Doctor Who (season 6)

This article is about the 1968/69 season. For the 2011 series, see Doctor Who (series 6).

Doctor Who (season 6)
Starring	Patrick Troughton Frazer Hines Wendy Padbury
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	44 (7 missing) 7 stories
Release
Original network	BBC One
Original release	10 August 1968 (1968-08-10) – 21 June 1969 (1969-06-21)

The sixth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 10 August 1968 with the first story of season 6 The Dominators and ended Patrick Troughton's reign as the Doctor with its final story The War Games.

Casting

See also: List of Doctor Who cast members

Main cast

• Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor
• Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon
• Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot

Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury make their final appearances as the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot respectively. Troughton and his fellow actors collectively decided that the workload of Doctor Who was exhausting them, and that they would soon depart from the show. From Season 7 onwards the show would never have such a high number of episodes again. The three actors remained with the show until the conclusion of the final season six serial The War Games.

Guest stars

Nicholas Courtney reappears as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in The Invasion, last seen (as a Colonel) in The Web of Fear. He would soon make regular appearances in the program beginning with season 7's Spearhead from Space.

John Levene makes his first appearance as Corporal Benton in The Invasion. He would continue to make regular appearances, with the character promoted to sergeant, from season 7 until season 13.

Alan Bennion makes his first of three appearances in the series playing an Ice Warrior. In this, his first appearance, he portrays Lord Slaar in The Seeds of Death.

Serials

Terrance Dicks took over from Derrick Sherwin as script editor from The Invasion, with Sherwin resuming the role for The Space Pirates. Derrick Sherwin took over as producer from Peter Bryant for The War Games.

Season 6 is the most complete of all the Second Doctor's seasons, with only seven episodes missing (compared with twenty-eight from Season 4 and eighteen from Season 5), none of the season's stories missing in their entirety and only two stories (The Invasion and The Space Pirates) incomplete. This compares to the first two seasons of the Second Doctor from which only two complete serials (The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Enemy of the World) survive. The missing two episodes of The Invasion have since been reconstructed using animation and released on DVD.

The War Games, which was the final serial of the season, and the last of Patrick Troughton's tenure as the Doctor, was also the second longest serial up to that point, spanning 10 episodes - only the 12-part serial The Daleks' Master Plan from Season 3 was longer.

