PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 659

Doctor Who 0037 The Tomb Of The Cybermen Four part story that aired September 2 to 23 1967. Screenplay by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, directed by Morris Barry. I watched this the first time that I ran through the series. I posted on 12-30-12, here's the post. I think I still feel about the same regarding the episodes.

Doctor Who 0038 The Abominable Snowmen Six part story that aired September 30 to November 4 1967. Screenplay by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, directed by Gerald Blake. Linking script by Michael Stevens, read by Frazier Hines.

The first time I watched Doctor Who I watched the only remaining episode of the serial. It's included in the Patrick Troughton part of the Lost In Time DVD box set. I didn't have much to say back then.

38 The Abominable Snowmen was first broadcast September 30 – November 4 1967. Only episode 2 of the 6 exists. The Tardis gang encounters a Yeti. Nice, huh. Who doesn't like the Yeti.

You can't tell much from one episode.

This time I've got the complete serial to listen too. It's in the 4th of The Lost TV Episodes Collection.  I found it as entertaining as the previous ones.

The Tardis sets down in the Himalayas, the Doctor goes off to explore and encounters a dead guy. He's blamed by the man's companions who are on a Yeti finding mission. Professor Travers, the head man, doesn't believe it's Yeti's killing people, he thinks they are passive creatures. The Doctor is held at a local monastery.

Jamie and Victoria decide to go look for the Doctor. They get trapped in a cave and discover some glowing metal spheres. They escape and visit the monastery. The Abbott releases the Doctor and the monastery is attacked by robot Yeti. They find out when one of the creatures is captured.

There's plenty more going on, the Doctor figures out who's behind the attacks and puts a stop to that. The Monks are safe in their home and Professor Travis is sure he's seen a real Yeti. The Tardis takes off as life goes on.

I was entertained but it would be nice to see the missing episodes replaced with animated ones. It could take a while, though I have no idea if the animated story is anywhere in the works. The DVD case for The Abominable Snowmen is a fan made one. Hopefully, there will be a real one down the road.

Science Fiction Sunday 658

Doctor Who 0035 The Evil Of The Daleks Seven part story that aired May 20 to July 1 1967. Written by David Whitaker, directed by Derek Martinus. Linking script by Sue Cowley, narrated by Frazier Hines. Only episode 2 survives, a telerecording was found at a car boot sale in 1987. I saw that episode on the first run through of the series back in 2013 but I remember little now.

There's an animated version that's coming to DVD in November. I've ordered one and intend to watch it when it shows up. Dailymotion has an ugly CGI version of the story that doesn't seem to be by the BBC. I watched a few seconds and turned it off. It's too awful looking to even screen capture. It's probably a fan based production, I've just not looked into that stuff much. More than enough real BBC products to keep me busy. The BBC animated version coming in November looks more like the other BBC animated versions from the DVD set's box art.

We join the Doctor and Jamie at the beginning of the first episode, they are at Gatwick Airport, heading to the Tardis, when they see it being hauled off on a truck. The search around a bit and gather some clues that lead them to an antique shop run by a man called Edward Waterfield. In a back room we see that Waterfield is being controlled by the Daleks. The Doctor and Jamie are gassed and sent back through time to 1866.

Waterfield turns out to be from that time, he has a partner called Theodore Maxtible, they've invented a time machine. Somehow the Daleks found out and kidnapped Waterfield's daughter Victoria. She's played by Deborah Watling. She'd join the Doctor and Jamie in the Tardis at the end of this story and appear in 6 more stories in Season 5. Victoria would have adventures with other Doctors and companions in a series of novels and short stories, plus video and audio productions produced outside the BBC series. I've heard some Big Fish programs but aren't really interested in following up on them. There are a huge number of them and they aren't cheap to buy. I'll stick with the BBC produced stuff.

The Dalek's have brought the Doctor to the house to conduct an experiment. They'll destroy the Tardis unless the Doctor helps conduct the experiment on Jamie. We also find out that Maxtible is a greedy jerk who's helping the Dalek's because they've promised him the process for transmuting iron to gold. Silly Maxtible, you can't trust a Dalek.

The goal of the experiment is to add human qualities to new Daleks, the human's are the one species that seems to be able to defeat the Daleks, the Dalek leaders reason that Daleks with human qualities would be unbeatable. The Doctor finds the human qualities and adds them to the new Daleks. They emerge as more human versions of the Daleks who are friendly to the humans. They cause problems by doubting the Dalek ideology. 

