Geek Syndicate Issue 7 | Page 41

Geek Syndicate
defines the character of the Doctor. Even though he was second? Even through he was second, yes. Many of Troughton’s episodes are lost now, but... Wait...lost? Yes, Lost. The BBC had a policy of reusing old tapes, and a huge amount of television from the 1950s and 1960s has been forever lost. Doctor Who is possibly now the most famous, but other examples include big chunks of a Peter Cushing-starring Sherlock Holmes series, a number of whilst also being noticeably different, something that would continue as Troughton himself regenerated into Jon Pertwee in 1970. Due to the episode wiping he’s also the earliest Doctor most people have familiarity with, as complete serials survive for reruns. Only 1970? How many of these guys do we have to get through? So far? Eleven. But the series was cancelled in 1989 and didn’t fully return until 2005. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. The Pertwee era is another big change to the show - largely set on Earth, the Doctor spends a lot of time ing which time the show became a phenomenon. Prior to the return of the show in 2005, for many people he was The Doctor, embodying everything the role should be. Baker’s era(s) saw the show blast back into the space, making as much a Space Opera show as a Time-Travel and Historical Drama show, and is the high-water mark of the Classic Series. Baker dominates Doctor Who’s history, a legacy that stretches on even now. But he left? Yes, to be followed by the young and fresh-faced Peter Davison. Its an odd era of the show to
Images © BBC More than just the Daleks - The Doctor has battled many villains and monsters over fifty years of adventures.

influential theatre adaptations like Death of a Salesman, and all but two episodes of the wildly popular Juke Box Jury, over the period of the rise of the Pop Music Charts. Many of the Who episodes that survive were re-patriated copies that had been sent overseas. I can’t imagine them just wiping that stuff. It was a different Era and video tape was expensive and re-usable. Anyway, Troughton brings to the role a sense of playfulness and introduced the idea that the character can be older and wiser than the looks or acts. He also managed to be consistent with the core of Hartnell’s character

working with UNIT, a military organisation tasked with dealing with alien menaces to the planet. It’s all a little bit chummy and occasionally endearingly lowbudget but has a steady thread of conflict between the “shoot first” military response and the Doctors more intellectual and investigative attitude. Pertwee’s tenure also sees the introduction of The Master, a villainous Time Lord envisioned as Moriarty to his Sherlock Holmes. In the end though, Pertwee is often overshadowed by his successor, Tom Baker. Ahhh. With the Hair and the Scarf. Thats the chap. Tom Baker was the Doctor from 1974 to 1981, dur-

watch, as e arly warning signs of the storms that would afflict it in the 1980s start to crop up during Davidson’s run, as a new guard want to take the show into darker and edgier territory, full on conflicted morals and anti-heroics. Really? Doctor Who? Yes, really. Who had already caught some flak for being “too scary” and “too dark” for kids during Baker’s (or more specifically, Producer Peter Hinchcliffe’s) time, but the Doctor was still very much the conquering hero, bringing light and reason to dark and superstitious places. By the end of Davison’s era though, serials had noticeably downbeat resolutions, gruesome

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