Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet [1966]

Date(s) of Broadcast: 8 October 1966 - 29 October 1966
Number of Episodes: 4
Average Episode Running Times: 25 mins
Format: black and white
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: BBC
Producer: Innes Lloyd

SCRIPT
Script: Kit Pedlar, Gerry Davis
Story Editor: Gerry Davis

DIRECTION
Director: Derek Martinus

PHOTOGRAPHY
Studio Lighting: Howard King

MUSIC
Title Music: Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Title Music Arranged By: Delia Derbyshire

SOUND
Studio Sound: Adrian Bishop-Laggett
Special Sounds: Brian Hodgson

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Gillian James
Costumes: Sandra Reid

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Designer: Peter Kindred

MISCELLANEOUS
Production Assistant: Edwina Verner
Assistant Floor Manager: Jenny McArthur

CAST
William Hartnell [The Doctor]
Patrick Troughton [The Doctor - uncredited]
Michael Craze [Ben Jackson]
Anneke Wills [Polly]
Robert Beatty [General Cutler]
David Dodimead [Dr Barclay]
Dudley Jones [Dr Ernest John Dyson]
Christopher Matthews [radar technician]
Steve Plytas [Wigner]
Alan White [Major Dan Schultz]
Earl Cameron [Colonel Williams]
Shane Shelton [Private Tito]
John Brandon [American sergeant]
Reg Whitheead [Krail]
Hary Brooks [Talon]
Gregg Palmer [Shav]
Roy Skelton, Peter Hawkins [Cyberman voices]
Ellen Cullen [Geneva technician]
Glenn Beck [television announcer]
Callen Angelo [Lt Terry Cutler]
Christopher Dunham [R/T technician]
Harry Brooks [Krang]
Reg Whitheead [Jarl]
Gregg Palmer [Gern]
John Haines, John Knott, Bruce Wells [Cybermen - uncredited]
Nicholas Edwards [RT technician - uncredited]
Gordon Craig [double for The Doctor - uncredited]
Peter Pocock [double for Ben - uncredited]
Sheila Edwards [secretary - uncredited]
Alec Coleman [Corporal - uncredited]
Freddie Eldrett, Nick Hilton, Terence Jones, Ken McGarvie, Roy Pierce, Peter Pocock [soldiers - uncredited]
Bill Gosling, Gordon Lang, Richard Lawrence, Morris Quick [officers - uncredited]
Freddie Eldrett, Roy Pierce [engineers - uncredited]

The TARDIS lands in the near future at a South Pole tracking station. The station is aiding a space craft in difficulty. The Doctor discovers it is in trouble because the Earth's energy is being drained by a rogue planet entering the solar system. Its inhabitants, the machine like Cybermen, invade. After the adventure's conclusion The Doctor collapses in the TARDIS and begins to change...

Hartnell's final story and the first appearance of the Cybermen. Hartnell appears tired throughout his scenes [he was ill and missed episode 3], the claustrophobic setting [borrowed from The Thing From Another World [1951]] works well and the Cybermen, if looking a little simplistic now, are great. The final scenes in the TARDIS are stunningly weird.

UK
Television Distributor: BBC
Video Distributor: BBC Video

1966
October
8: UK - Part One television broadcast [on BBC1]
15: UK - Part Two television broadcast [on BBC1]
22: UK - Part Three television broadcast [on BBC1]
29: UK - Part Four television broadcast [on BBC1]

BOOKS

Doctor Who: The Television Companion pp.101-105
credits, synopsis, review [by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker]

KEYWORDS

aliens, cybermen, space travel, time travel

Last Updated: 21 April, 2008