| Throughout Doctor Who's initial 26-year run on the BBC, there was never a bigger and more radical re-launch than there was in 1970 when Jon Pertwee took on the role of the third Doctor. Pertwee's first episode was nothing like the show we had last seen with Troughton. It was in colour, it was all grown-up, it was all set on Earth and there were no Fish People. The new producers didn't want the Doctor travelling to Outer Space in his TARDIS anymore, so now he was stranded on Earth with a TARDIS that didn't work, after the Timelords took away it's secrets from him. So the third Doctor instead becomes Scientific Advisor to UNIT, the world's finest crack team of alien busters headed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and otherwise consisting of a secretary and about three soldiers, one of whom would get killed every week. Pertwee played the role for five years in a sort of suave and elegant style, wearing gay Velvet Jackets and driving silly cars and motorbikes and helicopters. He was probably frustrated that he didn't get asked to play James Bond. Never mind though, Worzel Gummidge was just round the corner, and he could leave all this silly Doctor Who nonsense behind him. |
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| Pertwee's Dolly Birds |
| Monsters And Villains |
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| Pertwee's main adversary was The Master, a fellow Timelord played by the brilliant Roger Delgado, who was utterly charming and yet horribly sinister and murderous. (The Master, not Roger Delgado. I'm sure he was very nice). The new producers didn't initially want any of the old monsters returning in their new grown-up show and felt that Doctor Who needed a 'villain' rather than a monster, a Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes. Delgado's Master was great, if slightly over-used (he tended to appear in just about every story for a while, which was a shame, especially considering the total absence of The Fish People). After Terry Nation's total failure with his planned Daleks series in America, he brown-tongued his way back into the BBC and after a five-year absence, The Daleks were finally back in Doctor Who. Sadly, they were absolute cow-cack and their voices were rubbish and completely gay. |
| Pertwee Trivia |
The Troughton/Pertwee regeneration is one of the very few that you don't actually see. Pertwee hadn't yet been cast when Troughton's final episode was filmed, and Pertwee's first episode has an already-regenerated Doctor crash-landing on Earth. The Third Doctor's final story was to be a final encounter with The Master in which it was to be revealed that they were brothers. Roger Delgado went and got killed though, and so we ended up with a story about Giant Spiders instead. One of the biggest critics of the Pertwee era was the original Doctor Who William Hartnell, who felt that the show was becoming too scary and violent for children. He was probably still bitter that he wasn't actually in it anymore. His wife should have followed through with the ban, something obviously went a bit amiss there. |
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| Pertwee- The Good Things |
The greatest thing is that, from this point onwards, everything actually exists! Big respect going out to the BBC for not junking anything from 1970 onwards. Well actually, they did try....and as a result, a few of the Pertwee stories only exist in black and white form. Honestly, what's wrong with them? Pertwee's first year is one of the best seasons of Doctor Who ever, full of tension and intelligence and possibly one of the most 'adult' seasons they ever made. The BBC felt it was a bit too adult and sinister though, and so they ended up having to back-pedal a bit which was a shame. |
| Pertwee- The Rubbish Things |
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My biggest criticism of the Pertwee era is that The Doctor looks like he votes Tory. Back in the 60's, the character was originally envisaged to be a bit of a rebel, an outsider, a Bucks Fizz fan. Pertwee's Doctor seems to be more the kind of bloke to dish out patronising lectures about single mothers and the smelly homeless. You can just about imagine the Third Doctor in bed with Thatcher, a rent boy, and two big dildos. Pertwee's first year showed so much promise with grit and tension that was quickly watered down in subsequent years. The Brigadier in particular suffered from this. At the beginning of the Pertwee era, he was a stern and realistic leader of men, who was regularly at loggerheads with The Doctor. By the end, he became more of a Colonel Blimp buffoon, who would have happily jumped in bed with the Doctor, Thatcher and the dildos, but maybe not the rent boy. |
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| It's The End, But.... |
| Now, Jon Pertwee was a canny swine. He loved playing Doctor Who, and even after five years in the role, he quite fancied carrying on for a sixth. But he also fancied a bit more money to pay for some new Velvet Jackets and maybe a new frilly shirt. So, when it was time to discuss contract renewal, off he trotted to the BBC with the announcement that he was thinking of moving on to new projects but might possibly be persuaded to stay if they chucked bucketloads more money at him. "Can't lose," thought canny Pertwee. "They'll have to keep me on and I'll be laughing all the way to the Scarecrow bank." Sadly for Pertwee, the BBC bosses told him to piss off and before he had time to say "Hang on, can't we talk about this?", the BBC had cast Tom Baker in the role as the New Doctor Who. "Bollocks," thought Pertwee. "I'm going to have to work with Una Fucking Stubbs now." |
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| The Jon Pertwee Years 1970 - 1974 |
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| The Third Doctor's first companion was Liz Shaw who was actually pretty good, an intellectual equal for the Doctor, who helped seal the integrity of Pertwee's classic first year. The producers felt she didn't really work though and didn't ask "But what's happening, Doctor?" enough, so instead they brought in a dumb knicker-flashing blonde, Jo Grant, and that seemed to do the trick. Katy Manning, who played Jo, once famously posed for a short-lived Adult Publication, flashing her bits off with a Dalek. Copies of this magazine now sell for as much as three billion pounds on e-Bay, but that's mostly me putting in silly bids. God Bless her though. She set a precedent for Doctor Who companions which, sadly, nobody else ever followed. |
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