021 - The Daleks' Master Plan

Broadcast:

13^th November 1965 - 29^th January 1966

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Steven

Adversary:

Daleks

Written by:

Terry Nation, Dennis Spooner

Director:

Douglas Camfield

Music:

Tristram Cary

Script Editor:

Donald Tosh

Producer:

John Wiles

Average Viewers:

9.36m (9.1, 9.8, 10.3, 9.5, 9.9, 9.1, 7.9, 9.6, 9.2, 9.5, 9.8, 8.6)

Summary: The Daleks have formed an alliance and are intent on controlling the galaxy but they will have to catch the Doctor first!

The Daleks were big business in the UK. Fans were aching for more and boy were they about to get it! Unfortunately, international interest was not so hot and this epic twelve part story may have been too much for them to chew over, especially with its mature story elements (including what could be called the first and second companion deaths - more on that later) and consequently it became the only story never broadcast overseas (along with its prelude Mission To The Unknown). This all means that while it is among the most desired missing stories it is also among the least likely to be recovered, although viewing copies were sent to Australia so there is a tantalising thread of chance that they are still out there. Hope was renewed as recently as 2004 when a third episode was recovered but episode 7 "The Feast Of Steven" was regarded as a Christmas special, bore very little relevance to the story and was excluded from the international sales package so no viewing copy was ever made. Subsequently, when its video recording was among the first scheduled to be wiped in August 67 it was almost certainly lost forever.

While the Daleks were set on conquering the galaxy, the news was full of conflicts on Earth... The white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declared de facto independence of Rhodesia leading to trade embargoes and the breakdown of diplomatic relations and the Monday after the final episode was broadcast the UK ceased all trade. Central African Republic, Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) and Nigeria all suffered political troubles and Tanzania and Guinea severed diplomatic relations with the UK. Meanwhile on the other side of the world things were seriously hotting up in Vietnam as the first major engagement between regular US and North Vietnamese forces began, tens of thousands of protesters picketted the White House, the Pentagon advised President Johnson that his planned actions required four times as many soldiers and Philippines President-elect announced he would also send troops.

In lighter news, Craig Breedlove set a new land speed record (600.601 mph), The Soviet Union launched the Venera 3 space probe which would go on to become the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet (Venus), NASA's Gemini 6 and 7 performed the first space craft rendezvous (this should have been a docking mission but Gemini 6's intended target vehicle failed on launch so Gemini 7 became its replacement and docking was not possible). In Moscow the "glasnost meeting" became the first demonstration for civil rights in the Soviet Union - ignored by Soviet press but picked up by Western media, it became an annual event.

Back in the UK, the Death Penalty was suspended (and permanently abolished in 1969), The Race Relations Act became the first legislation to address racial discrimination, and the 70 mph speed limit was introduced. More importantly for Doctor Who, Mary Whitehouse founded the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association which would go on to criticise the show and thus proved some of its best publicity!

On television, "Camberwick Green" and "Jackanory" both débuted while cinemas were showing the likes of The Cincinnati Kid, Thunderball, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold featuring Claire Bloom (who would go on to appear as The Woman voting against Rassilon's plans to free the Time Lords in The End Of Time) and the music charts were again dominated by the Beatles, this time with double A "Day Tripper" / "We Can Work It Out"

017 - The Time Meddler

Broadcast:

3^rd - 24^th July 1965

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Vicki, Steven

Adversary:

Meddling Monk

Written by:

Dennis Spooner

Director:

Douglas Camfield

Music:

Stock, Charles Botterill

Script Editor:

Donald Tosh

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

8.43m (8.9, 8.8, 7.7, 8.3)

Summary: England in 1066 has a well established place in most British citizens' knowledge and it is not a place for gramophones and electric toasters so something is clearly wrong! The Doctor must discover what is going on before he can set things right and there is only one possible cause... could it be that he is not the only time traveller there?

Although loved by those involved and often picked as their favourites, the historical stories had never gone down particularly well with viewers who would rather skip on to the next science fantasy of the future and preferably see the Daleks again. It had been a tradition and indeed a stated intention to alternate between historical fact and science fantasy to balance entertainment and education but times were changing. The Romans had quite successfully added humour into the mix and The Time Meddler was about to throw fantasy into a history story a well... with a mixed reception, but setting up a whole world of possibilities for the series as producer Very Lambert released the reins.

Science fact was taking a more prominent role on television as well with "Tomorrow's World" beginning on BBC1 during The Time Meddler run and Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to bring us pictures of Mars as it made a fly-by. In more Earthly news, the Mont Blanc tunnel was inaugurated, Ronald Biggs (Great Train Robber) escaped from Wandsworth Prison and US aircraft were attacked and one shot down over Vietnam for the first time. Meanwhile The Beatles received a record five Ivor Novello Awards and former Boxing champ Freddie Mills was found shot on the day episode 4 was broadcast - he was declared dead the following day and while exact motives remain uncertain, the verdict was suicide.

As Summer rolled out there was plenty of choice in the cinemas including British film Rotten to the Core, The Art of Love, and Tickle Me starring Elvis Presley who also topped the music charts with "Crying in the Chapel" - swapping back and forth with The Hollies's "I'm Alive" and ultimately replaced by The Byrds "Mr. Tambourine Man". Against that background, Doctor Who was about to conclude its second series but William Hartnell still managed to get a week off!

