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