The Web of Fear

Years after his frightening adventures in Tibet, Professor Travers senses danger and tries to dispose of the inert Yeti he brought back with him. He is unable to get it away from a collector and it comes to life, its form altered into a more ferocious beast than before. The TARDIS comes to Earth after being snagged in a web in space and the Doctor along with Victoria and Jamie finds London deserted and the Underground infested with hoards of Yeti intent on spreading a web fungus through the tunnels. The British army are unable to stop this menace as it claims more and more of London, and the Doctor realizes that the Great Intelligence is once more making an attempt to gain a foothold on Earth and gain a corporeal form...

Tossing the Yeti back into the mix in a sequel set over 30 years after their debut is an interesting move; normally monsters have to wait a year before they get a second appearance. And to redesign them into more monstrous things is also a pricey move from a production point of view; using the same ones as before would have been a cost effective way to do the sequel. But the new look is better if you ask me; the first ones were a bit too fluffy for my liking. These new ones just look mean, and coming at the camera out of the darkness of the Underground tunnels - this is indeed the stuff of nightmares. Like the Daleks, they get scarier when they are seen in the familiar settings of the modern world, in this case being 1968 London streets and fantastically well designed Underground station and tunnel sets.

Of course the Yeti are not really the enemy here, they are just its tools; the Great Intelligence is at work once more and this time it has a plan to get revenge on the Doctor for its defeat in Tibet at Det-Sen. It never comes across as particularly malevolent, at least not when it speaks in whispers. Last time in The Abominable Snowmen it was a harsher voice, this one sounds a bit less fanatical but it still doesn't care who it kills or hurts to get at the Doctor. This includes almost all the soldiers the Army can throw at it, which brings the body count for The Web of Fear up rather high.

And Travers is back! Aged suitably to show the passage of time Jack Watling takes on the role for a second time, and this time Travers has his scientist daughter, Anne, at his side to assist him. As the foremost authority on the Yeti menace the Army have press-ganged him into their service as an adviser, but he willingly relinquishes that role when the Doctor turns up on the scene. The Web of Fear also introduces the audience to one Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart - a man who is going to be a major player in the Doctor's personal future in years to come. Separated from his own unit, Lethbridge-Stewart connects with the group lead by Captain Knight and is suspicious of the Doctor for most of his time with him, only granting him his trust as he sees the Doctor combat the Intelligence and succeed where military might has failed.

Like The Enemy of the World before it, Web only existed in the form of episode one and the full audio version on CD making it a bit of a jigsaw to enjoy. The Target novelization by Terrance Dicks was always there but by the time the audio came out I didn't really remember much of it, and then when four more of the episodes were found along with Enemy back in 2013 I got to see (almost all of) it for the first time; only episode three is still missing out there, reportedly it was with the rest when they were found but it was missing by the time an arrangement was made to take the episodes back to the UK from where they were found in Nigeria. The BBC didn't waste any time in chucking the story out into the world making it a bestseller on iTunes and then on DVD a few months later. The speculation that there may have been even more episodes recovered with this one has of yet born no fruit, but a fanboy can dream.

Out of the terror of the London Underground the TARDIS would take the travellers to their next on screen adventure, Fury From The Deep, where Victoria would be pushed to the limits of terror, but before that there are a couple side trips to take in other media, starting with something from Virgin's Missing Adventures range...

NEXT EPISODE: THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS