Dr Who Wednesday #3

Nothing done on the painting front this week I'm afraid.

However, The Wife has finally decided that sit's time to watch the episodes I've been recording on the Horror Channel, and we've been going through these, starting at Season 10 (Pertwee was 'her Doctor', as I've mentioned before).

Season 10 consists of the anniversary serial The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters, Frontier in Space (which was either not broadcast, or I didn't record), Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death.  Of these, we've watched The Three Doctors, Carnival and Planet.

I was surprised to read The Three Doctors described as the worse story in the classic series.  I didn't even think it the worse of the ones we watched this week - Carnival of Monsters was pretty ropy!

"Ropy?  Us?!"

The quality of monsters isn't too bad.  The Dashigs in Carnival are obviously sock puppets, and the maggots in Green Death are famously condoms, but honestly, I've seen a lot worse.  Having invisible Daleks in Planet was interesting, but under-used.  But, of course there's plenty of UNIT action, with the Brigadier at his irascible best in The Three Doctors.

"What did Sooty say, Sue?"

Regular readers, will already know that I have a squad of Daleks in the rather uninspiring colour-scheme used in Planet, and it occurs to me that Crooked Dice's astronauts would do quite nicely as the Thals.  I also have quite a number of the invisible Spitidons.

Doctor, Thals and Fiend

Season 10 marked the departure of two main characters.  The Green Death was Kate Manning's last appearance as Jo Grant.

The Gold would miss Jo...

On a more tragic note, the Season say the last appearance of Roger Delgado as The Master - he was killed in a traffic accident while filming in Turkey.  A great loss.

It had been intended to reveal that The Doctor and the Master were brothers, which would have been interesting, but this never took place and instead we got another 'Origins' take on their relationship later.

Roger Delggado, 1918-1973

It is said that with Manning and Delgado gone, Pertwee felt the 'UNIT family' had been broken and choose to leave the programme.

A Correspondent Writes...

...to me that my reference to 'Dr Who' is incorrect and the proper form is 'Doctor Who'.  On the credits in the Pertwee period at least, the character (as opposed to the programme) is referred to as "Dr. Who".  Does anyone know the truth of the matter?  Is this a question of modern branding or something more longstanding?