It Was All Going So Well - Planet of the Daleks

I think I've figured out why Frontier in Space was included in the list of recommendations I built this whole enterprise out of. It’s counterpart isn’t that good.

In one aspect Planet of the Daleks is great. A return of Dalek vs Thal, with the other Skaro natives now from the future no less, with early space travel and trying to put a stop to a big Dalek plan. Clearly it’s another riff on the the original serial with a few tweaks here and there. Which can be done well. But the execution is pretty awful.

There's a War Coming - Frontier in Space

I’m not sure what I expected here. I knew the next serial hinged on Frontier in Space. No one recommended it, so I figured a pretty shaky story just to get to some Dalek action. Instead we get a 70’s sci-fi version of 24, by which I mean lots of political intrigue, war brewing and some casual torture thrown around.

It’s utterly brilliant and unexpected.

Back to Three - Carnival of Monsters

Yes, we are back with Pertwee. As much as I’m enjoying Baker and Leela, and had intended to stick with her for her entire run, I hit a bit of a hitch. See I’m way ahead on my audio listening. I’ve actually nearly finished Charley’s time with Six, nevermind Eight, and one of the last audios in that series has connections to “Frontier in Space”.

So in order to keep Charley on track, I’m derailing Leela. Besides Weng Chiang was not only the end of that particular season, but the end of Hinchcliffe’s time as Producer. I’d already earmarked it as point of a potential Doctor switch before I settled on my schedule. With the added audio wrinkle, well, on with Pertwee!

Casual British Racism - The Talons of Weng Chiang

The Talons of Weng Chiang is one of those big named serials that I've been looking forward to for a long time. Not only is it generally held up as one of the best, Big Finish hang a lot off of it, including Jago and Litefoot getting their own long running series.

It’s, erm, it’s a bit racist.

The Penis Shaped Alien isn't the Monster? - Curse of Peladon

So after two seasons of Earth/UNIT based stories, we're just giving up on them? Not that I mind, but I expected some decent to address it. At least Day of the Daleks excused it's time travel with it being Dalek technology. Here we just have the Doctor announcing the TARDIS is repaired. It seems a little anti-climatic.

Fair enough, at the end we're told that it was likely the Time Lords doing, but it comes across as bolted on. Like a traditional Doctor Who script was written and at the end someone realised they had to explain how Jo and the Doctor are here.

The Big Finale, after the other Big Explosive entry - Zagreus

Zagreus is... is not what I expected. After the epic that was “Sirens of Time” that started Big Finish, I expected their 50th audio drama celebration to match. Especially as they were now bringing in McGann so we had Doctors Five through Eight all together.

Except we don't. We have Eight and the TARDIS mad with Anti-Time power, calling themselves Zagreus with Charley somehow meant to stop them. So the TARDIS guides her, around time and space trying to understand the mystery of the name, with a rather interesting way of presenting those histories.

On one level it's a mid-season episode. A fun diversion taking place almost entirely in the TARDIS, dealing with the repercussions of the explosive finale of “Neverland”, and bathing in Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland.

But at the same time the whole thing is fan-wank at its height. Or it's a celebration of everything Who. Your Mileage might vary on that one.

Back to Earth,One Last Time - Mind of Evil

Finally, after Big Finish eventually managed to get my spirits back up about Doctor Who I dived into what would be me final Pertwee for a while. When I left Hartnell along with Susan I said I would venture up to the previously watched The Daemons before heading back. Now we're there, and I'm not. I'm going to keep jumping forward.

Unlike the previous skip, this one is more out of necessity then choice, and far larger. This time I'm jumping all the way towards the end of Tom Baker's time as the Doctor, to where Romana II debuted. This is because of the other side of Who I'm writing about, the Big Finish audio adventures. Romana's regeneration is slightly earlier than I need to go, but like I used the previous jump to connect disparate viewings of War Games and The Daemons, I'm doing the same here, tying in the brilliant City of Death. I'm also going to watch the Four/Five Regeneration, because they were the main reason I started my second jaunt through Time and Space.

But anyway, The Mind of Evil. Thank God we get to finish on a high.

The Doctor gets his Doctor Doom - Terror of the Autons

We start the second series with Pertwee in the main role with the same bad guy as the first, The Autons. This would strike me as a really odd decision except they've added Master, who sees his debut here and proceeds to be the bad guy for the entire season.

We also meet Jo Grant, the Doctor's new companion after Liz Shaw's one and only series. Liz is not even given a decent goodbye, but is written out between seasons because she went back to Cambridge. But at least the Brigadier gets the decent line of “what you need, Doctor, as Miss Shaw herself so often remarked, is someone to pass you your test tubes, and to tell you how brilliant you are.”

