ANNOUNCER: This is BBC One.
(DOCTOR WHO THEME)
NARRATOR: In the autumn of 1 966,
Doctor Who faced what remains the most critical make-or-break moment
in its entire history.
The show was approaching its third anniversary
and although Peter Cushing's Technicolor Doctor
had already tripped across the cinema screen a year earlier,
as far as television viewers were concerned,
there was only one real Doctor Who, and he was loved by millions.
Unless this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin.
But behind the scenes,
William Hartnell's health was deteriorating
and with it, his relationship with the production team.
By the summer of '66,
it was clear that his days aboard the Tardis were numbered.
But how could Doctor Who possibly survive without him?
(MAN READING)
When we were doing The Smugglers, we knew that Bill wasn't well
and, uh, we also knew then that there was this idea was being put out
that he would come back, do another four stories
and then that would be the end of him and a new actor would replace him.
NARRATOR: The decision to replace William Hartnell
was born of practical necessity
but it would end up defining the future of Doctor Who.
Something magical was about to happen.
Nowadays, Doctor Who sells itself in part upon the idea
that every few years they can change the actor.
When Matt Smith took on the part,
there was a whole BBC One programme
to, you know... Announcing who it was going to be.
Back then, um, it was just unheard of.
The producers kept the idea that they were phasing Bill out
and they were gonna have another actor very close to their chests.
(MAN READING)
We heard it was Pat Troughton
when the public heard it was Pat Troughton.
There was going to be a changeover and the Doctor was going to be renewed.
We throw words like ''regeneration'' around
like that's what they thought it was back in 1 966.
The word ''regeneration'' didn't come into it.
We don't get that phrase used in the programme
for many, many years later.
There was no intention of this being an ongoing thing.
This was just something that they did in 1 966
to keep the show going.
It's far from being all over.
(MAN READING)
WILLS: They filmed the swap-over scene,
which was actually quite complicated for them
because they had to go, they had to white out.
It took a long time.
(WHIRRING)
And Patrick was suitably kind of humble.
So it was kind of a gentlemanly exchange
and then the two of them got down in their positions.
(MAN READING)
The making of his character was wonderful
'cause he shared it very much with Mike and I
and he used to call us his reality check.
It's not only his face that's changed. He doesn't even act like him.
The producers, the writers, everybody had their ideas
and they were all putting it in.
Sydney Newman always regarded it as his baby, Doctor Who,
'cause he had after all, brought the idea
and therefore he kept a very close eye on what happened, I think.
(MAN READING)
NARRATOR: Gerry Davis drew up a production memo
which suggested that the new Doctor might adopt a sardonic humour
modelled on the character of Sherlock Holmes.
(MAN READING)
Mike Craze and Anneke, when they saw my wig in makeup...
JON PERTWEE: What wig?
-I had a wig originally in makeup... -Oh!
...they saw it and they said, ''No. We are not going on.''
I looked like Harpo Marx.
And I just went to somebody's pocket, one of the suits,
took out their comb and said,
''Look, why don't you just do it like that?''
And it was the Beatles kind of,
and everybody said, ''Yeah. Yeah, that's quite good.''
BARRY: I was around during those discussion periods
of both of costume and character.
And there was a lot of discussion about what Sydney Newman
called a space hobo in his getup and his performance.
(PLAYING UPBEAT MUSIC ON RECORDER)
The business of, um, the recorder
was absolutely Pat's idea. He loved the idea.
He actually played the recorder himself
and he always had it with him in his little Greek bag.
(CONTINUES PLAYING)
It provided a delightful little, um, piece of character for him.
NARRATOR: Patrick Troughton's debut serial, The Power of the Daleks,
was written before he was cast.
So, writers and actors alike reworked the material
to accommodate the new Doctor.
ANNOUNCER: Before the next programme, a look ahead to tomorrow on BBC One.
-(DOCTOR WHO THEME) -MAN: Doctor Who begins a new adventure
on the planet Vulcan in the year 2020.
WILLS: I had never worked with Pat Troughton before
and what a joy it was.
DOCTOR: Polly, Ben, come in and meet the Daleks.
-What? -DOCTOR: The Daleks.
He was everything that one would want in a fellow actor.
He was generous and he was present.
(MUMBLING)
At the end of the first story, I went to Carnaby Street,
I had these T-shirts made,
''Come back, Bill Hartnell. All is forgiven.''
And then Mike and I put them on
just as we thought that Patrick would fall about with laughter,
and out we came on the day of the recording from behind the Tardis,
and his little face fell and he didn't find it funny at all.
I mean, later on, he would have, you know,
he would have joined in with the joke.
But at the time, he was very sensitive
about getting it right, getting the Doctor right.
NARRATOR: As work continued on the series,
the production team took note
of the audiences mixed reaction to the new Doctor.
He was putting so much different eccentricity into it.
You had all this strange thing where he kept on wearing hats
and expressed an interest in hats.
DOCTOR: I would like a hat like that.
NARRATOR: In the coming weeks, some of his quirkier character notes
were quietly toned down
and a second briefing note was prepared for potential writers.
(MAN READING)
I can't think how I came to be so clumsy.
I must have bumped into it.
You're not clumsy, Doctor. You did it on purpose.
Hartnell could walk into a situation
and be quite imposing and everyone would listen to him.
The second Doctor is exactly the opposite
and would walk into a situation and nobody would take him seriously.
Oh, come on. Get out of the way!
