The Wheel in Space

043 – **The Wheel in Space**
043 – The Wheel in Space
Doctor Who serial
	Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury) and the Cybermen in a promotional image for the serial
Cast
	Doctor Patrick Troughton – Second Doctor;
	Companions Frazer Hines – Jamie McCrimmon; Wendy Padbury – Zoe Heriot;
	Others Michael Turner – Jarvis Bennett; Anne Ridler – Dr. Gemma Corwyn; Eric Flynn – Leo Ryan; Clare Jenkins – Tanya Lernov; Kenneth Watson – Bill Duggan; Kevork Malikyan – Kemel Rudkin; Michael Goldie – Elton Laleham; Derrick Gilbert – Armand Vallance; Donald Sumpter – Enrico Casali; Peter Laird – Chang; James Mellor – Sean Flannigan; Freddie Foote – Servo Robot; Jerry Holmes, Gordon Stothard – Cybermen; Peter Hawkins, Roy Skelton – Cybermen Voices; Deborah Watling – Victoria Waterfield;
Production
Directed by	Tristan de Vere Cole
Written by	David Whitaker, from a story by Kit Pedler
Script editor	Derrick Sherwin
Produced by	Peter Bryant
Executive producer	None
Music by	Special sounds by Brian Hodgson at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Production code	SS
Series	Season 5
Running time	6 episodes, 25 minutes each
Episode(s) missing	4 episodes (1, 2, 4 and 5)
First broadcast	27 April 1968
Last broadcast	1 June 1968
Chronology
← Preceded by; Fury from the Deep	Followed by →; The Dominators

The Wheel in Space is the mostly missing seventh and final serial of the fifth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in six weekly parts from 27 April to 1 June 1968. This is the fourth serial featuring the Cybermen, and marks the first appearance of Wendy Padbury as companion Zoe Heriot. In this serial, the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his travelling companion Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) become stranded on a seemingly abandoned spaceship. They make contact with the crew of a nearby wheel-shaped space station, only to discover that a group of Cybermen have followed them and plan to hijack the station for their invasion fleet.

This was the first serial featuring the Cybermen not written by either of the villains' creators, Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis. Due to Davis' commitments on The First Lady, Pedler's story notes were developed into the final script by David Whitaker, a veteran Doctor Who screenwriter and the programme's first story editor.

The Wheel in Space received a mixed-to-negative reception, and audiences felt that the Cybermen's appearances had become repetitive. Only episodes 3 and 6 are extant; the rest were junked in the 1970s and thus are missing from the BBC's archives.