Nicholas Courtney off duty, during location filming for The Dæmons in April 1971.
In the long history of Doctor Who, the Third Doctor’s era is lent a peculiar fascination by its archetypal trio of male leads, all three of whom were played by actors who couldn’t possibly have been better cast.
The dandified dynamism of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor was balanced by a new character, the Master – a veritable Moriarty to the Doctor’s Holmes, and superbly played by the suavely evil Roger Delgado. Where there’s a Moriarty there must also be a faithful Watson, but the third point of the triangle actually went back a bit further than the Master. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, lynchpin of UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) and the Doctor’s by-the-book new overseer, had first been encountered by Doctor Who fans as a colonel in the Scots Guards embroiled in a horrifying adventure in the London Underground in the 1968 serial The Web of Fear. Just over eight months later – now promoted to brigadier and transferred to UNIT – he was to be seen rejoining the Second Doctor for a momentous clash with Cybermen called The Invasion, which climaxed just before Christmas 1968. The 1970s began with the Third Doctor’s inaugural story, Spearhead from Space, and the Brigadier took his place as a vital component of a newly invigorated show.