147 The Underwater Menace: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Underwater Menace: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 147
STORY NUMBER: 032
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 28 January 1967
WRITER: Geoffrey Orme
DIRECTOR: Julia Smith
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 7.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace
TELESNAPS: The Underwater Menace: Episode Three

"Nothing in the world can stop me now!"

As the Doctor and Ramo are being sacrificed the statue of Ando speaks and while the priest's heads are bowed the Doctor and Ramo escape meeting Jamie, Ben, Polly, Jacko & Sean inside the tunnels behind the statue. The Doctor sends Jacko & Sean to get the fish people to strike: the food they collect rots within hours so this will quickly bring Atlantis to a halt. The Doctor and his companions kidnap Zaroff in the market place aided by yet more dressing up from Troughton. The Doctor, Jamie & Ben leave him guarded by Ramo & Polly but he kills Ramo and escapes, taking Polly hostage but she's rescued by Jamie and the others. Zaroff goes to see King Thous but they argue. Zaroff pulls a gun on Thous and shoots him while his guards slay those belonging to the King. Zaroff proclaims that

Nothing in the world can stop me now!

Much better than I remember it being now I'm watching a clear cleaned up version in the context of the episodes round it. Yes the Fish People, victims of a Kirby wire ballet sequence mid episode as they pass word of the strike round, are a bit rubbish with sequins plastered all over them like a four year old has designed them but they're not in the story much.

Yet in amongst these there are a couple of very odd fish people lacking the make up we're familiar with from publicity photos, like those I saw in a Starlord annual as a child. One's wearing goggles and the other's got a full face mask on!

A good example of needing to see the episode in context can be found at the start of the episode as Thous stares at Zaroff towards the end of their conversation:

ZAROFF: Have I not sworn to you that Atlantis shall rise again from the sea? Haven't I? Haven't I? What are you staring at?
THOUS: Nothing. Nothing at all.

On it's own, it just seems odd. But set it in the context of the Doctor's comments to Thous in the previous episode:

DOCTOR: Excellency, the Professor is a wonderful man.
THOUS: Wonderful?
DOCTOR: A worker of miracles.
THOUS: Indeed, you speak the truth.
DOCTOR: But, have you noticed his eyes lately?
THOUS: No.
DOCTOR: When he talks of his project, have you noticed his eyes? They light up like this!
THOUS: What does this mean?
DOCTOR: The Professor is as mad as a hatter.
THOUS: Mad? Zaroff?
DOCTOR: Completely. No answer. It's sad.

Thous has been watching Zaroff's eyes and has come to the conclusion that the Doctor is right, which then gets explicitly stated at the end of the episode

THOUS: Zaroff! Where have you been? We've been looking for you. The workers are in revolt.
ZAROFF: My guards will restore order.
THOUS: They are simple people. I'm sure they will
ZAROFF: Those who resist will be killed.
THOUS: Killed?
ZAROFF: I have no time to waste.
THOUS: Zaroff, you are subject to me in all matters. I will not have my people
ZAROFF: Your people? Your people? They are my people now. I hold their whole world in my power.
THOUS: The Doctor was right about you. I order your project stopped at this moment. Guards! Take Zaroff to the temple and hold him there.
ZAROFF: You're a fool. You're a fool! I'll send you to your beloved goddess Amdo to discuss the future of the universe with her.
THOUS: I demand that you
ZAROFF: You? You demand? You demand? Well since your, since your beloved goddess has developed such an enchanting appetite for people, it is only fitting that the great Thous should offer himself. No, no, I shall offer him.

Which takes us to the point where Zaroff's dived off the deep end and gone completely bonkers as his immortal line to close the episode shows!

King Thous is played by Noel Johnson who I will almost guarantee is a name unknown to you. However he was famous as the voice of Dick Barton, special agent. He'll return as Charles Grover M.P. in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. He was Osbourne in some of the earliest television science fiction in the UK A for Andromeda and The Andromeda Breakthrough. He was in the Out of the Unknown episode Thirteen to Centaurus as General Short. This episode exists and can be found on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. Johnson also appears in the Doomwatch episode The Logicians as Priestland.

Lolem, the high priest, is another contestant in the "campest character in Doctor Who" competition. He's played by Peter Stephens who was previously Cyril in The Celestial Toymaker. He's got an Out of the Unknown to his name too, playing Stephenson in Time in Advance, another existing episode on the DVD set.

