Season 14 (Doctor Who 1963)
The fourteenth season of Doctor Who ran between 4 September 1976 and 2 April 1977. It starred Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Famously, it wrote out Sarah Jane Smith, introduced the wood-panelled secondary TARDIS console room, featured the first companion-less televised story, and debuted Leela.
Like the 2011 series, it was comprised of two distinct "halves", separated by a chunk of time when the programme wasn't transmitting new episodes. Though not quite as long as the 2011 gap, the show stopped broadcasting in mid-November and didn't return until New Year's Day. Contemporaneous marketing suggested that The Face of Evil — the serial which began on 1 January 1977 — was actually the start of a new series of Doctor Who. (INFO: The Face of Evil) This fact, however, is ill-remembered, and no reference work published since the event has ever seriously suggested that Face was the season 15 opener.
Overview
Season 14 consisted of six serials and twenty-six episodes. The season is notable for the departure of Sarah Jane Smith in The Hand of Fear and for The Deadly Assassin, a story set entirely on Gallifrey which featured a "revisionist" portrayal of the Time Lords, as well as revealing much more about them. The Deadly Assassin also featured the return of the Master in a degenerated form, and had the Doctor without a companion for an entire story for the first time in the entire history of Doctor Who.
The season also introduced new companion Leela. The overall gothic ambience of the season was helped by the introduction of the TARDIS' secondary console room, which would be used in lieu of the traditional console room into the next season.
Television stories
| # | Title | Writer | Episodes | Notes |
| 1 | The Masque of Mandragora | Louis Marks | 4 | |
| 2 | The Hand of Fear | Bob Baker Dave Martin |
4 | Final regular appearance of Sarah Jane Smith |
| 3 | The Deadly Assassin | Robert Holmes | 4 | Reintroduction of the Master; only story of the 1963-89 series in which the Doctor does not have a companion |
| 4 | The Face of Evil | Chris Boucher | 4 | First appearance of Leela |
| 5 | The Robots of Death | Chris Boucher | 4 | |
| 6 | The Talons of Weng-Chiang | Robert Holmes | 6 |
Main cast
- The Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker
- Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen (The Masque of Mandragora-The Hand of Fear)
- Leela - Louise Jameson (introduced The Face of Evil)
Stories set during this season
- AG: Doctor Who and the Pescatons (between The Masque of Mandragora and The Hand of Fear)
- TN: Ghost Ship (after The Deadly Assassin)
- PDA: Millennium Shock (between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil)
- PDA: Asylum (between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil)
- PDA: Drift (after The Robots of Death)
- PDA: Last Man Running (between The Robots of Death and The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
- PDA: Corpse Marker (after Last Man Running)
- PDA: Psi-ence Fiction (after Corpse Marker)
- PDA: Match of the Day (after Psi-ence Fiction)
Adaptations and merchandising
Home media
VHS
- The Masque of Mandragora
- The Hand of Fear
- The Deadly Assassin
- The Face of Evil
- The Robots of Death
- The Talons of Weng-Chiang
- The Tom Baker Years (extracts from all of the stories)
DVD
All serials of season 14 are still being released individually.
| Serial name | Number and duration of episodes |
R2 release date | R4 release date | R1 release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masque of Mandragora | 4 × 25 min. | 8 February 2010 | 31 March 2010 | 4 May 2010 |
| The Hand of Fear | 4 × 25 min. | 24 July 2006 | 7 September 2006 | 7 November 2006 |
| The Deadly Assassin | 4 × 25 min. | 11 May 2009 | 2 July 2009 | 1 September 2009 |
| The Face of Evil | 4 × 25 min. | 5 March 2012 | TBA | 13 March 2012 |
| The Robots of Death | 4 × 25 min. | 13 November 2000 | 2 July 2001 | 11 September 2001 |
| The Robots of Death – Special Edition Part of the Revisitations 3 box set. |
4 × 25 min. | 13 February 2012 | 1 March 2012 | 13 March 2012 |
| The Talons of Weng-Chiang | 6 × 25 min. | 28 April 2003 | 30 June 2003 | 7 October 2003 |
| The Talons of Weng-Chiang – Special Edition Only available as part of the Revisitations 1 box set in Regions 2 and 4. Only available individually in Region 1. |
6 × 25 min. | 4 October 2010 | 2 December 2010 | 11 October 2011 |
Novels
- Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora
- Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear
- Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin
- Doctor Who and the Face of Evil
- Doctor Who and the Robots of Death
- Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang
See also
External links
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