An episode a day keeps the Daleks away.....

471 Underworld Part Two

2012-03-07T00:40:00.001Z

EPISODE: Underworld Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 471
STORY NUMBER: 096
TRANSMITTED: 14 January 1978
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Norman Stewart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Anthony Read
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Myths & Legends: The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon

The cannon penetrates the accreting mass and they escape, sighting & crashing on a planet that has formed round the P7E. The ship ploughs through the surface of the planet becoming wedged in more solid rock closer to the P7E. In the cave tunnels the Trog underclass mine under the guards, who in turn are the slaves of the Seers who serve the Oracle. The Minyans venture into the tunnels, followed by the Doctor & Leela, who meet escaped Trog Idas. Herrick encounters a guard, causing the guard's superiors to pump gas into the tunnels. The Doctor adjusts mining equipment to suck the gas out of the tunnels, but is overcome before he can finish the job.

Part 1 was slow and boring..... but nowhere near as bad as this. Just a bunch of wandering around in tunnels and pumping gas through them, in itself an awful effect. Dire. The observant among you might spot that the guards weapons are Minyan shield guns, minus the shield.

Settle yourself in: virtually the entire cast of this story have Doctor Who form or have done something interesting! James Maxwell, as Jackson, has found infamy post mortem for allegedly haunting Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre. Alan Lake, Herrick, was already well known as Diana Dors third husband. Jonathan Newth, Orfe, now has sci fi form appearing since this story in The Day of the Triffids and Nightmare Man, both of which have strong Who connections behind the scenes. Meanwhile the agent of Imogen Bickford-Smith, Tala, on hearing that Louise Jameson was shortly departing Doctor Who was quick to proclaim his client as the new companion!

James Marcus, Raskl, was a peasant in the Doctor Who serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Godfrey James, Tarn, has a CV as long as your arm involving virtually anything I've ever watched. Jimmy Gardner, Idmon, was Chenchu in Marco Polo while playing his son Idas is Norman Tipton, one of the few actors to play a supporting role in more than one episode of Blake's 7, appearing as Artix in Spacefall & Cygnus Alpha. Jay Neill, Guard Klimt, was a Pikeman in The Masque of Mandragora & Silvey in The Invisible Enemy. Frank Jarvis, Ankh, was a Corporal in DW: The War Machines and Skart in The Power of Kroll. Finally we saw Richard Shaw, Lakh, as Lobos in The Space Museum & Cross in Frontier in Space.

470 Underworld Part One

2012-03-06T07:15:00.002Z

EPISODE: Underworld Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 470
STORY NUMBER: 096
TRANSMITTED: 07 January 1978
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Norman Stewart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Anthony Read
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Myths & Legends: The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon

The Tardis stops on the edges of the cosmos where K-9 detects a spaceship nearby. Narrowly escaping a nebula that is sucking them in they materialise on the ship which the Doctor establishes is from Minyos. The Time Lords actions on Minyos, which led to the populace destroying their planet, led to the Time Lord policy of non interference. On the flight deck the aged Tala is injured as the ship is sucked into the nebula. The Doctor arrives and is attacked by Herrick. Leela goes to attack him but is stopped by the crew's pacifier ray. Tala is taken away to regenerate. They have been tracking a missing ship, the P7E which is carrying the future of their race. They have been on this quest for 10,000 years, regenerating many times. K-9 takes control of the ship and steers it out of the nebula. He reactivates many of the damaged systems, and the restored tracking system locks onto the P7E. They locate the ship in the nebula which the Doctor believes formed round her. They enter the nebula, but the weight of the ship attracts rock to it's hull dramatically increasing it's weight. They use the laser cannon to try to burn their way out but it starts to disintegrate

Slow and boring. Ugh. But there is some nice stuff in here: The ship looks nice as do the shots of the rocks building up round it. The theory behind that is scientifically sound too: Accretion Theory is how planets are believed to be formed and Doctor Who returns to this idea in the Christmas Invasion. For more buy The Planets on DVD. Against that the look of the ship and the feel of Dudley Simpson's music is very Blake's 7. Yeah, I'm sorry but I will keep harping on about it: the two series are intimately linked in feel at this stage of Doctor Who's production and indeed this episode is the first broadcast after Blake's 7's first episode, The Way Back, aired on 2nd January 1978.

As you'll see this story is essentially a giant rip off of any Greek Myth going. At the time Classics was still taught in schools so I suspect a lot of the viewers watching would have got it. The quest at the centre of the story is essentially the story of Jason and the Argonauts and the quest for the Golden Fleece and by this point the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts would have been airing on television regularly. Substituted for the Golden Fleece is Minyan Race Memory bank.... (Minyan = Minoan, as in Minotaur) Hmmm where have we seen a Race Memory Bank before? Hand of Fear, also written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin. Jason becomes Jackson, while Herrick, Orfe & Tala are adaptations of the Argonauts Heracles/Hercules, Orpheus and Talaus. Meanwhile elements of The Odyssey are also included: the quest taking a long time (10 years vs 10,000 years) and the objective being the P7E/Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. Odysseus himself has an on-screen Doctor Who appearance in The Myth Makers, where he was played by Ivor Salter.

You know for every source that Robert Holmes "paid homage to" it's surprising that he never went near Greek Myths. As far as I'm able to tell this story wasn't commissioned under his watch and is wholly the responsibility of incoming script editor Anthony Read, an experienced writer an script editor who was lured back to the BBC by producer Graham Williams. Interestingly when Read leaves the script editor's post and writes for the show he produces a tale based on another Greek myth: Theseus and the Minotaur becomes Horn of the Nimon.

A few episodes back I pointed out that we'd got halfway through the number of episodes broadcast in Tom Baker's stay as the Doctor. Well if you throw in the missing six episodes of Shada, which we'll be talking about at the start of May, that makes this episode, his 89th, the half way point in Tom's reign.

469 The Sun Makers Part Four

2012-03-05T07:06:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Sun Makers Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 469
STORY NUMBER: 095
TRANSMITTED: 17 December 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Sun Makers

The Doctor escapes just in time but Mandrell calling his communicator alerts the Collector & Gatherer to his presence and they send guards to investigate. Bisham reports that the PCM levels are falling dramatically. The Doctor decides to infiltrate the Collector's palace and take control of the public video system. The Collector is agitated at the reports of unrest. Once in the palace the Doctor opens the Collector's safe, but Leela accidentally triggers a booby trap and is stunned. The Doctor broadcasts his message to the Megropolis. Marn is found by the revolutionaries and elects to join them. The Gatherer finds workers on the rooftop of his building but they throw him off it and he falls to his death bellow. The Doctor confronts the Collector who tells him the company, based on the planet Usurius. He recalls that Usurians are a sort of poisonous fungi. The Collector tells how the moved the humans from the Earth, to Mars and then to Pluto. When Pluto's resources are exhausted Pluto and the humans will be abandoned. When the revolution nears the Collector's palace he prepares to release a poison into the atmosphere but is stopped by the Doctor & Leela. The Doctor feeds a growth tax into the Collector's computer forcing him to revert back to his true form and giving the people control of the city.

And all over in a bit of a rush with very little opposition. Indications are, especially given the scene where everyone is running around everyone yelling for K-9, that this episode might have been running a little short. In many ways it's quieter then the others but still has the same levels of humour: Liz joined me for it and was giggling at some of the bits where when she'd watched the story previously she hadn't liked it.

Not exactly your average Doctor Who story at all, much more light and humorous than many. But it works, especially coming as it does after the very dark Image of the Fendahl. I loved it and thought it was great fun. The story came about as a result of an encounter between Robert Holmes and the tax man. Holmes certainly seems to take great joy in humorously pointing the finger at the tax system during it.

The Sunmakers was the last Tom Baker story to be novelised, inevitably by Terrance Dicks, in 1982. That left three stories in his reign un-novelised and we'll come to the first of these very shortly. It was released on video in 2001 and on DVD in August 2011.

After Sunmakers Doctor Who took it's now traditional Christmas break during which Robots of Death was repeated as two fifty minute compilation episodes. This was the last time there would be Doctor Who repeats at Christmas breaking a tradition that stretched back to the Daemons in 1971.

468 The Sun Makers Part Three

2012-03-04T06:50:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Sun Makers Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 468
STORY NUMBER: 095
TRANSMITTED: 10 December 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Sun Makers

Leela is captured by the guards but K-9, Bisham & Cordo escape. The outlaws aren't convinced by the Doctor's story and are about to torture him when Cordo returns. Leela is examined by the Collector's medics who discover she has no identity number. The Doctor, Bisham & Mandrell come up with a plan to take over the PCM main control and stop the gas being pumped into the atmosphere. The Collector interrogates Leela. The Doctor starts to take an interest in the company and who they actually are. He dispatches the outlaws to incite the populace to revolution. The Collector crushes the Gatherer's notions of a rebellion forming and tells him of the Doctor's past activities. The Collector decides to have Leela executed by Public Steaming, intending to trap the Doctor when he rescues her. The Doctor deceives the camera system observing him to believe he is pacing on the same spot while he, K-9, Cordo, Bisham & Mandrell break into central control, overpowering the operators, Synge & Hackett, and shutting down the PCM distribution. Hearing of Leela's execution the Doctor plans a rescue. K-9 travels through a vent and blasts a valve. The Doctor enters the steamer through an access tunnel but is told he has only 2 minutes to rescue Leela. But while inside the condenser system runs wild approaching a catastrophic explosion.....

Ah we've not seen this for a while. As soon as the Doctor is able to he decides to overthrow the government. There's been a bit of the Doctor showing up on alien planets and overthrowing corrupt regimes: Web Planet, The Ark, The Savages, The Macra Terror, The Krotons & The Mutants spring to mind. Up there with Alien Invasion & Base Under Siege it's one of the show's staples yet they've not had a go at doing it for a while now, the Mutants being the last example I can remember. And because Robert Holmes, the inverter of the tissue compression eliminator, is writing this we need to have a novel way to die: So let's steam Leela alive! And while we're at it we can send the Doctor into rescue her in pure 1940s serial style as the cliffhanger at the end of the episode.

The writer has been sneaking little references into the tax system right the way through the material. Here he turns to comedy. The two technicians at PCM control are called Synge & Hackett which is surely a tip of the hat to comedy act Hinge & Brackett!

There's a nice nod to an earlier Holmes tale too: the Collector's computer makes reference to it being a Tellurian colony: Tellurian is the name used for the humans in The Carnival of Monsters.

There's not a lot of returning actors in this series just Tom Kelly, who plays a Guard in the next episode. He was also a Guard in the Doctor Who serial The Face of Evil and will be a Vardan in The Invasion of Time. He was in the Blake's 7 episode Spacefall as Nova, while Adrienne Burgess, who plays Veet here was in the Blake's 7 episode Shadow as Hanna. William Simons - Mandrel - is known outside of Doctor Who for playing PC Alf Ventress in Heartbeat.

467 The Sun Makers Part Two

2012-03-03T06:20:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Sun Makers Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 467
STORY NUMBER: 095
TRANSMITTED: 03 December 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Sun Makers

Cordo flees as the unconscious Doctor is taken away to the correction centre. The Gatherer takes his suspicions of rebellion, sparked by the Tardis' arrival, to the Collector. The Doctor recovers finding himself in a straight jacket with fellow prisoner Bisham. As Leela's time runs out Cordo returns and tells the outlaws what happened. Bisham explains to the Doctor about PCM being pumped into the atmosphere, which he believes eliminates airborne infections. The Doctor recognises it as an anxiety inducing agent. Leela & Cordo go, with K-9, to free the Doctor. The Doctor is freed by the Gatherer who believes he can use the Doctor to find the rebels. On the way to the correction centre Leela starts to feel afraid but K-9 informs her of the presence of the gas interfering with her nervous system. They break into the correction centre but finding the Doctor gone they free Bisham. The Doctor returns to the undercity and is angry that Leela has left to try to find him, but worried by his reappearance with money they threaten him and accuse him with being a spy for the Gatherer. Attempting to escape the correction facility Leela, Cordo, Bisham & K-9 are found by guards.....

Love it, love it, love it. Rolls along nicely, Tom's superb, the "greek chorus" commentary provided by The Gatherer & Marin is on completely the wrong track and is barkingly amusing. My list of episodes tells me this is Tom Baker's 86th episode, which is half way through the number of episodes starring him broadcast.

Look carefully at the circuit board pattern in the Collector's office & the Correction Centre: it's traced from a real circuit board and there's an AMD logo clearly visible! Don't believe me? See for yourself!
Gas released into the air to control the populace? Did Chris Boucher give Bob Holmes a sneak peak at the script of the soon to be transmitted Blake's 7 episode 1: The Way Back? In fact this is the last Doctor Who story to be transmitted before Blake's 7 started. And speaking of which: Ladies and gentlemen: Mister Michael Keating, here playing Gourdy, is the only actor to appear in every episode of Blake's 7, where he plays Vila. Nowadays he's more recognisable for his infrequent appearances in East Enders as Reverend Stevens.

And since another Blake's 7 regular has appeared it's time for the third of our regular looks at the Blake's 7 cast & crew to see who we recognise. Still at the helm as producer & script editor are David Maloney, in his final season, and Chris Boucher. This is the first series without Gareth Thomas as Blake.

EPISODE: C1 Aftermath

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Terry Nation
BROADCAST ON: 07/01/1980

Alan Lake (Chel) Underworld: Herrick
Richard Franklin (Federation Trooper) Mike Yates
Michael Melia (Federation Trooper) The Visitation Terileptil Leader

EPISODE: C2 Powerplay

DIRECTED BY: David Maloney
WRITTEN BY: Terry Nation
BROADCAST ON: 14/01/1980

Michael Sheard (Klegg) He's been in The Ark as Rhos, The Mind of Evil as Dr. Roland Summers, Pyramids of Mars as Laurence Scarman, Invisible Enemy as Supervisor Lowe, Castrovalva as Mergrave & Remembrance of the Daleks as the Headmaster.
John Hollis (Lom) The Mutants: Professor Sondergaard
Primi Townsend (Zee) Pirate Planet: Mula
Helen Blatch (Receptionist) The Deadly Assassin: Matrix Voice & The Twin Dilemma: Fabian

EPISODE: C3 Volcano

DIRECTED BY: Desmond McCarthy
WRITTEN BY: Allan Prior
BROADCAST ON: 21/01/1980

Michael Gough (Hower) Celestial Toymaker: The Toymaker & Arc of Infinity: Hedin

EPISODE: C4 Dawn of the Gods

DIRECTED BY: Desmond McCarthy
WRITTEN BY: James Follett
BROADCAST ON: 28/01/1980

Terry Scully (Groff) Seeds of Death: Fewsham

EPISODE: C5 The Harvest of Kairos

DIRECTED BY: Gerald Blake Directed Abominable Snowmen & Invasion of Time
WRITTEN BY: Ben Steed
BROADCAST ON: 04/02/1980

Andrew Burt (Jarvik) Terminus: Valgard

EPISODE: C6 City at the Edge of the World

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 11/02/1980

Colin Baker (Bayban) Arc of Infinity: Maxill & The Sixth Doctor
Valentine Dyall (Norl) The Armageddon Factor, Mawdryn Undead, Terminus & Enlightenment: The Black Guardian
John J. Carney (Sherm) The Time Warrior: Bloodaxe

EPISODE: C7 Children of Auron

DIRECTED BY: Andrew Morgan Directed Time and the Rani and Remembrance of the Daleks.
WRITTEN BY: Roger Parkes
BROADCAST ON: 18/02/1980

Michael Troughton (Pilot Four Zero) son of Patrick
Ronald Leigh-Hunt (CA One) The Seeds of Death: Commander Radnor & Revenge of the Cybermen: Commander Stevenson

EPISODE: C8 Rumours of Death

DIRECTED BY: Fiona Cumming Directed Castrovalva, Snakedance, Enlightenment & Planet of Fire
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 25/02/1980

John Bryans (Shrinker) Creature from the Pit: Torvin
Donald Douglas (Grenlee) The Sontaran Experiment: Vural
David Haig (Forres) The Leisure Hive: Pangol

EPISODE: C9 Sarcophagus

DIRECTED BY: Fiona Cumming
WRITTEN BY: Tanith Lee
BROADCAST ON: 03/03/1980

No Doctor Who cast involved.

EPISODE: C10 Ultraworld

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Trevor Hoyle
BROADCAST ON: 10/03/1980

Ian Barritt (Ultra 3) The Unicorn & The Wasp: Professor Peach

EPISODE: C11 Moloch

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Ben Steed
BROADCAST ON: 17/03/1980

Deep Roy (Moloch) Talons of Weng Chiang: Mr Sin
Davyd Harries (Doran) The Armageddon Factor: Shapp

EPISODE: C12 Death-Watch

DIRECTED BY: Gerald Blake
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 24/03/1980

Stewart Bevan (Max) The Green Death: Professor Cliff Jones
David Sibley (Commentator) Pralix: The Pirate Planet

EPISODE: C13 Terminal

DIRECTED BY: Mary Ridge Directed Terminus
WRITTEN BY: Terry Nation Last Blake's 7 script
BROADCAST ON: 31/03/1980

No Doctor Who cast involved.

It'll be a while before the final one of these comes up during the Two Doctors (22nd - 24th August if all is well).

466 The Sun Makers Part One

2012-03-02T07:15:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Sun Makers Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 466
STORY NUMBER: 095
TRANSMITTED: 26 November 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Sun Makers

On the human colony on the planet Pluto citizen Cordo hears of his father's death but when he goes to pay the death taxes he finds he hasn't enough money. In despair he goes to throw himself off a tower block but is prevented from doing so by the arrival of the Doctor & Leela. He tells them how the company runs the planet, are responsible for the artificial suns and tax the population to death. The Tardis is detected and the Gatherer investigates with the Doctor, Leela & Cordo fleeing to the under city, where Cordo goes to join a group of outlaws. They are captured and taken to the group's leader Mandrel. K-9 exits the Tardis and is detected by the Gatherer. The Doctor is sent to use a stolen Consumcard, with the threat that if he's not back within a certain time they will kill Leela. K-9 finds the Doctor & Cordo but the stolen Consumcard is detected and the Doctor is gassed.

Ah now that's just fabulous, really is. For a episode that opens with someone's father dying, moves into despair at not affording taxes and gets to an attempted suicide then followed up by a bit of cashpoint fraud, it rolls along at a nice pace and is bright and funny. Of particular note is Richard Leech's fabulous performance as the Gatherer. As he & Marn find the Tardis and speculate on why it's here it forms a perverse commentary to the story. I'm reminded somewhat of Paul Whitsun-Jones in the Mutants. There the character was nasty and malicious, here it works.

I saw the cash machine at the end of this episode and thought "isn't 1977 a little early for cash machines?" A little research reveals the first one was used in the UK in 1967!

A couple of notes on the end credits: firstly there's no script editor credited because Robert Holmes is the writer of this story. I also see a first visual effects credit for Peter Logan who I believe to be the same Peter Logan who appears with his exploding paste on Braniac Science Abuse

As we previously said the production order for this season was vastly different from the transmission order. Sunmakers was recorded third, after Horror of Fang Rock (broadcast first) and before Image of the Fendahl (broadcast third, before this story). Apparently Sunmakers was due to be broadcast third but someone realised that meant there were two "humans in space" stories on the trot so it was swapped with Image of the Fendahl.

It's quite possible that my earliest memory of Doctor Who, of the Doctor meeting K-9 in a tunnel, comes from this episode.

The former Wills Tobacco Factory in Bristol provides the building top location seen in this and other episodes as well as the long corridor seen in the second & third episodes. Meanwhile the round tunnels with the odd wall structure are part of Camden Town Deep Level Shelter in London.

465 Image of the Fendahl Part Four

2012-03-01T07:13:00.002Z

EPISODE: Image of the Fendahl Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 465
STORY NUMBER: 094
TRANSMITTED: 19 November 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: George Spenton-Foster
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Image of the Fendahl

The Doctor blasts the Fendahleen monster with John Tyler's shotgun filled with rocksalt enabling them to escape. Thea is transformed into a glowing gold being. She consumes the cult, turning them into small Fendahleen monsters. The Doctor & Leela free Colby but are unable to save Stael who is beginning to transform but he kills himself with his gun, preventing Thea's complete transformation. The Doctor deactivates the scanner. Mrs Tyler seeks out salt for the Doctor, with Jack loading some into his cartridges. The Doctor tells Colby of how the Time Lords destroyed the fifth planet to kill the Fendahl but it had already travelled to Earth, possibly via Mars, and had effected mankind's evolution. Leela & Jack destroy a Fendahleen that approaches the lab. The Doctor sends Jack & Ma Tyler away. The Doctor has Colby run the scanner for two minutes and leave, having set it to self destruct three minutes later. He & Leela venture into the cellar, armed with salt to protect them from the Fendahleen. They seize the skull, placing it in a radiation proof box, and flee the house, subjected to psychic assault by the Fendahl core. A huge explosion consumes the house, the Fendahl core and the remaining Fendahleen. The Doctor takes the skull and dumps it into a star going supernova.

Huzzah, that was a bit more like it. Things finally get going with a bit of action, some humour between Colby & the Tylers (I can see young Rusty D sitting at home and thinking "oooh, that's a good surname!") and it just worked. Unfortunately we get another alien race possibly affecting human evolution like the Daemons. Did the Chronovore Kronos do it too? They'll be another along shortly in the form of Scaroth.

I'm trying to work out why I don't like this story so much and I'm pretty certain it's down to the occult trappings involved. I just didn't engage with the first three episodes that well. I'm also not 100% sure it was a good idea to remove K-9 just after introducing him, setting a rather bad precedent: Power of Kroll, Destiny of the Daleks, City of Death and the Leisure Hive !!!!!

Image of the Fendahl is the first Doctor Who directing job for George Spenton-Foster but it's the last script for the series from Chris Boucher who would go on to script edit Blake's 7 and create Star Cops. It's also the last serial script edited by Robert Holmes although the following story The Sunmakers, which was written by Holmes himself, was made before this one. He'll continue to contribute scripts to the show right up until his death in 1986.

Image of the Fendahl was novelised by Terrance Dicks and I have distinct memories buying it on a holiday to Littlehampton when I was younger. It was released on video in March 1993 and on DVD in April 2009.

464 Image of the Fendahl Part Three

2012-02-29T07:38:00.000Z

EPISODE: Image of the Fendahl Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 464
STORY NUMBER: 094
TRANSMITTED: 12 November 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: George Spenton-Foster
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Image of the Fendahl

Leela finds the Doctor knocking him away from the skull and severing it's influence. The Doctor thinks the skull is a creature called a Fendahl that feeds on life energy. The Doctor believes they have 100 hours of the scanners operations before it starts causing real problems but Fendelman explains to Colby that they've used nearly 99 hours of scan time already. Stael has bought a bound Thea to a chamber under the house. He intends to use her to control the ancient power he worships. The Doctor goes to see Mrs Tyler and speaks to her about her experiences. Stael tells Fendelman to turn the scanner off, holding them at gunpoint but Colby co-operates. They are taken to the room bellow the house where Thea is chained to a pentagram on the floor and chained up as the other cult members arrive at the house. The Doctor & Leela travel in the Tardis to the fifth planet of the solar system, the Fendahl's home, but find it's been time looped. Fendelman realises his name is a result of the Fendahl's manipulation and that he, and all mankind, have been used. John & Mrs Tyler enter the house hearing the gunshot as Stael kills Fendelman. The Doctor & Leela join them as an eerie noise echoes down the corridor. They find themselves immobilised as a Fendahleen monster approaches them.....

Hmmm. This episode plays an old trick by introducing a countdown to try to give things a sense of urgency. Unfortunately the machine the count down relates to spends a large proportion of the episode switched off! Maybe mentioning that Earth could stand around 100 hours of the time distortion effect earlier in the story might have been a better idea?

Liz joined me during this episode and remarked that Ma Tyler (Daphne Heard) and Jack Tyler (Geoffrey Hinsliff, who she failed to recognise despite many years of her Mum & sister watching Corrie) are probably the best Yokels seen in Doctor Who so far. And she's right, they are. They get the country feel down to a tee without edging too far into comedy. We also spotted the "Jack/John" interchangeability going on in this episode. When we named our son Jonathan my Mother would not have it that Jack was an acceptable diminutive form of the name!

If all goes to plan this entry will be published on February 29th 2012, a leap day. This immediately made me think has Doctor Who ever been shown on a leap day? The leap days in the show's original run were in 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984 & 1988 with one in 2008 during the new series run. Just one of those dates had an episode of Doctor Who shown on it, the very first. On Saturday 29th February 1964 015 Marco Polo Part 2: The Singing Sands was broadcast.

463 Image of the Fendahl Part Two

2012-02-28T07:17:00.001Z

EPISODE: Image of the Fendahl Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 463
STORY NUMBER: 094
TRANSMITTED: 05 November 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: George Spenton-Foster
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Image of the Fendahl

The Doctor escapes the power holding him. Leela was shot at by Ted Moss, she wrestles the gun from him but both are caught by Jack Tyler wanting to know what they are doing in Gran's cottage on the estate. Colby find Ransome in an entranced state and entering the kitchen they find security team leader Mitchell dead, also with a blister on his neck. The Doctor enters as Thea collapses to the floor glowing with snake like creatures materialising near her before vanishing. The Doctor identifies them as embryo Fendahleen from the destroyed fifth planet in the solar system. Doctor Fendelman has the Doctor locked up. Leela tells her story to Jack Tyler who sends Ted Moss, who'd come for something from Mrs Tyler, on his way. Colby decides to call the police but finds the phone line cut. Fendelman tells them he believe the skull is extra terrestrial in origin. The Doctor escapes and overheard Stael & Moss talking: they are both members of a local coven. Ted Moss' Gran returns, scared out of her wits. Fendelman has found a pentagram in the structure of the skull by X-raying it. Thea finds herself drawn towards the X-Ray image, but is found by Stael who chloroforms her saying she is the chosen one. The Doctor finds the skull which starts to glow in his presence and draws his hand towards it....

In an odd way this is feeling a little "bitty" and isn't flowing that well for me so far. Sorry. Not a lot of Doctor and not a lot of Leela in the episode, and they spend no time together.

Dr. Fendelman is played by Denis Lill who'll return as Sir George Hutchinson in The Awakening. Famous for his role in Survivors, he used to live in my former home town of Kingston and one of my brothers went to school with his daughter. Maximilian Stael is played by Scott Fredericks who previously was Boaz in Day of the Daleks. Like the Hiker in episode 1, Graham Simpson, he also appears in the Blake's 7 episode Weapon. Wanda Ventham okays Thea Ransome. She'll e familiar to science fiction fans as Col. Virginia Lake in the later half of UFO and returns to Doctor Who as Faroon in Time and the Rani. She's the mother of Benedict Cumberbatch, TV's Sherlock. Probably the most famous face in this, to the general public at least, is Geoffrey Hinsliff, playing Jack Tyler. He'll be back as Fisk in Nightmare of Eden but spent several years playing Don Brennan in Coronation Street.

462 Image of the Fendahl Part One

2012-02-27T07:32:00.000Z

EPISODE: Image of the Fendahl Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 462
STORY NUMBER: 094
TRANSMITTED: 29 October 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: George Spenton-Foster
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Image of the Fendahl

A research team works on an incredibly ancient skull, older than humanity itself. As they subject it to tests it starts to glow. In nearby woods a hiker encounters a creature in nearby woods which kills him as one of the scientists, Thea Ransome, collapses. The Tardis finds itself dragged off course by a time scan in operation and when the Doctor traces the source to Earth he decides to investigate. The hiker's body is found by the research team who's head, Dr. Fendelman, summons a security team from London and orders Stael to perform an autopsy on the rapidly decomposing body, but no cause of death can be found, bar an odd blister on the neck. Leela & The Doctor encounter local Ted Moss who fills them in on the research establishment. Adam Colby & Thea Ransome object to the security restrictions placed on them and Adam takes the matter up with Dr. Fendelman, he explains his instrumentation can allow him to see into the past. Thea goes to look at the equipment and as she adjusts in the skull begins to glow. Outside the Doctor & Leela are attempting to enter the house the research team is based in. Leela enters the house and is shot at while outside the Doctor remains rooted to the spot as something advances on him.