Catherine Howe, who plays servant girl Ara, was at 16 the youngest credited artist to appear in Doctor Who to date. There's been other stories with children in but none in a credited speaking role that I can think of. She left acting in the early 70s to pursue a career in folk music. Her only competitors for youngest credited actor I can think of are Sarah Prince, Karuna in Kinda, and Jasmine Breaks, the Girl in Rememberance of the Daleks, but I can't find ages for either of those performers.

Tony Handy, Zaroff's Guard, had also been in Out of the Unknown appearing as a technician in the missing third season episode Immortality Inc.

IMDB has a credit on episode one for Bill Burridge as a Priest: he's not in episode 1 but he is in episode 3: Toby Hadoke identifies him as the executioner early in this episode during the DVD commentary for this episode. He'd previously been in The Savages as an Extra and would return as Mr Quill in Fury from the Deep, a Villager/Coven member in The Dæmons and a Draconian in in Frontier in Space. He's got Doomwatch to his name too as a man in Hear No Evil and Flood.

Underwater Menace 3 was found in the BBC Film & Video library during Ian Levine's initial visit in 1978 and was until 2011 the earliest existing Patrick Troughton episode, a record now supplanted by it's immediate predecessor.

I can remember watching episode this on it's video release, when it was part of the bonus material released with The Ice Warriors and being surprised by it having the familiar Hartnell era title sequence that's been with us since An Unearthly Child! As it's a Patrick Troughton episode I expected it to have the title sequence with his face which I was familiar with from the Krotons & the War Games. I'm not 100% sure but I think the first time I saw the DVD version, part of Doctor Who - Lost In Time, was when I watched it for the first version of this blog which was also the first time I saw the episode in the context of having listened to the surrounding audio episodes. Now one of those has been recovered too and we have telesnap reconstructions for the remaining two episodes which lift this one which I'd thought for a long time was probably the poorest of the four by some distance.

Sadly the next episode doesn't exist so it's back to a telesnap reconstruction for the final episode. Don't worry there's only a gap of two missing episodes before the next proper one on DVD.

146 The Underwater Menace: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Underwater Menace: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 146
STORY NUMBER: 032
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 21 January 1967
WRITER: Geoffrey Orme
DIRECTOR: Julia Smith
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 7.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace
TELESNAPS: The Underwater Menace: Episode Two

"One tiny jab and you'll know nothing more about it until it's all over"

*Finally*, after 12 episodes, a Troughton episode that exists and we can watch on DVD.

The Doctor interrupts the power supply allowing Polly to be freed by servant girl Ara who hides her in the temple of Ando. Zaroff explains his plan to raise Atlantis to the Doctor which the Doctor realises will destroy Earth. Zaroff has realised this too but is quite mad so doesn't care. Ben & Jamie escape from the mines with a pair of ship-wrecked sailors who were captured, Sean & Jacko. They emerge from a tunnel into the Temple of Ando finding Polly and Ara who brings them food. The Doctor escapes from the lab and meets Ramo, a priest, who is worried about Zaroff's scheme. They go to see King Thous, who hands them over to Zaroff as prisoners.

My sole comment when I listened to this episode the first time round was:

Rolls along nicely this episode, not bad at all

which probably doesn't do it justice ...... especially now that we can see it!

Underwater Menace 2 was returned to the BBC from TV engineer Tony Burnett in 2011 via the Restoration Team's Ralph Montague - for the full story look at 084 Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock. The copy of Underwater Menace 2 that was found is missing precisely the sections that we had previously so we can say with absolute certainty that it's a print returned from the ABC in Australia on the 4th June 1975. This was a huge batch of returned episodes but when you go through Wiped you'll notice that every individual episode found in the UK could possibly be found in this batch. Also of note is that the collector who had this lived in Southampton: David Stead bought the copy of Wheel in Space 3 he had from a "Mr Smith of Pinedene films" in Southampton so I'm wondering if there's a common source for these prints. The version that escaped on YouTube is unrestored, returning us to the days of crackly looking prints on VHS/UK Gold, but with odd moments where the quality jumps massively as it cuts to a cut section restored from the censor clips on Lost in Time.

Even before this episode's return The start of this episode, and some of the end of the previous one, survived courtesy of the Australian censors, and I can see why they cut it. It's genuinely one of the scariest things seen in Doctor Who with a bound and defenceless Polly about to undergo "The Operation" and with masked doctors approaching her with syringes.

That would have scared the living daylights out of me if I'd have seen it at the time. It also proves that you don't get the whole story from the audio! The next episode of this story does survive but there's nothing in it to compare to this! Even watching it now the scenes with Polly strapped to the table really chill me, not nice at all.

