Doctor Who season 2

This article is about the 1964/65 season. For the 2006 series, see Doctor Who (series 2).

Doctor Who (season 2)
Season 2
Starring	William Hartnell Carole Ann Ford Jacqueline Hill William Russell Maureen O'Brien Peter Purves
No. of episodes	39 (2 missing) 9 stories
Release
Original network	BBC One
Original release	31 October 1964 (1964-10-31) – 24 July 1965 (1965-07-24)
Season chronology

The second season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 31 October 1964 with the story Planet of Giants and ended on 24 July 1965 with The Time Meddler.

Casting

See also: List of Doctor Who cast members

Main cast

• William Hartnell as the First Doctor
• Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman
• Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright
• William Russell as Ian Chesterton
• Maureen O'Brien as Vicki
• Peter Purves as Steven Taylor

William Hartnell continued his role as the First Doctor accompanied by his original companions: his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), and schoolteachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill).

Susan departed at the end of the second story The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and was soon replaced by Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) in The Rescue.

The penultimate story The Chase saw the departure of Ian and Barbara, and the arrival of Steven (Peter Purves) as a regular member of the TARDIS crew. At the end of the season, aside from the Doctor, the main cast had changed and would do so the following season when it finished.

Guest stars

Peter Butterworth makes his first of two appearances as the Meddling Monk in the serial The Time Meddler.

Serials

Dennis Spooner replaced David Whitaker as script editor after The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and edited the remainder of the season apart from The Time Meddler, which was edited by Donald Tosh. Verity Lambert continued in her role as producer for the entire season while Mervyn Pinfield served as associate producer until the end of The Romans. This season was originally intended to have 40 episodes with Planet of Giants originally shot and edited as 4 x 25 minute episodes. After viewing the episodes, Head of series and serials Donald Wilson found them to be lacking in action and ordered that the final two episodes be edited into 1 episode. The episode left over was later used to produce the single-episode teaser "Mission to the Unknown" in Season 3.

The Time Meddler is the first example in the series of what became known as "pseudo-historical" stories - these are serials that are set in the past, but have a story that involves significant science-fiction elements (beyond the presence of the TARDIS and its crew).

Season 2 is the most complete season of Doctor Who during its black-and-white era, as only two episodes, both from The Crusade, are missing from the BBC archive.

Story	Serial	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	UK viewers (millions)	AI
9	1	Planet of Giants "Planet of Giants" "Dangerous Journey" "Crisis"	Mervyn Pinfield and Douglas Camfield	Louis Marks	31 October 1964 7 November 1964 14 November 1964	J	8.4 8.4 8.9	57 58 59
10	2	The Dalek Invasion of Earth "World's End" "The Daleks" "Day of Reckoning" "The End of Tomorrow" "The Waking Ally" "Flashpoint"	Richard Martin	Terry Nation	21 November 1964 28 November 1964 5 December 1964 12 December 1964 19 December 1964 26 December 1964	K	11.4 12.4 11.9 11.9 11.4 12.4	63 59 59 59 58 63
11	3	The Rescue "The Powerful Enemy" "Desperate Measures"	Christopher Barry	David Whitaker	2 January 1965 9 January 1965	L	12.0 13.0	57 59
12	4	The Romans "The Slave Traders" "All Roads Lead to Rome" "Conspiracy" "Inferno"	Christopher Barry	Dennis Spooner	16 January 1965 23 January 1965 30 January 1965 6 February 1965	M	13.0 11.5 10.0 12.0	53 51 50 50
13	5	The Web Planet "The Web Planet" "The Zarbi" "Escape to Danger" "Crater of Needles" "Invasion" "The Centre"	Richard Martin	Bill Strutton	13 February 1965 20 February 1965 27 February 1965 6 March 1965 13 March 1965 20 March 1965	N	13.5 12.5 12.5 13.0 12.0 11.5	56 53 53 49 48 42
14	6	The Crusade "The Lion" "The Knight of Jaffa"† "The Wheel of Fortune" "The Warlords"†	Douglas Camfield	David Whitaker	27 March 1965 3 April 1965 10 April 1965 17 April 1965	P	10.5 8.5 9.0 9.5	51 50 49 48
15	7	The Space Museum "The Space Museum" "The Dimensions of Time" "The Search" "The Final Phase"	Mervyn Pinfield	Glyn Jones	24 April 1965 1 May 1965 8 May 1965 15 May 1965	Q	10.5 9.2 8.5 8.5	61 53 56 49
16	8	The Chase "The Executioners" "The Death of Time" "Flight Through Eternity" "Journey into Terror" "The Death of Doctor Who" "The Planet of Decision"	Richard Martin and Douglas Camfield	Terry Nation	22 May 1965 29 May 1965 5 June 1965 12 June 1965 19 June 1965 26 June 1965	R	10.0 9.5 9.0 9.5 9.0 9.5	57 56 55 54 56 57
17	9	The Time Meddler "The Watcher" "The Meddling Monk" "A Battle of Wits" "Checkmate"	Douglas Camfield	Dennis Spooner	3 July 1965 10 July 1965 17 July 1965 24 July 1965	S	8.9 8.8 7.7 8.3	57 49 53 54

