S8E12: "Death in Heaven"

Well that tied up a lot of loose ends.

#Disclaimer:
I write under the assumption that you've seen the episode if you go past the page-break, which is only visible if you're on the home-page of the blog. Any other way, you must have clicked directly here, in which case, there is your error. As always, I do not give a synopsis, I give a critical reaction.

#SaveTheDay Countdown: The Second Doctor--Patrick Troughton

As a countdown to the upcoming 50th Anniversary of Doctor

Who, TARDIStyle will be showcasing one Doctor a day.

Patrick George Troughton  was born in Mill Hill in Middlesex, England on 25 March 1920. He had one older brother, Alec, and a younger sister, Mary. He attended Mill Hill School. At the school he acted in a performance of Bees on the Boat Deck in March of 1937.

Later, Troughton studied under Eileen Thrordike at the Embassy School of Acting. After that, he won a scholarship to the Leighton Raillus Studios at the John Drew Memorial Theatre in Long Island, New York. In 1939, he joined the Tonbridge Repertory Company.

In WWII, Patrick came home form the US on a Belgian ship, which was struck by a sea mine and sank. He escaped on a lifeboat. He joined the Royal Navy in 1940. Patrick was commissioned as Lieutenant with the Royal Navy Reserve, and was deployed on East Coast Convoy duty from February to August of 1941. After that, he was with Coastal Forces' Motor Gun Boats until 1945. Troughton was awarded the 1939-45 Star, Atlantic Star, and was Mentioned in Dispatches. Interestingly, he would wear a tea cosy on his head in the colds of the North Sea. It doesn't get much more British than that.
After the war, he returned to theatre. He was with several troupes, and made his film debut in Laurence Oliver's extremely influential Hamlet, playing the Player King in the "play within the play". In 1953, he became the first actor to ever portray Robin Hood on television. He said often that television was his favourite medium.

When Patrick took over for Hartnell in 1966, Doctor Who producer Innes Lloyd hand-picked Troughton for the role. He said of him, "There's only one man in England who can take over, and that's Patrick Troughton."  Don't worry, Pat. No pressure. As per many actors who played the Doctor, Troughton left after three years in fear of being typecast afterwards. This wrote an unwritten law--"The Troughton Rule"--in acting, to not stay on one show for more than three years.

After his time on Doctor Who, Patrick went on to play many, many roles, like all the ex-Doctors. He did a bit two much--his doctor said that he was stressing himself and it manifested in the form of a serious heart condition. He was not an extremely healthy person, so he should of heeded the doctor's advice to slow down, but he did not. he had two major heart attacks--one in 1979 and the other in 1984, both of which prevented him from working for several months. In 1987, Patrick attended the Magnum Opus Con II, a sci-fi convention in Georgia, US, against the doctor's warning him not to leave the UK.On the first day, he seemed happy and healthy, even celebrating his belated birthday. The next day, he had a heart attack at breakfast and died instantly, according to the paramedics.

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Classic Who Episodes Found!

Hi there, resident classic-Who quasi-expert Seth here! Yes, yes, I know, I've been a long time gone. I've been busy. Doing what, you ask? Well, I'll get to that in a later article. In the meantime, Who novelist Lance Parkin has been nice enough to break the BBC embargo on the missing episode news that was announced today via his Facebook page. What did we find? What does it mean?

Well, first of all, the nine episodes found today were from the Patrick Troughton era, dropping his count of missing episodes from 62 to 53 and the overall count of missing episodes from 106 to 97, officially dispelling long-held conventional wisdom that we'd never have fewer than 100 missing episode. Good news all around, really, but especially for Troughton fans, who have long suffered not just from missing episodes but from most of those episodes being scattered about different serials, leaving us with very few complete stories.

Hot Pat-on-Pat action!

Thankfully, we now have one more--all five missing episodes of six-parter The Enemy of the World were found, a hallmark for a number of reasons. It was the last story to have series co-creator Sydney Newman directly involved, for one. It was the first serial directed by Barry Letts, who would go on to run the show for all of Jon Pertwee's five years and cast Tom Baker as his successor. And it's the penultimate serial written by the show's original script editor and resident genius-alchemist-madman, David Whitaker. Of course, for all of you who don't care about the behind the scenes nitty-gritty--well, you also get Patrick Troughton's Doctor match wits with ruthless megalomaniac conqueror Salamander, who is also played by Patrick Troughton, and they fight in the last episode via splitscreen. I don't doubt that'll be a lot of fun to watch.

Finally, you can get the Yeti off your loo
and back on your telly!
(Sometimes I'm only amusing myself.)

Not complete, but now only missing a single episode instead of five, is another six-parter called The Web of Fear. It's the first appearance of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT, who would go on to be a lead during Pertwee's era and the show's longest-lasting recurring character (besides the Doctor himself, of course.) It's also the second appearance of the Great Intelligence, and the last one of the classic series. The site's spoiler policy means I can't be too explicit, but those of you who were following the show this past year should be pretty familiar with that guy, and now you'll be able to know first-hand
what that whole "London Underground" speech in the Christmas special was about.

These apparently weren't the only episodes found, with more news due out soon. I'll post more as events warrant.

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