Lots of dark woods and glowing skulls with people taking the law into their own hands plus a mysterious force diverting the Tardis off track. Can't really go wrong with that can you? The only fly in the ointment is that, for the second story in a row, we have a professor with a slightly dodgy foreign accent!

Even when I can't find an actor has been in Doctor Who before or since it's usually easy to find something about them. For example Security Team leader David Mitchell is played by Derek Martin who goes on to be Charlie Slater in Eastenders. But every so often you see an odd claim on Wikipedia that you can't be 100% sure is true. We have the hiker who appears in this episode, played by actor Graham Simpson, who's also in the Blake's 7 episode Weapon (with the same writer & director as this one). Wikipedia believes that this Graham Simpson later became a businessmanand went on to chair Watford football club! I've done some research and I'm not 100% convinced the Wikipedia entry is right but neither am I convinced that it's definitely wrong.

Location filming for this story once again takes place at Stargrove Manor, then the home of Mick Jagger. It had been used two years previously as the locations for Pyramids of Mars.

461 The Invisible Enemy Part Four

2012-02-26T00:44:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Invisible Enemy Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 461
STORY NUMBER: 093
TRANSMITTED: 22 October 1977
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Derrick Goodwin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: K9 Tales Box Set (Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company)

With the Nucleus removed from his brain the Doctor returns to normal. The Nucleus proclaims that the age of the virus has begun and leaves for Titan to spawn. Leela frees the Doctor, and he works out that cells absorbed from the Leela clone have granted him immunity. Duplicating the immunity they free Marius from the Virus' control and they leave in the Tardis with K-9 bound for Titan. Lowe catches The Doctor trying to throw the immunity serum into the Virus's hatching chamber but but K-9 shoots Lowe causing him to fall into the chamber. The Doctor destroys the Titan base to prevent the virus from spreading further by setting a booby trap and he, Leela & K-9 escape in the Tardis to the Bi-Al foundation. Professor Marius tells the Doctor that he needs to leave soon for Earth and gives K-9 to the Doctor & Leela

Oh dear. This episode is ruined by the monster: The Virus Nucleus when grown to full size is a giant prawn and looks ridiculous. The poor man inside the suit is regular Dalek operator John Scott Martin and I'm afraid it's not his finest hour. What it reminds me of, well apart from a prawn, is the Argond Dragon costumes worn in The Adventure Game, an effect compounded by the sets of the Bi Al foundation also reminding me of the Arg sets from the same program! And as the Nucleus is led through the corridors it's crying out "Faster, we must go faster, the time for spawning is very close" and sounds just like an expectant mother being rushed to hospital. No, this is bad cheap comedy. And talking of cheap what about the special effect that destroys the Titan base? The initial explosion, after the model has been removed from shot, is one of the worst ever a complete damp squid. It should be the big one that follows a few moments later. And *then* the excruciating "Tardis trained" joke to close with? Ugh. I'm not watching an awful US show that has to close on a joke every week.

There's some good concepts in this story: a controlled Doctor, a virus achieving life size. Unfortunately they reach too far in presenting inside the Doctor's body in episode three and then episode 4 looks like there's no money left at all. Frederick Jaeger's comedy mad professor performance doesn't help either! It's director Derrick Goodwin's sole Doctor Who job and the only science fiction I can spot in a career mainly spent directing & producing comedy.

Invisible Enemy was repeated the next summer on Thursdays from 13 July to 3 August at 7pm. It was novelised by Terrance Dicks and released on video in September 2002. In September 2008 it was released on DVD in Doctor Who: K9 Tales Box Set with K9 and Company. The initial pressing of the DVD were faulty (see episode 3) and led to a recall & replacement by 2 Entertain.

460 The Invisible Enemy Part Three

2012-02-25T07:38:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Invisible Enemy Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 460
STORY NUMBER: 093
TRANSMITTED: 15 October 1977
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Derrick Goodwin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: K9 Tales Box Set (Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company)

The cloned Doctor & Leela make for the Doctor's brain. K-9 is controlled by the virus and stuns Leela, allowing Lowe & his virus controlled medics enter the ward and take control of Marius. Marius clones Lowe, shrinks the clone and injects him into the Doctor too where he pursues the Doctor & Leela. The Doctor confronts the virus nucleus in the Doctor's brain, while Leela protects them from the pursuing Lowe clone which is consumed by antibodies. As the clones expire the Nucleus escapes through the Doctor's tear duct and is increased to human size by Marius.

I can see the conversation now: Robert Holmes says to Bob Baker & Dave Martin "Let's do a homage to Fantastic Voyage!" which is what we get here. In many ways it's similar to Deadly Assassin 3: take the Doctor away from the main action, stick him in an unusual environment and throw some threats at him. Unfortunately what they're trying to do needs a few more pounds thrown at it: some not too brilliant sets and far too much dodgy CSO. Unfortunately the results didn't put them off so CSO providing the scenery will make a return later in the series.

When this story was released on DVD there was a disc fault at the end of this episode, which necessitated a recall & replacement. Anyone who had to return their copy to 2 Entertain was compensated with a free copy of The Hand of Fear on DVD.

Due to the problems with the previously broadcast story, The Horror of Fang Rock, this story was made first, although it was broadcast second. Following Fang Rock the fourth story, The Sunmakers, was recorded and then the third, The Image of the Fendahl, with the final two stories , Underworld & Invasion of Time, being made in the order they were broadcast.

These last two episodes feature series regular supporting artist Pat Gorman in a credited role as a Medic.

459 The Invisible Enemy Part Two

2012-02-24T01:10:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Invisible Enemy Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 459
STORY NUMBER: 093
TRANSMITTED: 08 October 1977
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Derrick Goodwin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: K9 Tales Box Set (Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company)

The Virus orders the Doctor to attack Leela but after wildly firing the gun he collapses, with a strange hairy growth on his hands. He puts himself into a trance to preserve his strength. Lowe, concealing the growth round his eyes with a visor, helps Leela take the Doctor to the Tardis and they journey to the Bi-Al foundation in the asteroid belt to seek help for the Doctor. He is taken to their isolation ward for treatment while Lowe is sent to the eye section. Professor Marius examines the Doctor assisted by his robot dog/computer K-9, who detects the Doctor's alien origins and the virus infection. The Doctor awakes while being examined and deduces how he was infected in the Tardis. Lowe infects the staff treating him. Leela seeks the Doctor but is prevented from seeing him by K-9, until Marius arrives. He wishes to have Leela scanned to discover why she is immune. Lowe and his infected medics approach where the Doctor is being treated. A second shuttle is infected by the organism and crashed into the Bi-Al space station isolating the level the Doctor is on. Lowe's team find a way round through a service shaft. Leela attacks the approaching infected medics. The Doctor has Marius clone himself and Leela. K-9 takes over the defence of the ward. Lowe issues Marius with an ultimatum and gives him 2 minutes to surrender. The Doctor clone fetches some equipment from the Tardis which he uses to shrink both himself and the Leela clone which are injected into the real Doctor as Lowe tells Marius that his time is up.

Want to tell me how, even armed with the co-ordinates, Leela managed to fly the Tardis to the Bi-Al foundation? No I don't know either, and that's the distinct impression I got from the episode watching it.

But what this episode is most famous for is the introduction of K-9, Professor Marius' mobile dog shaped computer. He's often presented as Doctor Who's answer to R2-D2 in Star Wars, but at the time of the story's writing Star Wars was still a few months in the future and at the point of broadcast (8th October 1977) had yet to be released in the UK (27th December 1977). The mechanical prop became the bane of the show's existence but it's voice artist, actor John Leeson (who also voices the Virus Nucleus) was a big hit crawling around on the floor in rehearsals in place of the prop. Up until Doctor Who his best known role was as Bungle in Rainbow but while in Doctor Who would also voice Jigg in Jigsaw, a children's series created by former Doctor Who vision mixer Clive Doig, alongside presenter Janet Ellis (Horns of the Nimon) and O-Man Sylvester McCoy (The Seventh Doctor).

We're still a year (in program time) away from the point where I started watching the show, but this episode represents the first piece of Doctor Who I saw from before I started watching it. In 1980ish a section from this episode, the piece where Leela meets K-9, was played on a Saturday morning TV program. It was almost certainly Noel Edmonds' Multi-Coloured Swap Shop and I suspect was in connection with the BBC announcing plans to write K-9 out of the series which was met with much protest in the media.

One actor & character is only seen in this episode: Kenneth Waller who plays the medic Hedges. He later plays "Old" Mr. Grace in the famed sitcom Are You Being Served?. Meanwhile K-9 creator Professor Marius is played by Frederick Jaeger who was Jano in The Savages and Sorenson in Planet of Evil. His performance is a somewhat stereotypical mad scientist and owes some debt to Professor Heinz Wolff who was making a name for himself on television when this program aired, later going on to present The Great Egg Race. Marius's assistant Parsons is played by Roy Herrick who was Jean in The Reign of Terror and one of the voices of Xoanon in The Face of Evil.

458 The Invisible Enemy Part One

2012-02-23T07:30:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Invisible Enemy Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 458
STORY NUMBER: 093
TRANSMITTED: 01 October 1977
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Derrick Goodwin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: K9 Tales Box Set (Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company)

As a shuttle ferries a relief crew to the base on Titan it passes through an unidentified organism which infects the crew. Arriving on Titan they kill three of the crew. The station supervisor, Lowe, sees what is happening and sends a mayday call which the Tardis receives. The Tardis passes through the same organism with a strange glow enveloping the Doctor. He too has been infected by the virus and passes out. Leela however proves immune. The Tardis lands on Titan, bearing the Doctor who is to be the host for the virus. The Doctor recovers conciousness , but Leela is worried by his odd behaviour. Lowe confronts the relief crew, killing one of them, and is chased away. The Doctor & Leela find the body, and then the remaining two members of the relief crew who are preparing a hive for the nucleus. The Virus orders Leela destroyed and the controlled Doctor takes a blaster to kill her. Leela finds & rescues Lowe. The Doctor tries to resist the virus. Leela kills one of the relief crew but as he dies he infects Lowe. As Lowe & Leela try to escape a controlled Doctor advances on Leela bearing his gun .....

The first thing I thought as I saw this was "Have I switched on an episode of Blakes' 7 by mistake?". Of course the BBC's other science fiction show was still a few months in the future when this episode first aired but the effects and sound of the episode are so similar. We get a new Tardis control room, back in it's traditional white and it's an interesting moment for me seeing it on screen because this is the control room I was used to when I was growing up and watching Doctor Who, complete with the two part sliding cover for the large monitor screen on one wall. We're getting very close now to the point where there's episodes I saw as a child, in fact the first complete story I ever saw is just one season away. Unfortunately with the new console room comes a very dodgy motion on the time rotor which visibly wobbles from side to side!

You know what's always annoyed me about the the shuttles in this story: why have they got their bay doors open? It just looks odd!

As an episode it's competent enough and the idea of the Doctor controlled by an alien force is a good one that I don't think we've seen before.

We've seen two of the relief crew before: Brian Grellis plays Safran, the one who survives beyond this episode, and he was Sheprah in Revenge of the Cybermen and will be the Megaphone Man in Snakedance while Jay Neill, here playing Silvey, was a Pikeman in The Masque of Mandragora and Guard Klimt in Underworld. The third member of the crew, Meeker, is played by Edmund Pegge who while not being in Doctor Who before has appeared in Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks' Moonbase 3 and will appear in the David Maloney produced Day of the Triffids.

But by far the most famous face in this episode is our old friend Michael Sheard, back for his fourth Doctor Who guest role as Station Supervisor Lowe. He's been in The Ark as Rhos, The Mind of Evil as Dr. Roland Summers & Pyramids of Mars as Laurence Scarman and will return in Castrovalva as Mergrave & Remembrance of the Daleks as the Headmaster. And in amongst his quickly massacred Titan Base crew I spot another old friend, Harry 'aitch Fielder. Before this story is done several of Doctor Who's other "Supporting Artists" will have put in an appearance!

457 Horror of Fang Rock Part Four

2012-02-22T07:20:00.002Z

EPISODE: Horror of Fang Rock Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 457
STORY NUMBER: 092
TRANSMITTED: 24 September 1977
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Horror of Fang Rock

"Reuben" climbs the light house and kills Vince on the lamp gallery. The Doctor finds an alien power relay which he thinks is being used as a distress beacon. He orders the survivors to assemble in the lamp room, but while collecting Skinsdale & Adelaide, Leela is cornered by Reuben in the crew room. He kills Adelaide, but Leela & Skinsdale escape. The Doctor gets them to scatter powder from maroons down the stairs. He confronts "Reuben" who is revealed to be a Rutan, the ancient enemy of the Sontarans. The Rutan tells him that a mothership is on the way to Earth. The Doctor ignites the powder injuring the Rutan and driving it off. They decide convert the lighthouse lamp into a laser using diamonds carried by Palmerdale. The Doctor & Skinsdale go to the crew room to get the diamonds from Palmerdale's body. The Doctor takes the largest diamond and returns to the lamp room, but Skinsdale is killed trying to gather up the remaining ones. Leela kills the Rutan with a distress rocket. A glowing orange sphere approaches Fang Rock which the Doctor identifies as the Rutan mothership. The Doctor destroys it with his makeshift laser, but the blast temporarily blinds Leela permanently changing her eye colour from brown to blue.

Huzzah it's a Rutan! We've heard about the Rutans in the previous two Sontaran stories (Time Warrior & Sontaran Experiment) so it's nice to see them on screen at last. It's not a bad episode at all but I'm a little concerned about the diamonds: I can believe Palmerdale would carry them as insurance but it's not referred to until the point it's needed. Now if Palmerdale had tried to bribe Vince with a diamond in the previous episode, and the Doctor had found the diamond, damaged by the Rutan perhaps, on the the gallery floor giving him the idea for the laser.... Hang the gun on the wall, use the gun later. It's a minor point but it's still there.

In some ways Horror of Fang Rock could be described as formulaic Doctor Who done by the numbers: Base Under Siege, isolated location with a small group of people who are bumped off one by one. Maybe, it is but it's done so well here that you just don't care. Easily one of the best Base Under Siege stories and also the first story where every member of the guest cast dies:

Reuben - killed at the end of episode 2
Vince - episode 4
Ben - episode 1
Lord Palmerdale - episode 3
James Skinsdale - episode 4
Adelaide Lessage - episode 4
Harker - end of episode 3

The only survivors are the unseen remaining members of the boat crew, the Doctor and Leela, who's eye colour is changed in order to get rid of the contact lenses Louise Jameson had been wearing for the role and was having difficulty with.

Horror of Fang Rock was novelised by Terrance Dicks. It was released on video in July 1998 and on DVD in January 2005. The documentary on Terrance Dicks in this set comes especially recommended and is one of my favourite special features on the DVDs.

456 Horror of Fang Rock Part Three

2012-02-21T05:53:00.000Z

EPISODE: Horror of Fang Rock Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 456
STORY NUMBER: 092
TRANSMITTED: 17 September 1977
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Horror of Fang Rock

The Doctor searches for the missing Reuben, but while he is away Harker, working in the boiler room, is passed by the old lighthouse keeper looking rather odd. The Doctor pursues him through the lighthouse but he locks himself in his room and is bathed in a green glow. Palmerdale bribes Vince into sending a message for him. Harker & Leela lock them all in the lighthouse, bolting the door. While standing on the lamp gallery Palmerdale is killed by the creature. Leela tries to batter in the door of Reuben's room. Vince discovers Palmerdale is missing. The Doctor tells everyone the truth but they doubt his story. The Doctor, Harker & Skinsdale go to investigate leaving Adelaide with Leela. They find Palmerdale's body outside and secure the door. A distraught Adelaide accuses Skinsdale of killing him. Skinsdale admits to wrecking the telegraph to prevent Palmerdale from contacting his broker. Reuben enters the boiler room and advances on Harker. The Doctor deduces that Palmerdale was electrocuted and that the creature must have climbed the outside of the lighthouse. Vince notices the boiler pressure has fallen, and investigating the Doctor finds Harker's body. Then in the coal store he finds Reuben's body which has been dead for hours. From that he deduces that the alien has assumed Reuben's form and is locked in with them.

Yes it's more of the same, but it's so good that you don't mind. And of course in this episode the body count is starting to rise a bit.....

This story is the first one shown, although as we've seen not the first one made, with Graham Williams listed as producer. He'd come from a writing & script editing background and had just created the series Target for the BBC when production of that ran into trouble at the point that Philip Hinchcliffe attracted some controversy for stories produced under his watch on Doctor Who. So Williams, who had expected to produce Target, found himself on Doctor Who with his baby in Hinchcliffe's hands. No sooner had he arrived than the Vampire crisis (see episode 1) hit the show well and truly plunging him in at the deep end!

455 Horror of Fang Rock Part Two

2012-02-20T07:36:00.002Z

EPISODE: Horror of Fang Rock Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 455
STORY NUMBER: 092
TRANSMITTED: 10 September 1977
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Horror of Fang Rock

While The Doctor aids the stricken boat Leela spots a glowing green creature on the beach. The Passengers on the boat, Lord Palmerdale, James Skinsale and Palmerdale's secretary Adelaide Lessage, are brought to the lighthouse. Reuben tells the Doctor & Leela the legend of the Beast of Fang Rock. Palmerdale is racing to get to London before the stock markets open but the Doctor tells him he has no chance. One of the ship's crew, Harker, finds Ben's body in the sea. Palmerdale demands Harker take them back to sea but he refuses. Returning to the beach the Doctor examines the evidence and tries to work out what they are facing. He believes it was attracted from the sea to the lighthouse by the electricity powering the light. Palmerdale tries to bribe Harker to send a message back to London but once again he refuses. The Doctor tells the refugees from the boat that the lighthouse is under attack, that they may die and they must stay inside. A cold descends on the lighthouse, the electric lights fail and from the boiler room comes the sound of Reuben screaming....

So continuing from where we left off: chuck a few new characters into the mix, one of whom is thoroughly unpleasant. Yes you can tell from here that they're all just fodder for the monster because there's no way the light house crew would keep it occupied for four episode. Ratchet up the tension and end on a blood curdling scream. Job done. And done really rather well indeed. The description above doesn't do the episode justice: it works and works very well.

One of the newcomers to the lighthouse has previous & future form on the series: Playing James Skinsdale is Alan Rowe who was previously in The Moonbase as both Dr. Evans & the Space Control voice and then The Time Warrior as Edward of Wessex. He'll be back in Full Circle as Decider Garif.

454 Horror of Fang Rock Part One

2012-02-19T07:06:00.000Z

EPISODE: Horror of Fang Rock Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 454
STORY NUMBER: 092
TRANSMITTED: 03 September 1977
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Horror of Fang Rock

At an isolated lighthouse, keeper Vince sees a purple light streak across the sky but is ridiculed by his fellow keepers Ben & Reuben. As fog surrounds the island the Tardis arrives bearing the Doctor & Leela. The lighthouse's electric supply is drained causing the light to cut out and attracting the Doctor's attention. Something enters the lighthouse and attacks Ben. The Doctor offers his assistance fixing the generator, but in doing so they realise Ben is missing and the Doctor goes to find him, but instead finds his body, killed by a massive electric shock. The Keepers believes the generator is responsible but the Doctor thinks an alien is among them. Reuben is suspicious of the Doctor & Leela. Vince tells the Doctor of the light he saw in the sky and how the fog & cold arrived. Exploring the beach Leela finds a number of electrocuted fish and is stalked by something. Vince finds Ben's body has disappeared which spooks him. A boat is sighted not far off the island and unable to alter course runs aground.

A small group of people, an isolated location and an alien menace bumping people off. That means one thing - It's "Base Under Siege" time! And this one's fab. It helps by looking decent and tapping into the BBC's natural ability to do period drama well by setting it around the start of the 20th century. So a limited number of sets and characters, all of which we know what they should look like, help this look really good.

Of the three man Lighthouse crew, two have been in Doctor Who before: Reuben is played by Colin Douglas who was Donald Bruce in The Enemy of the World, while the already deceased Ben is played by Ralph Watson who was the Generator Scientist in The Underwater Menace, Captain Knight in The Web of Fear and Ettis in The Monster of Peladon. The third member of the team, John Abbott playing Vince. He's been in loads of things but what most people will have seen him in is as the vicar at the end of Four Weddings & a Funeral.

By an odd coincidence both the first & last stories of this season have pretty interesting tales of how they came to be both involving scripts written in a hurry and recording outside of Doctor Who's usual studios. Script editor Robert Holmes commissioned his old friend (and former Doctor Who script editor) Terrance Dicks to write a story based on one of the few horror tales they hadn't previously "paid homage to" over the last few years: Dracula. Dicks duly supplied the scripts for "The Witch Lords"/"The Vampire Mutation" only to then have the story spiked (staked?) when high ups at the BBC realised it would be airing at a similar time to the prestigious adaptation of the original story, Count Dracula. So Terrance Dicks was sent away to write another script in an extreme hurry and given the instruction to "set it in a light house". The following story, Invisible Enemy, was pulled into production early to give the production crew some extra time.... At this point it was discovered that there would be no studio space at Television Centre to record the story so for the first and only time in the show's history they decamped to the Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham to record the story. Dicks' original script went into a drawer where it stayed for three years ..... Come back on the 19th May to find out what happened to it!

453 The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Six

2012-02-18T07:31:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 453
STORY NUMBER: 091
TRANSMITTED: 02 April 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

Leela is overcome by "Weng Chiang's" chloroform. He speaks with the Doctor who uses the Trionic lattice to bargain with him for him to be taken to the House of the Dragon so that Jago & Litefoot can be released. A recovering Leela follows them. When they arrive the Doctor tells "Weng Chiang" that he has been to his time, and gets him to admit that he is Magnus Greel, the butcher of Brisbane. The Doctor tells him his experiments were a failure. He is reunited with his friends but Mr Sin attacks them with a laser cannon hidden in a statue and they are imprisoned. Greel uses the retrieved Trionic lattice to reactivate the time cabinet. Leela attacks Greel but she too is captured and placed into the chamber Greel uses to absorb life force. Using a sabotaged gas pipe the Doctor creates an explosion allowing Jago, Litefoot & himself to escape. The Doctor rescues Leela from the machine, but Mr Sin opens fire on them again. Greel is shot at by Sin and ends up being thrown into the machine by the Doctor & drained. Mr Sin attacks them but is overpowered by the Doctor and deactivated. He then destroys the Trionic lattice rendering the Time Cabinet useless & no further threat. The Doctor & Leela take leave of Jago & Litefoot who watch them enter the Tardis & dematerialise.

Let me see if I get this straight: Mr Sin, because Greel won't let him kill the Doctor, suddenly looses it and opens fire on everyone? Bwah? Yes there's been hints he might be a bit unstable but this is a huge dive off the deep end . And, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the Doctor throw Greel into the machine which drains his life energy? There again the Doctor was probably not expecting that to happen because not five minutes earlier he threw an axe at the machine, seemingly crippling it and allowing him to rescue Leela. Yeah that's a little bit of a mess and a rush, obviously hoping we'll look the other way while the action happens. And oh look, there's the Doctor turning his pockets out *AGAIN*. Seen that routine a couple of times now.

Talons of Weng Chiang is a huge fan favourite story. Even Liz loves it, barring the casting of an English actor John Bennett as the lead Chinese character Li H'sen Chang and *that* Giant Rat, which I don't mind. However the story has never really grabbed and watching it again episodically I'm still not feeling any great love for it.

This completes three years of Tom Baker as Doctor Who taking him past, in terms of time, William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton's tenures as the Doctor. Jon Pertwee did five years but at the moment all three are ahead of Tom in terms of episodes.

This story is the last for two members of the behind the scenes personnel. Producer Philip Hinchcliffe leaves as of the end of this story, bound for the troubled new series Target. Target's creator, and intended producer, Graham Williams moves the other way becoming the producer of Doctor Who alongside Robert Holmes, who had intended to depart the script editor's role but was persuaded to stay on.

It's also the last story directed by David Maloney, who'd been involved with the series since Patrick Troughton's last year directing The Mind Robber, The Krotons, The War Games, Planet of the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks, Planet of Evil & The Deadly Assassin before this. He went on to produce and direct for the BBC's new science fiction series Blake's 7 and produced the BBC version of Day of the Triffids. He died in 2006 aged 72.

Talons of Weng Chiang ends the 14th (1976/7) season of Doctor Who. During the summer one story from it, The Deadly Assassin, was repeated on Thursdays from 4 to 25 August at 6:20pm.

Talons of Weng Chiang was novelised in a rather slim volume by Terrance Dicks. It was first released on video a compilation volume in Australia in April 1987 and then in the UK in 1988. It's one of three stories that were released as a compilation video not to have an episodic release: the other two are the Seeds of Death & The Time Warrior. It was first released on DVD on 28th April 2003 and was re-released on 4th October 2010 as part of Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 with The Caves Of Androzani and Doctor Who - The Movie.

452 The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Five

2012-02-17T08:06:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 452
STORY NUMBER: 091
TRANSMITTED: 26 March 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

Returning to Litefoot's house, the Doctor & Leela find that the time cabinet has gone. Finding the empty laundry basket the Doctor works out that it was Chang's "dummy" that let the Chinese men in and that is actually a device called the Peking Homunculus from the 51st century. "Weng Chiang" is pleased to have regained the cabinet but becomes furious when he realises his servants have forgotten the bag containing the key when they moved him from the theatre! The Doctor attempts to trace the cabinet back to the laundry, fearing it's use will cause a massive explosion. Jago finds the missing bag and goes to find the Doctor at Litefoot's house. In the laundry the Doctor & Leela discover the dying Chang, missing his leg and high on opium. He tells them that Weng Chiang can be found at "The House of the Dragon". Jago & Litefoot follow Chinese men searching the Palace Theatre but are taken prisoner by them, revealing to "Weng Chiang" that the bag is at Litefoot's house. The Doctor returns to find them gone and a note left for them. In the bag he finds a Trionic Lattice, the key to the Time Cabinet. They wait in the house for Weng Chiang to collect the key. Jago & Litefoot attempt escape but are recaptured. "Weng Chiang" breaks into Litefoot's house, but is unmasked by Leela revealing a hideously deformed face.

We haven't had an episode like this for quite a while: pure filler. Decent, good looking filler. But still filler. The thing that makes it obvious is the sequence in the middle where Litefoot & Jago plan their escape, spend some time executing it and then promptly get recaptured!

Playing the character still known as "Weng Chiang" is actor Michael Spice who previously voiced Morbius in The Brain of Morbius.

Robert Holmes had originally planned that Robert Banks-Stewart, writer of Terror of the Zygons & Seeds of Doom, would write the final story of this season which was commissioned under the title "The Foe From The Future". Banks-Stewart was then offered the Script editor's job on Thames' series Armchair Thriller which meant he was unable to script this story leaving Holmes to write his second story of the season. By this point it became known that Philip Hinchcliffe would be leaving the programme, so he encouraged Holmes to write whatever he wanted and then directed the departments involved in making the story to ignore the usual budgetary restraints. Consequently although the story went over budget it produced something that looks superior to many of the tales produced at the same time.

