Inspirations: Heaven Sent

Heaven Sent was written both as a showcase for the talents of Peter Capaldi as an actor, and as a challenge to himself by Steven Moffat. He claimed it was the hardest thing he had ever written up to this point. The aim was to show the Doctor in isolation - what he does when he has no-one with him.

No-one to save or protect - or to show off to. Just his own survival.

The castle represented his grief over losing Clara in the previous episode. This proves to be a construct within his own Confession Dial - a device introduced at the start of the series in The Magician's Apprentice. 

Moffat realised that the series had seldom succeeded in presenting grief in a realistic manner. This was especially true in the case of Katrina, Sara Kingdom and Adric in the classic era. The Doctor and fellow companions tended to carry on as though nothing had happened in the very next story.

Nyssa gets over her father's death all too quickly as well - failing to react the way you would expect anytime she meets the Master who has stolen his corpse for a body.

Moffat admitted that he hadn't really managed to handle grief himself in his own series. Amy and Rory have effectively lost decades of their daughter's life when they discover she's River Song, and the Doctor soon forgets about them once the Impossible Girl shows up.

The notion of an individual being repeatedly teleported was one which Moffat had entertained for years, and even considered using for a Big Finish story. He reasoned that if you were continually teleported in this way, you could exist for as long as that technology functioned. 

Star Trek has had characters living well into the future after being saved in the transporter Pattern Buffer (such as Scotty in the ST:TNG episode "Relics"), and ST: Strange New Worlds had Dr M'Benga's daughter saved in a transporter buffer until he could find a cure for her terminal medical condition in its first season.

And Doctor Who had already used a similar idea - in a Moffat story - when Donna and others were "saved" by the Library mainframe in Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead.

For the monster, Moffat elected to make this something that the Doctor would be genuinely frightened of, and so made it a childhood nightmare. That it derives from his time on Gallifrey also helps to hint at the conclusion to the episode, where we discover the truth about the castle and who has been responsible for his incarceration.

The Doctor refers to the Brothers Grimm - Jacob (1785 - 1863) and Wilhelm (1786 - 1859) - the German folklorists and collectors of fairy tales. Their 1812 collection Kinder - und Hausmarchen (Children and Household Tales) included The Shepherd Boy.

When the Doctor sends the boy to tell the High Council he's back, he says he "came the long way round" - as the Eleventh stated he would get home in The Day of the Doctor.

After always claiming he had left his home planet due to boredom (The War Games onwards), the Doctor now confesses that he ran away as he was scared.

Next time: From one of the very best episodes ever, to one of the very worst IMHO. It's The Twin Dilemma following The Caves of Androzani all over again. Nice TARDIS though...

Episode 198: Fury From The Deep (1)

Synopsis:

The TARDIS materialises in mid-air, high above the grey waters of the North Sea. It slowly descends to rest on the surface, and the Doctor and his companions are forced to take to a rubber dinghy in order to reach the shore.

The beach appears to be deserted, windswept and covered in sea foam. The trio lark around in this for a while, until Jamie notices a pipeline running across the sand. They are unaware that they are being closely observed - caught in the crosshairs of a remote controlled weapon... 

The Doctor decides to examine the pipe, which is stamped with the name "EuroSea Gas", and opens an inspection hatch using his sonic screwdriver. He is alarmed to hear a throbbing vibration, suggestive of a heartbeat.

All three are then shot down by tranquiliser darts.

They wake a short time later to find themselves inside the EuroSea Gas compound, under guard. They are interrogated by a man named Robson, who is accompanied by a younger man named Harris. Robson is in charge here, with Harris his deputy. He accuses them of trespassing in a restricted area and of sabotaging the pipeline.

Robson goes off to deal with other matters and Harris explains that they have been experiencing problems with the gas flow from offshore rigs, with which they have been having communications problems. 

The Doctor informs Harris of the strange heartbeat sounds he heard from the pipeline. He suggests some marine life may have managed to get into the system - and that the gas flow be halted until an investigation is carried out. Harris admits that the stubborn Robson won't countenance any production delays 

Robson has gone to the main control centre and has technician Price attempt to call the drilling rigs. Out in the North Sea, a group of these structures cluster around - and are connected to - a central command rig.

Contact is established with Rig D, but reception is poor and the engineer based there, Carney, speaks in a flat, halting manner - claiming all is well. He states that the repair crew sent out a short time ago must remain on the rig. Communications then break down again.

Harris advises that the system be shut down so that they can investigate thoroughly the blockages to the gas flow, but Robson refuses to cut production. He resents having Harris as his deputy, belittling his university education whilst he relies on his many years of practical experience - including an unbroken four years on a rig.

Harris has written some notes on the problem which he wishes Robson to look at, and his boss only reluctantly agrees to look at them. When he produces his file, the notes have gone. Thinking he must have left them at home, Harris contacts his wife, Maggie, who lives in family quarters on site, asking her to bring them to him as Robson refuses to allow him to leave in the middle of this crisis.

The Doctor and his companions have been locked in a crew cabin, and are trying to break free. Jamie tries unsuccessfully to climb through an opening above the door, but Victoria quickly opens the lock with a hairpin.

Maggie is searching for the notes and as she opens a folder she feels a sharp pain in her hand, as though stung. There is only a piece of seaweed visible. She tosses this out onto the patio, and fails to notice it then squirm to life, frothing with foam. She begins to feel faint.

EuroSea Gas is a joint venture between the British and Dutch governments, and on site is a senior engineer from the Netherlands named Van Lutyens. He and Robson do not get on as the belligerent chief refuses to heed anyone else's advice. Van Lutyens is concerned about morale on the rigs as well as being left out of the loop with updates on the current problems.

The Doctor and his companions are listening in from the corridor.

The Control Rig then makes contact, and lead technician Baxter reports the very issues which Van Lutyens had raised, annoying Robson. He also informs them that he and his crew have heard the heartbeat sounds from the pipeline and think something has gotten inside. The Doctor recognises the description of the noise and so he decides to investigate himself. Victoria is ordered to go back to the cabin and wait there.

Harris informs Robson that his wife has been taken ill, and is reluctantly allowed to go and see her as the chief will not allow a doctor to come in from outside. The compound is on security lockdown.

Hearing someone approach, Victoria hides in an oxygen supply storeroom which is rapidly filling up with the gas. She spots a tall, cadaverous-looking man who appears to have opened all the valves. As she closes them, he locks her in.

The Doctor and Jamie have entered the impeller room - the device which draws the gas along the pipes from the rigs and into the control area. One section of pipe is transparent, to allow for visual inspections of the flow.

Unable to pick the lock this time, Victoria hears a bubbling sound behind her and sees foam begin to pour from a ventilation grille. She is shocked to see something moving within it.

The Doctor is listening to the heartbeat sounds, confirming that there is some living organism in the pipes, when he and Jamie hear Victoria scream.

Tendrils of seaweed are emerging from the vent...

