Countdown to 60: Friends Reunited

Even before the revived series began broadcasting in March 2005, some fans decreed that this was not a continuation of the show which had run from 1963 to 1989, with a brief comeback in 1996 (and some - like a fictional character created by Russell T Davies - even discounted that as canon).

These fans believed that the new series was a reboot, or a totally different series simply based on elements of the old BBC series.

The BBC, and RTD, had to tread carefully. Doctor Who had a dodgy reputation. It was that childish TV series with the wobbly sets, washing-up bottle spaceships, usually filmed in a quarry. After many years of popularity and success, it had ultimately outstayed its welcome - becoming a parody of its former self.

In short, it was a failure. Why should anyone want to go out of their way to watch such a thing - especially as there were now dozens of TV channels to choose from, and families no longer sat down together to watch the same programme at the same time.

You could judge the attitude of the press to the revival when they began to mention the likely stars of this new series - light entertainment personalities like Paul Daniels, or Ronnie Corbett. It was all a bit of a joke.

The other big issue RTD and the BBC had to overcome was the level of continuity they would allow to pass. If this was the same series, then it had to look and sound like it - and the only way to do this in the early 21st Century was for there to be references which confirmed this continuation. But too many and it would alienate new viewers.

The series returned bigger and better than it had been for a long time, comparatively.

RTD claimed in interviews that Eccleston was playing the Ninth Doctor - but not on screen. 

In Rose, the Doctor looks in a mirror and he clearly speaks as though he's seeing his face properly for the first time, or is at least not used to it yet. He's definitely not a new First Doctor - so no chance this is a total reboot. The opening story featured the Autons, which had featured twice in the classic iteration of the series. However, they are never actually called "Autons" in any dialogue - though their creator, the Nestene Consciousness, most definitely is named on screen. However, look at the end credits and there is the acknowledgement that the shop window dummies were indeed Autons, and were created by Robert Holmes. (He and model maestro Mike Tucker are the only names associated with the original series to be seen in this episode).

Our next link to the past was in Dalek. Before we were reacquainted with the titular alien, the Doctor came across a disembodied Cyberman head in Van Statten's museum. It was one of the helmets from Revenge of the Cybermen (the ribbed handles give this away), but the museum label claimed it was found in a London sewer in 1977 - a reference to The Invasion and its supposedly near future dating.

Despite the appearance of the Dalek, there is only one oblique reference to their continuity with the original series - a mention about their creator, who is never named.

This, and all of the other Daleks which will feature at the end of the season, could just as easily be entirely new aliens. It is an entirely new Emperor from the one we saw in The Evil of the Daleks, and these Daleks aren't even of Kaled / Skaro origins.

If we are looking to Gallifrey and the Time Lords to provide comforting continuity, we're out of luck. The planet has been destroyed, its people all dead.

The Time War basically allows RTD and the other writers to pretty much rewrite canon - keeping what you like and discarding what you don't. If something new doesn't match what was claimed in an old story, just dismiss it as a side effect of the Time War. Steven Moffat will employ something similar with the crack in Amy's wall. The stories which don't quite fit his new series you can discard, the ones that you need to refer to are okay - they happened and weren't affected.

They are both very clever conceits - allowing this to be both a brand new Doctor Who and a continuation of the old one.

Any worries that this shiny new series was not proper Doctor Who were finally dispelled in April 2006.

RTD elected to bring back not one but two characters who were intrinsic to the original series. One had first appeared with the Third Doctor, continued with the Fourth for two and half seasons, returned in the first ever spin-off, and again in the 20th Anniversary special. The other was a hugely popular figure from the second half of the Fourth's era, appearing across four seasons - plus that spin-off and that 20th Anniversary story.

Poll after poll placed Sarah Jane Smith firmly as the favourite companion of all time. K-9 had a whole newspaper campaign run to save him from being axed from the series. Graham Williams had attempted to talk Lis Sladen into rejoining the series to accompany Tom Baker in Season 16 (the Key to Time season), but it was too soon after she had stepped down. JNT then tried again to help see out Tom's tenure and bridge the transition to Peter Davison. She declined once more, but did agree to fronting her own spin-off series - despite K-9 being the nominal "star" of this.

K-9 & Company: A Girl's Best Friend did inextricably link Sarah Jane and K-9 together. She was left K-9 Mark III by the Doctor. This pilot failed to lead to a full series, but if fans wanted to discount it then The Five Doctors knocked that for six.

Sarah is seen leaving her home one morning, and there's K-9 warning her of a threat. She could only own K-9 if she had been given it in the spin-off programme. So there.

In School Reunion, Sarah meets the Doctor and she has K-9 with her. The Doctor explains to Rose and Mickey that it hails from the year 5000AD, fitting in with its origins in The Invisible Enemy.

She also speaks about the events of the closing moments of The Hand of Fear. The TARDIS is seen to drop her off on a suburban street, which the Doctor tells her is South Croydon. It turns out he got it wrong and it was actually Aberdeen, at the opposite end of the country.

Their dialogue together is clearly meant to suggest that the two haven't seen each other since that occasion - which leaves us with a bit of a problem: what about The Five Doctors...? 

It confirmed A Girl's Best Friend as canon, yet gets ignored in School Reunion.

It's not an insurmountable problem. Rassilon may well have erased the memories of all but the current Doctor and his companions when he sent them all home.

The main thing was, we now had an actual pair of characters from '63 - '89 appear in the revived series, establishing more than the odd prop or reference that this was indeed the same programme.

If Sarah Jane Smith said this was the same show, then who were we to argue?

Episode 82: Four Hundred Dawns

SEASON 3

• Producer: Verity Lambert (Galaxy 4, Mission to the Unknown), John Wiles (The Myth Makers - The Massacre), Innes Lloyd (The Ark - The War Machines).
• Story Editor: Donald Tosh (Galaxy 4 - The Massacre), Gerry Davis (The Ark - The War Machines)
• Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki: Galaxy Four, The Myth Makers), Peter Purves (Steven Taylor: Galaxy 4 - The Savages), Adrienne Hill (Katarina: The Myth Makers, The Daleks' Master Plan), Jean Marsh (Sara Kingdom: The Daleks' Master Plan), Jackie Lane (Dodo Chaplet: The Massacre - The War Machines), Anneke Wills (Polly: The War Machines), Michael Craze (Ben Jackson: The War Machines).

NB: This episode no longer exists in the archives, nor is there a full set of telesnaps. Representative images are therefore used to illustrate it.

Synopsis:

The TARDIS materialises on a seemingly dead planet. No sound can be heard, and there is no sign of any animal life. There is some form of activity on this planet, however, as they see a squat domed robot approach the ship. It bumps against the side and they hear it move around the walls. After a complete circuit it wanders away. Because of its wobbling, rolling movement, Vicki nicknames it a "Chumbley".

Once it has gone, the Doctor, Vicki and Steven venture out to explore. Vicki is reminded of the planet Xeros, and Steven is disappointed not to find any water for a swim. There are three suns in the sky.

They encounter another Chumbley, which extends a flame-throwing weapon and burns a bush by way of a threat. It means for them to follow it. They discover that the robot is blind.

As they move across the barren surface of the planet their escort is ambushed by a trio of uniformed female soldiers, who throw a metal mesh over the Chumbley. This appears to disable it. The soldiers quickly usher them away. The trapped Chumbley magnetises the mesh, preventing the soldiers from retrieving it. A second Chumbley pulls it away and then the robots begin to pursue them.

The soldiers guide them to a nearby spaceship. The Chumblies pause outside, unwilling or unable to enter.

Inside the ship the TARDIS crew meet Maaga, leader of this Drahvin expedition. She explains that her soldiers, who all resemble each other in build and complexion, are really clones. They are of low intellect, bred for fighting. She, however, is a real Drahvin. Her people, who hail from the planet Drahva in Galaxy 4, are an all female race. A few males are used for breeding purposes, the rest killed as they consume scarce resources. Maaga's mission to this region of space is to find new worlds for the Drahvins to colonise. They encountered an unknown alien vessel in space above this planet. After a lengthy stand-off, they attacked each other - causing both ships to crash-land.

The Chumblies belong to the other spaceship's crew - a race called the Rills who are hideously ugly and bloodthirsty creatures. One of the robots approaches and starts sending a signal, but Maaga refuses to listen to it - claiming it is broadcasting lies from the Rills about helping them. The Doctor tries to point out that this may be the truth, but Maaga refuses to countenance this.

Both crews know that this planet is dying, its destruction imminent. The Rills have claimed that this event will take place in 14 dawns time. The Doctor tells Maaga that he has instruments in the TARDIS which can confirm this. He and Steven are permitted to go back to the ship, but Vicki will remain with the Drahvins to ensure their return.

Chumblies are once again probing the TARDIS, seeking a way in.

The Doctor and Steven wait until they move off then enter the ship. After studying his instruments, including the Astral Map, the Doctor announces that this planet has less time remaining than they thought. It has only two more dawns before it is destroyed...

Next episode: Trap of Steel

Data:

Written by: William Emms

Recorded: Friday 9th July, 1965 - Television Centre Studio TC4

First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 11th September 1965

Ratings: 9 million / AI 56

Designer: Richard Hunt

Director: Derek Martinus / Mervyn Pinfield (Ealing filming only)

Additional cast: Stephanie Bidmead (Maaga), Marina Martin (Drahvin One), Susanna Carroll (Drahvin Two), Lyn Ashley (Drahvin Three), Jimmy Kaye, William Shearer, Angela Muscat (Chumblies)

Critique:

This is the first episode of the story which we know as Galaxy 4 and it opens the series' third season.