The audience is always sitting there, screaming through the fourth wall
at the other people in the story going, ''He's the Doctor.
''He knows what he's talking about. For goodness' sake, listen to him.''
And we get that strange sort of slightly sort of darker,
not quite understandable edge to his character.
What he was doing was taking it out to the outer edges of all possibilities,
um, to sort of see how he could play with it.
You never saw acting showing on him, I felt.
It was all so internalised
that it came out as a very real characterisation.
NARRATOR: The new Doctor's next port of call
was 1 8th century Scotland
where another new recruit was about to come aboard.
The next story we're into is The Highlanders
and all of a sudden, we have this young Scot, Jamie, turns up.
I thought I was only supposed to be in four episodes
but unknown to me, I think the BBC, it transpires,
had an option. They thought this character could go on.
RUSSELL: Everything changed from the moment he got there.
Jamie's is this very dominant character. He's a historical character.
It was fun to play with a character
who then doesn't understand the modern world at all.
Most companions spend most of their time saying, ''What's going on?''
But with Jamie doing it, you feel it's not because he's stupid,
it's because he's from 1 746.
And over his first couple of stories, he's very much in the background
because obviously he was being shoehorned
in scripts that weren't written for him.
I just got the feeling that Michael Craze was going,
''Who? Why do we need...''
And I would have felt the same if I'd been Michael Craze
and suddenly another male companion brought in.
We didn't have any of that. We were generous.
We opened our arms and said, ''Oh, this is lovely.
''We've got this young, 1 7th century, uh, Scotsman with us now.''
And it seemed like the right balance and we all got on terribly well, too.
I just felt like I kind of was, um, the interloper.
And then, of course, I had to take some of Michael Craze's lines
because scripts weren't written for Jamie.
NARRATOR: The Highlanders was the last of the historical adventures
which had originally formed part of Doctor Who's bedrock.
(MAN READING)
You get to The Highlanders and they go,
(SIGHS HEAVILY) ''You know what? We've run out of historical stories.
''If we're going to do history in the future,
''let's throw an alien in it, let's throw a monster into it.''
NARRATOR: So the old format was history.
But before Innes Lloyd's new vision for the series could really hit its stride,
the Doctor had an appointment with a mad scientist in Atlantis.
Just one small question.
Why do you want to blow up the world?
Why? You, a scientist, ask me why?
The achievement, my dear Doctor.
The destruction of the world.
The scientists' dream of supreme power!
It's not a very highly regarded story, The Underwater Menace.
I think it's great fun. It's very different
to almost anything else that went out at the time.
It's a strange, melodramatic comedy.
And they know it's a comedy and they're playing it for laughs
and sometimes the laughs are there, sometimes they're not.
Nothing in the world can stop me now!
NARRATOR: Having already made an impact
in William Hartnell's swan song, The Tenth Planet,
the Cybermen were about to become a key ingredient
in Doctor Who storytelling.
They were the creation of Gerry Davis, and his occasional writing partner,
a Doctor of Ophthalmology called Kit Pedler.
(MAN READING)
NARRATOR: The Moonbase was a lunar reboot ofThe Tenth Planet
and it provided the template for a new kind of Doctor Who adventure.
SHEARMAN: The central part of Troughton's tenure
is the base under siege.
It's the same story most weeks.
It began really with The Tenth Planet which is Hartnell's final story.
It's a secluded place.
You can't get away from it. You're trapped in there.
You have a limited amount of air, water, resources, gunfire, whatever,
and approaching you at every single angle,
in this case, were a bunch of Cybermen.
It's Gerry Davis and Innis Lloyd as editor and producer on the show
who had this new take on what Doctor Who is.
It's a show actually which becomes a bit more predictable
but is also rather more fun.
You can sell it upon the monsters.
(MAN READING)
NARRATOR: So the hunt was on for new monsters
and next out of the trap was a gruesome infestation of giant crabs.
-Doctor! -Mmm?
Look!
You walk into this situation and everything is so happy
and everything is so lovely and everything is so perfectly '60s...
The man who wrote that ought to be sent to the Danger Gang, not us. (LAUGHING)
All right. That's enough.
...that you can't help but be Ben and Polly sitting there going,
''This is too good to be true.''
Hey, wait! Don't leave me down here.
And then, of course, underneath this, behind all this,
you have the real power behind the throne, which is the Macra.
MEDOK: (SCREAMING) It's got my foot!
WILLS: The Macra was a little hokey.
I remember when I had to climb into it,
I had to do a lot of overacting there, you know,
making out that the creature was kind of... (GRUNTING)
It cost the price of a Mini car but all it could do was that.
And so if you got caught by it,
you had to, sort of, stick your leg into its claw
'cause it couldn't do that and grab you.
There's another one! (SCREAMING)
I had my own 4-year-old daughter at home whose name was Polly.
They were watching The Macra Terror with their father
and, uh, at the end of it, she said,
(IMITATES LITTLE GIRL) ''Um, Dad, is Mummy coming home tonight?''
NARRATOR: Another race of sinister aliens
threatened Polly in the next series
and this time, she really would be coming home.
The Faceless Ones is a contemporary Earth story.
It's a long time since they'd done a proper, contemporary Earth story
since, in fact, The War Machines where they found Ben and Polly,
and here we are, on exactly the same day,
getting rid of Ben and Polly.
They came to me and said, ''Right, we're letting go of Ben now
''and on you go with Jamie. Are you up for it?''
And I remember having to take this very difficult decision
and taking a great deep gulp and saying,
''No, I think I'll go with Michael.''
