Considering how successful Jon's first season was - 3 absolute all-time corkers out of 4 - it is a massive crying shame the direction the Letts/ Dicks team took the show in. I like many things about their style - the environmental issues, the Buddhist themes, the advent of the Master etc. However, they unfortunately transformed the nature of the show from gritty, realistic, scientific & frightening to a fun, run around show. They made a massive boo-boo in employing Katy Manning & turning UNIT into a family unit instead of a military one.
Imagine if Peter Bryant, Derek Sherwin & Caroline John had stayed for Season 8, who knows how fabulous the show might have been? Anyway, it's easy to pick faults with other people's work in hindsight, but I can't help but think that Doctor Who could have gone in another direction all together had Sherwin & Bryant stayed around to develop their ideas.
Many of the Pertwee stories could have done with tighter & more inspired direction. The padding is perhaps the reverse of the McCoy era problem where too many half developed ideas were slap dashed together in only 3 parts.
Overall, Jon's tenure can be roughly split into three sections based on quality. His earliest four or five stories, which are generally his best. The next section contains about 6 or 7 stories which are also fairly good although not classics & the final group of about 12 stories is fairly patchy - with the best being passable & the worst being downright awful. I was surprised at this as I thought that Jon's era (like Peter's) was fairly evenly balanced...
The Co-Pilot
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