N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
Whilst my extended break in the middle of Season Six wasn’t all down to a dread of The Krotons, I won’t deny that apprehension played a part in the delay.
Indeed, whilst I can’t claim to have Joseph Lidster and Simon Guerrier’s enthusiasm for that particular story, as professed in the DVD extra The Doctor’s Strange Love, I do always worry whether I’ve given stories the credit they deserve (although it seems even Frazer Hines wasn’t that keen on The Krotons). For example, I don’t think I’ve mentioned how good some of Dudley Simpson’s scores have been – The Seeds of Death, especially, springs to mind.
“You have returned to us; your travels are over.”
First Time Lord, The War Games:
Episode Ten
Whilst the final season of the 60’s might well have been its most inconsistent in terms of quality, it’s not for want of trying. If season five could be classed as the solid year of the monsters, in the sixth season we’ve had literary and literal fantasies, space opera, a James Bond villain masterminding an alien invasion and an old-fashioned base-under-siege story. If this season had been, as was originally considered, the last we saw of Doctor Who, at least it would have gone out on a high.
The season also had my favourite Second Doctor TARDIS crew. I really liked the relationship between the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, which makes their fate at the end of The War Games even more poignant. It seems clear from the many interviews they’ve given since that Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury had tremendous fun making the show with Patrick Troughton.
Finally, thanks to the climactic events of The War Games, the sixth season also gave us a bit of an answer to the Who? part of the show’s title, whilst admittedly at the same time raising a whole slew of other questions!
But there is one thing we do know the answer to for the forseeable future. ‘Where to next, Doctor?’
Thanks to the Time Lords, we know it’s Earth!
