The Web of Fear
The Web of Fear opens in the immediate aftermath of The Enemy of the World and Salamander’s defeat. The TARDIS spins wildly through the space-time vortex with its doors still wide open, the howling currents of time threatening to drag everything inside out into oblivion. Salamander himself has already been ejected and now tumbles helplessly through the vortex. Jamie reacts instantly, hurling himself across the console to reach the controls. For a terrifying moment the pull of the vortex nearly drags him out as well, but he manages to activate the door control and the heavy doors slam shut. With the danger over and everyone safe, the Doctor calmly returns to the console to regain control of the ship.
Meanwhile, in the London home of Julius Silverstein, surrounded by the wealthy collector’s assortment of rare artefacts, Anne Travers returns from America to see her father. Professor Travers is visibly agitated and urgently begs Silverstein to let him take back the Yeti statue he sold him thirty years earlier. He insists that the object is dangerous. Silverstein refuses outright, dismissing the warning as nonsense. Travers argues that he has recently managed to reactivate a control sphere connected to the creature, but the sphere has since disappeared. Anne suspects that her father’s mind may be failing him and gently persuades him to leave. Later that night, as Silverstein closes up his home, the missing control sphere suddenly smashes through a window and rolls across the floor. It locks itself into the inert Yeti statue. The creature begins to stir, its eyes glowing with life as it transforms into a living monster. Silverstein backs away in terror as it advances on him.
Back inside the TARDIS, Jamie notices a flashing light on the console and tries to draw the Doctor’s attention to it. The Doctor initially dismisses the concern, explaining that the indicator only flashes when the ship is landing. Victoria soon notices the same signal, and when the Doctor finally looks himself, he grows uneasy. The scanner shows that the TARDIS is not approaching a world at all but is suspended in empty space. As they watch, strange strands of web-like material begin spreading across the scanner image. Outside the ship, the TARDIS is gradually being enveloped by the sticky web.
Deep beneath London, in a fortified underground headquarters, Captain Knight is giving an interview to Harold Chorley of London Television. Chorley questions him about the recent loss of Colonel Pemberton during the mysterious crisis affecting the city. As the interview concludes, Professor Travers is brought in at Anne’s request. He immediately begins pressing Knight for information. When Knight leaves the room, Travers turns his frustration on Chorley. The reporter tries to frame the situation optimistically, suggesting that the scientific section is working toward a solution. Travers bluntly contradicts him, warning that the threat may already be beyond control. If it continues to spread, he says grimly, the whole of London — perhaps even the whole of England — could be wiped out.
The TARDIS eventually breaks free from the web-like trap and materialises in a dark tunnel lined with iron bars. As the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria leave to explore, they find a sign identifying the location as Covent Garden station on the London Underground. They climb the stairs toward the surface but discover the entrance gate locked. Outside, a newspaper seller appears to be asleep beside his stand. When Jamie tries to wake him, the man collapses lifelessly, his body covered in the same web-like substance they saw earlier. A newspaper headline nearby reads: “Londoners Flee! Menace Spreads!” Alarmed, the travellers return to the platform and, noticing that trains have clearly not run for some time, and looking for an alternative exit to ground level, they follow the tracks into the tunnel and head for the next station along the line.
Soon they see soldiers laying long lengths of cable along the tunnel floor. The Doctor quietly instructs Jamie and Victoria to follow them at a distance while he investigates where the cables lead. Unfortunately, the soldiers soon discover the two companions and take them into custody. Meanwhile the Doctor reaches Charing Cross station, where several crates of explosives are wired to the cables. As he examines the crates, he hears a familiar mechanical beeping. Instantly he drops onto the tracks and hides beneath the platform as a Yeti emerges from the darkness.
At the army base, Staff Sergeant Arnold reports that the cables are ready for the planned demolition and that two suspicious youngsters have been captured. Jamie quickly insists that they are travelling alone, hoping to protect the Doctor. Captain Knight appears briefly to confirm that the tunnels are clear and then rushes off to trigger the charges. Only after he leaves does Victoria reveal that the Doctor is still down in the Underground. But it is already too late — Knight has activated the explosives.
Back at Charing Cross, with the Yeti gone, the Doctor is examining the crates which are now web-covered, when the charges detonate. Instead of exploding normally, the crates glow and flash strangely beneath the webbing. The violent blast throws the Doctor from the platform as the tunnel erupts in light and thunder.
For many years, this opening episode of The Web of Fear was the only surviving episode of this classic Doctor Who story.
The idea for the return of the Yeti began even before its predecessor The Abominable Snowmen reached our television screens. Story editor Peter Bryant was so impressed with Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln’s earlier serial that he had no hesitation in commissioning a sequel. Bryant was keen to feature more “monsters” in Doctor Who, believing (quite rightly) that they were especially popular with viewers, and so the Great Intelligence and its Yeti servants return. Haisman and Lincoln decided to shift the setting from the remote Himalayas to the London Underground, reasoning that a familiar location would bring the Doctor’s adventures much closer to home for the audience. During development Bryant moved up to the role of producer, leaving Derrick Sherwin as the new script editor.
