Dr Who - Losses and Mistakes

 Created 10/03/2013, Changed; 15/06/2020, 24/03/2020

Old this webpage;   http://ww1.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/engineer/dr-who-classic-estb-1963/Dr-Who---Losses-and-mistakes

Dr Who - Edge of Destruction

The two fellow travellers that loose there lives in shortest time after entering the TARDIS were Katarina (Adrienne Hill), a daughter of the ancient Greek Gods lets herself out of an airlock in to space taking a bad person with her and thereby helps save humanity from the Daleks. Katarina having had incite, from her own time in mythical ancient Greece, that her purpose in life was to save humanity but she had no incite into automatic doors, space and airlocks - see last part of the previous story Myth Makers when she enters the TARDIS and in Daleks Master Plan, Part 4, Traitors. Sara (Jean Marsh) a space security officer question's her role, becomes cornered and has to kill her brother there is no other way in the situation. In turn she is killed by extreme ageing by the Daleks' Time Destructor in the last episode.

Jean Marsh played Rose subsequently in the 1970's TV series Upstairs Down Stairs and was married to Jon Pertwee, Dr No.3 for 5 years sometime prior to Dr Who.

A few stories earlier Mission Unknown and also Myth Makers sets up this story.  There is also a break from the terrible things happening for Christmas and a greeting from Doctor Who once again is another unique and never repeated departure from the story line.  This story "Daleks Master Plan" particularly goes all over the place, sees people compromised with dreadful choices and sacrifices and losses.

Some of these story's have been narrated by various actors who featured in those story's for example Peter Purvis (from Blue Peter and a traveller with the first Dr Who) Dr Who - Daleks' Master Plan

Notice in the first episode of Daleks' Master Plan their is a seat in the TARDIS, that can hold a person seated like a magnet.  The Dr. made the seat but we never see this device used again but Dr Who 3 has a similar forcefield device fitted to Bessie the car we see used in Ambassadors of death.

The actor Nicholas Courtney who appears as an space security officer Bret Vyon in "Daleks' Master Plan" meets all the doctors until including Silvester McCoy (Dr. No.7) mostly as the Brigadier and personal friend of the Doctor.  The point being The Doctor never just turned up fixed things and leaves, though in the short hand of TV story telling had become it may seem that way. 

Many other actors return including Jacqueline Hill (as Priestess Lexa in Meglos).  Jacqueline played the Barbara with Ian and Susan.  Susan The Doctor's Granddaughter returns as Susan in The Five Doctors.

Lord Beeching's Report proposing Cuts to the Railways published earlier in 1963

There was a rail line from Tunbridge Wells to Brighton which sometimes ran steam trains.  There was also a rail line at the end of my garden in Dunton Green that went to Westerham, but a steam train only ran on that line a few times a year.

One person who worked on the Beeching plan acknowledge, on Radio 4, that two Scottish rail lines and the Central England line probably should not have been closed.  But also said Dr Beeching did good things for the railways introducing Containers and Coal Wagons that released the coal whilst the wagon moved slowly.

The introduction of containers prevented steeling that occurred at the docks.  Was supposed to secure the supply chain. You could buy anything meat etc. black market in London in the 1960s.  I was told an anecdote, decades ago, that a docker was caught with a dozen oranges. He was left in a room and told if there was no evidence including pips and peal he could not be disciplined. Rarely do large scale wrong things get address in fact they are made legal, TAX loop holes, Usury, Gambling and the National lottery, Killing and War, etc.  Of cause the supply line of goods can be secure but the documentation compromised.

But then things are made for supermarkets by quality Brand names but to the supermarket's recipe or price.  This compromised for cost saving - seems there is no difference between fake goods and goods made legally Branded but down to a cost or another recipe.

[The picture is of a West Somerset Railway]]

Homes were not central heated, generally, and in the winter Jack Frost visited in the night leaving icy patterns on the windows.  In 1963 icicles went from the gutters to the ground.  Jack Frost sometimes came to the inside of the windows.