Data:

Written by Victor Pemberton

Recorded: Saturday 24th February 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 16th March 1968

Ratings: 8.2 million / AI 55

VFX: Peter Day (with Len Hutton)

Designer: Peter Kindred

Director: Hugh David

Guest Cast: Victor Maddern (Robson), Roy Spencer (Frank Harris), June Murphy (Maggie Harris), John Abineri (Van Lutyens), Hubert Rees (Chief Engineer), Graham Leaman (Price), Richard Mayes (Baxter), John Garvin (Carney), Bill Burridge (Mr Quill)

Critique:

Back in 1964 Victor Pemberton submitted a story for the second season of Doctor Who. This revolved around earth tremors in England creating fissures in the ground, out of which a sentient, malignant mud emerged. Pemberton claimed to have a fear of earthquakes. It was rejected by David Whitaker, story editor of the time, who described it as "rather a stewpot of all the other science-fiction serials we have ever done, with bits of Nigel Kneale scattered about. I don't think the dialogue is very good and I'm quite sure it is not right for Doctor Who".

However, Pemberton had also adapted his story as a Doctor-less radio drama and, as The Slide, it was produced by the BBC's Third Programme - broadcast in seven instalments between February and March 1966. The man who commissioned it was Peter Bryant.

It tells of earthquakes in the vicinity of a New Town named Redlow in Kent. A huge crack appears in a country lane on the edge of the town, and a dense mud emerges which is soon found to be a living organism. Wildlife dies in the area and those living closest to the fissure begin to be affected, driven suicidally insane. A Chilean scientist named Gomez is brought in (played by Roger Delgado) and he comes into conflict with the local MP - Hugh Deverill - responsible for the building of Redlow (played by The Twin Dilemma's Maurice Denham). After his schoolteacher fiancée is affected, local doctor Ken Richards (played by Pemberton's partner David Spenser - Thonmi in The Abominable Snowmen) helps alert the authorities and aids in the fight against the mud.

After getting his foot in the door of Doctor Who as story editor himself for a short time, but opting not to take on the role long-term, Pemberton then rethought the drama to adapt elements of it back into a Doctor Who story. His old radio colleague Peter Bryant now produced the show and he was responsible for commissioning him once again.

Other than his earlier radio drama, Pemberton's main inspiration for the story, provisionally titled "Colony of Devils", was the increasing availability of North Sea gas, being pumped into homes across the country. The idea that something malignant could exploit this and so get inside everyone's home is what appealed to him - as did the notion that the Earth could be destroyed by some natural force unleashed by technology from within it.

Another inspiration was sea foam, or spume, seen washed up on the surf line of beaches. Seawater heavy with dissolved organic material, such as algal blooms, produces this when agitated.

Pemberton would prove to be highly proprietorial about his story, leading to conflict with the new story editor Derrick Sherwin. Neither he nor director Hugh David, who had previously helmed The Highlanders, particularly liked the story. Pemberton's background in radio meant the episodes were too dialogue-heavy, and Mr Oak and Mr Swan (as Quill was originally named) were presented much more as a comedy duo (Pemberton having been inspired by Laurel & Hardy, whom he had met in person on one of their 1950's British tours). The number of location sequences also had to be reduced.

One of the biggest changes Sherwin made, rewriting the early episodes over Christmas, was to sow the seeds of Victoria's departure into the dialogue. Watling had always stated that she would only do one year on the programme before returning to theatre, and had given a full three months notice. Bryant had hoped to change her mind and the character was still written into several forthcoming stories.

Differences from the initial script for Episode One included the fact that the TARDIS was to have materialised on top of a cliff rather than in mid-air or on top of the sea, and the Doctor and companions would have had to climb down to the beach. 

Price was named Blake - changed because this name had only just been used in The Web of Fear. Swan was renamed due to the character Swann in the recent The Enemy of the World.

The story was retitled in January 1968 to avoid using the word "Devils", to avoid offending religious sensibilities. Pemberton was initially unhappy with this, but warmed to the new title later. (Ironically, the PA on this story would go on to direct a story with that word in its title only a few years later).

Filming for this episode got underway on Sunday 4th February, when the regular cast members travelled down to Botany Bay near Kingsgate, Kent. They had recorded the fourth instalment of The Web of Fear the previous evening. David had begun work at the location the day before.

16mm film was used to reduce costs, in preparation for the introduction of colour television. In the past, more expensive 35mm had been employed.

Joining the regulars was a helicopter pilot named Mike Smith - known as "Mad Mike" due to a number of stunts he pulled, and not just aeronautical ones. He swung from the base hotel's chandeliers and ate wine glasses at dinner. Debbie Watling actually went in a date with him.

A second, larger, helicopter was also required, with a different pilot.

Also present was actress Susan George - Frazer Hines' then girlfriend, who he was hoping to see cast as Victoria's replacement. 

Smith's helicopter was required for the shot of the TARDIS descending to the sea. This was a quarter size prop, originally built for The Romans, and was hung from the helicopter on piano wire then shot soft focus to disguise this fact. Due to the windy conditions, several attempts were needed to have the prop land correctly, with PA Michael Briant - the future Doctor Who director who would add an initial E to his name - standing on the skids to manipulate the wire.

Aerial shots were captured of the Doctor and companions in the dinghy, rowing to shore. The BBC fire fighting foam machine came into its own once again to produce the foam - spread by the larger helicopter - across the beach at the tideline. The scene where the Doctor and Jamie lift Victoria and throw her into the foam was an impromptu bit of business from Troughton and Hines on an unsuspecting Watling.

Troughton ad-libbed the Doctor's "Come on in - the water's lovely".

For the pipeline inspection hatch sequence, Peter Day had created a special prop for the sonic screwdriver, but Troughton kept dropping it due to the freezing temperatures numbing his fingers. What Troughton would be seen to use on film was actually the whistle from Watling's life-jacket.

An RAF search and rescue team was on standby throughout the location filming.

VFX filming took place at Ealing from Wednesday 7th to Friday 9th February. Peter Day was assisted, uncredited, by Len Hutton. For this episode, the sequence of the seaweed writhing on the patio then producing foam was recorded - with the weed prop manipulated by pumping gas through it from an aerosol. Shots of the weed and foam emerging from ventilation grilles, to be used in several episodes including the cliff-hanger to this one, were also filmed. (This footage would simply be reversed to show it retreating).

A model was created of the impeller room, seen in this episode as a POV shot just before the Doctor and Jamie entered the set during studio recording.

The main guest artist for the serial was Victor Maddern (1928 - 1993), a popular character actor who had appeared in many film and TV productions since 1950 and would go on to be a regular on The Dick Emery Show (as pensioner Lampwick's son-in-law). He appeared in five Carry On... movies, most memorably in Carry On Spying. Often called upon to play criminal types, one fantasy genre film he featured in was Blood of the Vampire (1958), in which he played the villain's murderous assistant.

Peter Kindred had previously designed The Tenth Planet. Martin Baugh and Sylvia James continued to design costumes and make-up respectively.

During the week of rehearsals for this episode, news broke of a major incident on a gas drilling rig off the Yorkshire Coast. Gas was leaking from the borehole and the authorities used incendiaries to ignite it, as a warning to shipping to avoid the area until the issue could be resolved. The Doctor Who production team realised that this topical news item might help their upcoming story as the incident would still be fresh in people's minds.

