51. Spearhead from Space

And so begins the 3rd age of Doctor Who! Welcome Jon Pertwee! Hello Liz Shaw! Welcome back Lethridge Stewart! Colour! Crashing TARDIS's! Killer shop window dummies!

After the apparently waning ratings of Patrick Troughton's episodes and his decision to step down from the role of the Doctor, this 7th season of Doctor Who with new Doctor Jon Pertwee would be a "make it or break it" season. And as history would show, Jon saved Doctor Who, again.

Besides now being in colour and with a new Doctor, it was decided that the Doctor would be exiled to Earth and travel in the TARDIS would be curtailed for a time. So the Doctor needed a "family" to act with from story to story. Re-enter the Brigadier. Having appeared twice during the Second Doctor's era, be proved a good foil for the Doctor and UNIT worked as an earth-based organization for the Doctor to affiliate with. So now the Doctor was the scientific advisor to UNIT.

The last piece of the puzzle was the Doctor's new assistant. Enter Caroline John as Dr. Liz Shaw. For the first time since the show's inception in 1963, the Doctor has only one proper companion for such a duration, a trend that would dominate the show for the majority of the shows future history. With a heavy dose of Women's Lib, Liz Shaw was a highly intelligent university researcher who was a very confident self-sufficient woman who didn't need the Doctor at all. For her entire tenure over this season, Liz was very much an equal to the Doctor and he never looked down at her. The only shame of the season is that Liz never got a proper trip in the TARDIS. And with the sad passing of Caroline last year, a return to the modern day program would never happen.

As different as Patrick Troughton was to William Hartnell, so to was Jon Pertwee's to Patrick's. The magic of capturing lightning in a bottle happened again and the Doctor was reborn. It is a joy to see Pertwee's early day performances and watching him grow in the role. His witty exchanges with the Brigadier are television screen gold. As every era of Doctor Who is classic in its own way, my mind instantly goes to the Pertwee era when was talk about "classic" Doctor Who.

It is slightly sad to watch these episodes of season 7 especially with its three major stars, Jon Pertwee, Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney, are no longer with us. They all had a long and loving relationship with Doctor Who beyond their tenures and were always great stewards of the programme. But we take great solace in that all the episodes of this era exist and we can enjoy them for generations.

This truly is the GREAT 3rd era of Doctor Who!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearhead_from_Space

50. The War Games

This is it. This is the one that changes everything. Again. As the final episode of the 1st Doctor introduced the concept of regeneration, this final episode of the 2nd Doctor introduced at long last the Doctor's people, the Time Lords, and his home planet, still yet unnamed.

The story begins with the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie landing in a hellish World War 1 setting and becoming embroiled in the local fighting but discover things aren't what they appear. Come to find out there are many different Time Zones with different warriors plucked from history to fight for the amusement of the War Chief and the War Lord. Come to find out the War Chief is another Time Lord and is using Time Lord technology to help the War Lord build an army.

Faced with this impossible situation, the Doctor is forced to call the Time Lords for their help. Of course the Doctor has to leave in a rush to escape the Time Lords because he actually stole his TARDIS when he left his home planet. In the end, the Time Lords capture the Doctor, put him on trial and sentence him to exile on Earth after he regenerates!

This story is tremendous with 10 whopping episodes and is a fitting finale to the Patrick Troughton era, to the black and white era and to the 1960's. This truly is the end of an era of Doctor Who and when next the program returns to our screen, it will never be the same.

I must say that having gone through all the existing episodes of the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton was a revelation in the role of the Doctor. After the very strict, crotchety old 1st Doctor, Pat came in and breathed new life into the new role and into the show itself. With a lesser actor, the show probably would have died but in the hands of Trougton, the show is reborn. He instantly endears himself to the audience and redefines everything about Doctor Who while keeping it the same. The shows continued success now 50 years later is do hugely in part to the magic of Patrick Troughton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Games

49. The Space Pirates

The Space Pirates in the final victim of the mass extermination of the episodes of Doctor Who of the 1960's. Fortunately from the one existing episode of this story, this is not much of a loss. For the penultimate episode of the Patrick Troughton era, this seems to be a bit of a yawn. While I've listened to the audio, it's unremarkable. Much like William Hartnell's penultimate story, The Smugglers, which was also a yawn fest, this story is the calm before the storm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Pirates

48.The Seeds of Death

Ice! Ice! Baby!

The Ice Warriors make a welcomed return to Doctor Who for their second outing. This time the Ice Warriors invade the Moon and take over the T-Mat transporter system. Apparently in the 21st century, Earth develops a matter transmitter system that eliminates all over forms of transportation. So with the T-Mat hijacked by the Ice Warriors, the Doctor and crew has to pilot an old rocket ship to the moon.