We get to travel to Skaro and we see  the Dalek Emperor. Maxtible betrays the humans for gold and suffers for it in the end. The Dalek Emperor has a device that can change the human Daleks back and give humans a Dalek personality. Maxtible gets the treatment, drugs the Doctor and puts him through the process. It seems to work on the Doctor but we soon find out he's faking it. The human Dalek's attack the Emperor and cause chaos and much destruction in the Dalek city. Waterfield gives up his life to save the Doctor and he decides to take her along in the Tardis. The Dalek's had brought the Tardis to Skaro so they get in and leave.

Quite a good story with lots of death and destruction. I'll be looking forward to the animated version when it finally comes out.

Science Fiction Sunday 657

Doctor Who 0035 The Faceless Ones Six part story that aired April 8 to May 13 1967. Written by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke, directed by Gerry Mill. Linking script by Michael Stevens, read by Frazier Hines.

Between the DVD and the CD releases there are multiple versions of this partially lost story. One and three are the only complete episodes, they were first released in 2003 as part of The Reign Of Terror VHS box set, in 2004 they were included in the Lost In Time DVD set. When I watched the series for the first time in 2013 I watched those 2 episodes back then. I didn't have the audio CDs back then and neither did the local library system.

 

The 2020 3 disc DVD set has color and B&W versions of the whole 6 part story, episodes 1 & 3, and Telesnap versions of the missing episodes. I wound up watching the B&W animated version with the missing episodes inserted in the run.

 

The Tardis lands in the middle of the Gatwick Airport runway. An airport security officer sees them exit the police call box and gives chase when they scatter. Polly hides in Chameleon Tours hanger and sees a murder done. Polly is seen and runs away. She finds the Doctor and Jamie and tells them what happened. They see the dead man and the Doctor tells them that the man was killed by a weapon not available on the Earth at that time. They leave to report the death and on the way Polly is kidnapped when she lags behind.

 

The corpse isn't there when they bring the authorities to the hanger. We've been seeing stuff that the Doctor hasn't and it turns out that the Chameleon Tours is really a front for aliens. They've been infiltrating the airport personal with a machine that can turn one of their race into a human. They need a person to do it and they've been kidnapping the passengers on their low cost youth package trips. The man Polly saw killed was investigating the company, people had been noticing that their family members have gone missing after flying Chameleon.

 

Since it's a 6 part story it moves along a bit slower than the 4 parters. There are a good number of characters introduced and plenty of things happening. The authorities don't believe the Doctor at first but things get too weird to deny his story. There's plenty of running about Gatwick and people get kidnapped and released quite often. Jamie winds up on one of the Chameleon flights and we get to see the alien space base. The aliens have been miniaturizing the humans and storing them in drawers.

 

The Doctor eventually defeats the head alien and the other aliens leave without any more struggle. Ben and Polly decide to leave the crew as they are back to their time. Jamie and the Doctor exit stage left to look for the Tardis. All in all a fair decent story

There's a commentary with a few of the surviving people involved with the show and old interviews with ones that have passed away. I listened to those and enjoyed them. The only other special features are the making of for the animation version and some PDFs. Still, more than enough to get through. I didn't listen to the audio version yet but will during the week.

Science Fiction Sunday 656

Doctor Who 0034 The Macra Terror Four part story that aired March 11 to April 1 1967. Written by Ian Stuart Black, directed by John Davies. All but less than 2 mins of video remain after the big wipe. The audio exists and the first audio CDs were released in 1992 with narration by Colin Baker, they were remastered and released in 2000. These are included as part of the Special Features on the 2019 DVD release of the animated version of the story.

   

The audio was remastered and released on CD in 2012. The linking story was written by Robert Ayres and was narrated by Anneke Wills. All the audio CDs were collected in 5 multi disc sets that were released in 2019 and 2020. I listened to the audio version first and as usual I found them quite enjoyable. It's been nicely converted from the audio track of a TV show to a nice radio play. Something they still have a good handle on at the BBC.

 
 

The 2019 2 disc DVD release, also available as a Blu-ray, has all four episodes animated in color and B&W. The 4 episodes are also presented in a photo reconstruction. I watched the color version first, then listened to all the commentaries, episode 1 & 2 of the reconstruction and extras on disc 1. I really like the color versions of the episodes.

