We’ve jumped a time track only to find ourselves in the 1970s, watching a strange parallel-universe version of our favourite show. Where’s the TARDIS gone? What’s with all these different colours? And, most importantly, what’s happened to the Doctor’s nose? Join us, my dear fellow, as we try to find the answers to some of these questions by watching the first two stories of Jon Pertwee’s first season, Spearhead from Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians.
The Third Doctor
Jonathan Elizabeth Devon Pertwee was born in Barbados in 1909. A direct descendant of Christopher Columbus’s chief navigator, Brian Pertwee, Pertwee seemed somehow destined for a life at sea.
Sadly, a horrifying allergy to sailcloth, hemp and tar prevented this destiny becoming reality. Instead, Pertwee’s work in Naval Intelligence was crucial to Britain’s war effort. Pertwee’s preternatural sense of smell enabled him to detect enemy chèvre and milbenkäse at a distance of fifty miles, even when surrounded by pounds of Home Counties cheddars at Mess wine and cheese evenings. So pround was Pertwee of his nasal aptitude, that, many years later, he frequently objected to his depiction on Chris Achilleos’s covers of his Doctor Who novelisations on the grounds that the size of his proboscis was insufficiently magnificent.
Of course, that was not Pertwee’s only contribution to the war effort. Calendars depicting “Bessie” Pertwee were found in the lonely cabins of many of Britain’s submarines. Voted most popular pinup in a pinny, Pertwee’s painted legs adorned the bow of more destroyers than any other Rank Rosebud of the era.
After World War II, Pertwee became a household name, as a result of his role in various naval-themed radio comedies, including All the Way Up Your Mizzen (1959–1960), Whoops, That’s Not the Cabin Boy (1961–1969) and HMS Hilarious Double Entendre about Bottoms (1970–1974).
Rather less well known is the fact that Pertwee is the only actor to date to play another role in Doctor Who before taking on the coveted role of the Doctor himself. Pertwee was briefly seen playing Hartnell love interest Cameca in episode 4 of The Sensorites, an episode which was sadly wiped at the behest of Patrick Troughton in the early seventies.
Pertwee’s Doctor Who legacy is, of course, unparallelled, but perhaps, so many years later, he is most famous as two-time winner of the Venusian three-legged egg and spoon race, one of the rare two-legged beings to have mastered the art.
Episode 22 Turducken
As our flight through the first season of post–Doctor Who Doctor Who comes to a close, Brendan, Richard and Nathan discuss The Ambassadors of Death and fan-favourite Inferno. Hold on tight: there’s never been a bore like this one!
Episode 23 Increasingly Baroque and Stupid
It’s our second reboot in two years, and to celebrate Richard’s sabbatical in Cambridge, we’re joined by everyone’s favourite ham-fisted bun vendor, Todd “Josephine” Beilby. And we’re discussing the first three stories of Season 8: Terror of the Autons, The Mind of Evil and The Claws of Axos.
Episode 24 Punching Terry Walsh in the Face
Brendan, Nathan and Todd return to space after a two-year absence in our last episode on Jon Pertwee’s second season. It’s time to don a hippie frock and visit Colony in Space, and then take a relaxing two-week holiday on location at a sleepy country village beset by The Dæmons!
Episode 25 A Hessian Sack Full of Candy Canes
It’s the start of Season 9, and so it’s time for Brendan, Richard and Nathan to grow a terrorist moustache or stick on a military-issue UNIT one and settle back with a sardonic wine and a runny brie to watch Day of the Daleks, The Curse of Peladon and The Sea Devils. Oh, Centauri, stop it!
Episode 26 Flouncy Trouncy Bouncy Busty
And it’s time for the end of Season 9 of Doctor Who, and so Brendan, Richard and Nathan explore the weighty themes of colonialism and utter nonsense, as we discuss The Mutants and The Time Monster. Simmer down, Stu!
Episode 27 Bessie Doesn’t Say Very Much
It’s the Doctor’s tenth birthday, but we get the presents, as we discuss non-existent Time Lord heroes, the inestimable Cheryl Hall, and large and savage reptiles in The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters and Frontier in Space. Thank you Miss Grant, we’ll let you know!
Episode 28 You’re Not Katharine Hepburn
In a heartbreaking series finale, Brendan, Todd and Nathan say goodbye to Katy Manning, as we discuss naked aliens, two-syllable names, dog-headed maggots and patronising the Welsh. That’s right: it’s Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death. Goodbye, Jo. You were fantastic.
Episode 29 Sand in Your Parrinium
So, we’ve changed the desktop theme, and we’re ready to start on the delightful Jon Pertwee’s final year on Doctor Who, as we discuss the first three stories of Season 11: The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Death to the Daleks. Oh, beshrew me, but I grow fond of this fellow!
Episode 30 Evil Buddhists
In an alternately languid and lachrymose episode of Flight Through Entirety, Brendan, Richard and Nathan spend a hilarious 30 minutes moaning about The Monster of Peladon, before farewelling Jon Pertwee’s Doctor in Planet of the Spiders. Tears, Sarah Jane? Of course they are!
Episode 31 One Knee Up For Pertwee
In yet another Very Special Episode, Todd joins Brendan, Richard and Nathan for a retrospective of the Pertwee Era. Liz, Jo or Sarah? Peladon, Spiridon or Exxilon? And, the most important question of all, which 70s sitcom would have been most improved if they’d only had the foresight to cast our very own Richard Stone?
Episode 115 The London Commentary Quartet
Another commentary podcast: this week, it’s Jon Pertwee in Death to the Daleks! When their holiday to Florana is unexpectedly cancelled, Brendan, Nathan, Todd and Richard all find themselves stranded in a freezing alien quarry wearing nothing but skimpy bikinis and water wings. And none of their iPhones are working, for some reason.