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Season 6 is one of my favorite seasons of Doctor Who, even though from most accounts it was extremely rough for everyone around: some lackluster stories ("The Dominators" has been famously disowned by writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, who are instead credited on the final product as "Norman Ashby"), budget problems, and the punishing schedule at the time led to the impending decision from everyone in the regular cast (Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, and Wendy Padbury) on down to the production staff (Peter Bryant, succeeded partway through the season by Derrick Sherwin who would stay on through Jon Pertwee's first story before he himself handed the reins off to Barry Letts, who'd cut his teeth on the show before directing the regular cast in Season 5's "The Enemy of the World") to leave the program by season's end, the first time in the show's history that the end of the season seeing everyone involved leave. There were, however, some highlights to be had, as the season saw the earliest contributions of future script editors Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes, along with, whether one sees it as a good thing, the introduction of future producer John Nathan-Turner to the Doctor Who universe, here as a lowly floor assistant on his way to ascendancy. And, despite their unpopularity during the production of the television program at that time, the Quarks from "The Dominators" went on to enjoy a second life in the Doctor Who strip in TV Comic, menacing the Second Doctor in a way that filled the role previously played by the Trods, the Kleptons, and the Daleks before them.

But one of the most important things to be said about the season was that it acts as a precursor to what was to come by January 1970, namely the change in format that would help lengthen the series' life in the same way the transition from William Hartnell to Troughton had been. This is because the epic 8-part story "The Invasion" is often pointed at as one of the highlights of the season, and one that pretty much acts as the defacto "pilot" episode to everything in the Third Doctor era. Here, you have UNIT making their first proper appearance, along with the return of Lethbridge-Stewart, promoted from the rank of colonel to the much more familiar brigadier, and, above all else, it was set in modern day earth in one location. I don't know if this did help keep costs down but you can kind of tell, while watching the story, that everyone involved is firing on all cylinders and clearly love the material handed to them. Some may say Troughton was better in other stories but I think this is the one that really gets into the heart of his portrayal as the Doctor, and closeness that exists between himself and Jamie (Zoe disappears for a bit between episodes, the reason being Wendy Padbury was on holiday) doing much of the action hero lifting is a sight to behold, really dialing in that double act of theirs that, all these later and watching the comments on the Twitch livestream for the Second Doctor block, the new fans fall in love with this Doctor/Companion combo as much as old fans did.

Despite being advertised quite heavily, the irony is that "The Invasion" really doesn't focus a whole lot on the Cybermen. Their involvement comes extremely late; not really as an afterthought, but they are kept enough in the shadows that writers Derrick Sherwin and Kit Pedler need to be congratulated on keeping the mystery rolling enough. And there in lies the great benefit of the story, as it's Kevin Stoney's really slithery villain Tobias Vaughn that steals the scene from the moment he appears on up to the end where the Doctor tries to appeal to whatever sense of humanity he has left in him. Later 1970s humanoid villains wouldn't nearly be as oily as Vaughn, in my opinion (the Master, of course, sits in a category all his own) and some of them wouldn't be as nearly a match on an intellectual scale for the Doctor as Vaughn was. So much so, that he was later resurrected in the novels, facing off against the Seventh Doctor in "Original Sin". However, once it is revealed that the Cybermen are the monsters served up this story, all hell breaks loose with one of the most iconic images of them marching down the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral is one that has been revisited a couple times since. The story is a swan song in a way to the Cybermen in the 60s, as they wouldn't be nearly as good again. Sure, I enjoy their later appearances just as much, but in terms of that horror and science fiction mashup that Kit Pedler envisioned them, something was lost that most writers, sadly, wouldn't quite get.

I was disappointed that Twitch once again had to skip a seminal story due to BBC's lack of foresight regarding Doctor Who. Because of this, two episodes from this story remain missing from the archives, having long been reconstructed using animation (I believe this story had the best animated reconstruction of any other, but that's just my opinion). While I can appreciate the reticence from BBC to overload Twitch with stories that are officially half-complete for the most part, and I'll never begrudge including "The Web of Fear" as the only one to have tele recons (because that story is very important, and still retains a whiff of relief to have back five years later, even if it is missing one episode itself), but I think for "The Tenth Planet" and especially "The Invasion" things could've been extenuated because those aren't garden variety half-complete stories, they're mostly 75-80% percent there and could have extended the rights to the animation studios for use in the Twitch streams so fans could see these grand stories. With the loss of "The Tenth Planet" from the lineup, new fans do miss seeing Hartnell's bow, but especially with "The Invasion" the loss felt is that they won't see the building blocks for the Pertwee era that they have so clearly enjoyed.

