Season 11

Season 11 of Doctor Who ran between 15 December 1973 and 8 June 1974. It starred Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor.

Overview
It consisted of five serials and twenty-six episodes. It was Jon Pertwee's final season as the Doctor and included, very briefly, the first appearance of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. The Time Warrior, the season opener, introduced Sarah Jane Smith, who would become arguably the most popular of all the Doctor's companions and a frequently featured character in the Doctor Who universe. The same story also, for the first time, named the Doctor's homeworld as Gallifrey. UNIT had also entirely been phased out of the series by this time. Roger Delgado, the first actor who had played, had died, and so the production team did not give the character the dramatic send-off that they had planned in the season finale. The diamond shaped Doctor Who logo and tunnel effects with Jon Pertwee were introduced, paving the way for the Tom Baker era.

Season 11 was the latest season to be subject to the BBC's then-current policy of junking old episodes. For reasons unknown, only the first episodes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Death to the Daleks were erased; copies of both episodes were later reacquired.

This season also had an incredibly good write-up. The five writers for this season — Robert Holmes, Malcolm Hulke, Terry Nation, Brian Hayles and Robert Sloman — won an award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain for Best Children's Drama Script. This was the last season of Terrance Dicks' run as script editor.

Primary cast

 * The Third Doctor - Jon Pertwee
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen

Secondary cast

 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Sergeant Benton - John Levene
 * Mike Yates - Richard Franklin

Introducing

 * The Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker

Stories set during this season

 * AUDIO: The Prisoner of Peladon (between The Green Death and The Time Warrior)
 * AUDIO: The Paradise of Death (between The Time Warrior and Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
 * PROSE: The Ghosts of N-Space / AUDIO: The Ghosts of N-Space (between Death to the Daleks and The Monster of Peladon)
 * PROSE: Island of Death (after The Ghosts of N-Space)
 * PROSE: Amorality Tale (between The Monster of Peladon and Planet of the Spiders)

VHS

 * The Time Warrior (1989) (edited movie format)
 * Invasion of the Dinosaurs (2003) (episode 1 is in B+W)
 * Death to the Daleks (1987/1995)
 * The Monster of Peladon (1995)
 * Planet of the Spiders (1991)

DVDs
All serials of season 11 were released on DVD between 2007 and 2012.

Novels

 * Doctor Who and the Time Warrior
 * Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion
 * Death to the Daleks
 * Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon
 * Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders