The fourteenth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 4 September 1976 with The Masque of Mandragora, and ended with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The third Fourth Doctor series, it was the final series of Philip Hinchcliffe's production, whilst Robert Holmes stayed till The Sun Makers in the next series.
Casting
Main cast Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith Louise Jameson as Leela
Tom Baker continues his role as the Fourth Doctor. Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) departs in The Hand of Fear, before the Doctor is joined by Leela (Louise Jameson) in The Face of Evil. Uniquely in the 'classic' era of Doctor Who, no companion appears in The Deadly Assassin.
Guest stars The Master reappears in The Deadly Assassin as the main antagonist, his first appearance since Frontier in Space (1973), this time played by Peter Pratt. The character would not make a further appearance until five years later in 1981.
Serials
The Masque of Mandragora saw the debut of the new wood-panelled "Secondary Console Room" set, which was to be used as the main TARDIS console room throughout the season. The season took a five-week transmission break between the broadcasts of The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil in order to extend the season further into 1977, allowing Robert Holmes time to work on the final serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
Production
Scrapped stories Multiple stories were scrapped during production of this season. Douglas Camfield's The Lost Legion would have seen the Doctor and Sarah in North Africa at an isolated French Legion outpost while caught between an alien conflict, and was planned to write out Sarah Jane. It was later removed from production...The Gaslight Murders was written by Basil Dawson and would have introduced a Cockney girl to replace to Sarah Jane Smith as a companion that the Doctor would have taken under his wing and educated. Ultimately, it was replaced by The Face of Evil.. The Dreamers of Phados and The Mentor Conspiracy were two script proposals from Chris Boucher, though both ultimately got scrapped after being commissioned to write The Face of Evil... The Foe from the Future was planned to be written by Robert Banks Stewart, but ultimately was scrapped and replaced by The Talons of Weng-Chiang due to Stewart becoming the script editor of Armchair Thriller and being unable to deliver the scripts...
Broadcast The entire season was broadcast from 4 September 1976 to 2 April 1977, but with a six week break mid-season between the third and fourth serials from 20 November 1976 to 1 January 1977.
Home media
VHS releases
Betamax releases
DVD and Blu-ray releases
In print
References
Bibliography
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External links