Description
Season 6 is one of my favorite seasons of Doctor Who, even though from most accounts it was extremely rough for everyone around: some lackluster stories ("The Dominators" has been famously disowned by writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, who are instead credited on the final product as "Norman Ashby"), budget problems, and the punishing schedule at the time led to the impending decision from everyone in the regular cast (Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, and Wendy Padbury) on down to the production staff (Peter Bryant, succeeded partway through the season by Derrick Sherwin who would stay on through Jon Pertwee's first story before he himself handed the reins off to Barry Letts, who'd cut his teeth on the show before directing the regular cast in Season 5's "The Enemy of the World") to leave the program by season's end, the first time in the show's history that the end of the season seeing everyone involved leave. There were, however, some highlights to be had, as the season saw the earliest contributions of future script editors Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes, along with, whether one sees it as a good thing, the introduction of future producer John Nathan-Turner to the Doctor Who universe, here as a lowly floor assistant on his way to ascendancy. And, despite their unpopularity during the production of the television program at that time, the Quarks from "The Dominators" went on to enjoy a second life in the Doctor Who strip in TV Comic, menacing the Second Doctor in a way that filled the role previously played by the Trods, the Kleptons, and the Daleks before them.

But one of the most important things to be said about the season was that it acts as a precursor to what was to come by January 1970, namely the change in format that would help lengthen the series' life in the same way the transition from William Hartnell to Troughton had been. This is because the epic 8-part story "The Invasion" is often pointed at as one of the highlights of the season, and one that pretty much acts as the defacto "pilot" episode to everything in the Third Doctor era. Here, you have UNIT making their first proper appearance, along with the return of Lethbridge-Stewart, promoted from the rank of colonel to the much more familiar brigadier, and, above all else, it was set in modern day earth in one location. I don't know if this did help keep costs down but you can kind of tell, while watching the story, that everyone involved is firing on all cylinders and clearly love the material handed to them. Some may say Troughton was better in other stories but I think this is the one that really gets into the heart of his portrayal as the Doctor, and closeness that exists between himself and Jamie (Zoe disappears for a bit between episodes, the reason being Wendy Padbury was on holiday) doing much of the action hero lifting is a sight to behold, really dialing in that double act of theirs that, all these later and watching the comments on the Twitch livestream for the Second Doctor block, the new fans fall in love with this Doctor/Companion combo as much as old fans did.

Despite being advertised quite heavily, the irony is that "The Invasion" really doesn't focus a whole lot on the Cybermen. Their involvement comes extremely late; not really as an afterthought, but they are kept enough in the shadows that writers Derrick Sherwin and Kit Pedler need to be congratulated on keeping the mystery rolling enough. And there in lies the great benefit of the story, as it's Kevin Stoney's really slithery villain Tobias Vaughn that steals the scene from the moment he appears on up to the end where the Doctor tries to appeal to whatever sense of humanity he has left in him. Later 1970s humanoid villains wouldn't nearly be as oily as Vaughn, in my opinion (the Master, of course, sits in a category all his own) and some of them wouldn't be as nearly a match on an intellectual scale for the Doctor as Vaughn was. So much so, that he was later resurrected in the novels, facing off against the Seventh Doctor in "Original Sin". However, once it is revealed that the Cybermen are the monsters served up this story, all hell breaks loose with one of the most iconic images of them marching down the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral is one that has been revisited a couple times since. The story is a swan song in a way to the Cybermen in the 60s, as they wouldn't be nearly as good again. Sure, I enjoy their later appearances just as much, but in terms of that horror and science fiction mashup that Kit Pedler envisioned them, something was lost that most writers, sadly, wouldn't quite get.

I was disappointed that Twitch once again had to skip a seminal story due to BBC's lack of foresight regarding Doctor Who. Because of this, two episodes from this story remain missing from the archives, having long been reconstructed using animation (I believe this story had the best animated reconstruction of any other, but that's just my opinion). While I can appreciate the reticence from BBC to overload Twitch with stories that are officially half-complete for the most part, and I'll never begrudge including "The Web of Fear" as the only one to have tele recons (because that story is very important, and still retains a whiff of relief to have back five years later, even if it is missing one episode itself), but I think for "The Tenth Planet" and especially "The Invasion" things could've been extenuated because those aren't garden variety half-complete stories, they're mostly 75-80% percent there and could have extended the rights to the animation studios for use in the Twitch streams so fans could see these grand stories. With the loss of "The Tenth Planet" from the lineup, new fans do miss seeing Hartnell's bow, but especially with "The Invasion" the loss felt is that they won't see the building blocks for the Pertwee era that they have so clearly enjoyed.