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:
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