Bohemian Like You

Tom Baker (1974-1981)

'I'm a Time Lord...I'm not a human being; I walk in eternity...'

-The Fourth Doctor, Pyramids of Mars 1975

After the dandy action hero got on the bad side of the spiders, a plot was set for the newest incarnation of the renegade Time Lord.

When Jon Pertwee announced he was leaving, fans became worried that nobody could replace their hero but they were wrong. Terribly so. After all, who knew that the next one would become the most popular and most loved of them all. Even though all of the Doctors' before him had a certain something, certain flair and personality, none were as charismatic and loved as the Fourth Doctor.

Tom Baker, a former monk from Liverpool was working on a building site when his agent called him to audition for the newest Doctor. Baker said on the Hand of Fear DVD documentary that he visited one of those fortune telller's before going in for the audition.

She said he would never be succesful and never ammount to anything. She was later called a sharlatan of course.

So the producer loved him as well as Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith) and Ian Marter (Lt. Surgeon Harry Sullivan), who later befriended him and formed a very close circle. You can see the real chemistry, friendship and closeness they portrayed on screen.

The Fourth Doctor, was quite different than the previous incarnation. In fact he was so different that you could really imagine him being an alien and not an Edwardian old man, a Beatles' wannabe or a dandy acton hero. He really acted as an alien and you could see it in his behaviour and the way he acted around Humans and other aliens.

He can be characterized as a more alien-like Doctor, quirky, cunning, quite funny at times (usally using humor as a device to fool his enemies) and later even brooding and dark. He dressed differently as well. Instead of frilly, dandy sixties wear he wore battered ones: a hat, an old scruffy coat and a very long multi-colored scarf which later became his trademark.

He had a lot of companions, some of which are still considered one of the best.
The first one - who even saw him regenerate into his fourth incarnation - was an investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith. She is still one of the most popular companions, though there are others who liked good-natured Doctor Harry Sullivan, or the attractive Sevateem warrior Leela, or his compatriot Time Lady Romana (Romanadvoratrelundar or Fred as the Doctor wanted to call her) and her second incarnation Romana II and let's not forget the mobile computer robotic dog K-9 who is popular even today.

Tom Baker stepped into the role of the Doctor in December 1974 and left quite dramatically in Logopolis in March 1981. He later returned for the Children in Need Special: Dimensions in Time in Novemeber 1993. He will also be remembered as the longest-running Doctor in the series with his seven-year reign.


The Fourth Doctor episodes titles are as follows:


Season 12 (1974-1975)


-Robot
-The Ark in Space
-The Sontaran Experiment
-Genesis of the Daleks
-Revenge of the Cybermen

Season 13 (1975-1976)


-Terror of the Zygons
-Planet of Evil
-Pyramids of Mars
-The Android Invasion
-The Brain of Morbius
-The Seeds od Doom

Season 14 (1976-1977)


-The Masque of Mandragora
-The Hand of Fear
-The Deadly Assassin
-The Face of Evil
-The Robots of Death
-The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Season 15 (1977-1978)


-Horror of Fang Rock
-The Invisible Enemy
-Image of the Fendahl
-The Sunmakers
-Underworld
-The Invasion of Time

Season 16 (1978-1979)


-The Ribos Operation
-The Pirate Planet
-The Stones of Blood
-The Androids of Tara
-The Power of Kroll
-The Armageddon Factor

Season 17 (1979-1980)


-Destiny of the Daleks
-City of Death
-The Creature from the Pit
-Nightmare of Eden
-The Horns of Nimon
-Shada


Season 18 (1980-1981)


-The Leasure Hive
-Meglos

The E-Space Trillogy:

-Full Circle
-State of Decay
-Warrior's Gate

-The Keeper of Traken
-Logopolis



“It's the end but the moment has been prepared for...”

-The Fourth Doctor's final words before regeneration in Logopolis

The Dandy and Classy: Years of UNIT

Jon Pertwee (1970-1974)

'What's wrong with being childish? I like being childish.'

-The Third Doctor, Terror of the Autons

I think that after seeing and hearing about Torchwood as another ‘secret’ organisation this season and especially in the latest episodes, it’s quite appropriate that the ‘first and foremost’ one—UNIT should have a mention.

First of all we have to note that the start of the Pertwee era saw a number of changes to Doctor Who's format; meaning more of the longer episodic formats and for the first time the serial was to be made in colour. The production team didn’t care that most of the audience didn’t own a colour TV.