The story was recorded immediately after The Time Meddler, at the end of the second season recording period, but was held back so that the production team had a story in hand. A fifth instalment was added to the production - a single episode adventure to be recorded after the regulars had begun their summer holiday break, so they could not feature. This owed its existence to the production office being owed an episode following the editing of Planet of Giants down to three parts. More on this later.

Writer John William Emms was born in Newport, South Wales, in 1930. After a stint in the Navy he became a teacher of English and Drama. For a time he was based at Trent Park Training College - later the location for Brendon School in Mawdryn Undead.

After providing scripts for a number of popular TV shows, he was working on the Sci-Fi series R3. Having an interest in this genre, he submitted an unsolicited script to the Doctor Who office whilst Dennis Spooner was story editor. He is the first declared fan of the series to have a story accepted for production.

His basic premise was a conflict between two races - one of which was beautiful and the other ugly. The twist would be that the ugly people were the good ones, and the lovely ones evil - a "don't judge by appearances" scenario. Hardly original, but it hadn't been used in the series so far, though we had seen apparently monstrous creatures turn out to be friendly (Sensorites, Menoptra).

The Drahvins - originally called 'Dravians' - were going to be male humanoids, but Verity Lambert suggested a further twist would be to make them beautiful women. This led to the aliens being jointly owned by Emms and the BBC.

Tosh took over as script editor and he was responsible for helping reshape the story for just two companions, as it was to be made after Ian and Barbara had left the series, to be replaced by a single male character. 

In the end, Steven was given a lot of what would would have gone to Barbara, causing Steven to behave in a manner inconsistent with the way he had been played up to now - much to Peter Purves' annoyance.

Purves was already upset at the departure of Spooner who had created his character and wrote well for him.

The director chosen for Galaxy 4 was Mervyn Pinfield, who had been the series' associate producer for its first year. Pinfield, known for more technically challenging productions, set the story up and was involved in the initial Ealing filming work when he was taken ill. He had a serious heart condition, which was to kill him one year later (20th October 1966). 

The Ealing studio work was his final contribution to a series which he had helped shape.

Lambert brought in a new young director named Derek Martinus to replace him. He would go on to direct a number of highly regarded stories over the next five years, but he got off to an inauspicious start. Interviewed by the producer after viewing some old episodes, he claimed that the series ought to "aim higher" - implying that he didn't think it very good up 'til now. He and Pinfield overlapped briefly at Ealing.

We have a new designer on this serial - Richard Hunt. The script called for a ground surface similar to cracked asphalt, and Hunt adds unusual trees which resemble skeleton parts.

The Drahvin ship was a linked set - exterior and part of the interior. Martinus made use of its windows to get some interesting shots of characters looking out from within. The ship was only ever seen as a studio set, so no model of it was required.

There has been much debate about the story title. The Drahvins claim to come from a planet which lies in Galaxy 4, and dialogue suggests that this is somewhere else. However, Emms' script for Four Hundred Dawns quite clearly states that the doomed planet is in Galaxy 4, so it is the setting for the story, not just where the villains hail from.

Not for the first time, Vicki gives a creature she finds cute a funny name (after "Zombo" the Zarbi in The Web Planet). The Chumblies are known only by this name she gives them - the Rills themselves don't have any title for their servo-robots.

The writer uses odd words to describe their movement and sound - things like "chuntering", "chittering", "jinking", "chungling" and "chuttering".

Emms got the robots' name from conflating the words "chum" and "friendly".

Strictly speaking, the plural of Chumbley ought to be 'Chumbleys' (as in monkeys, donkeys etc).

To play the robots, which comprised overlapping domes, actors of small stature were chosen, members of a specialist agency called Lester's Midgets. Angelo Muscat is best known for playing the diminutive butler to No.2 in The Prisoner.

He was operating the only Chumbley in studio for this episode, as most of the robot scenes had been filmed at Ealing.

At the film studios, Martinus was planning some long tracking shots, making full use of the studio space to indicate the bleak landscape. However, he found the crew setting up for a lot of close-ups on William Hartnell. He quickly learned how to get on the right side of the star who usually gave inexperienced cast and crew a hard time. He patiently listened to Hartnell's suggestions for camera placements and shots. Martinus would go on to become one of Hartnell's favoured directors.

A press call was held at Ealing on 24th June and lots of photos were taken of the Drahvins with the Chumblies. Unfortunately, the press then gave away the reveal that the Drahvins were villains months before the episodes were broadcast.