Disc 2 has the B&W version of the animation, episodes 3 & 4 of the photo reconstruction, plus a nice number of short bits and pieces in the special features. Sadly more and more of the people behind the scenes have passed away and they are having to rely on old interviews. The BBC should really get a big pat on the back for all the material they've pulled together for the show.

 
 

The Tardis lands on a planet with  colony of Earth men. The locals seem happy but that's just a cover for something sinister going on behind the scenes.

   

The Tardis gang consists of The Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie. They pop out of the Tardis to have a look around. Jamie brings a big stick because he's seen the giant claw in the viewer. They don't see the creature they expected, instead they see a guy called Medok, he's on the run, guards from the colony are chasing him. They explain that Medok has escaped from the hospital of correction.

 
 

Medok tells stories about giant creatures and the colony's manager, the Pilot, claims the man is crazy. The Pilot doesn't want anyone to believe there's anything odd going on in the colony. Anyone causing trouble is forced to work in the gas mines. That's a death sentence for some.

 
 

As the Doctor spends time in the colony he comes to realize that the citizens are under control of some unknown creatures called the Macra, they keep the human's in their power with mind control gas. Ben gets a big whiff and his mind is controlled by the creatures. Jamie, Polly and the Doctor fight back with the help of Medok and later the Pilot. Ben fights the mind control and joins the Tardis gang in the fight.

 
 

Eventually the Doctor blows up the Macra and frees the colony. He runs off when he hears that the locals want him to be the new Pilot. I thought it was a fun serial. Sadly the Macra creatures look so much better in the animated version.

There's a short featurette on Shawcraft, they were the company that made a lot of models for Doctor Who before the BBC's in-house effects department had grown large enough to take over the job. I'd stick in a screencap of the Macra creature but it's filmed so dark that it's hard to see anything. The Shawcraft featurette shows the creature in daylight and it was kind of sad. Best to keep it in the dark. The animation also makes it easier to have more creatures. That model Shawcraft made is said to cost £5000, that was in 1967, about £77,000 in today's coin.

 
 

The above images are screen captures from the B&W reconstruction. The new animated version has had the aspect ratio changed to fit the modern 16:9 TVs.

Seeing the photo versions makes me wish that we had the real video. There's a slim chance that it will ever be found at this point. Here's a few screencaps from the animated and colorized opening titles.

 
 
 

Science Fiction Sunday 655

Doctor Who 0033 The Moonbase Four part story that aired February 11 to March 4 1967. Written by Kit Pedler, directed by Morris Barry. Linking story by Sue Cowley, read by Frazer Hines. The BBC has animated episodes 1 and 3 to replace the missing video.

I hadn't seen this story before, the disc hadn't come out when I watched the series back in 2013. As usual the library didn't have the audio CDs. I watched the DVD, including all the extras, and sampled the BBC Audio CDs.

 
 

The Tardis plops down on the Moon in 2070. The humans have built a base for controlling the weather on Earth. The Tardis gang leave the ship and jump about in the lower gravity. Jamie hurts himself on landing, he falls in front of an entrance to the base, men take him inside.

 

 

The Doctor, Polly and Ben enter the base and find the men hard at work at the Gravitron. It's what they use to control the weather on Earth. They've been having a couple of big problems on the base, issues with the equipment and some of the men have been getting sick. The station's doctor is one of the men in sickbay.

 

The Doctor steps in to help. Even though the commander of the station is suspicious of the Tardis gang, he lets them help. The base is quarantined by Earth's International Space Control. Soon after the base's doctor is missing from the sickbay.

 

The culprits turn out to be the Cybermen, they've got small ship nearby and they've cut a secret door into the store room. It's them that's been poisoning the food. The sick humans are being turned into slaves for the Cybermen.

 

 

Jamie wakes up to see one and Polly walks in as the Cyberman is leaving the room. The commander doesn't believe that they are Cybermen, he thinks they were wiped out a long time ago. He's still suspicious of the Tardis gang and wants them off the moon. He's willing to give the Doctor 24 hours to figure out what's going on.

 
 

The Cybermen take the sick and turn them into remote controlled slaves. Polly makes some coffee and the Doctor figures the poison was in the sugar, he was a bit too late for that one guy. The Cybermen seize control of the base and kill some more men. Even poor Polly gets knocked out with a blast from a Cyberman's hand.

 

 

The human's fight back and destroy some of the Cybermen with spray bottles of solvent sprayed on their plastic chest parts. They fall down and foam comes out of their special areas.