Doctor Who burns up in Inferno

After a full season of Earth based, UNIT centric episodes I have to say, I'm not a fan. I don't mind the occasional visit to our own planet, The Troughton episode Invasion - which gave so much to this era of the show - was great, but after three stories I was ready to go somewhere else, never mind after the fourth.

Yes I know. I'm almost contradicting everything I said at the end of The Ambassadors of Death, but Inferno was everything that was wrong with the shift to Earth, and has properly put me off.

The Doctor and the Ambassadors

Last time I wondered how the trapped Doctor coped with Brigadier's destruction of the Silurians. It's the exact antithesis of how the Doctor operates, and under normal circumstances he wouldn't stand for it. As this serial opens not only is he trying to fix the TARDIS so he can do his usual of running away, but he's not happy with The Brig either, coming across outwardly hostile as Liz brings him up. That this comes after some rather awkwardly acted comic relief is weird, and it is soon forgotten as they throw themselves into the case of the missing astronauts by Mars.

But then it could be argued that unlike normal circumstances where the Doctor announces his displeasure at such an act and then departs, he's having to learn to live with it. He can't do his usual tactic of legging it, and like a normal person he is forced to interact with The Brigadier due to their job. That he then discovers that The Brig isn't the monster that one act made it seem, but the same person he came to respect. Yes, he did commit the act of atrocity against the Silurians, and it is something to keep in mind, but it doesn't change the character completely.

The Silurians - Somehow the Doctor forgives genocide

With the new Doctor fully introduced, and now joined UNIT we step into an adventure he can get his teeth into right from the very beginning. The Silurians is also one of those stories a lot of people talk about as being monumental to the history of the show. Also I love the redesign and reintroduction to them in New Who, so I've been looking forward to this.

Technically I think this falls somewhere in my earliest watching of Doctor Who. In the late 90s BBC2 started showing Pertwee episodes, I missed a bunch of them, but I think I caught a few of Spearhead, and a few from this serial. However, I can't remember any of it. So it's also a nice little flagpole moment for me.

Spearhead From Space: It's a whole new Who era

When we watched The Daemons last year, the guy who organised the 50th lookback argued that it felt like this was where Doctor Who became a much more modern programme. Despite the change to colour I disagreed. Having now watched Jon Pertwee's entrance, I can totally see where he's coming from.

It feels like it's moving a hell of a lot quicker, though compared to Troughton I'm not sure that's true, it just gives the impression that things are pretty swift these days and there's a lot of moving parts that slowly intertwine to form what is a bloody good debut for a Doctor.

Doctor Who turns 50 part 5.5: The Five Doctors

The second multi-Doctor serial to celebrate the franchises 20th Anniversary. Obviously it stars all previous incarnations of the Doctor and some of their companions. However, that's a bit of a lie. Tom Baker is at the start and is quickly brushed out the way, and William Hartnell is replaced by another actor, sadly due to the former's death.

Once again, the anniversary concentrates on the Time Lords, this time revealing Rassilon as the man who made the Time Lords who they are today. I like that these anniversary episodes always choose to deal with the big things. However, once again they feel like a totally different version to what we saw in War Games and The Three Doctors. This truncated watching is makes things very odd. That said, between this and War Games there lies the version we've seen in modern day, so clearly there's a point where their portrayal had a solid base for reinterpretation.

Doctor Who turn 50 part 3.5: The Three Doctors

Yes, I'm going outside the boundaries of our one serial a Doctor rule to include the serial with multiple Doctors. Look we discussed last time I'm struggling to not watch more, and these episodes have always intrigued me. Besides, it fits with the 50th having Ten and Eleven meeting the mysterious Non-Doctor.

Here we have the whole universe at stake and some high up Time Lords decide to break their own rules and let The Doctor team up with his previous selves. Troughton's more than solidified as awesome here, and the interplay between him and Pertwee is amazing. Shame Hartnell is banished to a TV screen, but even there it's clear he's a lot older. The Time Lords felt a little odd compared not only to what we know today, but also what we saw in War Games.

Doctor Who turns 50 part 3: The Daemons

Jon Pertwee's entry in my look book. Pertwee is the closest I get to having my own Doctor of the old cast having watched bits of Spearhead from Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians back when I was a kid.

However, watching this – and understanding his exile this time – Three seems like a total dick. He's short with everyone. Certainly my least favourite of the Doctors so far, which is odd, cos I vaguely remember liking him when I watched Spearhead a decade or so ago. I do like the idea that he's just pissed off about being stuck on Earth though.