The serial marks the last regular appearance of the Yeti, although they would return for cameos in "The Five Doctors" and the Reeltime Pictures spin-off Downtime.
The Web of Fear marks the first appearance of Nicholas Courtney as Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and is a precursor to later serials involving the UNIT organisation.
Following the events at the end of The Enemy of the World, Jamie manages to close the TARDIS' doors, stabilising its flight.
Approximately 40 years after The Abominable Snowmen, an elderly Professor Travers accidentally reactivates a control sphere which inserts itself into an intact robot Yeti from Tibet at a private collection in London and escapes.
Travers is brought to the Second World War deep-level shelter under Goodge Street tube station, where his daughter Anne has asked for his help to defeat the menace.
The group are joined by Lieutenant-Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and Driver Evans, the sole survivors of an ammunition detail which was attacked by Yeti.
Harold Chorley, the only journalist allowed to report on the crisis, is told of the TARDIS by Victoria and he rushes off to Covent Garden to find it and escape.
The Colonel fails to lead the remaining troops overground to Covent Garden; despite downing several robots in the ensuing battle, all except Lethbridge-Stewart perish.
After Jamie rips its wiring out, the pyramid explodes and the Yeti and Arnold fall to the floor, lifeless without the influence of the Great Intelligence, which has now been dispersed back into space.
[4] According to the director permission was sought from London Transport to film in the Underground but the fees they would have charged to do so were unmanageably expensive.
[9] However, it is an extra named Maurice Brooks who is first seen in the role, his booted feet appearing briefly late in Episode Two.
[10] Actor Nicholas Courtney previously appeared in a different role, that of Bret Vyon, in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965–66).
The clips are those that were censored and physically cut from the film by the New Zealand authorities when they purchased the rights to broadcast the story.
The original DVD release of this story features episode 3 presented in tele-snap format, with the surviving off-air soundtrack.
[18] A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in August 1976, entitled Doctor Who and The Web of Fear.
Episode 1 and the surviving clips were released on DVD in the United Kingdom in November 2004 in the three-disc Lost in Time set.
This version was also made available on Virgin Media's on demand service, together with numerous other stories, as part of the show's 50th anniversary commemoration.