Doctor Who: The Classic Series Episode Guide – 1970-1974

Jon Pertwee’s first season radically reinvents the programme. Exiled to Earth and initially unable to operate the TARDIS, the Doctor becomes UNIT’s scientific adviser alongside Liz Shaw. Longer stories, location filming and a more serious tone turn Doctor Who into a colourful blend of science fiction, espionage and ecological anxiety.

Story 51: Spearhead from Space – 4 Episodes

The newly regenerated Doctor arrives on Earth as mysterious plastic meteorites begin falling across the English countryside. UNIT investigates a strange factory and a collection of shop-window mannequins, while scientist Liz Shaw attempts to decide whether its eccentric new adviser is brilliant, dangerous or both.

Story 52: Doctor Who and the Silurians – 7 Episodes

An experimental nuclear research centre suffers unexplained power losses and mental disturbances linked to nearby caves. The Doctor discovers an intelligent reptilian civilisation beneath the Earth and tries to prevent fear and hostility from turning first contact into a war.

Story 53: The Ambassadors of Death – 7 Episodes

A spacecraft carrying three astronauts returns from Mars, but communication with its crew abruptly ends. When the capsule reaches Earth, UNIT becomes entangled in kidnappings, radioactive visitors and a conspiracy driven by fear of alien life.

Story 54: Inferno – 7 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

Professor Stahlman’s attempt to drill through the Earth’s crust threatens to unleash forces beyond his control. An accident transports the Doctor to a parallel Britain ruled by a fascist regime, where familiar UNIT personnel have become considerably less welcoming versions of themselves.

Liz Shaw has departed and the Doctor is joined by the enthusiastic Jo Grant, whose warmth provides an effective counterbalance to his impatience. The season also introduces the Master, a renegade Time Lord whose determination to conquer Earth repeatedly brings him into conflict with the one person clever enough to stop him.

Story 55: Terror of the Autons – 4 Episodes

The Master arrives on Earth and allies himself with the Nestene Consciousness, bringing the Autons back into action through plastic toys, artificial flowers and an alarmingly murderous chair. Jo’s first assignment with UNIT places her directly in the middle of his campaign.

Story 56: The Mind of Evil – 6 Episodes

A machine supposedly capable of removing criminal impulses is being tested at Stangmoor Prison, but its subjects are left dead and terrified. The Doctor suspects that the device is far more dangerous than advertised, while the Master manipulates a peace conference and an experimental missile.

Story 57: The Claws of Axos – 4 Episodes

A living spacecraft lands on Earth carrying beautiful aliens who offer humanity an apparently miraculous substance called Axonite. The Doctor doubts their generosity, particularly when the Master becomes involved and UNIT discovers that the visitors’ technology is not nearly as benevolent as it appears.

Story 58: Colony in Space – 6 Episodes

The Time Lords send the Doctor and Jo to the planet Uxarieus, where struggling human colonists are being intimidated by a powerful mining corporation. The conflict conceals an ancient weapon, and the Master arrives with ambitions extending well beyond mineral rights.

Story 59: The Dæmons – 5 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

An archaeological excavation at Devil’s End awakens a force connected to local legends of witchcraft and demons. Posing as the village vicar, the Master hopes to harness its power, leaving the Doctor, Jo and UNIT trapped behind an impenetrable barrier with something ancient stirring beneath the church.

The Doctor remains officially exiled, but occasional missions beyond Earth allow the series to recover more of its earlier variety. Political allegory becomes increasingly prominent, while the Master’s schemes range from manipulating time to awakening another civilisation beneath the sea.

Story 60: Day of the Daleks – 4 Episodes

Guerrillas from a Dalek-controlled future travel back to assassinate a diplomat they blame for a devastating global war. The Doctor and Jo become caught within a temporal paradox in which attempts to change history may be responsible for creating it.

Story 61: The Curse of Peladon – 4 Episodes

The TARDIS lands on Peladon as the planet considers joining the Galactic Federation. Mistaken for official delegates, the Doctor and Jo investigate attacks attributed to a royal beast while suspicion falls upon the apparently reformed Ice Warriors.

Story 62: The Sea Devils – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The Doctor visits the imprisoned Master, only to discover unusual activity around abandoned sea forts and missing naval vessels. A marine relative of the Silurians is awakening beneath the coast, offering the Doctor another fragile opportunity to negotiate peace between humanity and Earth’s original inhabitants.

