The Abominable Snowmen: Doctor Who: Season 5
| SYNOPSIS |
| DETAILS |
| CAST & CREW |
REVIEWS |
 Goldby |
 Boland |
The Abominable Snowmen SYNOPSIS:
By chance the Tardis has landed in the Himalayas near the Det Sen Monastary and having visited it before the Doctor is aiming to return thei 'holy ghanta' bell to them. However is greeted with hostility by the monks and a Professor Tarvers who believe the Doctor maybe responsible for the recent deaths in the area.
Jamie and Victoria narrowly escape the clutches of a Yeti in a nearby cave and arrive at the Monastary and prove the Doctor's innocence to the monks and Travers. Jamie and Khrisong manage to capture a Yeti and the Doctor discovers these Yeti are actually robots. It's revealed Songsten, the Abbott of the monastery and grandmaster Padmasambhava are slaves to an alien great intelligence.
Using pyramids of silver spheres like the one Jamie and Victoria found in the cave, the great intelligence controls his human slaves and the Yeti and is striving to achieve corporeal existence and dominate man's will across the world emerging in the form of a web.
The Doctor, Jamie and his monk allies must break the link between the intelligence and his human slaves to save the monks from destruction and prevent the continued growth of the Intelligence's web but then Victoria falls victim to the intelligences dominance and it seems they are powerless to stop the advance of the Yeti.
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The Abominable Snowmen DETAILS:
| Episode | Broadcast | Run Time | Viewership (In Millions) |
| Part One | 30-Sep-67 | 24:15 | 6.3 |
| Part Two | 7-Oct-67 | 23:15 | 6 |
| Part Three | 14-Oct-67 | 23:55 | 7.1 |
| Part Four | 21-Oct-67 | 24:11 | 7.1 |
| Part Five | 28-Oct-67 | 23:51 | 7.2 |
| Part Six | 4-Nov-67 | 23:31 | 7.4 |
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The Abominable Snowmen CAST & CREW
Stars:
The Doctor:
Patrick Troughton(Second Doctor)
Companions:
Fraser Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield)
Guest Stars:
Jack Watling — Professor Travers
Wolfe Morris — Padmasambhava
Charles Morgan — Songsten
Norman Jones — Khrisong
David Grey — Rinchen
David Spenser — Thonmi
Raymond Llewellyn — Sapan
David Baron — Ralpachan
Reg Whitehead, Tony Harwood, Richard Kerley, John Hogan — Yeti
Production Staff for Serial NN:
Writers - Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
Director - Gerald Blake
Script editor - Peter Bryant
Producer - Innes Lloyd
Missing episodes 1,3,4,5,6.
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The Abominable Snowmen REVIEWS
Goldby
Only part 2 exists and a couple of clips from part 4 but it's Who at it's best. Out of the 2 existing Yeti episodes, this is definitely the slower paced one, some bits at the monastery where we see scenes shot of the back of the monks' heads staring at a sheet hanging over the end of a large chamber are just plain uninteresting (maybe the should've shown the shadow or outline of the supreme monk hiding behind it. But the location filming is perfect for Tibet and the Yeti do look good lumbering around the mountainside. But Perhaps they don't look so good in a clumsily executed fight where Jamie and the monks manage to capture one of the creatures.
But it's a good 'base under siege' plot, the Tardis crew of the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria have a good synegy and Debbie's father Jack Watling plays the scheming Professor Travers really well, although it would have been nice if some of the monks weren't acted with so much ham. Using the Yeti in this setting really works well and they do seem more unstoppable than cybermen. Pity we don't get to see set pieces such as a horde of Yeti breaking into the monestry killing most of the monks and leveling the place or the Doctor's mental duelling with the great intelligence. Seeing the withered, 400 year old Padmasambhava (try saying that after a few tequila shots) for the first time would have been a good cliffhanger. As would've been seeing the web break out and cover the mountainside or maybe they just used foam? Give it a 6.5/10
Boland
The Abominable Snowmen
The Yeti make a splash in their first rollicking adventure! This is a hard one to review, all the reconstructions seemed to be paired with this awful audio. Not sure if there’s another one out there but it makes it so hard to follow past episode two. Kudos for the setting, Tibet. Very different and original and they found a reasonable substitute in Snowdonia for the exteriors.
Always hard to review something on 2 episodes, especially when it’s a six parter. The first episode recon seems better than the others. You can find some bizarre animated versions these days on youtube as well.
So the story. Well, it has Norman Bennet with a bizarre moustache missing the middle bit. It seems to be painted on too and is definitely in the running for the fake moustache award. That’s a hell of a voice he has too. Travers is a strange, abrasive character who initially doesn’t trust the Doctor. The story doesn’t appear to rollick along at any great pace but it is six parts. It’s atmosphere is rather creepy, especially inside the monastery. I would be very interested to see this one in full to get a real sense of the story. I think it seems interesting, scary for the kids but perhaps not chockas with action.
7.5/10
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