In rehearsals, Purves expressed his unhappiness with the scripts, for the reasons mentioned above, but both Hartnell and O'Brien also complained. New producer John Wiles noted O'Brien's comments and assumed she was keen to leave. At one point he threatened to sack Hartnell if he didn't follow the script, scuppering any chance of a reconciliation between the two men. The star came to rely more and more on Purves, and the two would dine together on a regular basis - Purves inviting Hartnell to his home or the star inviting Purves to his favourite Italian restaurant.

This episode no longer exists in its entirety in the archives - but thanks to Jan Vincent-Rudzki we have around six minutes of footage to enjoy - a lengthy sequence of the Doctor and companions meeting Maaga in the Drahvin spaceship, learning something of their culture and of the circumstances which brought them to this doomed planet. We also see a Chumbley, which comes under attack by the Drahvins when it approaches their spaceship. A small piece of this footage had been selected for incorporation in the 1977 documentary The Lively Arts: Whose Doctor Who. The DWAS, of which Vincent-Rudzki was president at the time, were acting as consultants to the project, and he asked to keep the full clip after they had finished with it - assuming that the complete original episode was still in the archives.

A very brief 8mm off-screen clip also exists of the Doctor and companions in the TARDIS from the beginning of the episode.

Trivia:

• Season 3 gets off to a flying start with 9 million viewers tuning in, and an appreciation figure of well over 50.
• The story is also known as "Galaxy Four", but I am using the version of the title used on the DVD release, which is also what original BBC paperwork called it.
• The overall working title was "The Chumblies".
• The filming at Ealing of scenes on the planet surface took place between Tuesday 22nd - Friday 24th June.
• Query: if this planet has three suns, how do the Drahvins calculate a "dawn" - their measurement of time?
• Maaga was originally going to be named Gar when still a male character.
• The Doctor describes the TARDIS as having a "force barrier", which had earlier protected it from Dalek firepower in The Chase, and prevented the Zarbi from entering.
• An odd occurrence is the time travellers hearing the Chumbley move around the console room as it explores the Police Box exterior. Obviously it would only take a few seconds to go round the outside, but within the Doctor and his companions hear it moving for a lot longer.
• The Chumbley props were coral pink in colour. They, and the Drahvin guns, were built by Shawcraft Modellers of Uxbridge.
• The Drahvin uniforms were green - with Maaga's a darker shade. They had blue sequins placed on their eyebrows and were given blonde beehive hairdos.
• The sound of the Drahvin ship doors is a reuse of that for Dalek doors (also heard in The Sensorites). The music is also recycled - elements of Les Structures Sonores' score from The Web Planet. 
• A Chumbley appeared alongside the Black Dalek Supreme at the Farnborough Air Show on 4th September, which William Hartnell also attended. A helicopter delivered a lightweight TARDIS copy.
• Radio Times previewed the opening  episode of the story on Thursday 2nd September, with a full feature the following week, using a near identical photograph of the Drahvins but adding a small image of the Doctor and companions examining a Chumbley.

M is for... McCrimmon, Jamie

James Robert McCrimmon - Jamie to his friends - was a piper in the service of Donald McLaren, Laird of the Clan McLaren. Together, they had followed the Young Pretender in his efforts to re-establish the Stuart Dynasty in Great Britain in 1745. Their battle cry, which Jamie would never forget, was "Craig an Tuirc!".

Defeated at the Battle of Culloden the following year, they had gone on the run with McLaren's daughter Kirsty and son Alexander - hunted by Redcoat soldiers. Encountering the Doctor and his companions Ben and Polly, they were all attacked by the enemy at a remote farmhouse. Alexander was killed and Polly and Kirsty fled, but Jamie was captured with his laird, Ben and the Doctor.

Narrowly avoiding being hung, they were taken to Inverness where a crooked solicitor named Grey was working on a scheme to transport the Jacobite prisoners to slavery in the West Indies.

Bonnie Prince Charlie having escaped the battlefield, at one point the Doctor pretended that Jamie was the Prince, to fool Grey and his ally Captain Trask - skipper of the ship that would carry the slaves abroad.

The Doctor was able to smuggle weapons to the Highlanders and they won the ship, which would now take them to freedom in France. Jamie fought Trask and threw him overboard.

The young piper then accompanied the time travellers back to the TARDIS. Rather than join his compatriots in exile, he accepted an invitation to travel with the Doctor.

It took some time for the Highlander to get used to the TARDIS and its capabilities, but he was open-minded and trusted the Doctor and his new friends. After visiting the ruined city of Atlantis in the late 20th Century, where he and Ben pretended to be members of Professor Zaroff's security forces, Jamie found himself on the Moon in the year 2070.

Unfortunately, he was involved in an accident when playing with the others in the near weightless environment - colliding with the dome of a weather control base when he leapt over a low ridge. Concussed, he was taken into the base and installed in the sickbay. Here he encountered a Cyberman which, in his confused state of mind, he believed to be the legendary Phantom Piper, who came to claim members of his clan on their deathbed. The Cybermen were abducting and processing crew members who had been infected by an artificial neuro-virus, and Jamie was spared this fate as he did not have the tell-tale marks on his skin. Once recovered, he helped defeat the Cyberman efforts to take control of the base.

