He claimed to have struggled to write for a female Master, until Gomez was cast.

It had already been suggested in dialogue that Time Lords could change gender (e.g. the Corsair in The Doctor's Wife) so the Master became the Mistress, or Missy for short.

Doctor Who references abound. 

The main one is the nod to the classic story The Invasion, in which UNIT had battled the Cybermen, with iconic scenes filmed next to St Paul's Cathedral. Kate Stewart even produces a damaged Cyberman helmet from this story.

The institute's name - 3W - might just possibly be a nod to The Wheel in Space, another Cyberman story. The Wheel's call sign begins W3. No? Attentive viewers would have recognised 3W's overlapping big circle / small circle motif as a Cyberman's teardrop eye design. This was first introduced in The Wheel in Space.

We learn that Missy was the woman who gave Clara the Doctor's phone number way back in The Bells of St John.

Clara's birthday is given as 23rd November - the series anniversary.

She has post-it notes on her fridge with "Blinovitch" (which would have referred back to Kill The Moon as Courtney was originally going to be the future Mrs Blinovitch), "Psi", "Vastra", "Saibra", "Robin Hood" and "Dinosaur in London" - all references to Series 8 episodes.

She also has the Hyperspace Body Swap ticket - which had featured in the Doctor Who Prom in 2013.

Pretending to be the Doctor, Clara claims to have been married four times. This would be to River Song, Elizabeth I, Marylin Monroe, and to the grandmother of Susan. (Missy sings "Happy Birthday, Mr President" in the same manner in which Monroe sang to JFK).

The funeral parlour where Danny's body lies is called Chaplet's - as in the surname of the First Doctor's companion Dodo.

Missy gives the co-ordinates of Gallifrey as first stated in Pyramids of Mars (10-0-11-00 by 02, in the constellation of Kasterborous).

Other references include the Cyberman attack on the UNIT aircraft, which comes from the classic 1963 Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".

The Cybermen emerging from their graves was a direct nod to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Missy descends from the sky holding a parasol - as in Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), and her dress mirrors the magical nanny's.

Missy calls out "Bring out your dead" - which was the cry heard around the streets of London during the Plague of 1665.

Colonel Ahmed and Osgood discuss the similarity of the Valiant to Cloudbase, which featured in Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and mention how this is sometimes confused with Thunderbirds.

Next time: The Thing meets Alien meets Miracle on 34th Street meets Santa Claus Conquers the Martians...

Colony of Devils...

This popped up on an art related Facebook group - Francis Bacon holding court at what I assume to be the Colony Room, the private members drinking club in Dean Street, Soho. It opened in 1948 and ran until the death of its founder Muriel Belcher in 1979. Posting it here because of the tall figure in the light blue shirt, back left...

Episode 176: The Abominable Snowmen (3)

Synopsis:

Capturing one of the beasts after it had suddenly fallen dormant, the Doctor has discovered that the Yeti are actually fur-covered robots. A metal sphere which controls it has fallen out during its capture, and is now stuck in the mud outside the monastery gates. It signals to another sphere which is sitting in the inner courtyard, and this begins to roll away by itself...

The Doctor has worked out how the Yeti are controlled and insists on going outside to look for the missing sphere, but Khrisong will not permit anyone to leave the monastery. The gates are to be opened for no-one and Ralpachan is tasked with guarding it.

Travers is now convinced that the real Yeti are harmless and must still be hiding in the mountains, but Khrisong bars him from leaving as well.

However, Ralpachan had seen the pair talking and, after Khrisong has left, Travers is able to trick him into believing he had been granted permission to go out.

The Doctor tries to get Thonmi to intercede on his behalf but he is reluctant to go against his superior. Jamie then recalls the sphere that he had found in the cave, and they go to the courtyard to look for it.

They find it missing, and Ralpachan claims not to have seen anyone take it. He also tells them that Travers was allowed to leave the monastery. They begin to suspect the explorer took the sphere and is somehow involved with the Yeti. Thonmi goes to inform Khrisong of what has happened.

In the chamber where the Yeti lies dormant, the monks decide that some demon must animate it and so decide to set up a ghost trap of wood and twine around the creature to confine its evil.

