Doctor Who season 11
The Third Doctor's final season introduces Sarah Jane Smith.
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Doctor Who's eleventh season kicked off on 15 December 1973 with The Time Warrior and wrapped up with Jon Pertwee's goodbye story, Planet of the Spiders. It marked the Third Doctor's fifth and final run, as well as the last full season produced by Barry Letts and script edited by Terrance Dicks, though both later returned to the show. The Writer's Guild of Great Britain gave the season's scripts an award for Best Children's Drama.
Casting
Jon Pertwee appears as the Third Doctor for the last time as series lead in Planet of the Spiders, though he later reprises the role in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors. Elisabeth Sladen makes her first appearance as Sarah Jane Smith in The Time Warrior. Tom Baker appears uncredited as the Fourth Doctor in Part 6 of Planet of the Spiders, when Pertwee's Doctor regenerates.
Nicholas Courtney and John Levene continue as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Sergeant Benton, while Richard Franklin makes his final regular appearance as Captain Yates in Planet of the Spiders. Alan Bennion makes his third and final series appearance as an Ice Warrior, portraying Lord Azaxyr in The Monster of Peladon. June Brown played Lady Eleanor in The Time Warrior.
Development
Season 11 originally had two scrapped serials. The Automata, penned by Robert Holmes, was set aside for The Time Warrior.
The Third Doctor's final story, The Final Game, was written by Robert Sloman with Barry Letts as an uncredited co-writer. It would have depicted the Master and the Doctor as brothers or opposing aspects of the same being, with the Master sacrificing himself to save the Doctor. However, Roger Delgado's death in a car crash in Turkey on 18 June 1973 caused the story to be abandoned and replaced by Planet of the Spiders.
Broadcast
Episode One of The Time Warrior introduced the familiar diamond-shaped Doctor Who logo, used throughout the Third Doctor's final season and nearly all of the Fourth Doctor's tenure until part four of The Horns of Nimon. The entire season aired from 15 December 1973 to 8 June 1974. On BBC1 Wales, broadcasts differed significantly from the rest of the UK: only Part One of The Time Warrior aired on the same Saturday, 15 December 1973. Subsequent episodes shifted to various days—Part Two on Monday 24 December 1973, Part Three on Tuesday 1 January 1974, and Part Four on Tuesday 8 January 1974.
Part One of Invasion of the Dinosaurs aired on Tuesday 15 January 1974, Part Two on Sunday 20 January 1974, and from then on episodes remained in a Sunday slot, one day after the rest of the UK, concluding with Part Six of Planet of the Spiders on Sunday 9 June 1974. This change was due to the singing talent show Gwerin 74 occupying the regular Saturday slot. Doctor Who returned to Saturdays on BBC1 Wales for Season 12.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Doctor Who season 11 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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