In the first week of the 1970s, Doctor Who is back, with a new Doctor, a new alien threat, new companions and a new earthbound premise. So what makes it the same show? Notes and links Jon Pertwee’s Doctor is well known for regularly going into a coma to heal himself. He does that in this story, in The Dæmons, in Planet of the Daleks, in The Monster of Peladon and in Planet of the Spiders. (I’ve probably left some out.) This phenomenon is so well known that is has a name — the Pertwee death pose — characterised by Pertwee lying flat on his back with one knee bent. Flight Through Entirety named its Jon Pertwee retrospective after this — Episode 31: One Knee up for Pertwee. When Peter and Simon refer to “625-line Pertwees”, what they mean is the episodes that still existed in their original...

A big week for beginnings this week, with a new Doctor, a new origin story for the Daleks, and a whole new approach to defeating the bad guys. Oh, and a new podcast to discuss them all on. So let’s welcome Patrick Troughton to the studio floor, as we discuss The Power of the Daleks. Notes and links The most recent Blu-ray release of The Power of the Daleks was the Special Edition in 2020, which includes a compilation of all the surviving footage, including material shot on an 8mm film camera pointing at a TV screen. This material was also included on the Lost in Time DVD release way back in 2004. Simon also mentions a site which chronicles the upsetting history of Doctor Who’s missing episodes. It’s called The Destruction of Time, and it’s well worth reading, if a bit dispiriting at...