Trivia / Doctor Who S4 E1 "The Smugglers"

• Blooper: The first time the secret message is said, Terence de Marney accidentally says "Smallwood, Ringwood, Gurney". Every other time it is spoken it is correctly given as "Smallbeer".
• Creator's Favourite Episode: Anneke Wills named this as her and Michael Craze's favourite story.
• Genre-Killer: While the poor reaction to the previous season's "The Gunfighters" had spelled the end for pure historical stories, this story helped cement their demise by posting the lowest-ever viewing figures for a Doctor Who story until that point, a Medal of Dishonour it would hold for a whopping two decades until "The Mysterious Planet" did even worse. That said, the belief that historicals ended because they were low-rated - a belief that really only became gospel in the 1980s - is not particularly accurate. The series' viewership had been trending mostly downwards since Season 2, and this was merely the point that it bottomed out^note "The Gunfighters" was watched by more people than "The Savages" or "The War Machines", for instance, and both were sci-fi stories.. Patrick Troughton's announcement and the unexpected popularity of the Cybermen seemed to reignite interest in the series, leading to an increase in viewership once more, including for Troughton's only historical story, "The Highlanders".
• Missing Episode: All four episodes are missing, kicking off a season from which no story survives in a complete form. Ironically, the only surviving visual portion of the episodes are the violent scenes, thanks to overseas censorship. There's also some rather interesting colour footage, filmed by a local fan who went to watch the filming and brought his cine-camera.
• Troubled Production: This was during the time when William Hartnell’s poor health was too much to ignore, and after some discussion, it was decided he would leave after this serial. Furthermore, first-time director for the show Julia Smith was intimidated by Hartnell, and during scenes filmed on deck, both cast and crew experienced sea-sickness.