The Doctor, attempting to locate his missing episodes.

THE SECOND DOCTOR: PATRICK TROUGHTON

Tenure:  Seasons 4-6 (1966-1969)

Something really weird happened on the 29th of October 1966. Dr. Who, the elderly time-traveling gentleman, returns to his TARDIS and promptly collapses on the floor. His battle with the Cybermen has proven too much for him, this time and he...dies. By the time his companions Ben and Polly get back to the Ship, they see his face morphing into somebody else. Minutes later, this new fella would take them all to planet Vulcan and battle Daleks once again. Dr. Who has died and yet the show would go on. How could that be?

By 1966, William Hartnell (aka Dr. Who) had become increasingly and relentlessly difficult to work with. His battles with producers John Wiles and Innes Lloyd resulted in a tense working atmosphere and, clearly, something had to give. This turned out to be Hartnell himself. In June 1966, it was agreed that he would leave the show at the beginning of its fourth season. His replacement was character actor Patrick Troughton, a choice Hartnell was apparently happy with. Troughton was very reluctant at first, but he eventually came around.

The production team spent most of the fourth season to find their feet, until a serial called The Moonbase pointed to the future. In this, an international moonbase (no, really!!! By the title alone I would never have guessed) is being attacked by the returning Cybermen. The base-under-siege format was born and systematically used for the next season.

One of the selling points for Troughton was that he wouldn't have to mimic Hartnell's portrayal of Dr. Who. Instead, he would craft his own persona out of the deceased Time Lord. And that he did. The new Doctor would behave sometimes foolishly, sometimes idiotically and even, dare I say, sometimes crazily yet most of it was a smokescreen. This Doctor would often stand on the sidelines, mentally playing chess with his adversaries until the very last moment when he would jump right in and defeat the baddies with a last-minute, improvised feat of derring-do. By his own admission, the Doctor's technique was "keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut".

In his final season, the new Doctor would face more varied settings in time and space. Most importantly he would meet with two important components of later eras of the programme: In The Invasion the Doctor team up with the Brigadier and UNIT for the first time, while The War Games has him put on trial by his own people, the Time Lords, revealed once and for all. At this point, the new boy made his mark and his return in The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors cemented his reputation among fans.

ASSESSMENT: Unfortunately, the Troughton era remains decimated by the Missing Episodes debacle. Meaning that many of his stories are incomplete or entirely absent from the roll-call. Nevertheless what is there offers a tantalising glimpse of psychedelic Who at its best with Troughton having the time of his life as the mischievous, impish and incorrigible Time Lord. True, the base-under-siege format got old pretty fast, however note that they only used it extensively during the fifth season.

FAVOURITE STORIES:

• The Tomb of the Cybermen (It's like this old Mummy movie set in outer-space with Cybermen instead of mummies. Notable for its serious body-count and for the fact that, hadn't the Doctor been there, none of this would have happened.)
• The Seeds of Death (What's with the Moon, people? After Cybermen, the Ice Warriors have a go at it as they intend on using the teleportation relay to send poisonous fungus to destroy Earth's atmosphere. Famous for the Doctor frolicking in deadly foam.)
• The War Games (The second longest Doctor Who serial and probably one of the most important. Aliens are using Earth soldiers to "participate" in deadly war games and the Doctor has to call in the Time Lords to sort it all out, something he is clearly not happy with.)

LEAST FAVOURITE STORIES:

• The Dominators (If you like to watch gay couples arguing over their pet toy robots, this is the one for you. Otherwise, you're liable to see old men in ridiculous togas getting tortured and killed by said gay couple. Be warned.)
• The Underwater Menace (It's been said before, but I'll say it again: it really looks like an Ed Wood movie with the Doctor in it. As hilarious as it might seem.)
• The Abominable Snowmen (It's tough judging this from a single episode, however the Yetis are too cute to be really threatening. And they got fat asses too.)

PSYCHEDELIC BREAKFAST #9

Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplace
1967 

White Rabbit
(Grace Slick)

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call to
Call Alice
When she was just small

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving
low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the doormouse said;
"Feed YOUR HEAD...
Feed your head"

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

1954

Remember Nigel Kneale and Rudolph Cartier? They were the ones responsible for The Quatermass Experiment a year before, and so they teamed up again to bring forth this version of George Orwell's seminal post-war novel.

The novel itself was quite recent when this was filmed, and the 1950s saw a no less than three productions adapting the work. This one, an American adaptation for CBS' Westinghouse Studio One done a year before and another American film adaptation in 1956.

Peter Cushing (now, do I really need to introduce him?) plays Winston Smith, the Party member who sees behind the huge Party propaganda machine and eventually enters an illegal love affair with fellow Party member Julia (played by Yvonne Mitchell). It also features André Morell as O'Brien (Winston's friendly torturer) and Donald Pleasence as Smith's friend Syme. Incidentally, Morell would go on to play the lead  in the third Quatermass serial Quatermass and the Pit (which we will examine later on).

The fact that this is live television is most remarkable, and Rudolph Cartier was already a BBC wonderboy for his ability to present a live, televised play to the masses (or is that Party Members?). Even more remarkable is that they did it twice. Once on December 12, 1954 and another time on December 16. Both were live, so they literally did it again with the same sets, costumes, cast and so on. Only the second performance exists in the BBC archives.

Of course, it all looks so "stagey" today, but that's mainly because it was, for all intents and purposes, a filmed play. This sort of BBC way of doing things will loom large in years to come. For my parts, the starkness (and somewhat futuristic) aspects of it fits very well with Orwell's initial vision. The pristine yet functional aspects of the Ministry of Truth (where Winston Smith works) is contrasted with the run-down almost post-apocalyptic feel of London. The teleplay overtly states that the revolutions were brought down by widespread nuclear war in the aftermath of WWII (a detail hinted at but not specifically stated in the novel).

Back in the day, this would have hit right at home with the very real run-down aspects of post-war Britain, who won the war but lost just about everything else. Even more so when Orwell wrote it. One of the major themes of the novel is the culture of deprivation brought on by Party ruler-ship. In Oceania, everything is either on shortage or entirely absent. One of the avowed goals of the Party is to keep everyone in abject poverty. The culture of abundance manifested in post-war America is not only completely absent here, but the Party makes sure that the very notion of abundance has been abolished. There is a definite collusion with rationing post-war Britain, and the rationing of Oceania. The Party is able to exploit the anger and resentment of the people into war-frenzy (the very war which is responsible for the rationing in the first place).

The whole thing seemed to have sent Britain into some kind of a turmoil. According to Cushing's  memoirs, this was the first time someone was seen to be tortured on TV, no doubt bringing the general public unpleasant memories of their Boys being similarly treated in Japanese and German prisoners' camps. Even the government took notice, as there were motions proposed in Parliament to cull down the more sensationalistic aspects of television productions. In fact, Parliament actually voted if they would allow a second performance (the vote was very narrowly won in favour, fortunate since the first performance was not filmed. Therefore we should thank the UK government for our sheer ability to watch this nearly sixty years later).

This was Peter Cushing's first major part. Later in the decade his career would take off with him playing two very different kinds of medical practitioners.

The Doctor calmly ponders which is worse:  
The Monster of Peladon or The Time Monster?

THE THIRD DOCTOR: JON PERTWEE

Tenure: Seasons 7-11 (1970-1974)

I must admit, rewriting the Doctor as an action-adventure hero was a ballsy move. Thank God Pertwee was more than up to the task. Why shoudn't he? after all the whole schtick was his idea. 

The Third Doctor era is sandwiched between the last gasp of black and white Who, and the ever-so-popular Tom Baker. In that respect its surprising Pertwee's time as the Doctor is remembered at all. And yet, his time broke new grounds for the show, and very important ones as well. First of all, it was done in colour for the first time. Secondly, the Doctor was now making house calls with UNIT. Thirdly, the Master rounded up the team of technicolor misfits making the programme, infusing it with sometimes inelegant, sometimes silly-as-hell and yet heartfelt social comments.

