Category: Doctor Who

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith return from their medieval adventure, but when they arrive in modern-day London, the streets are bare, the people are nowhere to be seen, and dinosaurs stalk the streets. Like everyone else, the Brigadier and UNIT have gone underground, hiding from the enormous reptiles while they try to figure out what suddenly brought them to the present day. The Doctor and Sarah soon discover that it’s the product of an illegal time experiment designed to restore Earth to simpler, less polluted, less corrupt times – and it has come about thanks to a startling betrayal by one of the Brigadier’s most trusted officers.

written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Paddy Russell
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates), Noel Johnson (Charles Grover), Peter Miles (Professor Whitaker), Martin Jarvis (Butler), Pat Gorman (UNIT Corporal), James Marcus (Peasant), Ben Aris (Shears), John Caesar (Soldier), Gordon Reid (Phillips), George Bryson (Ogden), Terry Walsh (Looter), John Bennett (General Finch), Martin Taylor (Corporal Norton), Dave Carter (Duffy), Terence Wilton (Mark), Brian Badcoe (Adam), Carmen Silvera (Ruth), Colin Bell (Bryson), Timothy Craven (Robinson), Trevor Lawrence (Lodge)

Broadcast from January 12 through February 16, 1974

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Death To The Daleks – Part 1

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Sarah to Exxilon, but not by choice – an enormous sentient city on the planet drains so much energy from everything around it that the TARDIS is quickly rendered powerless. And the Doctor is not the only unwelcome visitor on Exxilon: an expedition of humans is there mining a substance necessary to cure a plague on Earth, though their ship is now useless. They called for backup from a relief ship, but to their horror, the ship that shows up comes down for a hard landing…and in any case, it’s not another human expedition. The ship that arrives is full of Daleks, on a mission seeking that same precious drug. As the human expedition’s weapons are useless, they and the Doctor are powerless as the Daleks line them up for extermination.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Michael Bryant
music by Carey Blyton and played by the London Saxophone Quartet

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Duncan Lamont (Dan Galloway), John Abineri (Richard Railton), Neil Seiler (Commander Stewart), Julian Fox (Peter Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant), Mostyn Evans (High Priest), Michael Wisher (Dalek voices), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Cy Town (Dalek), Murphy Grunbar (Dalek)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Death To The Daleks – Part 2

Doctor WhoThe newly-arrived Dalek expedition is just as helpless as the humans; just like their ship (and everyone else’s technology), the Daleks’ exterminating weapons are also left without power. Sarah, captured by the Exxilons, is prepared as the next sacrifice to the living city, which the Exxilons worship. A combined force of humans and Daleks, along with the Doctor, is ambushed by armed Exxilons and captured; once taken back to the Exxilons’ caves, the Doctor commits a grievous offense: attacking the high priest to stop Sarah from being sacrificed. The Daleks parlay with the Exxilons for their own release and that of the humans; unknown to them, the Daleks remaining on their ship are outfitting themselves with mechanical chemical weapons – the equivalent of Earth rifles. These newly armed Daleks storm the Exxilons’ caves, establishing dominance over the primitives, and the Doctor and Sarah escape their own sacrifice/execution ceremony, finding themselves in deeper underground tunnels…and whatever the Exxilons expected to sacrifice them to still awaits them.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Michael Bryant
music by Carey Blyton and played by the London Saxophone Quartet

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Duncan Lamont (Dan Galloway), John Abineri (Richard Railton), Neil Seiler (Commander Stewart), Julian Fox (Peter Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant), Mostyn Evans (High Priest), Arnold Yarrow (Bellal), Michael Wisher (Dalek voices), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Cy Town (Dalek), Murphy Grunbar (Dalek)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Death To The Daleks – Part 3

Doctor WhoAs the Doctor expects, the electronic “root” is deadly to touch. Elsewhere in the caverns, Sarah is cornered by an Exxilon…one who actually speaks English. His name is Bellal, and he means no harm; he’s a member of a small group of Exxilons who have chosen rationality over the religion based on worship of the city. Before any further introductions can be made, Sarah and Bellal have to hide from two Daleks, who then follow the Doctor further into the tunnels, where they too encounter the “root”…only to discover it’s dangerous to Daleks as well. The root is part of the city’s automated systems, and Bellal reveals that the city is the invention of the Exxilons themselves…and unless they destroy that invention, it will wipe them out. On the surface, the Daleks have subjugated the more primitive Exxilons, turning them into a slave labor force…with help from Galloway, to his crewmates’ disgust. The Doctor and Bellal go to the city to try to gain entry, finding that each successive entryway is locked, and can only be opened by solving logic puzzles…and failing any of these tests could be deadly.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Michael Bryant
music by Carey Blyton and played by the London Saxophone Quartet