It would of course be years before people aquired them but it was revolutionary on the Doctor’s scale, so it doesn’t really matter, if you saw him in black and white or in nice flashy colours of the spectrum. They also got an idea to save money by making each episode/serial Earth-bound, or set on at the time modern-day Earth, also featuring several recurring characters, as well as villains and monsters. And his era also marked the appearance of the first recurring villain, another renegade Time Lord who called himself The Master.

Given all this change, they thought that Season Seven was the perfect time to retarget the serial away from very young children and more toward teenagers and even adults. As a result, it became a more mature, adventure programme with heavier doses of horror and violence.

As a veteran comedy actor, Pertwee knew the right dose for entertainment of the masses, as well as when too much is too much.
He also brought a certain sense of class and manner to the character, as well as distinct flamboyant air about him. He also brought new ideas to the series; he was sort of a visionary and perhaps even a psychic as to the wishes of the public.
Unlike Hartnell’s Edwardian and Troughton’s ‘clownish-Beatles’ mix of getups, Pertwee had a completely different one, matching his newest personality and style.
He usually wore dandy, swinging-sixties, frilly shirts and a cape, ideas borrowed from the likes of Avengers’ John Steed and James Bond.

His idea was that the Third Doctor should do more with his hands, he should be a man of action; he had his own vintage car named Bessie (and another vehicle in the form of an “ultra-modern” hovercraft, which the public dubbed as ‘Whomobile’), equipped with Bond-like gadgets and worthy of a Time Lord.
He was also characterised as extremely moral, sometimes even bordering on preachy but also a real gentleman at heart. Even though this Doctor wasn’t violent, sometimes, if the situation asked for it, he’d use the mastery of Venusian aikido.

Having been exiled to Earth by the Time Lords as punishment for his meddling, this Doctor grudgingly offered his services as a ‘scientific advisor’ to the pseudo-military, ‘secret’ organisation called UNIT (United Nations’ Intelligence Taskforce), run by his old aquantince and now a Brigadier, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. The UNIT’s task was to investigate and defend the world from extraterrestrail threats.

More on the UNIT and the companions in the upcoming reviews…


Episode titles featuring the Third Doctor are as follows:

Season Seven (1970)

-Spearhead from Space
-Doctor Who and the Silurians
-The Ambassadors of Death
-Inferno


Season Eight (1971)

-Terror of the Autons
-The Mind of Evil
-The Claws of Axos
-Colony in Space
-The Daemons


Season Nine (1972)

-Day of the Daleks
-The Curse of Peladon
-The Sea Devils
-The Mutants
-The Time Monster


Season Ten (1972-1973)

-The Three Doctors
-Carnival of Monsters
-Frontier in Space
-Planet of the Daleks
-The Green Death


Season Eleven (1973-1974)

-The Time Warrior
-Invasion of the Dinosaurs
-Death to the Daleks
-The Monster of Peladon
-Planet of the Spiders



“A tear, Sarah Jane? No, don't cry. While there's life, there's...”

-The Third Doctor’s final words, Planet of the Spiders

The Cosmic Hobo

Patrick Troughton (1966-1969)

"I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy of which human nature is merely a part."
-The Second Doctor, The Evil of the Daleks

In 1966 the producers of Doctor Who went on a search for the perfect replacement for William Hartnell and found it in one of the best character actors at the time, Patrick Troughton. The actor was much younger than Hartnell and brought other novelties to the character of Doctor, such as different clothing, humor and he desposed of the First Doctors tetchyness and echanged it for quirkier antics. Besides his bagy clownish-like pants and 'Beatles' hairdo, Troughton's Second Doctor is also remembered for his recorder—which the actor confirmed was his own—and would be seen playing it in the times of stress.

The Second Doctor era is also considered as the golden age for the monster fans because other than his usual clashes with the Daleks and Cybermen, he also encountered the Yeti (robotic creatures controled by an alien entity), The Ice Warriors (the creatures from Mars that prefered colder climates) and other new monsters and aliens. It was during this time that he first met Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, a military man who would later become the leader of the British contingent of UNIT (United Nation’s Task Force), a military organisation tasked to investigate and defend the world from extraterrestrial threats.