Khrisong is talking with Songsten when the abbot elects to commune with the master Padmasambhava for guidance, falling into a trance. Victoria is intrigued by this and wants to visit the inner sanctum - much to Thonmi's horror as it is strictly forbidden to all but Songsten.

The Doctor finally convinces Khrisong that they must examine a sphere, and the warrior monk states that he will go outside the gates himself to look for the one that must have fallen from the captured Yeti.

Victoria follows Songsten, accompanied by the anxious Thonmi. She is determined to get inside the sanctum.

The abbot and Padmasambhava meet and discuss the Doctor. He must not imperil their plan. On a map of the area sit a number of models resembling Yeti. The old lama moves two of them closer to the monastery.

Just as Khrisong finds the sphere half-buried in the mud, two Yeti appear and attack him. He is rescued by the Doctor, Jamie and Ralpachan. However, the Yeti seize the sphere and withdraw.

Padmasambhava has withdrawn the two Yeti models and placed them with a third on the mountain. Songsten is to go and rendezvous with them, and is given a small glass pyramid.

The Doctor has worked out that the spheres are a sort of brain and someone doesn't want them to examine one too closely. Jamie mentions the bleeping sound they make and the Doctor deduces that this must be a controlling signal - and signals can be traced if you have the right equipment.

He has what he needs in the TARDIS, and Khrisong allows them to go and get it - knowing that there is nothing more he and his monks can do, having now tried to fight them himself.

Victoria is found loitering by the inner sanctum and is brought to the chamber where the Yeti lies. She is then sent to wait in one of the cells, overseen by Thonmi.

Out on the mountain, Travers spots the two Yeti returning from the monastery and decides to follow them.

Songsten arrives in the courtyard where he is able to hypnotise Ralpachan into letting him leave, before forgetting that he has seen him.

Victoria learns that the Doctor and Jamie have left the monastery. After Thonmi goes to fetch her some food, she slips away from the cell.

The Doctor and Jamie, meanwhile, have come across a group of Yeti, which stand motionless. They move on towards the TARDIS and fail to see Songsten arrive. The Yeti activate and follow him up the mountain.

Victoria approaches the inner sanctum once more, but she hears Padmasambhava's voice urging her to leave.

The sphere from the courtyard has been slowly making its way towards the chamber where the captured Yeti lies, keeping to the shadows. It enters the room and propels itself on top of the creature, settling into the concave chest unit moments before Victoria enters.

The Yeti is dormant no more, and begins to tear itself free of the ghost trap as she looks on...

Data:

Written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln

Recorded: Saturday 23rd September 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 14th October 1967

Ratings: 7.1 million / AI 51

VFX: Ron Oates & Ulrich Grosser

Designer: Malcolm Middleton

Director: Gerald Blake

Additional cast: John Hogan (Yeti)

Critique:

In the draft script for this episode, Victoria was aware that the Doctor and Jamie had left the monastery, as she had actually been present when they set off. The Doctor told her and Khrisong that her remaining behind was a sign of good faith (so almost treating her like a hostage). The Doctor advised that she be kept safely in a cell, guarded by Thonmi.

Ralpachan was originally named Khedru. This was later given to one of the non-speaking warrior monks - but we'll be returning to it when we get to the final episode.

This is the second episode to include night filming from the location shoot, as we see Jack Watling and later Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines encountering the Yeti on the mountainside. Charles Morgan was also required on location for scenes with Songsten and the Yeti.

One of the Yeti performers, John Hogan, featured on the making-of documentary on the story's Blu-ray / DVD release - saddened to think that he was the last surviving original Yeti actor. Sadly, since the release he too has passed away.

All four Yeti actors had played Cybermen in the past.

Innes Lloyd and Troughton were interviewed for the BBC's Wales Today during the shoot - a very rare occurrence for the star. Lloyd later told of various hillwalkers having unexpected encounters with the Yeti in the area, including a troop of boy scouts and a German couple who emerged from their tent one morning to see one of the creatures lumbering through the drizzle.