As Robert Sloman once said, the idea that big business is evil and wants to pollute/destroy the environment with an unhealthy dose of corruption is old hat now, yet in the early seventies that type of story was only coming to the fore. Beforehand, Doctor Who tackled this big issues in layers and layers of allegory. All it took was an aristcratic Venusian-karate expert dandy, his stiff-upper-lip military loony friend and his ditzy hot-pants clad assistant to make the point as plain as the nose of your face.

The years from 1970 to 1974 were gaudy, as only early seventies TV can be gaudy. And we love 'em for it. If you're watching something from, say, 1972, then by Jove it better looks, talks and acts like it's from 1972. The Third Doctor was fun, even if he did overstay his welcome a bit (...a bit).

Yes, some of it was embarrassing, some of it was a tad overlong (oh, those long-forgotten six parters) and some of it was just plain crazy. Yet if you were young in 1971, there's a good chance you were somewhat embarrassing, overlong and crazy too (time to look back at those old photo albums).

ASSESSMENT:  If you like the idea of the Doctor insulting everyone within a mile, you're going to love this. Overall the Third Doctor made his mark, and his style is as peculiar, personal and unique as his predecessors and successors. Some of it has indeed dated badly, but so has other stuff before and after. Plus, his main title sequence is the most exciting yet and has not been improved ever since. And no missing episodes this time around.

FAVOURITE STORIES:

• Doctor Who and the Silurians  (Shows everyone why bringing the Doctor back to Earth was a good idea. A complex script with complex issues making no excuses and taking no prisoners. From the people who brought to you Season Seven)
• The Claws of Axos  (Yeah, Doctor Who goes psychedelic in this acid-drenched tale of Greeks bearing gifts, complete with phallic and vaginal metaphors, bureaucratic hassles for the Doctor and the Master for good measure)
• Inferno (Ever wondered what would happen if your friends turned against you overnight. The Doctor finds out in the most brutal way possible all the while trying to prevent the end of the world. He doesn't, by the way)

LEAST FAVOURITE STORIES
  

• Invasion of the Dinosaurs  (Imagine if Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park as a home movie with his kids. My god, Mr. Letts, if you can't afford dinosaurs on Doctor Who, then please please please don't put dinosaurs in it. Think of the neighbours)
• The Daemons  (In music, it sometimes happen that your favorite album by someone is their least favorite work. This is the reverse, as everyone who worked on it found it smashing, but then they didn't have to watch it, did they. A case of a very good ideas falling flat on their backs)
• Day of the Daleks  (Yes, the Daleks return after a six-years absence. The premise is oversimplistic, and the supposedly "clever" twist is actually the first time travel cliché in the book. Fair, but disappointing)

THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT

1953


"Seminal" and "highly influencial" are two terms that are often associated with this grandaddy of all British sci-fi serials. Written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Rudolph Cartier, The Quatermass Experiment sets the tone of pretty much everything the BBC will dish out to unsuspecting viewers for the next ten years or so.

I have heard about it for years, regularly mentioned in sci-fi magazines the world over and yet I never got down to watch it until a few days ago. However, only the first and second episodes of this six-part serials still exist and so we are deprived of the grand finale when the unfortunate Victor Carroon, turned into an alien vegetable during an ill-fated space mission, is tracked down and killed in Westminster Abbey.

The first episode mainly consists of Pr. Quatermass and his team sitting in a room, talking over the phone and wondering exactly where the hell is their space capsule gone. Due to technical and budgetary restraints (as was the custom, the whole thing was broadcast live) The Quatermass Experiment tells a lot without showing. The second episode adds a cold-war plot as astronaut Carroon is kidnapped by foreign agents.

I really don't know what to make of all this. The problem about these oh-so influential programs from the past is the sense of expectation that develops over the years. I half-expected to watch a forgotten masterpiece of terror and alien invasion, and what I saw was dated production values, a snail-paced plot and the fact that we never see anything remotely exiting.

Still, it was fun to finally see for myself what others have been talking about for years. However, I really shouldn't dismiss this right away. The public at the time seems to have caught on, and Quatermass would return twice before the decade was over. Oh, and Hammer films did a movie version which I intend to track down and watch, so more about that later. 

