The Abominable Snowmen

A small camp on a high mountain is attacked by a massive furry creature, and one man is left for dead. The other stumbles blindly into the night, running for his life. In the morning, the TARDIS materializes nearby and the Doctor reveals that he, Jamie, and Victoria are in Tibet, and he knows the locals as he is in posession of one of their holy relics entrusted to him years before by the Monks of the Det-Sen Monastary. Returning the small bell to the monks, however, does not prove to be the celebration the Doctor hoped for, and he is accused by an explorer named Travers of attacking his camp and murdering his colleague. The monks of Det-Sen are suspicious of the Doctor as well, for with his arrival and Travers' accusation has come the recent attacks on them by the Yeti - the fabled abominable snowmen of the Himalayas. The truth is that the Yeti are in fact robots, being controlled by the Great Intelligence, a non-coroporeal entity from deep space that found its way to Earth through the meditation of one of the monks. The Doctor faces the perils of fighting a foe that is controlling an old friend, and fending off the attacks of the Yeti against all in the monastary. The Intelligence craves a physical form of its own and needs the Yeti robots to serve as its hands until such time as it can make its plans come to fruition, but it does not take into account the presence of the Doctor, and is defeated, leaving burned-out Yeti littering the Tibetan slopes.

More hints to the mysterious past of the Doctor here, in the form of his involvement with Det-Sen during its hour of need. The master monk, Padmasambahva, recognizes the Doctor when he sees him but makes no comment about his physical form having changed, so the Doctor appears to have been here before in this incarnation, perhaps an untold story with Ben and Polly at his side. Jamie is drafted into service with the monks to help defend the monastary, and Victoria screams a lot, which is something she is going to become famous for. The Doctor plays things cool even when he is locked up on the strength of Travers' accusations, sitting in a cell playing his recorder, but when the time comes to fight the Intelligence, he is there and ready. The Yeti are not as frightening as one would expect; they make no sound in this adventure, just lumber about in silence. Only episode 2 of the 6-part story exists, along with some colour location footage detailing the shooting of the serial in 1967, but there is enough to show the sheer size of the monsters, and how they could be terrifying to a small child as they rampage down a mountain in pursuit of Jamie and Victoria. Still, what kind of monsters are these that can be put out of action by removing a silver sphere control unti from their bodies? Okay, this is Doctor Who where the Daleks are foiled by a flight of stairs, but come on.... the sphere is easily knocked free when a Yeti is ambused and attacked by Jamie and the monks, and in episode 4 the Doctor casually opens a Yeti and pulls its sphere out. Some argue that the Great Intelligence did not consider the presence of someone smart enough to figure out that the Yeti were robots, but that doesn't make for intelligence as great as promised. Small point, though.

NEXT EPISODE : THE ICE WARRIORS