Recording took place between 8 - 9.45pm on Saturday 24th February. 

Crosshairs were overlaid on location footage of the Doctor and companions on the beach. A rippling effect was used for a POV shot of Victoria waking up from the tranquiliser and seeing ESGO guards looking at her.

Recording breaks were used mainly for camera moves, and to allow Troughton and Hines to move from the impeller room set to the corridor where they hear Victoria scream. The transparent pipe section was a photo-caption. An echo was added to the soundtrack as the camera zoomed into a close-up of the screaming companion.

Sadly, Fury From The Deep is lost to us today. We have telesnaps, the odd clip, and the soundtrack - and it's the latter which we should be most happy with, especially when it comes to these early instalments. This episode is one very much of mood setting, in particular the ominous heartbeat throbbing sound heard by the Doctor and his companions and reported by the rig crew. If there's a monster, we're not terribly aware of it yet as only foam and wriggling seaweed - something you could see most days on a visit to the beach - are seen.

Dudley Simpson's music helps considerably, complementing Brian Hodgson's radiophonics.

It's a near contemporary setting once again - only things like video phones suggest it's the near future - and we're still on Earth (an unbroken run since the opening instalment of The Abominable Snowmen. Even the exiled Third Doctor won't have this many consecutive episodes set on Earth).

Then there's the issue of the menace being something which could easily invade the viewers' homes.

It's also a base-under-siege story, like many others since The Tenth Planet. Hobson in The Moonbase is just one letter away from the chief here - and that was a story which Pemberton had acted in.

Once again we are presented with a man in charge of a major scientific project who, psychologically, really ought not to be in that role.

If The Web of Fear was a forerunner of the UNIT years in general, then Fury From The Deep is a forerunner of Season 7 in particular in its setting and atmosphere.

Something which has always puzzled me about this opening episode - and some later scenes set on the beach - is why no-one seems to remark on the fact that there's a Police Box sitting on top of the waves just off-shore. Did no-one notice it when they came to collect the tranquilised travellers? We'll later see Maggie Harris walk into the sea, but there's no sign of the TARDIS.

This episode is notable in the history of Doctor Who as it sees the introduction of the sonic screwdriver. "Never fails" says the Doctor of it, even though we've never seen him use it before, despite it proving invaluable on countless occasions before now, and Jamie has to ask what it is.

Troughton will use it on a couple more occasions, and it will become an iconic part of the programme during the Pertwee and Tom Baker years, before JNT and Christopher Bidmead removed it early in Davison's tenure. Back in the new iteration of the series, mainly for merchandising reasons one suspects, and because of the speed of plotting required for 45 minute stories, it has become a magic wand - capable of doing almost everything.

Quite who invented the sonic is a contentious issue. Pemberton claims that it was he, as writer, and his initial script did state that the Doctor "takes from his pocket something which looks like his own version of a screwdriver". Michael E Briant has also claimed credit, saying that he thought using an ordinary screwdriver would make the hatch scene look dull and the Doctor really ought to have some sort of special gadget to do this sort of thing.

Fans have noted the similarity between this early version of the sonic and Hartnell's pen torch.

Trivia:

• The ratings get off to a very good start, in terms of both viewers (over 8 million) and the appreciation figure. Whilst the latter will actually improve, this will prove to be the highest audience figure for this story.
• From this week, the series was broadcast 10 minutes earlier than previous stories due to a Tom & Jerry cartoon being dropped from the evening schedule.
• The New Statesman critic Francis Hope was not terribly impressed with the episode, disliking the messing about in the foam and its reuse so soon after being employed to act as web / fungus in the previous story.
• The Slide has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra several times in recent years and is also available on CD as part of the Radio Collection. It was included as an extra on the Blu-ray / DVD of Fury From The Deep.
• Milton Subotsky, of Amicus portmanteau horror film fame, and one of the producers of the Peter Cushing Dalek movies, was interested in buying the rights to The Slide.
• John Abineri will return to the series on several occasions - as General Carrington in Ambassadors of Death, Railton in Death to the Daleks, and as Ranquin in The Power of Kroll. He had also been considered for Decider Garif in Full Circle, and Maylin Renis in Timelash.
• He was a regular in Terry Nation's Survivors, played Herne the Hunter in Robin of Sherwood, and features in a Season 2 episode of Blake's 7 as Blake's uncle. That B7 role is an interesting one in that Abineri was the third actor cast. Ronald Lewis had to be dismissed due to his alcoholism, and Duncan Lamont was given the role - only to die suddenly early in production. Lamont played Galloway in Death to the Daleks - alongside John Abineri.
• Roy Spencer had previously played Manyak in the first two episodes of The Ark.
• June Murphy will return as WREN Jane Blythe in The Sea Devils, directed by Michael E Briant.
• Hubert Rees will be back in the next season as Captain Ransom in The War Games, and later as Stevenson in the opening Antarctic section of The Seeds of Doom. In 1982 he portrayed Inspector Lestrade opposite Tom Baker's Sherlock Holmes.
• Graham Leaman will return to the series on several occasions, the first time as the Grand Marshal in The Seeds of Death. He then portrayed Time Lords twice, in Colony in Space and in The Three Doctors. Prior to this story he had appeared as the Controller in The Macra Terror. He suffered from mobility issues and always appeared in roles where he could be seated.
• Bill Burridge had been an extra on the series since the Hartnell era. He is noticeable as one of the soldiers in The Romans, for instance.
• There is a fear of seaweed - Fykiaphobia.
• Radio Times had its usual introductory feature on the new story, whilst the programme listing was accompanied by another portrait of Troughton from the same location photo shoot.

What's Wrong With... The Happiness Patrol

It is very much a "Marmite" story - in that you either love it or hate it - but in terms of plotting it actually holds up for the most part. The problems are minor compared to some.

For a start, how can you have a Late Show at the Forum, when there's a curfew in place? We hear that attendance is compulsory, so not sure how that works in practice.

Additionally, when we do get to see inside, there's hardly ever anyone there.

Failure to be happy earns you a death sentence, yet Gilbert M is grumpy all the time, and the doorman at the Forum even more so. You can understand why Gilbert M might be tolerated, but surely the doorman could be easily replaced.

Actually, some of the worst offenders are the Patrol members themselves, who hardly ever smile and are usually squabbling.

If making people happy is the prime driver on Terra Alpha, how does the creation of thousands of widows and orphans help achieve that?

Silas P is employed to root out Killjoys by pretending to be one of their number - handing over a card that claims to offer a support group for them. On the reverse, however, is his true identity as a member of the Patrol. Problem is, he hands over the cards with the real ID face upwards, and the Killjoys in each case have to turn it over to show the fake side - without spotting the Patrol ID.

And if he is such a prominent member of the Patrol, ensnaring many Killjoys, why does Priscilla P shoot him down without first checking that he's okay. He's simply acting groggy after being knocked out, so not his usual self. Has she carried a grudge against him for a while and was looking to get rid of him, possibly to get his role? If that's the case, there's nothing to suggest it on screen.

Trevor Sigma is conducting a galactic census, and seems to suggest that he is doing this entirely on his own, on foot - which seems more than a little unlikely.

