The Doctor says farewell to two trusted companions, but first they battle Desert Squids, Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula and Spherical Daleks.

The Doctor, Barbara, Ian (and Vicki) get the Space-and-Time-Visualiser working and tune in to random years in Earth’s history. Fortunately, the STV is a device that allows its users to witness very specific and unmentioned points of significance, e.g. William Shakespeare having an audience with Queen Elizabeth I, Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, The Beatles live on Top of The Pops, or Daleks exposing the recent completion of their time machine and consequent plan to hunt down Doc & Co.

And so begins this dismal journey into slapstick madness. The troupe encounters Aridians (fish people happily living on a desert planet with no water), a fake American atop the Empire State Building (apologies to all Americans on behalf of the BBC), a crewman of the Mary Celeste (whom they promptly bludgeon), and a fake Robot Doctor, who looks “exactly” like the real one.

But that’s not all! We’re also forced to endure our intrepid time travellers meeting Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster for an entire episode, that takes place, it seems, in a closed-down funfair in the future Ghana of 1996 – side note: the same year that John Spartan “will be” cryogenically frozen in future Los Angeles.

Furthermore, the troupe battles Gubbage Cones (aka Fungoids), Daleks (I believe you’ve met already) and Mechanoids (who are essentially spherical Daleks).

Were it not for two very important changes to the dynamics of Doctor Who, we might have told you to give this one a miss. Here we go:

We’re introduced to the next companion. We must bid Barbara and Ian farewell.

The Ratings-and-Reviews section of this podcast episode kicks off at:

1 hour 32 minutes 45 seconds

Man, TV's were bigger back in the day. Aside from Vicki's and Barbara's snuggies, what's wrong with this pic? Hartnell has his doubts. Dalek #347: "This planet ain't big enough for the both of us, Mechanoid!" And introducing Steven Taylor... The new companion! Farewell, Barbara and Ian. We shall miss you! And because we promised we'd include a screenshot, here's Ian getting jiggy with it.

You'll enjoy these episodes, too! C017 The Time Meddler The Doctor, Vicki and Steve arrive in England in 1066 and are pitted against Saxon logic, brutal Vikings and a fellow time traveller.

C002 The Daleks The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian arrive on the planet Skaro, where war has been raging between the Thal and the Daleks for 500 years.

C060 Day of the Daleks Temporal paradoxes, vintage wines and the coolest tricycle chase ever!