Michael Craze actually was hurt by being asked to leave.
You know, he thought he was doing a good job.
I mean, he was a consummate actor, actually.
He had the ability, actually, to go on and do great things.
Pat himself was terribly sad
'cause we were the ones who were with him from the beginning
and we helped him to create his Doctor.
So he was very sad to see us leave and we very sad to leave, too.
The Faceless Ones also offers us up a rare example in Doctor Who
of the almost companion, the one that might have been,
uh, lovely Pauline Collins as Samantha Briggs.
Oh, do you always do everything you're told?
No.
She immediately just gelled with us and Patrick and I immediately fell for her.
The Doctor trusts me.
Yeah, that's your trouble, isn't it? All right, stay here.
After all, they can only murder me. Ta-ra.
No, wait a minute.
HINES: Jamie quite liked her, her feistiness
and she could put Jamie down with one look
and she was flirty with Jamie as well.
But she turned us down flat and went on to win an Oscar.
So, you know, it was not a bad decision.
NARRATOR: And so the search began for a new Doctor Who girl.
My agent rang me up and said Innes wanted to see me.
He'd seen The Wednesday Play. Alice
and, uh, thought I'd be quite good as Victoria.
We were filming in an old house in Harrow
which was a part of... Gilbert & Sullivan's house... They owned that.
And I arrived there on the first day and all the makeup was done,
the frock was put on, a long Victorian frock,
and I was introduced to my co-stars...
Two Daleks.
DALEK: Move to the machine. Move!
I met Pat and Fraze once before at a party on the Thames.
Sort of get to know each other, Innes was there
and some of the producers or whatever.
So I walked in and I thought, ''It's gonna be all right,''
'cause I knew Pat was on my side.
I wasn't quite sure about Frazer
'cause he had a roving eye, I knew that.
At the party, he was looking all the ladies up and down
and I thought, ''Oh, my goodness me, what am I gonna do about this?''
But they welcomed me with open arms
and I became part of the family very, very quickly.
What are they called, these creatures?
NARRATOR: Victoria's debut serial
was also the final Dalek adventure of the 1 960s
and is widely regarded as one of the greats.
The Evil of the Daleks is absolute pure class
from beginning to end.
-What sort of test? -Do not question!
I will not be your slave!
If we cannot find Jamie,
the Daleks will take pleasure in killing everyone in sight,
and their greatest pleasure will be in killing me.
NARRATOR: For viewers and critics alike,
Patrick Troughton's first year as the Doctor had been a success.
But by now, Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis were keen to move on.
(MAN READING)
NARRATOR: Peter Bryant, a former actor
who had initially arrived to assist Gerry Davis as story editor,
found himself propelled into the role of producer-in-waiting.
(MAN READING)
He wasn't like Innes at all.
Innes was quite, um... How can you put it?
Not laidback, no, quite strict actually.
He had this persona about him. Peter didn't.
He would join in with some of the gags and laugh a lot.
NARRATOR: The final serial of the fourth recording block,
The Tomb of the Cybermen,
was held over for transmission at the beginning of the next season.
For this story, Peter Bryant was given a trial run as producer.
(MAN READING)
NARRATOR: Peter Bryant also rang the changes
by bringing in his own story editor,
a young writer and actor who had fleetingly appeared
as a crew member in The Moonbase.
I was around for The Evil of the Daleks
and then came The Tomb of the Cybermen in which I became script editor.
Kit was the scientist and Gerry was the dramatist.
Now, I thought, ''There's going to be a problem here.''
Because we had lots of three-way meetings.
Not a bit of it.
They merged so effortlessly. They brought it together so well.
PARRY: Behold, gentlemen, the tombs of the Cybermen!
When they started to defrost in that kind of honeycomb,
they just started to twitch slightly
and that was absolutely... It was frightening.
And I said to Pat, ''My goodness me!
''Are we gonna get past the censors with this one?'' We did.
NARRATOR: Peter Bryant's tryout as producer
had been a great success.
But for now, he resumed the role of story editor
while Innes Lloyd returned to the producer's chair.
The next production block
began with the most extravagant location shoot
in Doctor Who's four-year history.
ForThe Abominable Snowmen,
the Mountains of Snowdonia stood in for Tibet
and the guest cast included a familiar face.
Here, who the devil are you? What are you doing here?
(PANTING) We're on our way to the monastery.
Are you indeed?
When my dad came into the programme, it was brilliant.
I hadn't worked with him before but he just fitted in.
He was a movie star, you know, and, uh, very, very lovely man,
a friendly guy, loved the humour, loved the jokes.
We were filming in Snowdonia and it was very cold again.
It was about, gosh, 9:30, 1 0:00 in the morning
and they were setting up the shot
and I, all of a sudden, I couldn't find Frazer or Pat or my father
and I was freezing and I looked for them everywhere.
And I went behind the canteen van and they were there
and they were sipping brandy to keep themselves warm.
And I was 1 9 at the time and I said, ''Oh, Father, can I have some of that?''
(STERNLY) ''No, you're too young.''
We'd played a terrible joke on Debbie when she was in this trance
and we had to clap our hands behind her back to shake her out.
And in this church hall, we got this big tin trunk full of props
and she was staring into space and we got this big...
And we just dropped it behind her and she...
(IMITATES DEBORAH SCREAMING) She leapt.
(IMITATES DEBORAH) ''Daddy, you swine. I'm your daughter!'' you know.
