United States--1986

PATRICK TROUGHTON

Broadcasting, Oct. 20, 1986

Five stories, 30 episodes (also in "movie length" omnibus editions):

TT	The Dominators	5
UU	The Mind Robber	5
WW	The Krotons	4
XX	The Seeds of Death	6
ZZ	The War Games	10

It has been reported (refer DWB issue 43, dated May 1987) that the Hartnell to Troughton regeneration sequence from The Tenth Planet was edited onto the end of The War Machines and the start of The Dominators, although no off-air copies of such broadcasts are known to exist, which suggests it was not true.

The Seeds of Death was usually shown as a 2-part omnibus composed of episodes 1-3 and 4-6, but the cliffhanger to what was now "Part One" was an arbitrary half-way point that wasn't where the original "Part 3" had ended.

In its omnibus form, The War Games is issued as a two-parter (episodes one to five, six to ten), with a "To Be Continued...." caption overlay at the cliffhanger to part five; unusually, there was not a cast and crew credits roll, but instead a long montage of clips from the second half.

• 1 February 1986: New Jersey Network is the first to screen the package of five surviving Patrick Troughton stories.
• 1 February 1986: The radio serial Slipback airs for the first time on US National Public Radio.
• 15 March 1986: The Tom Baker "movies" commence on a number of Armed Forces Network stations on military bases in the Pacific and in Germany.
• By May 1986, the BBC buys all the shares in Lionheart Television Inc. The BBC had owned only 2%, the other 98% split 50/50 between Western World TV and Public Media Inc. Lionheart was clearing a profit of US$1million per year.
• 8 May 1986: Setting off from Washington DC, with Peter Davison and BBC 1 Controller, Michael Grade in attendance at its launch, the Doctor Who USA Tour begins its two-year, multi-city tour (two cities per week). It is hoped that all 185+ markets where Doctor Who is screened across America will be visited. (See the full coverage on our dedicated page.)
• May 1986: Although advertised as opening this month, the stage-play The Inheritors of Time is cancelled due to various copyright issues.
• August 1986: After 23 issues, the US Marvel comic is cancelled due to falling sales.
• September 1986: Under its Playhouse video brand, CBS/Fox releases Revenge of the Cybermen on VHS.
• August to December 1986: Ballantine Books publishes US editions of the six Make Your Own Adventure books that had been published by Severn House in the UK, re-branding them as Find Your Fate books. New covers are painted by Gail Bennett. They retail for $2.50.
• 29 October 1986: On the fiftieth anniversary of BBC Television, BBC Enterprises takes out a 7-page ad in the industry publication Variety. Doctor Who gets an entire page (see below).
• 1986: The North American Doctor Who Appreciation Society (NADWAS) winds up.

The Inheritors of Time

Variety, Oct. 29, 1986