Having had enough with the three seasons, Troughton departed the series in the most epic episode yet, The War Games, which consisted of ten parts and ended with the Second Doctor's regeneration and exile from Gallifrey. His era is also memorable because for the first time the Doctor is revealed to be a Time Lord, which was a race of powerful beings who found the means to control the time and would observe the Universe but never interfiered in its matters.

The Doctor didn't follow the rules and often 'meddled' in the matters of other worlds and that was the reason why he was exiled on Earth by the other conservative Time Lords. He regenereated and was left stranded on his 'favorite' planet without the parts necesary for the TARDIS to materialise.

Most of the episodes from this era sufferered the same unfortunate fate as the Hartnell ones and there are missing parts or even whole stories which were disposed of or lost by the BBC archives. Though thanks to the fan effort, the audio form was gathered and reconstructed episodes were made available to the public.

Episode titles featuring the Second Doctor are as follows:


Season Four (1966-1967)

-The Power of the Daleks
-The Highlanders
-The Underwter Menace
The Moonbase
-The Macra Terror
-The Faceless Ones
-The Evil of the Daleks


Season Five (1967-1968)

-The Tomb of the Cybermen
-The Abominable Snowmen
-The Ice Warriors
-The Enemy of the World
-The Web of Fear
-Fury From the Deep
-The Wheel in Space


Season Six (1968-1969)

-The Dominators
-The Mind Robber
-The Invasion
-The Krotons
-The Seeds of Death
-The Space Pirates
-The War Games

“Jamie, Jamie hold on!”

-The Second Doctor’s final words before regeneration, the War Games.

The Definitive Article

William Hartnell (1963-1966)

"One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."

--The First Doctor in Daleks Invasion Earth, 1964.

William Hartnell will always be remembered as the one who played the first incarnation of the mysterious Time Lord from Gallifrey.
As the Doctor on screen, Hartnell wanted to break away from his usual tough-guy roles he played on screen and on stage. Even though his appearance made him look like a grandfatherly type—a kind and pleasant man—the initial Doctor started out as some sort of an anti-hero. You could see the evidence in the pilot episode The Unearthly Child, when it appeared as if he intended to kill the injured caveman, because he was slowing them down but one of his companions (Ian Chesterton) noticed and managed to stop him on time. Other evidence of his initial nature was evident in episodes such as The Daleks, when the Doctor tended to place his companions in jeopardy just to satisfy his own curiousity.

The stories in the first Doctor era usually went from sci-fi adventure to historical and educational themes. In one episode the Time Lord would encounter the Aztecs and in another he would battle the Cybermen. It was his eventual problems with health that influenced his decidion for retirement from the role that made him a childhood hero of millions of kids and influenced a completelly new generation of sci-fi writers and Doctor Who fans or as they were later dubbed 'Whovians'.

Hartnell played the Doctor for three whole seasons and filmed 30 episodes and some of them were unfortunatelly lost over the years or got rid of by the BBC due to the lack of space in the archives. He also filmed his last two episodes in the fourth season (1966) and ocasionally returned to reprise the role in specials such as the Three Doctors in 1972.

The producers didn't want to end the show, so they came up with a brilliant solution. Soon after the departure of the much loved Hartnell, the crew went to re-cast another actor to play the role. The idea was so inspired because according to them the Doctor as a Time Lord had certain 'powers' or abilities and one of them was the ability to 'regenerate', when his body was tired or mortally wounded but one of the side affects, along with the completely new look, was that they also took on a completelly new persona, or behavior.

This idea was the main ingridient for the series and it is what kept it alive for as long as it did on the TV. Otherwise it would have died along with William Hartnell.

William Hartnell passed away in his sleep on April 23, 1975 at the age of 67. And even though he’s gone for quite a while, the Who universe will always remember his grouchy but in the end kind and protective, grandfatherly time-traveller.


The First Doctor episode titles are as follows:

Season one (1963-1964)

The Pilot Episode:
-An Unearthly Child
-The Daleks
-The Edge of Destruction
-Marco Polo
-The Keys of Marinus
-The Aztecs
-The Sensorites
-The Reign of Terror

Season Two (1964-1965)

-Planet of Giants
-The Dalek Invasion of Earth
-The Rescue
-The Romans
-The Web Planet
-The Crusade
-The Space Museum
-The Chase
-The Time Meddler


Season Three (1965-1966)

-Galaxy 4
-Mission to the Unknown
-The Myth Makers
-The Daleks’ Master Plan
-The Massacre
-The Ark
-The Celestial Toymaker
-The Gunfighters
-The Savages
-The War Machines

Season Four (1966)

-The Smugglers
-The Tenth Planet

“Ah, yes! Thank you. It's good. Keep warm."

