Why I love… Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who: Five Favourites

Reliable. That’s the Pertwee era. You know what you’re going to get. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but it isn’t. These are the episodes you stick on when you’re ill and hiding under a duvet. This is Doctor Who at its cosiest.

There’s the regular format. The Doctor works for UNIT, a secret military organisation investigating “the odd, the unexplained.” In practice, this can mean anything from vanishing scientists to giant maggots to a vicar summoning the Devil in a church, but it usually means fighting off alien invasions from outer space, resulting in exciting action sequences where things get blown up.

There’s the family dynamic of the regular cast (about which more below), which is the closest that Doctor Who was pushed into ‘workplace sitcom’ until that episode when Matt Smith was in a shop with James Corden. The Doctor has a boss (of sorts) and colleagues. There’s even a tea lady. We never see her, though a throwaway line reveals she has almost unparalleled security access. Because naturally, nobody in 70s Britain could be expected to defend the Earth without a cup of tea nearby at all times.

There’s the fact that the Doctor is at his most relatable, stuck in a day job he doesn’t want, for people he doesn’t agree with. He’s trapped on Earth - worse than that, he’s trapped in the Home Counties - and all his holiday plans are cancelled thanks to a broken TARDIS. Every so often an old friend from school with a much better life swings by to gloat about it. This being Doctor Who, that old friend is also his deadliest enemy, the Master, but still. No wonder he’s grumpy. Wouldn’t you be?

And then of course, there’s Jon Pertwee himself. If Troughton was an unlikely hero, Pertwee is the opposite: standing his ground, centre-stage, hands on hips. He even wears a cape. And - yes - I love him.

(Doctor Who discovers that Portsmouth is inhabited by unspeakable creatures - and also Sea Devils)

He’s got the gadgets, the fast vehicles, the frilled shirts, and the velvet jackets - which, of course, sparked my own sartorial interest in such matters. But most of all, Jon Pertwee’s Doctor radiates confidence. Yes, that can tip into arrogance - and the show usually calls him out on it - but more often than not, he’s reassuring. That smile, that calming voice, that breezy way of striding into danger. Whereas you had the feeling that travelling with Hartnell or Troughton might actually get you killed, you just know that Pertwee will save the day somehow. In a dangerous world, that’s a comforting thought.

And when right-wing commentators moan about ‘wokery’ in modern Who, and how “it wasn’t like that in the old days,” you can direct them to Jon Pertwee, the Doctor who never stops crusading against injustice. Pollution, colonialism, commercial greed, warmongering, attacks on worker’s rights - this Doctor won’t stand for any of it. When an odious man from the ministry (who’s already opined that England is “for the English”) says he has a duty to his country, a scornful Doctor retorts “Not to the world?” When Jo Grant, his companion for three wonderful seasons, eventually left the TARDIS, it was to be an environmental activist.

This is an era of Doctor Who that had things it wanted to say, and it said them loudly. It wanted a better world. It wanted to fight for it. And, quite honestly, it wanted that fight to look jolly exciting too (with plenty of explosions). Jon Pertwee’s Doctor stands as a beacon of hope, reminding us with his reassuring smile that things can be better, so long as we put the effort in.

We started with ‘comfort Who’ and ended up with ‘saving the planet.’ I guess that’s the magic of Pertwee.

Here’s five of my favourites!

5 - INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS

This is the one where ambition exceeded practicality. The one where the producer was assured that realistic model dinosaurs could be done on a BBC budget. They’d had success with giant monsters done with puppets the previous year, so they threw caution to the wind and went, “Yes! Dinosaurs invade London! A Triceratops in a tube station! A T-Rex fights a Brontosaurus! Let’s do it!” And yes, the special effects are infamously bad, with static rubber dinosaurs shuffling nervously around model tower blocks, and Pertwee fighting off a bendy Pterodactyl in a broom cupboard. I come here not to praise the effects… but neither am I here to bury them. (The makers of the programme did that entertainingly enough when interviewed about it.)

