Thoughts On Season 3

Season 3 is the Season where the Hartnell era really gets experimental & goes rather off the wall. The Season sees the departure of not only Vicki, who had been with the series since The Rescue (the third story of Season 2) and Steven, who was introduced during the last story of Season 2.

In between both of their departures we have the introduction of three companions, two of which are killed off as soon as they arrive in the series, Katarina & Sara, both who die in The Daleks' Master Plan and Dodo who rather oddly just pops up at the end of The Massacre and then rather oddly just disappears half way through The War Machines.

The stories themselves are very diverse as well, some which are excellent (The Daleks' Master Plan & The War Machines) and some which are very unexpected (The Celestial Toymaker with it's rather other worldly atmosphere throughout & The Gunfighters with it's out breaks of music every other scene & cockney Cowboys in the Wild West).

However the series is all the better for it and the wide range of story styles throughout this season add something to it and for me & make it my favourite Hartnell season of the lot, it's just a shame that he's missing for large parts of it during the latter stories.

Once getting to the end of this series I start to feel a bit sad at the imminent departure of the Doctor in two stories time, my opinion of this Doctor has change quite a lot since I got into Classic Who, going from being one of my least favourites to one of my favourites & that's all thanks to how Hartnell well Hartnell played the character, something which I will write about after I have wrote my review for the Tenth Planet.

A great season which doesn't get this experimental again for a long while

Season 3 results:

Galaxy 4 = 2.25
Mission To The Unknown = 3.75
The Myth Makers = 4.25
The Daleks' Master Plan = 5
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve = 4
The Ark = 4.25
The Celestial Toymaker = 3.75
The Gunfighters = 4
The Savages = 4.25
The War Machines = 5
Total = 40.5/50

Onto Season 4 next, where everything begins to change....