One production error that makes it into the finished episode is when a Patrol member appears on screen a little too early, whilst the Doctor is messing about with the go-kart.

And what is the point of these vehicles if you can overtake them easily at a brisk walking pace. (We saw a similar problem with the buggies in the Varosian punishment dome).

There's also the business with the Kandy Man's head. It was altered part way through production to add the metal mouth piece and so looks different when we see him in the pipes in the final episode, recorded earlier.

We know that scripts were generally running overlong during this period of the show, with a lot of cutting going on to make episodes fit the time slot (either in the script editing, or in the actual recording edit). This may be why Gilbert M seems to pop up out of nowhere then vanish again at times. On one occasion his disappearance from the Kandy Kitchen actually allows the Doctor to re-stick the feet of the Kandy Man and so escape.

Finally, I suppose we need to talk about that bizarre villain. In the original scripts, the Kandy Man was supposed to look human in a lab coat but with a shiny glazed face, and with belongings like spectacles and pencils which proved to be made of sweets. A decision was then taken to have him made entirely of different sweets, but they elected to go for ones that made him look almost identical to a long established commercial character - Bertie Bassett. This drew a complaint form the company. Surely they must have known that there would be copyright issues here? There are lots of sweet varieties they could have used that would have served the purpose but left him looking unique, and not some copycat. When you consider the issues of product placement at the BBC, it is especially strange that this decision was made. (This was the era when Blue Peter presenters couldn't call it Sellotape, and brand names on things like washing up liquid bottles - ideal for Apollo rockets - were taped over).

Knowing how much he craved publicity for the series, one suspects that JNT provoked this controversy deliberately.

He had to promise that the character would never be returning to the series - so maybe not something wrong after all...

Episodes: Afterlife - The Yeti

Apart from a cameo appearance in The Five Doctors, when it wasn't even seen very clearly due to being filmed - often at distance - in a darkened cavern, the Yeti have never returned to Doctor Who - despite the Great Intelligence being brought back three times in the modern series.

As is well known, one idea for writing Jamie out of the series had been a third Yeti / Great Intelligence story provisionally titled "The Laird of McCrimmon". This would have seen the TARDIS visit 18th Century Scotland, arriving at Jamie's ancestral home. The castle would have been besieged by Yeti whilst the Intelligence possessed the locals - all apart from a girl named Fiona. The current laird was on his deathbed, and the Intelligence wanted to possess Jamie as he was next in line - thus giving it another remote power base from which to spread.

The story ended with the Intelligence expelled once again and Jamie staying on to take up his inheritance, presumably with Fiona by his side.

The dispute with Derrick Sherwin over cuts to The Dominators and the unauthorised marketing of the Quarks led to Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln ending their relationship with the series, and we never got our third proper Yeti appearance.

Unlike the Daleks, Cybermen and Quarks, who all managed to encounter the Second Doctor again in comic strip form, the Yeti never made the transition, despite their popularity - due to the same Quark issue which prevented "The Laird of McCrimmon" coming about. 

What we got instead of robot Yeti were the Ice Apes, which featured in TV Comic issues 881 - 884 in November 1968. A race of aliens bombed the Antarctic in 1970 as a show of strength, unwittingly revealing a race of giant Ice Apes which lived below the icesheet. The Doctor and Jamie had to fight both aliens and Apes, in a story called Ice Cap Terror. The final instalment was published on the series 4th anniversary.

It's not known if the Yeti, had they been used as intended, would have been under the control of the Intelligence - in the same way that the Quarks were presented as a fully autonomous villain in their comics strips.

The Yeti did feature in one Doctor Who Weekly comic strip - one of the ones at the back which didn't have the Doctor. This was "Yonder... The Yeti", and it appeared in issues 31 - 34. 

As mentioned, we did get to see a Yeti one more time in the series - menacing the Second Doctor and the Brigadier, in the Death Zone on Gallifrey, in The Five Doctors. This was purely a cameo, and viewers at the time could be forgiven for not knowing what they were looking at until the Doctor shouted "It's a Yeti!". The way the creature was filmed - a Mark II survivor from The Web of Fear - may have been due to the poor state of the costume. The script fails to acknowledge the fact that the Yeti are robots, controlled by the Great Intelligence. The Doctor chases it off using a firework, reacting like a wild animal.

One of my childhood memories was of great impatience felt waiting for Doctor Who to start. The guy reading the football results was, I'm sure, delivering them intentionally slowly to annoy us - but worse for me was Basil Brush...

Each episode of the puppet series ended with a story being related by the "Mr..." of the day, and Basil would interrupt constantly, dragging it out. As a child you don't think about programme running times etc - you just think that darned fox is delaying the start of your favourite programme. (You really had to be there). Things weren't quite so bad one Saturday evening in 1975, for a sketch which saw Basil and Mr Roy mountain climbing in the Himalayas featured the appearance of a Yeti. This was a bit of a hybrid, having the top half of a Mark II, but with the bottom half of the original version. The difference is noticeable from the colouring of the fur. The sketch can be found on The Mind Robber DVD.

There was one place in 1995 where you could see not only Yeti but the Great Intelligence, Professor Travers, Lethbridge-Stewart and Victoria Waterfield. As well as all these characters from The Web of Fear, we also had the return of Sarah Jane Smith - plus the first look at Kate, the Brigadier's daughter. It was written by someone who worked on Doctor Who - Marc Platt - and directed by someone who worked on Doctor Who - Christopher Barry.

The production was called Downtime, and it was an unofficial video release from Reeltime Pictures, designed to act as a direct sequel to the 1967/8 story, as well as letting us know what Victoria did after Fury From The Deep.

The story revolves around computer technology and the main setting is the New World University, run by Victoria and being used as the latest bridgehead for the Intelligence.

Victoria had gone to Det-sen Monastery in response to a dream, believing she might be reunited with her father. Instead, the Intelligence was behind this, still possessing the mind of Travers. 15 years later she's running the university, many of whose students have been brainwashed by the Intelligence through the internet. The entity needs something called the Locus to fulfil its scheme, which it believes to be in the hands of the Brigadier - but he has given it to daughter Kate, who lives on a narrow boat with his grandson and is estranged from him. Sarah Jane is brought in to track down the Brigadier by the university, unaware of its motives.

The Brigadier is aided by one of his old pupils from Brendon School, who eventually sacrifices himself to defeat the Intelligence. Travers dies after being freed of its influence.

As well as three Troughton stories, there are references to Evil of the Daleks (the death of Edward Waterfield on Skaro) and Mawdryn Undead (the Brig's helper). The Intelligence employs the world wide web nearly two decades before Steven Moffat used the idea.

As well as boasting performances from Debbie Watling, Nicholas Courtney, Lis Sladen and Jack Watling - all reprising their old roles - John Leeson, James Bree and Geoffrey Beevers feature in other roles. This Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is played by Beverley Cressman.

The Yeti in this resemble more the Mark II version, without the glowing eyes or ribbed midriff. They get a big action sequence on the university campus (recorded at the University of East Anglia).

The final scene sees Victoria standing isolated on a beach - mirroring her departure in Fury From The Deep.

