Doctor Who: 036 The Evil of the Daleks

At the end of the previous serial, The Faceless Ones, the Doctor and Jamie discover the TARDIS has been stolen after saying farewell to Ben and Polly in 1966 London. The Evil of the Daleks, picks up right at that point as the Doctor and Jamie chase after a lorrie carrying the TARDIS away from Gatwick Airport. Thus begins the final serial in season 4.

Again, sadly, most of this story is missing. Of the 7 episodes in this serial, only episode 2 exists, which happens to be Vicki's first on-screen appearance. Thankfully, a full set of telesnaps and audio tracks allow this story to be reconstructed. As with The Faceless Ones, I had four reconstructions to watch: the Loose Cannon reconstruction, the Joint Venture reconstruction, the Elaphe reconstruction, and an unidentified reconstruction that uses white subtitles (probably by the same party who produced the unidentified one from The Faceless Ones... this one spells Theodore Maxtible's character name as "Theodroe" in the credits). The existing episode 2 is included on the Lost in Time DVD set. As in previous reconstructions, The Loose Cannon one is probably the best overall. While some of the animation in it is a little crude, it's impressive for a fan production and helps keep the action moving.

The Doctor and Jamie manage to follow the TARDIS' trail to a Victorian antiques dealer named Edward Waterfield. While attempting to discover what Waterfield has done with the TARDIS, they are gassed and wake up in a Victorian manor house in 1866 where they uncover and foil yet another plot by the Daleks to conquer the Human race: a dastardly plan to reputedly isolate "The Human Factor", the traits that have enabled Humans to beat the Daleks time and again, so the Daleks can create super-Daleks with human qualities in order to defeat humanity. The Daleks hold the TARDIS hostage on Skaro in return for the Doctor's co-operation in isolating "The Human Factor". What the Daleks are really after, however, is "The Dalek Factor" which counteracts "The Human Factor" and will imbue humans with Dalek-like qualities (not too unlike the Robomen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, except that they were actually being controlled by the Daleks). The Daleks plan to use the Doctor to spread "The Dalek Factor" through all of time and space so they can conquer humanity. In the end, the Daleks are defeated as the Doctor uses their plan against them and instead infects the Daleks with "The Human Factor", giving them freewill and the ability to question orders.

This is not a typical Dalek story where the Daleks come charging in and EXTERMINATE everyone. I'm wondering if this might be because this serial was written by David Whitaker, not Terry Nation. The first several episodes are more about Edward Waterfield, his daughter Victoria (who will replace Ben and Polly as the Doctor's new companion) and the owner of the house, Theodore Maxtible. I found myself liking the Victorian setting as well as Edward Waterfield, even though I had heard he didn't make it through this story. The last couple of episodes are set on Skaro and feature the first appearance of the Dalek Emperor.

Personally, I thought "The Human Factor" and "The Dalek Factor" were a little silly as plot points, but the story generally worked pretty well. As I mentioned, I was much more into the Victorian setting where most of the story takes place. In the final battle with the Daleks, Edward Waterfield is killed and the Doctor tells Jamie that Victoria will have to come with them. The final battle let the season go out literally with a blast. :) While the final scenes don't exist as aired, there is 8mm footage that the special effects team filmed while making the final scenes, so that footage gives an indication of what the final battle might have looked like on-screen. A reconstruction of this scene appears on both the Lost in Time set and on the DVD for the next serial, The Tomb of the Cybermen.

At the end of this serial, the Doctor makes a comment that perhaps this will be the final time they would see the Daleks. This was supposedly the final Dalek story on Doctor Who as Terry Nation was attempting to get a Dalek series off the ground based on a pilot he wrote. That series never materialized, and the Daleks did eventually return to battle the Doctor many times.

I enjoyed this story and would certainly like to see more episodes found. With 6 of the 7 episodes of this serial missing, our total missing episode count for season 4 goes up to 33 and our total for Troughton goes up to 28. I'm also going to begin including stats of the number of incomplete and missing serials to this tally: Hartnell stands at 6 missing and 6 incomplete while Troughton is at 3 missing and 4 incomplete at the end of season 4 (which doesn't have a single complete serial for either Hartnell or Troughton). Next time, the earliest complete Troughton serial and the start of season 5, The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Doctor Who: 035 The Faceless Ones

When the TARDIS lands on a runway at Gatwick Airport in 1966 in front of a landing plane, the Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie are forced to run for their lives. When the airport police see them, they're forced to run from the police as well. The TARDIS crew splits up and Polly hides in a hangar for Chameleon Tours, where she promptly witnesses a murder. This is how The Faceless Ones begins.