014 - The Crusade

Broadcast:

27^th March - 17^th April 1965

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Vicki

Adversary:

El Akir - A rogue Saracen

Written by:

David Whitaker

Director:

Douglas Camfield

Music:

Dudley Simpson

Script Editor:

Dennis Spooner

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

9.38m (10.5, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5)

Summary: The travellers find themselves in 12th century Palestine and get caught in the crossfire of the Third Crusade. Barbara is captured by a Saracen so the rest try to ally themselves with Richard The Lionheart to save her.

Doctor Who was on its first period of decline and despite modern opinions being favourable The Crusade would be the least welcomed serial for twelve months (based on average Audience Appreciation figures). The appreciation index average dropped below 50% for the first time and viewing figures went below 10m for the first time since Planet Of Giants at the start of the series - though they were still higher than the bulk of the previous series. The boost provided by the return of the Daleks had subsided and the show was set to remain at its current level for the rest of the year until part way through the third series. The Crusade was a solid history piece with the TARDIS and its passengers laid on top. With few exceptions, David Whitaker wrote both the Christians and Muslims fairly and the only sense of enemy for the viewer comes from the fact that Barbara is taken early on. This coupled with the audio-only presentation of episodes 2 and 4 on the "Lost In Time" DVD set made for quite a dull first viewing 10 years go but the Loose Canon reconstruction breathed some life back into it...

Viewers watching the original broadcast would have done so with the knowledge that NASA had launched their first 2 man orbiter, the Intelsat "Early Bird" became the first commercial communications satellite (though it wouldn't come into service for a couple more months) and protests of the time included a third civil rights march to Alabama with a crowd of 3200 growing to 25,00 over a four day period and the same number of students protested against the Vietnam War. The pop charts handed the Number One spot over from The Rolling Stones to Unit 4 + 2 with "Concrete and Clay" and then Cliff Richard's "The Minute You're Gone". Cinemas were screening The Sound of Music, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Masquerade, while Morcombe And Wise were The Intelligence Men. Anyone wanting to stay in on Wednesdays could now tune in to antiques gameshow "Going For A Song" which started the week after episode one...

009 - Planet Of Giants

Broadcast:

31^sd October - 14^th November 1964

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Susan

Adversary:

Size

Written by:

Louis Marks

Director:

Mervyn Pinfield, Douglas Camfield

Music:

Dudley Simpson

Script Editor:

David Whitaker

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

8.57m (8.4, 8.4, 8.9)

Summary: When you're only an inch tall, the whole world is against you but when chemicals, murder and corruption are added to the mix is there any way of making everything right?

Because Planet Of Giants was the opening story of Doctor Who's second season it gained the dubious honour of being the first three part story, something that wouldn't happen again until Delta And The Bannermen in 1987 when the show was being crippled out of existence. You could argue that An Unearthly Child was in fact comprised of a single episode story and a three episode story, since there were no story titles applied at this time, only episode titles, but the official records show it as a single four episode story because that is how it was produced. Interestingly though, that opening story was original intended to develop into an adventure featuring the main characters being reduced to a tiny size and experiencing all manner of problem in a class room... The idea was deemed impractical and was shelved in favour of the caveman story but the idea was still something that the production team were keen to use and so here it was almost a year later opening the second season instead (with some detail changes and a new story) Something else that Planet Of Giants has in common with An Unearthly Child is that it too was actually produced as a four episode story. However, it was decided that although it was a good story and would normally have been acceptable, as it was to be the season opener it needed a bit more punch or a bit less flab. Consequently episodes three and four were cut down and edited into one giving it another dubious honour - that of being the longest episode so far (and I dare say it kept that record, though I have yet to prove this). Excluding titles and credits it is already over 25 minutes rather than the average 23. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

After The Reign Of Terror, Doctor Who went off air for six weeks (although production had continued and wouldn't rest for a few more months) and a lot had happened that is worth noting... The Sun newspaper had started publication, Malta and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) obtained independence from the UK, the Warren Commission published the first official investigation into Kennedy's death, and the Shinkansen rail system (otherwise known as the Bullet Train) became the world's first high-seed railway in Japan in readiness for the Tokyo Olympic Games where Great Britain won 4 Gold, 12 Silver, and 2 Bronze (12 of the 18, including all 4 golds were in Athletics). The Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1, the first multi-person spacecraft and the first without space suits, while Martin Luther King Jr became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Similarly, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin became the first British Woman to win the prize for Chemistry (for determining structures of biochemical substances through the use of X-Rays). Parliamentary elections in the UK saw the Labour Party gain control of the country from the Conservatives after 13 years and Harold Wilson, the new Prime Minister, created the Secretary of State for Wales which would become the Welsh Office and ultimately lead to the National Assembly For Wales the next time Labour came to power in 1997 - I mention this here because the revived Doctor Who is made in Cardiff by BBC Wales. Oh and on the other side of the Atlantic, Canada had a new flag!

In music, Pete Townsend destroyed his first guitar (in the name of auto-destructive art), something that would become a regular occurrence, The Rolling Stones made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Kinks released their first album and Dr. Robert Moog demonstrates the prototype Moog synthesizer - paving the way for much over-use of synthesizer music in the 1980s (Keff McCulloch, I'm looking at you) Topping the Charts were Herman's Hermits "I'm Into Something Good", Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman" and Sandie Shaw's "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me" (Orbison would return to the top during Planet Of Giants) while in the cinemas were Goldfinger, The Gorgon featuring future Doctors Peter Cushing and Patrick Troughton and The Black Torment also featuring Patrick Troughton. During the stories broadcast, the House Of Commons voted to abolish the death penalty for murder and ITV started daily broadcasts of soap opera "Crossroads" which would run until 1988, so starting a year after Doctor Who and ending two years before (it would also see its own revival in the new millennium running from 2001 to 2003, two years before Doctor Who returned)