But my statement

It also proves that you don't get the whole story from the audio!

Is almost immediately proved right when Zaroff says

Not now, Damon, can't you see I am talking with my friend here.

it sounds from the soundtrack as if he's saying the Doctor is his friend: not so, as he says it he's looking at his (off-screen sadly) pet octopus!

Then while the script may have specified that The Doctor damages the power system with Wire cutters, as both the CD and the telesnaps claim it's obvious from the episode itself that he's using his bare hands:

If you think you recognise the power box there then you'd be right, but it's much more obvious later in the story!

However there are some other familiar props on display here:

The panel on the left hasn't been in *televised* Doctor Who before but you can see it near the ramp in the film Dalek Invasion of Earth 2150ad. The panel on the right was previously seen in War Machines 4.

Both can be spotted together in The Avengers episode The House That Jack Built as you can see here.

Chief Surgeon Damon appears a lot more in this episode than in the previously existing episode 3, although he was prominently in the censor clips, as do the prisoners Jacko and Sean, all 3 of which appear only momentarily in episode 3.

As well as seeing more of Damon we get a much more complete view of Atlantis with the lab, operating theatre and mineworks in addition to the Temple of Amdo and caves which are really the only locations seen in episode 3. In many ways watching this episode puts episode 3 in a much better light as you can see more of the broader picture that it fits into. I don't thing Underwater Menace is going to be winning any "best of season 4" polls any time soon because it is, after all, up against some pretty tough opposition in Tenth Planet, Power of the Daleks and Evil of the Daleks, but the return of episode 2 should help lift the overall opinion of the story which for many people has only been experienced by episode 3 which is probably the worst of the 3 episodes. What was it about the Troughton episodes retained in the archives? In 3 cases - Underwater Menace 3, Enemy of the World 3 and Space Pirates 2 - they're all pretty bad examples of the story. OK I'm not sure Space Pirates gets much better but in the other two cases the rest of the story is much better than what we could see.

The lead guest star in this serial is Joseph Furst, playing Zaroff. An Austrian emigree he appears in the Doomwatch episode Re-Entry Forbidden as Dr. Charles Goldsworthy and the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever where he plays Dr Metz. He later emigrated to Australia.

I'm a big fan of Colin Jeavons from his appearances in the House of Cards series where he plays Tim Stamper, the assistant to the sinister Francis Urquart in House of Cards & To Play The King. Now Ian Richardson, who played the lead role of Francis Urquart in House of Cards, is an actor that would have made a superb older Doctor Who! Jeavons does have another Doctor Who connection: he was George Tracey in K9 & Company. He too was in Doomwatch playing Botting in By the Pricking of My Thumbs and appeared in the TV version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy playing Max Quordlepleen, the host of the Restaurant at the end of the Universe, in episode 5.

Tom Watson, High Priest Ramo, had a long television career but I note he's got one of my favourite films Fahrenheit 451 on his CV.

Playing Damon's Assistant, seen unmasked here, is a sixties Doctor Who regular: Gerald Taylor. He first appears in the sixth episode of Doctor, The Daleks 2: The Survivors as a Dalek, a role he repeats in Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, Dalek Masterplan, Power of the Daleks & Evil of the Daleks. He was in The Web Planet as a Zarbi and The War Machines as a War Machine and the Voice of Wotan. This is his first on screen appearance as a human but he can be seen again as The Baker's Man in The Dæmons episode 2 and then heavily made up as Vega Nexos in Monster of Peladon episode 1. He's in one of the currently missing second season episode of Out of the Unknown, The Naked Sun, as a robot.

Graham Ashley, the Overseer, had been a regular as PC/DC/DS Tommy Hughes in Dixon of Dock Green and would later be a Grange Hill regular as Mr Garfield, then a Prison Officer, Mr Appleton, in Porridge and Gold 5 in Star Wars. IMDB has a credit on episode 1 for a miner: since the miners aren't introduced until episode 2 I suspect that David Waterman's as Miner can be found here. He'd been in The War Machines 3 & 4 as a soldier/worker and would return as an Earth Guard in Frontier in Space He then plays a technician in five of the episodes of Moonbase 3 Departure and Arrival, Behemoth, Achilles Heel, Outsiders & View of a Dead Planet

See Smugglers part 3 for more on Director Julia Smith directing her second and final Doctor Who. She's the second woman director to work on the program after Paddy Russell who directed The Massacre the previous year. This story is the first and only Doctor Who for experienced script writer Geoffrey Orme. Orme was born 1904 which I think makes him the oldest writer credited on the show. William Hartnell was born after him in 1908 so up till this point he's the oldest person credited on the show fullstop. However I have found a performer in a later story born in the 19th century!