Story 63: The Mutants – 6 Episodes

The Time Lords direct the Doctor and Jo to deliver a mysterious container to the planet Solos, where the occupying Earth Empire is preparing to withdraw. The planet’s inhabitants are undergoing disturbing physical changes that colonial authorities regard as a disease rather than part of a larger transformation.

Story 64: The Time Monster – 6 Episodes

The Master constructs a device capable of manipulating time and attempts to control the immensely powerful creature Kronos. His experiments disrupt the modern world before drawing the Doctor and Jo towards ancient Atlantis and a civilisation approaching disaster.

The programme celebrates its tenth anniversary by bringing three Doctors together and restoring the Third Doctor’s ability to travel freely. Earthbound UNIT adventures now alternate with journeys into space, while Jo’s final season gives her a more independent and emotionally mature role.

Story 65: The Three Doctors – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

A mysterious force begins removing UNIT personnel, buildings and laboratory equipment from Earth. The Time Lords ask the Doctor’s previous incarnations to help confront Omega, a legendary figure trapped within a universe of antimatter and determined to escape.

Story 66: Carnival of Monsters – 4 Episodes

A passenger ship crossing the Indian Ocean appears to repeat the same events endlessly, while the Doctor and Jo discover that their surroundings are not what they seem. Their predicament is connected to travelling entertainer Vorg, his illegal Miniscope and a collection of dangerous creatures kept for public amusement.

Story 67: Frontier in Space – 6 Episodes

Human and Draconian empires stand on the brink of war as each side reports attacks apparently committed by the other. The Doctor and Jo uncover a conspiracy involving the Master, the brutish Ogrons and a plan intended to leave both civilisations vulnerable to a greater enemy.

Story 68: Planet of the Daleks – 6 Episodes

Separated from the TARDIS on the hostile planet Spiridon, the Doctor encounters a Thal expedition attempting to prevent the revival of a vast Dalek army. Invisible inhabitants, poisonous vegetation and freezing chambers make the jungle almost as dangerous as the Daleks themselves.

Story 69: The Green Death – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

A Welsh mining community is threatened by toxic waste, giant maggots and the expanding influence of Global Chemicals. Jo’s sympathy with environmental campaigner Professor Clifford Jones creates tension with the Doctor, while a powerful computer protects the corporation’s increasingly lethal activities.

Journalist Sarah Jane Smith becomes the Doctor’s new companion as the series balances historical adventure, political conspiracy and alien invasion. The Doctor is travelling freely again, but his past choices and fascination with the planet Metebelis Three are moving him towards an unavoidable reckoning.

Story 70: The Time Warrior – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

Scientists are disappearing from modern Britain, leading the Doctor to a medieval castle where a stranded Sontaran named Linx is supplying advanced weapons to a local warlord. Investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith independently follows the mystery and initially draws the wrong conclusion about which visitor from the future can be trusted.

Story 71: Invasion of the Dinosaurs – 6 Episodes

The Doctor and Sarah return to a deserted London placed under military control after dinosaurs begin appearing throughout the city. UNIT struggles to contain the creatures, but the Doctor suspects that their arrival is part of a larger conspiracy involving people much closer to the operation.

Story 72: Death to the Daleks – 4 Episodes

A mysterious power drain forces the TARDIS to land on Exxilon, where a human expedition is searching for a cure to a deadly space plague. The Daleks arrive with the same objective, but their disabled weapons compel them into an uneasy alliance with the Doctor.

Story 73: The Monster of Peladon – 6 Episodes

The Doctor returns to Peladon fifty years after his previous visit and finds the planet divided by a miners’ dispute. Apparitions of Aggedor and attacks blamed on the Ice Warriors conceal a struggle over valuable minerals needed by the Galactic Federation.

Story 74: Planet of the Spiders – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The Doctor’s pursuit of a stolen Metebelis crystal exposes a connection between psychic research on Earth and intelligent spiders ruling the planet’s human population. His investigation forces him to confront the consequences of his own pride while Sarah and UNIT face an expanding threat much closer to home.

The serial concludes Jon Pertwee’s five-season tenure and completes the Doctor’s journey from resentful exile to compassionate traveller. The next classic episode guide begins with Robot, when Tom Baker’s newly regenerated Fourth Doctor steps out of the UNIT laboratory and starts considering whether remaining on Earth is quite as appealing as an entire universe waiting outside.