Dr's most famous gaff;

Whilst on a long holiday outside ancient Rome the time travellers get a bit board and the Doctor decides to pretend to be a fiddle player to play to the Emperor Nero. Doctor, when cornered, gives The Emperor the idea that the Rome be burned so that the Emperor can have his plans to rebuild a new city come about.  Vicki, mildly, tells the Doctor off for that, it will be remembered for thousands of years she says - The TARDIS leaves with Nero fiddling whilst Rome burns.

 The Theme Tune

Before the first broadcast the BBC had conducted research in to a the science fiction series, Dr. Who, for the previous two years.  The music was composed and developed over that period the technology used for creating the title music was basic, ring modulators and oscillators as there was no electronic synthesiser available until the Moog synthesizer in about 1970.

Delia Derbyshire is recognised for her work in developing electronic music at the BBC Radiophonic workshop and particularly arranging the theme tune for Doctor Who. Radio interview with her, as quite an old lady, was repeated on Radio 4.

The Ark

A catastrophe is avoided!

It might seem that in 1967 people were unaware of the environment climate change etc. but this is apparently not so.  Dr Who anticipates Geoengineering to manage the climate in Moonbase and The Ice Warriors.  In Dr Who - The Ark of 1966 a spaceship from Earth is on a 700 year flight, because the sun has gone supernova, to a new world.  One of the Doctor's companions has a cold the infects the colony with it.  Unfortunately the two companion species have no immunity fallout over who gave them the infection after the TARDIS leaves.  Evidently it seems, the TARDIS brings the Doctor straight back to sort out the conflict and mediate between the inhabitants of the new world when they arrive.

Technically wrong the sun will not be going supernova within the time that any water based life exists on earth. In later story's 7 billions years from now when this is estimated to happen will be far beyond the distance into the future the TARDIS is permitted to go by rule of the timelords.  But those rules represent a continuity with a long running TV show issue of cause.

The Ark was the start of a new style of Doctor Who, associated with the second Doctor but start with the first Doctor.  This new style nicer Doctor is not such a real human compared to the last episode of the previous story The Massacre.

Computer malfunction;

In another story were the TARDIS, once again, brings the Dr. back to sort out an earlier mistake; Dr Who - The Face of Evil in this story the most powerful computer known is a bit mad - similar to HAL 9000 in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey.  At the end of The Face of Evil, Leela joins the Doctor No.4.  The computer malfunction is not in these cases a fault within the computer but a human (or the Doctor's) mistake, misunderstanding.  In 2001 the error was a human instruction to program a conflict into HAL's core programming.

2002 A space odyssey

It is debatable if there is an edge of the cosmos where there is no more matter rather than just a limit to what we can see.  We can see further than 13.8 Billion light years (the time since big bang theoretically);  https://youtu.be/bbkvIY61N14

There were a number of stories about similar to The Ark, such as The Ark in Space  in which space insects laying eggs in the hibernating humans (The BBC take care not repeat a story but tell a variation of a story in a way does not conflict.  This Ark is waiting in orbit until the earth recovers from the solar flair that had devastated the earth). Here is another Underworld - The edge of the Cosmos - nothing beyond (as, I guess, if it is flat like the world was thought to be?) Minions of Minos who have been on a 100,000 year quest are so tired they really want to let themselves die. Get a visit from one of their Gods, a Timelord, The Doctor.  The story is good but I did not remember it, there were too many good stories one after another at this time.

OPINION

The first 21 years of Doctor Who the stories were rational logical and historically fairly sound.  In the 1960s science and engineering was way ahead of science fiction and had been for a long time Doctor Who TV series tried to catching up, in retrospect I believe.

But since the mid 1980's the stories had changed markedly to fantasy - same as people had changed thinking we can take anything we like from the planet and not pay for it (having run an Empire in which the sun never set it seems true) but was now acceptable to say.  By now the stories where not science and history based but were more like a collection of stories tied together by a wonderful indestructible Box (in the real world but vulnerable in its own virtual world) and enduring Theme Tune.

