This changes everything. Again. (Doctor Who, Season 2)

Like the iPhone 4, Doctor Who's second season was not without its problems. However, 1965 saw the series' popularity reach even greater heights than the previous year. Even the Beatles wanted to be on Doctor Who, and they sort of were. I think Doctor Who handled its success rather well - pushing the boundaries of what stories it could tell, while not straying from the formula that everyone loved. (Really, Season 2's only big failure was that it couldn't produce a monster to come close to the Daleks' popularity.) But things had to change, if only because of personnel changes. On screen there was, of course, the replacement of Susan with Vicki, and then the departure of Ian and Barbara. Off screen the biggest change was Dennis Spooner taking over from David Whitaker as Story Editor. And there were other decisions, which might have seemed quite minor at the time, that were as responsible for the Doctor Who we know today as anything that happened in Season 1.

Beatles and Daleks in time for Christmas: sparknotes for Season One

Sorry it's been a while. I was playing a wild dog/tour guide/weatherman in a piece about Hurricane Katrina. You know how it is. To get us back into the swing of things, I want to look at Doctor Who's inaugural season as a whole. If you still haven't watched anything from Season One, do so now, because we're moving on. But also, here's a guide to what you missed.

Of course, if you have seen stuff from Season One, it might feel a bit odd to think of it that way. Certainly, fans of the New Series might wonder how The Reign of Terror (1.8) could be a "season finale" if it doesn't have an army of CGI Daleks in it. Fans of Buffy or Babylon 5 might look in vain for an over-arching plot, theme, or monster. And fans of Lost or Battlestar Galactica will might be puzzled by the lack of cliffhanger revelations in the final episode to get everyone excited about Season 2. It just goes to show how different TV is now. Each episode of Doctor Who was made in a week, and one was made every week, so what is in retrospect seen as a break between seasons was in fact just a well-earned rest for the cast and crew over the summer. The production team and viewers thought in story arcs (the serials) between 2 and 7 episodes long, and it won't be until Season Five that we start seeing any evidence of thought into how those story arcs might fit together. About Time says that, from a production perspective, An Unearthly Child (1.1) through The Dalek Invasion of Earth (2.2) could be considered one season, and The Rescue (2.3) though "Mission to the Unknown" (3.2) another. This actually resembles a little more a "season" as we've come to understand it. That way "Season One" ends with the return of the series' first and most popular monsters, and the departure of the "Unearthly Child" who got Ian and Barbara mixed up in this business in the first place.

For those who've forgotten what it was like to have a REALLY stupid companion, here she is again

Get excited, people who watch Doctor Who children's spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures (I don't know who you are, but apparently you exist), because former hysterical idiot Josephine Grant is blundering her way back to the Doctor Who universe! According to the Doctor Who News Page, Katy Manning will reprise her role in an episode of SJA, written by Russell T. Davies himself, and also guest starring Matt Smith (himself). It made sense to bring back best-ever-companion Sarah Jane Smith, but Jo? Really?

Some back-story. In 1968, at the end of Season 5, producer Peter Bryant and script editor Derrick Sherwin introduced the character of Zoe Her(r)iot. She was supposed to be a genius-level astrophysicist from the late 21st Century, but, as was the fate of many a promising companion, she was quickly reduced to the roles of screaming and asking stupid questions. When planning 1970's Season 7, Sherwin didn't know whether the actress would stay. When she did leave, he essentially created another Zoe (a phrase that will be funny to anyone who's been watching Caprica), giving himself a second chance to properly give the Doctor an intelligent scientist as a companion. This time they got it right, and the resulting character, Liz Shaw played by Caroline John, remains in my opinion one of the series' best companions. Sadly, this was not the opinion of incoming producer Barry Letts, who felt that no one wanted to watch two scientists natter away, and that what the Doctor really needed was someone to "hand him test tubes and tell him how brilliant he was," which is exactly what the Brigadier tells him at the beginning of Jo Grant's first story, Terror of the Autons (8.1).

When, a couple of weeks ago, I suggested the writers experiment with not-alienating ways to bring back elements from the "classic series" to tell a good story, a greyer Jo insisting "But Doctor, it is the Age of Aquarius!" to a whole new actor isn't quite what I had in mind.