The spin-off was novelised by Virgin in 1996 as part of its "Missing Adventures" range, using the same cover art as the VHS release - the Yeti looking more like Bigfoot.

The production was long out of print (both as novel and VHS) until November 2015 when Downtime was released on DVD in remastered form, and with a new making-of documentary.

Episode 197: The Web of Fear (6)

Synopsis:

Driver Evans is tending to Staff Sergeant Arnold's wounds in the fortress ops room when they see the wall bulge and break open, and the web begins to flood in...

Arnold insists they warn the others but Evans elects to flee and save himself.

The Doctor pauses in the tunnel and informs Anne that, until they know who they can trust, they should not let anyone else know about their controlled Yeti. They immobilise it for 90 seconds, to allow them to get clear, then order it to resume taking orders from the Intelligence.

A few minutes later they encounter Jamie and the Colonel who inform them that Victoria and Travers are being held at Piccadilly Circus. They hear that this information came from Arnold, and that he had somehow survived the web.

Elsewhere, the controlled Yeti comes back to life and moves off, joined by two others.

The tunnel party then encounter Arnold who tells them that the fortress has fallen. They are all then surrounded by the trio of Yeti and captured - as is Evans by another of the creatures nearby.

At a junction, the Colonel and the Doctor stage a diversion which allows Arnold to escape unnoticed.

In the ticket hall of Piccadilly Circus station, Travers and Victoria discover a large transparent pyramid, and the Professor deduces that it is the machine which the Intelligence intends to use on the Doctor. They see a shadowy figure which disappears when challenged to show itself, and assume - rightly - that this is the entity's human agent. They hear its voice, warning them not to interfere in its plans. Travers hates himself for having caused all these events due to his scientific curiosity, whilst Victoria tries to reassure him.

On one of the platforms downstairs, the Doctor lets Jamie into the secret of the controlled Yeti - still not trusting the Colonel. He has to explain that he doesn't know which of the creatures guarding them is theirs.

He gives Jamie the voice control microphone and then arranges his escape - hiding him in a large tool box. He is to summon their Yeti once everyone has left.

Arnold is in the tunnels and comes across Harold Chorley. He questions him as to how he could have survived on his own down here for so long, then asks him to accompany him.

A Yeti appears at the Piccadilly Circus platform with Evans. The Doctor warns everyone to do as they are instructed and not resist. He is taken away first and a second Yeti gives him a helmet which has electronic attachments. He uses his control device to immobilise them both and begins to tamper with the helmet.

After everyone else had been taken away, Jamie emerges from the toolbox and begins calling for the controlled Yeti. He has a near miss with one, but it is programmed to go elsewhere and ignores him.

Travers and Victoria see the Doctor brought into the darkened ticket hall, wearing the helmet, followed soon after by the others. He urges everyone not to interfere and assures them he will be fine.

Chorley then emerges from the shadows, flanked by a Yeti.

Everyone assumes that he has been the agent of the Intelligence, but he points to the real enemy who appears behind him - Arnold, who wears a similar helmet.

The Intelligence explains that Arnold is dead and it is merely using his body.

Jamie is then brought in by another Yeti and Arnold orders it to kill him if the Doctor fails to co-operate. The Doctor is ordered to sit inside the pyramid, and Arnold connects up the helmet. The machine will transfer the contents of his mind into the Intelligence, but the Doctor must submit willingly.

Jamie suddenly orders his Yeti to attack Arnold, whilst the others take the opportunity to pull the Doctor free - despite his protestations. Jamie pulls off the helmet and throws it at the pyramid which blows apart. All of the Yeti suddenly collapse.

The Doctor is furious - accusing them of ruining his plan. He had crossed the connections in the helmet, so that it would have drained the Intelligence instead of his mind. Now all they have done is eject it back out into space, free to attack again some day.

They are horrified to find that Arnold has been reduced to a charred corpse.

Chorley is quick to exploit their victory and insists on an interview with the Doctor, hoping to make him a household name. Travers wants to discuss many things with him as well.

The Doctor decides instead to hurry back to Covent Garden with Jamie and Victoria to retrieve the TARDIS. The Colonel and Evans also leave, to check on street level conditions, accompanied by Travers - leaving Anne to face the inquisitive journalist alone.

Nearby, the Doctor warns his companions that they will have to get out of the tunnels quickly, before the electricity supply is turned back on...

Next time: Fury From The Deep

Data:

Written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln

Recorded: Saturday 17th February 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 9th March 1968

Ratings: 8.3 million / AI 55

VFX: Ron Oates

Designer: David Myerscough-Jones

Director: Douglas Camfield

Critique:

There were quite a few differences between the original version of this episode and the broadcast version. A cage had been set up in the ticket hall. Travers attempted to sabotage the pyramid electronics using his penknife but was stopped by a Yeti, which knocked him aside then threw him into the cage with Victoria. He woke up when the others were brought into the room.

The biggest change related to the original idea that the museum housing the Yeti exhibit would have been London's Natural History Museum, for in this version Arnold survived - freed of its influence when the Intelligence was ejected. Travers would have recognised him as the commissionaire who had let him in on the evening the Yeti came back to life, and Arnold would have had no memories after going round locking the museum up for the night.

The controlled Yeti would also have survived, with a frustrated Jamie telling it to "go blow a fuse" - which it then did, literally.

Studio recording for this final episode was granted an extra 15 minutes, with recording beginning at 8.15pm. Patrick Troughton's son Michael was in attendance. He would go on to appear in the programme himself some five decades later, playing Professor Albert in Last Christmas.

The episode opened with a reprise of the model filming of the web bursting into the fortress.

Jack Woolgar provided the rasping voice of the unseen Intelligence, and adopted similar tones for the possessed Arnold. He taped various versions of the voice prior to production, testing out different vocalisations. You can hear these as an extra on the Special Edition DVD / Blu-ray of the story.

Some of the Intelligence's dialogue was pre-recorded. 

The script had stated that the helmets should look strange, but not silly.

A number of recording breaks had to be taken to reposition actors in the tunnel set, to make it look longer than it was and to have different characters meeting each other.

For the climax, another break allowed for the pyramid prop to be removed and for Woolgar to have his charred make-up supplied. A model shot of the pyramid exploding was then inserted, with a whiteout covering the joins. A smashed up pyramid prop was then placed on set. One shot saw the camera overexposed by widening the aperture, so that Arnold's face appeared to blacken.

Roger Jacombs, who had been an extra in earlier serials such as The Faceless Ones, joined the ranks of the Yeti this week. John Levene had taken on the role of unofficial union rep for the Yeti, ensuring that the performers were freed from their heavy costumes regularly. One performer did actually pass out under the hot studio lighting. Levene's Yeti was already destroyed, so he crawled out of shot to the stricken actor to help him out of the suit.

Immediately after broadcast of this episode, a short trailer was shown for the following story. This comprised some of the opening location sequences, showing the TARDIS descending to the sea, the opening of the pipeline inspection hatch, and the Doctor and his companions caught in the crosshairs of a rifle.

The videotapes for The Web of Fear were cleared for wiping in July 1969, by which time film copies had been sold for broadcast in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Gibraltar, Zambia and Nigeria.