451 The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Four

2012-02-16T07:54:00.001Z

EPISODE: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 451
STORY NUMBER: 091
TRANSMITTED: 19 March 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

The Doctor uses a gun from Litefoot to repel the rat allowing them to escape. Returning to Litefoot's house Leela relates her story to the Doctor who recognises the organic distillation process used. The Doctor examines the "Puzzle Box" again, and the label their foe as "Weng Chiang" after the Chinese God. The Doctor & Leela leave for the theatre where they enjoy an evening's entertainment while waiting for Chang. When he comes on stage he selects the Doctor to participate in a trick involving cards and a gun. He is then called to the stage. Mr Sin infiltrates Litefoot's house in laundry basket. The Doctor participates in a Cabinet of Death trick but makes a fool of Chang by escaping. Chang gets his assistant to participate instead but when the cabinet is opened Jago's assistant Casey is inside dead. Chang's master has tired of him, sabotaged the trick and deserted him. The Doctor finds Chang in the underground lair. Chang tells the Doctor that "Weng Chiang" appeared in a blazing cabinet of fire. He nursed his ill visitor but soldiers took the cabinet. Chang escapes into the sewers but runs into one of the giant rats, his screams echoing through the tunnels. The Doctor, Leela & Jago find the clothes of the missing girls but notice the organic distillation machine has gone. The Doctor thinks he was injured using the cabinet which has destabilised his DNA matrix. With the aid of a number of Chinese thugs Mr Sin abducts the "Chinese Puzzle box", Weng Chiang's Time Cabinet, from Litefoot's house....

After three episodes of not really caring this one clicked a bit better for me. And once again I have no idea why! Sometimes you watch an episode and it ticks your boxes, other times it doesn't. Possibly it's down to a feeling that the story is finally going somewhere....

Christopher Benjamin, as Henry Gordon Jago, has generally portrayed an annoying character throughout the story. *BUT* put him on stage as the compère in the Palace Theatre and he comes alive and works. Music hall was once common throughout Britain and while Talons of Weng Chiang, and indeed most of Doctor Who, was airing the BBC ran a series called The Good Old Days celebrating the Music Hall style with current performers. The compère was Leonard Sachs who was Admiral de Coligny in The Massacre and will be back as the third Borusa in Arc of Infinity.

The making of this story was covered by a documentary called Whose Doctor Who which included a number of clips from older stories. Bar Blue Peter slots, this was the first dedicated program to look at the series and how it was made. It's available with this story in Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1.

450 The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Three

2012-02-15T07:38:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 450
STORY NUMBER: 091
TRANSMITTED: 12 March 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

Leela evades Mister Sin by jumping through the window where she meets the returning Doctor who is fired on by Chang who flees in a coach, pursued by Leela who climbs onto the rear. Litefoot shows the Doctor the Chinese Puzzle box he thinks they were trying to steal that the Doctor identifies as advanced technology. Chang returns to the theatre and his lord's lair, then goes to seek women for his master to feed on, followed by Leela. Leela disguises herself as one of the women Chang had kidnapped to infiltrate the lair. The Doctor & Litefoot find where the Fleet meets the Thames allowing the Doctor to follow it's passage underground towards the theatre. Leela watches as another woman is placed in the distillation chamber and has her life drained into Chang's hooded master. She overpowers him and escapes into the sewer, where he summons one of his giant rat guards. The Doctor finds Leela just as she's grabbed by the rat's jaws....

I should be loving this. I'm not. I don't know why. It's just not holding my attention. Correct me if I'm wrong but, apart from the Doctor making a vague reference to the Chinese God Weng Chiang being able to make things grow, has the villain been named at all yet?

One associates London with the River Thames, which flows from west to east through the city. But several other rivers run into the Thames in London, including The River Fleet. However over time the river was built round and used as a sewer by the buildings surrounding it so eventually it was built over and effectively turned into one. The Fleet is still there to this day, flowing under London, and gives it's name to Fleet Street the street built over some of it's length which was formerly the home to the British newspaper industry.

Oooh, episode 450! Just 250 (ish) more to go!

449 The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Two

2012-02-14T06:53:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 449
STORY NUMBER: 091
TRANSMITTED: 05 March 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

Escaping the rat they return to Professor Litefoot. Jago's assistant Casey reports seeing a ghost in the cellar, and while investigating Jago finds a ladies glove. However Chang hypnotises him ordering him to forget the cellar & missing woman. Chang then reports to his master in the theatre cellar. He is seeking his missing Time Cabinet and, dying, needs Chang to bring him young women to feed on. A policeman reports, after speaking to the deceased's mother in law, that he'd been to the Theatre. The Doctor goes there and meets Jago, who he discovers has been hypnotised by Chang. Breaking the hold the Doctor discovers that the cab driver was there searching for his wife and they search the cellar where they encounter a "ghost", which the Doctor identifies as a holographic projection. Chang & his master take to the streets in a cab using a high tech device to seek the Time Cabinet. Returning to the theatre The Doctor & Jago encounter Chang's master who has returned. Litefoot has taken Leela to his hone but the house is attacked by Mister Sin who has come for the Time Cabinet.

Once again Holmes' Magpie like approach to other people's work is seen here with Pygmallion (Leela's manners at table), The Importance of Being Ernest (Litefoot's "a hatbox?") and most obviously The Phantom of the Opera being used at liberty through the episode. But for some odd reason it didn't really hold my attention like the first part did.

Talons of Weng Chiang features plenty of location filming, mainly in London. Of note is the Wapping Pier Head location where, despite requests not to, one of the residents left their car in full view. The production team threw a tarpaulin over it and covered it in hay to disguise it (if you click the link you can see it in the top screen shot). There was also an away trip to Northampton for certain locations. The theatre scenes are filmed on location with the auditorium being filmed in The Royal Theatre while backstage & the mortuary were recorded at St Crispin's Hospital, where visible electrical sockets had to be taped over (look carefully and you can still spot them!) and the police station interiors were filmed at the City Buildings. Finally one for those who were at RUTC with me: nearby Cambridge Park (next to Marble Hill Park) is the location for Litefoot's House.

448 The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part One

2012-02-13T07:40:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 448
STORY NUMBER: 091
TRANSMITTED: 26 February 1977
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

At a Victorian theatre a cab driver arrives enquiring of Theatre Manager Henry Gordon Jago and his star hypnotist & ventriloquist Li H'sen Chang as to the whereabouts of his wise. The Doctor & Leela arrive nearby, intent on visiting the Theatre. The taxi driver is murdered by the ventriloquist's dummy, Mr Sin, who is moving by himself and the Doctor & Leela attacked by a group of Chinese workers. A policeman arrives and takes the Doctor & Leela into custody along with one of the men attacking them. Li H'sen Chang is called in to translate but when left alone he gets the man to commit suicide taking scorpion venom. Jago finds blood on the hands of Mr Sin. An autopsy is organised allowing the Doctor to meet pathologist Professor Litefoot and gets to see the mutilated body of the taxi driver. The Doctor finds evidence that the man was killed by a giant rat. The Doctor is assaulted by another Chinese man in the street who Leela kills. They venture into the sewers where they are confronted by the giant rat.

Ah, Victorian London. Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, pea soupers. An ideal setting for a Doctor Who story and it's amazing that, bar a visit to a Victorian Country House, that Doctor Who hasn't visited this era & setting before. (The Gunfighters is set just eight years earlier, but that takes place on the other side of the world). Throw in some Chinese gangsters and a few disappearing women (we're back to the Ripper again) and away we go.

Cast time: as Li H'sen Chang we have English actor John Bennett disguised in make up. He was previously General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. I've just seen him this week in a 2004 New Tricks! His "dummy, Mr Sin, is played by Deep Roy, later to appear as the Posicarian delegate in Mindwarp, the second section of Trial of a Timelord. He's best known now for being the Oompa Lumpas (all of them) in the 2005 film Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Christopher Benjamin, as Henry Gordon Jago, was previously Sir Keith Gold in Inferno, and appears in the new series as Colonel Hugh in The Unicorn and the Wasp. Finally, making an on-screen appearance for the first time, Dudley Simpson, the series regular composer, appears as the Conductor.

447 The Robots of Death Part Four

2012-02-12T07:24:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Robots of Death Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 447
STORY NUMBER: 090
TRANSMITTED: 19 February 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations 3 (The Tomb of the Cybermen and the Robots of Death)

Uvanov immobilises the robot attacking the Doctor with a probe from the repair bay. A robot gains access to Toos' quarters but is summoned away by SV7. The Doctor & Uvanov reach the command deck, closely followed by Leela & Toos and finally D84 bringing the near catatonic Poul. The Doctor has the others lock themselves into themselves onto the bridge while he, Leela & D84 go to deal with Taren Capel. Dask hammers on the command deck door but Toos won't admit him. He is revealed to be Taren Capel, and is dressed like a robot. The Doctor constructs a device to destroy robot brains and obtains some helium gas from the stores. They return to the workshop where Leela hides in a cupboard with orders to release the gas. Capel enters, and cripples D84. While the Doctor is strapped to the operating table by Capel, Leela releases the gas his voice begins to change. Capel tortures the Doctor but S84 activates the Doctor's device destroying himself and the robots accompanying Capel. SV7 arrives, and failing to recognise Capel's voice it kills him. The Doctor destroys SV7 with a probe. As Uvanov & Toos await a rescue ship The Doctor & Leela sneak away in the Tardis.

Superb. Fabulous. A great final solution with the Doctor's eventual solution of using the gas to change Capel's voice telegraphed earlier on in the episode with SV7 not spotting Toos' voice because his command circuits had been changed. Hang the gun on the wall, use it later.... This time the voice gets changed meaning the robot can't recognise it.

Describing these episode to you I inevitably have to cut out some detail and this story is packed with wonderful little detail: the corpse markers, the ranks for the crew that tell you what they do, the medical name for Robophobia: Grimwade's syndrome, named after Production Assistant and future director & writer Peter Grimwade.

And the design. Oh what wonderful sets and corridors, a lavish environment completely different from the harsh functionality you usually see on spaceships. But best of all: The Robots. How fabulous do they look? And isn't Gregory de Polnay's performance as D84 superb? The Doctor will shortly end up with a robot companion but they could have done worse than leave the Sandminer with D84 in the Tardis.

The long & the short of it is that Robots of Death is probably one of my favourite Doctor who stories and is also one of the best. As we shall see in a short while the two are not exclusive to each other. If I was looking for a classic Who tale to show to a "Not-We" this would be it.

Sadly it's the last directing job for the show for Michael Briant. While his stories haven't necessarily always been from the top drawer he's always done his best with the material that he's been given and, since he started contributing to the DVD range, has been an enthusiastic & entertaining commentator - see Colony in Space & Sea Devils for the two commentaries that he's on that have so far been released.... and bellow for a third that's coming shortly!

Robots of Death was repeated later that same year (and very early the next) as two 50-minute episodes on the Saturday 31 December at 6:25pm & Sunday 1 January 1977 at 4:45pm. Terrance Dicks novelised Robots of Death in the middle of his "one book every month" phase. It isn't the greatest or indeed longest book in the range. It was released on video first as a compilation tape in 1986 and then as an episodic tape in 1995. I'd never had that much enthusiasm for the story from what I read about it and didn't buy it during my initial phases of video buying. I acquired it while at University (Royal Holloway College, University of London) and can remember sitting down with some friends to watch in in my room and thinking "my goodness, this is rather good really". Doctor Who - The Robots Of Death was the second DVD release on 13th November 2000 and as such isn't quite up to the technical quality of some of the later titles. The commentary in particular, the first to be recorded, featuring writer Chris Boucher & producer Philip Hinchcliffe is a bit flat and is the only one just to feature production personnel. This made Robots of Death the ideal candidate to be revised and it will be included in the Revisitations III box set along with Tomb of the Cybermen (which needs VIDFiring) & The Three Doctors (which had a fault). New documentaries, a brand new commentary featuring Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Pamela Salem (Toos) & Director Michael Briant.

446 The Robots of Death Part Three

2012-02-11T07:43:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Robots of Death Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 446
STORY NUMBER: 090
TRANSMITTED: 12 February 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations 3 (The Tomb of the Cybermen and the Robots of Death)

Dask cuts the power from the motor units averting an explosion but without power the Sandminer starts sinking. He leaves to fix the motor units. Leela tends to injury sustained by Toos while Poul explains about Zilda's past history with Uvanov: her brother was killed on a previous trip that Uvanov commanded. The restored motor units raise the Sandminer to the surface. Poul discovers one of the robots damaged in the incident has blood stained hands and collapses on the floor. SV7 is reprogrammed by the human killer. The Doctor catches the supposed dum D84 examining Zilda's body and asks him to explain itself. In a hidden lab another robot is reprogrammed. D84 admits he was put on board by the company suspecting that Taren Capel, a human supporting robot revolutionaries is aboard. They leave to seek his hidden workshop. SV7 reports to Toos that Uvanov has escaped his quarters. SV7 dispatches robots to kill Toos, The Doctor & Leela while he kills the others. V5 comes for Leela but enables her to escape the crew room that Poul locked her in. The Doctor & D84 find the workshop and warn the others, asking Toos to get everyone to the command deck, but a robot comes for her trapping her in her room. Leela finds the scared Poul sheltering from the robots, incapacitated by his fear. Uvanov finds the Doctor in the workshop just as a robot arrives to kill the Doctor.

Fab stuff again. Incredibly nobody dies during this episode, which is a shock after the rate they'd been bumped off in the first few episodes. There again there's only the Doctor, Leela and four of the Sandminer crew left so we're running out of both potential bodies and potential suspects!

You can't not mention the knife noise: As Leela throws her hunting knife at the robot there's a load comedy boing noise as it hits the robot. Deary me.

The inspiration behind the story in general is, as we said yesterday, an Agatha Christie style murder mystery. Elements of it are taken from elsewhere: the sandminer would appear to be a lift from Dune while the frequently mentioned Laws of Robotics, an in particular "A robot may not injure a human being", are the work of Isaac Asimov. The name of the commander of the Sandminer, Uvanov is a corruption of “Asimov”, while the use of the name Poul was a reference to author Poul Anderson, and Taren Capel a homage to Karel Capek, the man who first coined the term “robot” in his play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots). I don't know if the rest of the characters names mean anything but I do see an awful lot of four letter names here; Paul, Dask, Chub & Toos which looks a little odd seeing them written like that.

You know if you view the Robots as servants then effectively the Butler did it!

445 The Robots of Death Part Two

2012-02-10T07:42:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Robots of Death Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 445
STORY NUMBER: 090
TRANSMITTED: 05 February 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations 3 (The Tomb of the Cybermen and the Robots of Death)

The Doctor survives by using a blowpipe to breathe and is rescued & captured by supervisor SV7 who identifies the body as Kerral. Leela works her way back to the room they were captured in where she finds Cass' body and is grabbed by a black robot, D84, who interrogates her before turning her over to Commander Uvanov who tells her that D class Dum robots can't speak. Both are taken to the crew room while the crew argue. Few of them even begin to believe the Doctor's story. A robot is instructed by an unseen human to kill Zilda as the Doctor & Leela are imprisoned in the robot storage bay. Poul visits them, but Leela is wary because "he moves like a hunter". The Doctor tells Poul he believes a robot could have killed them in violation of the robotic laws. He frees them to assist him and they re-enact Chub's murder with Poul realising he would need to summon a robot to help him with his task. Zilda breaks into Uvanov's quarters and is distressed by documents she finds, accusing Uvanov of murder. When Poul arrives he finds Uvanov standing over Zilda's dead body. Poul assumes Uvanov killed her and has him confined to quarters, with Toos taking command. The Sandminer's motors jam & overload causing it to rock violently. The Doctor & Leela come to the bridge as Dask reports to Toos that Borg is dead. Toos orders the motors shut down but the robots are unable to comply as the readings head way over the safety margins pushing the Sandminer closer towards exploding.

To paraphrase The Mary Whitehouse Experience: "Dead, Dead, Dead, Chub died first." They're dropping like flies in this story the order being Chub, Kerral (did we even see him alive?), Cass, Zilda & Borg. As far as we know there's just Uvanov, Poul, Toos & Dask left alive so, unless there's someone else on the sandminer we've not seen yet, one of them must be responsible for ordering the robots to kill. Which one is it? Effectively it's Doctor Who's version of a murder mystery, with Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None frequently sighted as an influence.

Oh look, there's our old friends, the computer panels from UFO again on the sandminer bridge!

Among the departed in this episode is Brian Croucher, here playing Borg, who was Travis in the second series of Blake's 7. So it's time to look at that second series and see who else we know that was involved. Still at the helm as producer & script editor are David Maloney, who'll be directing the next Doctor Who story that we watch, and Chris Boucher, who wrote this one and it's predecessor The Face of Evil.

EPISODE: B1 Redemption

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Terry Nation
BROADCAST ON: 09/01/1979

Sheila Ruskin (Alta One) The Keeper of Traken: Kassia
Harriet Philpin (Alta Two) Genesis of the Daleks: Bettan
Roy Evans (Slave) The Daleks' Master Plan as Trantis, The Green Death as Bert & The Monster of Peladon as a miner

EPISODE: B2 Shadow

DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Wright Miller
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 16/01/1979

Vernon Dobtcheff (Chairman) The War Games: Chief Scientist

EPISODE: B3 Weapon

DIRECTED BY: George Spenton-Foster Director: The Image of the Fendal & The Ribos Operation
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 23/01/1979

John Bennett (Coser) Invasion of the Dinosaurs: General Finch & Talons of Weng Chiang as Li H'sen Chang
Scott Fredericks (Carnell) Day of the Daleks: Boaz & Image of the Fendahl: Maximilian Stael

EPISODE: B4 Horizon

DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Wright Miller
WRITTEN BY: Allan Prior
BROADCAST ON: 30/01/1979

William Squire (Kommissar) The Armageddon Factor: The Shadow
Brian Miller (Assistant Kommissar) Snakedance: Dugdale and Resurrection of the Daleks & Remembrance of the Daleks: Dalek voices. Married to Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith)

EPISODE: B5 Pressure Point

DIRECTED BY: George Spenton-Foster
WRITTEN BY: Terry Nation
BROADCAST ON: 06/02/1979

Jane Sherwin (Kasabi) The War Games: Lady Jennifer Buckingham. Former Script Editor/Producer Derrick Sherwin's wife.
Yolande Palfrey (Veron) Trial of a Timelord 9-12 (Terror of the Vervoids): Janet

EPISODE: B6 Trial

DIRECTED BY: Derek Martinus Directed: Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, The Tenth Planet, The Evil of the Daleks, The Ice Warriors & Spearhead from Space
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 13/02/1979

John Savident (Samor) The Visitation: The Squire
Peter Miles (Rontane) Dr. Lawrence in Doctor Who and the Silurians, Professor Whitaker in Invasion of the Dinosaurs & Nyder in Genesis of the Daleks

EPISODE: B7 Killer

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Robert Holmes The Krotons, The Space Pirates, Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons, Carnival of Monsters, The Time Warrior, The Ark In Space, Pyramids of Mars, The Deadly Assassin, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Sun Makers, The Ribos Operation, The Power of Kroll, The Caves of Androzani, The Two Doctors, Trial of a Timelord 1-4: The Mysterious Planet & Trial of a Timelord 13 The Ultimate Foe.
BROADCAST ON: 20/02/1979

Morris Barry (Wiler) Directed: The Moonbase, The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Dominators. Appeared in The Creature from the Pit as Tollund

EPISODE: B8 Hostage

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Allan Prior
BROADCAST ON: 27/02/1979

John Abineri (Ushton) Fury from the Deep: van Lutyens, The Ambassadors of Death: General Carrington, Death to the Daleks: Railton & The Power of Kroll: Ranquin
Kevin Stoney (Joban) Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan, Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion and Tyrum in Revenge of the Cybermen
Andrew Robertson (Space Commander) Pirate Planet: Mr Fibuli

EPISODE: B9 Countdown

DIRECTED BY: Vere Lorrimer
WRITTEN BY: Terry Nation
BROADCAST ON: 06/03/1979

Tom Chadbon (Del Grant) City of Death: Duggan & Trial of a Timelord: Murdeen
Paul Shelley (Provine) Four to Doomsday: Persuasian

EPISODE: B10

DIRECTED BY: Voice from the Past
WRITTEN BY: George Spenton-Foster
BROADCAST ON: Roger Parkes

No Doctor Who cast members involved

EPISODE: B11 Gambit

DIRECTED BY: George Spenton-Foster
WRITTEN BY: Robert Holmes
BROADCAST ON: 20/03/1979

Denis Carey (Docholli) Professor Chronotis in Shada, the Keeper in The Keeper of Traken and the old man in Timelash.
Aubrey Woods (Krantor) Day of the Daleks: The Controller#
John Leeson (Toise) K9 in the Invisible Enemy Onwards
Sylvia Coleridge (Croupier) Seeds of Doom: Amelia Ducat
Deep Roy (Klute) Talons of Weng Chiang: Mister Sin
Paul Grist (Cevedic) Claws of Axos: Bill Filer

EPISODE: B12 The Keeper

DIRECTED BY: Derek Martinus
WRITTEN BY: Allan Prior
BROADCAST ON: 27/03/1979

Bruce Purchase (Gola) Pirate Planet: The Captain
Arthur Hewlett (Old man) State of Decay: Kalmar and Terror of the Vervoids: Kimber
Ron Tarr (Patrol leader) Destiny of the Daleks: Prisoner

EPISODE: B13 Star One

DIRECTED BY: David Maloney
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher
BROADCAST ON: 03/04/1979

Gareth Armstrong (Parton) Masque of Mandragora: Giuliano
Michael Spice (Nova Queen Pilot ) Brain of Monster: Voice of Morbius & Talons of Weng-Chiang: Magnus Greel

444 The Robots of Death Part One

2012-02-09T07:39:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Robots of Death Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 444
STORY NUMBER: 090
TRANSMITTED: 29 January 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations 3 (The Tomb of the Cybermen and the Robots of Death)

On a giant robotic sandminer, crewed by Robots under the supervision of a small group of humans, Commander Uvanov is pursuing a mineral rich storm when it is discovered that one of the crew, the scientist Chubb, has been murdered by being strangled. The Tardis materialises in on of the sand scoops, and the Doctor & Leela are saved from being killed when Uvanov reluctantly aborts the pursuit of the storm to investigate the death. The Doctor & Leela are captured by the robots and locked up but quickly escape. They try to return to the Tardis but are separated with Leela finding Chubb's body being kept in a store room while the Doctor finds a second body in a sand scoop. As he investigates the scoop starts to fill with sand burying him and the body.

Oh that's fabulous. The script is great, dropping in little details to illustrate the society the people are from and their relationships. The acting is fine all round. The way it's shot looks superb: a CSO insert of the bridge set inside the model sandminer, an aerial shot in the console room (sadly the last appearance of the secondary control room which warped in storage rendering it unusable) and the robot point of view shot as it kills Chubb. And we get one of the greatest double entendres in Doctor Who

First we'll find the Tardis and then we'll have a little scout round

My friend Naomi (she who refuses to watch Planet of the Spiders) once told me that her earliest memory of Doctor Who was the Doctor drowning in baked beans. We're pretty sure she's talking about the end of this episode.

Loads of the cast in this story are known from elsewhere: Russell Hunter, playing Commander Uvanov is famous for playing Lonely in Callan. Toos is played by Pamela Salem who we've just heard as a Xoanon voice in Face of Evil. She'll be back as Professor Rachel Jensen in Remembrance of the Daleks. If you're about my age you may remember her as Belor in Into the Labryinth. She was also Moneypenny in the "unofficial" James Bond film ,Never Say Never Again. Likewise we also heard Rob Edwards, seen briefly here as Chub, as another Xoanon voice in Face of Evil.

Robot D84, one of the pair that find the Doctor & Leela, is played by Gregory de Polnay. He's not got any Doctor Who credits to his name but was in former script editor Terrance Dicks's Space 1999 episode The Lamda Factor.

Like many of the rest of the cast the actor playing chief robot SV7, Miles Fothergill, has a Blake's 7 credit on his CV: he was in The Web as Novara while David Bailie, playing Dask was in Project Avalon as Chevney. David Collings, as Poul was previously Vorus in Revenge of the Cybermen and will be Mawdryn in Mawdryn Undead as well as being famous for playing Silver in Sapphire & Steel. He was also Legolas in Radio 4's Lord of the Rings and, yes, was in Blake's 7 too: he appears in the final episode Blake as Deva. Finally Brian Croucher as Borg is the second Travis in the second season of Blake's 7 which means it's time tomorrow for another look at Doctor Who Cast & Crew in Blake's 7 this time, rather fortunately, looking at season 2.

This episode marks the start of our longest run of episodes so far in on format: the last 10 of Season 14, all 26 of Season 15, all 26 of Season 16 and the first 12 of Season 17 making 74 consecutive episodes. Later on this year, with the release of Face of Evil, the run will stretch all the way back to Planet of Evil 1, a huge 112 episodes!

443 The Face of Evil Part Four

2012-02-08T07:01:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Face of Evil Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 443
STORY NUMBER: 089
TRANSMITTED: 22 January 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who The Face of Evil but The Face Of Evil DVD is due soon!

The Tesh & the Sevateem battle as the Doctor confronts Xoanon. He tries to compare the computer but Xoanon triggers a countdown to an atomic explosion. The Doctor is opposed by Tesh & Sevateem that have fallen under Xoanon's control but when Neeva is killed fighting off Xoanon's monsters he interrupts Xoanon's control allowing the Doctor to complete his work causing Xoanon's circuits to explode. Coming round two days later he speaks with the repaired Xoanon who is now trying to work with the united Sevateem & Tesh. The Doctor leaves in the Tardis, accompanied by Leela.

Couldn't care by this point. Really couldn't. There's some great ideas here but the execution is horrible. Worst fourth Doctor story yet. Fortunately there's better stuff just round the corner.

Given the team's recent encounter with Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association you can understand why the title was changed from the original "The Day God Went Mad".

We get yet another Xoanon voice in this episode from Roy Herrick who was Jean in The Reign of Terror and will shortly be Parsons in The Invisible Enemy.

Face of Evil was novelised by Terrance Dicks and released on video in 1999. Fairly typically for this blog (Colony in Space, Invasion of the Dinosaurs) but it's due out on DVD not long after this is published! (March 5th 2012)

442 The Face of Evil Part Three

2012-02-07T07:12:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Face of Evil Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 442
STORY NUMBER: 089
TRANSMITTED: 15 January 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who The Face of Evil but The Face Of Evil DVD is due soon!

Venturing through the mouth the Doctor & Leela find a spaceship and meet it's occupants the Tesh. The Tesh & the Sevateem are descendants of the original crew: The Tesh from the technicians that stayed with the ship and the Sevateem from the survey team that went to survey the planet. Xoanon is the ship's computer repaired long ago by the Doctor but now suffering from a split personality. It has been conducting a eugenics experiment using the Sevateem & Tesh and has now sent the monsters to kill the Sevateem. Using the communications equipment to speak to the high priest Neeva the Doctor summons the Sevateem through the mouth of the stone face. The Doctor goes to confront Xoanon but is mentally assaulted by the computer forced to the floor as it bellows "who am I?"

That's one big information dump trying to explain what's going on. The concepts are good but the execution, especially those appalling Tesh uniforms and make-up, lets it down.

Two of the Xoanon voices are provided by actors from the next story:Rob Edwards and Pamela Salem are both in Robots of Death as Chubb & Toos respectively with Salem returning as Professor Rachel Jensen in Remembrance of the Daleks. A third voice is provided by Tom Baker and the fourth by Anthony Frieze, the winner of a competition to visit the Doctor Who studios.

So when did the Doctor first come to the planet? A question that has exercised many fans' minds over the years. Some suggest a trip soon after his regeneration during Robot. I'm not sure that quite works, I can't see a suitable point for it to have happened. A better scenario would be (see Pyramids of Mars 3) for the Doctor to have dropped Sarah off in 1975 at the end of Planet of Evil, had some adventures including his earlier visit here, and then picked her up again in 1980 thus fixing the UNIT Dating problems in one swoop. A third option involves adventures between Deadly Assassin and here. This idea appeals to me: not only does The Doctor leave Gallifrey alone but he arrives here alone: who knows how long he'd been travelling for by himself? Centuries even. From this point on the Doctor doesn't refer to UNIT and recently seen events, from our point of view, so much so it's plausible that a large amount of time may have passed for him. The show taking a break between these two stories as well makes it all the more tempting to imagine that all sorts of things may have happened between them that we don't see.

441 The Face of Evil Part Two

2012-02-06T07:24:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Face of Evil Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 441
STORY NUMBER: 089
TRANSMITTED: 08 January 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who The Face of Evil but The Face Of Evil DVD is due soon!

The Doctor & Leela return to the village where he discovers that the tribe's holy relics are remnants of a survey expedition and that a transceiver allows the high priest Neeva to speak directly to their god Xoanon. Xoanon speaks to them using the Doctor's own voice. The Doctor is captured by the tribe but after surviving their endurance test is freed. As the Doctor & Leela journey to the stone Doctor's face, climbing through it's mouth, Xoanon sends monsters to attack the tribe.

Another flat episode I'm afraid. And I'm sorry that cricket glove on the guy's helmet is just silly. The Doctor uses the word "Flapdoodle" during this episode: No Tom's not making words up to embroider the script, it's a Victorian expression meaning rubbish, foolish talk or nonsense.

Playing the Sevateem's priest, Neeva, is David Garfield who was previously Von Weich in The War Games. He looks nothing like his earlier roll here, save for the bald head, resembling more the present day comedian Andy Parsons. The actor playing Calib, one of the Sevateem, was also in the the War Games: in that story Leslie Schofield played Leroy, an American Civil War Soldier. Schofield is probably best known for playing Chief Bast, the imperial officer in Star Wars who recommends the evacuation of the Death Star. |His most famous role in a long television career is probably as Jeff Healey in Eastenders from 1997-2000. His time on the show overlapped with Louise Jameson's and they departed the series in the same episode on 3rd August 2000.

440 The Face of Evil Part One

2012-02-05T07:53:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Face of Evil Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 440
STORY NUMBER: 089
TRANSMITTED: 01 January 1977
WRITER: Chris Boucher
DIRECTOR: Pennant Roberts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who The Face of Evil but The Face Of Evil DVD is due soon!

The Doctor arrives on a planet and meets Leela, a female savage who has been cast out by her tribe for blasphemy against their God Xoanon. She identifies the Doctor as "The Evil One". The Doctor is found by the tribe and taken captive to their village but freed by Leela. She takes the Doctor to a nearby mountainside and shows him his own face carved there.

Hmmm. Tom's on fine form throughout this episode but somehow it's not setting my world on fire. And I don't know why. Like Masque of Mandragora something is not there, something is missing. The head at the end is a nice striking image, obviously inspired by Mount Rushmore.

We get a few firsts in this episode though: it's the introduction of Leela, who'll be the Doctor's new companion, as played by Louise Jameson. It's a role that would really launch a successful television career including Tenko, Bergerac & Eastenders from 1998-2000 as Rosa Di Marco. It's also the debut for writer Chris Boucher who was obviously a big hit with the production team becoming only the second writer to write two consecutive stories, after Ian Stuart Black wrote the Savages & the War Machines in 1966. In fact he writes three of the next six stories before being stolen away to serve as Blake's 7's Script Editor. It's also a debut for director Pennant Roberts who would go on to work on Blake's 7 too. Pennant Roberts has some of Doctor Who's all time greatest turkeys to his name as we shall see. But there's also Pirate Planet and I can forgive anything for that.

And yes that is our new best mate supporting artist Harry Fielder playing the warrior who gets shot with the crossbow - see his website for pictures and an amusing anecdote. One of the guards here is Tom Kelly who'll return as a Guard in The Sun Makers and a Vardan in The Invasion of Time.

439 The Deadly Assassin Part Four

2012-02-04T07:47:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Deadly Assassin Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 439
STORY NUMBER: 088
TRANSMITTED: 20 November 1976
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Deadly Assassin

The Doctor overcomes his injured foe forcing him from the Matrix before escaping himself. They trace the Master's connection to the Matrix finding Master's corpse and dying Goth. Borusa, unhappy with events, concocts a coverstory making Goth out to be the hero. The Master revives and attempts to seize control of the Eye of Harmony, the Time Lord's energy supply created by Rassilon many years before, to revive his regeneration cycle and destroy the Time Lords. As quakes rock the capital the Doctor struggles with the Master who falls to his doom. The Doctor leaves Galifrey, but as his Tardis departs from the museum where it has been kept Elgin & Spandrell see the Master sneak inside a Grandfather clock, his disguised Tardis, which dematerialises.

This late the story suddenly turns into a disaster movie with the Master unleashing the power of the Eye of Harmony and nearly destroying the Time Lords capital all so he can live. It's a decent enough episode, in fact the entire story has been pretty good. What we're introduced to here for the first time is Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society who gave them Time Travel and harnessed the Eye of Harmony. This might seem to go against what was said in the Three Doctors about Omega detonating the star to give them time travel but if Omega's consumed by the star's explosion and transported into the anti matter universe then Rassilon is the one that stays behind and gets all the glory. Later writers will add a third member to this pairing, a mysterious Other.... but sadly this idea never reached the screen and was merely developed in the books.

Of course the Master has got away. He'll be back, but not for a few years.

I like Deadly Assasin. It rolls along nicely, even part three which I'm not convinced is necessary. However at the time the then President of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (and future TV Zone editor) Jan Vincent-Rudzki wrote a scathing review of the story feeling it went against everything shown on screen about the Time Lords so far.

I have to query the stupid title though: Which assasin *isn't Deadly?

After this episode was transmitted Doctor Who took a break through Decemeber and over the Christmas period. During this time 60 minute compilation repeats of Pyramids of Mars and Brain of Morbius were shown. Deadly Assasin was itself repeated in August 1977, the Deadly Assasin was novelised by Terrance Dicks. It was first released on video in the USA in 1989 in a compilation version, the only story released in this format not to be sold in the UK. An episodic version was released in the UK in October 1991 on the same day as The Sontaran Experiment & Genesis of the Daleks double pack. The Deadly Assassin DVD was released in March 2009.

438 The Deadly Assassin Part Three

2012-02-03T07:21:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Deadly Assassin Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 438
STORY NUMBER: 088
TRANSMITTED: 13 November 1976
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Deadly Assassin

The Doctor fights his masked foe, who is in control of the Matrix, in different guises across varied landscapes inside the Matrix while in the real world Castelan Spandrell & Coordinator Elgin become increasingly concerned about the stresses this is putting on the Doctor's physical body. The Master sends a hypnotised chancellery guard to kill the Doctor's physical form, but he is killed by the Castelan during the attempt. The Doctor unmasks his foe, revealing him to be Chancellor Goth, who then tries to drown the Doctor.

That's a very odd episode, with the Doctor running around in the Matrix dreamscape. It's also a trifle repetitive with the same theme being played right the way through. You could almost have lost this episode: The Doctor appears in the Matrix towards the end of episode two and unmasks his foe then. We wait thirteen years to get to a story on the Doctor's home planet and then spend 1/4 of it in a dream world. It's a very well done dream world, yes, no quibbles about that with location sequences filmed in Surrey & Buckinghamshire.

The hypnotised guard in this episode, Solis, is played by Peter Mayock who was Namin in Pyramids of Mars.

The ending to this episode got the show in a lot of trouble with the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association and it's chairwoman Mary Whitehouse who objected to the prolonged freeze frame of the Doctor's head being held under the water by Goth. Their objections were so strong that the master videotape for this episode was edited to remove the freeze frame and it was in this state that the episode was repeated on 18th August 1977. The footage has since been recovered from a home video recording.

437 The Deadly Assassin Part Two

2012-02-02T07:52:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Deadly Assassin Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 437
STORY NUMBER: 088
TRANSMITTED: 06 November 1976
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Deadly Assassin

The Doctor is put on trial but puts himself forward as a Presidential Candidate protecting himself from Chancellor Goth who wants to have him killed. The trial as adjourned allowing the Doctor & Castellan to gather evidence. The shadowy decayed figure is upset by this and swears he will see the Doctor die & destroy the Time Lords. After demonstrating the gun he was found with was faulty he claims a member of the high council shot the President. They find the shrunken body of the technician hidden in the camera, which the Doctor identifies as the work of the Master. The Doctor works out that the Time Lord's Matrix was used to project the image of the assassination into his mind. He mentally journeys into the Matrix finding himself in a barren dream like landscape where he is taunted & attacked by a masked foe.

After using a nice little dodge to postpone his imminent execution this episode turns into a Poirot style investigation trying to prove the Doctor's influence before the finding of the technician's body makes it obvious to the Doctor & us who's responsible for the killings: The Master. Oddly this is only the second time the Master's killed someone by shrinking them. The first, and the Master's very first on screen victim, was in Terror of the Autons where Goodge is shrunk and placed in his lunch box. That story, which introduces the character, was the only previous occasion Robert Holmes had written the Master. The only authors to have written the character more than once were Robert Sloman and Barry Letts (two stories: The Daemons & The Time Monster) and Malcolm Hulke (three stories: The Colony in Space, The Sea Devils & The Frontier in Space). Judging that enough time had passed since the death of Roger Delgado in 1973 Holmes was keen to bring the character of the Master back for a one off appearance.

Look carefully in the background as the Doctor is being interrogated: it's the return of the triangular & hexagonal wall pattern created for The Mutants. The scene of the Doctor in a call, with a long shot of the cell showing it hanging in the air is one of the nicer effects done on the show: it's simple but it works.

Playing The Master is Peter Pratt, an actor hired for his vocal skills. He was previously a principle singer with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Angus MacKay, playing Cardinal Borusa, will return as the Headmaster in Mawdryn Undead. Castellan Spandrell is played by George Pravda who was previously Alexander Denes in The Enemy of the World and Professor Jaeger in The Mutants. Bernard Horsfall, as Chancellor Goth, is a regular performer for director David Maloney appearing in The Mind Robber as Lemuel Gulliver, The War Games as a Time Lord (who is possibly the same character as the one he plays here) and Planet of the Daleks as Taron, all of which were directed by Maloney. Hugh Walters, Commentator Runcible, was William Shakespeare in The Chase and will return as Vogel in Revelation of the Daleks while the actor playing Co-ordinator Engin, Erik Chitty, was Charles Preslin in The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve.

436 The Deadly Assassin Part One

2012-02-01T01:08:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Deadly Assassin Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 436
STORY NUMBER: 088
TRANSMITTED: 30 October 1976
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Deadly Assassin

The Doctor returns to Galifrey, plagued by visions of himself assassinating the President of the High Council of the Time Lords. His Tardis is impounded when he arrives but he evades the guards, finding his way to the gallery of the Panoptican, the grand hall of the Time Lords. The Doctor finds the gun hidden in the public video camera & pointing at the President which then fires in his hands killing the President.

That ain't a bad episode. Yes, essentially it's a lot of running around, but it's given urgency by the Doctor's vision at the start of the episode which comes to pass at the end. OK that element is basically a "homage" to The Manchurian Candidate but .... The scrolling text & narration at the start are a nice touch, unique in Doctor Who so far as is the absence of any companion. Tom had been saying to the production team that he didn't think he needed one so they decided to try the idea here. And right through there's a shadowy black figure in the background....

The episode sees a huge amount of information dumped on us: The Doctor's Tardis is a type 40 tt capsule (TT = Time Travel), there's a Galifreyan CIA (the Celestial Intervention Agency) which would seem to be the body that's used the Doctor before (Terror of the Autons, Colony in Space, Curse of Peladon, The Mutants, Genesis of the Daleks & The Brain of Morbius). Galifreyan society is governed by a President of the High Council & a Chancellor, both roles which we've seen before in the Three Doctors, with a Castelan responsible for security & policing. There's at least three Time Lord clans - the broadcaster Runcible interrupts his commentary after listing three. Each clan wears a different colour of robe: scarlet & orange for the Prydonians, green for Arcalians and heliotrope for the Atraxes. In addition the President wears white and a ceremonial figure called Gold Usher wears gold. We get to meet for the first time Cardinal Borusa, one of the Doctor's teachers at the academy and he'll be a central figure in future Time Lord tales. The main Time Lord sets feature the seal of the High Council, a design element that designer Roger Murray-Leach reuses from the Vogans in Revenge of the Cybermen.

Michael Bilton, playing one of the Time Lords in the dressing room was previously Charles de Teligny in The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve and recently Collins in Pyramids of Mars. Helen Blatch, the computer Voice, will return as Fabian in The Twin Dilemma.

Yes that does look like it's one of our favourite supporting artists Pat Gorman as the guard that gets shot and his mate Harry 'Aitch Fielder is playing one of the others as evidenced by photos on Harry's website.

435 The Hand of Fear Part Four

2012-01-31T01:09:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Hand of Fear Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 435
STORY NUMBER: 087
TRANSMITTED: 23 October 1976
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Hand Of Fear

The deteriorating Eldrad is taken by the Doctor to a regeneration chamber where she is crushed by a stone block, another trap left by King Rokkon. However Eldrad then emerges from a chamber restored to his true form. They find their way to the Kastrian race banks where Eldrad is confronted by a message from King Rokkon who tells him that the Kastrians destroyed themselves and their race bank. The Doctor & Sarah attempt to escape, tripping Eldrad over the Doctor's scarf who falls to his doom down a crevasse. Returning to the TARDIS the Doctor receives a summons to Galifrey forcing him to return Sarah to Earth where he bids goodbye to her.

Ah we love Stephen Thorne, previously Azal in The Dæmons and Omega in The Three Doctors, but his Kastrian Eldrad isn't a touch on Judith Paris' Female Eldrad and I'm afraid the scenes on Kastria all get a bit silly once he shows up. And as for the stepping over the Doctor's scarf and *then* tripping over....

But what people really remember about this episode is the departure of Sarah Jane Smith/Elizabeth Sladen. As send off's go hers is a particularly good one with a protracted scene between her & the Doctor in the Tardis followed by Sarah standing in the street as the Tardis materialises and realising that, yet again, the Doctor has failed to bring her home. He was aiming for South Croydon but years later, in the new series episode School Reunion, it would be claimed that the Tardis had actually landed in Aberdeen! The filming took place at neither location, instead being recorded at Stokefield Close in Thornbury, Gloucestershire near the other locations used in the story. As Sarah leaves she's whistling the tune to Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow..... well I say she is, but Elizabeth Sladen couldn't whistle the tune and the noise is instead provided by director Lennie Mayne in the closing moments of his final episode. The tune is used in response to the dog that Sarah's met on the street but it's actually a little prophetic: in 1981 Elizabeth Sladen would return as Sarah Jane Smith in K-9 and Company, twinned with the Doctor's robot dog. For more on this come back on the 4th June! She would return again in 1983's celebration story, the Five Doctors, reunited with Jon Pertwee whom she'd later star opposite in two Doctor Who radio series. During the 80s and 90s Elizabeth Sladen mainly concentrated on the upbringing of her daughter but in 2006 she was lured back to play Sarah Jane Smith in the new series episode School Reunion, which led to several more appearances and a spin off series The Sarah Jane Adventures which only ended when Elizabeth Sladen was taken ill with cancer, the actress passing away on 19th April 2011 leaving her husband, actor Brian Miller and daughter Sadie Miller who has followed both parents into the acting profession.

On the 9 & 10 May 2011 The Hand of Fear was repeated on BBC4 as a tribute to Elizabeth Sladen. Hand of Fear was novelised by Terrance Dicks. It's the start of a run of 11 stories all novelised by Terrance Dicks, the most consecutive stories produced by the same author. It had an extremely limited video release in 1996: two weeks after it's release all existing Doctor Who video were withdrawn from sale ahead of the forthcoming Paul McGann TV Movie and Hand of Fear never returned for sale at one point getting a staggering price on the second hand market. Fortunately it was released on DVD early in 2006, and later sent out by 2 Entertain as compensation to those who had to return their Invisible Enemy DVDs due to an authoring fault on that set.

434 The Hand of Fear Part Three

2012-01-30T08:15:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Hand of Fear Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 434
STORY NUMBER: 087
TRANSMITTED: 16 October 1976
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Hand Of Fear

The anticipated explosion fails to occur. The Doctor works out that the hand is in the reactor absorbing all the energy. Professor Watson has the RAF conduct a nuclear strike on the plant but the missiles have no effect, dealt with by whatever is in the reactor. The Doctor and Sarah re-enter the building and meet Eldrad, a woman made from rock & gem stones. she negotiates with the Doctor who agrees to take her to Kastria. However on their arrival Eldrad is shot by an automatic defence mechanism.

Female villains are rare in Doctor Who. Liz, who loves this story, and I had a think and we could only come up with the Drahvians (Galaxy Four), Kaftan (Tomb of the Cybermen), Queen Galia (Time Monster) Miss Winters (Robot) and the Zygon Sister Lamont (Terror of the Zygons) that appeared on screen but noted that there should have been one in Colony in Space. Judith Paris puts in a top performance Eldrad making this a decent episode.... except we get yet another airing, thankfully briefly, of the "get past the traps to get to your destination" storyline!

The Power Complex here is named Nunton but that's pretty close to the Nuton used in Bob Baker & Dave Martin's earlier Doctor Who story the Claws of Axos. Indeed it seems as if during this story's troubled development it was meant to be the location seen in the earlier story. Hand of Fear was originally intended as the six part story which would close the 13th season and kill off the Brigadier. All along it featured Hands wandering about by themselves inspired by the films The Hands of Orlac and The Beast with Five Fingers. Problems with the story led to it being shelved and replaced by the Seeds of Doom. When Douglas Camfield's French Foreign Legion story fell through, which was meant to kill of Sarah, Hand of Fear was brought back into service, slimmed down to four parts and heavily modified by the authors.

The location for the Nunton complex is Oldbury Power Station near Thornbury, close to where Bob Baker & Dave Martin lived. This is it's only Doctor who appearance but it's been used three times in Blake's 7: in Time Squad as the Federation complex, in Redemption as the Spaceworld interiors and in Killer as the Q-base exterior and tunnel - see The Blake's 7 Location Guide. Oldbury is scheduled to be decommissioned somewhere around the point you read this. Oddly it's just four miles down the road from Berkeley Power Station, which we'll shortly see used in Pirate Planet. We get to see the quarry again, albeit briefly, in this episode too and that's not too far away either, filmed at Slickstone Quarry in Gloucestershire.

433 The Hand of Fear Part Two

2012-01-29T03:51:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Hand of Fear Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 433
STORY NUMBER: 087
TRANSMITTED: 09 October 1976
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Hand Of Fear

The alarm sounds allowing The Doctor & Dr Carter to evade the guards holding them. Reactor head Professor Watson orders the reactor shut down. Watson, and then the Doctor, tries to speak to Sarah but all she says is "Eldrad must live", which echoes round the mind of the controlled Dr Carter. The Doctor is attacked by Dr Carter on his way to the reactor, with Carter claiming "Eldrad must Live" but he slips and falls to his death. The Doctor repeats the phrase to gain the possessed Sarah's confidence then overpowers her removing he from the reactor room. In the process she drops the ring she's been holding. Sarah is tested and found to be free of radiation. In the reactor the hand crawls towards the source of the radiation. A technician, Driscoll, is sent to retrieve it and places it in a container. He also finds the ring and becomes possessed like Sarah was. The Doctor asks for the ring but Driscoll denies having seen it. The Doctor hypnotises Sarah and asks her to tell him what was happening. In the decontamination area the hand tries to escape from where it has been stored. Driscoll retrieves the hand and returns it to the reactor, pursued by the Doctor & Sarah. Driscoll sets the reactor to overload causing Watson to evacuate the complex. Driscoll opens the reactor up and carries the hand in.....

Lots of running around and shouting "Eldrad must live!" but it's a decent fast moving episode. Oddly just one character from the first episode, Doctor Carter, appears in this one and he gets bumped off half way through! So we get introduced to a whole bunch of new characters and actors. Glyn Houston plays Professor Watson: he'll be back as Colonel Ben Wolsey in The Awakening. Frances Pidgeon is Miss Jackson. She was previously in The Monster of Peladon as an uncredited handmaiden. She was the wife of Lennie Mayne, the director of both this story and Monster of Peladon. Technician Elgin is played by John Cannon who was later cast as an executioner in Shada but as we will see never made it onto the screen.

The phrase "Eldrad must live!" is used repeatedly throughout the story and starts a run of catchphrases in Bob Baker & Dave Martin stories. We'll hear that "Contact has been made!" in Invisible Enemy and then in Underworld we'll repeatedly hear that "The Quest is the Quest!"

Liz walked in while I was watching part 1, took one look a the screen and said "Eldrad must live!" If I know my readership "Eldrad Must Live" comments will be covering episode 1 here, on Facebook and on the TMUK Forum already.......

432 The Hand of Fear Part One

2012-01-28T07:20:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Hand of Fear Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 432
STORY NUMBER: 087
TRANSMITTED: 02 October 1976
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Hand Of Fear

On the dying planet Kastria the traitor Eldrad is sentenced to death and fired into space in a ship which is destroyed. Materialising in a quarry on Earth, the Doctor & Sarah are caught in an explosion and Sarah is trapped under rubble where she finds a stone hand with a ring and a missing finger which she won't let go of. She & the Doctor are taken to a local hospital. The recovered Doctor sees how Sarah is then visits Doctor Carter in the path lab who is analysing the hand. Meanwhile the ring glows and revives Sarah. The Doctor borrows virology's electron microscope to further examine the hand. He dates it by the strata of rock that it was buried in and returns to the quarry. Sarah finds her way to the pathology lab, shooting Dr Carter with an energy bolt and proclaiming that "Eldrad must live!" She places the hand in a container and absconds with it. Examining the scene the Doctor thinks the hand may have come from a prehistoric spaceship crash. When Carter revives he tells the Doctor what has happened and, under the same influence as Sarah, enquires if the Doctor has found anything. They find a sample from the machine has changed, absorbing radiation from the machine analysing it. Sarah goes to the nearby Nunton nuclear power complex, blasting a guard with energy from the ring. She walks straight into the main nuclear reactor carrying the hand which feeds on the radiation, regrowing it's missing finger and starting to move.

Ah a companion possessed by an evil entity. Have we done this before? Did Susan get sort of possessed a few times (Edge of Destruction & Sensorites?) Mind you Sarah was obviously possessed by something before this story started, nobody in their right mind would wear an outfit as silly as hers. It's even referred to in the dialogue as "pink striped overalls just like Andy Pandy" Or it could just be stupidity, after all why didn't her and the Doctor do a runner straight back to the Tardis as soon as they heard the siren?

We welcome back Rex Robinson in this episode as Dr. Carter. He's previously been Dr. Tyler in The Three Doctors and Gebek in The Monster of Peladon. All three of his appearances were directed by Lennie Mayne. Also returning are Roy Pattison, as Zazzka, the Kastrian technician, who was a Draconian Space Pilot in Frontier in Space. Making his last appearance in front of the camera in Doctor Who is Roy Skelton heavily made up as Kastrian King Rokon. You've seen him previously in Colony in Space as Norton, Planet of the Daleks as Wester, The Green Death as James and The Android Invasion as Chedaki. Meanwhile he's been heard in The Ark doing Monoid voices, The Tenth Planet & The Wheel in Space as Cybermen voices, The Ice Warriors as the Computer voice & The Krotons as the Kroton voices. He's been the voice of the Daleks in The Evil of the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks & Genesis of the Daleks and will return to this role in Destiny of the Daleks, The Five Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks & Remembrance of the Daleks missing only Resurrection of the Daleks.

The Doctor at the hospital (credited as an Intern) is played by Renu Setna. This is a very rare role for an Asian actor of Indian/Pakistani extraction in Doctor Who and I'm struggling to think of any others before this. Playing Abbott, the quarry foreman, is David Purcell. I know nothing about him but doesn't he look like the comedian Steve Coogan.

The word Fear doesn't show up that many times in the title of Doctor Who stories. It's got two appearances as a First Doctor episode title: An Unearthly Child 3: The Forest of Fear and The Reign of Terror 1: A Land of Fear. After that it's used just twice in an overall story title in The Web of Fear then finally here in The Hand of Fear.

431 The Masque of Mandragora Part Four

2012-01-27T07:40:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Masque of Mandragora Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 431
STORY NUMBER: 086
TRANSMITTED: 25 September 1976
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Rodney Bennett
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Masque Of Mandragora

The Doctor escapes from the cavern and averts the execution of Sarah, Guiliano & Marco by bringing news of the Count's death. He has the Palace barricaded to stop the Mandragora controlled brotherhood from attacking. The Doctor calculates the timing of a lunar eclipse that will signal the brotherhood's attack. He approves of Guiliano's decision to continue holding the Masque to celebrate his accession to the Dukedom. The Doctor prepares by mounting an armoured breast plate under his coat and obtaining a length of wire. The Brotherhood gather round the palace as the Masque takes place. Returning to the temple the Doctor uses the wire to ground the chestplate and confronts Heironymous. The wire & chestplate protect the Doctor from the energy bolts that Heironymous fires at him and he starts to be drained from the confrontation. The Doctor's lion costume enters the ball but it removes it's mask revealing itself to be Mandragora energy. Heironymous enters and has everyone taken to the temple as the eclipse starts. There the cult is consumed by Mandragora leaving just "Heironymous" who is revealed to be the Doctor. The Doctor thinks that Mandragora's constellation will be in a position to try again towards the end of the 20th Century.

Um..... did the ending to that make any sense at all? It doesn't explain how the Doctor repelled Mandragora. It's not clear who it was in the Doctor's costume - I think it's meant to be the Doctor in disguise as Heironymous but in which case how does he do the trick with the face? Some explanation of what and why things are happening would be nice! A big, big mess.

It this episode (briefly) is Stuart Fell as the Entertainer, Previous Doctor Who credits include The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon as Alpha Centauri, Planet of the Spiders as a tramp, The Ark in Space as a Wirrn, The Android Invasion as a Kraal and The Brain of Morbius as the Morbius Monster. He'll be back in The Invasion of Time as a Sontaran and the State of Decay as Roga. Not returning is writer Louis Marks. He'd first written for the show at the end of it's first recording block, penning Planet of the Giants bringing an idea to screen that had been knocking around since day 1. Years later he returned to write Day of the Daleks for the third Doctor, then Planet of Evil & Masque of Mandragora for the fourth Doctor. He died 17th September 2010 aged 82. And since it's his final appearance, I'll remind you that he's not to be confused with Louis Marx, the toy company that made the 1960s Dalek toys!

Masque of Mandragora is one of the Doctor Who novels that I can remember reading from the library quite early on.... but I also owned a paperback copy quite early having bought it in a local news agent. It was the only Doctor Who book I ever saw in there. It's one of three stories adapted by Philip Hinchcliffe, the other two being the previous story The Seeds of Doom and the fifth Doctor Who the Keys of Marinus. It was released in December 1977. A video was released in August 1991 alongside the Three Doctors. The DVD was released on 8th February 2010.

430 The Masque of Mandragora Part Three

2012-01-26T07:19:00.001Z

EPISODE: The Masque of Mandragora Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 430
STORY NUMBER: 086
TRANSMITTED: 18 September 1976
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Rodney Bennett
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Masque Of Mandragora

The Helix releases the Doctor and shows him the temple restored using it's power. The Doctor flees, finds Guiliano and together they hold off the Count's guards until they are chased away by the brethren allowing the Doctor & Guiliano to hide in the catacombs. The priest wished to sacrifice Sarah but Heironymous, the high priest, has other plans for her and exposes her to a potion which puts her under his hypnotic control before sending her to the Doctor. They find her in the catacombs and then find a route back to the palace. Sarah questions the Doctor as to how she can understand what Guiliano says. Marco is captured by the Duke's guards. Hieronymous tells the Duke that he has predicted the Count's death but is dismissed by the Count. Finding Marco missing, Guiliano tells The Doctor of the dignitaries & scientists invited to Saint Martino. The Doctor realises if they are killed then the world will be thrown into a new Dark Age and goes to confront who he believes head the cult of Demnos, followed by Sarah. The Count orders Heironymous thrown out of the city. The Doctor confronts Heironymous but Sarah arrives with a poison needle to kill the Doctor. The Doctor breaks her programming, but is seized by the counts guards who have come for Heironymous, who in turn escapes. Guiliano too is seized and thrown in the Count's dungeons with the Doctor, Sarah & Marco. Marco has been made to claim that Guiliano is a worshipper of Demnos. The Cult of Demnos gathers and is infused with the Mandragora Helix. The Doctor tell Federico that Heironymous is the head of the brethren, so he takes the Doctor and two armed men to the temple in disguise. Federico pulls Heironymous' mark away revealing not his face but a glowing ball of energy which slays him.