When the Doctor decided to use a function of the TARDIS which allowed them to glimpse the future, Jamie cautioned against the "second sight" - something he would have been familiar with in his society.

In a human colony on an alien planet, Jamie seemed to be immune to mental conditioning - unlike his friend Ben who was highly susceptible due to his armed services background. By now Jamie had very much swapped his fierce loyalty to his Laird onto the Doctor.

Sent to work in a gas-mine, Jamie escaped and was hunted by the giant crab-like Macra. At one point he found himself in the middle of a dance contest, and showed the colonists the Highland Fling - so-called, he said, because at the end you fling yourself out the door.

At Gatwick Airport in 1966, Jamie encountered what he thought of as "flying beasties" - aeroplanes. He also found himself being flirted with by a young Liverpudlian woman named Samantha Briggs. Jamie exploited her interest to steal her flight ticket in order to investigate Chameleon Tours. He was abducted by the aliens behind this company and his body copied for one of their number. An ally of their leader, his copy was shot dead after the Doctor had turned some of their number against him. Jamie discovered on this occasion that, despite his TARDIS travels, he suffered from travel sickness.

Ben and Polly elected to leave the TARDIS at Gatwick, as it was the very day on which they had first come aboard in London, but the Doctor and Jamie discovered that the TARDIS had been stolen from the airport.

After hunting for it in London, both were knocked unconscious at an antiques shop belonging to a man named Waterfield, and woke to find they had been taken back to Victorian times. This was all part of a Dalek plan to obtain the Human Factor, which had so often caused their defeat. To isolate it, Jamie was to take part in an experiment. His emotions and behaviours would be monitored as he went about rescuing Waterfield's daughter Victoria from the Daleks. Sworn to secrecy, Jamie had a blazing row with the Doctor when it looked like he was helping them, putting science before people.

Jamie survived the tests, thanks in part to him saving the life of a manservant named Kemel who had been ordered to kill him.

After defeating the Daleks on Skaro, Victoria joined the TARDIS, and Jamie quickly formed a protective brotherly bond with her - though he and the Doctor were not averse to teasing her due her prim and proper ways.

Jamie once again confronted the Cybermen - this time on their second home world of Telos. Joining a group of archaeologists from Earth, the party had split up to explore and Jamie had partnered with a young man named Haydon. Unfortunately, he was to see his new friend killed by an automated weapon in a testing area which he had accidentally triggered. Jamie was a particularly fearless young man, but sometimes joked that he was not so brave.

When the Doctor decided to descend to the Cyber-tombs alone, Jamie ignored his instructions and followed him - obliged to protect his friend.

The TARDIS later took the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to the Himalayas of Tibet, where they encountered the fabled "Abominable Snowmen". These Yeti proved to be fur-covered robots, however.

Jamie devised a scheme to capture one - and the Doctor seemed to think that his ideas might not always be good ones.

In the England of 5000 AD, during a new Ice Age, Jamie took part in an expedition which was ambushed by Ice Warriors - reptilian beings from Mars. He was shot and badly wounded - at one point fearing that he might be permanently paralysed by their sonic weaponry. Luckily he recovered and helped defeat the Martians.

The TARDIS next travelled to Australia in 2017, where the Doctor discovered that he was the spitting image of a would-be dictator named Salamander. The Doctor refused to believe what was being claimed about this figure without proof. To this end, Jamie and Victoria would infiltrate his household. Jamie pretended to save Salamander from an assassination attempt, whilst Victoria posed as his girlfriend and was given a job in his kitchens. Jamie was given the role of a security guard. Their attempt to help one of Salamander's enemies escape his HQ failed, and both were captured and transferred to his main base back in Australia. By posing as Salamander, the Doctor was able to save them, before unmasking him as a mass murderer. He perished trying to steal the TARDIS.

The ship materialised in the London of 1968, where Jamie was once again confronted by the Yeti and the Great Intelligence which controlled them. This time they were establishing a base in the Underground, as well as taking over the whole centre of the city. Jamie used his prior knowledge of the foes to help fight against them, though his attack on a pyramid being held by a Yeti proved ineffectual. The Great Intelligence had learned from its mistakes.

Over time, Jamie had grown closer to Victoria, and so he was very upset when she announced her decision to leave the TARDIS following an encounter with a sentient seaweed creature. He attempted to talk her into changing her mind, but she had been unhappy with their dangerous lifestyle for some time.

Arriving on an abandoned spacecraft soon after, the Doctor was knocked unconscious and Jamie had to send a signal to a nearby space station for help.

Once aboard the Wheel he had to quickly come up with a name for his friend, and selected "John Smith" from a piece of medical equipment. On learning that the crew planned to destroy the derelict ship, which still had the TARDIS aboard, Jamie sabotaged their X-ray laser weapon. He had been put under the wing of Zoe Heriot - a young crew member who worked in the parapsychology library. She found his down-to-earth ways fascinating, but after Victoria he was somewhat intimidated by her obvious intelligence. To save the Wheel from the Cybermen, Jamie and Zoe undertook a hazardous space-walk to fetch a TARDIS component to boost the now repaired X-ray laser weapon. Zoe then attempted to stow away on the TARDIS.

When captured by the ruthless Dominators, they noted that Jamie showed signs of rapid mental development. When he had first come aboard the TARDIS he could practically illiterate and thought of science and technology in the same terms as witchcraft or sorcery. His experiences with the Doctor had led to him rapidly learning as he quickly adapted to his new circumstances. He had developed emotionally as well as intellectually.

One new habit he had developed was the ability to fall asleep under any circumstances - no matter how uncomfortable.

Jamie formed a good working relationship with the Dulcian Cully in fighting against the Dominators and their robot Quark servants.

When the TARDIS was thrown into the Land of Fiction - a bizarre domain in which fictional characters could be brought to life, Jamie was almost tempted to leave the ship at the sight of his native Scotland on the scanner. Zoe did succumb to a vision of her old home, and Jamie had to go out and rescue her.

A short time later he was attacked by a Redcoat, who turned him into a faceless cardboard cut-out.

The Doctor had to piece his features together - but got it wrong. Jamie was rendered whole again, but with the wrong face. A second attack repeated the process, and the Doctor was able to get his features correct this time (with more than a little help from Zoe). Escaping giant clockwork soldiers, Jamie found himself helped by the Princess Rapunzel, who let down her long hair to aid his flight. He and Zoe were later rendered fictional themselves after being trapped between the pages of a gigantic book.

When they had fought the Yeti in the London Underground Jamie had met an army colonel named Lethbridge-Stewart. On visiting the city once again, a few years later, he and the Doctor were reunited with him. he was now a Brigadier, commanding a special United Nations group called UNIT, which had been formed in response to the earlier incident.

This time they were to face the Cybermen, who had allied themselves with a ruthless businessman named Tobias Vaughn to take over the Earth. Jamie was shot and wounded by Vaughn's security forces.

During an encounter with a race of crystalline creatures called the Krotons, on the planet of the Gond people, Jamie was separated from the Doctor and Zoe. He entered the Kroton spaceship alone and was captured by the creatures, who only sought those with exceptional intelligence in order to harness their mental energy. Jamie was almost killed as he could not match the minds of his friends.

There then followed a second encounter with the Ice Warriors, who were plotting to exploit a global transmat system to invade the Earth. Jamie made his second visit to the Moon on this occasion. Once again his perceived lower intelligence - lower than that of the Doctor and Zoe - almost got him excluded from their activities.

Jamie's time with the Doctor was drawing to a close. After arriving in the middle of the Great War, in the France of 1917, Jamie was arrested as a deserter from a Scottish regiment. Sent to a POW camp, he was shocked to find a Redcoat who hailed from the time of the Jacobite rebellion.

It transpired that this was really an alien planet on which various war zones from Earth history had been established by an alien race who planned to create an army from the survivors.

In the Doctor's absence, Jamie at one point had to pretend to be a great Resistance leader, but really did lead an attack on the alien base.

The Doctor could not defeat the aliens by himself - needing help to get all of the human soldiers back home. he called upon his own people - the Time Lords - despite the fact that he had been on the run from them all this time. They captured the Doctor and placed him on trial. Jamie and Zoe were to be returned to their own places in history - their memories of the Doctor erased beyond their initial meeting with him. Jamie had to bid his old friend farewell, then found himself back in Scotland in 1746, fighting Redcoats.

When the Second Doctor was transported with the Brigadier to the Death Zone on Gallifrey, they made their way to the Dark Tower - tomb of the great Time Lord Rassilon. One of its defences was the creation of phantoms, designed to scare people away. They were confronted by Jamie and Zoe, warning them to turn back or they would be destroyed. However, Jamie mentioned events which happened after his memory had been erased by the Time Lords, so the Doctor was able to work out that the pair were not real. They vanished when challenged.

Jamie met a future incarnation of the Doctor when he and the Second Doctor visited a space station in the Third Zone. The Doctor had been sent there by the Time Lords to try to get a scientist named Dastari to cease temporal experiments.

This turned out to be a trap for the Doctor. Dastari and an Androgum named Chessene had allied with the Sontarans to capture a Time Lord in order to discover how they could travel safely through the Vortex. After the Doctor had been abducted, Jamie was left for dead on the space station, where he was found by the Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri. Jamie had reverted to a savage state in order to survive his ordeal, but was cured by the Doctor. Together they travelled to late 20th Century Spain where his Doctor had been taken to be experimented upon.

