Story #20 "The Myth Makers"

Season

3

Writer

Donald Cotton

Book/CD

 X

Episodes

4

Director

Michael Leeston-Smith

Vid

Story code

U

Producer

John Wiles

DVD

Episode Details

Episode

DR MM:SS

TX dd/mm/yy

RPT TX dd/mm/yy

In BBC Archive

1

24:45

16/10/1966

N

2

24:43

23/10/1966

N

4

24:25

06/11/1966

N

Cast Details

Regular Cast

William Hartnell (First Doctor) , Maureen O'Brian (Vicki) / Peter Perves (Steven Taylor)

Guest Cast


Adrienne Hill (Katarina) / Cavan Kendall (Achilles) / Alan Haywood (Hector) / Ivor Salter (Odysseus) / Francis de Wolff (Agamemnon) / Jack Melford (Menelaus) / Tutte Lemkow (Cyclops) / Max Adrian (King Priam) / Barrie Ingham (Paris) / Frances White (Cassandra) / Jon Luxton (Messenger) / James Lynn (Troilus)

Synopsis

The Doctor and his companions materialize outside the walls of Troy and are captured by the Greeks. Mistaken as a Greek elder and then falling under suspicion, the Doctor is given two days to bring down the walls of Troy. He invents a large wooden horse and arranges for it to be left outside the city walls while the Greeks withdraw...

1. This is the final story featuring Vicki.
2. This is the first story featuring Katarina.
3. The working titles for this story included The Mythmakers, The Trojans, and The Trojan War. Individual episode titles included Zeus ex Machina(episode 1) and Is There a Doctor in the Horse? (episode 3).
4. All 4 episodes of this story have been lost, but some limited material from episodes 1, 2 and 4 exist in the form of 8mm home movie reel shot pointed at a television set
5. This is also one of the least documented stories, with only very limited material (film/photographic) existing.
6. William Hartnell was struck and injured by a camera during the filming of the first episode and sustained a bruise to the shoulder.
7. William Hartnell suffered a bereavement while working on the story: the death of his Aunt Bessie, who had looked after him during his troubled childhood. Unfortunately, the tight recording schedules prevented Hartnell from taking time off to attend her funeral.
8. In the 1980s, Reeltime Pictures launched a series of home video releases featuring interviews with the cast and crew of Doctor Who. This long-running series of tapes (which later included the first independently-produced Doctor Who spin-offs) was entitled Myth Makers after this story
   
   Order the Mythmakers CD via our BBC Audio Page
   Order the Lost in Time DVD via our BBC DVDs page