Country of origin United Kingdom No. of episodes 43 (33 missing) | No. of stories 9 Original network BBC One | |
Starring William Hartnell
Anneke Wills
Michael Craze
Patrick Troughton
Frazer Hines
Deborah Watling Original release 10 September 1966 (1966-09-10) – 1 July 1967 (1967-07-01) | ||
The fourth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 10 September 1966 with the 1st Doctor (William Hartnell) story The Smugglers and, after a change of lead actor (Patrick Troughton) part-way through the series, ended on 1 July 1967 with The Evil of the Daleks. For the first time, the entire main cast changed over the course of a single season (the only other occasion this has happened is during Season 21). Only 10 out of 43 episodes survive in the BBC archives; 33 remain missing. No serials in this season exist in their entirety. However, The Tenth Planet, The Power of the Daleks, and The Moonbase have have had their missing episodes (nine in total) reconstructed with full-length animation and subsequently have been released on DVD.
Contents
Main cast
William Hartnell appears as the First Doctor for the first two full serials before being succeeded in the role by Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor for the remaining seven stories.
Anneke Wills and Michael Craze continue their roles as Polly and Ben respectively. They are shortly joined by Frazer Hines playing Jamie McCrimmon in The Highlanders. Polly and Ben depart in the penultimate story The Faceless Ones, and at the end of the season Deborah Watling makes her debut as Victoria Waterfield in The Evil of the Daleks.
Serials
Season 4 was produced by Innes Lloyd. Gerry Davis served as Script Editor, apart from the final four episodes of The Evil of the Daleks. Peter Bryant joined as associate producer for The Faceless Ones, and replaced Gerry Davis as script editor for the last four episodes of the season.
The Smugglers was the final serial to be produced during the third production block, but was held over to the start of Season 4.
The Power of the Daleks was the first Dalek story to use the traditional ...of the Daleks title form. Of the nine subsequent Dalek serials, only Death to the Daleks from Season 11 was not named in this way. The naming convention for Dalek stories was first used in the revived series with "Evolution of the Daleks" in Series 3.
While each of the other seasons produced in black and white have at least one serial completely intact (all serials from the transition to color onwards have surviving copies in the BBC archive), none of the nine serials from Season 4 is complete in the BBC archive, with four (The Smugglers, The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders and The Macra Terror) each having all of their episodes missing; of the total of 43 episodes between Episode 1 of The Smugglers and Episode 7 of The Evil of the Daleks, only 10 are currently in the BBC archive. The most complete serial of the season, The Tenth Planet, is missing only its last episode; both this and the season's other Cyberman story, The Moonbase, as well as The Power of the Daleks, have had their missing elements recreated with animated episodes using the original soundtrack in a fashion similar to a reconstruction of The Reign of Terror from Season 1.
Production
During this season the title card for the series was changed for the first time, starting with The Macra Terror.
Missing episodes
Season 4 is notable for being the only season of Doctor Who from which not a single complete serial survives. The missing episodes are:
21 November 2016
(DVD)
6 February 2017
(Blu-ray) || 14 December 2016 || 24 January 2017
DVD releases
The Underwater Menace was scheduled to be released on DVD, with episodes 1 and 4 reconstructed using animation, but was cancelled in February 2015. It was restored to the schedule for release in October 2015, but with Tele-snap reconstructions instead of full animation.
Lost in Time
All existing episodes from otherwise missing First & Second Doctor serials from this season have been released on the Lost in Time collection, with the exception of The Tenth Planet which had its missing episode animated for DVD release, and The Underwater Menace episode 2, which was recovered after the release of Lost in Time. Lost in Time was released in two formats in Region 1, with individual releases for volumes one and two (which cover First Doctor and Second Doctor episodes respectively), as well as an edition combining both volumes. In Regions 2 and 4, Lost in Time is available only as the combined single volume.