Because beyond the awkward reptiles we have an exciting story of political conspiracies, a con involving a spaceship, and villains with an understandable but reprehensible agenda. This is a story about UNIT, and what happens when you can’t depend on those you previously could. It’s a thriller, with treachery and twists, and new companion Sarah Jane Smith getting more to do in one story than some companions got in a whole season. It also uses its recurring cast in a way that’s unique for Doctor Who.

Fans often refer to “the UNIT Family.” Doctor Who has repeatedly explored core cast family dynamics in its long history, sometimes literally (as in 21st century Who: Rose and Jackie, Donna and Wilf, Ryan and Graham…) but more often as ‘found family’, where unconditional support and affection springs up between people thrown together because, well, people are like that. It’s a theme that lends itself well to sitcom, and I like exploring it in my own work. But it can also be a key pleasure of action adventure serials like Doctor Who, and the UNIT Family of the Pertwee Years is perhaps the show’s ultimate example.

The Doctor, the Brigadier, Benton, Yates, Liz / Jo / Sarah Jane, and even the Master: their dynamics and rivalries and arguments and jokes are exactly what makes Pertwee Who such a treat. By Invasion of the Dinosaurs, the team was so well established that it’s a genuine shock when one of them sides with the baddies (and survives to have their situation sensitively explored in a later story). Our villains want to force humanity back to a ‘golden’ pre-industrial age, free of pollution and corruption, a desire that the Doctor sympathises with, even if he has to stop it. That one of the UNIT crew is also willing to break ranks to help the scheme along - after several seasons of being one of our heroes - is more than just a twist. It’s a family betrayal. Jon Pertwee plays those scenes like a disappointed parent, and nothing can take away from the power of that. Not even rubbery dinosaurs.

4 - DAY OF THE DALEKS

Jon Pertwee hated the Daleks, mainly because he felt as a performer there was nothing to act against. And while I do enjoy scenes of Daleks blasting away at people and exploding into bits, I also think they’re far more interesting for the effect they have on other characters. Which brings us to this: my favourite Dalek story, which is also the one they’re barely in.

The Doctor and Jo become embroiled with time-travelling revolutionaries from the future who want to kill a politician in the present, believing him to be responsible for a devastating war that left the planet susceptible to a Dalek invasion. Kill the man, change the future. Naturally, the Doctor and Jo end up teleported to this future Earth: a totalitarian nightmare, with humanity enslaved to the Daleks. But while the Doctor has sympathy with the revolutionaries, he discovers it’s their mission to kill the politician that started the war in the first place! Can the crisis be resolved?

What I like about this plot - beyond it being really clever and satisfying - is that the Daleks aren’t active agents within it. They’ve already taken over the Earth, so now they’re just cracking on with the admin. All of the drama and conflict lies between the Doctor, Jo, the revolutionaries, and the guy in charge of this hellish future world, the Controller.

The Controller’s in the top job, so he gets to enjoy creature comforts like grapes and cushions - but he still answers to the Daleks, and he has plenty of underlings waiting to stab him in the back and take his place. On some level he even believes he’s done more good than bad. “We have gained concessions! I have saved lives!” He’s one of those conflicted collaborators that Doctor Who does so well, who inevitably incurs the wrath of the Doctor’s righteous anger (and Jon Pertwee is so bloody good at that). There’s a complexity to these scenes that’s startling for a teatime show for kids, and a cut above the standard “Mwahaha!” evil villain stuff.

And the Daleks? They’re barely aware that the Doctor’s even here. Instead, they’re a convenient shorthand for fascistic evil. Nazis in dustbins. They cast a corrosive shadow over the story which is far more powerful than if they’d played a central role. When I wrote my first drama for Big Finish Productions, The Dalek Occupation of Winter, this is the story that inspired me.