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Duncan Lamont (Dan Galloway), Julian Fox (Peter Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant), Arnold Yarrow (Bellal), Roy Heymann (Gotal), Michael Wisher (Dalek voices), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Murphy Grumbar (Dalek), Cy Town (Dalek)

Notes: The Doctor claims he’s seen the symbols from the Exxilon city in a Peruvian temple, which means that before the fall of their civilization, they were themselves capable of interstellar travel.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Death To The Daleks – Part 4

Doctor WhoAs the logic tests allowing passage further into the Exxilon City become more devious, the Doctor and Bellal have to be more cautious. The Daleks, on the other hand, power through the puzzles and traps with a combination of brute force and their rapidly-calculating battle computers. The Doctor and Bellal reach what appears to be the end of their journey – the city’s control room. The Doctor sets about dismantling the primary computer “brain” of the city, while the city retaliates by slowly materializing zombie-like “antibodies” to destroy the interlopers – whether they’re flesh and blood or Daleks. Sarah reaches Jill Tarrant, one of the surviving crew of the Earth ship, and begins planning to double-cross the Daleks, loading all of the needed substance aboard the Earth ship while the Daleks end up with bags of sand. When the city begins to self-destruct, the Daleks regain all of their deadly powers…but one of their human prisoners has a final trick up his sleeve.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Michael Bryant
music by Carey Blyton and played by the London Saxophone Quartet

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Duncan Lamont (Dan Galloway), John Abineri (Richard Railton), Neil Seiler (Commander Stewart), Julian Fox (Peter Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant), Arnold Yarrow (Bellal), Michael Wisher (Dalek voices), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Cy Town (Dalek), Murphy Grunbar (Dalek), Steven Ismay (Zombie), Terry Walsh (Zombie)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

The Monster of Peladon

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Sarah to the planet Peladon, a world he last visited with Jo Grant in tow. But it’s a place still plagued by trouble. Queen Thalira, the daughter of the young King that the Doctor met on his previous visit, is facing an uprising among Peladon’s mineworkers. Little does she know, there are also worse threats ahead if the miners shut off Peladon’s export of a vital mineral. Alpha Centauri is still serving as an ambassador, trying to smooth things over, but someone is working against the Queen and the miners – and the mighty best Aggedor may be unable to stop them. This time, are the Doctor’s instincts about the Ice Warriors correct?

written by Brian Hayles
directed by Lennie Mayne
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Ralph Watson (Ettis), Donald Gee (Eckersley), Gerald Taylor (Vega Nexos), Nina Thomas (Queen Thalira), Frank Gatcliffe (Ortron), Michael Crane (Blor), Stuart Fell (Alpha Centauri), Ysanne Churchman (voice of Alpha Centauri), Terry Walsh (Captain), Rex Robinson (Gebek), Graeme Eton (Preba), Nick Hobbs (Aggedor), Roy Evans (Rima), Sonny Caldinez (Sskel), Alan Bennion (Azaxyr), Max Faulkner (Miner)

Broadcast from March 23 through April 27, 1974

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Planet of the Spiders

Doctor WhoPast events catch up with the Doctor in an unexpected way. A race of evil giant spiders on Metebelis 3 is looking for one of their planet’s perfect blue crystals to complete a crystal “web” that will broadcast the will of their leader, the Great One (not Jackie Gleason), across the entire universe. But the Doctor stole that crystal during a previous visit without realizing its significance, and his actions have drawn unwanted attention to Earth. The spiders use a monastery in the English countryside as their gateway to Earth, taking over the minds of a criminally-minded man named Lupton whose meditations have failed to turn him into a better person. In the end, the Doctor is obliged to return the crystal to prevent Earth from being overrun by the spiders – but the personal cost will be very high.

written by Robert Sloman
directed by Barry Letts
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), John Dearth (Lupton), Terence Lodge (Moss), Andrew Staines (Keaver), Christopher Burgess (Barnes), Carl Forgione (Land), Cyril Shaps (Professor Clegg), Kevin Lindsay (Cho-Je), John Kane (Tommy), Pat Gorman (Soldier), Chubby Oates (Policeman), Terry Walsh (Man with boat), Michael Pinder (Hopkins), Ysanne Churchman, Kismet Delgado, Maureen Morris (Spider voices), Ralph Arliss (Tuar), Geoffrey Morris (Sabor), Joanna Monro (Rega), Gareth Hunt (Arak), Jenny Laird (Neska), Walter Randall (Captain), Max Faulkner (Second Captain), Maureen Morris (Great One), George Cormack (K’anpo)

Broadcast from May 4 through June 8, 1974

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

Robot

Doctor WhoThe Doctor’s regeneration and recovery come at an inopportune time for the Brigadier, who has to try to solve a series of crimes related to the top-secret plans for a disintegrator gun. Sarah, researching a story about the equally top-secret Think Tank organization, is introduced to a gigantic robot which could be the perpetrator of the thefts and killings – despite the scientists’ horrifying demonstration that the robot could not kill Sarah. The Doctor, recovering slowly and aggravating the Brigadier with his unpredictable new personality, discovers that the Think Tank scientists are doing much more than research – they’re planning on taking over the world and culling the human herd of those not up to genius standards.

