Richard Franklin, who died on Christmas Day, played Mike Yates, a vital part of the early-1970s UNIT entourage. Jonathan Morris salutes him.

Mike and the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) in The Dæmons (1971).

At the start of the 1970s, UNIT had a very vertical command structure. One brigadier, one captain, one corporal, a couple of sergeants, and a small number of privates to do the actual fighting. And, while Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Sergeant Benton were permanent fixtures, the other ranks changed with each story. Captain Turner was followed by Captain Munro, who was followed by Captain Hawkins… none of them sticking around long enough to make their mark.

So, when it came to the 1971 season, Doctor Who’s producers decided to add a third regular to the UNIT ranks – Captain Mike Yates, played by Richard Franklin.

Yates wasn’t just there to avoid the incongruity of the Brigadier having a sergeant as his second-in-command. The idea was to have another regular for the audience to care about, rather than the latest in a line of fairly indistinguishable soldiers. But to do that, the actor would need to make a strong impression with very limited screen time. He would need to be someone viewers would remember, even if the character was away for several months, or only appeared in a couple of scenes in an episode. Because, despite being a regular, it was often the case that, if an episode was overrunning, it would be Mike’s scenes that got cut (as in Episode One of 1971’s The Mind of Evil). On the other hand, if an episode was underrunning, a simple solution was to give him an extra scene or two (such as the “Rank has its privileges” scene in Episode One of 1972’s Day of the Daleks).