Season 5, Episode 2 | 6 parts | First broadcast: 30 September – 4 November 1967 | Writer: Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln | Director: Gerald Blake
Cast
- Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
- Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon
- Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield
- Jack Watling as Professor Travers
Summary
The TARDIS arrives on a cold, windswept Himalayan hillside near a remote monastery, where the Doctor and his companions encounter Professor Travers, an explorer hunting the legendary Yeti. The Doctor discovers the Yeti roaming the mountains are in fact robots, animated and controlled by the disembodied entity known as the Great Intelligence, which is using them and a possessed monk in its bid to achieve physical form.
Interesting Facts
- This serial introduces both the Yeti and the Great Intelligence, adversaries who would return the following season and resurface decades later in the revived series.
- Only Episode 2 currently survives in the BBC archive; the story has since received a full animated recreation.
- Jack Watling’s performance as Professor Travers proved popular enough that the character returned in the following season’s The Web of Fear.
- The story draws heavily on then-contemporary fascination with Everest expeditions and reported Yeti sightings in the Himalayas.
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