The original costumes from The Abominable Snowmen had already begun to deteriorate, and some critics had mocked the creatures’ rather “cuddly” appearance. To address this, the production team created a new, more menacing design. The redesigned Yeti are slightly smaller, covered in rough yak hair, and given glowing eyes to make them appear more threatening on screen. They are also equipped with new “web guns,” allowing them to attack from a distance rather than relying purely on brute strength. An older costume briefly appears in the story as a museum exhibit, allowing the serial itself to transition from the earlier design to the updated version.
Although the production team initially hoped to film inside the real London Underground, the plan proved impossible due to the steep cost of £200 per hour and the restriction that filming could only occur between 2 and 5 a.m. Instead, designer David Myerscough-Jones painstakingly recreated the platform and tunnels inside BBC studios with such accuracy that the London Underground authorities reportedly contact the BBC, believing the production team had secretly filmed on location.
The series was a significant one in Doctor Who history, laying a format that would play a prominent part in the series’ future.
Jack Watling (the father of Victoria actor Deborah) returned to reprise his role as Professor Travers, which he had first played in The Abominable Snowmen. It was the first time that a guest actor returned to Doctor Who to play the same role. For this new appearance, Watling wore heavy makeup so that Travers appeared considerably older, reflecting the passage of time since the earlier story. Tina Packer portrayed Anne Travers, the professor’s daughter, while Jack Woolgar appeared as Staff Sergeant Arnold. Among the performers inside the monster costumes was John Levene, who played one of the Yeti during the serial. Levene had previously appeared in the series as a Cyberman in the 1967 story The Moonbase, and he would later return to Doctor Who in a much more prominent role as the recurring character Sergeant Benton.
The serial also introduced the character of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Nicholas Courtney. Courtney had previously appeared in Doctor Who in 1965, portraying the character Bret Vyon in The Daleks’ Master Plan. The role of Lethbridge-Stewart had originally been offered to actor David Langton, but he withdrew before rehearsals began. As a result, Courtney—who had initially been cast as Captain Knight—was reassigned to the part instead. The decision proved significant for the future of the series, as Courtney would later reprise the role in the 1968 serial The Invasion, establishing Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart as a seminal and much-loved recurring figure within the series.
It also introduced a style of alien invasion story that would later be repeated with great success throughout the show’s run.
The Web of Fear was broadcast on the BBC between 3 February and 9 March 1968. During its six-week run the serial proved popular with audiences and saw an increase in viewing figures compared with the preceding story. By the time the sixth episode aired, the programme had achieved a notable milestone: Doctor Who appeared in the top forty most-watched television programmes for the first time since September 1967, demonstrating the success of the story with viewers.
Despite this popularity, the serial later fell victim to the BBC’s archival wiping policies. In mid-1969 the videotapes for The Web of Fear were ordered to be destroyed and were wiped later that year. A 16 mm telerecording of the first episode resurfaced, by chance, in 1978. BBC archive selector Sue Malden discovered it among a batch of film cans returned from Hong Kong that were awaiting destruction. A far more dramatic discovery came in 2013 when television archivist Philip Morris located copies of the remaining five episodes at a television relay station in Jos, Nigeria. Four of these episodes were successfully returned to the BBC archives. However, the third episode went ‘missing’ during the retrieval process.
A special edition, featuring an animated third episode, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 16 August 2021, allowing fans of the series to enjoy it once more in its entirety.
Critics and fans alike have often regarded The Web of Fear as one of Doctor Who’s finest serials. Across its six episodes, the story sustains a strong sense of tension through an atmosphere of anxiety and suspicion, as the characters grow increasingly fearful that a traitor may be operating within their ranks. Douglas Camfield’s direction and David Myerscough-Jones’s remarkably convincing Underground sets create a tense, claustrophobic environment that allows the Yeti to feel far more threatening than in their original appearance. Alongside this, the story features a strong supporting cast, especially Lethbridge-Stewart, whose calm authority and developing relationship with the Doctor make him an immediate highlight of the narrative.
Patrick Troughton’s portrayal of the Doctor perfectly demonstrates why his Doctor, with a strong sense of moral authority without ever being domineering, became such an influential interpretation of the character.
However, the story is not entirely without flaws. The main issue concerns the unresolved thread of the supposed traitor within the human ranks. The script repeatedly suggests that someone may be secretly working for the Great Intelligence, creating an atmosphere of paranoia among the soldiers. Although Staff Sergeant Arnold is eventually revealed to have been taken over by the Intelligence in later episodes, the earlier hints and demonstrations of betrayal (the planting of homing devices) are never fully explained or clearly tied to a specific character. As a result, the “enemy within” element—one of the earliest examples of this type of storytelling in Doctor Who—remains somewhat ambiguous by the serial’s conclusion and therefore remains unsatisfyingly atmosphere rather than plot.
This little niggle aside, The Web of Fear stands as one of the strongest stories of the Second Doctor era where the combination of strong pacing, memorable atmosphere, and compelling supporting characters ensures that it remains widely regarded as a classic of the programme.