-The First Doctor's final words, The Tenth Planet

In the Beginning There Was Who?

This cult series has been around for a long time but when and how did it all start? To answer that question we need to go back to its origins—or to November 23rd 1963, when the British local TV station started broadcasting the adventures of the mysterious time traveller, only known as 'The Doctor'.

It all began—as most things do—with an idea. In the 1950s the Britain was invaded by two new sci-fi series (the first ones at the time) BBC’s Quatermass Experiment and ITV’s Pathfinders in Space, the latter created by a Canadian Sydney Newman.

Then we materialise in the 1962, where we meet up with Mr Newman again, now a Head of BBC Drama and find out that he had a new idea—he needed a new family series to fit in with the other attention grabbers on a Saturday night. He knew what he wanted and a couple of concepts were trown his way, such as telepathy, flying saucers, scientific trouble-shooters from the future and a time machine.
Of course the time machine won and all he had to do next was to decide on the stars of the show. And he didn’t wait long before it was decided that the show will have four main characters and one of which will be more mysterious than the others.

The characters were a a couple of school teachers—known as Ian Chesterton (the intelligent and fit science professor) and Barbara Wright (the noble and brave history professor). Another character—a young student Susan Forman was added into the mix, so that the audience (children and younger adults or teenagers) could identify with her, even if she was an alien. And the last mentioned but the most important character was a mysterious stranger or an anti-hero and he was to be known only as ‘The Doctor’.

His name will later give birth to a question that will be repeated numerous times during the series' long history of broadcasting. Even today in the new series, you’d hear one of the characters ask Doctor Who?

The two teachers followed the Doctor and his grandaughter Susan and travelled with them trough space and time in their ship and time machine called the TARDIS (an abbrevation of the words: Time—And—Relative—Dimensions—In—Space) and even got back to the Earth’s history and the origins of man in the pilot episode The Unearthly Child which was broadcasted the day after JFK’s assassination on 23rd of November 1963.

And the classic show continued to amaze and entertain people until its abrupt cancellation in 1989 but no matter the state it was placed in, it managed to stay alive through other media: comedy spoofs (see The Curse of the Fatal Death), webcasts (Shada, Scream of the Shalka), books (New Adventures, 5-8th Doctor novels) and audio/radio dramas (5th-8th Doctor), spin offs etc; till its regeneration into the new and modern form it has today. Forty or so years on it still grabs attention and more and more fans discover it across the world each day.

Long live the BBC and their brainchild The Doctor…

The One With the Killer Cats and a Faceless Lady Or Otherwise Known As...

The Clockwise Man (New Series Adventure 1)


Author: Justin Richards

Published by: BBC books

Hardcover: 288 pages

Category: SciFi/Drama

Synopsis: In 1920s London, the Doctor and Rose find themselves caught up in the hunt for a mysterious murderer. But not everyone or everything is what they seem. Secrets lie behind locked doors and inhuman killers roam the streets. Who is the Painted Lady and why is she so interested in the Doctor? How can a cat return from the dead? Can anyone be trusted to tell - or even to know - the truth? With the faceless killers closing in, the Doctor and Rose must solve the mystery of the Clockwise Man before London itself is destroyed...This title features the Doctor and Rose as played by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper in the hit series from BBC Television.

Introduction: Okay the synopsis on the back promised a sort of a mix between a sleuth mystery and science/fiction but what we got here is a a lot of characters and I mean a lot and a slightly confusing plot and holes as big as…well you get the picture.

Lets start with the premise—it's fairly interesting, e.i. the mysterious killers, possibly aliens in the 1920s, the 9th Doctor and Rose meddling into the affairs, like always and getting into trouble, nothing new there but what you do get is a whole collection of new characters.

The plot beginns with introducing the first new character, who I will not name and describing the character’s fear and superstition related to black cats. Hmm, interesting how later a cat returns in the TV series and graces us with her presence in the first couple of minutes of The Empty Child. Coincedence? And what was the point of the black and white cat’s appearance in that episode? So that the Doctor could chat with it about his future and past companions’ affinity to not listen when he tells them to wait for him? I mean what’s the connection between the Doctor and the cats? I’ve always wondered about that. There were cat appearances in the classic series, just remember the 6th Doctor’s metal brooch in the shape of the white cat, who he used to rub for luck, or the appearance of the Cheetah (cat) people in the 7th Doctor's final episode Survival…and the list goes on. Oh and let’s not forget the Sisters of Plenitude from the 10th Doctor's episode New Earth…But that’s threading into another territory which should be explored some other time.