They actually ganged up against me and there's nobody on my side.
And I thought, ''How can I get them back?''
And I never quite did.
We don't know where he is?
-Jamie! -Run!
The Yeti are a curious success in Doctor Who
because the first impulse you have when you watch them on screen
is to giggle a bit because they seem rather cute
and they lumber down hillsides.
They don't seem terribly threatening.
What makes The Abominable Snowmen quite an unnerving story,
is that voice of Padmasambhava.
PADMASAMBHAVA: (ECHOING) Do not be afraid.
You go from this rather urbane,
quite charming, quite innocent sounding voice
to something which is quite hissing and fierce and scary.
VOICE: (RASPING) The Doctor.
And that's what the Yeti themselves are.
What makes the Yeti work is that strange double effect.
They look like something you want to hug, they'll kill you.
NARRATOR: Hard on the heels of the Yeti
came another new monster which proved to be just as popular with viewers.
(EERIE MUSIC PLAYING)
It's Doctor Who doing the Martians and the Martians are big lizards.
She must be destroyed.
And there was obviously some attempt at the beginning
to make them rather more complex than that...
JAMIE: It looks like a Viking warrior. Look at the helmet.
Frozen for centuries in the ice. Perfectly preserved.
...which kind of gets forgotten as the stories go on
because it's actually more effective to have them
as these big, lumbering reptiles which are hostile
and it kind of sums up
what the Patrick Troughton years are doing.
You have the Doctor arriving in a base.
It's even called a base.
You have this intransigent hostile leader.
Now, don't be ridiculous.
You have the good guy who's a bit like the Doctor in many ways,
a bit hermit-like, played by Peter Sallis.
You've got to wave your splendid ioniser about
to prove that it works and never mind about human beings.
Peter Barkworth gives possibly the best guest performance
in the whole of Patrick Troughton's time on the show.
You are the most insufferably irritating
and infuriating person
I've ever been privileged to work with.
Thank you.
When he finished actually, he went off to do Where Eagles Dare
and he sent us a postcard, ''Here I am in lovely Austria
''with, um, Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, you know.
''How you all...'' (MOCKINGLY) Oh, look at us.
NARRATOR: By now, Peter Bryant was trailing Innes Lloyd
in the role of producer
and another newcomer, Derrick Sherwin, was installed as story editor.
But Doctor Who's future was far from assured.
Only 1 2 episodes had been commissioned for the fifth block
taking it no further than the end ofThe Ice Warriors
and there was talk of Doctor Who being replaced altogether
by a new series called Bonaventure.
The figures weren't terribly good
and Shaun Sutton, our then-boss said, ''Well, we're not sure whether we...
''Let's do six and then see if they'll add another eight.''
And I said, ''I can't work like this. ''
And so we stuck to our guns and got the 1 3 commissioned and agreed.
NARRATOR: Doctor Who had successfully dodged one BBC bullet
but another was about to find its mark.
Late in 1 967, clearance was given
to begin wiping Doctor Who's existing archive.
My years have been.. Well, there's hardly any left, let's face it.
How the Beeb could do it, I do not know.
Sad really, isn't it?
People spend all their time making nice things
and other people come along and break them.
I think it's very short-sighted of them. It was not just Doctor Who.
It was other classics like Hancock's Half-Hour and goodness knows what.
NARRATOR: As we complete work on this documentary,
62 of Patrick Troughton's 1 1 9 episodes are still missing.
But occasionally, a lost treasure is unearthed.
The most recent discovery occurred during the production of this programme.
I saw a new Patrick Troughton last week.
I saw at the British Film Institute,
the return of Underwater Menace Episode Two.
It's a complete surprise. Absolutely wonderful.
You distrust Zaroff out of instinct.
I distrust him because I know the truth.
-Why should I trust you? -That's a very good question.
I wish I could think of a good answer.
It's 20 years since, uh, we've last had a Patrick Troughton episode turn up
which was Tomb of the Cybermen.
Also Troughton's very, very earliest performance
that we have on record.
NARRATOR: One of the many serials to suffer from the purge
was The Enemy of the World,
the first story for a year to feature no monsters.
Instead, the threat came from the Doctor's villainous double.
Pat was Pat doing Doctor Who, first of all, you know, you run through it
and all of a sudden he turned into this Salamander
with this extraordinary voice.
And after the first rehearsal, he came up to us and said,
''Well, what do you think of that?''
And I said, ''Are you really going to play it like that, Pat?''
He went, ''I thought I did very good.''
-Maybe. -No maybe about it.
And we were saying, ''Was he meant to be Welsh with that voice?''
''No, he's Mexican.'' You know, we used to tease him.
Pat was very sensitive and I went up to him later and I said,
''Oh, Pat, you're lovely. Don't worry but I have to send you up
''because you've sent me up so many times.'' I got my own back.
Your health.
This is the one attempt in the fifth season of Doctor Who
not to do base-under-siege.
If anything, to go everywhere around the world
and to do a strange, sort of spy thriller...
One chance, my friend. I said one chance.
...which also gives Patrick Troughton
a chance to do something different as well.
It's intelligent and adult
and everything you want Doctor Who to be.
See to that, will you? Suicide, of course. Such a pity.
But for a 6-year-old watching Doctor Who,
at the point where you should be watching Doctor Who as a 6-year old,
it was a bit of a misstep and I remember at the time
mentally looking at my watch every week going,
''Can I get back to the monsters, please?''