Both Gerald Blake and Hines took 8mm home movie footage during the filming, some of which can be seen in the aforementioned documentary. Blake's footage had previously featured on the unofficial The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel documentary.

Studio sessions reverted back to the normal weekly recording pattern from this episode. Recording took place the day following Hines' 23rd birthday.

All four Yeti actors were required in studio - a big set-piece being the creatures' assault on Khrisong on the small exterior set. 

Troughton ad-libbed the line "They've come to get their ball back...".

The remote controlled sphere featured prominently throughout the episode, and this caused much hilarity for Troughton and Norman Jones as it rolled along by itself. Unable to keep a straight face when performing together, Blake had to shoot them on separate parts of the set, even though the pair were supposed to be facing each other in conversation.

Repositioning the sphere, as well as cast movements between sets, led to eight planned recording breaks on the night.

Once again Wolfe Morris went unseen, apart from his heavily made-up hands as he moved the small Yeti models on the map. More point of view shots were used of him looking through the gauze curtain at Morgan.

A lightweight sphere on a wire was used for when it climbed up the table and onto the dormant Yeti.

Victoria has previously been set up as a bit of a tomboy, getting up to things which you might not expect from the daughter of a mid-Victorian gentleman (such as being highly proficient with a handgun). In this episode she develops a very annoying obsession with visiting the inner sanctum of the monastery despite being told repeatedly that even the monks aren't allowed to go near it. The character comes across badly as obstinate and spoilt, showing complete disregard for the beliefs and customs of her hosts. If it's supposed to make her appear independent, it doesn't come off.

This carries on into the next episode, and one can't help but feel that it was added simply to give the character something to do in these middle episodes.

There are many explanations proposed for the true nature of the Yeti, should they actually exist - an unknown species of bear, an unknown species of ape, or even some sort of remnant hominid, a form of missing link. In Nigel Kneale's play, they were creatures of flesh and blood but it is left to the audience to decide whether they are the remnants of some ancient race - or perhaps beings who will come to inherit the planet after we have destroyed ourselves (or indeed both). Despite all these exotic possibilities, it is interesting that Haisman and Lincoln should choose to make them robots. Perhaps this was purely down to the fact that this was a Doctor Who story they were writing, so felt the need to have a science-fiction explanation.

Trivia:

• The ratings see a sharp rise - up just over a million on the previous episode - whilst the appreciation figure remains stable. TV audiences tended to rise as the darker evenings drew in, and ITV was offering very little in the way of competition - a sitcom which had been running since 1964 (Just Jimmy, starring diminutive Northern comedian Jimmy Clitheroe) and re-runs of the Francis Drake adventure series, which had finished in 1962. (Roger Delgado was a regular, playing the Spanish Ambassador. In one episode he fought and killed a character played by Barry Letts).
• Troughton featured in the BBC staff magazine Ariel in October, pictured with a Yeti.
• David Spenser, playing Thonmi, had worked with Patrick Troughton before. He had played Mark in the 1960 religious drama Paul of Tarsus, which starred Troughton as Paul.
• The ghost trap used by Buddhist monks is called a Namkha, and comprises a spindle with coloured threads which are designed to ensnare evil spirits. They are burned after use - which allows the spirit to be reborn in a more benign form.

P is for... Pletrac

Pompous and bureaucratic head of the three-man assessment tribunal tasked with deciding if the Lurman entertainers Vorg and Shirna should be permitted to visit their planet, Inter Minor. 

Disturbed by unrest amongst the Functionary class, President Zarb had agreed to end generations of self-isolation and thought that some innocent diversion might take their mind off their grievances. Pletrac's fellow panel members were Kalik - ambitious brother of President Zarb - and Orum.

The entertainment which Vorg and Shirna promised came in the form of a Miniscope which housed living specimens, time-looped within miniaturised environments and which could be viewed on a screen. On learning that the machine contained "livestock", Pletrac immediately wished it destroyed. The long period of self-isolation had been due to space plague and the Inter Minorans were paranoid about possible infections.

Hoping to overthrow his brother, Kalik thought the Miniscope a useful tool in his schemes. Were it indeed to cause problems, Zarb would be discredited. He set about thwarting all of Pletrac's attempts to have the Lurmans and their machine deported or destroyed - backed by his friend Orum.

Captured within one of the Miniscope environments was the TARDIS. The Doctor and Jo Grant were able to break out into the machine's workings and he eventually managed to get to the outside where he grew to normal size. He blamed Pletrac for the Miniscope's presence on Inter Minor, having successfully had the machines banned when still living on Gallifrey as they harnessed sentient beings for others' amusement.

Savage monsters called Drashigs had also broken out of their environment and were close to getting into the outside world - which Kalik hoped would happen. However, once free they then ate him. Vorg was able to man a laser weapon and destroy them - gaining the gratitude of Pletrac on behalf of the President. The Miniscope was wrecked, however, and so Vorg had another way of making money - through sleight of hand.

He was able to trick the gullible Pletrac into betting lots of credit bars...

Played by: Peter Halliday. Appearances: Carnival of Monsters (1973)

• Halliday, who died in 2012 at the age of 87, first appeared in the series as Packer in The Invasion, in which he also provided some Cyberman voices.
• He returned in Season 7 to provide more vocals in The Silurians and for the alien commander in The Ambassadors of Death.
• Then he was the Florentine soldier in City of Death.
• His final role in the series was as the blind vicar in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• Before Doctor Who, he starred in A For Andromeda (1961) and its sequel The Andromeda Breakthrough (1962).
• Other genre productions he appeared in include Doomwatch, UFO, The Tripods and Out of the Unknown.

P is for... Plasmavores

Outwardly humanoid in appearance, Plasmavores were sadistic aliens who thrived on blood. The Doctor encountered one posing as an elderly patient of the Royal Hope Hospital in London - Florence Finnegan.

She had sought a hiding place on Earth after murdering the Child Princess of Padrivole Regency 9.

She was assisted by two Slabs - crude beings composed of animated rubber.

However, a squad of Judoon managed to trace her to the hospital. Unable to enter it as outside their jurisdiction, they had the entire building transplanted onto the Moon in order to conduct their search. Florence killed her consultant, Mr Stoker, and absorbed his blood - making her appear human to Judoon scanners. She carried her own special straw for blood-drinking.

In order to flee in one of the Judoon ships, she sabotaged an MRI scanner so that it would emit lethal levels of  radiation that would kill everyone in the hospital, as well as that part of the Earth facing it.

The Doctor used the same blood absorption technique against her, by deliberately allowing her to feed on him. She did not know that he was an alien, and so she now registered as such to the Judoon. After destroying the Slabs, they incinerated her.

Played by: Anne Reid. Appearances: Smith and Jones (2007).

• Reid had appeared in an earlier Doctor Who story which also featured vampiric creatures - The Curse of Fenric. She played Nurse Crane.
• She first came to fame with a whole decade on Coronation Street, playing Valerie Tatlock (written out in 1971 when she was electrocuted by a faulty hairdryer).
• More recent roles include Victoria Wood's dinnerladies, Life Begins, Last Tango in Halifax (alongside Derek Jacobi), and RTD's Years and Years.
• In 2004 she gained a BAFTA nomination for the film The Mother in which she starred with Daniel Craig.

P is for... Plasmatons

Creatures composed of proteins drawn from the atmosphere of prehistoric Earth by a mysterious figure known as Kalid. He used them as his servants. Moulded by psychic powers, they generally appeared as crude shapeless creatures or as a bubbling mass, but could also be fashioned into more elaborate - and deadly - forms through Kalid's willpower. Apparitions of Adric, the Melkur and a Terileptil were created to attempt to stop Nyssa and Tegan approaching Kalid's citadel, and a two-headed reptilian monster was also summoned up by him to attack the Doctor's friends.

Kalid was in fact the disguised Master, and he learned the technique of creating the Plasmatons from the captive alien Xeraphin. The Master had intended to kill all the passengers and crew of a captured Concorde airliner to provide raw materials for more Plasmatons, once he had no further use for them.

Appearances: Time-Flight (1982).