This 6 episode serial is sadly missing episodes 2 and 4-6. Thankfully, there are a full set of telesnaps and the audio track allowing reconstructions to be made. Oddly, this is the one for which I have the most reconstructions. I have the newer Loose Cannon reconstruction, the Joint Venture reconstruction, the Elaphe reconstruction, and an unidentified reconstruction that uses green subtitles (and spells Frazer Hines' name as "Frazier Hinze" in the credits). For the existing episodes 1 and 3, we turn to the Lost in Time DVD set.

I came to this story with no expectations what-so-ever. I've not heard anything about this story, good or bad, and it doesn't feature any recurring creatures, so I didn't know what to expect. What I got was a story reminiscent of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a sinister twist. This is quite a good story and I would love to see more episodes found for it. I'd actually say it's probably the best Troughton story to this point... Let's recap quickly:

• Power of the Daleks - pretty good... the freshly regenerated Doctor is getting his bearings and Daleks almost always make for an exciting story.
• The Highlanders - meh... fairly run of the mill historical that introduced Jamie as a companion.
• The Underwater Menace - pretty sound story with a mad scientist trying to blow up the Earth.
• The Moonbase - pretty good... again, like the Daleks, the Cybermen usually make for a pretty good story.
• The Macra Terror - fairly decent story with a cheesy monster prop.

Yes, I'd definitely say this is his best to date. Troughton has really slipped into the role of the Doctor by this point and while humorous at times, the humor doesn't seem to be quite as slapstick and over the top as some of the earlier stories. Oddly enough, while the recorder featured very heavily in several of the earlier stories, it's not used in this story at all. I definitely find myself warming to Troughton as the Doctor by this point. I'm not going to spoil this story with too many plot points, but there were several places that it took me by surprise and I would love to see it in its entirety again. It also seems to be paced fairly well and uses its 6 episodes to good advantage.

I watched all the reconstructions I had for this story and I'd have to say that the newer Loose Cannon and the Elaphe ones are probably the best. The unidentified one was good (other than green subtitles and getting Jamie's name wrong), but it used absolutely no video footage. In addition to the telesnaps and existing footage, the newer Loose Cannon one uses CGI animation for several of the scenes. The funny thing is that the effects they produced are probably better than what originally aired. ;) Loose Cannon also uses faux telesnaps in a few places to enhance the story. I wouldn't have known they weren't original if I hadn't seen the other reconstructions. The only inconsistency I found between reconstructions was in episode 4 of the Joint Venture recon: the Doctor is examining a room and pushes a button which silently opens a secret panel. In the JV one, the captions say he examines the secret area while the other 3 say he doesn't notice the panel open. The story itself bears out that he didn't notice: later he questions someone and asks for the location of something hidden in the secret area.

This is Polly and Ben's last story: when they discover they're back in the time and place they left, they decide to stay. Afterward, the Doctor and Jamie go to retrieve the TARDIS from the airport police only to find it's been stolen, which leads us to our next story The Evil of the Daleks, the 7-part finale for season 4.

With 4 of the 6 episodes of this serial missing, our total for season 4 goes up to 27 and our total for Troughton goes up to 22.

Doctor Who: 031 The Highlanders

Continuing on in Season 4, we come to The Highlanders, which introduces the character of Jamie McCrimmon to the TARDIS crew. I was actually looking forward to this story since this is the first appearance of Jamie, Troughton's longest running companion, who would travel in the TARDIS all the way until Troughton's last story, The War Games, missing only the first Troughton serial, The Power of the Daleks.

Sadly, very little footage exists from this serial, just a few seconds in the first episode, mostly from the Australian censor clips. Fortunately, we do have the audio track and telesnaps available to make reconstruction possible. For this serial, I had two different reconstructions available, the older Loose Cannon reconstruction and the Elaphe reconstruction which pairs the telesnaps with the BBC narrated soundtracks -Frazier Hines narrating in this case. The telesnaps are much clearer in the Elaphe, but the newer Loose Cannon one also promises higher quality telesnaps. Hover over the picture here to see the difference. I think for the earlier LC recons, they scanned the telesnaps from Doctor Who Magazine, but later gained access to higher quality images. I'm trying to get a copy of the newer reconstruction and will revisit this story at that time.

My impression of this story was sort of "meh"... Perhaps my expectations were too high, but to me, it seemed to be a fairly run of the mill historical: it wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. The introduction of Jamie was the best part, and Jamie wasn't yet a companion, so his interaction with the Doctor was not what it would later become. I'll have to admit that, being an American, I'm not that familiar with this period of history and most of my knowledge of this period is from movies such as Braveheart, Rob Roy, and Highlander (that last was a joke - "There can be only one!"), so I'm not sure how accurate the history in this story is, although the history itself is very peripheral to the Doctor's story. Perhaps if some episodes of this story are found, or after rewatching, my opinion of this story will improve.