 
 

A couple more Cybermen ships arrive but the Doctor is ready for them. He turns the Gravitron on them and flips them of the planet. Time for the Tardis gang to exit stage left.

A fairly entertaining story with plenty of Cyberman action. The massive set for the base is quite nice but Anneke Wills tells a story that the Gravitron fell over when Patrick Troughton was walking near it. He could have been hurt but it just missed him. The commentaries were generally interesting, Toby Hadoke interviews 2 of Kit Pedler's daughters and others for over episode 1 and 3, actors Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines and Edward Phillips join sound effects creator Brian Hodgson and moderator Toby Hadoke for a look at episodes 2 and 4. There's a making of, some photos and PDFs of the Radio Times listings and some production notes.

Science Fiction Sunday 654

Doctor Who 0032 The Underwater Menace Four part story that aired January 14 to February 4 1967. Written by Geoffrey Orme and directed by Julia Smith. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Anneke Wills. Only the 2nd and 3rd episodes survive intact, there's audio and a minuscule bit of video from episodes 1 and 4.

When I watched the series back in 2013 the library didn't have the audio CDs and the story's DVD hadn't come out yet. The CDs were released back in 2005, I have the 2020 re-release collections. All four episodes have Anneke Wills narrating the action we can't see. I enjoy these productions much more than I thought I might.

The 2015 DVD has the two surviving episodes, for the missing episodes they use still pictures over the restored original soundtrack. It's not the CD soundtrack but it works well enough with stills to flesh out the story. The Wikipedia says at one time the two episodes were going to be animated but that was cancelled.

The Tardis comes to a stop near the sea. It's Earth and they're on an island that's home to the survivors of Atlantis. The gang of four get captured and taken to the high priest.

The Tardis gang get sentenced to being sacrificed but Doctor Zaroff rescues them. Zaroff is a scientist from the surface world. He's got a plan to raise Atlantis to the surface and the King is right on his side. Little does the King know that Zaroff has a plan to blow up the world. Just as a show of power, cause he's nuts.

Polly had been separated from the Tardis men, she was sent to a crazy scientist called Damon, he's the guy who turns humans into fish people. They are slaves who supply the colony's food. The colony has no refrigeration and the food must be gathered everyday. If only Zaroff has put his person ambition aside and worked on a freezer.

Ben and Jamie run about and eventually rescue Polly. The Doctor learns of Zaroff's plan and puts all his effort in putting s top to it. The King won't listen to him, so the Doctor decides to start a revolution among the fish people, that eventually works rather well.

Zaroff gets crazier and crazier, alarming the King, sadly his stand against the plan leads Zaroff to shoot him and seize control. Things fall apart under his command, his soldier's have deserted to find food, and the Doctor's plan to flood Atlantis puts an end to nearly everything.

Zaroff slips under the water in a scene that was cut from the Australian broadcast. It's one of the only remaining bits of video for the episode. The Tardis gang escape and head back to the Tardis and they're off again.

I thought it was fairly entertaining but it seems to have some that feel it's one of the poorest stories. I was happy to watch it. The commentary was entertaining, it had quite a few people talking about the show. I usually like the extras on the DVDs. This one has some video interviews with surviving cast and crew, a photo gallery and part 2 of the documentary on the BBC's Television Center.

The Audio CD set has a bonus disc that has an interview with Anneke Wills and a nice feature on the music of Doctor Who.

Science Fiction Sunday 653

Doctor Who 030 The Power Of The Daleks Six part story that aired November 5 to December 10 1966. Written by David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner (episode 1 uncredited), directed by Christopher Barry. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Anneke Wills. A lost story that is available in three different versions, none of which I had at the time I was first watching the series in 2013. 

 

I listened to the audio version of this and The Highlanders on Sunday, as well as the 2016 Animated version and some of the extras. I watched the Animated version commentary and a good bit of the Telesnap version. The Telesnap version consists of photos snapped with a still camera of the telecine while the show is being broadcast. The audio that plays along is the same audio that is on the CD with Anneke Wills narrating.

I enjoyed the audio version about as much as I have the previous ones. After seeing Animated version and the Telesnap version, I think I would watch the Telesnap version the next time I get around to watching the series again. It's nicer seeing the real actors.

  

The animation doesn't look bad or anything but it's not quite the same as the original and they've taken a few liberties here and there. It's talked about in fair detail on the commentary segment with the animators.