Once again I'm struggling with this story. It's just failing to hold my interest on screen. It's around this episode I usually drift off when we watch it as a four parter and, though I can't put my finger on why, I'm sure I probably would have done this time too! But watching it in 25 minute chunks has at least kept me awake!

This episode goes to some lengths to try to explain why the Doctor & his companions can understand the language wherever they go. It's explained here as a telepathic gift provided by the Tardis to those that travel in her and as we've seen (Genesis of the Daleks for example) doesn't need the Tardis to be present.

The Doctor mentions in this episode that he's looking forward to meeting Leonardo da Vinci. Although he's not shown to meet the genius here he seems to know him by the time of City of Death when he visits his workshop in order to graffiti the parchment the Mona Lisa is painted on.....

429 The Masque of Mandragora Part Two

2012-01-25T06:18:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Masque of Mandragora Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 429
STORY NUMBER: 086
TRANSMITTED: 11 September 1976
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Rodney Bennett
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Masque Of Mandragora

The Doctor trips his executioner up with his scarf and escapes. The priests of Demnos prepare their alter for sacrifice bringing the drugged Sarah to lie on it. The Doctor hides and finds himself in the catacombs that the Cult of Demnos use. He follows their high priest and rescues Sarah. As he leaves the chamber is invaded by the Mandragora Helix which restores the temple. Guiliano is brought the body of a guard killed by the Mandragora Helix. The golden masked High Priest is given instructions by the Helix for the advancement of it's plans. As he leaves the temple he removes the masks revealing himself to be the astrologer Hieronymous. The Doctor & Sarah are found and taken to Guiliano & Marco who explain his uncle's desire for the dukedom of Saint Martino. They show the Doctor the body who tells that the Mandragora Helix killed it and wonders why the Helix has come to this time & place. The count intercepts a list of dignitaries that the Duke has invited to his accession along with some noted scholars who they have given their patronage to. Hieronymous is ordered to predict Guiliano's imminent death and confers with the Mandragora Helix. The Doctor tries to explain the Mandragora Helix to Guiliano and thinks it might be trying to use cult of Demnos to oppose the scientific achievements of the Renaissance and take over the Earth. The Doctor goes back to the temple to investigate, but they are seen by the Count's spies. The Doctor finds his way to the main temple cavern where he is attacked by the Mandragora Helix. The Count's guards arrive attacking Guiliano. Sarah goes to find the the Doctor but is recaptured by the cult.....

Hmmm. A little slow moving perhaps in places but OK without really being anything special. Yes, the cut of Demnos do seem to be doing the Hokey Cokey when they're about to sacrifice Sarah!

What you do get highlighted in this episode are the wonderful locations used in the production at Portmerion in North Wales. Portmerion was designed and built in the style of an Italian Village by Sir Clough William Ellis. Producer Philip Hinchcliffe had been there as a tour guide years before and thought it would make an excellent location for filming. It was only after the series was made that it was pointed out to him that Portmerion had been used in the production of The Prisoner nearly ten years earlier!

There's a pair of unnamed Pikeman in this episode: one of them, Peter Washe, was Erak in The Sontaran Experiment while the other, Jay Neill will be back in The Invisible Enemy and Guard Klimt in Underworld.

428 The Masque of Mandragora Part One

2012-01-24T07:44:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Masque of Mandragora Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 428
STORY NUMBER: 086
TRANSMITTED: 04 September 1976
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Rodney Bennett
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Masque Of Mandragora

The Tardis is invaded by the Mandragora Helix which uses it to take it to late 15th century Italy. Giuliano has just succeeded his father Duke, who died exactly when astrologer Hieronymous predicted it. Hieronymous is working for Giuliano's uncle, Count Federico, who has poisoned his brother & seeks to kill the new Duke. Sarah is abducted by black robed cultists who knock the Doctor out. When he comes round he sees Mandragora energy which has escaped the Tardis and has gone on a rampage. Federico & Hieronymous bring Giuliano the prediction of his death. The Doctor searches for Sarah but guards take him captive. Sarah is taken to the hidden temple of the cult of Demnos where the high priest makes preparations to sacrifice here while the Doctor is taken to Federico who tries to interrogate him. Federico doesn't believe the Doctor's story and orders him executed, but Giuliano is intrigued by him. Sarah is drugged prior to sacrifice while the Doctor is taken to the executioner's block.

Ah Masque of Mandragora. Stuck between several much loved stories it's a bit ignored. I've always had a bit of a problem with it as a TV story...... I've never stayed awake watching all 4 episodes right the way through. Ooops. This first episode isn't bad, if a little slow in place. But there's some splendid stuff in it, especially the magnificent Tardis secondary control room seen at the start of the story which has a very Jules Verne feel with lots of wood panelling plus some throwbacks to the show's past with the second Doctor's recorder and the third Doctor's shirt & jacket on display. I think this is one of the first times we've seen a mass of Tardis corridors. We saw some extra rooms in the early stories, especially in Edge of Destruction, but this really starts our exploration of the ship beyond the control room. I spent an lot of Seeds of Doom commenting on the physical violence: here the Doctor uses his Venusian Akido to defend himself when attacked by the Cultists and that looks much better.

Playing Count Federico is John Laurimore who's had a long TV Carer generally avoiding science fiction apart from in 1976 when he was in this and Space 1999 Black Sun. Hieronymous is played fabulously by Norman Jones (fantastic wide staring eyes) who previously was Khrisong in The Abominable Snowmen and Major Baker in the Silurians. The High Priest is Robert James who we heard as Lesterson in The Power of the Daleks. One of the Brothers is played by Brian Ellis who was the Prisoner in The Sontaran Experiment. The Titan Voice heard in this episode is Peter Tuddenham who provided voices for The Ark in Space and Time and the Rani as well as Orac, Zen & Slave in Blake's 7. Gareth Armstrong playing Giuliano, was also in Blake's 7 as Parton in Star One while his friend Marco is Tim Piggott-Smith who was Captain Harker in The Claws of Axos. Pat Gorman is credited as a Soldier and I'm pretty sure that it's him playing the guard that gets fried by the Mandragora Energy towards the end of the episode!

427 The Seeds of Doom Part Six

2012-01-23T07:04:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Seeds of Doom Part Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 427
STORY NUMBER: 085
TRANSMITTED: 06 March 1976
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom

The laser team arrive and attack the Krynoid allowing the Doctor, Sarah, Scorby and Sergeant Henderson to escape back into the house via another door. The Doctor ponders on how Chase is moving about unharmed by the Krynoid and wonders if he is infected or, as Sarah suggests, possessed. Chase is appalled at their use of pesticides. The Krynoid starts to break through the masonry into the house. Henderson searches for timber to patch up their barricade but is found by Scorby, knocked unconscious and fed into the composter. Scorby starts to crack under the pressure of the situation and makes a run for it into the grounds. The plants drag him under water killing him. By now the Krynoid is larger than the house. Sarah goes to look for Henderson and is captured by Chase. The Doctor picks up Beresford's transmission and tell him & Sir Colin that he thinks the Krynoid has 15 minutes till it germinates and asks him to have the house destroyed by the RAF to avoid the seed pods being spread all over Earth. Chase ties Sarah up to feed her into the composter but the Doctor rescues her. He struggles with Chase who is trapped in the composter and killed. The Doctor uses steam from a pipe in the mansion's heating system to drive a path through the plants surrounding the house allowing the Doctor & Sarah to escape as the RAF bomb the house destroying the monster. The Doctor takes Sarah on a trip to Cassiopeia for a holiday, but the Tardis instead materialises back in Antarctica!

Oh what a shame: UNIT finally comes up against a menace they can defeat by blowing it to smithereens and the Brigadier isn't there to see it happen! Although a worrying though occurs to me: if this had been done with the regular UNIT team that would have been Sergeant Benton going into the composter and that's not the sort of end I'd want to see our hero get! The steam pipes are a rather convenient solution top getting the Doctor & Sarah out the house, maybe if they'd have flagged up that this was how Scorby's greenhouse was heated in an earlier episode it would be less of a "solution plucked from thin air". But as we've seen there was very limited time for editing the scripts so correcting minor details like this we shouldn't really moan about. Slightly more serious is the Tardis returning to Antarctica at the end of the episode because the Doctor had "forgot to cancel the coordinate program": The Tardis never went to Antarctica in the first place: the Doctor & Sarah were flown there! These scenes are the last filmed using the original Tardis Police Box prop: it collapsed on Elizabeth Sladen during filming (possibly necessitating a rewrite that sent them to Antarctica by air transport?)

While the first two parts of the story are The Thing From Another World, the last four are a cross between The Quatermass Experiment (man turns into plant-like monster) and The Avengers episode The Man Eater of Surrey Green (alien plant looking to germinate & take over the world) I caught this episode on BBC4 one night and saw lots of people being dragged around by vines which reminded me a lot of Seeds of Doom. A documentary on the DVD claims Day of the Triffids as an influence, and ignores the two I've mentioned above, but I can't really see it. Either way Seeds of Doom is effectively the final word on plant monsters in Doctor Who because they've done it so well here. There have been others both before (the plants in Keys of Marinus 3, the Varga plants on Kemble in Dalek Masterplan, the seaweed in Fury from the Deep and the jungle of Planet of the Daleks) and but only one after (the Vervoids in Trial of a Timelord) such was the success of the monster in the show. The violence in the middle of the story stands out as being wrong and I feel is a symptom of the the lack of time available. These episodes could have done with another pass and some more thorough script editing which perhaps the earlier and later episodes had.

Seeds of Doom closes Season 13, which has had SIX stories, the most since season six in 1968/9. It's the only 6 parter this year and sets a pattern followed for most of the remaining years of the fourth Doctor: FIVE 4 part stories followed by a single SIX parter. The next three seasons are all structured like this and that was the plan for his sixth season, the show's seventeenth, until strike action killed off the production of Shada.

As we said yesterday this is the last UNIT story, though their role has been diminished over the last few years anyway and their regular staff over the course of this season. This is the second & last Doctor Who script from Robert Banks-Stewart. He would go on to create detective shows Shoestring and Bergerac.

It's also the last Doctor Who directing job for Douglas Camfield. His wife, Sheila Dunn was worried that the stress of a Doctor Who production was putting to much stress on him and worried it may exacerbate the heart condition that caused him to be hospitalised during the making of Inferno. He continued to work in television directing (deep breath) two episodes of The Onedin Line (I see you Iain Fairbairn and Harry Fielder!) Three more episode of The Sweeney (Bad Apple, Pay Off & Trust Red) to go with the 3 he'd done previously (Cover Story , Stay Lucky, Eh? & Thou Shalt Not Kill), two episodes of Philip Hinchcliffe's Target, two episodes of The Professionals (including Private Madness, Public Danger, the first broadcast episode which I'd not twigged he directed till researching this story. It's one of two episodes to retain Cowley's voice over over the opening titles even if the titles shown on DVD aren't the ones it originally had!), two episodes of Blake's 7 (Duel & Warlord), 3 episodes of the aforementioned Shoestring (the first episode of the series, Private Ear, then The Link-Up and Another Man's Castle), three episodes of a drama series called Accident, two of Danger UXB, and Robert Holmes's Nightmare Man. (I keep seeing the name Maurice Roëves pop up on these productions. Camfield never used him on Doctor Who but his protege Graeme Harper, production assistant on the Seeds of Doom, did when he directed The Caves of Androzani.

A lifelong fan of the French Foreign Legion, he tried to write a Doctor Who script on the subject for the Hinchcliffe/Holmes team. So when Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks came to do Beau Geste for the Classic Serial they immediately turned to Douglas Camfield who called up several of his regular castings including Seeds of Doom's John Challis and Harry Fielder plus Doctor Who regular Pat Gorman. A huge success it earned much publicity including a Radio Times front cover.

Letts engaged Camfield to direct a new adaptation of the novel The Prisoner of Zenda. He was booked to start work on the production on 30th of January 1984. Three days before, on Friday 27th, he went to bed early, complaining of feeling tired. He never woke up, the heart condition which had plagued him almost in secret for years claiming him as he slept. He was aged just 52.

Douglas Camfield directed more Doctor Who stories and episodes than anyone else:

Planet of Giants (episode 3 only)
The Crusade
The Time Meddler
The Daleks' Master Plan
The Web of Fear
The Invasion
Inferno (Barry Letts took over when Camfield was taken ill);
Terror of the Zygons
The Seeds of Doom

His contribution to the series cannot be underestimated.

As a postscript Camfield's old friend Barry Letts went to see his boss, Graeme MacDonald. Worried about Camfield's widow Sheila Dunn's finances, possibly recalling the problems Kismet Delgado had follows the death of her husband Roger Delgado some years before, the two arranged for Camfield's fee for the story to be paid to Dunn. Sheila Dunn outlived her husband by 20 years, dying in 2004 aged 63.

Seeds of Doom has never been repeated by the BBC despite it's popularity with fans. Douglas Camfield made notes on cutting it down to a compilation version for broadcast during the 1976 Christmas period but in the end two different stories, the Pyramids of Mars & the Brain of Morbius were shown. Seeds of Doom was one of three Doctor Who stories novelised by producer Philip Hinchcliffe. The other two were the following story, Masque of Mandragora and the first Doctor tale the Keys of Marinus. It was released on a double video tape in 1994 and on DVD in October 2010

426 The Seeds of Doom Part Five

2012-01-22T07:03:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Seeds of Doom Part Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 426
STORY NUMBER: 085
TRANSMITTED: 28 February 1976
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom

The Krynoid is attacked by the guards allowing the Doctor & Sarah to escape with them & Scorby to the cottages, but the Krynoid finds them. The Doctor has Scorby make a Molotov cocktail to distract the Krynoid while they escape. Sir Colin Thackeray contacts Major Beresford at UNIT, since the Brigadier is in Geneva, to summon his help thanking Miss Ducat for her help. The Doctor runs for the car to go to contact Sir Colin while Scorby & Sarah go back to the house searching for Chase who is in the garden photographing the Krynoid. Reaching the World Ecology Bureau he explains to Sir Colin & Major Beresford what's been happening and brings to their attention that within a mile of Chase's estate the Krynoid has started using other plants to kill people. They assemble a laser gun team to attack the Krynoid. The Doctor phones Sarah at Chase's mansion but they are cut off by the Krynoid which snaps the telephone wires. The guards flee the mansion leaving Scorby, Sarah & the butler Hargreaves behind. They find a guard's body outside strangled by the vines and encounter Chase, who is firmly on the side of the plants & the Krynoid and quite mad. He returns to the house sheltering in a room full of plants refusing to listen to Scorby's pleas for help. The plants attack them, choking them with vines as the Doctor & Sergeant Henderson arrive with pesticide. Chase attacks them calling them murderers. They free Sarah & Scorby but Hargreaves is already dead. They take shelter in Chase's laboratory. They clear the room of plants but while they are dumping them outside Chase locks the door leaving them at the mercy of the now giant Krynoid.

Much less violence this episode which is a big relief. Ok so Sir Colin asked Miss Ducat to help him.... how does he know of th link between her & Chase - did the Doctor contact him in between leaving her house and driving to Chase's mansion. Chase's madness in this episode seems very real and genuine and very very scary. Top marks to Tony Beckley's performance here. He's been "slightly odd" since the start of the story but as it's gone he's tipped from obsession right the way over the edge into madness. And UNIT's back. Except it's not UNIT as we know it. No Brigadier, no Benton, no Mike Yates or Harry Sullivan. Android Invasion *just about* got away with it by having Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan) and John Levene (Benton) involved when Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier) wasn't available. Here none of them are and it's a bunch of faces we don't recognise. This might of worked if it had been an established pattern over the years of different personnel (like the different Jimmys in the early days of UNIT) but UNIT has come to mean the Brigadier, plus support, so their appearance here is effectively UNIT in name only. Over the last three stories they've been commanded by officers of decreasing rank: after the Brigadier in Terror of the Zygons we had Colonel Faraday in Android Invasion and now Major Beresford. These last two episodes of the story are UNIT's last appearances of the seventies and it's a bit of anti climatic exit. Over the next few years the Doctor will be visiting contemporary Earth a lot less so the story need for them disappears. Save for a few mentions, and a cameo appearance of their headquarters, the next time we see UNIT on active service will be in 1989 in the final season of Doctor Who.

Playing Major Beresford is John Acheson who I know nothing about save that he's been in a previous Douglas Camfield production appearing in the Paul Temple episode Night Train. A quick peak at the cast list for that shows Peter Halliday in the cast also, who Camfield used on the Invasion. I also know nothing about Ray Barron, playing Sergeant Henderson. He's got no previous Doctor who appearances to his name but, and I'm sure this will surprise you, Camfield used him before in his 1975 Sweeney Stay Lucky Eh, which is the same one John Challis (Scorby) is in!

425 The Seeds of Doom Part Four

2012-01-21T06:57:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Seeds of Doom Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 425
STORY NUMBER: 085
TRANSMITTED: 21 February 1976
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom

The Doctor jumps through the windows in the ceiling and, overcoming Scorby & seizing his gun, holds Chase at gunpoint. He rescues Sarah, locking them in the lab but the Krynoid pod stings Keeler. Keeler quickly begins to change to Chase's amazed interest. Hiding Sarah in the grounds the Doctor sneaks back to the house. Keeler is taken to a cottage in the grounds. The Doctor finds the opened pod in the lab but is taken prisoner again by Scorby who takes him to Chase's composting machine. Locked in the cottage & bedridden, Keeler continues to mutate. Amelia Ducat turns up at the main gate demanding to be paid for her painting. Sarah sneaks into the cottage and is horrified by what Keeler is becoming. She goes to find the Doctor for help. Chase tries to fob Miss Ducat off by paying her and has Scorby escort her from the premises. Scorby is called away by the guards allowing Sarah to speak to her and gets her to pass a message to Sir Colin Thackeray. Chase has the Doctor placed in the entrance to his composter and sets the machine to start automatically. Miss Ducat returns to her car where Sir Colin & Dunbar are waiting for her. Sir Colin decides to call UNIT while Dunbar goes into the house, admitting his error to Sir Colin. Keeler has mutated into his tentacled form and breaks his bonds, escaping from the cottage. Sarah finds the Doctor and deactivates the composter. Dunbar argues with Chase. Chase's butler Hargreaves tells them Keeler has escaped and Dunbar goes for help. The Doctor & Sarah find Keeler gone. Dunbar encounters a larger Krynoid blob in in the grounds and is consumed by it before it turns it's attentions on the Doctor & Sarah.....

More violence in this episode with the Doctor hitting Scorby in stomach and then smashing chair over his head. Sorry, that's just not the Doctor. Violence from Scorby is more acceptable but his beating the Doctor is a little over the top: this isn't the Sweeney. Then there's the horror aspect of the episode too with Keeler pleading to go to hospital as Chase watches fascinated and the nasty composter machine that the Doctor is nearly fed to. Yes I know it's just a "saw mill saw blade with the damsel in distress tied to a log" but with the volume turned up a few notches but still. Like the previous episode there's aspects of this one which leave a rather bad taste in the mouth which is a shame because I think there is some good stuff going on here. When you think about it you do have to wonder why Miss Ducat has Sir Colin Thackeray waiting for her in a car: there's no established link between the two previously in the story.

Right lets deal with the casting "elephant in the room" now: Yes that is Tony Beckley as Harrison Chase. Not heard the name before but think he looks a tad familiar? He was Camp Freddie in The Italian Job. He died of cancer in California in 1980. Seeds of Doom was made 6 years after the Italian Job was released and, though the film was popular, I suspect it hadn't quite reached the popularity it has today. At the time John Challis, playing Scorby, was best known for a recurring role in Z-Cars. From 1981 he found fame as Boycie in Only Fools & Horses. He was an actor Douglas Camfield used repeatedly in his Sweeney episode Stay Lucky Eh and then again as Cpl Dupre in his acclaimed classic serial Beau Geste for Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks. So even though they weren't as well known then you can't watch this now without thinking that the lead villains are Camp Freddie from The Italian Job & Boycie from Only Fools & Horses and that takes you right out of the production.

Kenneth Gilbert plays Richard Dunbar. It's his soul Doctor Who appearance but he was in the Camfield directed Sweeney episode Bad Apple and the first Shoestring episode Private Ear (director: D Camfield) You may recognise him as Harold Earle, one of the politicians who falls pray to Francis Urquart in House of Cards. Mark Jones plays the ill fated Arnold Keeler as well as the voice of the Krynoid he becomes. He's yet another Imperial Officer in The Empire Strikes Back and is one of the few Who actors to appear in Red Dwarf (he's in Pete part 1 as a Canary). Chase's butler Hargreaves is played by Seymour Green who'll be back as the Chamberlain in The Twin Dilemma. Michael Barrington, playing Sir Colin Thackeray, is probably most familiar as Governor Venables in my favourite sitcom Porridge. David Masterman, the Guard Leader, was in another Camfield episode of the Sweeney Thou Shalt Not Kill while one of his guards, is Harry 'aitch Fielder (who was accidentally uncredited in episode 3). He spent his career as a supporting artist and once you know his face you'll be recognising him everywhere. He's got a stack of Doctor Who episodes to his name, almost all of them uncredited: The Enemy of the World: Central European Guard, The Wheel in Space: Wheel Crewmember, Planet of the Spiders: Guard, Revenge of the Cybermen: Vogan, The Deadly Assassin: Guard, The Face of Evil: Second Assassin, The Invisible Enemy: Titan Base Crewman, The Ribos Operation: Levithian Guard, The Armageddon Factor: Guard, Meglos: Tigellan & Castrovalva: Security Guard. He was numerous uncredited Federation Troopers in Blake's 7, one of which Camfield directed. Other Camfield productions he's appeared in include Target: Blow Out (which also features Camfield's wife Sheila Dunn) and four episodes of Beau Geste. If you look at his IMDB entry you'll find he has a truly impressive CV! I didn't realise until I started researching this story that he'd also appeared on Thames TV children's magazine series CBTV where he played Harry, the security the security guard on the gates of Teddington Studios that Jim Sweeney & Steve Steen had to get past to get their rooftop studio. Incredibly YouTube footage of this exists, uploaded by the man himself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG-lrYSulTc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHkJvLnWats. He's got a website at http://www.harryfielder.co.uk/ and once you realise what he looks like you'll be spotting him everywhere!

424 The Seeds of Doom Part Three

2012-01-20T08:36:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Seeds of Doom Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 424
STORY NUMBER: 085
TRANSMITTED: 14 February 1976
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom

The Doctor & Sarah are rescued from the ruins of the Antarctic base and flown to London. Scorby and Keeler deliver the seed pod to Harrison Chase. Dunbar arrives angry at the destruction Chase has caused and tells them that the Doctor & Sarah are still alive. The Doctor meets with Dunbar and his superior Sir Colin Thackery at the World Ecology Bureau. The Doctor worries information has leaked from the bureau and warns them of the danger the pod causes. The Doctor & Sarah leave in a car for the Botanic Institute but are instead driven to a quarry where their driver tries to kill them. The Doctor beats him unconscious. Examining the boot they find a painting by famed painter Amelia Ducat who identifies it as one she sold to Harrison Chase. Keeler has qualms about experimenting on the pod. The Doctor & Sarah drive to Chase's country mansion and are chased by guards but caught by Scorby then taken to Chase. He tells them he has the greatest collection of plants in the world and the plant that will hatch from the pod will be the centrepiece. The pod starts to activate & Chase is summoned allowing the Doctor & Sarah to escape from Scorby. Sarah is sent to summon help but is swiftly recaptured. The Doctor tries to get back into the house to get the pod. Sarah is taken to the seed pod and held down as it starts to open.....

The thing that stands out for me from this episode is how violent the Doctor is. we're used to see the Third Doctor throw people about and defend himself with Venusian Akido but here the Doctor is physically violent in a way we've not seen before striking the Chauffeur with his fist and punching Scorby in the stomach then twisting his neck to render him unconscious. It stands out from what we've seen before and doesn't feel right. In times to come the later piece of action would probably been accomplished by tripping him up with the scarf! My feeling is that this is the script as Robert Banks-Stewart wrote it and script editor Robert Holmes who was pushed for time (30 days between the script's commission & location filming) didn't have time to rewrite the scenes. It feels quite out of character for the Doctor and spoils the episode for me which has some great stuff in it with Chase's madness in his devotion to his plants and the wonderful exchange between the Doctor & Amelia Ducat about the painting standing out:[blockquote] The Doctor: We found it in a car boot
Amelia Ducat: A car boot?
The Doctor: A Daimler car boot
Amelia Ducat: The car is immaterial.[/blockquote]But I'm a little wary of one of the Doctor's other lines where he describes Sarah-Jane Smith as his "best friend". It's an odd turn of phrase for the Doctor who hasn't really described anyone as a friend before. Companion, assistant yes. But friend? Again I wonder if given a little more time to script edit the episode this line might have been tweaked.

Cast: Ian Fairbairn appears briefly as Doctor Chester. He was first in The Macra Terror as Questa, then became a Camfield regular appearing in The Invasion as Gregory and Inferno as Bromley & the Penetration Announcer before this. Camfield keeps using him as he appears in a Camfield episode of The Onedin Line, the first broadcast episode of The Professionals, Private Madness, Public Danger, that Camfield directed and also in one of Camfield's Shoestring episodes Link Up. The same episode also features Doctor who actors Stewart Bevan (Professor Clifford Jones from Green Death), John Woodnutt (most recently in the Camfield directed Terror of the Zygons), Camfield's wife Sheila Dunn (Dalek Masterplan, The Invasion & Inferno) plus Sylvia Coleridge - Amelia Ducat who's Amelia Ducat in this story (as well as appearing in Blake's 7: Gambit as the Croupier). Alan Chuntz, the Chauffeur was a regular member of the HAVOK stunt team and has been in the background of many a Doctor Who story either hitting someone or falling down.

We're back at Buckland Sand and Silica Co Ltd, this time serving as the quarry where the chauffeur tries to kill the Doctor & Sarah. The exterior of the World Ecology Bureau is probably the shortest distance Doctor Who ever travelled to film: it's the entrance to BBC Television Centre! Meanwhile Harrison Chase's estate is filmed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelhampton House in Dorset.

423 The Seeds of Doom Part Two

2012-01-19T08:44:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Seeds of Doom Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 423
STORY NUMBER: 085
TRANSMITTED: 07 February 1976
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom

Scorby arms himself to prepare to take the pod by force, despite Keeler's objections. Sarah finds Moberley's body and the base door opened. The Krynoid creature Winlett has become makes it's way through the snow as the Doctor tells Stevenson that they must destroy it. Dunbar speaks with Chase and tells him that they have heard there's been a virus outbreak at the base. Scorby destroys the base's radio when the medical rescue team try to contact them. Keeler finds the opened pod causing them to look for what has come out of it. Scorby takes the Doctor & Sarah prisoner and asks them about the pod. The Doctor tells him it's taken over Winlett. Stevenson returns to the base and is captured, accidentally revealing to Scorby that there is a second pod which Scorby has him fetch from the Freezer. The Doctor & Stevenson are tied up in the base while Scorby ties Sarah to a bomb in the generator plant, despite Keeler's continued objections. The Doctor & Stevenson sever their bonds and escape, the Doctor going to the generator to find Sarah. Stevenson attempts to contact help but is murdered by the Krynoid. Scorby & Keeler escape with the pod in their plane. The Doctor finds Sarah as the Krynoid enters the base's generator plant seeking shelter & food. They escape sealing it in as it's consumed by the explosion.

Perhaps a little on the slow side but there's some decent tension in this episode. Will Scorby & Keller find what they're after? Will the Krynoid kill them all? Will Sarah be rescued before the bomb goes off ? So yeah, good stuff, liked these first two episodes which essentially form a two part story by themselves.

If you're thinking the Krynoid monster looks familiar then it is: It's a resprayed Axon monster costume from 1971's Claws of Axos. Seeds of Doom was a somewhat late replacement as a story. The original idea was that season 13 would conclude with The Hand of Fear, a six part Bob Baker & Dave Martin story that was originally intended to kill off the Brigadier. For various reason the story fell through, being redrafted as a four parter for the next season. Script editor Robert Holmes turned to Robert Banks-Stewart who created Seeds of Doom in something of a hurry. Banks-Stewart was commissioned on 30th September 1975: By the 30th October location filming was taking place. The Axon costume reuse saves time & money creating a new costume, neither of which the production had.

422 The Seeds of Doom Part One

2012-01-18T07:33:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Seeds of Doom Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 422
STORY NUMBER: 085
TRANSMITTED: 31 January 1976
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom

An expedition team in the Antarctic finds a round object buried in Ice. Examining it at their base they think it's a seed pod of some sort. Pictures are sent to the world ecology bureau in London where Dunbar shows them to the Doctor, called in from UNIT, who is worried it's dangerous. The Antarctic team find the pod is growing. Dunbar visits noted plant collector Harrison Chase and shows him the photos. Chase is intrigued and dispatches Scorby & Keeler to retrieve it. While one of the team, Winlett, guards the pod it opens and spits out a tendril striking him. When he's found be Stevenson & Moberley he has started to turn green. The Doctor & Sarah are delivered to the Antarctic by helicopter. When the Doctor arrives he finds Winlett's body transforming into a plant like structure. The Doctor discovers a second pod in the ice next to where the team found the first, which they store in the freezer. The Doctor tells Sarah that Keeler is becoming a Krynoid, an animal consuming plant. Scorby & Keeler arrive posing as the medical team. The Doctor proposes amputating the arm where the infection first occurred. Moberley prepares to perform the operation but the creature Winlett is becoming clambers to it's feet and murders him......

Do not confuse with The Seeds of DEATH

Hurrah! Some snow and ice! I've loved snow & ice as a back drop ever since I saw the Hoth scenes in Empire Strikes Back. It's a few years too early to be homaging Empire though.... No essentially these first few episodes are The Thing From Another World, a 1951 movie about Arctic scientists digging something plant based up in the Arctic. It was remade in 1982 by John Carpenter as The Thing and the 1993 X-Files episode Ice, one of my favourites, owes a considerable debt to it as well. Apart from the monster being a tad gruesome I can't fault this episode at all. It comes as no surprise to find it's been produced by the same writer/director team, Robert Banks-Stewart and Douglas Camfield, that gave us Terror of the Zygons at the start of the season.

Two of the base crew have prior form in Doctor Who: Hubert Rees, as Stevenson, was Chief Engineer in Fury from the Deep and Captain Ransom in The War Games. I've found him also in Thou Shalt Not Kill, one of director Douglas Camfield's episodes of The Sweeney. John Gleeson, the ill fated Winlett, was a Thal Solider in Genesis of the Daleks. He's been in the Sweeney too, but his episode I Want That Man, wasn't directed by Camfield! But Michael McStay, who plays Moberley the third member of the base, was in Cover Story, another of Douglas Camfield's Sweeney episodes. We'll come to the rest of the cast later and there's at least one Camfield regular to appear.

I'll get to the casting "elephant in the house" later in the story. But for now it will be suffice to say that Yes, that is Camp Freddie & Boycie.

The master video tape of this episode went missing in the week prior to transmission but was fortunately found just in time!

Believe it or not but the exterior Antarctic scenes in this episode were filmed on location at Buckland Sand and Silica Co Ltd near Reigatre. It'll be back looking more like it's natural self later in the story.

421 The Brain of Morbius Part Four

2012-01-17T07:35:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Brain of Morbius Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 421
STORY NUMBER: 084
TRANSMITTED: 24 January 1976
WRITER: Robin Bland (pseudonym for Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Brain Of Morbius

Sarah sees the Monster and screams, accidentally setting it on fire with a flaming torch. She finds the Doctor's body and is shocked when he wakes up. Solon tries to calm the Morbius monster but it attacks him. Morbius then strikes the Doctor down and grabs Sarah but he is then attacked by the injured Condo who he kills. Morbius rampages through the rocks of Karn killing weakened members of the Sisterhood. The recovered Solon sedates his creation and, locking the Doctor and Sarah in a room, adjusts it allowing Morbius' brain to gain full control. The Doctor generates cyanide gas from Solon's chemical store to release into the air system to kill the monster, but all he succeeds in doing is killing Solon, the Monster survives due to his lungs having a methane filter. The Doctor confronts Morbius and challenges him to a dual in a mind bending contest. Morbius regresses the Doctor through his past lives all but killing him when the apparatus explodes. The Monster, damaged by the electrical discharge, goes on the rampage and is driven off a cliff by the Sisterhood destroying it. Maran uses what little elixir had been generated to restore the Doctor before sacrificing herself to the sacred flame. The Doctor leaves the Sisterhood some more fireworks in case they have more trouble with the flame and leaves in the Tardis.

Fab, that works wonderfully as a story. We get two rounds of "Hunt the Monster" in this episode first with the Doctor & Solon and then with the sisterhood, who in classic style, drive it off the cliff while wielding flaming torches. The dual sequence, between Morbius and the Doctor, is rather interesting as their past incarnations are projected onto a screen. We see Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton & William Hartnell, all seemingly taken from a photo in the 10th anniversary special. Then there's a succession of other faces.... are these earlier incarnations of the Doctor or an attempt by the Doctor to fool Morbius? I think we're pretty certain that the first Doctor we saw is the actual first Doctor.... In case you're wondering the faces actually belong to members of the Doctor Who production staff and the teams working on this and the next story: producer Philip Hinchcliffe, script editor Robert Holmes, Brain of Morbius director Christopher Barry, The Seeds Of Doom director Douglas Camfield, production manager George Gallacio, The Seeds Of Doom writer Robert Banks-Stewart, and production assistants Chris Baker and Graeme Harper.

The all female cult in this story have given their name to The Sisterhood of Karn, London-based gay science fiction fan club.

Brain of Morbius was repeated as a 60-minute compilation on Saturday 4 December 1976, a week after a similar compilation of Pyramids of Mars. Brain of Morbius was novelised by Terrance Dicks in 1977 using the modified storyline as seen on TV. It was adapted as the second and final Junior Doctor who novel in 1980 which I did actually see for sale. Once. In 1984 it was released on video as a compilation with a running time of less than an hour. I've never seen either version but I'm told this is not the same cut as the repeat compilation and, oddly, both include material which the other omits! The same compilation was released on Laserdisc in the same year. It was re-released on video in episodic format in July 1990, alongside a complete version of the Five Doctors which had also been butchered for it's original Video release, the first of the early Doctor Who stories on video to be re-released in their original length. Doctor Who - The Brain Of Morbius was released on DVD on 21st July 2008.

420 The Brain of Morbius Part Three

2012-01-16T08:25:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Brain of Morbius Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 420
STORY NUMBER: 084
TRANSMITTED: 17 January 1976
WRITER: Robin Bland (pseudonym for Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Brain Of Morbius

Morbius' voice summons Solon who throws Sarah out the lab as Morbius raves at him, wanting a new body. Sarah overhears that the Doctor has been sent into a trap and shuts the door on Solon, locking him in. Maran uses the last of the elixir to feed five of the sisterhood to keep them alive. They receive the message from Solon and plan to trap the Doctor. The still blind Sarah stumbles through the rocks as the Doctor enters the sanctuary and is captured. Condo returns to the castle and frees Solon. Maran tells the Doctor that Sarah's sight will return and that Solon lied to the Doctor. The Doctor suggests Morbius is on Karn hiding his mind from the sisterhood and offers to help Maran. Condo finds Sarah and takes her back to the castle. The Doctor examines the flame and, using a "little demon" firework, cleans the shaft from it's coating of soot allowing the flame to burn brightly again earning the Sisterhood's trust. Solon binds Sarah, bur Condo insists he doesn't

hurt her. Solon lets slip to Morbius that the Doctor is a Time Lord inciting Morbius' suspicions that the Time Lords have tracked him down and are coming to destroy him. Condo overhears Morbius suggesting using Sarah's head to complete the body so he can escape from Karn. Morbius then orders Solon to use an artificial brain case which he has developed. Solon begins preparing for the operation. Condo discovers his missing arm on the Morbius creature and filled with rage he attacks Solon, knocking Morbius' brain to the floor. Solon shoots him and retrieves the brain, placing it in the artificial case, concerned it may be damaged. Solon frees Sarah to act as his assistant to operate a pump. As Solon finishes the operation he is called to the castle doors as the sisterhood deliver the Doctor's body to the castle. Sarah, her sight recovering is menaced by the completed and awakening Morbius monster!

Fabulous again, great stuff. Really enjoying this story, it's working well. I wonder how many people watching it would have thought that the Doctor had been killed by the sisterhood?

Central to this story's success is our old friend Philip Madoc, playing Solon. He was previously in two of the stories that David Maloney directed in the sixth season, Patrick Troughton's last. He was in The Krotons as Eelek then The War Games as the War Lord and will return in The Power of Kroll as Fenner. He was in the second 1960s Dalek Movie: Dalek Invasion of Earth 2164ad as Brockley. Voicing Morbius is Michael Spice who'll be back as Magnus Greel in The Talons of Weng-Chiang as well as appearing in the final episode of Blake's 7's second season, Star One, as . Inside the Morbius Monster is another familiar name: Stuart Fell who was Alpha Centauri in The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon, a tramp in Planet of the Spiders, a Wirrn in The Ark in Space and a Kraal in the previous story The Android Invasion. He'll be back as an entertainer in The Masque of Mandragora, a Sontaran in The Invasion of Time and Roga in State of Decay.

419 The Brain of Morbius Part Two

2012-01-15T08:02:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Brain of Morbius Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 419
STORY NUMBER: 084
TRANSMITTED: 10 January 1976
WRITER: Robin Bland (pseudonym for Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Brain Of Morbius

Solon returns to the laboratory so Sarah hides. Solon & Condo & hunting the Doctor and conclude Maran, the head of the sisterhood has taken him. The Doctor wakes in the sisterhood's sanctuary and they accuse him of being sent to steel the elixir. They tell him of Morbius' crimes on Karn and his execution but the Doctor insists he felt the presence of his mind. Sarah follows Solon & Condo as they go to the sanctuary, interrupting the Doctor's being sacrificed to the flame to bargain for his life and Solon offers his servant's life for the Doctor's. While Solon debates with Maran a disguised Sarah loosens the Doctor's bonds allowing him to escape when the fire is lit. Maran fires an energy blast at them from her ring which blinds Sarah. Condo argues with Solon, upset that his master would offer him for sacrifice. Solon promises to reattach his arm. The Doctor brings Sarah to Solon to get him to look at her eyes. In the depths of the castle Solon confers with an unseen colleague that he addresses as Morbius but is summoned away by Condo when the Doctor & Sarah return. Solon examines Sarah but while he is doing so the Doctor catches sight of the Monster. Condo escorts Sarah from the lab as Solon tells the Doctor Sarah's sight is nearly completely destroyed and only the elixir of life can save it. The Doctor leaves to obtain some. Stumbling around the castle Sarah hears a voice calling for Solon and descends the stairs to the basement. Condo is sent with a message to the sisterhood and urged to get there before the Doctor. Sarah comes into the basement lab where Morbius' brain is house in a jar.

Just tops. Fabulous. A little bit "to and fro between the castle and the sanctuary" in places but each move is justified by the plot.

Frankenstein isn't the only story "borrowed" from for this serial: The name Morbius is a steal from the film Forbidden Planet, previously homaged in Planet of Evil. The planet name Karn is taken from author Terrance Dicks' own Doctor Who stage play The Seven Keys to Doomsday. The brain in a jar we see at the end is a horror staple, but a living brain? well there's two anitcendants that I can think of: Doctor Who's own The Keys of Marinus which has the Brains of Morphotron in the second episode but more importantly the Roald Dahl short story William & Mary where a man's brain is preserved living after his death. I saw it dramatised in Tales of the Unexpected (The episode guide says it first aired 1979 so I'm guessing that it's a repeat I caught in the mid eighties) and it lodged in my mind so much that when Liz turned a radio adaptation on in the car the other month I recognised it immediately! It's available on DVD in Tales Of The Unexpected - The Complete First Series and Tales Of The Unexpected - The Complete Series

418 The Brain of Morbius Part One

2012-01-14T07:32:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Brain of Morbius Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 418
STORY NUMBER: 084
TRANSMITTED: 03 January 1976
WRITER: Robin Bland (pseudonym for Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Brain Of Morbius

A ship has crashed on a barren planet and it's insectoid occupant drags it's body across the rocks only to be brutally murdered by a man with a hook for a hand who takes it's head. Condo, the servant, takes the head to his master Solon who tells him it won't do and he needs someone warm blooded with a central nervous system. The Tardis materialises on the planet with the Doctor emerging and shouting at the Time Lords who he believes have dragged them off course to do some dirty work for them. Sarah finds the crashed ship and when a bolt of lightening illuminates the landscape she sees many more. The Doctor obstinately refuses to investigate and sits playing with his yo-yo until he hears Sarah scream when she finds the headless corpse. The Doctor recognises the star patterns as being close to where he was born. Seeing a castle on the horizon they make for it. Solon is experimenting on the insect head when the lightening takes his power out. Elsewhere a group of women have noticed the Doctor & Sarah's arrival and believe they have come to take the elixir of life, a substance they guard which is no longer being produced from the flame of life which is dying. They have shared the elixir with the Time Lords and believe that the Time Lords have come to steal that little which remains. Solon finds Condo who has been looking for his missing arm which Solon has promised to repair. A bell sounds announcing visitors as the Doctor & Sarah arrive. Solon immediately is drawn to the Doctor's head. He tells them that they are on Karn, a name the Doctor recognises. One of the head statues in the room catches the Doctor's attention which he thinks he recognises. They are bought wine by Condo, who Solon explains he rescued from a crashed Drahvidan starship. The sisterhood form a chanting circle, locate the Tardis and transport it to their sanctuary. They recognise it as a Tardis, the vessel of the Time Lords. They form a circle again and attempt to locate the Doctor. The Doctor remembers that Solon is neuro scientist who disappeared, rumoured to have joined the cult of Morbius. A wind sweeps through the castle throwing the doors open and revealing the statue. The Doctor wonders if the Sisterhood of Karn are responsible and recognises the bust as being that of Morbius, a despicable Time Lord criminal before both he & Sarah collapse drugged by the wine. Solon plans his operation using the Doctor's head and orders Sarah's death but Condo hesitates. Before he can complete the task he's ordered to take the Doctor to the laboratory. Solon discovers from the Doctor's secondary cardiovascular system that he is a Time Lord. Sarah explores the castle but as Solon & Condo repair the generators the Doctor is teleported away by the sisterhood. Sarah finds the lab but while searching for the Doctor discovers a hideous headless creature made from an assortment of body parts......

Huzzah! It's Doctor Who does Frankenstein with all the trimmings: a mad scientist, a castle, a deformed servant, a castle and even lightening everywhere. Very atmospheric and top stuff. Yes that's a Mutant costume in the opening moments of the show, as later confirmed by the Doctor. Our old friend John Scott Martin is inside it (apparently the character is named Kriz). We also get references to the Time Lords and the Drahvidans, as seen in the story Galaxy Four!

So "Robin Bland". Terrance Dicks wrote the first draft of this story with Morbius having crashed on the planet and a robot trying to rebuild him using the parts he found there. He then went away on holiday as which point Philip Hinchcliffe became worried about realising the robot for the screen so had Robert Holmes rewrite the story. Terrance Dicks read the revised scripts on his return from holiday and disagreed with the changes arguing that while you could understand a robot coming up with this patchwork body surely the galaxy's greatest neurosurgeon could do better. He's got a point: why doesn't Solon immediately want to transfer Morbius' head into the Doctor's body? Or, for that matter, Condo's? So Dicks ordered Holmes to take his name off the script and replace it with "some bland pseudonym". Holmes took him at his word and came up with the writer's name that this story went out under.

417 The Android Invasion Part Four

2012-01-13T08:08:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Android Invasion Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 417
STORY NUMBER: 083
TRANSMITTED: 13 December 1975
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: UNIT Files: Invasion of the Dinosaurs & The Android Invasion

Somewhile later Sarah is roused by the Doctor. He plans to hide in the pods when they're fired out the ship to get to Earth before it. On Earth Space Control tracks the rocket as Harry & Benton search for the Doctor, worried by the Tardis appearing without him. Colonel Faraday takes them to Space Control where they contact Crayford. The pods are spotted and identified as meteorites. The pods land in the area near Devesham. The Doctor looks for Sarah. Visual contact is established with the rocket. Sarah hunts for the Doctor and finds her way to the Tardis where she meets Android copies of the Doctor & herself and flees into the woods. The rocket lands at Devesham and Colonel Faraday and Harry go to check if Crayford's OK. The Doctor arrives at the space centre and has them called back. Benton is called away and knocked out by an Android with his duplicate replacing him. The Doctor gives the space controller instructions and ask to have them kept secret. The Doctor detects that Harry & Farraday have been replaced and, threatened by his own duplicate, escapes through a window assisted by Sarah. The Doctor, pretending to be his double, goes back to the space centre & scanning room while Sarah climbs towards the rocket. The Android Doctor finds the Doctor as he's about to activate the jamming for the robot. Crayford arrives and questions what's going on. The Android Doctor reveals to Crayford the true plan using the virus to kill everyone. The Doctor breaks his brainwashing by getting him to remove his eye patch, discovering that his hidden eye is fine and realising he's been tricked by Stygron. The Doctor struggles with his Android and activates the jamming device freezing the Androids. Sarah frees Harry & Farraday in the rocket but they are caught by Stygron. Crayford & Stygron struggle, with the Kraal killing his former ally. The Doctor arrives and struggles with Stygron who falls against the plague jar and dies, but not before he shoots the Doctor. The Doctor then walks into the room revealing it was his reprogrammed android that attacked Stygron. The Doctor & Sarah go and find the Tardis in the woods. Sarah intends to stay and get a Taxi home but the Doctor talks her into having a lift in the Tardis.

With one major exception that was a pretty good episode. It's come in for some stick over the years from certain publications and commentators who ask questions like "Why hasn't Crayford removed his eye patch before?" (because he's been brainwashed not to and doing so breaks his conditioning) and "How come the Doctor's robot still works when his jammed the rest?" (it's inside the rocket shielding it from the jamming signal). No, that's a competent and fun episode of Doctor Who with some amusing stuff done with the Doctor's robot double.

No the problem here for me is poor Patrick Newell, as Colonel Faraday. I've never seen his performance as Mother in the final John Steed and Tara King series of The Avengers but here he's nothing but a cheap Brigadier imitation/caricature. I know he's in because of Nicholas Courtney's unavailability but it's not a good performance and it would, in my opinion, have been a better episode with the role just filled by Harry & Benton. I doubt that the performance is an in-joke at the series Invasion of the Body Snatchers origins.

There's a couple of familiar names at the space centre this episode: Hugh Lund plays Matthews, one of the technicians, and he was a Zarbi in The Web Planet. Meanwhile the other technician, Grierson, is our old friend Dave Carter, who was credited for part 1, but isn't in it. He was also in Doctor Who and the Silurians as the Old Silurian, Inferno as a Primord, Terror of the Autons as a Museum Attendant, The Mind of Evil as a Prison Officer, The Time Monster as a Roundhead officer and Invasion of the Dinosaurs as Sergeant Duffy. This is his last appearance in Doctor Who as it is too for Ian Marter, as former companion Harry Sullivan, and John Levene, as RSM Benton. Neither get a particularly good send off with Harry last seen as a prisoner of Stygron and, even worse for a character that's been with the show for eight years, Benton lying on the floor having been attacked by an Android. In fact we're not even sure from this story if he's alive or dead. Fortunately when the Brigadier reappears many years later we discover that Benton has left the army and become a used car salesman while Harry is doing something "hush hush at Porton Down". I'm unsure if the plans at the time involved these characters returning for the next UNIT story. We know one was on the cards because the original six part version of the Hand of Fear, intended to close this season, would have killed the Brigadier off. UNIT does return in the six parter that closes the season but none of the soldiers seen are ones we've previously encountered. It's a bit of a damps squib departure for something that's been such a part of the last few years of Doctor Who.

John Levene emigrated to the USA where he works as an entertainer and occasional actor. His website can be found at http://www.john-levene.com/. Ian Marter continued to act into the 80s but developed a sideline adapting Doctor Who stories for Target Books. He novelised nine stories, making him the series second most prolific author. He died on 28 October 1986 from a heart attack caused by diabetes complications and was the first actor who played a Doctor Who companion to die.

This is also the last story directed by Barry Letts. From here he goes on to produce the classic serials for the BBC, with Terrance Dicks acting as his Script Editor once again. He returns to Doctor Who to act as Executive Producer on Tom Baker's final season over new producer John Nathan-Turner. During the 1990s he wrote two radio plays for the Third(Jon Pertwee) Doctor and contributed to many DVD commentaries effectively filling the moderator role on most of them. He died on 9th October 2009 aged 84.

Following this episode's broadcast on 13th December 1975 the program took a break for three weeks over Christmas. However two weeks later on the 27th December an 85-minute compilation repeat of Genesis of the Daleks was aired with a new story starting on Saturday 3rd January 1976.

Android Invasion was novelised by Terrance Dicks three years after it's broadcast in November 1978. It was released on video in 1995. It was released on DVD on Monday this week in the UNIT Files boxset with Invasion of the Dinosaurs

416 The Android Invasion Part Three

2012-01-12T08:40:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Android Invasion Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 416
STORY NUMBER: 083
TRANSMITTED: 06 December 1975
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: UNIT Files: Invasion of the Dinosaurs & The Android Invasion

Stygron announces to Chedaki that he has finished using the village as a training ground and is preparing to destroy it. He as kept Sarah alive to test his virus on which he will use to kill the populace of Earth. The villagers are fetched by the truck and taken away. Sarah escapes from the Kraal base. The Doctor is captured by Stygron and the white androids then tied to the stone memorial in the middle of the village with a bomb. Sarah frees him and they make it to the Kraal base just before the explosion consumes the simulated village revealing the barren surface of the Kraal home planet. Crayford captures and imprisons them. He is ordered to kill them but objects. The Doctor tells Sarah that everyone & everything they'd seen were fake copies. Crayford visits them in their cell and reveals the Kraal plan to invade Earth using the androids which will be fired to Earth in the pods. They are delivered food an water by "Harry" which has been tainted with the virus Stygron plans to kill the humans with. The Doctor is taken to be copied. Sarah escapes to rescue the Doctor. Stygron attaches the Doctor to his machine to copy his body & brain patterns and leaves, with the machine left running which will kill the Doctor. Sarah rescues him and they race to Crayford's ship before it leaves for Earth. They try to hide in the androids pods but are unable to close them and are crushed by the g-force on blast off.

So everything we've seen so far is a fake and a testing ground for the robots prior to their Invasion? Ok... It seems quite a great length to go to especially when they blow it to bits halfway through the episode. You do think if they can build that how come they aren't able to make the surface of their planet habitable again. But Stygron's visit to the surface is only brief so I think you can assume the environment is still hostile if you're exposed to it for a longer period of time. Applause please for an old friend back with us again: the spacesuit Crayford wears was first seen in the Ambassadors of Death and returned in Colony in Space & Planet of the Daleks. Meanwhile the unnamed Kraal is played by a familiar name: it's Stuart Fell who was Alpha Centauri in The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon, a tramp in Planet of the Spiders, a Wirrn in The Ark in Space, the Morbius Monster in The Brain of Morbius, an entertainer in The Masque of Mandragora, a Sontaran in The Invasion of Time and Roga in State of Decay.

There's two Terry Nation staples in this episode. Big Bombs have been a part of his stories since the Daleks with Invasion of Earth, Planet of the Daleks & Death to the Daleks also featuring them. However for the fourth Terry Nation story on the bounce, after Planet of the Daleks, Death to the Daleks & Genesis of the Daleks, he works a virus into the plot somehow. It was his mid seventies obsession which earlier in the year had reached it's fulfilment in Survivors (first broadcast 16 April 1975) where the vast majority of the population is wiped out by an artificially engineered virus and looks at the struggle of those left behind to survive. So a post apocalyptic version of The Good Life then, which incidentally started airing the same month on 4 April 1975.

The series was produced by Terence Dudley, the former producer of Gerry Davis & Kit Pedler's series Doomwatch, later to direct & write for Doctor Who. Past & present Who directors worked on the show including Pennant Roberts, Gerald Blake, Tristan DeVere Cole & George Spenton-Foster. Neither of the female leads - Carolyn Seymour (later to be a Romulan in Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Lucy Fleming (currently controlling Ian Fleming Publications, the firm which manages her late uncle's literary works) have appeared in Doctor Who but we'll see Ian McCulloch in Warriors of the Deep and Dennis Lill will shortly be along as Professor Fendelman in the Image of the Fendahl and then as Sir George Hutchinson in The Awakening. Other Who acting luminaries involved include Patrick Troughton, Peter Jeffrey, Brian Blessed, George Baker, Philip Madoc, Iain Cuthbertson, June Brown, David Troughton, William Dysart, John Abineri, Chris Tranchell and Roger Lloyd-Pack.

415 The Android Invasion Part Two

2012-01-11T07:27:00.000Z

EPISODE: The Android Invasion Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 415
STORY NUMBER: 083
TRANSMITTED: 29 November 1975
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: UNIT Files: Invasion of the Dinosaurs & The Android Invasion

Sarah releases the Doctor. Crayford reports to Stygron that the Doctor & Sarah are space travellers as their escape is noticed. Sarah recognises Crayford's name and tells the Doctor he was killed on a deep space mission. The Doctor & Sarah encounter Mister Benton who draws a gun on them but staggers when Crayford countermands his order to kill. They see Harry acting under Crayford's orders too. The Doctor thinks that Crayford may have brought something back from space which is controlling everyone. The Doctor & Sarah are tracked by dogs but Sarah twists her ankle. The Doctor hides Sarah up a tree and draws the dogs off hiding under water in a nearby pond. Sarah is found and taken an alien laboratory. The Doctor finds the village phones aren't working so can't summon assistance. Harry operates the alien equipment which analyses Sarah's brain & body patterns. Trying the phone in the pub the Doctor is found by the landlord. The Doctor notices that the dartboard, like the money was, is brand new. Stygron argues with a fellow alien, Chedaki, about what they are doing. The Doctor finds that the horse brass in the pub is fake and all the calender pages are the same. The phone starts working and Sarah calls arranging to meet him at the village store. Chedaki worries the Doctor will turn the androids against the Kraals. Sarah tells the Doctor how she escapes and tells the Doctor how they are replacing people with duplicates. The Doctor says he thinks they may have released Sarah as part of a trap. Stygron creates a new android from Crayford and orders it to attack him demonstrating to Chedaki a weapon he has that can destroy the androids. Sarah and the Doctor return to where the Tardis was, finding it gone. The Doctor explains the Tardis has continued to the real Earth and that he knows that she isn't the real Sarah. They struggle, and "Sarah" falls to the floor, the blow dislodging her face and revealing an android face underneath.

Another cracking episode this, loved it. I'm sitting here thinking "why am I liking this over the previous story, Pyramids of Mars, which is a so called classic?" and I just don't know. I think it's something to do with the tone of the episodes, a bit lighter in these two over the dark atmosphere and themes of Pyramids of Mars that are appealing to me.

Several of the cast are known to us from previous stories though only one, Milton Johns as Guy Crayford, has a previous Barry Letts directed story to his name playing Benik in The Enemy of the World. He'll be back as Kelner in The Invasion of Time. Technically Ian Marter was in the Letts directed Carnival of Monsters but his presence here is necessary to bring Harry Sullivan back, becoming the first companion to appear in the series after they left as a regular character. Also back from UNIT is John Levene as RSM Benton, but Nicholas Courtney is absent from a UNIT story for the first time. Peter Welch is playing pub landlord Morgan and we saw him as a Sergeant in The Highlanders. Amongst the Androids there's a few familiar names: Keith Ashley was a Dalek in Genesis of the Daleks & a Zygon in Terror of the Zygons while Roy Pearce was a Solos Guard in The Mutants. Derek Hunt will return as, but won't be credited for, James in Black Orchid while George Ballantine will play a Hawker in Snakedance. Max Faulkner, playing Corporal Adams the UNIT trooper that "dies" in the first episode has been a regular guest artist over the years appearing in The Ambassadors of Death as a UNIT soldier, The Monster of Peladon as a miner, Planet of the Spiders as a Guard Captain and Genesis of the Daleks as a Thal Guard. He'll be back as the fight arranger for Hand of Fear and in The Invasion of Time as Nesbin. Under the make up as Marshall Chedaki is Roy Skelton who has been in (deep breath) The Ark providing Monoid voices, The Tenth Planet & The Wheel in Space providing Cybermen voices, The Ice Warriors as the Computer voice, The Krotons as Kroton voices, Colony in Space as Norton (his first appearance in front of the camera) ,Planet of the Daleks as Wester, The Green Death as James and The Hand of Fear as King Rokon. Oh and he provides Dalek voices for The Evil of the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks,The Five Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks & Remembrance of the Daleks

414 The Android Invasion Part One

2012-01-10T08:35:00.002Z

EPISODE: The Android Invasion Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 414
STORY NUMBER: 083
TRANSMITTED: 22 November 1975
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: UNIT Files: Invasion of the Dinosaurs & The Android Invasion

A UNIT soldier walks jerkily through some woods. The Tardis materialise nearby. The Doctor is suspicious, which is confirmed when they are attached by white spacesuited figures with guns built into their index fingers. They escape but witness the soldier throw himself off a cliff into a quarry. Investigating the body the Doctor is worried by his pocket of freshly minted and identically dated coins. They find a burnt object nearby that the Doctor thinks reminds him of something but the white suited figures find & attack them. Seeking sanctuary in the nearby village they find themselves in Devesham, where Sarah has been before on a story. The village seems deserted and the pub is empty, but glasses sit half drunk on tables, the Doctor likening it to the Marie Celeste. All the coins in the till are freshly minted too. Sarah recalls her previous visit was to the nearby Space Centre. The Doctor wonders if there had be a radiation leak or similar escaped substance. The white suited figures walk through the village accompanied by the soldier. A truck arrives with the villagers sat in the back. They emerge, Sarah identifying the pub Landlord, with several entering the pub, and as the clock strikes they resume their normal activities & conversations. The Doctor goes to the Space Center to contact UNIT leaving Sarah in the pub where she is quickly detected and treated with suspicion by the locals. The Landlord thinks she might be part of the test and asks her to leave. Sarah catches sight of one of the white suited figures with it's visor up and discovers it's a robot. Arriving at the Space Center the Doctor is ignored by the stationary guard. Sarah returns to the Tardis, but as she puts the key in the lock she discovers another of the burnt pods and investigates. As she does the Tardis dematerialises. The pod opens and an arm emerges grabbing at Sarah and attempting to strangle her. At the space centre Crayford is contacted by his unseen superior Stygron who has detected movement in the complex. The Doctor enters the Brigadier's deserted office and is captured by Crayford, who has heard of him. He tells him that the Brigadier is in Geneva and Colonel Faraday is in command. The Doctor escapes, being shot at by UNIT troops but is recaptured by the white suited robots. Sarah sees and follows at a discrete distance. The Doctor is locked in a cell where Sarah attempts to free him. However they are observed by a hideous alien face.....

Oh thats fabulous stuff that is! Doctor Who doesn't do "little country villages with something not quite right" as often as you think (the only previous example is the Daemons) and here it works superbly with the villagers behaving very oddly, the UNIT corporal coming back from the dead and the odd sight of the white space suited figures wandering through woods, fields and country lanes. Something's going on but what is it? Set the mystery up in the first episode and let it run. Top Episode, best first episode for a long while. Sadly my memory of the story has it that things do go *slightly* down hill from here but hey ho. This is Terry Nation's first non Dalek story since Keys of Marinus in 1964 and Barry Letts' first turn in the Director's chair since giving up as producer.

The locations for Android Invasion are all located in Oxfordshire not that far from each other. The village scenes were filmed in East Hagbourne, just four miles from The National Radiological Protection Board in Didcot which serves as the Space Centre. Tubney Wood, close to the A420 which links Oxford & Swindon, provides the woodland locations seen in this episode while Worsham Quarry, 11 miles to the North, provides the quarry location where the dead UNIT Corporal was found.

413 Pyramids of Mars Part Four

2012-01-09T07:47:00.002Z

EPISODE: Pyramids of Mars Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 413
STORY NUMBER: 082
TRANSMITTED: 15 November 1975
WRITER: Stephen Harris (pseudonym for Robert Holmes and Lewis Griefer)
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Pyramids Of Mars

Sutekh interrogates the Doctor learning he is a Time Lord. Scarman contacts Sutekh telling him Sarah has been captured. Sutekh sends the Tardis key to Scarman and instructs him to travel to the pyramid of Mars but the Doctor convinces him he is needed to operate the Tardis. The Sutekh controlled Doctor is returned to 1911 and takes Scarman, Sarah & a Mummy robot to Mars. Scarman orders the Mummy to kill the Doctor and then they both leave for the pyramid. However the Doctor has used his respiratory bypass system to survive. Sarah & the Doctor pursue Scarman through a number of traps. Scarman destroys the device restraining Sutekh and, his usefulness at an end, dies and disintegrates. Sarah & The Doctor race back to the Tardis and journey back to the priory. Sutekh stands for the first time in centuries and uses the vortex to journey to the priory but the Doctor traps him in the Vortex killing him. The Sarcophagus housing the vortex explodes, setting fire to the priory & destroying it.

Oh dear. Now I know it's traditional for Egyptian tombs to have booby traps prevented tomb raiders from looting them but what results here is half the episode is spent ripping off the last episode and a bit of Death to the Daleks. Sarah even makes reference to it reminding her of the Exillon city, which odd because she never went in it! They'll be a similar sequence next year in Hand of Fear too. We also get the famous appearance of the "hand of Sutekh" at 20:40 into the episode where a technician's hand can be seen helping Gabriel Wolfe to stand!

I know Pyramids of Mars is loved by Doctor Who fans the world over but...... something about it doesn't quite work for me. I'm not sure what though. I've never liked this last episode terribly much but the first few are rather grim with, apart from a few witty one liners, little humour or light to it. Is Pyramids of Mars the first Doctor Who story where everyone dies? Possibly. Celestial Toyroom? Most of the characters were imaginary, ditto The Mind Robber (although I think the Master survives at the end). Sometimes I've watched it and got into the first three episodes, others they've left me cold. This time I've been more towards the second of these two views.

Pyramids of Mars has been repeated twice by the BBC: The first time was on 27 November 1976 as 60-minute compilation and then episodically over 17 years later from 6 to 27 March 1994 on BBC2. It was novelised by Terrance Dicks in 1976. A compilation video was released in February 1985 and an episodic version in February 1994. Pyramids Of Mars was released on DVD on 1st March 2004 having topped a Doctor Who magazine poll the year before as the story most wanted for release on DVD. I'm told that Pyramids of Mars is available with the DVD & Blu-ray of The Sarah Jane Adventures - Series 4 making it the first classic Doctor Who story to be released on the Blu-Ray format.

412 Pyramids of Mars Part Three

2012-01-08T07:39:00.002Z

EPISODE: Pyramids of Mars Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 412
STORY NUMBER: 082
TRANSMITTED: 08 November 1975
WRITER: Stephen Harris (pseudonym for Robert Holmes and Lewis Griefer)
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Pyramids Of Mars

Sarah immobilises the mummy with the control ring they took from Namin. The Doctor & Sarah find the missile that the Mummies are building. Lawrence suggests the use the poacher's store of blasting gelignite to destroy the missile. The Doctor deactivates one of the generator loops to allow them to get to the poacher's hut. Sutekh detects their interference. Lawrence finishes stripping one of the mummy robots for the Doctor when he is found and killed by his brother. The Doctor & Sarah return and discover his body. The Doctor disguises himself as a mummy to get close to the missile to place the explosives which he intends Sarah to shoot with Lawrence's rifle. Sutekh sends Scarman the coordinates for the missile which he installs in the missile. Sarah detonates the explosives but Sutekh contains the explosion. The Doctor goes to confront Sutekh to distract him so that the explosives power is unleashed and is transported through the vortex to Sutekh's tomb, where the distraction allows the explosion to occur but the Doctor is captured by Sutekh.

Hmmm, this has started to plod a bit. And, with the exception of a few witty one liners, it's just dark and nasty.

Pyramids of Mars was filmed as Star Grove Manor, which at the time was owned by Mick Jagger who used it as a recording venue for The Rolling Stones. It also appears in The Image of the Fendahl two years later. The Pyramids Of Mars DVD has a "now & then" feature on the location.

Directing this story is Paddy Russell, the first female Director to work on Doctor Who when she directed 1966's The Massacre. She had returned to Doctor Who for Invasion of the Dinosaurs and would later helm the recording of Horror of Fang Rock.

411 Pyramids of Mars Part Two

2012-01-07T07:16:00.001Z

EPISODE: Pyramids of Mars Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 411
STORY NUMBER: 082
TRANSMITTED: 01 November 1975
WRITER: Stephen Harris (pseudonym for Robert Holmes and Lewis Griefer)
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Pyramids Of Mars

The servant is revealed as Marcus Scarman who gives the Mummies generator coils, shaped like Canopic Jars, which he orders placed at the compass points to contain the estate in a deflection barrier. The Doctor is injured interfering with the vortex inside the mummy case and is hidden in the priest hole by Sarah & Lawrence. The local poacher encounters the deflection barrier and, visiting the hunting lodge to seek help, sees Scarman use a Mummy to murder Warlock. The poacher attempts to kill Scarman who dispatches the Mummies to kill him. The recovered Doctor, Sarah & Lawrence see the Mummies removing advanced equipment from the room of Egyptian antiquities which the Doctor deduces they are using to build a rocket to release Sutekh from his imprisonment on Mars. They take shelter in the Tardis and Sarah asks to return to her own time. The Doctor takes her there and shows her the devastation that will occur if they don't stop Sutekh. They return to 1911 as Scarman confers with Sutekh via a mummy. Lawrence attempts to stop the Mummies from killing the poacher but it merely attracts their attention as they storm into the cottage.

Yup, more mummies wandering around looking menacing. The thing this episode is famed for is the trip to 1980 where the Doctor shows Sarah what her time will look like. It also rather annoyingly conclusively dates Sarah from 1980 when, as future stories will show, we'd like her to be actually from the 1975 when this story was broadcast. Hmmm. Solution: The Doctor has taken her back to 1975 sometime between Terror of the Zygons & Pyramids of Mars and comes back for her again in 1980. That'd create a neat little gap to allow the Doctor to pop off somewhere which, as we shall also see, would be useful.

This episode has one of my favourite effects ever: The glow in the stripes round the face on the sarcophagus as Scarman talks to Sutekh. It's simple, but it works.

The Poacher seen in this episode, Ernie Clements, is played by George Tovey who was the father of Roberta Tovey who played Susan in the two Peter Cushing Doctor Who films. Heard in this episode, but neither credited or seen until the following one, is Gabriel Woolf as Sutekh. Many years later he returns as the Beast in The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit.

The name attached to the writing of this story is Stephen Harris, a pseudonym. The initial draft, involving the British Museum which is perhaps a more obvious setting for mummies, was written by experienced writer Lewis Griefer, who wrote The Prisoner episode The General. However problems with the story straying too far from the original concept arose, then Griefer was taken ill and finally left England for a teaching position in Israel he'd previously committed to, all of which necessitated a major rewrite from script editor Robert Holmes.

410 Pyramids of Mars Part One

2012-01-06T07:45:00.002Z

EPISODE: Pyramids of Mars Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 410
STORY NUMBER: 082
TRANSMITTED: 25 October 1975
WRITER: Stephen Harris (pseudonym for Robert Holmes and Lewis Griefer)
DIRECTOR: Paddy Russell
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Pyramids Of Mars

In Egypt, Professor Marcus Scarman penetrates a tomb and after finding the mark of the eye of Horus is blasted with energy. After Sarah sees a psychic projection of a monstrous head inside the console room, The Tardis materialises in UNIT HQ's location but in 1911, the site of the priory that burnt down before the present building was constructed. They find a storeroom at the house filled with Egyptian artefacts. The house belongs to Professor Scarman and his old friend Doctor Warlock comes and confronts Namin, the Egyptian who has been living there supposedly on the orders of Professor Scarman. The Butler is murdered by an unseen assailant and when Warlock threatens to call the police Namin shoots him but is overpowered by the Doctor. He & Sarah rescue the injured Warlock and flee into the grounds. Warlock directs Sarah to the hunting lodge, where Scarman's brother Lawrence lives. While fetching him Sarah encounters a mummy walking through the woods. Namin searches for the Doctor & Warlock but is summoned back to the house. At the hunting lodge Warlock's wounds are treated and the Doctor intercepts a signal from Mars saying Beware Sutekh. Leaving the lodge and returning to the house they see a black robed figure emerge from a vortex within a sarcophagus and slay Namin.

This story Doctor Who has a go at plundering every Mummy film ever made, and there's been a fair few. There's something inherently frightening about Mummys lumbering round the place so it's possibly a surprise Doctor Who hasn't done something with them before now. A decent episode, with a fair bit of mystery built into it - what's happened to Professor Scarman and what was the face in the Tardis? - that isn't answered by the end.

The majority of the story's cast are in this episode (with several not progressing much further!) and most of them have other Doctor Who credits to their names, most prominent of which is our old friend Michael Sheard, as Laurence Scarman. He was previously in The Ark as Rhos and The Mind of Evil as Dr. Summers . He'll be back in The Invisible Enemy as Lowe, Castrovalva as Mergrave and Remembrance of the Daleks as the Headmaster. His character's brother, Marcus Scarman, is played by Bernard Archard previously the villainous Bragen in The Power of the Daleks. Scarman's Butler, Collins is Michael Bilton who was Charles de Teligny in The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve and will be a Time Lord in The Deadly Assassin, which also features Peter Mayock, here playing Ibrahim Namin, as Solis. Ahmed, who we briefly saw at the beginning of the episode, is played by Vik Tablian who was Barranca and Monkey Man in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Finally one of the mummies is Melvyn Bedford who was Reig in Planet of Evil, the previously shown story that was filmed after Pyramids of Mars.

409 Planet of Evil Part Four

2012-01-05T08:28:00.002Z

EPISODE: Planet of Evil Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 409
STORY NUMBER: 081
TRANSMITTED: 18 October 1975
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet Of Evil

The officer on the command deck, Reig, is attacked and killed, his screams summoning the crew allowing Vishinsky to save them. Vishinsky argues with Salamar and relieves him of command. With Sarah's information the Doctor works out that Sorenson is becoming anti-matter. The ships internal hatchways are sealed. The Doctor searches Sorenson's quarters and finds the remains of the samples and Sorenson's solution. Sorenson finds him, and after they talk Sorenson, in a moment of clarity, takes the sample and goes to eject himself and them. Salamar seizes the ship's neutron accelerator and stalks Sorenson. They clash with Sorenson killing Salamar and becoming fully mutated due to the neutron accelerator. The Doctor encounters duplicate creatures while he returns to the bridge. The Doctor goes to confront Sorenson. Stunning the real version he drag him into the Tardis which dematerialises taking the Doctor, Sorenson & the samples back to Zeta-Minor. Sarah & Vishinsky attempt to repel the creatures on the ship. The Doctor forces Sorenson into the anti matter pool in the cave which causes the duplicates on the ship to vanish and stops it being dragged towards the planet. The anti-matter universe returns a cured Sorenson which the Doctor returns to the Morestran ship. The Doctor gives the professor a hint as to an alternate source of energy before he & Sarah leave in the Tardis for their appointment in London which they are 30,000 years late for.

Sorry, the last episode didn't save the story for me. I found the whole thing dull and lifeless with no real sense of danger. Essentially it's a "base under siege" story but I don't feel any attachment to any of the characters and so I don't care what happens to them. And as for the awful crew costumes...... Salamar's just loud, shouty and thick. His "Only I can give a red alert" is supposed to represent a descent into madness but it just sounds childish and I'm sure Red Dwarf has done a similar line. Sorry I won't be rushing to see this story again. Thankfully the idea of crewmen trapped on a ship will shortly be done an awful lot better in Robots of Death.

The planet in this story, Zeta Minor, gave it's name to http://www.zetaminor.com/, a DVD website and the home of Roobarb's DVD Forum.

Adapted by Terrance Dicks an novelization of this story was released in 1977. It was repeated 5 to 8 July in 1976. It was released on video in January 1994 and on DVD in 2007

408 Planet of Evil Part Three

2012-01-04T08:23:00.000Z

EPISODE: Planet of Evil Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 408
STORY NUMBER: 081
TRANSMITTED: 11 October 1975
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet Of Evil

As Sorenson & Salamar argue Sarah sneaks off the ship into the jungle. The Doctor falls through a black void and meets with a creature. De Haan & Morelli remove Sorenson's samples but he conceals some in his cabin. Sarah calls for the Doctor at the black pit and is there when he is returned. Salamar is angered when Vishinsky halts take off to retrieve the Doctor & Sarah, who the occuloid tracker has spotted. In his quarters Sorenson begins a strange transformation as his eyes glow red, halted when he drinks of a solution. Vishinsky and De Haan revive the Doctor in the sickbay. The spacecraft again has trouble taking off but the Doctor gives up his sample, which enabled him to survive the trip to the other dimension, to Morelli to be jettisoned. However en route to the do this Morelli is killed. A mutating Sorenson drinks more of the solution to keep himself normal. Sorenson tries to convince them that another civilisation is trying to seize his discoveries. The Spaceship finds itself being pulled back to Zeta Minor, because the Doctor thinks there's still anti matter aboard. Salamar believes the Doctor and the Tardis are responsible. Sarah, left alone with Sorenson, watches transfixed as he begins to change and only comes to her senses when she hears De Haan's dying screams. She screams, and the Doctor overpowers Salamar and comes to investigate. Salamar stuns the Doctor, convinced he is responsible for De Haan's death and orders him ejected from the ship. Sorenson spills the last of a powder his solution is made from and begins to permanently transform. The Doctor & Sarah are locked in place and slide towards the opened ejection chamber.....

And the origins of this story stand revealed: It's Doctor Who's version of Jekyll & Hyde with the anti matter creature a direct lift from Forbidden Planet. Unfortunately I'm still having trouble engaging with the story. It's not doing anything for me. Sorry.

The background character Reig, who appears in this episode, is played by Melvyn Bedford will play a mummy in Pyramids of Mars, the next story screened but filmed immediately before this one.

The Doctor spends his career battling evil so it's no surprise that the word crops up in a few story titles:

The Aztecs 1: The Temple of Evil
The Daleks' Master Plan 3: Devil's Planet
The Evil of the Daleks
The Mind of Evil
Planet of Evil
The Face of Evil

407 Planet of Evil Part Two

2012-01-03T01:22:00.000Z

EPISODE: Planet of Evil Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 407
STORY NUMBER: 081
TRANSMITTED: 04 October 1975
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet Of Evil

One of the spaceship crew, O'Hara, attacks the creature and is killed by it. Salamar and Vishinsky investigate a power fault when Ponti reports that they may be under attack and Vishinsky finds the prisoners gone. Salamar blames them for O'Hara's death. The Morestrans launch the occuloid tracker to find the Doctor. The Doctor & Sarah investigate the cave with the black pit where they believe the creature came from but they are found by the tracker and captured. Ponti falls into the pit and the Doctor warns them they are interfering with things on this planet that they don't understand. Sorenson & De Haan retrieve Sorenson's samples which he believe will give the Morestrans a new source of power. Salamar puts the Doctor on trial and refuses to believe the Doctor's explanation for the deaths. The Doctor tells them to leave Sorenson's samples behind or they will never leave the planet. The Doctor explains to Sarah that the Morestrans actions may put the whole universe at risk. The Doctor steals some of Sorenson's mineral samples as the ship starts it's launch sequence. The ship malfunctions as they start to take off and they see the creature approaching the ship. The Doctor & Sarah are brought to the bridge as the crew attack the creature. The Doctor advises them to link their forcefield to the atomic accelerator which repels the creature. The Doctor returns to the cave to communicate with the creature but is dragged into the black pit.

I'm experiencing similar feelings to this story that I had before: annoyance at Salamar and complete non engagement with the plot. The monster's there, it's reasonably obvious that the Doctor hasn't killed the people and Sorenson's a bit loopy and yet ..... Salamar doesn't seem to have two brain cells to rub together and Prentis Hancock is basically rehashing his Vaber (from Planet of the Daleks) performance here.

While these episodes of Doctor Who were airing a new science fiction series was being broadcast directly opposite it by ITV, or was in some regions at least. Several years in development Space 1999 was seen as the other side's answer to Doctor Who. Set on a Moonbase, an element recycled from UFO which Space 1999 is very roughly a sequel too, the Moon is blasted out of orbit in episode 1 and the series tracks it's voyage round the universe and the crew's struggle for survival. In front of the camera Doctor Who actors Prentis Hancock (Salamar in Planet of Evil) and Ziena Merton (Ping Cho in Marco Polo) feature in a regular cast headed by American stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Guest stars include Second Doctor Patrick Troughton, Julian Glover (King Richard in the Crusade & Scaroth in City of Death) and Brian Blessed (Yrcannos in Trial of a Timelord). Johnny Byrne, future Doctor who writer of Keeper of Traken, Arc of Infinity & Warriors of the Deep, writes for the show during series 1.

However Space 1999 was seen as having problems and a major revamp preceded series two. In came experienced American producer Fred Freiberger. Out went Prentis Hancock and several other members of the cast including respected actor Barry Morse replaced by, amongst others, the future Countess Scarlioni (City of Death) Catherine Schell. Many new writers were recruited including former Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks and future Doctor Who writers Pip & Jane Baker.

There are two sorts of Space 1999: Good Space 1999 and Bad Space 1999. These roughly equate to the first series and the second series. It must be a coincidence that the "bad" second year was over seen by the man who produced the inferior third series of Star Trek and had a script by the writers of Time & The Rani isn't it?

Space 1999 series 1 is available on Blu-ray and DVD. In my opinion it's well worth your time & money. Episodes such as Breakaway, Black Sun, Earthbound, Another Time, Another Place, Death's Other Domain, Full Circle and Dragon's Domain are really rather good. Plus the model effects sequences look staggeringly good especially in high definition. As yet series 2 hasn't been released on BD and the DVD is, sadly, long out of print.

406 Planet of Evil Part One

2012-01-02T07:05:00.002Z

EPISODE: Planet of Evil Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 406
STORY NUMBER: 081
TRANSMITTED: 27 September 1975
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet Of Evil

On the planet Zeta-Minor Braun plants a grave marker for a fallen comrades while another two men gather samples in a cave. Braun radios to call them back to base before night falls but Professor Sorenson wants to stay to pursue a rich seam. Baldwin leaves Sorenson behind but back at their base a creature comes for Braun who disintegrates. Baldwin too is caught and killed when he returns to base. The Doctor & Sarah come out of the Time Vortex 30,000 years too late and hearing the distress call materialise in the jungles of Zeta-Minor. A spaceship approaches Zeta-Minor where Vishinsky describes it as the last planet in the known universe. Controller Salamar tells Vishinsky to head up the landing party even though they don't have enough fuel to survey the planet first. The Doctor & Sarah find the graves and the seemingly deserted base. The Doctor wonders where they are theorising that the expedition was killed before help arrived. Sarah returns to the Tardis for some equipment and while she is gone the Doctor finds Baldwin's body. As Sarah enters the Tardis, it's found by the landing party. They have the Tardis transferred to the probe by transmat. The landing party find Sorenson who tells them he has made a vital discovery. Vishinsky quizes him on the expedition's losses but he is evasive. They find the Doctor at the base. Sarah exits the Tardis finding herself on the Morestran spaceship and a prisoner of Salamar who interrogates her. In the cave where the samples were found a sound comes from the black pit in the middle. Salamar opts to land on the planet. Sorenson relates the story of how the members of his expedition were killed. Salamar, convinced the Doctor is responsible, has him taken for interrogation. But once reunited with Sarah they escape encountering an all but invisible monster surrounded by red energy....

Confession time: I've never been a huge Planet of Evil fan, but I'll try to approach the story with an open mind. This episode wasn't bad at all, but the base and the jungle reminded me somewhat of Planet of the Daleks, a previous story directed by David Maloney: in particular the door to the base not looking unlike the back of the Thal shuttle. Essentially at this stage the Doctor is the number one suspect in the eyes of Salamar, the commander of the Morestran forces. It's only at the end that the creature stands revealed before us and even then we have no idea what it is!

"character development" is a high priority in this story so let's get the cast out the way before they start leaving us as the story progresses. Lead guest is Frederick Jaeger playing Professor Sorenson. Previously he was Jano in The Savages and will return as Professor Marius in The Invisible Enemy. Also in The Savanges was Ewen Solon, here playing Vishinsky, who was Chal. Salamar is played by Prentis Hancock, a veteran of the aforementioned Planet of the Daleks, where he was Vaber. He was also in Spearhead from Space as a reporter and returns in The Ribos Operation as the Shrieve Captain. We'll look at his most famous role outside of Doctor Who tomorrow. Louis Mahoney plays Ponti, returning to Doctor Who after being the newscaster in Frontier in Space. He also has a modern Doctor Who appearance to his name: he was the older Billy Shipton in Blink. Tony McEwan, who briefly plays Baldwin was a Redcoat in The War Games (director: David Maloney) as was Graham Weston, here playing De Haan, who was Russell. A veteran of not one but two previous David Maloney stories is Michael Wisher, playing Morelli. He was in The Ambassadors of Death as John Wakefield, Terror of the Autons as Rex Farrel, Carnival of Monsters as Kalik, provided Dalek Voices during Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, Death to the Daleks & Genesis of the Daleks, where he also appeared as Davros and Revenge of the Cybermen where he was Magrik. In a later episode of this series he'll voice Ranjit. This story is his last Doctor Who appearance: he had another prior booking when asked to reprise Davros for Destiny of the Daleks and died in 1995.