A short item on Radio 4 in October/November 2015 came clean and explained that the standards of the BBC were changed by policy and Dr Who was introduced as a much lighter show.  The story’s had always avoid violence.  To restate the point;  They used to take care over historical accuracy.  These things change, sadly, and the term Dumbing Down has been coined is fitting. 

When analysed all the 1st and 2nd Doctor stories are taken very seriously and a lot of work put into them by The Doctors who inspired all around including the writers.  So it would be hard to pick one.  The first and last Doctor Who No. 2 stories are particular memorable but most of Dr No.2 stories having something that is memorable such as the sonic screwdriver and the TARDIS can float.  In Moon Base the Doctor quickly puts a plate in a broken window thereby stopping the atmosphere escaping the base.

 Mindrobber and Toymaker are excellent.  A world of the nightmares of the Doctor perhaps within the TARDIS - The Dr had told us in The Chase that this was possible and he mistakenly had though in The Chase that had happened? Toymaker was my most memorable first Doctor story after the cave of sculls and the police box that did not change.

Doctor Who has lived on the back of the first two Dr's.  So don't try to pick one of them as the best.  TARDIS recall device Patrick Troughton whistled and the TARDIS comes.  Jamie and the Doctor in Two Doctors bringing back all the excellence by hard work of that earlier 1960's era, stories that did not rely on props and stage sets.  No take-outs broadcast to show actors acting up for the take-out.  Of cause there is always pranks and jokes, played at work, but these were kept off camera then and that is another era which the story spans.  The forth Doctor combined many of these things not all but often added some humour at the expense of the K9 that only enhanced the show, perhaps to a wider ordinance?  Tom Baker (No.4) developed many ideas first seen earlier and explained them Jelly Babies for diffusing situations for example.  Peter Davison Dr No.5 more than just recaptures, the inclusiveness of the 1960's era, in my opinion, but is the last very good Dr Who, backed up by very good stories that came about because of the inclusive lead Peter Davison gave.

Microbes live forever, that is they divide, assimilate and most die of predication this is of cause true of all life.  A part of us is a thread of life from the beginning of life on earth.  Life adapts and our knowledge and understandings stretches back those 4 billions years, that history is hard-wired (to use modern words) into our DNA.  The earth will be uninhabitable for higher organism in 1 billion years when the water evaporates some microbes will survive 3 billion years underground (BBC Radio 4, 2 July 2013).  Actually some microbes live forever but most divide non-uniformly so the strongest bits of DNA go into one cell and the the weaker bits go to the other cell in the division.  I am not suggesting microbes have a Doctor Who gene! But there is a biological intelligence in this natural behaviour which I will discuss later.  I do believe Gaia Hypothesis to be correct and started with the start of life on earth 4 billion years ago - a Scientific understanding of a pure interpretation of old Pagan knowledge of the way of life both based on observation?

Hand of Fear - Do actors in costumes as alien suffer.

Do actors suffer

Those questions you wonder about but never asked. The question not asked though is how many actors die of heart failure whilst costumed up as Aliens, overheated and dehydrated?

In the story She Eldrad does under act or just get it right but I agree with a comment I read on Facebook that He Eldrad does more of a stage rather than a TV performance.  Both are good the Hand of Fear is a good story even though annoyingly the attempted destruction of the nuclear power station is watched from ground zero but not from 100 miles away that would be more sensible.  Once sown into a tight costume there is no sitting down, just get someone to lean you up against a wall, No eating and drinking because you can't pee.

70 years ago; Fire-storms of WWII

I am writing this in 2013 but I recall in my childhood thinking 21st century being a very long time in the future and I could not imagine living then (now) in the same way people could, surely not imagine living as things were then!

40 years ago The 1973 fuel crisis;

30 years ago; TTAPS, Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack, and Sagan

(authors of 1983 study on Global warming following the military study on nuclear winter)

Nuclear Winter model has continued to be updated the predicted effects are much more serious. Britain’s Trident Submarine alone would cause a very severe cooling 

http://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/nuclear-weapons-and-climate-catastrophe

Another big loss is the Doctor who story Shada;

A particularly good story was interrupted by industrial action then abandoned by management decision - The abandonment is point and typical of British management.  I am pleased that a version exists, composed of fragments, enhanced by Tom Baker's narration.  The BBC, Classic Doctor Who website says the story was abandoned because of a back-log of Christmas specials.

The version narrated was released in 1992 see;  BBC episode guide Shada  It is a strange artefact of the BBC which so much reflects the establishment but steers a line of appearing reasonable to most people in it's openness to some scrutiny such as in this case.  The BBC has a very powerful influence on opinion and it's ways are subtle or clever in there blatancy sometimes.  But not admirable.

My view is that the story was worth completing - it often seems that BBC has a low regard for science and technology even though that organisation is highly technology based.

The most complete version Dr Who Shada The spaceship (it's computer) is unlike the TARDIS, which serves and warns but does not argue, in this spaceship instead gets to dislike it's master but likes the Doctor instead.  Typically Douglas Adams, this was his last Dr. Who story.  There a lot of jokes repeated evidently the production of this story was never refined. To emphasises the point I make elsewhere that things had changed rather than being performed just right then broadcast the next day the performance is not quite right and in my view the polishing up later is not as good as aiming to get it right first time (that applies to all sorts of things; photography, electronics design - but a bit of both, what works, is the best way as in all things)

 In 2001 A Space Odyssey, of 1968, the computer HAL9000 on the spaceship "Discovery" is programmed with a directive, to keep the mission secret but has a prime directive not to harm or withhold information from humans.  The computer nearly resolves the dilemma by killing all the humans. The computer is shut down, by astronaut Michael and ultimately.  The mission of the Monolith, to create another in its own likeness, is completed. This is a truly science based science fiction story.

2001 A Space Odyssey, is;

 I Watched a cut version of 2001 A Space Odyssey in 2015. It still is just as outstandingly good.  People now know what the story is and don't have to wait.  Postings on Metacafe website where I found the story in two parts showed a lot of interest and expressed profound mixture of enjoyment and question.

I found that after watching 2001 again that the exceptional accurate technical detail and plausibility remarkable. Leaving me inclined to not want to watch anything else afterwords.

There are a number of fictional computers that can almost be persuaded, with rational argument, to do things. The end of film Dark Star (1974) is quite memorably, the bomb is almost talked out of exploding until it gets to think about the old testament "And then there was Light".   I would not spend much time on the film but it is a novel idea.

The biggest loss is portrayed in Logopolis

Doctor would have accepted the offer to have his TARDIS chameleon circuit be fixed by the Monitors. They would have written the program for him quickly and easily.  The Master kills the monitors and entropy, that had been held in abeyance by the Monitors, catches up and a portion of the Universe disappear. Princess Nyssa's home planet, Traken, is lost with it. Finally the Doctor No. 4 falls, dies and regenerates.

**** [Do enjoy Adric's difficulty with the Doctor's diary.  Things happen then later they never happened 15 mins into the first part] **** I can't find which story this was?

Best portrayed loss;

Earthshock - Cybermen are back, the TARDIS materialises in a archaeological site deep underground in the Earth's future. Dr follows Cybermen into space and a cargo spaceship and the Cybermen are hidden in the cargo on this man made spaceship, plan to redirect the space ship to destroy the earth and humanity.  The Bomb on board is disarmed by Adric who goes down with the spaceship that has slipped back inadvertently to earth 65 million years ago destroying the dinosaurs and creating the conditions for mammals to develop and humans to evolve.

Earthshock's full impact is only fully perceived if you watch Doctor Who for many episodes.