PSYCHEDELIC BREAKFAST #8

 Space Ritual Live
Hawkwind
1973

Master of the Universe
(Nik Turner, Dave Brock) 

 I am the centre of this universe
The wind of time is blowing through me
And it's all moving relative to me,
It's all a figment of my mind
In a world that I've designed
I'm charged with cosmic energy
Has the world gone mad or is it me?

I am the creator of this universe
And all that it was meant to be
So that we might learn to see
This foolishness that lives in us
And stupidity that we must suss
How to banish from our minds
If you call this living I must be blind.

Lyrics taken from http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/h/hawkwind/master_of_the_universe.html

The Doctor, wondering why I don't
like him as much as everyone else does

THE FOURTH DOCTOR : TOM BAKER

Tenure : Seasons 12 to 18 (1974-1981)

Before the advent of the new series, Tom Baker's position as the most popular, most iconic and most everything Doctor was unassailable. Yet, saying that is like saying the Beatles are the best rock band ever. And more to the point, people got tired of listening to the Beatles (even though they still respected the band's achievements). So, when David Tennant came along he became the current "iconic Doctor" mostly for people who had never watched the original series, or hadn't in quite some time.

Remember, Baker was the Doctor who sold Doctor Who in America. Jon Pertwee (Baker's immediate predecessor) was given a chance, but he didn't break the market, Baker did. When American fans embraced the show, Tom Baker became the Once and Future Doctor. As many others have said, he quickly made you forget his predecessors and made his successors irrelevant. That is why having the Fourth Doctor in a multiple Doctors story wouldn't work. I mean, there were frictions between Pertwee and Patrick Troughton when they did The Three Doctors, can you imagine what would've happened if Baker had done The Five Doctors? His ego alone would have blasted anybody else in the fourth dimension or something.

In the greater scheme of Doctor Who, this is a bad thing. The show always thrived on change, and once it was accepted that the lead actor could be replaced, then any incoming Doctor knew that his time on the show was counted. Even by design (Pat Troughton said from the get-go he wouldn't be doing this forever when he replaced William Hartnell, Peter Davison also stated he wasn't going to break any records and so on and so forth...). But not Baker. First of all he stayed for seven seasons, a record that is still not beaten to this day and is unlikely to be in the future. Secondly, his Doctor being a success, the incentive to leave was less and less apparent as time went by. Finally, unlike Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee, Baker's career prior to winning the part wasn't anything to write home about. Hell, he was working as part of a construction crew when he landed the part. Surely his career wasn't going on too well at the time. So, almost overnight, Baker went from "Tom who?" to "Doctor Who!!!" beloved by children everywhere. In that sort of set up, would you have left? And Baker left only reluctantly, due to conflicts with new-Who producer John Nathan-Turner.

On the other hand, waddyagonnado? Tom Baker was here, is here and will be here. He is unavoidable and inescapable. You can avoid his seasons if you wish, but you can't pretend it never happened as it has consequences for the rest of the programme's history.

ASSESSMENT: I only said I was tired of people calling him the best of everything, not that I didn't like him. It's just that, overall, he's a bit like the Rolling Stones : he's gone on for far too long, and the quality of his stories suffered as a result. Had he left after Season 14, he would have become the undisputed King of the Universe. And he isn't the only good Doctor around, as we shall see.

FAVORITE STORIES:

• Pyramids of Mars (The Doctor vs. Suthek the Destroyer, perhaps the only time during Baker's run that his Doctor looks a bit worried. An absolute classic)
• Genesis of the Daleks (Another well-written classic by Dalek creator Terry Nation. The Doctor tries to erase twelve years of Dalek continuity to no avail, and creates a new one in the process)
• Terror of the Zygons (The Zygons, who will be returning very soon, are the most perverse alien beings ever created for the show, and it's time for the Doctor to say goodbye to UNIT)

LEAST FAVORITE:

• The Android Invasion (Terry Nation decides to waste everybody's time for four episode. A very good argument for anyone who thinks Doctor Who is boring old shit)
• The Masque of Mandragora (Although respected in some quarters, this story never did anything for me. Sorry, but I must prefer to watch paint dry, thank you very much)
• The Robots of Death (Explain to me, Mr. Doctor sir, why I should like this story if I never liked Agatha flippin' Christie? Can you? Not bad, per se, but no great shakes either)