Doctor Who – season 6 review

All right, so it took five years to get here, but Doctor Who really got into its stride in its sixth series.

Every story apart from The Space Pirates has good things to recommend it, but the incredible thing is that half the series – namely The Invasion, The Seeds Of Death and The War Games – are still among the best Doctor Who stories to the present day. Certainly I think they were among the best ones so far in 1969.

I don't think this is connected, but this is also the series in which the 108 famously missing episodes run-out. There are only seven reconstructions substituting in the whole 44-part series, and for this we can be extremely grateful.

Easily the best recons have been the cartoon pictures to episodes one and four of The Invasion, but part of the reason these succeeded so well was because of the strength of the original programmes.

Even the stories that I haven't cited yet as either brilliant or poor – The Dominators, The Mind Robber and The Krotons – have all been good, and well worth watching.

Zoe hasn't really panned-out as the clever character who she started out as, and Jamie has remained similarly basic. The Doctor himself however has swung further and further towards fun, and everyone else in the show seems to have helped him. Mostly that help has been by playing the other roles straight, but credit must also go to the writers for keeping the tone of the stories serious. This has resulted in a show about a funny guy having to cope with serious angst, and Patrick Troughton has increasingly thrown himself completely into the role.

I'm full of enthusiasm for this season. It sure wasn't perfect, but Doctor Who has never been about that.

The Dominators
The Mind Robber
The Invasion
The Krotons
The Seeds Of Death
The Space Pirates
The War Games