Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
Season 4 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series is rather unusual in how it starts and how it ends. It begins with the last two stories of William Hartnell’s era as the First Doctor. The rest of the season is dedicated to Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor. He does well in taking over from the original actor.
The season decides to go for more sci-fi stories and less pure historical adventures, with ‘The Smugglers’ and ‘The Highlanders’ being the only two pure historical stories featured in Season 4. The season also introduces us to the Cybermen, and they become the second-best ‘Doctor Who’ monsters. 🙂
The Cybermen have two stories in Season 4 with ‘The Tenth Planet’ and ‘The Moonbase’. The Daleks also get two outings in Season 4 with ‘The Power of the Daleks’ and ‘The Evil of the Daleks’. Patrick Troughton is also lucky in having the Daleks to deal with in his first ever ‘Doctor Who’ TV adventure.
Anneke Wills as Polly and Michael Craze as Ben are like the main companions of Season 4, especially when they witness the transformation of William Hartnell into Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. They’re also joined by Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon, who soon becomes a popular companion.
At the end of Season 4, Polly and Ben have left the TARDIS in ‘The Faceless Ones’ and the Second Doctor and Jamie are joined by Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield at the end of ‘The Evil of the Daleks’. It’s intriguing how many changeovers occurred during these seasons in 1960s ‘Doctor Who’.
Like Season 3, sadly most of Season 4 of ‘Doctor Who’ is missing from the BBC Archives. Thankfully, some episodes of Season 4 stories have survived. There are also stories animated for DVD and Blu-ray, like ‘The Power of the Daleks’, ‘The Macra Terror’, ‘The Faceless Ones’ and ‘The Evil of the Daleks’. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
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