The Wheel in Space
In this serial, the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his travelling companion Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) become stranded on a seemingly abandoned spaceship called Silver Carrier.
They make contact with and board another wheel-shaped space station known as W3, only to discover that a small group of Cybermen have followed and plan on using the wheel's radio link to Earth as a beacon for their invasion fleet.
The robot also releases a group of egg-shaped white pods into space, which direct themselves toward a nearby spaceship shaped like a giant wheel, attaching themselves to its exterior.
The crew are concerned by the sudden drops in pressure, which, unbeknown to them, coincide with the pods attaching themselves to the exterior of the Wheel.
Controller Jarvis Bennett is also worried that the Silver Carrier, a missing supply vessel eighty million miles off course, has suddenly turned up nearby and is not responding to radio contact.
While the resident medic, Dr Gemma Corwyn, sees to the Doctor, Jamie is given a guided tour by the astrophysicist librarian, Zoe Heriot.
Gemma knows that Jamie is lying, so Bennett remains suspicious of the new arrivals, fearing they could be saboteurs opposed to the space programme.
Jamie's sabotage of the laser infuriates Bennett, especially as there is a potential meteor shower heading for the Wheel and they now have no way to repel it.
The Cybermen have engineered the star in Messier 13 to go nova, forcing the Wheel crew to look to their bernalium stores only to find them missing.
The Cybermen expect the crewmen will come to the Silver Carrier for an alternative source of bernalium, which can then be transported into the Wheel – with a surprise inside.
Jarvis Bennett overreacts with panic to this state of affairs, stripping Duggan of his position and imposing tighter controls.
The Doctor uses the x-ray machine to scan a floor plate, which Rudkin had sprayed with quick-setting plastic, revealing a Cybermat.
Laleham and Vallance arrive at the laser with the bernalium for Duggan, who falls victim to the same mind control process used earlier.
Reasoning that Duggan was mind controlled, he instructs Dr Corwyn to use a basic transistor system attached to each of the crews' necks to repel this technique.
In the loading bay, the Doctor and Jamie discover the crate's false bottom, which confirms the presence of the Cybermen aboard the Wheel.
Jamie and Zoe tune into this conversation aboard the rocket and go back with the time vector generator to warn the Doctor.
Flannigan uses quick-setting plastic in a fire extinguisher to kill the last Cyberman and then turns on the deflector shield, which deflects the Cybermen into space.
Clare Jenkins had played Nanina in The Savages (1966)[9] and would go on to briefly reprise her role as Tanya Lernov in the final episode of The War Games (1969).
In 2002 three short clips from Episode 5, totalling seven seconds, were found in a private collection in New Zealand, having been removed by censors there.
Despite the detailed Wheel setting, the galloping lack of scientific credibility is annoying, and the Cybermen are so bland and ordinary they could have been any other monster.
"[15] In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker felt that some moments, like the death of Gemma, were "tense" and strengthened by the "very good" guest cast, and the story was also "enjoyable" in some aspects and Zoe's debut was promising.
[16] In 2009, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times praised the introduction of Zoe, her dynamic with Jamie, and the supporting character of Gemma.
[17] A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published in hardback by W. H. Allen & Co. in March 1988, and in paperback by Target Books in August.
On 6 July 2017 Nerdist announced a sneak peek of a new reconstruction of The Wheel in Space, using existing clips and Tele-snaps.
[22] An abridged animated version of Episode 1 utilising ten minutes of the surviving audio premiered at the BFI's Missing Believed Wiped event in December 2018.
[23] It omits several scenes, including the introduction of the crew on the wheel, a gag about the TARDIS' cubic foods and references to Victoria's departure in the previous story, Fury from the Deep.