NARRATOR: Young Gary's prayers were answered in the next serial
which saw a swift return for the Yeti, now relocated from the snows of Tibet
to the tunnels of the London Underground.
TRAVERS: It's more than likely we may not be able to defeat this menace.
London, in fact the whole of England, might be completely wiped out.
(SCREAMING)
HINES: The BBC asked London Transport,
''You know, can we film in your station?'' ''No, no, you can't. ''
So our designer designed, you know, that Covent Garden, I think it was,
and what happened is the BBC got a phone call
from London Transport, ''We're going to sue you.
''You've used one of our tube stations, Covent Garden, without permission.''
And that just shows you our set designers.
They were fantastic. They were brilliant, you know.
They didn't have CGI but that... When I watch The Web of Fear,
I could swear I'm actually in a tube station.
SHEARMAN: It's so well-directed, Web of Fear: Part 1 .
I remember actually almost being, almost to a point of tears crying,
which sounds embarrassing but is true,
to realise at the end of it, we couldn't go onto part two immediately
or indeed, ever.
NARRATOR: The Web of Fear
also struck a chord with the new story editor
who was keen to give Doctor Who's format yet another make-over.
I was fed up with jellies wobbling around in space somewhere.
Uh, I thought it was... (SIGHS) People had had enough of it.
They wanted something they could empathise with,
something they could believe in.
And so I said, ''Let's take it down to Earth.
''Let's do it like Quatermass.
''Let's make it real. Let's make 'em really shiver.
''Get behind that sofa and shake!''
NARRATOR: The next serial was written
by one of Derrick Sherwin's predecessors as story editor
who had now returned to the freelance life.
I didn't want to be a script editor. I didn't see that as a career.
Uh, and I really wanted to be a writer, so I left.
And after that Peter commissioned me to do a six-part Doctor Who serial
called Fury from the Deep uh, which I enjoyed doing very much.
RUSSELL: Fury from the Deep was another
one of those stories like The Faceless Ones
that is contemporary, uh, because it's all about North Sea Gas
and North Sea Gas was a big thing at the time
and I remember all our houses were being converted to North Sea Gas.
(MUFFLED CRY)
Suddenly there's a Doctor Who story on television
that basically says that if I'm not very careful,
next time I go and turn the Ascot on in the bathroom,
a lump of seaweed's gonna come up and strangle me.
NARRATOR: Around this time,
Derrick Sherwin was joined by a new assistant script editor,
a man who would go on to become a Doctor Who legend.
Terrance Dicks, we had worked together on, uh, Crossroads.
Derrick eventually got a job, or thought he got a job on a play series
and he wanted to get off Doctor Who.
The scripts weren't too good.
It wasn't Peter Bryant's strong point, scripts.
Uh, so I picked up a load of rubbish
and had to rewrite an awful lot.
But he couldn't get off Doctor Who until he found a replacement.
So I asked Terrance to come in and be story editor when I left.
So I sort of trailed Derrick for a bit.
And I got him in.
Terrance has that clear-cut, clinical mind
which is necessary for a good story editor
so he can delineate between the good and the bad
in the story development and so on and so forth.
And so we got on extremely well together.
Unfortunately, Derrick's job collapsed and, uh, he didn't go.
So he was, in fact,
for about a year, there were two of us, which was actually quite good
because it gave me a chance, you know, to pick up the job.
NARRATOR: Change was in the air in front of the cameras too
as Fury from the Deep saw Deborah Watling
hanging up her travelling shoes.
I couldn't do a lot more with Victoria.
I tried to make her interesting.
I didn't want this little Victorian miss,
crying all the time or screaming all the time
which I did a lot, as you know.
When I told Patrick I was leaving, his face fell
and I knew he was under a lot of pressure.
And he looked at me and he said,
''I want to go now as well.''
NARRATOR: By now, the rigour of weekly production
was beginning to take its toll on Patrick Troughton.
I think Patrick got tired and occasionally crotchety.
The kind of turnover that Pat Troughton was doing was murderous.
Also, uh, he and Peter Bryant didn't get along at all well, you know,
so, um, that probably created a tension.
He'd been working too hard. Forty-two a year is quite a lot.
Occasionally, um, you might just get a week out.
They tried to wangle it that, you know, if you could just say,
''Innes, I've only got one scene. ''Can we just...''
''Yeah, we'll put it in the studio.''
They'd wangle it that you'd get an extra week out.
I was just beginning to enjoy this little rest.
NARRATOR: That particular little rest came midway through the next serial,
The Wheel in Space
which saw the Cybermen return once again
and also introduced the Doctor to his new companion.
-I don't think we've met, have we? -Zoe.
In comes Zoe Heriot, Derrick Sherwin's take on a companion.
Zoe was established as a kind of computer genius
with a photographic memory.
WENDY PADBURY: Debbie, of course, was a Victorian girl.
So I think the dynamics change obviously when you get a complete change of...
You only need one new person to change the dynamics in something.
Well, it's an interesting theory.
Oh, it isn't a theory.
You can't disprove the facts. It's pure logic.
I mean, there were the odd times when she knew better than the Doctor,
or at least thought she did.
Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.
She kind of very quickly and very sensibly
tones right down the priggishness
and Zoe just becomes this really likeable mate for Jamie.
Have you ever heard of the Daleks?
-No. -Then watch.
NARRATOR: While Zoe, along with millions of viewers,
was treated to a summer repeat ofThe Evil of the Daleks,
there was no rest for the cast and crew.