3 - THE TIME WARRIOR

Let’s lighten things up a bit: this one’s a romp. That’s all there is to it. UNIT are called in to investigate disappearing scientists, and the Doctor discovers they’re being kidnapped and taken back to Medieval times by a Sontaran, Linx. So he pops back in time to see what he can do about it, accidentally taking journalist Sarah Jane Smith with him. Cue lots of swordplay, ripe dialogue, and larking about. It takes a lot of effort to make something look this effortless.

It’s typical that a story this unassuming should introduce two of Doctor Who’s most iconic creations. One is our first Sontaran, Linx, created as a one-off villain rather than a recurring monster, and so afforded more characterisation than your typical alien menace. Not only is the make-up job on Linx perhaps the best ever done for a Doctor Who alien, but I love how the script makes him an antagonist whose fatal flaw is procrastination. He’s meant to be repairing his ship, but he keeps nipping off to watch people attack castles. As a writer who struggles to sit down for long enough to pen an email, I empathise with him.

But far more importantly, this story gave us Sarah Jane Smith. For fans of several certain ages (thanks to her spin-off series under Russell T. Davies), Sarah Jane Smith is the ultimate Who companion. She was certainly my first, albeit under the tenure of Jon Pertwee’s googly-eyed successor. And while the scripts should be praised, most of her popularity is down to the sheer charm and grounded charisma of Elisabeth Sladen, and the way she made everything so real while accentuating the thrilling fun of it all.

As time went on, the writers lost interest in the original brief for Sarah Jane. Her job as a journalist is all but forgotten once UNIT is left behind, and she’s less inclined to feminist diatribes written by well-intentioned-but-not-really-nailing-it middle-aged men. But they clearly loved writing for Sladen herself, who stuck around for three-and-a-bit seasons. She’s tough and proactive in The Time Warrior, and for her first story she gets an absolute corker of a plotline: she doesn’t know that the Doctor is the hero, so she thinks he’s the villain kidnapping all the scientists, and spends half the story plotting against him. (With hilarious results!)

And amongst all this sublime tomfoolery, I must cite one of my favourite exchanges in all of Doctor Who:

- SARAH: You’re serious aren’t you?
- DOCTOR: About what I do, yes. Not necessarily the way I do it.

2 - INFERNO

UNIT are covering security for a drilling operation that hopes to tap new energy reserves - but it actually starts pumping out green goo that turns people into wolf-men. Unfortunately, the Doctor isn’t around to help, because he’s trapped in an alternative timeline where things are even worse…

For all I’ve talked about the cosiness of the Pertwee Years, we do have Inferno: the one where we literally see the Earth destroyed, consumed in lava. Sure, it’s a parallel world, where fascists took over the UK and the Brigadier wears an eyepatch, but we still spend several episodes watching a group of people working desperately to avert a cataclysm and failing to do so. Inferno depicts apocalyptic horror on a scale that’s rarely been repeated in Doctor Who. If it weren’t for the cuddly werewolves running around the place, you might be forgiven for thinking you’d switched on the wrong programme.

But hey, I’ve got previous form for enjoying (and writing) serials that begin with humour and end in copious bloodshed. Inferno is the concluding story in Pertwee’s first season, an altogether ‘grittier’ version of the series where everyone looks terribly serious, and the stories tend to be quite long. The excursion to parallel Earth ensures that Inferno fills its seven episodes with plenty of incident, yes, but it also allows the disaster to build, with the tension rising higher and higher until we can take no more. The point of doing a parallel world story is to show things that you normally couldn’t, and this story makes the most of it. Yes, we get the ‘evil’ versions of the Brigadier, Benton, and Liz Shaw - incidentally, the only companion who never flies in the TARDIS - but we also get to see the deadly consequences of mistakes that can’t be reversed. The Doctor barely escapes. The Earth dies.

