The Wheel in Space is the mostly missing seventh and final serial of the fifth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in six weekly parts from 27 April to 1 June 1968. This is the fourth serial featuring the Cybermen, and marks the first appearance of Wendy Padbury as companion Zoe Heriot. In this serial, the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his travelling companion Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) become stranded on a seemingly abandoned spaceship. They make contact with the crew of a nearby wheel-shaped space station, only to discover that a group of Cybermen have followed them and plan to hijack the station for their invasion fleet. This was the first serial featuring the Cybermen not written by either of the villains' creators, Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis. Due to Davis' commitments on The First Lady, Pedler's story notes were developed into the final script by David Whitaker, a veteran Doctor Who screenwriter and the programme's first story editor. The Wheel in Space received a mixed-to-negative reception, and audiences felt that the Cybermen's appearances had become repetitive. Only episodes 3 and 6 are extant; the rest were junked in the 1970s and thus are missing from the BBC's archives.
Plot The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) watch their companion Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling) wave goodbye on the TARDIS scanner. A malfunction causes the fluid link of the TARDIS to explode, forcing the Doctor and Jamie to land and evacuate to avoid mercury fumes; they are marooned until more mercury is found. They find themselves on a drifting space vessel, Silver Carrier, empty apart from a small robot. The robot detects the intruders and redirects the rocket, but the sudden course change causes the Doctor to fall and get a concussion. The robot releases a swarm of cybermat pods into space, which attach themselves to a nearby space station, known as the Wheel. Jamie signals the Wheel's crew using a vector generator. The crew rescue Jamie and the unconscious Doctor. Astrophysicist Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury) gives Jamie a tour of the station. Within Silver Carrier's control room, two Cybermen report to their Cyber Planner that their Cybermats have reduced the Wheel's supply of bernalium by causing a nova in Messier 13, which will force the crew to look for more on Silver Carrier. Cybermen can then take control of the Wheel and use it as a beacon for their invasion fleet. The Doctor awakes, recognising the Cybermats and deducing that the Cybermen are involved. Two crew members visit Silver Carrier, but are hypnotised into bringing the Cybermen back to the Wheel within boxes of bernalium. The Doctor and crew disable the Cybermats by manipulating audio frequencies, but the Doctor needs the vector generator to defeat the Cybermen. Medical officer Dr Corwyn (Anne Ridler) is killed helping Jamie and Zoe reach the airlock. Jamie and Zoe spacewalk to Silver Carrier during the meteorite storm, with the crew using the Wheel's laser to blast meteorites. They recover the vector generator and return to the Wheel, where the Doctor has found some more mercury. The crew detect a Cyberman spaceship approaching. The Doctor and crew work together to destroy the incoming ship and defeat the two Cybermen aboard the station. The Doctor and Jamie return to the TARDIS to find that Zoe has stowed away. To warn her of dangers ahead, the Doctor presents her with visuals of the Daleks.
Production
Writing The Wheel in Space is the fourth Doctor Who story to feature the Cybermen, after The Tenth Planet (1966), The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen (both 1967). The Cybermen were created by Kit Pedler (unofficial scientific adviser to the production team) and Gerry Davis (story editor) as a replacement for the Daleks, the alien villains created by Terry Nation. Nation planned to capitalise on the Daleks' popularity by developing Dalek spin-off media, so he temporarily withdrew the villains' rights from the programme. Plans for a new Cybermen story were temporarily halted in August and September 1967 by a minor dispute over the Cybermen's rights and royalties. Pedler eventually accepted a halfshare of royalties, and in September he began developing the serial with the production team. In December, Nation was approached regarding a serial potentially featuring both Daleks and Cybermen, but he refused to allow the villains to appear together. This was the first Cybermen serial not written by either Pedler or Davis. As Davis had left the programme to work on The First Lady, and Pedler lacked experience in writing for television, veteran Doctor Who screenwriter (and original story editor) David Whitaker was called upon to develop Pedler's notes into a finished script. The serial's working title was The Space Wheel. Pedler wanted the space station to be depicted with a degree of scientific accuracy. On 14 December, incoming story editor Derrick Sherwin formally commissioned Whitaker to write a six-part serial titled Dr Who and the Wheel in Space. It follows the "base-under-siege" format which constitutes the majority of the Second Doctor's television stories. Not long before filming, many of the characters' names were changed by director Tristan de Vere Cole to give the space station's crew a more diverse range of nationalities. This is first time the Doctor uses the alias "John Smith", which he would often use as the Third Doctor. Jamie notices the label "John Smith & Associates" on a medical device and gives it as the Doctor's name when asked.
Casting
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