The Web of Fear

041 – The Web of Fear
Doctor Who serial
A dormant Yeti awakens.
Cast
Doctor Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor)
Companions Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon) Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield)
Others Nicholas Courtney — Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart Jack Watling — Professor Travers Tina Packer — Anne Travers Jon Rollason — Harold Chorley Ralph Watson — Captain Knight Jack Woolgar — Staff Sgt. Arnold Richardson Morgan — Corporal Blake Rod Beacham — Corporal Lane Stephen Whittaker — Craftsman Weams Derek Pollitt — Driver Evans Bernard G. High, Joseph O'Connell — Soldiers Frederick Schrecker — Julius Silverstein John Levene, John Lord, Gordon Stothard, Colin Warman, Jeremy King, Roger Jacombs — Yeti
Production
Directed by	Douglas Camfield
Written by	Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln
Script editor	Derrick Sherwin
Produced by	Peter Bryant
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer
Production code	QQ
Series	Season 5
Length	6 episodes, 25 minutes each
Episode(s) missing	1 episode (3)
Date started	3 February 1968
Date ended	9 March 1968
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Enemy of the World Fury from the Deep

Doctor Who and the Web of Fear

Author	Terrance Dicks
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	72
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	19 August 1976
ISBN

The Web of Fear is the partly missing fifth serial of the fifth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 3 February to 9 March 1968. This serial—which marks the return of the Yeti, the Great Intelligence, and Professor Edward Travers—is the sequel to The Abominable Snowmen. It marks the first appearance of Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, subsequently better known as the Brigadier, and acts as a precursor to the numerous later serials involving the UNIT organisation.

Currently, five of the six episodes are held in the BBC archives. For four decades only episode 1 of the story survived in the BBC archives, the others being presumed lost. Episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 were recovered from Nigeria in 2013, however, leaving only episode 3 missing.

Approximately 40 years after his Tibetan expedition in The Abominable Snowmen, an elderly Professor Travers reactivates a control sphere during his studies. The sphere inserts into an intact robot yeti from Tibet at a private collection in London and escapes. In the following days, London is beset by thick fog and a deadly web-like fungus begins to infest the London Underground. Professor Travers is brought to the Second World War deep-level shelter under Goodge Street tube station, where his daughter Anne has asked for his help to defeat the menace affecting the tube system. Also present are Captain Knight, the current leader of the military manning HQ, Staff-Sergeant Arnold, who acts as Knight's deputy and Harold Chorley, the only journalist allowed to report on the crisis.