Season 26 (Doctor Who 1963)

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Season 26 of Doctor Who starred Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. It aired between 6 September 1989 and 6 December 1989. This was the last season of the original BBC series. BBC Wales revived the show in 2005.

Overview

The season consisted of four stories and fourteen twenty-five-minute episodes. It was the final season of the "classic" series; the BBC announced in 1990 that it would not be producing a 27th season. A one-off Children in Need special, Dimensions in Time, appeared in 1993, after which a television film, co-produced by an American network, followed in 1996. The series finally returned in 2005. However the BBC chose to restart the season numbering with Series 1. Season 26 featured the return of Nicholas Courtney as The Brigadier and the last televised appearance of Anthony Ainley as the Master. Unusually for a Doctor Who season, aside from some scenes in Survival, all the stories took place on Earth. Apart from Battlefield, the stories followed a loose character arc, as Ace came to terms with her past. As for the Doctor, he had become darker in personality, treating others as pawns in the battle between good and evil while dressing in dark clothes to match his personality change.

Television stories

#	Title	Writer	Episodes	Notes
1	Battlefield	Ben Aaronovitch	4	Reintroduction of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart; first UNIT story since 1976
2	Ghost Light	Marc Platt	3
3	The Curse of Fenric	Ian Briggs	4
4	Survival	Rona Munro	3	Final appearance of Ace; last serial in the original series

Cast

Primary cast

• The Seventh Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Ace - Sophie Aldred

Guests

• Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
• The Master - Anthony Ainley

Adaptations and merchandising

Home media

VHS

• Battlefield

Extended'

• Ghost Light
• The Curse of Fenric

Extended

• Survival

DVD

All serials of season 26 were released individually in between 2003 and 2009.

Serial name	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
Battlefield	4 × 25 min. (Broadcast Version) 1 × 96 min. (Special Edition)	26 December 2008	5 February 2009	5 May 2009
Ghost Light	3 × 25 min.	20 September 2004	3 February 2005	7 June 2005
The Curse of Fenric	4 × 25 min. (Broadcast Version) 1 × 104 min. (Special Edition)	6 October 2003	11 February 2004	1 June 2004
Survival	3 × 25 min.	16 April 2007	6 June 2007	14 August 2007

Novels

• Battlefield
• Ghost Light
• The Curse of Fenric
• Survival

Behind the scenes

• The producers had already outlined basic plots for the next season of Doctor Who when the programme's cancellation hit. In that season, it was proposed that Ace should leave, and a new companion, Raine Creevy, should join. Also planned was that the entire season should do more to explore the darker side of the Doctor. While the scripts never saw a TV screen, they were eventually completed and produced as full-cast audio plays in Big Finish Productions' collection The Lost Stories.
• This is the last series not to feature the Daleks

External links

• BBC website guide to Season 26