 

The story has the Tardis land on the planet Vulcan. The Doctor regenerates and Polly and Ben are confused. Ben is more skeptical than Polly but they go with the program here. The Doctor stumbles around a bit and eventually takes them outside. He sees a man killed and takes his ID badge. It's says he's an Examiner from Earth and he has all access. Other men arrive and take the Tardis gang to the head of the colony.

 

The locals believe the Doctor is the Examiner and he gets right to examining. One of the first things he finds is the head scientist has a spaceship that's been in the local mud for a couple of centuries. The Tardis gang break in and find Daleks. The Doctor tries warning the station governor but no one believes him. The head science guy has a project going on with re-powering the Daleks and plans for using them as labor around the colony.

It's quite a nice spaceship, we only see part of it, like the Tardis it's much bigger inside.

 

Of course, once the Daleks get going they start scheming to take over planet and kill all the humans. They nearly carry out their goal, many of the humans are slaughtered before the Doctor can figure out how to stop them.

There's plenty of activity going on but like a lot of six parters there are some slow bits. One of the comments was about that, it was most cost effective to have the cost of the sets spread out over six episodes than four. Part of the cost of visiting a different world each week. Mostly entertaining, even after repeated views.

There's a good few extras: Animation and photo gallery, Animation Test Footage, Original Title Sequence, Making of, surviving footage and trailer, Telesnap recording, original Dalek recordings, plus PDFs of scripts and production notes. It took hours to go through it all.

Doctor Who 031 The Highlanders Four Part Story that aired December 17 1966 to January 7 1967. Written by Elwyn Jones and Gerry Davis, directed by Hugh David. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Frazer Hines. Another lost story.

 

The Tardis sets down in the Scottish Highlands after the Battle Of Culloden. The Tardis gang get taken prisoner by Scot rebels. That doesn't last long and soon the gang is off to meet the English soldier's hangman. Luckily they get rescued.

The Doctor spends part of the story disguised as a woman. The Tardis gang get befriended by some locals and they meet Jamie McCrimmon. He helps them out and at the end of the story they take him along for a ride in the Tardis.

A decent action packed story with plenty of action and yelling. I enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind a Telesnap of this story but they didn't always take the pictures, there often wasn't enough in the budget. That low budget plagued the show but they still managed to pull off something entertaining anyway.

Science Fiction Sunday 652

Doctor Who 0028 The Smugglers Four part story that aired September 10 to October 1 1966. Written by Brian Hayles and directed by Julia Smith. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Anneke Wills. Another serial of the lost variety. I listened to it on CD from the BBC.

The new companions have accidentally trapped themselves in the Tardis just as the Doctor takes off. Anneke Wills plays Polly and Michael Craze plays Ben, both of them came from 1966 London. They haven't traveled that far from London in distance, down to the Cornwall coast, but time wise, the trio have blasted back into the 17th century.

 

The Tardis gang get themselves mixed up in the middle of smuggling plot that could be right out of Russell Thorndike's Scarecrow of Romney Marsh novels, minus the scarecrow of course. There's some pirate action, some double crossing, a bit of murder and plenty of running about and yelling.

  

I like the audio versions of the missing stories, though it is nice to have a few pictures to see what the people and costumes looked like. I'm liking Polly and Ben as companions. Ben's good for a bit of rough and tumble and this story has plenty of action.

Polly manages to get through the story without being as much of a damsel in distress as some of the past companions were.

Doctor Who 0029 The Tenth Planet Four part story that aired October 8 to 29 1966. Written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, directed by Derek Martinus. Linking story by Sue Cowley, read by Anneke Wills. This story introduces the Cybermen to the Doctor's universe. It's mostly complete, only missing the last episode.

 

When I watched the series back in 2013 and 2014 the local library didn't have the 2013 DVD so I'm seeing it for the first time now. I listened to the audio CD version before watching the DVD. That's a couple of screencaps of the animated 4th episode. It's not my favorite type of animation style.

 

One of the extras on the DVD is the 2000 VHS restoration of the 4th episode. It uses stills the audio track and adds stills and the few bits of available video. That's a couple of screen captures from the program. I've seen other restored episodes like this that were better looking. The boxed pictures are a bit annoying. Occasionally they run a bit of text under the picture to fill in a plot point or something.