Season 12 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Christopher Barry
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (RSM Benton), Edward Burnham (Professor Kettlewell), Alec Linstead (Jellicoe), Patricia Maynard (Miss Winters), Michael Kilgarriff (Robot), John Scott Martin (Guard), Timothy Craven (Short), Walter Goodman (Chambers)

Broadcast from December 28, 1974 through January 18, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

The Ark In Space

Doctor WhoSeveral millennia in the future, heightened solar activity threatened to devastate the Earth, and mankind retreated into hibernation aboard an enormous space station, where the last surviving members of the human race are cryogenically preserved. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah arrive on the station, discovering that humanity has slept in by thousands of years thanks to unearthly saboteurs who intend to claim Earth in the absence of its original inhabitants…who are scheduled to become the main course.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Rodney Bennett
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Wendy Williams (Vira), Kenton Moore (Noah), Christopher Masters (Libri), John Gregg (Lycett), Richardson Morgan (Rogin), Stuart Fell (Wirrn), Nick Hobbs (Wirrn), Gladys Spencer (voices), Peter Tuddenham (voices), Brian Jacobs (Dune)

Broadcast from January 25 through February 15, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

The Sontaran Experiment

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Harry and Sarah beam down to Earth from the space station to check the transmat receiver that will allow the repopulation of the planet. But they quickly find that they are not alone. A team of human colonists who left Earth long ago have come back to investigate a call that apparently came from there, but unfortunately for them, that call was a forgery transmitted by Sontaran soldier Styre, who is conducting experiments on the human being’s resistance to Sontaran military might as a prelude to an invasion of Earth’s solar system.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
directed by Rodney Bennett
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Kevin Lindsay (Styre/Marshal), Peter Walshe (Erak), Terry Walsh (Zake), Glyn Jones (Krans), Peter Rutherford (Roth), Donald Douglas (Vural), Brian Ellis (Prisoner)

Broadcast from February 22 through March 1, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

Genesis of the Daleks

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Sarah and Harry are waylaid by a secret arm of the Time Lords en route back to space station Nerva. A Time Lord has diverted them to Skaro, the Daleks’ homeworld, on the eve of their creation, and the Doctor is under orders to prevent the creation of the Daleks in order to avoid future in which they could conquer the entire universe. An atomic war between the Kaleds and the Thals has reduced both of Skaro’s superpowers from the nuclear age to the stone age, with the exception of the radiation-deformed Kaled genius Davros, who not only anticipates the mutation of his people that the war will cause, but embraces it as their future. Davros has devised armored life support systems to encase the shriveled mutants that the Kaleds will become after centuries of atomic bombardment – and he christens these devices Daleks. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah stumble into the Kaled city, and find that Davros has fanatical sympathizers as well as horrified opponents among his own people. And when the moment comes, despite the evil and hatred that Davros is preprogramming into his creations, the Doctor finds that there may be a just reason to allow the Daleks to run their destructive course through history.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Terry Nation
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Michael Wisher (Davros), John Scott Martin, Max Faulkner, Keith Ashley, Cy Town (Daleks), Roy Skelton (Dalek voices), Peter Miles (Nyder), Guy Siner (Ravon), Dennis Chinnery (Gharman), Richard Reeves (Kaled Leader), John Franklyn-Robbins (Time Lord), Stephen Yardley (Sevrin), James Garbutt (Ronson), Drew Wood (Tane), Jeremy Chandler (Gerrill), Pat Gorman, Hilary Minster, John Gleeson (Thal soldiers), Andrew Johns (Kravos), Peter Mantle (Kaled guard), Harriet Philpin (Bettan), Max Faulkner (Thal guard), Michael Lynch (Thal politician), Ivor Roberts (Mogren), Tom Georgeson (Kavell)

Broadcast from March 8 through April 12, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

Revenge Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe Cybermen are out to pulverize the planetoid Voga, a small body rich in gold. As we learn here for the first time, gold is one of the only substances capable of shutting down the Cybermen, and Voga’s wealth of the precious metal was key to the defeat of the Cybermen in the “Cyber Wars” (evidently, the Cybermen are acquainted with Usenet flame-fests too). The Cybermen’s plan to destroy Voga hinges on the elimination of a manned satellite that stands sentinel near the planetoid – a satellite that will later become the Nerva space station that will preserve the human race. But the Cybermen don’t count on the arrival of the Doctor, Sarah and Harry – or on the willpower and ability of the Vogans to defend their homeworld.