^† Episode is missing

Production

The first two serials were produced in the programme's first production block, but were held back until the beginning of the second season. Verity Lambert began lobbying for a second season in August 1964, and was initially only guaranteed 13 episodes. Nine were already planned as Planet of Giants and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and with only four episodes after that Lambert felt it was too short a time to retain the regular actors and it would be then pointless to write Susan out at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. In best interest of the actors and their agents, a deal was struck of an additional 13 episodes, and the commitment of 26 episodes in the second production block was accepted the day The Dalek Invasion of Earth finished filming.

Missing episodes

See also: Doctor Who missing episodes

• The Crusade - Episodes 2 & 4

DVD releases

See also: List of Doctor Who home video releases

Serial name	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
Planet of Giants	3 × 25 min	20 August 2012	5 September 2012	11 September 2012
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6 × 25 min.	9 June 2003	13 August 2003	7 October 2003
The Rescue/The Romans: The Rescue (2 episodes) The Romans (4 episodes)	6 × 25 min.	23 February 2009	2 April 2009	7 July 2009
The Web Planet	6 × 25 min.	3 October 2005	3 November 2005	5 September 2006
The Space Museum/The Chase: The Space Museum (4 episodes) The Chase (6 episodes)	10 × 25 min.	1 March 2010	6 May 2010	6 July 2010
The Time Meddler	4 × 25 min.	4 February 2008	2 April 2008	5 August 2008

Lost in Time
All existing episodes from otherwise missing First Doctor serials from this season have been released on the Lost in Time collection. Lost in Time was released in two formats in Region 1, with individual releases for volumes one and two (which cover First Doctor and Second Doctor episodes respectively), as well as an edition combining both volumes. In Regions 2 and 4, Lost in Time is available only as the combined single volume.

Includes episodes from	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
The Crusade (episodes 1 & 3 of 4; soundtracks of 2 & 4)	6 × 25 min. + 2 × 25 min. audio	1 November 2004	2 December 2004 (Original release) 1 July 2010 (Re-release)	2 November 2004

In print

Main article: List of Doctor Who novelisations

Serial name	Novelisation title	Author	First published
Planet of Giants	Planet of Giants	Terrance Dicks	1990
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth	Terrance Dicks	1977
The Rescue	The Rescue	Ian Marter	1988
The Romans	The Romans	Donald Cotton	1987
The Web Planet	Doctor Who and the Zarbi	Bill Strutton	1965
The Crusade	Doctor Who and the Crusaders	David Whitaker	1965
The Space Museum	The Space Museum	Glyn Jones	1987
The Chase	The Chase	John Peel	1989
The Time Meddler	The Time Meddler	Nigel Robinson	1988

See also

• List of Doctor Who serials