Some statistics covering the Underwater Menace Return:

Underwater Menace 2 is now the earliest surviving Troughton episode. This is the first time that record has changed since Ian Levine visited the BBC Film & Video Library in 1978. It's also the earliest episode with Jamie in it.

Paired with the next episode, Underwater Menace 3, we now have the earliest surviving consecutive pair of Troughton episode, beating Tomb of the Cybermen 1 & 2.

Underwater Menace is only the third episode of Season 4 to be returned, easily the worst of any season with missing episodes. Despite this return Season 4 is still the worst represented in the archive with just 10 of it's 43 episodes present. Sadly the possibility of returns isn't great: of the prints sold abroad just one, a copy of the Smugglers sold to Sierra Leone, has a question mark hanging over it's fate. However, as we've seen, returns from collectors can seemingly come from anywhere as many film prints returned to the BBC and seemingly destroyed have later turned up in private hands.

The Restoration Team's Twitter feed @RTnewsfeed provided two pictures here and here of them working on a DVD for The Underwater Menace on the 5th of September 2013. However due to various factors this release took much longer than expected. The original intention had been to animate episodes 1 and 4 and when this fell through the DVD release went into limbo. Tomb of the Cybermen was found in January (ish) 1992 and on the shelves at the start of May that year. The Crusade 1: The Lion was found January 1999 and on sale in June 1999. Dalek Masterplan 2: The Day of Armageddon was returned January 2004 and released as part of Lost in Time in January 2005. It took nearly 18 months for Galaxy 4 episode 3: Airlock to be released on the Aztecs Special Edition: Underwater Menace 2, recovered at the same time in 2011, was finally released on DVD in October 2015. Unfortunately for the BBC, and fortunately for impatient fans, in the meantime it had escaped onto the Tube of You so most fans who wanted to had been able to see the episode, albeit in unrestored form.

145 The Underwater Menace: Episode One

EPISODE: The Underwater Menace: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 145
STORY NUMBER: 032
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 14 January 1967
WRITER: Geoffrey Orme
DIRECTOR: Julia Smith
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace
TELESNAPS: The Underwater Menace: Episode One

"You're not turning me into a fish!"

The Tardis crew land on a beach at the foot of a mountain and while exploring are captured one by one and taken to the city of Atlantis on the sea bed. They are to be sacrificed to the Goddess Ando. The Doctor discovers eminent scientist Professor Zaroff is there and gets a message to him, which causes him to free the Doctor and save his companions from death. Zaroff has devised a technology to harvest plankton for food and plans to raise Atlantis back to the surface. Ben & Jamie are to be sent to work in the mines, but Polly is to undergo the operation to be converted into a water breathing Fish Person, one of the creatures that harvest the plankton. The episode ends with Polly struggling against her bonds as the surgeons approach her with a needle to put her under anaesthetic.

It was almost inevitable that Doctor Who would do Atlantis at some point and here we get a post sinking Atlantis. The society here seems dependant on Zaroff's technology, which is a recent addition, so you wonder how the eked an existence out before that..... and what they're still doing down there if they have easy access to the surface, as shown by the lift from the caves that the Time Travellers are bought down in. Hmmm, that plot element is a little odd: why have the Tardis materialising on the beech, why not have it land directly in Atlantis and Atlantis be completely isolated from the surface world?

I do wonder if Geoffrey Orme has ever read the Fantastic Four. His Atlantis seems to be a cross between their Atlantis and the subterranean world of the Mole Man, also from the Fantastic Four. Zaroff would seem to be inspired by mad scientists everywhere, but the name especially bring to mind Professor Hans Zarkoff from the Flash Gordon films.

This episode is enlivened by some nice location work at the start: The Tardis landing site is Winspit Beach in Dorset, with the cave entrance filmed nearby as Winspit Quarry, latter a location for Destiny of the Daleks and the Blake's 7 episode Games. During recording the crew were based at The Scott Arms, Kingston, Dorset. Many years later Anneke Wills, who plays Polly, held her 60th Birthday party in the same pub and was amazed to find she'd visited it many years before and their stay was commemorated by signed photos on the wall!