In 1978, the BBC's archivist Sue Malden came upon a pile of film cans returned from Hong Kong, which were about to be destroyed. On the top of the pile was the first episode of The Web of Fear.

35 years later, Philip Morris, who ran a film and television archive retrieval service, came upon film copies of all six episodes, as well as those for The Enemy of the World, at a broadcasting relay station in Nigeria. As mentioned when we looked at it the other week, by the time he went back to take possession of the films, the third episode had disappeared - denying us further the first ever meeting of the future Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart with the Doctor.

Prior to the episodes' return, a few brief censored clips were returned to the BBC from Australia in May 2002, including scenes of the Yeti attacking troops at Covent Garden and in the Underground tunnels, as well as shots of web-shrouded corpses.

For their next submission, Haisman and Lincoln would move away from the Great Intelligence and its Yeti servants, though a third story featuring them was planned for later. What happened to that, we'll talk about another time when we consider the brief afterlife of the Yeti.

Of the new characters created for this story, Haisman later stated that the Colonel and Driver Evans were the writers' favourites. They continued to receive payments for Lethbridge-Stewart, but he claimed that there had been complaints from Welsh viewers about the latter's cowardice, which is why the character was never brought back.

In the end, this was the final appearance by the Yeti in the series, save for a cameo, whilst the Intelligence would be brought back in The Snowmen - the 2012 Christmas Special - then in The Bells of St John and The Name of the Doctor, stories which opened and closed the seventh series in its 50th Anniversary year.

The former is a prequel to the two Troughton stories, depicting the Intelligence first arriving on Earth in Victorian times. The Web of Fear is specifically referenced when the Doctor uses a London Underground lunchbox to conceal a Memory Worm from the Intelligence's host, and gives it the idea that the network might provide a strategic weakness that could be exploited if attacking the city. The Doctor also states that the box dates to 1967, so another nod to this story being set at time of production and not 1975.

When it was announced that these lost episodes had been recovered it was noticeable that, of the two stories, The Web of Fear was the one which caused the greatest excitement and eager anticipation. This was due to its reputation, such as word of mouth from fans who had seen it at the time, a very good novelisation, and a strong opening episode. The David Whitaker story, on the other hand, relied heavily on a lacklustre orphan instalment and a generally poor reputation. It was simply the one with no monsters in Season 5. Once the missing episodes were made available, interest did shift somewhat towards The Enemy of the World - nowhere near as bad as Episode Three suggested - but the reputation of this story remained strong.

It's still very much one of the best Troughton stories, with a lot going for it. Base-under-siege format, popular monsters, a very dark tone - both in terms of atmosphere and themes, with a high body count of popular guest characters - and excellent performances all round. And into this mix we get the introduction of one character who will prove to be hugely popular and significant, whose presence is still felt in the programme to this day.

The Web of Fear is the third of four stories which lead inexorably towards the Pertwee era, which is still fondly remembered by many as the beginning of a Golden Age for the series.

The War Machines showed how the Doctor could be placed in a contemporary, urban setting, allied with the military to defeat an "alien" menace. The Abominable Snowmen then laid the groundwork for this story, introducing the Great Intelligence, the Yeti and Professor Travers - elements which could be brought together in a similar setting to the Hartnell story. Both even have pitched battles between army and monster in Covent Garden, in the very heart of London.

The success of this combination would lead to the creation of UNIT and the return of Lethbridge-Stewart in The Invasion - a story in which it was hoped Travers might also return - which acted as a dry run for the Pertwee / UNIT years.

Trivia:

• The ratings end strongly, comfortably over 8 million and with the joint highest appreciation figure for the story.
• Once again Huw Wheldon, controller of television programming at the BBC, had praise for the series at the weekly review meeting, calling this instalment "a connoisseur's piece".
• On Friday 22nd March, Francis Hope wrote about this story and the next as part of an article on the horror elements of Doctor Who for The Listener. 
• The Radio Times letters page for April 4th featured a missive from D Milbour praising the story: "Every episode was excitingly made, each ending in a gripping crisis, and what superb acting! Long live the Yeti, to fight again".
• A poster for the 1967 classic In The Heat of the Night (starring Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier) appears on the wall of a corridor at Piccadilly Circus. To avoid rules governing advertising on the BBC, it was retitled "Block-Buster". A poster for the Scottish National Party can also be seen, featuring a thistle-shaped design.
• DWM produced a choice of two covers to mark the return of the missing episodes in October 2013, this one covering The Web of Fear.

• And finally, another fantastic retro movie-style poster from Oliver Arkinstall-Jones:

P is for... Priests

Diminutive beings who were the corrupted survivors of a super-race which once thrived on the planet Uxarieus. They had developed a weapon capable of destroying whole star systems, but its radiation gradually wrecked the planet's environment and its people retreated into an underground city. 

The civilisation collapsed into superstition and barbarism. Some individuals formed a priest class as they turned their backs on technology and began to worship the weapon and its Guardian - one of their number who controlled it and fed on its energies. The Priests were mute and almost blind due to their subterranean existence, developing telepathic powers instead.

Part of their ritual involved sacrifices to the weapon, by casting their victim into its nuclear furnace. Jo, and later the Doctor and Master, were threatened with this fate.

The Doctor was able to convince the Guardian of the limitless potential for evil which the weapon posed, and it elected to sacrifice itself by self-destructing the device. He tried to help the Priests flee the city but, their telepathic link to the Guardian broken, they simply staggered aimlessly through the complex and were destroyed in the subsequent explosion.

Played by: Stanley Mason, Antonia Moss. Appearances: Colony In Space (1971)

• Mason would return in the very next story, playing Bok in The Daemons.

P is for... Priest Triangles

Crystalline diamond-shaped entities which acted as caretakers in the Temple of Atropos on the planet Time. They carried out routine maintenance and looked after the Mouri - beings who helped control the sentient force of Time itself. They were incapable of carrying out detailed repairs and so awaited the arrival of someone who could fix the damage to the Mouri caused by Swarm and Azure. They mistook Vinder and the Doctor's companion Yaz for maintenance specialists when they were carried to the temple.

Swarm destroyed one of the Triangles and Azure another when it recognised them as agents of Time. 

The Doctor was later approached by a third which enquired if she was the help it awaited.

Voiced by: Nigel Lambert. Appearances: Flux: Once Upon Time (2021)

• Lambert had previously played scientist Hardin in The Leisure Hive. He voiced all three of the Triangles.

P is for... Price, Captain

A UNIT officer in charge of the mobile HQ when the organisation raided the ATMOS factory outside London. This produced a highly efficient catalytic converter for motor vehicles, combined with an integrated GPS system.

Owner Luke Rattigan was a teenage tech genius who had invented a revolutionary new search engine and made his fortune. He was secretly in league with the Sontarans, however, who were going to exploit ATMOS as a weapon against the human race. Rattigan believed the aliens were going to relocate he and his high IQ followers to a new planet.

Captain Marion Price led on co-ordinating the global response to the threat, arranging for a nuclear strike against the Sontaran flagship.