Death of Adric is portrayed with excellence. Near tearful shock and silence with no closing title music. But the TARDIS interior is unprotected from weapon use by Cybermen which is more than just a shame, the virtual interior has inhibited the emulation (which is what I guess it must do) of weaponry previously.  The meddling in time leaves a paradox in other circumstances would not be allow in other story's.  That is by the intervention of man made spacecraft from the future crashed to earth creates the conditions for humans to have evolved in the first place.  All in all the Doctor, companions and others work together and the story is excellent - I think it is the best portrayed tragedy in Doctor Who.

Dr. Who is littered with absolutes that must not be done that are done, this first Law (Earthshock 1982) of time travel.  But in another story a law of time may be a bluff that comes off, for example in The-hand-of-fear (1976)  The Dr does refuses to take an evil alien (Eldrad) back to his own people in the past. Those people it turns out had sacrificed themselves to try to destroy Eldrad because he is danger to the Galaxy.  The Dr does take Eldrad away from Earth where he is destroyed and the ring which holds his DNA image discarded. Prior to this story and particularly in the first Doctor;  What was fated tended to occur anyway perhaps delayed a bit but occasionally the cause of events changed for the better by the Doctor's interference an observation the first Doctor seems explains a few times with considerable sorrow.

It is said that the BBC were wanting to end Doctor Who and were doing that by sabotaging the stories. In another story Frontios the TARDIS is broken apart and thought to be destroyed - that was enough the magic destroyed a point noted in the BBC's classic Dr Who website. Well performed story even so which is the mark of Peter Davison as Doctor he inspires an all round excellent production.

The Real Biggest danger self interest v self destruction;

You don't have to wait for any one else to abandon nuclear weapons first because the one who gives up, is straight away, safer.  So many from top military brass to ordinary people have said that repeatedly.

1979 The world became vary unsafe, evidently the capitalist world was going to see off the Soviet Union in a game of "Limited Nuclear War in Europe" and the introduction of Tactile Nuclear Weapons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

Nuclear Winter model may have been one of the decisive factors but having a very enlightened Soviet leader Mr Gorbachev helped prevent the US carrying out its stated policy of undertaking a limited Nuclear War in Europe occurring during the 1980's.  On Radio 4 's Moral Maze in March 2014 Michael Portillo, former MP cabinet member, brought in as part of a conversation that the 1980's was about destroying the Soviet Union.  Michael Portillo, unusually, seemed to used terms of propaganda to slate the USSR as opposed to using rational argument.

1980' propaganda

Would you rather be;

Was countered with rather be;

Or ridiculed; (1980s Tunbridge Wells CND leaflet)

Dead than Red,

Red than Dead,

With Bonaparte or Blown apart.

These silly questions put about and were red-herrings. The Soviet Union provided competition to the capitalist system in living standards cultural education and all things.

But the tanks were never going to role across Europe and invade it had be learnt that in the Cuban missile crisis that the Soviet Union would back down would not insist on the promised to withdrawal of missiles from Turkey by USA be kept. Made between Khrushchev and Kennedy in 1962.

General D Eisenhower coined Atoms for Peace as a sweetener for nuclear weapons manufacturing industry that is within civilian sector in order to plausibly manufacture the weapons. He viewed it as another weapon in the range of weapons.  Nuclear power, military, make mistakes things leak blow up are covered except for any nuclear bomb and that despite many false triggers recorded - suggesting it is a very expensive bluff that The Soviet Union never called in its time.  But they were tested a lot 40-50 years ago to prove them.

As a young adult observing US President Jimmy Carter in place whilst the policy changed (Cruise Missiles promotional film on British TV in the late 1970s show us what would be coming to UK) the figure head changed, to fit the earlier policy change, subsequently when Ronald Reagan became President in 1981.  Observing during the administration of this well intentioned and influential peanut farmer President Jimmy Carter that the policy change to something very wicked, under his feet, made me very sceptical of the power of politics but I actively take my part in influencing things anyway.  It is similarly an Inconvenient Truth (Climate Change) that Al Gore got enough votes to be elected but the election was erroneously given to George Bush junior.