Production continued until the next two serials were in the can,
although they wouldn't be screened until after the summer break
kicking off Doctor Who's sixth series.
Patrick Troughton had been persuaded to stay on
and as he entered his third year,
the scripts began to adopt a new, more experimental approach.
If series five was basically one long set
of excellent, rubber monsters attacking a base under siege,
um, series six is complete contrast to that.
It's a much, much bolder season.
It feels like it's harkening back to the time of the Hartnell years
where it's trying to work out different ways of telling stories.
NARRATOR: But despite the flourishing of new ideas,
behind the scenes, all was not well.
The script situation was absolutely chaotic, you know.
It was really... Things were in a bad way,
shows were collapsing, scripts were never in on time.
NARRATOR: By this time, Derrick Sherwin was collaborating with Peter Bryant
as a de facto co-producer.
They were a bit of a double act. They were great together.
We tended to work together in most of these big decisions.
Derrick was a far more energetic
and, um, talented and hardworking character than Peter.
So I think most of the work and the authority
came to Derrick and Peter just let him, you know.
Peter let him get on with it, kind of thing, you know.
But Derrick is a very strong and dominating personality
and, um, I think there was a kind of a power vacuum
which he just naturally filled.
I got the impression that their technique was to ask for a story,
have it come in, have a look at it and decide they didn't like it.
Scripts are obviously abandoned,
stories change their lengths because of that.
They would write it off, you know, cancel it, write it off,
um, or have a row with the writer, you know, who would go off the show.
NARRATOR: That's exactly what happened with the next serial.
The Dominators was written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln
who'd written the two Yeti serials the previous year.
The Dominators was originally six episodes
and mercifully is now only five.
Derrick wasn't happy with it and it wasn't very good.
I remember I rewrote large chunks of it
and ended up with a not particularly good show.
Every cliff-hanger is the same cliff-hanger.
It's about the Quarks being told to destroy
but they haven't got enough power to do so.
It's about one angry leader telling another one off
because he's actually more interesting than he is.
DICKS: It was an example of the way you shouldn't do it,
you know, with unhappy writers
and shows being rewritten at the last minute.
NARRATOR: With The Dominators losing an episode,
Derrick Sherwin filled the gap with a low-budget instalment
featuring minimal sets and no guest cast.
It was craftily bolted onto the beginning of the next serial.
The Mind Robber is the game of two halves, really,
or more accurately, a game of five fifths.
And the first fifth, Episode One
which is written by Derrick Sherwin without any story credit,
is maybe the most brilliant episode
which is transmitted in the whole of the '60s.
-Doctor? -Doctor? Can you hear us?
And Patrick said, ''There's only three of us in this.
''You got to cut the episode down, this is too long for three people
''to carry this show, this episode... You've got to cut it down.''
And I think Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin,
''No, no, it's 24 minutes, 30.'' Patrick goes, ''No, no.''
So they cut it down to 20 minutes.
We're nowhere.
It's a very frightening story.
It's tempered by episodes two to five which is in the land of fiction
which is strangely one of the most comic things that they've done.
What sort of a gun is that?
ZOÉÉ: It's an anti-molecular ray disintegrator.
Rubbish. Such a weapon is scientifically impossible.
(SNARLING)
Well, that seems to take care of that, doesn't it?
The most fantastic, left-field, bizarre-thinking scripts ever.
(SHOUTING)
-(GUNSHOT) -ZOÉÉ: (SHOUTS) Jamie? Jamie!
We were very fortunate that it was this surrealistic story
because, uh, I got chickenpox, you know.
I think it was around the first or second episode
and came to rehearsal on the Monday scratching and they said,
''No, you've got chickenpox.'' And sent me home.
What better story to have, you know, when something goes wrong than -
and Frazer has chickenpox -
to have a blackboard with jigsaw pieces
and the Doctor putting the face together, getting it wrong.
And we end up with Hamish Wilson for a week or two.
Oh, no, I've done it wrong!
Brilliant!
Doctor. (LAUGHS) Oh, I'm glad to see you again.
The Mind Robber was almost entirely Derrick's baby.
I never liked it. I don't like fantasy.
You get a sense of the show is in some form of flux.
It's been divided up between different people.
See, occasionally Derrick would take over a show.
And I would think, ''Get on with it, mate,'' you know,
because I would be trying to do something else
and devoting my time to that.
NARRATOR: By now, the relentless production schedule
was bringing the star of Doctor Who to breaking point.
I can't remember what show it was, we were going through it
and Patrick suddenly stormed off in a temper.
He was raging away, ''This script is terrible.'' (MUMBLES)
He was doing his nut.
And he said, ''I'm not going to do this any more.''
So I said, ''Okay.'' He said ''Yeah, well, I'll leave then.''
I said, ''Okay, Patrick.'' ''What, you don't mind?''
I said, ''Patrick, we can replace you. ''
He stuck to his word.
I think he'd had enough. He was very tired.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Kit Pedler had come forward
with a proposal for a story in which the Cybermen invaded Earth.
The idea appealed to Derrick Sherwin's vision for the show
and he ended up writing it himself.
David Whitaker couldn't do it and Kit certainly couldn't.
Uh, so it rather landed on my plate.
What the heck?
RUSSELL: Those scenes of Cybermen tromping through the sewers,
-tromping through London... -(SCREAMING)
...the big final battle with the UNIT soldiers,
you just sat there going, ''They are an unbeatable force.''
I liked the invasion idea and the story and I quite liked the Cybermen,
I wanted to build them up as the new big threat
instead of the damn Daleks.