As the aircraft Valiant cleared the toxic air around the ATMOS factory and the battle against the Sontarans turned in UNIT's favour, Price suffered a momentary loss of self-control and kissed her superior officer, Colonel Mace, revealling unstated romantic feelings for him.

Played by: Bridget Hodgson. Appearances: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky (2007)

• Spin-off literature has Price later put in command of the Valiant, at the time when it is shot down by the Daleks in The Stolen Earth.
• Film roles for Hodgson, who previously acted under the name Biddy Hodson, include Wilde (2004) and Hellboy (1997). She appears to have left screen acting after Doctor Who.

P is for... Priam

King of of Troy at the time of its decade-long siege by the Greek forces commanded by Agamemnon. A world-weary figure, he was often disappointed and frustrated by his children. Whilst he admired the bravery of eldest son Hector, he despaired of the cowardly and effete Paris - the man who had led to this conflict after running away with Helen, wife of King Menelaus and sister-in-law to Agamemnon.

Daughter Cassandra usually squabbled with Paris, when she wasn't complaining about being disrespected and having her prophesies ignored.

Paris brought the TARDIS into the city, believing it to be a gift from their god Poseidon, and Cassandra naturally denounced it as an evil omen. Priam reluctantly agreed it should be burned - which prompted the Doctor's companion Vicki to emerge from it. Priam took to her, and had her change her name to the more Trojan sounding Cressida.

When it became clear that she knew Steven Taylor - suspected to be a Greek Spy - Priam had her thrown into jail. She had suggested to the Trojans that she also had the gift of prophesy (knowing as she did of future events) and had to prove herself or face being burned as a witch. Priam's youngest son, Troilus, had fallen in love with her in the interim.

The old king allowed himself to be swayed by Paris when a large wooden horse was apparently left behind by the departing Greek army, and had it brought into Troy - another gift from the gods.

The warrior Odysseus was among those hiding inside - along with the Doctor who had reluctantly proposed the plan - and he slew Priam and Paris, and took Cassandra captive.

Played by: Max Adrian. Appearances: The Myth Makers (1965)

• According to myth, Priam had 50 sons and many daughters. He was killed, aged 80, not by Odysseus but by Achilles' son Neoptolemus.
• Oddly, Priam as presented here does not bat an eyelid when favoured son and heir Hector is killed. In Homer's Iliad he is grief-stricken and goes to Achilles to beg for the return of Hector's body.
• Adrian (1903 - 1973) was a regular collaborator with writer Donald Cotton and had performed in a number of his radio productions. Cotton was therefore able to secure his talents for this story.
• It was often claimed that William Hartnell refused to work with Adrian as he was gay and Jewish, but the Doctor and Priam simply never share any scenes together.
• To many in Britain, Adrian is best known for playing patriarch Ludicrus Sextus in Up Pompeii, opposite Frankie Howerd.
• Horror fans will recall him from the vampire segment in Dr Terror's House of Horrors, opposite Donald Sutherland.
• He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and an original member of the National Theatre, appearing as Polonius in its very first production (Hamlet being played by Peter O'Toole). He played the Dauphin in Olivier's film of Henry V, and Alec Guinness and Olivier read the lessons at his memorial service.

The Movie Re-release

It has been announced this morning that the McGann movie has been remastered and will be released on 4K and Blu-ray formats.

There's only a December 2099 placeholder date so far. The extras don't appear to differ too greatly from the earlier Blu-ray apart from new featurettes on the three main guest artists, and a Matthew Sweet conversation with the director.

As I have never been a huge fan of this, I'll only be ordering if the Blu-ray version has been decently remastered as I don't own a 4K player and have no plans to get one anytime soon.

Many fans have been hoping for a "Wilderness Years" release as part of The Collection sets, which would have included this - but this appears to discount that possibility.

Update: this release is expected 25th May in the UK.

Inspirations: Face The Raven

Sarah Dollard was a Melbourne-based fan of Doctor Who who had written for Neighbours and other Australian series, before contributing to the BBC fantasy dramas Merlin and Being Human.

Her inspiration for this story began when a friend explained to her about Trap Streets. These were small non-existent thoroughfares added to maps by their makers to catch out cartographical copyists - as the only way the street could appear on any other map was if it had been plagiarised.

Dollard envisioned these streets as being real, but unknown to the general public. As such they could offer sanctuary to a group of people. It was Steven Moffat who suggested that these may be alien refugees. The idea that the Doctor and Clara might investigate a murder in one of these zones also came from the showrunner.

In order to get the Doctor and Clara into the mystery quickly, the script editor suggested reusing an established character, and graffiti artist Rigsy from Flatline was hit upon. In that story he had mentioned a mother living in London so it was decided that he had located there from Bristol, and he would be accused of a crime he did not commit - providing the motive for the TARDIS pair to get involved. The episode would therefore become a whodunnit.

Dollard then developed the idea that the isolating community had their own unique mode of dispensing justice - a creature which would be released from a cage to kill an individual who had been marked for execution.

This provided a countdown and a fixed timescale in which the Doctor had to come up with the real killer, so a race against time.

The entrance to the Trap Street was originally going to be through the door of a mural Rigsy had painted of the TARDIS. The Mayor was going to be a beetle-like alien, whose deputy was a Sontaran.

Once the episode was moved to tenth position in the series, leading into the finale, it was later decided to introduce the new character Ashildr / Me into Dollard's story as she played a role in the final episode. She then took on the role of Mayor.

Having already stayed on much longer than anticipated, this would be Jenna Coleman's last series. Moffat debated with himself having her leave in the finale or - for shock value - having her killed off earlier. (In the end, he would manage both).

It would be made clear that her death wasn't some form of self-sacrifice. Rather, she died due to her over-confidence and increasing lust for danger and excitement - a belief that she could match the Doctor's abilities. Me would not be held responsible and the Doctor would not be vengeful.

The raven features in many mythologies. 

Odin is also known as the Raven God. He had two pet birds which gathered intelligence for him and acted as spies.

In the indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest the bird is both a trickster and a bringer of light to the world.

Celtic mythology has them birds of ill omen, especially when it comes to battle.

The ancient Greeks held that they were servants of Apollo, and were originally white. Apollo singed them in a rage after they brought him bad news.

The design of the Trap Street was based on narrow lanes off Oxford Street in London, and The Shambles in York. Many have noted a similarity to Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films though Dollard has said that this wasn't intentional.

Among the aliens we see in the street are a Cyberman, Ood and Sontaran.

Among returning guest artists are Robin Soans as "Chronolock Guy". He had played Consul Luvic in The Keeper of Traken. Me's deputy, Rump, is Simon Paisley Day who, as Simon Day, played the Steward on Platform One in The End of the World.

Next time: the Doctor gets caught up in the works and takes a very long time to extricate himself, in what many regard as one of the greatest Doctor Who episodes of all time...

Episode 196: The Web of Fear (5)

Synopsis:

Two Yeti burst into the fortress, and everyone is horrified to see the missing Professor Travers accompanying them - now possessed by the Great Intelligence...

Through Travers the Intelligence informs the Doctor that he has been brought here deliberately, but not as revenge for what happened in Tibet. The Intelligence has been observing his travels and it wants to acquire his knowledge. This will leave him physically unharmed, but with the mind of a child.

If he refuses to co-operate, it will take what it seeks elsewhere, beginning with his companions. The Doctor must submit willingly. It also lets slip that it has other human agents at its command.

Travers then seizes Victoria and gives the Doctor an ultimatum. He has 20 minutes to agree to what the Intelligence demands, and the girl will be held as hostage until he does so.

Travers drags Victoria out, followed by the Yeti. Jamie insists on going after them, but the Colonel cautions that the Yeti will be waiting outside.

Evans then suggests that they do as the Intelligence wants, and allow the Doctor to be taken.

The Doctor tells them that if he cannot come up with any other solution in the time available then he will indeed hand himself over. He tells Jamie that he and Victoria will have to care for him until his mind develops again. 

They discover that the Yeti have gone, so the Colonel organises a search of the fortress with Jamie and Evans whilst the Doctor and Anne hurry to complete their work in the lab.

The Colonel and Jamie then decide to go in search of Travers and Victoria, leaving Evans to guard the Doctor and Anne. They are working on a means of overriding the control signal to a Yeti sphere, so that they can give it their own instructions.

Jamie and the Colonel get only as far as the main surface entrance when they find a wall of web behind it.

They return to the lab where the Doctor is testing their control box. He is sure they can now block the signal to a Yeti to immobilise it, then replace its sphere with the one that they now control.

Evans is now sure that either Jamie or the Colonel is the Intelligence's agent, but the Colonel dismisses him out of hand. He and Jamie are going to use the tunnel exit to go look for their missing friends.

They, meanwhile, are at Piccadilly Circus station, guarded by a Yeti. The Intelligence has released its hold over the professor and he is trying to comfort Victoria. They attempt to slip away - only to be confronted by a second Yeti as it emerges from the tunnel.

As time ticks away, the Doctor and Anne have completed their work, but the control box only has very short range. They will at least have voice control over their adapted sphere but will have to get very close to one of the Yeti to use it.

Jamie and the Colonel find a handkerchief of Victoria's in the tunnel and realise she has dropped it as a clue to the direction they have taken.

As they sit on the platform by the tunnel entrance, Travers and Victoria hear a whispered call. Hiding in the shadows is a bedraggled Staff Sergeant Arnold. They ask him to return to the fortress to tell the others where they are being held.

After testing out their sphere on an alarmed Evans, the Doctor sets off to find a Yeti to capture - and Anne insists on accompanying him. The cowardly driver refuses to come with them.

The Colonel and Jamie encounter Arnold, who tells them about finding Travers and Victoria. All he can recall about his earlier disappearance with the trolley party was becoming smothered in web then blacking out.

The three head for the fortress to find the Doctor, only to learn that he and Anne have already left. They then see that the web is continuing to close in on them, moving inexorably down the Northern Line. Warren Street falls, and Goodge Street is next.

At Piccadilly Circus, the Yeti move Travers and Victoria away from the platform.

The Doctor and Anne encounter a Yeti and are relieved to find their device works. The Doctor removes its control sphere and replaces it with the adapted one. 

The robot now obeys his verbal commands.

Evans is tending to Arnold's wounds when they see the wall of the ops room begin to bulge inwards. Within seconds it cracks open and a mass of glowing web pours into the fortress...

Data:

Written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln

Recorded: Saturday 10th February 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 2nd March 1968

Ratings: 8 million / AI 55

VFX: Ron Oates

Designer: David Myerscough-Jones

Director: Douglas Camfield

Critique:

The only changes from the draft script for this episode were that Victoria would leave an item of jewellery on the tracks for her friends to find, instead of her handkerchief, and the nervous Evans placed a dummy in the ops room as a decoy should the Yeti return to the fortress.

Later, Derrick Sherwin made some additional changes, one of which was the Colonel's speculation that Arnold was somehow immune to the web-like fungus. After having immobilised the single robot, the Doctor also realised that his control box might be made to block the signals to all of the Yeti, if he could get back to the fortress in time to perfect it.

A well known convention anecdote from Frazer Hines derives from camera rehearsals for this episode. It's the scene where Jamie finds the hankie belonging to Victoria, so he knows they are (literally) on the right track. During rehearsals he produced a pair of ladies underpants and held them up claiming "These are Miss Waterfield's. I'd know them anywhere!" - thus embarrassing Debbie Watling in front of her dad.

One of the visitors to the studio that day was Justin Richards, who would go on to write a number of original Doctor Who novels and edit the range.

For the scene in which the Colonel and Jamie tried to get through the door to street level, a physical prop was used to represent the web. This was made from transparent plastic with a light source behind, manipulated from the rear by stagehands.

The radio-controlled sphere which had first been used in The Abominable Snowmen was utilised again.

Only two Yeti were required in studio, played by John Levene and Gordon Stothard.

The episode opened with a re-enactment of the final scene from the previous instalment.

The climactic scene of the web bursting through the wall of the fortress was model work filmed on Monday 8th January. Two small sets were created - the ops room and a corridor - with firefighting foam representing the web.

It's the penultimate episode, so this week is mainly concerned with getting everyone into position for the finale. The Doctor has developed his device which he hopes to use against the Yeti, and the fortress finally falls to the web - so we won't be revisiting it again. The action has to move elsewhere.

This episode is interesting in that once again we see the Doctor spending a considerable amount of time with a more mature female character. We saw this previously with Astrid in the previous story, and will do so again before the season is out. Troughton seems to work well when he has adult characters to work with, and not just interacting with the juvenile companions.

One problem with this episode is the timeframe. We are told only a minute or two into it that the Doctor has 20 minutes to surrender himself. Yet towards the end of the episode, just before he and Anne set out to use their control device, only 8 minutes have elapsed. The episode, with a running time of 24' 19" ends with some of the 20 minutes still remaining, as we'll see when we get to the final instalment. Unless we have been viewing scenes which have actually been overlapping with each other, the timing is out.

It's a minor irritation, but once you notice it you can't un-notice (sorry). It could so easily have been avoided if the Intelligence had stuck to the good old "one hour" deadline. Besides, it would take more than 20 minutes to walk from Goodge Street to Piccadilly Circus - so the Doctor would almost have had to set off before the Intelligence had even issued his ultimatum!

(This timing business isn't unique to this story - just watch any story where the Daleks have a countdown).

We know the identity of the Intelligence's human agent, but viewers at the time would still have been pondering.

As far as they would have been concerned, further suspicion grows for it to be Evans - keen to see the Doctor hand himself over and thus let the rest of them go free. Or is this just his cowardly nature? Chorley is still missing, and now Arnold turns up out of the blue - unharmed save for some minor wound whereas everyone else has been killed by contact with the web, or the Yeti which lurk within it. As for the Colonel, he seems increasingly unlikely to be the agent - mainly because neither the Doctor nor Jamie seem to be treating him like a suspect.

Trivia:

• The ratings had peaked for this story the week before but remain healthy at 8 million viewers, whilst the appreciation figure increases.
• Radio Times featured another small item on the series this week, this time looking at the Watling family, as Debbie's sister Dilys was also appearing on TV: