The Highlanders: well it’s the last of the (by now, slightly plodding) historicals. But the best thing is that Jamie’s arrived. 😀
Fair play to Frazer for getting on so well with the cast and crew they took an incidental character and turned him into a new companion! #DoctorWho
The Underwater Menace: Hooo boy! 😆
Atlantis! Mad cults! Even madder Professors! Humans surgically-altered to become Fish-People! (!!) This is #DoctorWho at its most bonkers and comic-strip. Makes the 1960s Batman series look like I, Claudius.
Three times in about 30 minutes a Cyberman strolls into the sick bay through the back entrance, sees Polly (who screams), then casually picks up a patient and walks out.
Lock the bloody door, guys! 🤪 #DoctorWho
At least Polly gets to be proactive and clever by coming up with the idea of the ‘cocktail’ to dissolve the Cybermen’s plastic parts.
But of course she’s still given the role of making the coffee, and has to put up with Ben’s “Not you Polly, this is men’s work!” 🙄 #DoctorWho
The Macra Terror: or ‘ #DoctorWho Gets A Dose Of The Crabs’ or The One With No Villain At All, because as we all know: THERE ARE NO SUCH THING AS MACRA! MACRA DO NOT EXIST!
A similar theme to The Savages (by the same author), with an idyllic-seeming colony hiding a dark secret.
The Macra are comically rubbish at concealing what’s going on, broadcasting an image of a whacking great claw threatening the supposed leader. Doh!
Still, Polly’s response of screaming about how “They’re in control!!” makes a good cliffhanger. #DoctorWho
For a crab, the lead Macra has a very distinguished voice, with good clarity and projection.
If the whole evil plan of parasitically controlling space colonies doesn’t work out, then surely a career in the theatre beckons. #DoctorWho
The Faceless Ones: another abrupt companion departure, as Ben and Polly disappear after a couple of episodes. At least they get to come back for a goodbye at the end.
Ah, Samantha Briggs, with her crazy hat and flirting with Jamie. The great lost potential companion. #DoctorWho
Evil Of The Daleks: some very good Sherlockian deduction by the Doctor at the start, following the flimsiest of clues to find Kennedy.
And of course, this day was a huge temporal nexus in #DoctorWho , with War Machines, Chameleons and Daleks all active at the same time!
Klieg is the first in a long line of egotistical dumbasses who think “Oh, but the Cybermen will respect MY intelligence, and share their power with ME! Of course they will!”
Aaaand he ends up dead. Well done genius! Weren’t clever enough to see that coming, were you? #DoctorWho
The possessed Padmasambhava makes a very sinister and creepy villain, conveyed for the most part through just his raspy disembodied voice.
And it ends with the now familiar trope of ‘Aha! You thought the creatures were all dead? But wait! There’s some signs of life…’ #DoctorWho
The Ice Warriors:
Futuristic base ☑️
Stressed-out Commander (older man) ☑️
More reasonable second-in-command (younger woman) ☑️
Lumbering monsters outside ☑️
Computer with weird modulated voice ☑️
Just needed someone traitorous/possessed to complete the set!
#DoctorWho
Victoria spends most of this story in a state of constant panic and hysteria. You’d wonder why she actually wants to travel with the Doctor and Jamie when everything terrifies her.
(And lol at Jamie teasing her about wearing hotpants like the girls in the base 😄) #DoctorWho
“We must use the Ioniser to blow up the Ice Warriors’ ship!”
“We can’t! We might get killed too!”
“We must!”
“We can’t!”
“We must!”
“We can’t!”
“We must!”
“We can’t!”
(…etc, for six episodes)
*eventually uses Ioniser*
“Phew! We didn’t get killed after all! Hooray!”
#DoctorWho
It’s a bit mad that those guys immediately believe he’s Salamander, when only seen through binoculars.
I mean, if you thought you saw Vladimir Putin at your local beach, having a paddle while wearing a pair of longjohns, you’d doubt what you were seeing, surely?! 😳 #DoctorWho
The Enemy Of The World really stands out as being a drastically different type of story to all the surrounding monster romps.
Troughton is completely believable in the dual role. You never see him as the Doctor when he’s Salamander and vice-versa.
#DoctorWho
Look it’s your own fault for believing his story, you gullible prats. I mean, honestly!
(Also… er, *how* exactly are they causing worldwide natural disasters using a few machines in their underground base? The script glosses over that!)
#DoctorWho
The sonic! Or rather, the random bit of plastic Troughton used to represent the sonic…
The TARDIS team again comment that they keep landing on Earth. If this was today there’d be furious internet speculation that it’s a deliberate plot point leading up to something. #DoctorWho
The scene of Oak and Quill breathing gas onto Mrs Harris really is one of the strangest and creepiest horror moments in all of #DoctorWho, mainly due to the editing.
Thank you, over-sensitive Australian censors, that we still have it to look at! 😀
The Wheel In Space: funny how David Whitaker returns and we get a story in which the TARDIS fluid link runs out of mercury and there’s a food machine dispensing square pieces of flavoured food.
The Doctor falling ill and missing an episode is very Hartnell-like too! #DoctorWho
@gavinwinters It's actually a slight retcon to his character that I'm not too fond of. His original great strength as an ally was his ability to simply accept events and concepts, no matter how alien to him, and take appropriate action.
It's only later that they start making him almost foolishly sceptical of everything, even after all he's seen. Mainly, it seems to me, because they thought it was funnier.
@neilcorry Yes but if one of the statements in Web is wrong, and that story is more or less contemporary, then that places Invasion and all the others neatly into the early/mid 70s, followed by Mawdryn in 77/83.
The only outlier then is Sarah Jane’s “I’m from 1980!”
Gavin Winters
Peter Nolan
Neil Corry
CliffChapman