"The Power of the Daleks" Episode 1

Doctor Who
Airdate: November 5, 1966
Patrick Troughton, Anneke Wills, Michael Craze
Written by David Whitaker
Produced by Innes Lloyd
Directed by Christopher Barry

The Doctor is gone, seemingly replaced by a completely different man. Polly instinctively believes that this man, somehow, is the Doctor, but Ben is suspicious, and the man doesn't help things by being so evasive. Putting the issue to one side, the three of them leave the TARDIS and venture out into an inhospitable landscape filled with mercury pools and poisonous fumes. And man spots the Doctor and moves to greet him, but is shot dead in the back by an unseen watcher. The Doctor inspects the body and discovers that the man is an Examiner from Earth, before being knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. The Doctor and his friends are found by officials from the nearby Earth colony, and taken for the Examiner. Once inside, the Doctor takes to his new role, and is intrigued by a space capsule the scientist Lesterson found in the swamp. The Doctor helps Lesterson to open the capsule, but the entry chamber is empty. During the night, the Doctor sneaks back to the lab to explore further, followed by Ben and Polly. Inside the capsule, the Doctor finds two cobweb covered Daleks, apparently inert. Polly shrieks as she sees a mutant creature scurry along the floor of the capsule.

The Patrick Troughton era has begun, and it seems very awkward, at least on audio. The Doctor stubbornly refuses to explain to Ben and Polly what has happened, except for a few vague allusions to butterflies and renewal. So the audience is similarly in the dark. Sure, this is obviously still the Doctor, somehow, but no effort is made to explain the process¹. The fact that we're limited to audio is also a problem. Patrick Troughton's performance is very visual, and he has sparingly little dialogue in this episode. Not being able to see him really robs us of the ability to appreciate the introduction of this new Doctor. It's also worth noting that the title sequence which comes to be used for most of the Troughton era, featuring a photograph of Patrick Troughton (which begins a trend that would continue until the original series ended in 1989) hasn't been developed yet.

Looking back, it's almost quaint how Ben and Polly are seriously freaked out by all of this. Not until the new series will a regeneration generate this level of suspicion and confusion. This underscores the companions' role as a bridge between the Doctor and the audience. The audience didn't know that the Doctor could simply change like this, so we need Ben and Polly to carry us through it. Once they accept the new guy, the audience will as well. But it's going to take some time. Once the concept because well established, companions will start coming to grips with it very quickly.

I should also mention that this story takes place on the planet Vulcan, while the debut of "Star Trek" on American television is still almost a year away.

¹ These days, everyone is perfectly comfortable with the idea of regeneration. But that concept, as we know it, wasn't invented until much, much later in the history of the series. I believe the word wasn't used until Jon Pertwee's final story.