At one point Jamie was captured by another Androgum named Shockeye, who planned to cook and eat him, but he was rescued by the Sixth Doctor.

After the Chessene alliance had been defeated, Jamie departed with the Second Doctor to collect Victoria, who had been dropped off somewhere to study graphology.

Played by: Frazer Hines and Hamish Wilson (The Mind Robber 2 & 3). 

Appearances: The Highlanders (1966) to The War Games (1969), The Five Doctors (1983), The Two Doctors (1985).

• Frazer Hines began his career as a child actor,  appearing with Charlie Chaplin in A King in New York (1957) and guesting in the Hammer sci-fi film X - The Unknown (1956).
• His mother was Scottish, and so he was used to hearing the accent despite being born and raised in Yorkshire.
• For his role as Jamie in The Highlanders he adopted a soft Highland lilt. When he discovered that he would be appearing as a regular character, he had to amend this to what he calls "TV Scottish", which was easier to say and easier on the ear.
• In interviews he often claims that Jamie was retained due to public demand - but the scenes of him entering the TARDIS were filmed before the story began broadcast. He was due to only appear in the one story and had filmed a scene where he did not enter the TARDIS, and this had to be reshot once he agreed to stay on.
• He had earlier starred opposite Patrick Troughton in a serial called Smugglers Bay, a version of the classic The Moonraker.
• Guide books claimed that his brother featured in background roles in Doctor Who during his stint. Ian Hines was his cousin, not his brother. Another long standing myth was that his relative played him in The Mind Robber when he fell sick. Hamish Wilson was unrelated to him.
• Jamie's war cry of "Craig an Tuirc" means "The Boar's Rock". It was a small rocky outcrop at Balquhidder where the Clan McLaren traditionally gathered. 
• As a McCrimmon, Jamie really ought to have been fighting on the side of the Redcoats during the Jacobite Rebellion.
• Hines was originally going to leave during a story called "Prison in Space", to be replaced by a new male character named Nick / Nik. This was down to pressure from his agent, who wanted him to get into movies. The story was scrapped and replaced by The Krotons, but by this stage Hines had decided to wait and leave with Troughton, at the latter's suggestion.
• Hines went on to become a regular on the ITV soap Emmerdale Farm, playing the character Joe Sugden. His commitments to this series meant he was unable to play Jamie in The Three Doctors, and could only manage a cameo in The Five Doctors. 
• The Two Doctors is impossible to place in the continuity between The Highlanders and The War Games, leading many (including the late, great Terrance Dicks) to surmise that Season 6(b) must be a thing.
• Jamie was the main inspiration for the character Jamie Fraser, star of the series Outlander, in which Hines had a guest role.
• Had they not fallen out with Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin, Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln were on the point of submitting a story called "Laird of the McCrimmon", in which Jamie would have departed. The Great Intelligence would have taken over the McLaren chief, who perished as the threat was defeated - leaving Jamie as the new laird.
• The DWM comic strip The World Shapers killed Jamie off in an act of self-sacrifice. They had him a mad old man whose stories of travelling in space and time weren't believed.
• In episode terms, and in hours and minutes, Jamie is the longest serving companion, and is consistently in the top 5 lists in terms of popularity with fans. Hines' pairing with the Troughton is often voted second favourite after that of Tom Baker with Lis Sladen.

M is for... Maynarde, Richard

Richard Maynarde was a petty criminal who in 1638 was employed as manservant to the powerful Lady Peinforte. She was a murderous sorceress who had tangled with the Doctor - fighting for possession of a sentient metal called Validium which originated as a weapon on Gallifrey. A quantity had fallen to Earth and had been found by her. She had fashioned it into a statue of herself in the guise of Nemesis - Goddess of Retribution. The Doctor had managed to seize it back from her and launched it into space - but in a decaying orbit. Every 25 years it passed close to Earth and its influence caused major social and political upheavals, but it was due to return to the location from whence it had been launched in November 1988. This was close to Lady Peinforte's Windsor home.

Maynarde assisted her in creating a magical potion which, coupled with a segment of Nemesis - the statue's arrow - would allow them both to travel in time. The final ingredient of this brew had been human blood - and Peinforte had murdered the aged mathematician who had helped plot the time and place of the statue's return.

Despite his own low level villainy, Maynarde disliked his involvement with his mistress - finding her powers frightening. Seeing his own tomb may have helped him decide to leave her employ at the earliest opportunity, and he ended up siding with the Doctor and Ace after his trip to 1988, where he was menaced by Cybermen and a Nazi war criminal and his mercenaries who also sought control over Nemesis.

After they had been defeated, and Lady Peinforte had been killed by the statue, the Doctor and Ace returned him to his own time in the TARDIS.