• They're a bit rubbish. All they do is sway from side to side. No threat at all - totally 'armless.
• Hard to believe that they were from the same team who produced the Cybermen for Earthshock - thus proving everyone can have a bad day.
• We should simply count ourselves fortunate that the figurine collection ended before they got to this lot.

P is for... Plantagenet

Young and inexperienced leader of the Earth colony settlement on the planet Frontios. He had been forced to take over on the disappearance of his father, Captain Revere. It was he who had brought their spaceship to this new world - only to see it crash-land due to extreme gravitational forces. Since then, the colony was barely able to sustain itself as the planet was under constant meteorite bombardment. Supplies were strictly rationed, and dissent was growing. Plantagenet was assisted by his father's right-hand man, Brazen, who was an authoritarian figure - but they struggled to maintain order.

When the TARDIS brought the Doctor and his companions Tegan and Turlough to Frontios, Plantagenet and Brazen at first suspected them of being behind the bombardments, which they did not believe to be natural. During one of these attacks, Plantagenet was struck and seriously wounded. 

It was said that Frontios buried its own dead, and Captain Revere had himself vanished on an expedition into tunnels beneath the colony. Plantagenet was gripped by a powerful gravitational force and dragged from his sickbed, then sucked down under the ground.

He found himself prisoner of the Tractators - creatures capable of manipulating gravity and responsible for the meteorite attacks. They sought to pilot Frontios through space and were tunnelling extensively to achieve this - making use of captives from the surface, living or dead. Plantagenet was harnessed to one of their tunnelling machines. He was saved by the Doctor and Brazen, who sacrificed himself to free him from the machine. The Doctor was ultimately able to stop the Tractators by separating them from their leader, the Gravis. Plantagenet could then begin to establish the colony as originally planned, his position strengthened by his recent experiences in the eyes of his people.

Played by: Jeff Rawle. Appearances: Frontios (1984)

• Plantagenet is named after the powerful dynasty which ruled England between 1154 (Henry II) and 1485 (Richard III).
• Rawle is best known as the title character in the TV series of Billy Liar, and as George Dent in newspaper comedy Drop The Dead Donkey - though his biggest role internationally was as Amos Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
• An early TV role was in the celebrity game show Whodunnit, which was hosted by Jon Pertwee.
• He returned to the world of Doctor Who in 2009 when he played museum curator Lionel Harding in Mona Lisa's Revenge, one of The Sarah Jane Adventures. In 2013 he then played the original associate producer on the series, Mervyn Pinfield, in the 50th Anniversary origins drama An Adventure in Space and Time.

What's Wrong With... The Mysterious Planet

For the purposes of this thread I'll be looking at the four sections of Trial of a Time Lord individually, even though it's supposed to be one long story. Except when it isn't.

One thing very wrong with these four episodes is that they make up the last complete storyline written by the much missed Robert Holmes, and sadly it is one of his weaker ones.

The Caves of Androzani had been a reworking of one of his less successful earlier works - The Power of Kroll - and it proved to be far superior. The Mysterious Planet also reworks elements of a less successful earlier work - The Krotons - but lightning doesn't strike twice and it is far from being a classic.

It's also upsetting to learn that Holmes was ordered by Jonathan Powell to go back and redo a lot of the story, despite it having already been accepted by JNT and Eric Saward - leaving him feeling he was being treated like a first-timer instead of a seasoned script writer / editor.

Onto the story itself, and the most obvious problem is the choice of evidence selected by the Valeyard to open the trial. The whole Ravalox affair is meant to be kept ultra-secret - so why select this to screen in the first place. It surely draws the Time Lord court's attention to something which they aren't supposed to know anything about.

And we can clearly see that the Doctor has intervened very little in the affairs of the planet, compared to some of his previous adventures. In Frontios he actually asks the colonists not to so much as even mention that he's been there, for instance. 

He stumbles into these events purely because he's intrigued by the planet and is forced to later intervene to save half the galaxy being blown up through the actions of Glitz and Dibber, over whom he had no control - so hardly his fault.