They don't actually appear, though, until the end of episode four
and it feels like a sort of strange, gritty, contemporary, urban thriller.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
NARRATOR: Just as the Cybermen's first story
had reformatted Doctor Who for the Troughton era,
so The Invasion now set a new template
for Doctor Who's continuation into the 1 9 70s.
UNIT was there to take the weight off the shoulders of the leading actor.
It could almost be a show that was shared between the Doctor as the lead
and UNIT as a second lead.
The Doctor wouldn't always have to appear in the show so much.
Of course, that isn't what happened in the end
because when the show did come back, the episode count per year was halved.
SHERWIN: I wanted it down on Earth anyway for credibility.
UNIT was the ideal vehicle.
NARRATOR: While The Invasion was stretched to an epic eight episodes,
the scramble for scripts continued.
Next in the production schedule was Dick Sharples' comedic story,
The Prison in Space.
I think the story was about, uh, a planet run by women
in which the Doctor and Jamie end up as prisoners
and are sort of chased about
and humiliated by these sadistic females.
It was a funny story
and of course the women walking around in plastic shorts
and kind of black Gestapo shiny caps
and you know, big bosoms and God knows what.
Ah! I wish we'd done that show!
NARRATOR: Luckily for all concerned,
Terrance Dicks had a replacement up his sleeve.
A new writer had approached the team with an idea calledThe Space Trap.
Bob Holmes came up with a storyline of The Krotons, which I liked.
And I went to Peter and Derrick with it
and said, ''Look, Bob set this storyline for four parts.
''I think it's very promising.''
And they said, ''Well, we don't need it, you see.
''We don't need it. No, no. We don't need it.''
Not knowing that Dick Sharples was gonna collapse, you see.
And I said, ''Well, look, can I get it in as a spare just in case?
''We'll commission it and I'll look after it and I'll get it in.''
And they said, ''Oh, well if you like, you know.''
They're kind of humouring me, you see, getting me out of their hair.
And because they didn't give a toss about it,
I was left alone without any interference.
And then David Maloney joined as director
and was given a Dick Sharples script
and David, I believe, said, ''I can't do this anyway. It's rubbish.'' You see.
I was there and I said, ''Look.''
Modestly, ''I do just happen to have this four-parter.''
So I gave it to David, David Maloney.
David took it away, read it and came back to my office and said,
''Please, can we do this?'' he said. ''This is fine. I can do this one.''
So we did The Krotons, which is not a bad show,
except it has possibly the worst monster in the history of Doctor Who.
KROTON: The high brains have been captured.
What they used to do was cream off the intelligent people from this tribe
and somehow or the other, they used their brain power
to revive themselves, you know,
and they wanted to use the Doctor's in particular.
I suppose that's the one time you could think
that the writers were against apartheid because they had this kind of...
(WITH SOUTH-AFRICAN ACCENT) South African accent.
KROTON: Radius one seven nine, vector five.
PADBURY: Probably on paper, they sounded great.
The reality was, it didn't really do it for me.
They couldn't do anything. They couldn't walk. They couldn't talk.
They couldn't hold their ray guns.
About all they could do was stand there and look menacing.
It doesn't make for an easy... (LAUGHS) An easy day's work.
Um, so, no. They were not my favourite.
NARRATOR: The Krotons might not have been Doctor Who's finest production,
but Terrance Dicks was impressed by Robert Holmes
and was keen to use him again.
The opportunity would soon arise
because the cupboard was now completely bare.
There was an element of desperation to get some scripts in.
I mean, it was a desperate situation.
NARRATOR: The lack of scripts wasn't the only problem.
The money was running out, too.
And a plea to BBC Enterprises for additional funds
had fallen on deaf ears.
As a cost-saving measure, it was decided
to reuse the previous year's expensive Ice Warrior costumes
in a sequel written by their creator Brian Hayles.
His initial storyline was rejected as too ambitious
but he returned with another.
SHEARMAN: Terrance Dicks has come to write this one.
It's by Brian Hayles nominally
but in fact, Terrance wrote the final four episodes himself.
DICKS: It sort of got to a stage, you see,
where Derrick or Peter would say, ''No, no, that's no good.
''Take it away and fix it, Terrance,'' you see.
Stop him.
(WHIRRING)
The Seeds of Death is a throwback, if you like,
not just because the Ice Warriors are in it,
but it is a throwback to season five. It's a base-under-siege story.
Do you think I want to die like that? I want to live!
It has that Terrance Dicks sense of characters
who have to, sort of, fulfil some sort of moral destiny.
You have betrayed us!
Every word has been heard on Earth!
Kill him!
RUSSELL: The problem with Seeds of Death
is that the design of it looks like The Fantastic Four.
You've actually got people wearing their underpants
outside their silver, glittery costumes.
It is every horrible sci-fi cliche.
But it's brilliant. I love The Seeds of Death.
It should be made into a multi-million-dollar movie
with that script but just with lots of money thrown at it.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Robert Holmes had come forward with a new serial
calledThe Aliens in the Blood about a race of mutant telepaths.
This was rejected but he was instead commissioned
to write a six-part serial calledThe Space Pirates.
Robert Holmes sort of slipped into that
and he did some very good, credible stories.
And I think I met him by having to pick up one of his scripts
and rewrite big sections of it.
Didn't care. That's fine. Better.
Did Bob do The Space Pirates? Yeah, it's one of his few...
Well, he wasn't working with me. He was working with Derrick.