Polly manages to beat the Doctor by providing a date for when they've arrived:

DOCTOR: Yes, it's difficult to put a precise date on these people.
POLLY: I don't think it is.
DOCTOR: All right then, when?
POLLY: Oh, I'd say about 1970.
DOCTOR: Can you prove it?
BEN: Yeah, go on, prove it.
JAMIE: How d'you know, Polly?
BEN: Ah, she's been studying her crystal ball.
POLLY: Abracadabra.
DOCTOR: Oh, how interesting, yes. Hmm. It's Aztec. Fake of course.
BEN: Mexico Olympiad.
POLLY: When we first left Earth it hadn't happened yet.
BEN: No, that's right, it wasn't due till 1968.
POLLY: Right, so now is any time later than that.

The 1968 Olyympiad will later effect Doctor Who by taking the show off the air for two weeks between The Mind Robber episode 5 and The Invasion episode 1 to allow for coverage of the event.

There's a little nod, or rather a tip of the hat, to the show's current running joke as the Doctor arrives in Atlantis and is fed:

DOCTOR: This is good. This is very good. Mmmm. It's delicious. This is excellent. Sit down, sit down. This is ambrosia.
BEN: What's got into him?
POLLY: I don't know. I've never seen him go for food like this before. It's usually hats.
JAMIE: Better hurry or he'll scoff the lot.

After episode two of this story was recovered in 2011 the intention was to release the Underwater Menace with animations for episodes 1 & 4, as had been done for The Invasion and most of the other incomplete but existing stories. However problems with the animators meant this fell through, a major reason for the DVD being delayed so long. When the DVD project was resurrected in 2015 this episode was represented with a very simple telesnap reconstruction, effectively just an in order slide show with no zooming, repeated shots or use of screen captures from other episodes. The episode is accompanied by the second half of an interview with Michael Troughton, who has written a very good Biography of his father.

Another omission from the DVD reconstruction is a censor clip comprising a portion of the ending of this episode which I think represents one of the most sinister and scary things seen in Doctor Who:

DAMON: Don't be afraid, girl. Life is very beautiful under the sea. Come along. Seventy percent of the world's surface is under the oceans. You are looking at our food producing area. Without it, we couldn't survive.
POLLY: It's fantastic. What are those?
DAMON: Those are our farmers.
POLLY: I think it's splendid. All those people working under the sea to feed the others. But listen, how do they breathe?
DAMON: We give them plastic gills. Look.
DAMON: That surprises you, doesn't it?
POLLY: It's breathtaking. Oh, sorry. That wasn't meant to be a pun.
DAMON: No, not at all. No, I'm glad you're taking it like this. Some people get most upset when they find they're to have the operation.
POLLY: Operation?
FOREMAN: Well, of course. We couldn't send you out there without it. You'd drown.
POLLY: You're not turning me into a fish!

POLLY: Keep away!
DAMON: Bring her here. Don't be difficult, girl, it's quite painless. Lights.
POLLY: No! no!
DAMON: We're ready now.
POLLY: No! No! No! No! No! No!
DAMON: One tiny jab, and you'll know nothing more about it until it's all over.

Fortunately the clip is present elsewhere on the disc.

The recovery of episode 2 of this story means that this episode now brings to an end the longest run of missing Doctor Who episodes:

Tenth Planet 4
Power of the Daleks 1-6
Highlanders 1-4
Underwater Menace 1

That's a total of 12 consecutive missing episodes.

The next longest missing episodes run now is the 8 episodes from Fury from the Deep 1 - Wheel in Space 2 followed by a pair of 7s: all of Marco Polo and Galaxy 4 episode 4 to Dalek Masterplan 1. When I first wrote about Underwater Menace episode 3 I said:

No earlier Troughton episode has ever been found and the 13 episode gap between Tenth Planet 3 and this one is one of the longest standing without a complete episode being found within it. At 13 episodes it's also now the joint longest period in terms of episodes for which no episodes exist matching the 13 missing episodes between Web of Fear 1 and Wheel in Space 3 (the last 5 episodes of Web, all 6 of Fury from the Deep (11) and the first 2 of Wheel in Space(13)) .

Nice to see that gap shortened and, indeed, that second 13 episode gap significantly cut too!

The longest gaps at the start of the missing episode hunt were 30 episodes, between Faceless One 1 and Enemy of the World 3 (5 episodes of Faceless Ones, 7 of Evil of the Daleks (12), 4 of Tomb of the Cybermen (16), 6 of Abominable Snowmen (22), 6 of The Ice Warriors (28) and 2 of Enemy of the World (30)) closely followed by the 27 episodes between Time Meddler 2 and The Ark 1 (final 2 of the Time Meddler, 4 of Galaxy Four (6), 1 of Mission to the Unknown (7), 4 of the Myth Makers (11), 12 of the Dalek Masterplan (23) and 4 of the Massacre (27)) However a significant number of episodes have been discovered to plug some of those gaps.

