Season Five

That was the famous ‘Monster Season’ then. What can we say about it as a whole? Well, firstly it was far more homogenous than the previous season. The Historicals have gone for one thing. For another, the ‘base under siege’ format is very much to the fore – you can actually argue that only “The Enemy Of The World” is a complete departure from the format. Is this necessarily a good thing? Well, in one way no, because it meant that the weaker stories of the season looked extremely derivative and repetitive. It’s just possible that I would have enjoyed “The Wheel In Space” more if it had come at the end of a more diverse season, for example. Possible – although not extremely likely. On the other hand, if a story like “Fury From The Deep” can stand out amongst the other stories of the season – and for me it does – then it does highlight how good it was.

The Production team had obviously decided by this time what they thought Doctor Who was all about, and for this season they set about providing an unrelenting diet of it. You can’t argue with box office. The fact is that 3 stories from this season made it into the Mighty 200 top 50, and another 2 into the top 100. Comparing it with the first 7 Troughton stories, for those stories the average position in the Mighty 200 works out at 107. For this season it works out as 74. It underlines the fact that people do like good Doctor Who monsters – in this season we had 2 Cybermen stories, 2 Yeti stories, and an Ice Warriors – and one of the other stories, “Fury From The Deep”  had possibly the most frightening scenes we’ve yet seen in Doctor Who. Let’s have a look at the ratings for the season, then: -

Mighty 200 Ratings/ 2014 DWM Poll Ratings

The Web of Fear   23/16

The Tomb of the Cybermen  25/23

Fury From The Deep   41/69

The Abominable Snowmen   59/87

The Ice Warriors   78/141

The Enemy of the World 139/56

The Wheel in Space  156/177

My Ratings

The Abominable Snowmen

Tomb of the Cybermen

Fury from the Deep

The Web of Fear

The Ice Warriors

The Wheel in Space

The Enemy of the World

I do wonder whether, if the Mighty 200 poll was retaken, the positions of both “The Web of Fear” and “The Enemy of the World” would change now that they can actually be seen. As always, this is a purely personal choice. It is very difficult to judge recons against stories that exist in their entirety. As things stand, though, I enjoyed “The Abominable Snowmen” more than I enjoyed any other story this season. I feel bad that the two David Whitaker stories are so far down, yet there really isn’t much to choose between the bottom 4 of my list.