The advantage of watching multiple recons is that they sometimes explain things a little differently and sometimes clarify things that another recon may take for granted. Such is the case in this episode when Polly is practicing with the knife in the barn: the LC recon says she stabs a few times, then drops the knife as Kirsty comes in (leading me to believe she was clumsy) while the BBC narration explains that she dropped it in disgust at the thought of having to actually stab someone with it. The Loose Cannon team tried to add some variety to this recon by adding some clips from movies in a couple of places instead of showing the static telesnaps. The scene of the ship in the fog with the water moving worked, but the scenes of people running around on a boat during the long fight sequence in episode 4 didn't work so well, and I enjoyed the telesnaps in the Elaphe recon better. Perhaps the later LC recon improves on this sequence. :)

One other thing I noticed: in my comments about The Smugglers, I noted that Polly kept being referred to as a "lad", but I don't remember them intentionally dressing her up as a boy. That was actually referenced in this serial: when Kirsty brings in clothes so they can disguise themselves as orange sellers, Polly makes a comment that the last time she was in the past, she spent most of the time dressed as a boy. I don't know if that plot point was left out of The Smugglers, if it was purely visual and didn't make it in the recon subtitles, or I just wasn't paying attention. :p

With all 4 episodes of this serial missing, that brings the total for season 4 to 15 and the total for Troughton to 10. These are going to rack up fast this season. :(

Next time, we travel to Atlantis and encounter a mad scientist who wants to destroy the world in The Underwater Menace.

Doctor Who: 026 The Savages

After the Doctor's brush with The Celestial Toymaker, he has a toothache from biting into a piece of candy given to Stephen and Dodo by Cyril. He materializes in America in the Wild West and goes looking for a dentist, who happens to be Doc Holliday in the second complete serial of season 3, The Gunfighters. This serial was released on DVD last summer and while intended to be a historical, it's more of a farcical account of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and features a song commissioned for this serial called "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" which is way overused. :) Since we're covering stories that I haven't seen, and haven't been released on DVD, we'll skip over that one and move onto The Savages.

Since all 4 episodes of The Savages are missing, again I had to turn to reconstructions. I had access to the older Loose Cannon reconstuction of this story (one of the first they did), but the telesnaps are blurry and only take up a small portion of the screen. The rest of the screen is filled with subtitles, both the dialog and action that you can't tell from the audio and telesnaps. Loose Cannon's production standards have significantly improved since this one was made and they have since revisited this story and made an updated reconstruction. I don't have the newer reconstruction and was unable to get a copy in time for this blog post. I tried watching this older version, but I had trouble, so I turned to the Elaphe reconstruction I had of this story. Elaphe takes the BBC audio track of the episode containing linking narration and pairs it with the existing telesnaps. Peter Purves did the linking narration for this. Being a "purist", I'd much rather have the unadulterated audio than linking narration, but I had to take what I could get for this one. :) Listening to the audio with linking narration while watching the telesnaps definitely improves the experience over listening to audio alone. I hope to get a copy of the newer Loose Cannon reconstruction and I'll revisit this story at that time.

After having seen The Gunfighters and the teaser for next time showing the TARDIS materializing while being watched by a couple of scruffy looking men (think Tom Hanks in Stowaway) peeking out of the bushes, with the overlay "The Savages", I wasn't expecting much from this story. After watching the first episode, I was still a little "meh," although it wasn't what I had been expecting. Once it really gets going in episode 2, it's a full-on science fiction story that's actually fairly good. I was especially amused by Jano's impersonation of the Doctor. :) I'm wondering if he took on any of his visual mannerisms as well. :) The Elaphe reconstruction was superior to the older Loose Cannon, but I'm looking forward to seeing the smoke effects, the bubbling vats and other things that Loose Cannon did to spice up their newer reconstruction.

This story is the first to have an on-screen serial title and not individual episode titles. This is also Stephen's last story as he is asked to stay to help rebuild society for these people. That leaves the Doctor with just Dodo as a travelling companion. They leave and head back to modern day London (1960's) for the next adventure The War Machines, the third complete serial and the final serial of season 3.

Again, The War Machines was released on DVD a few years ago and I watched it at that time, so I won't really be talking about it here. I will say that there is an interesting documentary on the DVD that explains how the episode was restored to be as close to its original form as possible using 16mm prints, Australian censor clips, Blue Peter footage, and the off-air audio recordings. The BBC pretty much had to do their own reconstruction to release this serial on DVD. :)

Counting the 4 missing episodes in The Savages, that brings the grand total of missing episodes for season 3 to 28 out of 45 total episodes... 62% missing. :( The grand total for the entire series is now up to 56 which is just over half of the total number of 106. :(