144 The Highlanders: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Highlanders: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 144
STORY NUMBER: 031
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 07 January 1967
WRITER: Elwyn Jones & Gerry Davis (uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Hugh David
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 7.3 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes volume 3 (1966-1967)
TELESNAPS: The Highlanders: Episode Four

"It's a poor choice between the gallows and the plantations. A man will clutch at any straw to save his skin!"

The rope is hauled up but Ben has gone, escaping from his bonds using a trick used by Houdini. He swims to shore but is caught by a redcoat, who then reveals himself to be the Doctor in disguise.

With Polly & Kirsty they row out to the ship, supply the Scots prisoners with weapons allowing them to revolt and take the ship, with Trask going overboard.

Grey is taken prisoner and Perkins, tiring of his servitude to him, elects to travel to France with the Scots.

The Doctor and party take Grey to the shore, and find Jamie has travelled with them. Grey escapes at the shore but the travellers once more compel Ffinch to help them find where they were captured at which point Polly returns his identity disc and thanks him for his assistance. Grey arrives with soldiers, but Ffinch arrests him for his part in the deporting of prisoners to use as slaves. Jamie asks to come with the travellers and the Doctor says yes, on the condition that Jamie teaches him to play the bagpipes.

Thankfully we never see that followed up on! Best episode of the four in my opinion, a little bit of action livening things up. Liked this one.

The Highlanders is the last 100% historical story in 1960s Doctor Who. The feeling was that historical stories were less popular with the audience, and Innes Lloyd's experience making Gunfighters set him against them. So without ceremony they were dropped. And Doctor Who never looked back. From here on it's sci fi and monsters virtually all the way. We'll get past Earth settings for stories in the future but there's always a science fiction element and the one story that doesn't really have one is essentially a pastiche on the Agatha Christie Murder Mystery. But that's another 15 years in the show's future.

Here then are the times that the Doctor has visited in the Tardis prior to the present day of when the show was made:

DATE	STORY	NOTES
100,000 BC	An Unearthly Child
c2500 BC	Dalek Masterplan	Egypt
c1200 BC	The Myth Makers
64 AD	The Romans
1066 AD	The Time Meddler
c1190 AD	The Crusade
1289 AD	Marco Polo
c1454 AD	Aztecs
1572 AD	The Massacre	24th August 1572
c1660 AD	The Smugglers
1746 AD	The Highlanders	Battle of Culloden took place on 16th April 1746
1794 AD	Reign of Terror	Robespierre arrested 27th July
1872 AD	The Chase	Mary Celeste left port November 5th and found December 5th
1881 AD	The Gunfighters
c1920 AD	Dalek Masterplan	Hollywood

When you compare the dates, that's quite widely spaced out over time.

The Doctor will return to the past in The Abominable Snowman, The Time Monster, sort of in the Carnival of Monsters, The Time Warrior, The Pyramids of Mars, Masque of Mandragora, Horror of Fang Rock, Black Orchid, Mark of the Rani, Timelash, Delta & the Bannermen, Remembrance of the Daleks, Ghost Light and Curse of Fenric. Interestingly the Remembrance visit was to a time 25 years in the past when it was shown, but that time was inside the timespan of Doctor Who being on air.

Round 3 of the "I would like a hat like that" gag occurs when the Doctor rescues Ben at the start of the episode, and it's another Tam OP Shanter again this time.

Remember we said that this story filmed on location at Frensham Ponds, in Surrey for three days on the 14th, 15th & 21st November 1966? The final date a week later than the first two was necessary because the ending of the episode had been changed: originally Jamie was meant to remain behind and all indications are the Tardis departure was filmed with just the Doctor, Ben and Polly. But after this the production team decided Jamie should join the Tardis crew, bringing them back up to the original four, and so they returned to the location for a reshoot.

Gerry Davis, the show's script editor who did a large portion of the work writing this story for television, novelised the Highlanders for Target books in 1984. It was released on CD in October 1999. It was later released on CD as part of the Adventures In History boxset and will be re-released as part of Doctor Who: the Lost TV Episodes Collection 3. The Highlanders had long been rumoured to be the planned second release in the series of MP3cd reconstructed releases that started with Power of the Daleks, but it never materialised.