It can only be wondered at how different the world would have been if Louis Mountbatten of Burma, having given that compelling warning against Nuclear Weapons, had lived to have lead the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's nation demo in 1979. The words of Royalty do count and influence.

Dr. Who as a story was the best science fiction but had run it's cause after 20 years or so and the BBC could have stopped producing it, leaving people wanting more, rather the ring every last bit out of the story.  By comparison Blake's 7 the last series was pushing a little too far they were up against Servelan nearly every week. Interesting comparison with Star Trek I found in an interview with Gareth Thomas (Blake) and Jacqueline Pearce (Serverlan). Gareth observer’s that B7 had poorer, cheaper sets than ST but relied on human interaction;

The Blake's 7 group of companions are very democratic though I don't mean voting but in the truer sense that they checked each other.  By comparison in Star Trek such as Voyager the sets, story's and acting very high standard. But everyone is fairly nice and never really bad or flawed.  The first and the fifth Doctor Who's, include real argument although B7 was more adventurous having main characters die, go missing and it's wonderful magic almost spaceship destroyed.

In watching the concluding story again, Terminal it is very good the renegades killing each other is plausible.  Blakes 7 Terminal The whole series was good but was very bleak by comparison with its counter Star Trek. 

It is only in fiction where the oppressed (Sun Makers) are ready to rise up and displace their oppressors.  The tools of oppression mind control, torture are less effective than Training people to win pub quizzes and operate supermarket tills, instead of teaching to learn.  Zoe regrets having being trained for a specific job in maths but not educated to think Zoe Jamie says to Dr No. 2 she had her education brainwashed into her.  Education was quite experimental in the 1960's focused on teaching people to think and continue to design the excellent things that Britain had been doing.

I exaggerate perhaps but that is to make a point that is not an absolute truth.

 

Skill shortage Innovation and temperament;

It was by popular public wish and government policy to close industry and move quickly to a post industrial - financial services based economy during the 1980's.  Now to my personal disappointment that is what we have.  People who started work in the 1980's are better off than the people who started work prior or subsequently to that time.  The cost was that the Family Silver (as Harold Macmillan put it) was sold off and none of the WWII debt to USA paid off.  That debt to USA although interest free, tied UK into dreadful obligations and one way science and technology transfers.

Happiness Patrol - Surprisingly, to me, summed up of the situation very clearly - looking back in retrospect.

Post Thatcher PM (1980's) recriminations; Lord Lawson, who said we never though of the consequences, of Big Bang in 1986.  Michael Portillo regrets being part of that cabinet. Evolution to a state of helplessness where everything comes to you and you don't have to understand or do anything more than push a button.

Periodically professionals and intellectuals, the empower, are perceived as a threat to those with power.  This happened under Pol Pot it also happened under Mrs Thatcher with closing of the coal mines which were a model of best management that went all over the world, And Ferranti as part of the National Enterprise Board that company were designing and launching world leading electronics (Uncommitted Logic Array).  This knocked down a section of employed empowered and creative to sickness and unemployment.

Mrs Thatcher's government had earlier been interfering with BBC and I don't know if it is that influence that cause TV to become so markedly Dumbed down since.  But it is understandable that consequently actors would be let be freer to criticise. In case by the time this was broadcast Mrs Thatchers biggest adversary was her own party and government.

Programmable logic has remained one of the most significant developments in electronics behind all the customisable integrated circuits enabling high and low volume products.  Signetics, a Philips company in USA developed the Field Programmable Logic in about 1970 but Ferranti later developed that further with the highly successful Uncommitted Logic Array. The ULA has remained profitable for the then government agency the N.E.B and ever since. The ULA had 10,000 cells that could both do logic functions or do some analogue amplification type function wiring the cells together in the custom final mask of the semiconductor manufacturing process for the customer.  Philips went on to develop and license small very low power, called zero power, EPROM based PLD's such as 16V8 in about 1984 thereby also making the technology more available for low volume makers.

Programmable Logic Device

Computes all signals concurrently. Counting element can be included to make it work sequential as well. Companies like ARM make intellectual property that can is placed within ASIC, FPGA which are types of PLD. The ARM microprocessor works in a conventional sequential way but you can place many of them in a programmable logic device or place other things to do work concurrently.

World wide FPGA and ASIC business is about $5bn 2014

An example of computer programming would be "IF" whereas in concurrent programming the equivalent is "WHEN" but the difference is the second case "when" condition can become true at any time and be acted on at that moment whereas " IF" is only tested and acted on when the program reaches that step in the sequence.

It is often said, incorrectly, that Britain invented things then others develop and profit from those things. Much work on Alternating Current was done by Nicoli Tesla - in fact nearly everything to do with AC power used throughout the world is down to Nikola Tesla and his backer's such as Westinghouse.  Very little is down to Edison who got the idea of electricity in the home for lighting but his system of Direct Current was dangerous and inefficient would require power station's every few miles.  Tesla (as in the measure of magnetism and the Tesla Coil [Transformer]) Discovered and patented AC, radio (also AC) and single wire power or signal transmission he was correct and proved it both theoretically and practically correcting Hertz and others earlier work But it is the British demonstration of transatlantic communication by the Marconi's radio that has gone down in history. It was also the British (until 1985) company Plessey who made the highest operating frequency Integrated Circuits for Radio through the 1960's until the early 1990's.  Conversely Edison did get recognition for Joseph Swan's incandescent Light bulb although the Swan company made light bulbs and many other electrical things in the UK.  Edison company did a considerable amount of improve on the Swan carbon lamp which in turn other earlier patents on incandescent light bulbs although were not viable lighting but the real success and successor was the Tungsten filament lamp was developed by many others prior and since.

Abraham Lincoln, said; You can't fool all the people all the time but you can fooling most of the people most of the time, Adolph Hitler said "Make the lie Big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it" Gerbels also said the same but more concisely.  Many others have said in words what has been know about manipulation for millennia. Another cliché is also so true is Divide and Rule. 

The harsh judgement of the Timelords

In The War Games the Doctor has a life taken from him and sadly his companion's Zoe and Jamie have there memory of there experience erased.  Particularly sadly for Zoe because when we first meet her she is unhappy that her knowledge has be brainwashed in to her (Wheel in Space).  Subsequently she developed into a fully creative empowered person who can write off computers to get in to buildings where bad things are happening in order to save the earth (Invasion).  To have all of this erased from her memory.  There was a lot of creativity being developed and taught in schools in the 1960s, capturing the exceptional British creativity of that era and developing it in to a way of education. 

War games is the best epic story and most cohesive so far. For some it is the best story and the one from the second Doctor Who set that I remember most clearly.  One of the changes that the second Doctor brought to the series consistently was a tightly written and performed Doctor Who is played by Doctor Who, the a feature of this Doctor is that actor's that his name is immaterial though it was Patrick Troughton and says he was a jobbing actor.  An end of an era where British soldiers were cannon fodder, it might be thought.  I struggle to  understood how a school colleague can also be popular and kind but join the army willingly.  He's going to meet interesting people in interesting foreign places and then shoot them.  The boy I am thinking of intended by the time he had started junior school to be a soldier.

Dr No. 4, Tom Baker's last stories are the most tragic, played duly seriously; Warrior's Gate,  Keeper of Traken, Logopolis.

The previous story to this last Dr. No. 2 story was "Space Pirates" gives us incite of the next change to come to Doctor Who.  The spacecraft models are excellent, as we see with the subsequent Doctor Who stories.  The Doctor's role changes and he, just for this story, is the champion leading his followers more like Dr's 3, 4 and 6 to come.  The Doctor in classic 2nd. Dr style demonstrates magnetism what he is going to do but unfortunately instead of getting the TARDIS back, it is lost as it it magnetically repelled into space.