Download this episodewritten by Gerry Davis
directed by Michael E. Briant
music by Carey Blyton

Guest Cast: Alec Wallis (Warner), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Stevenson), Jeremy Wilkin (Kellman), William Marlowe (Lester), David Collings (Vorus/Wilkins), Michael Wisher (Magrik/Colville/Vogan voice), Christopher Robbie (Cyberleader), Melville Jones (Cyberman), Kevin Stoney (Tyrum), Brian Grellis (Sheprah)

Broadcast from April 19 through May 10, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 13 Doctor Who

Terror Of The Zygons

Doctor WhoRecalled to Earth by the Brigadier via time-space telegraph, the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Sarah and Harry to the Scottish moors, not far from where offshore oil drilling platforms have been subjected to a series of attacks from the sea – but UNIT can find no traces of attacks from either a boat or a submarine. In the nearest village, the Doctor uncovers evidence that someone there may be behind the attacks, and Harry is shot while trying to help a man washed ashore from the latest attack.

Season 13 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith)

Download this episodewritten by Robert Banks Stewart
directed by Douglas Camfield
music by Geoffrey Burgon

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan), John Levene (RSM Benton), John Woodnutt (Duke of Forgill / Broton), Hugh Martin (Munro), Tony Sibbald (Huckle), Angus Lennie (Angus McRanald), Robert Russell (The Caber), Bruce Wightman (Radio Operator), Lillias Walker (Sister Lamont), Bernard G. High (Corporal)

Broadcast from August 30 through September 20, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 13 Doctor Who

Planet of Evil

Doctor WhoOn the planet Zeta Minor, an expedition from a neighboring planet is doomed. Their ship is unable to lift off from the surface, and something is stalking and killing the crew one by one. The TARDIS arrives and the Doctor and Sarah offer their help, but they’re also suspected of causing the difficulties. The Doctor discovers that an attempt to bring a sample of antimatter back has attracted the unwelcome, but instinctively protective, attention of Zeta Minor’s native antimatter life forms. Worse yet, Professor Sorenson, hell-bent on keeping the sample aboard, continues his experiments with antimatter, slowly transforming himself into a hybrid matter-antimatter creature with no control over his actions.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Louis Marks
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Terence Brook (Braun), Tony McEwan (Baldwin), Frederick Jaeger (Sorenson), Ewen Solon (Vishinsky), Prentis Hancock (Salamar), Michael Wisher (Morelli / voice of Ranjit), Graham Weston (De Haan), Louis Mahoney (Ponti), Haydn Wood (O’Hara), Melvyn Bedford (Reig), Mike Lee Lane (Monster)

Broadcast from September 27 through October 18, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 13 Doctor Who

Pyramids of Mars

Doctor WhoIn 1910, Egyptologist Marcus Scarman makes his greatest find ever – a crypt said to be the tomb of the god Sutekh. It is also Scarman’s last find. His life as he has known it ends and his body becomes an obedient servant to the still very-much-alive Egyptian god Sutekh, in fact an alien consciousness trapped on Earth.

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Sarah to Britain that same year, after a close call in the time vortex and the appearance of Sutekh’s face in the console room – a psychic breach of the time machine’s most important defenses. The Doctor follows the source of the interference to Scarman’s mansion, where strange things are afoot – including the shadowy appearance of walking mummies. With Scarman’s brother Lawrence in tow, the Doctor and Sarah stumble upon the force behind the unusual happenings: Sutekh is planning a strike, from Earth, against a mechanism on the surface of Mars which hold him captive on Earth. Even the primitive state of rocketry isn’t holding Sutekh’s effort back: he’s lending Scarman and his robot mummies advanced technology. Sutekh hopes to dominate the Earth with his immense willpower and then take revenge upon his fellow Osirans on Mars – even if it means wiping out the human race to avenge his centuries of captivity.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Lewis Griefer (a.k.a. Robert Holmes)
directed by Paddy Russell
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Bernard Archard (Professor Macrus Scarman), Vik Tabian (Ahmed), Peter Mayock (Namin), Michael Bilton (Collins), Peter Copley (Dr. Warlock), Michael Sheard (Laurence Scarman), George Tovey (Ernie Clements), Gabriel Woolf (Sutekh / voice of Horus), Nick Burnell, Melvyn Bedford, Kevin Selway (Mummies)

Broadcast from October 25 through November 15, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green