Played by: Gerard Murphy. Appearances: Silver Nemesis (1988).

• Maynarde's tomb gives his dates as 1607 - 1657.
• Murphy, who appeared in the pilot episode of Father Ted, had a regular role as Detective Inspector Bracken in the ITV crime drama McCallum, which starred John Hannah as a police pathologist.
• At one point Maynarde promises to repay a loan to someone called Briggs. This was a reference to writer Ian Briggs (Dragonfire, The Curse of Fenric).

M is for... Mayflies

Giant flying insects of alien origin which had fallen through the Cardiff Rift. Specimens were obtained by a powerful pharmaceutical company - the Pharm - which was directed by Professor Aaron Copley. He experimented with a number of alien creatures, exploiting their biology to seek lucrative new drugs. The Mayflies - so called because of their brief lifespan like the terrestrial insects - provided a drug called Reset, which had the ability to undo illness - like resetting the human body to basic health. 

Both UNIT and Torchwood were alerted to the Pharm's activities when seemingly healthy people died suddenly, with no obvious cause. Dr Martha Jones of UNIT joined Captain Jack's Cardiff team to investigate the deaths. They found that the victims - who included people with cured genetic ailments - had actually been murdered. Martha went into the company undercover as a potential test subject. Torchwood discovered that an assassin was killing the Reset test subjects. One survivor died when their body suddenly produced a swarm of Mayfly larvae. The assassin was killing people before this stage was reached. The drug had this fatal flaw, and Copley was trying to cover it up.

Dr Owen Harper was able to save Martha after she had been infected - before he was killed by Copley. 

The professor was himself gunned down by Owen's colleagues, and the Pharm was shut down - all of the alien creatures euthanised.

Appearances: TW 2.6 Reset (2008).

M is for... Maxtible

Theodore Maxtible was a rich Victorian businessman who had a passion for scientific experimentation, which he shared with his friend Edward Waterfield. Maxtible lived in the Kent countryside, in a house which he shared with his daughter Ruth. Widower Waterfield and his teenage daughter Victoria were also invited to live there, Maxtible having stepped in to help after his friend faced financial ruin. 

Maxtible secretly harboured a desire to discover the age-old secret of the alchemists - the process which could transform base metals into gold. He and Waterfield concentrated for now on the mysteries of time travel. Reasoning that a mirror can cast an image at a great distance, they thought that a solid object could be transported in the same way. Making use of the latest scientific discoveries, they eventually built a cabinet lined with 144 highly polished mirrors. Electricity was passed over these but to no avail - until they used static electricity.

Then, their experiments attracted the attention of the Daleks. They invaded the house and took Victoria hostage. The two scientists were then forced to collaborate with them in a plan to ensnare the Doctor. Waterfield was forced to travel to the year 1966, where he set up an antiques business. he then made use of some local villains to steal the TARDIS - making sure that a trail led the Doctor to the shop.

He and Jamie were then rendered unconscious and brought back 100 years.

Maxtible used his considerable hypnotic skills to aid the Dalek plan - an experiment to identify the Human Factor which had so often defeated them. Once obtained, the Dalek Emperor recalled everyone to Skaro, and Maxtible was horrified to learn that his home was to be destroyed. His greed for the alchemical secrets meant he went along with the Daleks, as they had promised him these.

Once on Skaro, his allegiance and its motivation were held against him by the Doctor and his friends. 

The Emperor really wanted the opposite of the Human Factor - the Dalek Factor that could turn other beings into mental Daleks. To test this, Maxtible was infected with it - becoming a fiercely loyal Dalek servant. He murdered his servant Kemel, who had become a friend to Jamie and protector to Victoria.

The Doctor triggered a civil war between the Emperor's forces and some Daleks infected with the Human Factor. Maxtible was last seen re-entering the blazing Dalek city after the Emperor had summoned all loyal Daleks to come to its assistance.

Played by: Marius Goring. Appearances: The Evil of the Daleks (1967).

• Goring became well known to the public through his work with "The Archers" - producer / director pair Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Notable performances for them include the French Revolution-era prosecuting counsel in A Matter of Life and Death, and Julian Craster in The Red Shoes.
• Between 1968 - 1976 he led his own BBC TV series - The Expert - which was about a police pathologist.
• He was reunited with Frazer Hines in 1971 in the movie Zeppelin.
• At one point in Episode 2 (the only surviving instalment of The Evil of the Daleks) Goring refers to Waterfield as 'Whitefield'.

Normal service will resume as soon as possible...

Just a quick word to say that I have a visitor staying at the moment, and this means being out and about a bit more than usual. Posts will therefore be a little less frequent over the next couple of weeks (until 17th September).

I should have the next A-Z batch ready tomorrow (Saturday 2nd), with the opening instalment of Galaxy 4 on Sunday.

Thank you for your patience.