It's one of his few failures.
We have one episode. It's quite dull.
We have the soundtrack. That's quite dull.
It's a fairly boring and repetitive space opera.
Maybe the visuals match up to the soundtrack in a way
that makes it very, very interesting.
That's possibly true. Who knows? I suspect not.
Oh, dear. What a silly idiot I am!
NARRATOR: But even with The Space Pirates up and running,
there were still 1 0 episodes left to fill.
Meanwhile, time had run out, not only for the Doctor
but for his companions as well.
Both Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines had decided to leave the series
at the same time as their co-star.
My agent at the time said,
''Well, darling, you've done three years of television now and you should leave.''
Pat had already decided that he was going to leave.
And I think he would like to have left a little bit before,
but, um, stayed on and we had this 1 0-parter
as our final story.
He said, ''Look, I tell you what, if you're going to leave,
''my contract goes for three, four months, whatever.
''Stay, stay then and then we'll all leave together.''
It was very sad because, as I said, we didn't really want to leave.
(EXPLOSIONS)
Derrick came into my office one day and said,
''Terrance, we need a 1 0-part Doctor Who.
''We need it like the week after next and you've got to write it.''
I realised that I couldn't possibly do it on my own.
So I went to Mac Hulke, to Malcolm Hulke.
He went away and a couple of days later
he came back saying, ''We want to do something called War Games. ''
SHEARMAN: You get the idea of it being a historical adventure for a while
which feels utterly real.
We're back in history, Jamie.
One of the most terrible times on the planet Earth.
SHERWIN: This is one of the few stories I've come across
that was made on a piece of elastic. You could keep stretching it.
Smythe, 1 91 7 zone, British sector.
It was a never-ending story. I mean, how many wars have we had?
1 91 7 zone, Roman zone, American Civil War zone.
This whole place is divided into time zones.
ZOÉÉ: But there's a blank space in the middle.
There's nothing marked at all.
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, and I think that's where we've got to get to.
It never bores. It's a genuine epic story.
How much have you learnt of our plans?
I know that you've been kidnapping soldiers from the Earth
from various times in its history
and bringing them here to kill one another.
And at the end of it, there are amazing, show-changing revelations
about what the Doctor is and about what the show can be from this point on.
What did he mean, Doctor? Who mustn't you call?
The only people who can put an end to this whole ghastly business
and send everyone back to their own times.
The Time Lords.
To give him credit,
I think Derrick Sherwin came up with the concept of the Time Lords.
There had to be something to do with his background
and so, obviously I came up with the idea of Time Lords.
Who are they?
-They're my own people, Jamie. -Oh, well, that's all right, then.
We didn't know anything very much about them.
Because we never really get a full, what we call a bible, as writers
from whoever developed it
and Sydney certainly didn't do a bible for writers.
Don't do it, Doctor. You can't! You know what will happen!
All he can do is call in the big guns.
ZOÉÉ: (DISTORTED) What is it?
DOCTOR: (DISTORTED) Time Lords!
And he had to go back for trial because he nicked a Tardis.
And then you meet the big guns and they are terrifying
and you understand why he left, you understand why he ran away.
Your appearance has changed before, it will change again.
That is part of the sentence.
You can't just change what I look like without consulting me!
And then you have the trial, which is just brilliant.
Um, Troughton, tour de force in that scene.
Oh, he's just amazing.
Oh, he's too old!
Well, he's too fat, isn't he?
No, he's too thin.
(SIGHS) That one's too young.
Oh, now, that won't do at all. It's ridiculous.
Is this the best you can do?
I've never seen such an incredible bunch.
It's the most beautiful thing about Doctor Who sometimes.
You get these wonderful accidental moments.
Probably at the moment in Britain, I would say about half the population
must know what a Time Lord is.
It's one of the things that developed out of a desperate writer's brain.
But it's taken on this tremendous power.
What's...What's happened?
TIME LORD: The time has come for you to change your appearance, Doctor,
and begin your exile.
SHEARMAN: Troughton's tenure is sort of bookended by two stories
which introduce into the series amazing, show-changing concepts,
one of which of course, is the idea
that the show can survive a change of actor
and they can use it for as long as they want to,
and probably always will.
And at the end of the show, they suddenly reveal the great mystery
that hasn't ever been... Really been dared to be asked on the show before,
about what he is, where he comes from, and that also changes the show forever.
Is this some sort of joke?
Patrick Troughton is, quite simply, phenomenally good.
He is never anything less than electrifying to watch.
He is funny. He is reassuring. He's scary when he needs to be.
-You say you searched all the base? -Yes. What of it?
-Every nook and cranny? -Yes.
-No chance of anyone hiding anywhere? -None whatever.
Did your men search in here?
Patrick was a great dramatic actor
but he had this lovely comedic skill, as well.
-Press the button! -All right, there's no need to shout!
Now go away and don't fuss me. No, come back. What's this?
-Oh, well... -It's all right, I know.
He could go from being comic to noble and dignified,
you know, like in the blink of an eye.
Our lives are different to anybody else's.
That's the exciting thing.
There's nobody in the universe can do what we're doing.
He brought something that made kids fall in love with the Doctor,
whereas I think Hartnell made you respect him
and you followed the companions.
This was the first time you followed the Doctor.
No, you can't do this to me!
PADBURY: He was special. He was, in my eyes, the best Doctor.
Just everything he did, every little quirk and...
It was just fantastic.
(DOCTOR WHO THEME)