Story	Serial	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	UK viewers (millions)	AI
44	1	The Dominators	Morris Barry	Norman Ashby (Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln)	10 August 1968 17 August 1968 24 August 1968 31 August 1968 7 September 1968	TT	6.1 5.9 5.4 7.5 5.9	52 55 55 51 53
Arriving on an irradiated island, The Doctor, Jamie and new companion Zoe Heriot find an alien craft bearing the imperious and ruthless Dominators.
45	2	The Mind Robber	David Maloney	Peter Ling and Derrick Sherwin	14 September 1968 21 September 1968 28 September 1968 5 October 1968 12 October 1968	UU	6.6 6.5 7.2 7.3 6.7	51 49 53 56 49
By blowing a fluid link, the Doctor is forced to use the emergency unit to take the TARDIS away from danger and indeed out of reality itself: to the Land of Fiction. Here, he meets fictional characters, such as Rapunzel, Lemuel Gulliver and Medusa.
46	3	The Invasion (Episodes 1 & 4 missing)	Douglas Camfield	Derrick Sherwin and Kit Pedler	2 November 1968 9 November 1968 16 November 1968 23 November 1968 30 November 1968 7 December 1968 14 December 1968 21 December 1968	VV	7.3 7.1 7.1 6.4 6.7 6.5 7.2 7.0	55 53 54 51 52 56 55 53
After becoming invisible, the TARDIS arrives in England, 1975. While looking for a missing scientist at an electronics company, the TARDIS crew find out that the Cybermen are hidden within London's sewers and are planning an invasion.
47	4	The Krotons	David Maloney	Robert Holmes	28 December 1968 4 January 1969 11 January 1969 18 January 1969	WW	9.0 8.4 7.5 7.1	59 57 56 55
On an unnamed planet, a race called the Gonds are subject to the mysterious Krotons, unseen beings to whom they provide their brightest members as "companions".
48	5	The Seeds of Death	Michael Ferguson	Brian Hayles and Terrance Dicks	25 January 1969 1 February 1969 8 February 1969 15 February 1969 22 February 1969 1 March 1969	XX	6.6 6.8 7.5 7.1 7.6 7.7	57 59 55 55 57 59
Landing in the early 21st Century, The Doctor finds the human race has become reliant on a teleportation system known as T-Mat. The Ice Warriors are hiding on the Moon and planning to use T-Mat to destroy every living thing on Earth.
49	6	The Space Pirates (Episodes 1, 3 - 6 missing)	Michael Hart	Robert Holmes	8 March 1969 15 March 1969 22 March 1969 29 March 1969 5 April 1969 12 April 1969	YY	5.8 6.8 6.4 5.8 5.5 5.3	57 52 55 53 56 52
Space beacons on the space lanes are being blown up and plundered for precious argonite by a gang of space pirates led by Caven and his associate Dervish.
50	7	The War Games	David Maloney	Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke	19 April 1969 26 April 1969 3 May 1969 10 May 1969 17 May 1969 24 May 1969 31 May 1969 7 June 1969 14 June 1969 21 June 1969	ZZ	5.5 6.3 5.1 5.7 5.1 4.2 4.9 3.5 4.1 5.0	55 54 53 50 53 53 53 53 57 58
Arriving in No Man's Land during World War I, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are sentenced to death for being enemy spies. They find out brainwashed soldiers are being abducted from Earth and forced to fight in simulated environments, reflecting the periods in history whence they were taken. The aliens' aim is to produce a super army from the survivors. The Doctor is forced to make a choice that will change who he is.

Missing episodes

See also: Doctor Who missing episodes

• The Invasion - Episodes 1 & 4 (of 8 total)
• The Space Pirates - Episodes 1, 3 - 6 (of 6 total)

DVD releases

See also: List of Doctor Who home video releases

Serial name	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
The Dominators	5 × 25 min.	12 July 2010	2 September 2010	11 January 2011
The Mind Robber	5 × 20 min.	7 March 2005	5 May 2005	6 September 2005
The Invasion (episodes 2-3 & 5-8 of 8, animation of 1 & 4)	8 × 25 min.	6 November 2006	3 January 2007	6 March 2007
The Krotons	4 × 25 min.	2 July 2012	2 August 2012	10 July 2012
The Seeds of Death	6 × 25 min.	17 February 2003	5 May 2003	2 March 2004
The Seeds of Death – Special Edition Only available as part of the Revisitations 2 box set in Regions 2 and 4.	6 × 25 min.	28 March 2011	5 May 2011	12 June 2012
The War Games	10 × 25 min.	6 July 2009	3 September 2009	3 November 2009

Lost in Time
All existing episodes from otherwise missing Second Doctor serials from this season have been released on the Lost in Time collection, with the exception of The Invasion which had its missing episodes animated for its DVD release. 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.

Includes episodes from	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
The Space Pirates (episode 2 of 6)	1 × 25 min.	1 November 2004	2 December 2004 (Original release) 1 July 2010 (Re-release)	2 November 2004

In print

Main article: List of Doctor Who novelisations

Serial name	Novelisation title	Author	First published
The Dominators	The Dominators	Ian Marter	1984
The Mind Robber	The Mind Robber	Peter Ling	1987
The Invasion	The Invasion	Ian Marter	1985
The Krotons	The Krotons	Terrance Dicks	1985
The Seeds of Death	The Seeds of Death	Terrance Dicks	1986
The Space Pirates	The Space Pirates	Terrance Dicks	1990
The War Games	Doctor Who and the War Games	Malcolm Hulke	1979