 

In this story the Tardis drops the gang at the south pole, right over a snow buried space tracking station. The ship the base's crew are watching is pulled off course by the arrival of a planet that looks a lot like the Earth. Turns out it's Mondas, the Earth's long lost twin and home of the Cybermen. They were human but they machined up and lost their emotions. Now they are back and they want to save their world by draining the life out of the Earth.

 

The Cybermen take over the space tracking station and kill some of the crew. There's some resistance, eventually everything is sorted out and we get to the most important last scene.

 

That's William Hartnell on the left and Patrick Troughton on the right, that's the before and after of the Doctor's regeneration. Sadly there's only a few seconds left of the scene. It's the holy grail of the lost episodes and it's getting more and more unlikely that we'll ever see it. What's sadder to me is that many of the Patrick Troughton episodes are missing. I really enjoyed his Doctor quite a bit. He was such a bright spot of light after William Hartnell. At least I've got the audio CDs to listen to now.

The DVD is packed with extras, there's a commentary for the first 3 episodes with some cast members, there's a nice making of, there's several interview videos and a clip with Peter Purvis on Blue Peter. There's an interesting piece on the psychology of being a companion. A historian looks at the Golden Age of Doctor Who and it turns out it's all golden. All in all a good lot of stuff to look at and listen too.

Science Fiction Sunday 651

Doctor Who 0026 The Savages Four part story that aired May 28 to June 18 1966. Written by Ian Stuart Black and directed by Christopher Barry. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Peter Purvis. Another story that's completely missing, other than the usual audio tape.

The Tardis gang land on a planet where savages roam the woods and others idle the days away in the city. The Elders of the city greet the Doctor, they know of his exploits and have been waiting for his arrival. The Doctor smells a rat and sure enough the city dwellers have been rounding up the savages and stealing their life energy.

 

The Doctor throws his lot in with the savages and brings the two sides together. The Doctor talks Steven into staying on the planet to help run the place. Dodo and the Doctor leave for a new destination.

 

A fairly entertaining story made better with Steven leaving at the end. I never got fond of the character, Dodo neither, why the writers made them so annoying I don't know. The audio collection that includes this story has a 12th CD with a program on The Lost Episodes. That was quite informative and entertaining. On the first run through the series I noted over and over again that I enjoyed the bonus material as much or more than the episodes.

Doctor Who 0027 The War Machines Four part story that aired June 27 to July 18 1966. Story by Kid Pedler, screenplay by Ian Stuart Black, directed by Michael Ferguson. I had watched this on the first time I watched the series and there's a link to the post in the title.

This is the episode that Dodo is written out of the show. She disappears half way through the story, at the end of the 4th episode she sends a note saying she's going to stay. We get two new companions, Anneke Wills as Polly and Michael Craze as Ben Jackson, I hope to find them more entertaining. 

Science Fiction Sunday 650

Doctor Who 0024 The Celestial Toymaker Four part story that aired April 2-23 1966. Written by Brian Hayles and an uncredited Donald Tosh, directed by Bill Sellars. Linking script by Michael Stevens, read by Peter Purvis. Another serial that's nearly lost, only the last episode exists with complete video, I listened to the audio production and followed that with the single episode.

Michael Gough plays The Celestial Toymaker, he's brought the Tardis to his world and forced everyone to play games for their lives. Who doesn't hate guys like that.

Steven and Dodo have their own series of games to play, that's a couple of the dolls that are turned into players by The Celestial Toymaker. The Doctor has to play a stacking game with 1023 different moves for a perfect game. TCT makes up all sorts of devious rules to try to defeat the Tardis gang but in the end the Doctor is the winner.

The audio presentation is a nice thing but after watching the last episode I wished the whole thing existed on video. It's an odd ball with it's fanciful sets and costumes, a third of the people who responded to the BBC's Audience Research Report for the final episode disliked it. The only aspect of the show I was disliking was the way Dodo acted. She's not a thinker. She gets people in trouble. She won't be on the show much longer.

Doctor Who 0025 The Gunfighters Four part story that aired April 30 to May 21 1966. Written by Donald Cotton and directed by Rex Tucker.

I watched this serial back in December 2012 and thought it was fairly entertaining. You can see that post in the link above. I didn't care as much for the episode this time. It wasn't the story, it's Steven and Dodo that I find annoying. They just seem to get dumber and dumber, especially Dodo. Steven leaves the series next serial and Dodo the following serial. I still dislike the linking song that pops up now and again.