A small amount of dialogue gets bleeped out, but anyone who can lipread would surely be able to see what's being talked about. Why not simply delete that section of evidence altogether, rather than draw attention to it? The Valeyard leaves in the bit about "...the biggest net of information in the Universe". Wouldn't the Time Lord court be thinking that sounds just like their Matrix round about now?

The Valeyard claims that lives were lost, but the body count here is very small, and again outwith the Doctor's control. Merdeen would probably have had to kill Grell whatever happened as he threatened to shop him to Drathro, and the Doctor would have tried to prevent Katryca and Brokentooth from entering Marb Station had he had the chance.

The Doctor visits Earth on a regular basis, so how did he not spot that his favourite planet was not where it was supposed to be for however long it's been Ravalox? We're talking millions of years.

Glitz tells Dibber to keep his gun out of sight when they approach the village - but then pulls his own weapon on Katryca in the middle of her throne room when he's surrounded by her warriors.

It's stated that the tribe have had few women for a very long time. If that's the case, how has it been sustaining itself all this time? (And what do they eat?). Has Merdeen only been allowing men to escape to the surface, or does Marb Station also have a gender imbalance?

The Marb people treasure their water - yet leave it in the corridor where it could get stolen or spilled. Why not have it securely locked away if it's so precious?

Do they hide behind their doors all day on the off-chance that a stranger might wander in and take a sip?

And would Marble Arch Underground station really look just as it did in the 1980's after 2 million years? It's had two major refurbishments since the 1930's, the most recent of which was in 2010 - so the one we see here is already out of date.

Drathro uses a Black Light Converter, so these things must be fairly common back in Andromeda. Surely one of them must have broken down at some point in their history. Yet the Doctor claims no-one knows what will happen if one is destroyed and thinks it could destroy the universe. It's hard to watch this without thinking of Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The cutaways to the courtroom happen far too often and take you away from the story and, like the Inquisitor, we get fed up with the Doctor's feeble name-calling.

The two blond-haired blokes are annoying and aren't in the least bit funny.

Holmes does a David Whitaker and confuses a solar system with a constellation (a pattern of stars as seen from a specific location). For an entire constellation to move 2 light years means an awful lot of stars - which surely would have been difficult to conceal.

Why does the Doctor's tribunal take place on a space station and not simply on Gallifrey itself? Something we will revisit: what sort of judicial system do they have on Gallifrey where the participants can start making it up as they go along? How can a Prosecutor - a mere court official - possibly turn a tribunal into a trial, unilaterally?

In the very last scene the Doctor states that his presence on Ravalox was "most specifically requested". By whom? There's no evidence to support this at any point during the story. He simply turned up because he was puzzled by the similarities to Earth. Something lost in those rewrites?

And finally, a Canadian goose is simply a goose that lives in Canada. The specific breed of goose which you might see in the UK is a Canada Goose...

Episode 175: The Abominable Snowmen (2)

Synopsis:

A huge furry creature has Jamie and Victoria trapped in a mountain cave, and she screams as it lumbers towards them...

Jamie urges her to get back towards the chamber where the strange pyramid of metal spheres sits, then knocks away one of the timbers propping up the roof. There is a rockfall and the creature is buried. Believing it to be dead, they examine the spheres and Jamie pockets one in his satchel. They then see the creature begin to stir and push its way out from under the tons of rock, apparently unharmed. They race past it and hurry down the mountain.

The Doctor is visited in his cell by the young warrior monk Thonmi, sent by Khrisong to fetch him. The Doctor insists on talking first - asking about the outcome of an attack by Chinese bandits back in 1630. The young man states that the monastery was saved with the help of a stranger, but their most sacred relic - the Holy Ghanta - was lost.

An impatient Khrisong interrupts and the Doctor is led away - but first tells Thonmi to look under his straw mattress. There he finds a small cloth bag, inside which is the Ghanta.

Amazed, he decides to seek out the abbot and tell him.

Jamie and Victoria meanwhile are being pursued by the creature.

The Doctor is suspected of having some control over the Yeti, which is why they have begun attacking and killing people. He is to be tied to the outside of the monastery gates as Khrisong believes the creatures will come and rescue him. Should they attack him instead, his monks will be poised to rescue him.

The creature gives up its pursuit, and Jamie and Victoria soon encounter Travers, who is on his way up the mountain. He believes them to be part of the Doctor's rival expedition, but is shocked to learn that they have just seen a Yeti. Not only that, but they know where its lair is.

He wants them to lead him there, but Jamie insists that Victoria be taken to the safety of the monastery before he takes him back up to the cave. Travers reluctantly agrees to guide them.

Thonmi finds the abbot, Songsten, emerging from the inner sanctum where their master, the Lama Padmasambhava, resides. Normally only Songsten may ever enter there but the young man is invited in. When Thonmi informs him of the Ghanta's return they hear the voice of Padmasambhava, who orders that the Doctor must be treated as an honoured guest. He has a strange hypnotic power, and the young monk is ordered to believe that these instructions came not from him but from the abbot.

Jamie and Victoria arrive with Travers to find the Doctor bound to the gates. Khrisong emerges to challenge them, just as Thonmi appears and tells them of the Ghanta and the abbot's instructions.

Padmasambhava tells Songsten that he knows the Doctor, and fears he will interfere with their great plan. He must be encouraged to leave.

Some time later, the Doctor is examining the sphere Jamie removed from the cave. He decides that he would like to examine the Yeti in closer detail as something is wrong here.

Jamie comes up with a plan to capture one. A net is set up outside the gate so that when one of the creatures approaches it can be captured.

Soon three of the Yeti appear close to the monastery, and one then moves closer. The trap is sprung, and after a brief struggle the creature collapses.

It is brought inside for the Doctor to study, but in the confusion no-one has spotted that one of the metal spheres fell from the creature and now lies half buried in the mud beyond the gates.

The Doctor discovers that the Yeti is not a being of flesh and blood - informing Travers and Khrisong that it is a fur-covered robot. He finds a cavity in its chest into which one of the spheres would fit.

Jamie's sphere has been left beside the large statue of Buddha in the courtyard. As the one trapped in the mud outside begins an electronic bleep, it is answered by the one by the statue. 

It begins to move by itself, rolling slowly in the direction of the dormant Yeti...

Data:

Written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln

Recorded: Saturday 16th September 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 7th October 1967

Ratings: 6 million / AI 52

VFX: Ron Oates and Ulrich Grosser

Designer: Malcolm Middleton

Director: Gerry Blake

Additional cast: Wolfe Morris (Padmasambhava), Charles Morgan (Songsten), David Baron (Ralpachan), Tony Harwood, Richard Kerley (Yeti)

Critique:

Episode Two of The Abominable Snowmen is currently the only surviving instalment of the serial, having been returned to the BBC archives by a private collector shortly after DWM shocked fans by listing all of the missing episodes in its 1981 Winter Special. It was at this time that a more concerted effort was made, co-ordinated by the BBC's Sue Malden, to locate missing material.

Unfortunately the episode isn't entirely complete, as there is some loss of soundtrack as the scene begins of the Doctor examining the dormant Yeti. This is also absent from the available off-air audio recordings of the programme, suggesting that the problem goes back to the original broadcast. For the episode's release as part of the Lost in Time DVD box-set, Mark Ayres had to recreate this by splicing together Troughton dialogue from other episodes - syllable by syllable if the word hadn't been spoken by him elsewhere.

With the cave scenes filmed at Ealing on Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th August, location filming for this episode in the first week of September was mainly for the scenes where Jamie and Victoria run down the mountain and subsequently encounter Travers.

The only other filming involved shots of a trio of Yeti on the hillside, prior to one walking down to the monastery gates and being captured.

There were problems keeping the Yeti costumes dry, and the actors found it difficult to walk - frequently falling over on the slippery, rough terrain.

Deborah Watling often told the story of how the cast would huddle behind the BBC vehicles to keep out of the wind during filming, enjoying a small alcoholic libation - but her father told her she was too young to drink brandy. She found that her dad, Troughton and Hines would often gang up on her.

Jack Kine, head of the VFX department at the BBC, assisted Ron Oates with the construction of the remote controlled Yeti sphere. This cannibalised components from one of the Cybermats seen in the previous story, and contained a small motor and caterpillar tracks.

The episode went into studio the day after the opening instalment had been recorded. Charles Morgan and Wolfe Morris had attended rehearsals along with the Episode One cast. Morris would only be heard in this instalment, and worked on the two distinct voices he would use for Padmasambhava - his natural one (soft and gentle) and his possessed one (harsh and hissing). He is said to have taken the role very seriously - until Troughton and Hines encouraged him to have more fun.

A BBC photographer was on hand on the day to take photos of the Doctor and Thonmi in the cell, and of the Doctor tied to the gates.

New sets required were Padmasambhava's sanctum - a linked set featuring inner and outer chambers. The Lama was not seen, hidden behind a gauze curtain. Recording breaks allowed the cameras to be repositioned to allow point of view shots from his side of the curtain. Burning torches illuminated the set.

Reg Whitehead played the Yeti which is captured outside the gates. The sphere lodged in the mud was manipulated from underneath, sitting on a shallow lair of soil.

Patrick Troughton played Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star on the recorder in the cell scenes - the only music other than more Buddhist monk chanting from the audio library.

Deborah Watling often cited this as her favourite story, mainly because it provided the opportunity to act with her father. On reading the scripts and realising that he would be ideal for the role of Travers - and knowing him to be between jobs at the time - she urged him to accept the part.

At conventions and in interviews she often mentioned the first meeting of Victoria and Travers, and how she found it hard to keep a straight face during filming.

The sequence where she and Frazer Hines run down the mountain was also the subject of the series' first out-take, as she slipped just off camera and can be heard squealing.

We get another well-known Second Doctor quote in this episode, spoken at Jamie's expense:

"Victoria, I think this is one of those instances where discretion is the better part of valour. Jamie has an idea. Come along".

Mention is made of an unseen story, as the Doctor claims to have helped the monks of Det-Sen back in 1630. Quite when this adventure took place is not clear. Padmasambhava recognises the Doctor, which might suggest that it was in his second incarnation - which means that it could only have occurred between The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders, since Jamie has clearly never been here before.

However, the ancient Lama becomes aware of the Doctor simply through the return of the Ghanta and he automatically assumes that he is the stranger who has brought it back - until Thonmi confirms it. He may have been given special knowledge of him - either through his own mental abilities or those of the Great Intelligence - so it may well have been the First Doctor who took the Ghanta into safe-keeping.

Thonmi at one point claims that the incident with the Chinese bandits was 300 years ago - implying a 1930's date for this story, as intended by the writers.

For many years fandom theorised that the playwright Harold Pinter appeared in this story, playing Ralpachan. This is because Pinter used to act under the stage name of David Baron, and the actors union Equity had rules forbidding two people using the same name. Things were not helped by the unavailability of this surviving episode until relatively recently - fans only being able to see it on VHS in June 1991 - and the lack of decent photographic evidence. 'Nu Who' writer Rob Shearman (Dalek) once worked with Pinter and regretted not asking him if this was true.

We now know that Pinter gave up acting under the name long before this story was made, and he did not appear in it.

Trivia:

• The ratings see a slight dip on the previous instalment, though the appreciation figure increases. This will be the lowest rated episode of the serial in terms of audience. It also dropped to 71st place in the top 100 programmes for the week.
• Deborah Watling was used for some publicity in the run-up to this second instalment, having a location photograph published in Television Today on 5th October; and a profile in the Daily Mirror appeared on the day of broadcast, which covered the family life of the acting dynasty. The family all liked to watch each other's performances. During the run of The Abominable Snowmen, Jack, Debbie and sister Dilys would all be featuring somewhere on TV on Saturday evenings for a few weeks.
• Haisman and Lincoln decided to visit the location filming, but due to a lack of hotel accommodation Haisman and his wife ended up having to sleep in their car.
• In 2021 Big Finish came up with their version of the events of 1630, featuring the First Doctor, Steven and Dodo - an audio entitled "The Secrets of Det-Sen".