It's actually quite amusing to see them recreate a rocket to the moon, mere months before the real thing. The Doctor is great throughout this story. He runs circles around the lumbering Ice Warriors, literally. We are introduced to a new caste of Ice Warrior, the Ice Lord. Thinner, sleeker, a more smoother and shinier helmet. They're the envy of all Ice Kind!

As the days of the Second Doctor wind down, this is classic among classics!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seeds_of_Death

47. The Krotons

Yes please, I'll take Krotons on my salad!

This is another typical primitive alien race occupied and under the control of a superior force and the Doctor drops in, starts a revolution, gets the primitives to overthrow the superior regime, and departs leaving the primitives to run their own lives. Good times.

The Krotons themselves look lovely on screen, from the waist up. Their skirts look a little dodgy but thankfully they're not seen that often. They have deep and booming voices and are appropriately menacing. It's surprising they never made another appearance on Doctor Who.

Zoe really shines in this episode, showcasing her intellect and demonstrating she might actually be smarter than the Doctor. It fringes on annoying at times but very endearing.

The other notable thing about this episode is that is the first written contribution of Robert Holmes, who is one of the legendary giants in the Doctor Who mythos. More from him later!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Krotons

46. The Invasion

The Invasion is one of those pinnacle moments in Doctor Who history that essentially changes the fabric of the show forever. Almost as important as the Doctor regenerating for the first time in the Tenth Planet, the Invasion sets up the series for Jon Pertwee's entire run as the 3rd Doctor. Despite the viewing audience not knowing it at the time, they were seeing a view of the future of the show.

The Cybermen make their 4th and final appearance of the Troughton era and they get another fabulous makeover. This would turn out to be the Cybermen's last proper appearance on Doctor Who until 1975, when they return in Tom Baker's 4th Doctor episode Revenge of the Cybermen. In this story, the Cybermen invade Earth, again, and strike terror in the heart of London. Popping out of sewers, running around the Underground, parading in front of St.Paul Cathedral; this is full frontal Cybermen.

To recap, the first time we meet the Cybermen, they're invading the South Pole. The second time, they're invading the Moon. The third time, we invade their tombs on Telos (our bad). The fourth time, they invade an earth space station. And now they're invading modern day London. Good times.

The story sees the return of Nicholas Courtney as Lethridge-Stewart from The Web of Fear. Now promoted to the rank of Brigadier, which he will be forever know as, he has been placed in charge of a little group called the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce also know as UNIT. Charged with handling alien invasions, UNIT is christened in a hail of fire from the Cybermen. The story is classic and iconic, showcasing Patrick Troughton's 2nd Doctor and giving us great character drama.

So the lore of this story is that with Patrick Troughton departing the role of the Doctor at the end of the season, the producers wanted to see if a series of earth-based stories with the Doctor and UNIT working together would work. This story was conceived as a pilot episode or dummy-run for the new format. With the Brigadier, came a Captain Jimmy Turner (who's position would eventually be filled by Captain Mike Yates), and a young Corporal Benton (would would get promoted to Sergeant). With the so-called UNIT family in place, the Doctor joined as a scientific advisor and the on-screen magic happened. While Patrick Troughton's 2nd Doctor had wonderful chemistry with the Brigadier, it will be Jon Pertwee's 3rd Doctor that forever cements this relationship in our hearts and emblazons his era in the history of Doctor Who.

PS. Despite Jon Pertwee being the Brig's Doctor, Patrick Troughton is reunited with Nicholas Courtney in The Three Doctors and again in the Five Doctors. Both times, it is magic with them both sparking off each other and recapturing the chemistry of these early episodes.

PPS. This Invasion is missing two of its original 8 episodes. The BBC as an experiment commissioned these two missing episodes to be animated for the DVD release. So for the first time since 1968, we are able to watch this story in it entirety. While the animation is fairly simple, it matches the look and feel of the era and wonderfully completes this great story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invasion_(Doctor_Who)

45. The Mind Robber

Finally by 1968, Doctor Who embraces the great drug culture of the 60's with the trippiest, craziest, most off the wall story ever. The Mind Robber takes our TARDIS team to the so-called Land of Fiction where anything literary can happen. The TARDIS blows apart. The Doctor recreates Jamie's face for an episode. Everybody runs around in a stark white void for a lot of the time.

Come to find out, this Land of Fiction is controlled by The Master. But not the Master we know today, a different Master, only of this Land of Fiction. And he's some poor schmuck writer who's stuck controlling this realm. And he's looking to retire and wants the Doctor to replace him. Of course the Doctor turns him down, rips him out of the realm and dissolves the Land of Fiction. Chalk another coup up to the Doctor!

This story sticks out like sore thumb in this season, with alien occupations, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Space Pirates. This story actually sticks out amongst the first six seasons of Doctor Who with only The Celestial Toymaker coming in second.

But as it's one of the few Patrick Troughton episodes that still exists, we will love it unquestionably!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_Robber