Anyway, soon we’re back in the TARDIS with Nine and Rose, who are heading for the year 1924, because the Doctor wanted them to visit the British Empire Exibition. And as Rose wondered if they’re going to meet anyone famous, the Doctor found somebody in trouble and then they waltz into another dangerous situation and we get an introduction of the mysterios mechanical killer that moves with the sounds of a ticking clock. Tick-tock…the exibition is forgotten for the time being, while the Doctor and Rose find something more interesting to occupy their time.

Well it started relatively interesting, with our space and time travelers arriving correctly to a right destination, with the TARDIS being precise for once and introducing a baffling mystery.

‘Someone’s in trouble – can’t you hear?’

The Doctor—being a Time's Champion that he is—rushes right into the heart of the matter and saves the victim, while the attacker runs away, leaving a cloud of mystery behind.

Who is the attacker and what did it want with a mere steward? Then we follow the Doctor and Rose to the steward’s house of employement, where we meet with another set of characters: a lord, his wife, her young son Freddie and their asteemed guests: Colonel Oblonsky, another lord, Repple and Aske—two soldiers apparently exiled from their homeland—baring a name that sounds made up—the wife’s noble relatives from Russia and a couple of other not so important faces. We soon find out that nothing is really as it seems and that overyone has something to hide, even the cat…

Up until uh, chapter five we had a real mystery—people getting killed and even the Doctor's leather jacket and sonic screwdriver getting lost in all the mess—but after that we delve into a confusing set of events and colorful characters that you have to remember by name.

I for some reason or other, had trouble remembering who was who and kept confusing the one with the other and the plot got slightly boring when it went on and on about political matters, the genocide…soon we find out why the Painted Lady appeared menacing from the beginning and what is her intent with the Doctor. Well not exactly, we don’t really find out what makes her tick, pun intended but we do find out that she’s supposedly evil but her evilness toned down by the last couple of chapters when we find out that this plot had no sense or reason to go on this long and that the mentioned genocide had no real purpose except to add some angst and most importantly fifty or so more pages, so that this novel had the required amount prescribed and limited by the BBC Books. And it has such long sentences as this one.

It was entertaining and a good edition for the first in the range of novels featuring the 9th Doctor and Rose but it was also slightly disappointing, seeing as thought this work comes from one of the best Doctor Who writers. And this is all he came up with?

Okay, the clockwork droids made their first appearance in this form and they were certainly interesting and slightly menacing, especially the Painted Lady and her numerous masks of expressions...but when they went into subplot B, they stopped being interesting and their reasoning behind the killings, sort of silly. And then we learn of another alien and his involvment in the affars and then I literaly fell asleep.

I must admit I’ll have to read this again sometime to get all the characters right and see if there was something I missed and if there weren’t actually that many plot holes to begin with…or what was it all about anyway?

For now this novel gets a good 8 out of 10 for ideas and 6 for execution of those ideas. I mean this was supposed to be a book for children or young adults and yet it’s so confusing at times that an adult has trouble keeping up with it. So there you go, that was another point to consider.

But of course my little nitpicks should be ignored as always and if you miss the 9th Doctor’s appearance in the series, then this novel will make you feel better. Because the Doctor and Rose are perfectly captured in this edition and even though you’ll wish to see more of Nine, this’ll come as a good enough substitute.

Anyway, I’m sure Mr Richards will get another chance for something better. And I do still have The Deviant Strain to read and see if it’ll fix his mistakes.

Meanwhile you can find out if I was right and get the book here.

Update June 16th: Okay I read it again and surprise, surprise - there was a plot involved and it did end on a positive, less confusing note. So I guess I should change my final note to 9?

And next time I'll avoid reading books at night...less of a chance to fall asleep that way and miss the plot;)

Update June 25th: Another cat appearance in the classic episode The Two Doctors, where Six contemplates eating one but his only dillemas are: cooked or baked?

Update July 1st: Hmm, interesting...We got another mention of the cats in the new series ep. Fear Her and the Doctor said he doesn't like them. I wonder if there'll be more cats in the future? Stay tuned for the cat monitor...