1)Another story where only one episode is available - in this case, the first episode. It's quite eerie and atmospheric, what there is of it. Supposedly, the Yeti were altered to make them less cuddly than they were in "The Abominable Snowmen", but I don't see it myself.
2)I note there's a scene of the Doctor and Jamie eating sandwiches together. It seems to me that there's alot of scenes of those two chowing down - perhaps Troughton and Hines just liked snacking alot.
3)Casting note: Professor Travers was played by Deborah Watling's real-life dad, Jack.
[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]
Replies
As Bob mentioned, an episode of this serial is available on the “Lost in Time” collection and it is the first one, which usually makes picking up the story that much easier, but not in this case. Because the cliffhanger ending of “The Enemy of the World” leads directly into “The Web of Fear,” coupled with the fact this one is a sequel to “The Abominable Snowmen” (which is also 5/6 missing), the surviving episode “watches” more like a middle episode than a beginning one. After having now listened to both “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Enemy of the World” in their entirety, I found the first episode of “The Web of Fear” much more enjoyable than I did the first (and only other) time I watched it. Plus, it makes a good introduction to listening to the rest of the story, helping to get the characters and setting visualized in my mind’s eye.
This story (along with the First Doctor story “The Ark”) does something not done too often in the show these days (that I can think of) in which the Doctor revisits a society or a group of individuals decades later in their own timeline. The scene in which Jamie and Victoria meet Professor Travers after 40 years (his time) is handled particularly well, I think. They don’t recognize each other at first. Victoria is the first to make the connection, and after she re-introduces herself to Travers, he is absolutely incredulous. There is another good scene, too, in which the Great Intelligence is about to subject the Doctor to an interrogation procedure which will wipe his mind to the level of an infant. In a very touching display, the Doctor reminds Jamie and Victoria how he has taken care of them, and charges them of taking care of him when he is no longer able to do so for himself.
If you’ve seen the last episode, you will no doubt remember that the TARDIS is stopped dead in space by a web-like substance. The Doctor manages to break free and materialize in a Subway tunnel, also coved in webbing, in approximately the year 1970. (That is my best guess, forward dating from a reference in “The Abominable Snowmen.”) The third episode (sadly missing) marks the first appearance of Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, soon to be promoted to Brigadier of UNIT, but at this point a colonel in the British Army.
Picked this up on disk yesterday. It's a very bare-bones release, no extras at all. I'm guessing they rushed it out while the Eleventh Doctor's recent adventure with the Great Intelligence was still fresh in people's monds. Instead of animating the still-missing Episode 3, they "re-constructed" it using the soundtrack and photos from the story. It's watchable enough - they seem to have had alot of scenes from this story available, for some reason. A few notes below:
Episode 1:
1)Silverstein comes across as a bit of a "comedy money-grubbing Jew" in this. I note that in the novelization, Terrance Dicks changes the character's name from "Julius Silverstein" to "Emil Julius". Perhaps to make it a less-obviously "Jewish" name?
2)Much of the amtosphere of this is like an old horror movie. It's let down a bit by the fact that the Yeti look like Muppets.
3)"Is it safe?" "I shouldn't think so for a minute."
4)"Funny, isn't it?" "What?" "How we keep landing on your Earth." Doctor Who and the Budgetary Constraints!
5)Cliffhanger: A web-covered thing that we don't know what it is shocks the Doctor!
Episode 2:
1)"That's over forty years ago!" / "In 1935". So, this is meant to be in at least 1976.
2)Here we have Evans the "comedy Welshman". Never get away with that nowadays, especially with them filming it in Cardiff and all.
3)Jamie can read!
3)Cliffhanger: Jamie and Evans are trapped by the fungus!
4)John Levene was a Yeti!
5)NoTroughton at all in this. Must've been his week off.
Episode 3:
1)Of course, the episode with Lethbridge-Stewart's first appearance would be the one they are missing.
2)"What about this girl?" "She's on my staff."
3)"Camfield's Fairy Milk Chocolate" - a little in-joke at the director's expense, there.
4)Cliffhanger: A Yeti menaces Professor Travers!
Episode 4:
1)Lethbridge-Stewart is surprisingly unskeptical here about the TARDIS. One likes to imagine that in his younger days he might have met Group Captain "Chunky" Gilmore and heard a story about an odd little man who claimed to do time travel in a police box.
2)The Yeti look even goofier in the daylight.
3)Cliffhanger: The Yeti return with Professor Travers!
Episode 5:
1)"You have twenty minutes to make up your mind." Why do heels always do this? Does it never occur to them that they're just giving the face time to figure out to beat them?
2)"You'll have to look after me until I grow up." Like he ever grows up!
3)Cliffhanger: The fungus breaks into HQ!
Episode 6:
1)The way Evans keeps saying "I shouldn't be down here at all, really" remind me of that one character from That One Kevin Smith Movie That I Watched That One Time who keeps saying "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
2)"You blithering Welsh imbecile!" Hate speech!
3)"All these tunnels look the same to me!"
4)"Next Week: Fury from the Deep". "Fury from the Deep" would be a good band name.
Overall: A fairly entertaining story. Holds up well for a Troughton Era six-parter. Much as I like Debbie Watling, you'd never get away with having such a weepy companion these days.
Just re-read my remarks from 2012. Not sure how I added 40 to 1935 and came up with 1970…? Also, I don’t think part one is all that confusing, in retrospect. Yes, it ties up the cliff-hanger from “The Enemy of the World” but if you ignore that bit, it’s easy to imagine the story beginning after the emergency has been dealt with. There are a lot of characters in this one, which made the audio only version a little difficult to follow. Of all the 1225 episodes of Dark Shadows, only one is completely missing (b&w kinescope copies exist of all other missing episode tapes), and it has been reconstructed using stills as well.
NOTE TO BOB: The Kevin Smith movie you’re thinking of is Clerks and the character is Dante.
Ah.