Trivia / Doctor Who S5 E7 "The Wheel in Space"

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• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Sadly, despite it being one of the most common legends in fandom, Patrick Troughton did in fact not fluff his lines in Part 6 by referring to "sectional air supply" as "sexual air supply" — listen to the line closely enough and you can tell that he actually is saying the line as intended. That being said, Troughton did do the next best thing to fluffing the line, by getting it technically right but pronouncing it in a way so easy to mishear.
• Fake Nationality: The multinational crew of the Wheel is played almost exclusively by British actors.
  • Eric Flynn puts on a Fake Australian accent to play Leo Ryan.
  • Clare Jenkins puts on a Fake Russian accent to play Tanya Lernov.
  • Michael Goldie seems to be trying for a Dixie accent as Elton Laleham and misses by light years.
  • Donald Sumpter plays Enrico Casali with a fake Italian accent.
  • Derrick Gilbert puts on a fake French accent to play Armand Vallance.
  • Peter Laird puts on Yellow Face and an excruciatingly fake Asian Speekee Engrish to play Chinese crewmember Chang.
  • James Mellor puts on a Fake Irish accent to play Sean Flannigan.
• First Appearance: Of Zoe Heriot.
• Hostility on the Set: New director Tristan de Vere Cole and producer Peter Bryant hated working together, complaining and throwing accusations at each other. In fact, the change of the ship’s crew was a power move by de Vere Cole. He would never work on the show again.
• Missing Episode: Only Episodes Three and Six survive; it is one of the last stories to be missing episodes, as the majority of Season 6 stories survive in their entirety.
• Prop Recycling: The spacesuits worn by Jamie and Zoe were already used for "The Tenth Planet". Years later, they became costumes for bit parts in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally the characters were written as British (and had names such as Nell, Tanya, and Harry) before being rechristened to have the crew feel more international. Examples include Tanya Lerner's surname now being Lernov^note which is incorrect since female Russian surnames have gendered suffixes. It should be Lernova, and Ken being changed to the Asian Chang.
  • The plot was originally supposed to revolve around a battle between the Cybermen and the Daleks, but Terry Nation nixed that idea, wanting to keep the Daleks' supposed extinction in "The Evil of the Daleks" permanent. Of course, the Daleks would eventually come back to fight the Third Doctor, and the Daleks vs. Cybermen battle would become a reality in "Doomsday", 38 years after "The Wheel in Space" aired.
• Working Title: The Space Wheel.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Michael Goldie (Elton Laleham) was Craddock.
  • Clare Jenkins (Tanya Lernov) had played Nanina.

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