10 Doctor Who Moments More Important Than You Realised
5. Pertwee Era Precursors
When Jon Pertwee took over as the Doctor in 1970, much had changed.
In addition to being in colour rather than black and white, the show was now set on present-day Earth and followed the Doctor’s adventures alongside UNIT.
But the origins for this change in the show's format were actually planted two years earlier, during Patrick Troughton’s time as the Doctor.
Unbeknownst to viewers at the time, the show was seeding a shift away from space-set stories with bases staffed by futuristic crews, to those set on contemporary Earth, where monsters were fought by traditional soldiers.
Things really got going in 1968's The Web of Fear, which brought Yetis to the London Underground and introduced UNIT boss the Brigadier (initially just a colonel, and working for the regular army).
The great work continued in that same year's The Invasion, which promoted Lethbridge-Stewart to Brigadier and introduced UNIT proper.
A few stories later the Doctor was forcibly regenerated and exiled to Earth… and the rest is history.
It’s common for some elements of one Doctor’s era to carry over to the next, to ease the transition. But this is taking things to the next level. Has one era ever set up another so stealthily?
Without The Invasion and The Web of Fear, the Pertwee era, and the course of Doctor Who history, would've looked radically different.