I wouldn’t want Doctor Who to be this traumatic every week, but Inferno is a tremendous dramatic achievement. The cast are especially good, most of them playing ordinary people caught up in events far beyond their realm of experience. And we still get the Doctor saving the day in ‘our’ version of Earth: “Free will is not an illusion after all. The pattern can be changed!”

(Also, Professor Stahlman is played by Olaf Pooley, whose granddaughter Olivia once played Christine Daaé for me at university in a spoof of The Phantom of the Opera. These days she’s playing the role for real in a touring version of Love Never Dies.)

1 - THE SEA DEVILS

Aquatic lizard people rise out of the sea and attack a naval base! This seems to have been an especially memorable story for those who saw it in the 70s (perhaps because it was repeated, argues the learned James Cooray Smith), with the Sea Devils themselves being one of the more enduringly popular ‘monsters’ despite few appearances on screen. It’s also got the Master as played by Roger Delgado, exuding playful menace, the sort of villain you secretly wish could actually win now and again. He begins this story in prison, but he’s already got the governor on side: “Do you think I could have another television set? For the bedroom?”

But The Sea Devils is an especially important story for me.

For a start, this is the very first Doctor Who story we ever owned on video. My uncle bought it as a nostalgic birthday present for Mum one year, without even knowing I’d recently become a fan. The two of them had watched Doctor Who together as children, and played games with their father where he was a Cyberman who’d ‘come to life’ and chase them from room to room. (In later years he’d play the same game with a very young David, except this time the awakening monster was a dinosaur!)

Clearly The Sea Devils had stuck in the memory for them, hence the Christmas prezzie, and I watched it with Mum over a couple of evenings. I’d been watching Doctor Who one episode per evening on UK Gold, but because this was a video it meant we could actually watch several episodes in a row, instead of having to wait to see what happened next! Luxury!

The notion that you could own Doctor Who was mind-blowing. Imagine my excitement when I received my very own collection of five Doctor Who videos for my birthday later that year.* As an adult, I bought The Sea Devils for myself on DVD, and I dare say I’ll get it again on Blu-ray. Us fans are like that, purchasing the same things again and again. It keeps us happy.

But another reason this story has resonance for me is because it’s the one that was filmed in Southsea, on Portsea Island where I was born and and raised. This is the only Doctor Who story that reminds me of home. My Dad still works at the dockyard as an electrician, and he was occasionally seconded to the Navy Base. I’ve been to one of the sea forts (albeit possibly not the one used for this story). London was invaded by monsters every other week - but The Sea Devils made me think that even Portsmouth was important enough for the Doctor to visit, and that we had a monster species all of our very own!

And our final stop on this trip down memory lane involves the wonderful Katy Manning, who played companion Jo Grant for three seasons. Her wide-eyed innocence and cheeky grin were a perfect foil to Jon Pertwee’s ‘serious’ interpretation of the Doctor, and she remains one of the most enthusiastic ambassadors for the series today. Her sheer energy is infectious - and I know that for a fact because I’ve worked with her. She appears in Wooden Overcoats Season Two as Bijou the Clown, a figure of inspiration for co-protagonist (and mortician) Antigone Funn. “You’re the most important person on this planet. And so am I.”

I was wearing velvet - of course - and during the cast photographs, Katy took my arm. She said it reminded her of Jon Pertwee, guiding her around the TV studio so that she didn’t bump into the camera (Katy being short-sighted). I had a lump in my throat, I don’t mind admitting. And, as a final anecdote, she was fascinated by my co-producer’s curly moustache: “Can I touch it?”

*Those videos were: The Hartnell Years, The Troughton Years, Cybermen: The Early Years, Death to the Daleks, and The Ark in Space. These five tapes gained the status of Holy Grails in my house, even if I only had two complete serials between them.

And if you’d like to hear Katy Manning in Wooden Overcoats, she’s in Season 2 Episode 8: ‘There Ought to be Clowns’ - find it wherever you get your podcasts or right here on Audioboom!