405 Terror of the Zygons Part Four

2012-01-01T08:50:00.000Z

EPISODE: Terror of the Zygons Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 405
STORY NUMBER: 080
TRANSMITTED: 20 September 1975
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who Terror of the Zygons

The Zygons transmit a jamming signal to hide their course. Sarah & Harry search the castle for a clue to Broton's plans discovering that the Duke is the president of the Scottish Energy Commission. The Zygon craft touches down in a quarry near London. The Skarasen is tracked travelling towards London. Broton, disguised as the Duke, tells the Doctor more Zygons are coming fleeing the destruction of their world but are not due for centuries. He plans to alter Earth's climate to make it more like the Zygon home world. The Brigadier is contacted by the Prime Minister about what action he should take. The Doctor interferes with the Zygon equipment broadcasting a signal from the Zygon ship that gives away it's position in a disused quarry just beyond Brentford. The Zygons believe the Doctor has been killed as the Duke leaves to place the activator on their target, but his alien physiology allows him to survive and free the other prisoners of the Zygons. The Doctor simulates a fire alert which summons the Zygon crew allowing them to escape. The Doctor sets the ship to self destruct as they leave and it explodes as the Brigadier & UNIT arrive. The Brigadier recalls that there is a International Energy Conference that's taking place at Stanbridge House on the river that the Duke has an invite to. Broton plants the activator in the cellar. The Doctor, Sarah & UNIT search the building and are found by Broton. He and the Doctor struggle but Broton is shot & killed by the Brigadier. The Doctor finds the signalling device and throws it into the Thames where it is caught and eaten by the Skarasen which then retreats up the river to the sea. The Doctor, Sarah, Harry & Brigadier return with the Duke to Scotland so the Doctor can find the Tardis. Harry & the Brigadier decide to take the Train home while Sarah is persuaded to travel back in the Tardis....

Oh that was rather good. Yes the Skarasen effects are a tinsy bit ropey but that's a decent ending to the story. One of the oddest bits jumped out at me though as Broton is leaving the Zygon ship he says "when phase 2 is completed I shall broadcast my demands to the world" and as he does so he puts his bowler hat on casually like he's going off to work for the day. Class.

The episode claims the quarry is in Brentford, but like the Scotland locations in the story it's in Sussex. However Stanbridge House is on the Thames in London albeit in it's guise as Millbank Tower, previously seen as the International Electromatics headquarters in The Invasion.

The Zygons are probably the greatest one appearance only monster in Doctor Who. One of them nearly had a appearance as a prisoner in Shada, but this (bar the flashback cameo in Logopolis) is their only appearance. Their shape shifting ability would you think make them an easy monster to bring back. Indeed they might have worked a lot better instead of the broadly similar Slitheen in the new series.

This episode sees the departure of Ian Marter as companion Harry Sullivan, returned to Earth by the Doctor. He'd be back for UNIT's next appearance in The Android Invasion. However The Brigadier doesn't return in that story. It's unclear why Nicholas Courtney didn't appear in Android Invasion but the extended career summary in Doctor Who Magazine 436 makes it clear that his marriage was collapsing at the time so I suspect that that might be a factor. By the time Seeds of Doom came around Courtney would be performing in a stage show in Canada. It wouldn't be until 1983 that we saw the Brigadier again.

Terror of the Zygons was novelised by Terrance Dicks and released under the title Doctor Who & The Loch Ness Monster. This might have to draw attention to the famous element of the tale but I suspect also served to distinguish it from the similarly named Terror of the Autons which was already in print. Terror of the Zygons was released as a compilation video in the UK in 1988, but had appeared the year before in Australia. It's not the only story to be released outside the UK first: Deadly Assassin was first released in the USA and Talons of Weng Chiang was released in Australia & the USA before the UK. An episodic video version followed in 1999. To date it is one of only two stories that were available as video compilation stories not yet released on dvd: the other is Death to the Daleks. And thus, in many ways, Terror of the Zygons is the main reason Phil still has a VCR. It's the only Doctor who story VHS that has regularly got played back in our house since the DVD releases came to dominate.

404 Terror of the Zygons Part Three

2011-12-31T06:15:00.002Z

EPISODE: Terror of the Zygons Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 404
STORY NUMBER: 080
TRANSMITTED: 13 September 1975
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who Terror of the Zygons

Harry lunges at the Skarasen's controls in the Zygon ship, allowing the Doctor to escape. Benton searches the pub for surveillance devices so the Broton orders the Zygons to have the monitor link, embedded in the stag's head hanging on the wall, removed. The Doctor, Brigadier & Sarah visit the Duke of Forgill and ask to depth charge the loch to destroy the monster. The Duke dismisses their suggestions. Angus, the pub landlord, discovers the bug but is disturbed by Sister Lamont from the infirmary who turns into a Zygon and kills him, removing the bug. Benton hears Angus' screams and with some men pursues the Zygon into the woods. The Doctor thinks that the Oil Company have built their base on the monster's root to the sea. They're called to the forest by Benton, but Sarah stays to research the monster in the Duke's library. The Zygon returns to it's human form, attacking a UNIT soldier and steeling his jeep. Seeing the stag's head, now missing it's eye, The Doctor deduces that the Duke, who brought the head to the pub, must be a Zygon. Sarah discovers a secret passage in the library which leads down and into the Zygon spaceship. The Duke discovers she has found the passage and left the door open. Sister Lamont arrives at the hall and Broton, disguised as the Duke orders her taken to the ship. Sarah finds Harry and, once she's sure he's him and not a Zygon, she releases him. They find the Doctor & Brigadier looking for them: The Doctor goes into the passage but is captured by the Zygons who announce to the other that they are leaving and going to take over the world. The Brigadier depth charges the lake to force the Zygon ship to the surface. The Zygon ship emerges from the water and flies off in a southerly direction.

That was a cracking episode: Another Zygon name revealed: Odda, the one impersonating Sister Lamont. As it is the Zygon's plan, beyond conquer the Earth, is still not clear. I'm not writing a lot in praise of these episodes but my goodness they are good stuff and well done. Sadly after praising an effect in the last episode I now find that the shots of the Skarasen moving past the Doctor in this one aren't that good.

The cast for this story features a few familiar faces. John Woodnutt plays both his grace, the Duke of Forgill and the Zygon Warlord Broton. He was George Hibbert in Spearhead from Space and the Draconian Emperor in Frontier in Space. He'll return as Seron in The Keeper of Traken, and will later play Sir Watkyn Bassett in the Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie Jeeves and Wooster as well as Merlin & Mogdred in the adventure game program Knightmare. Angus, the pub landlord, is played by Angus Lennie who was Storr in The Ice Warriors and found fame as Shughie McFee in Crossroads. Robert Russell, playing The Caber was a Guard in The Power of the Daleks and Keith Ashley, a Zygon, we've recently seen as a Dalek in Genesis of the Daleks and will shortly see as a Kraal android in The Android Invasion.

Doctor Who is known for striking fear and terror into it's junior viewers so it's little surprise that the word TERROR has popped up in a few story titles:

The Keys of Marinus 4: The Snows of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Chase 4: Journey Into Terror
The Macra Terror
Terror of the Autons
Terror of the Zygons

There's a FEAR story on the horizon shortly so we'll list the other FEAR titles then.

403 Terror of the Zygons Part Two

2011-12-30T06:26:00.000Z

EPISODE: Terror of the Zygons Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 403
STORY NUMBER: 080
TRANSMITTED: 06 September 1975
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who Terror of the Zygons

Hearing Sarah's screams on the phone, the Doctor, Brigadier & Mister Benton rush to the infirmary where the Nurse, Sister Lamont, doesn't know where Sarah or Harry have gone. The Doctor finds Sarah in the decompression unit, but both are locked in and the pump activated. Harry has been taken to the alien spaceship, where he meets Broton, Warlord of the Zygons. Their craft crashed on Earth centuries ago and they intend to conquer Earth. They show Harry the Skarasen, a massive cyborg reptile brought as an embryo to Earth and grown here. The Doctor hypnotises Sarah and puts himself into a trace to survive the air being pumped out. At the pub, the Brigadier and UNIT troops are gassed into unconsciousness. Benton finds the Doctor & Sarah and releases them. Huckle finds the Brigadier and troops at the pub as a roaring sound is heard. Arriving back at the village the Doctor finds the whole village gassed. Broton is angry at the Doctor's survival. Huckle has found an odd piece of equipment in the wreckage which the Doctor identifies as a signalling device. Harry is taken to the Zygons' cells where his body print is copied allowing a Zygon to assume his form. Also held are Nurse Lamont, The Duke and his Gillie, The Caber. UNIT Troops discover the crushed body of a soldier on the moor. Harry wanders into the pub, takes the alien device and tries to leave but Sarah is suspicious and calls for help. UNIT soldiers & Sarah pursue him to a barn where he falls, impaling himself on a pitchfork and transforms into a Zygon before Broton remotely actives it's dispersal device. Sarah returns the homing device to the Doctor, who tells the Brigadier that he thinks the Pub is bugged. Broton orders the Skarasen to attack and activates the homing device. The Doctor takes the homing device in a jeep to draw it away from the village, but as he gets onto the moor the Jeep brakes down and the homing device attaches itself to him. The Brigadier traces the signal controlling the monster to Lock Ness as Broton commands the massive Skarasen to destroy the Doctor as it bears down on him......

It's time to give a debut to the season 13 & 14 game: Guess which film Robert Holmes is homaging this story. Nearly every story for the next two years owes a debt to some older film, usually a horror or sci fi movie. Here it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers spiced up with the legend of the Loch Ness Monster. Indeed the book of this story was calledDoctor Who & the Loch Ness Monster. Robert Banks-Stewart helps the believability of his monsters by giving them names: Their leader is Broton and the Zygon impersonating Harry is Madra. This makes them, and the other Zygons, individuals straight away. Of the non human Doctor Who races to date only the Menoptera & Optera, original Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Inter Minor officials and Sontarans have been blessed with individual names.

In Revenge I criticised the effect of the planet's surface coming towards the beacon. Two episodes later we get one of the finest effects shots yet seen in the show: The Zygon spaceship sitting under the water. You look at it and it's a perfectly believable shot.

This episode has another bit of Camfield repeat casting: Bernard G. High plays the UNIT Corporal and he was previously a soldier in The Web of Fear.

This story is set in Scotland, around Loch Ness. However the BBC, in their wisdom, decided to film the locations for this story in Sussex instead! The Doctor's visited Scotland five times on the television screen: The Highlanders, Terror of the Zygons, The Hand of Fear (School Reunion says the closing scenes are in Aberdeen), Timelash and Tooth & Claw (plus The Moonbase refers to previous visit to train under Lister in Edinburgh). Yet not once does the production venture north of the border to film! We've been to Wales to film The Abominable Snowmen, The Green Death, The Masque of Mandragora, The Pirate Planet, The Five Doctors and Delta and the Bannermen yet only two of those are set there! Then add in all the Welsh filming for the new series! Come on Doctor Who, address the balance and organise some Scottish location filming soon!

This episode of Doctor Who shed 2.3 million viewers from the previous week (down to 6.1 million from 8.4 million) which is believed due to the arrival of ITV's new science fiction series Space 1999. However the impact was short lived with the next episode returning to 8.2 million and by the end of the season Doctor Who was being watched by more than 11 million people. We'll look at Space 1999 during the next story when one of it's stars shows up in a guest role in Doctor Who.

402 Terror of the Zygons Part One

2011-12-29T06:56:00.000Z

EPISODE: Terror of the Zygons Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 402
STORY NUMBER: 080
TRANSMITTED: 30 August 1975
WRITER: Robert Banks-Stewart
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who Terror of the Zygons

After 32 episodes on DVD we're back on video for this four part story which, because it's not on DVD yet, is one of the main reason I still keep a working video recorder.

At sea an oil rig is destroyed. The Doctor and his companions have arrived in Scotland and hitch a lift on the road, being picked up by His Grace, The Duke of Forghill, who takes them to the Village of Tulloch where UNIT are operating out of the local pub. The Brigadier has been talking with Mr Huckle from the oil firm. On a local beach a survivor from the oil rig is washed up. The Brigadier explains to the Doctor about three oil rigs being destroyed. Radio blackouts occur just before the rigs are destroyed. Sarah speaks to the local pub landlord but their conversation is observed on a monitor screen by alien eyes. Harry finds the survivor on the beach, but both are shot by the Duke's gillie. The Doctor & Sarah are summoned the local infirmary where Harry has been taken as the aliens direct something under the water which attacks another rig. The Doctor examines some of the wreckage and deduces that it has been bitten into by making a plaster cast of from the damage. The aliens observing them decide the Doctor must be destroyed. Harry starts to come round, leading Sarah to summon the Doctor. But as she speaks on the phone one of the aliens appears in the corridor behind her....

Ah that's decent stuff. I criticised Revenge of the Cybermen for bungling their monster reveal but it's done a lot better here with little hints - eyes and hands - before the reveal at the end of the episode. Destroyed oil rigs might make log term fans of the show automatically think Sea Devils, but as we can see it's not them.
Back to the show comes our old friend Douglas Camfield following his heart problems and disagreements with Jon Pertwee on the set of Inferno. Also returning are Nicholas Courtney, as Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, and John Levene, as Mister Benton, making UNIT's traditional start of the season appearance. On debut here is writer Robert Banks-Stewart, who'd been writing for television since 1959 with Danger Man, The Avengers and Jason King on his CV. He'd go on to create detective dramas Shoestring and Bergerac. Banks-Stewart is the first debut author on Doctor Who since Robert Sloman and Barry Letts wrote the Daemons in 1971. Four seasons of Doctor Who have elapsed since then with the just older authors contributing to the show.

Appearing in this episode only are Hugh Martin, as Munro, who'll be back as a Priest in Vengeance on Varos and Bruce Wightman, as the Radio Operator, who was William de Tornebu in The Crusade and Scott in The Daleks' Master Plan. Yup, another actor that Douglas Camfield likes reusing.

This episode aired the last Saturday in August 1975. The previous Monday, a bank holiday, Tom Baker presented the BBC's Disney Time as The Doctor which included the Doctor being given a message by the Brigadier summoning his assistance.... which he'd already done in the previous story Revenge of the Cybermen.

401 Revenge of the Cybermen Part Four

2011-12-28T07:24:00.002Z

EPISODE: Revenge of the Cybermen Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 401
STORY NUMBER: 079
TRANSMITTED: 10 May 1975
WRITER: Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Cybermen Box Set (Revenge of the Cybermen & Silver Nemesis)

Lester stops Harry from removing the bomb harness. Harry explains what has happened. Stevens continues on the planned course while The Doctor, Harry & Lester attack the Cybermen in the caves with gold. Vorus & Tyrum argue over Vorus' actions. The Doctor's attack goes wrong and Lester is killed destroying the Cybermen with his bomb. The Doctor turns off the Cybermen's monitoring device. They attempt to set off the bombs remotely but Sarah interrupts them, getting herself captured. However the detonation is prevented by the Doctor's sabotage. The Doctor confers with the Vogan leaders and decides to transmat back to the station to deal with the Cybermen and rescue Sarah. The Cybermen set the Beacon on a course to collide with Voga, loading it with bombs and preparing to leave on their spaceship. The Doctor uses the Cybermat to attack the Cybermen with gold. Vorus, worried by the station's movement, launches the rocket early and is gunned down by the other Vogans. The Doctor & Sarah are captured by the Cybermen and tied up in the Beacon's control room powerless to do anything. The Cybermen leave as the Beacon moves towards Voga. The Doctor & Sarah escape their bonds and get the Vogans to divert the rocket towards the Cybership which is destroyed. The Doctor wrestles with the Ark's controls preventing it from hitting Voga. The Tardis arrives at the Ark as Harry returns by Transmat, but they all leave quickly as The Doctor finds a message from the Brigadier summoning him back to Earth ....

As "bonkers Cyberman plans" go, Revenge is nearly sensible. Capture the beacon, Transmat the humans to Voga carrying the bombs and blow them up. You're guessing they us the humans to avoid getting killed by the gold. Except they then send two Cybermen down anyway who the Doctor promptly attacks with the gold. No matter, we'll load the beacon with explosives and crash it into Voga. Well if you've that much explosive why not just transmat it down and blow the planet up from there? Except, as Lester's sacrifice shows, the Cyberbombs may not be all they're cracked up to be. You have to assume Kellmen, an exographer, had found some weak spot in Voga the Cybermen where the planets weak..... and now we're peering at the details the cracks are beginning to show. Still it's a bit more solid than Vorus' plan to blow the Cybermen up with a rocket he's only finishing as they show up! One truely dodgy special effects sequence in this episode involved Voga's planet surface on a roller being spun round in front of the camera. Unfortunately the roller is a bit small making the effect look very poor! Other than that it's not a bad episode with a nice bit of action and tension and far more Cybermen than I remember there being.....

.... which is a good thing really as we now bid farewell to the Cybermen, who we'd not seen for six and a bit year, for nearly another SEVEN. This episode was shown on 10 May 1975 and, barring an aborted cameo in Shada and a flashback in Logopolis, they wouldn't be seen till 09 March 1982 when they made their surprise comeback. In fact during the entire rest of Tom Baker's reign there's only two returning monster stories: The Sontarans in the Time Warrior and the Daleks in Destiny of the Daleks. Include the Master's appearances and this number rises, but he's more of a villain than a monster and two of those are right at the end of the fourth Doctor's reign. The majority of this period is done without any resort to the show's back catalogue of monsters, though we do get to see the Time Lords on a more regular basis.

We also good bye now, this time permanently, to Gerry Davis, co-creator of the Cybermen and former Doctor who script editor for the last year of the first Doctor and first year of the second. In the 1980s he worked in America, including collaborating on an attempt with Terry Nation on a bid to take over production of Doctor Who. He died on 31 August 1991.

Revenge of the Cybermen also marks the end of the shortest season (so far) in Doctor Who's history at 20 episodes, beating the 25 episodes for Seasons 7 & 8. Even if Terror of the Zygons, recorded at the end of season 12 but eventually shown at the start of season 13, had been shown with season 12 it would have only been 24 episodes long. As it was the practice of holding a story over to the start of the next season was commonplace in the early seventies. The short season here enabled filming to resume earlier than usual in the summer of 1975 and for the show to return not in January 1976 but in September 1975, giving that year 35 episodes of Doctor Who, the most since 1968.


YEAR	# EPISODES
1963	6
1964	45
1965	46
1966	46
1967	44
1968	41
1969	25
1970	25
1971	25
1972	27
1973	28
1974	24
1975	35
1976	22
1977	30
1978	28
1979	26
1980	18
1981	12
1982	26
1983	23
1984	24
1985	13
1986	14
1987	14
1988	13
1989	15

Revenge of the Cybermen was novelised by Terrance Dicks, the only one of Gerry Davis' Cybermen scripts not be adapted by Davis himself. Revenge of the Cybermen was the very first Doctor Who story to be released on video cassette as a compilation version on both VHS & Beta Max formats in October 1983. The story has it that fans at the BBC's Celebration event at Longleat were polled on what story they'd like to see released. They chose Tomb of the Cybermen, which at the time was missing from the archives but it's absence wasn't generally known. So BBC Video chose the first complete story they could find with the Cybermen in it. Following the grand tradition set by Target books the cover to the first release of the video featured the wrong type of Cyberman. We'll forgive the neon logo on the box because it was the current Doctor Who logo at the time.... It was quickly reissued in the packaging standard that would become the template for the Doctor Who videos with only the font used for the story title being carried over. This design would be kept for the majority of the videos up until 1996 when the covers were redesigned. In 1999 Revenge of the Cybermen was reissued on video in episodic format. Revenge of the Cybermen was one of two Doctor Who stories to be issued in the UK by the BBC - the other being Brain of Morbius. Revenge of the Cybermen was issued on DVD as part of Doctor Who - The Cybermen Box Set with Silver Nemesis on 9 August 2010 setting a record of the longest gap between initial release on video and release on DVD.

400 Revenge of the Cybermen Part Three

2011-12-27T08:37:00.002Z

EPISODE: Revenge of the Cybermen Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 400
STORY NUMBER: 079
TRANSMITTED: 03 May 1975
WRITER: Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Cybermen Box Set

Episode 400? Wow.

Sarah & Harry are taken to Tyrum. Kellman briefs the Cybermen on Voga. He goes to Voga, ostensibly to check the Transmat is working. The Cybermen intend to destroy Voga so Stevens, Lester & The Doctor are sent to Voga by Transmat with powerful Cyberbombs strapped to them. Kellman attempts to find Vorus but is captured by Tyrum's men. The Cybermen escorting the Doctor & the humans are attacked by Vogans. Kellman tells Tyrum of Vorus' plan to launch a rocket at the beacon destroying the remaining Cybermen. The Cybermen move through the caves killing any Vogan they find as the Doctor & the humans move towards their target. Sarah goes transmats back to the beacon to warn the Doctor. Vorus prepares to launch his Skystriker rocket at the beacon but fears he has run out of time now the Cybermen have arrived with their bombs. Harry & Kellman attempt to find the Doctor & his party but cause a cave in killing Kellman and knocking the bomb carriers out. Harry attempts to free The Doctor from his bomb harness little knowing that the harness is booby trapped......

There aren't that many Cybermen in this episode but you get an idea of how powerful they're meant to be as the two on Voga move through the caves seemingly impervious to everything the Vogans throw at them. Where's the so called Glitter Guns that we hear about during this episode? Given that the Cybermen have showed up you'd expect them to be armed with an appropriate weapon quick enough. Meanwhile the Cybermen coerce someone into doing their dirty work for them sending the Doctor, Stevens & Lester off to Voga strapped into booby trapped bombs. That's not going to end well. The idea that the Cybermen have been lured here by the ability to destroy a threat to them but it actually being a trap to destroy the Cybermen appeals to me. There's a couple of lovely touches with the transmat in this episode as the Doctor beams down playing with a yoyo and Sarah's doing something with her hands, actions that are continued from departure to destination giving a continuity even though one point was shot in studio and the other on location some weeks apart.

Location filming for this story was conducted at Wookey Hole in Somerset (itself an actual location in the Doctor Who New Adventure novel Blood Heat) between the 18th-21st November 1974. The filming there was plagued by accidents@ an electrician broke his leg, Elisabeth Sladen's motorboat went out of control throwing her into the water where she nearly drowned and the stuntmen who rescued her was injured getting her out of the water. Some members of the cast & crew attributed the incidents to a local curse but in reality most of the incidents can be ascribed to the small amount of air in the caves being consumed by a larger than usual number of people.

The location filming for this story has been homaged by The League of Gentlemen in the fifth episode of their first television series. Mark Gatiss, a future Doctor Who writer and actor, plays a cave guide in the fictional Stump Hole Cavern and at one point says

This particular cavern might be familiar from it’s countless appearances on the small screen. In 1974 you couldn’t move down here for Cyber Men. In fact, in an amusing incident, Tom Baker sprained his ankle on that rock there…

A live version of this sketch can be found on YouTube but I'd suggest you don't watch it at work.

399 Revenge of the Cybermen Part Two

2011-12-26T06:59:00.000Z

EPISODE: Revenge of the Cybermen Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 399
STORY NUMBER: 079
TRANSMITTED: 26 April 1975
WRITER: Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Cybermen Box Set

The Doctor escapes from the room and hearing Sarah's scrams rushes to the crew room where he finds her having been bitten by a Cybermat. The Doctor & Harry take her to the Transmat to use it to purge the poison from her system but they find the pentallion drive removed and the Transmat not functioning, concluding Kellman is responsible and working for the Cybermen. The Doctor jury rigs a replacement circuit while Stevens & Lester go to arrest Kellman who is now armed. Sarah & Harry are transmatted to Voga but the circuit explodes stranding them there. Harry finds gold, which is abundant on the planet, but his curiosity gets them into trouble when they are found and captured by the Vogans. Lester & Stevens capture & disarm Kellman. The Doctor explains to Lester & Stevens that the Cybermen are allergic to gold because it clogs their breathing apparatus. The Doctor threatens Kellman with the Cybermat as the Cybermen approach the station. Harry & Sarah are taken to Vorus who seems to know a lot about what has been happening on the beacon and tells them only four humans were meant to be left alive. Vorus is summoned by councillor Tyrum. Kellman tells the Doctor where the missing pentallion drive is. Tyrum sends his militia into the gold mines to relieve Vorus' guardians under protest from Vorus. Fighting breaks out between the two factions. The Doctor reactivates the transmat but using it fails to return Sarah & Harry who escape from their gold chains and are taken to Tyrum. The Cybership nears the station and docks. Stevens, Lester & The Doctor attempt to stop them but the Cybermen open fire and all three are gunned down!

It takes a while for the Cybermen to properly show up in this story. They pop up here and there through the first two episodes but don't get to interact with anyone else until the end of the episode when they storm the beacon. So half way through the story and effectively they've only just showed up. For a monster that I've not seen for six years I'd be wanting a bit more a bit sooner. Gerry Davies, who's been busy writing Doomwatch since his last Doctor Who (1967's The Tomb of the Cybermen), has used this structure with the Cybermen before: They're not fully revealed in either The Moonbase or Tomb of the Cybermen till the end of the second episode. As we've said this is the first proper Cybermen story for six and half years, although they had brief cameos in The War Games, Mind of Evil & Carnival of Monsters. As is traditional for the Cybermen they've had a redesign. Essentially these Cybermen are the Invasion version wearing the Moonbase/Tomb chest units with cabling on the limbs replaced by ribbed vacuum cleaner hose which also surrounds the tubes projecting from the head. For the first time we get a designated Cyberleader, who has a black helmet with a silver face plate. These Cybermen are allergic to gold, which apparently clogs their breathing apparatus..... which is a little strange since we saw Cybermen operating in a vacuum in The Moonbase & Wheel in Space so I would have thought that they didn't need to breather. The gold allergy joins a lengthy list of Cyber weaknesses which also includes radiation, gravity, plastic solvents and emotions.

Neither of the Cybermen with their names listed in speaking roles have played the monsters before but both have been in Doctor Who previously. The Cyberleader, Christopher Robbie was in the Mind Robber as the Karkus while the credited Cyberman Melville Jones was a guard in The Time Monster.

Onto the Vogan cast members in this story: Playing Vorus is David Collings on his Doctor Who debut. He'll return as Poul in The Robots of Death (directed by Michael Briant) and Mawdryn in Mawdryn Undead. He's best known to telefantasy fans for playing Silver in Sapphire & Steel. His rocket scientist Magrik is played by Michael Wisher who we've just seen in Genesis of the Daleks as Davros although the story was recorded after Revenge of the Cybermen. See Genesis of the Daleks episode 2 for a complete list of his Doctor Who roles. Vogan Elder Tyrum is a final Doctor Who role for Kevin Stoney who was Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan and Tobias Vaughan in The Invasion, both directed by Douglas Camfield. In 1984 his death was erroneously reported by fan publication Doctor Who Bulletin so it was a great shock to fans when he appeared on stage at a 1987 convention! He eventually passed away in 2008, aged 86, after a long battle with skin cancer. Brian Grellis is Sheprah and we'll see him again as Safran in The Invisible Enemy and the Megaphone Man in Snakedance.

398 Revenge of the Cybermen Part One

2011-12-25T07:18:00.002Z

EPISODE: Revenge of the Cybermen Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 398
STORY NUMBER: 079
TRANSMITTED: 19 April 1975
WRITER: Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Cybermen Box Set

The Doctor, Sarah & Harry materialise on Nerva Beacon, with the time ring that brought them there vanishing. They immediately find a number of dead bodies left where they had fallen. In a control room beacon operator Warner wards a spaceship away due to a plague infection. A request for information is referred to Commander Stevens who tells Warner to lie. The civilian on the station Professor Kellman questions how much longer Stevens can run the station with just him, Warner & Lester left alive. The Doctor explains to Sarah & Harry they've arrived in an earlier point in the Ark's history when it was still a navigational beacon. Unseen by then a silver creature moves between the bodies. Warner picks up an alien transmission. He thinks it may have come from the Asteroid Voga that they orbit but Kellman insists Voga is lifeless. The Doctor unlocks the door unsealing the section they were in which alerts Warner. Lester & Stevens investigate. On Voga the body of the being making the transmission is taken to Vorus, a Vogan leader, who is planning something with Magrik. Magrik fears the Cybermen may be monitoring them. Warner is attacked by the silver creature and a network of red lines grows on his face. Kellman seizes the recording Warner made, but is disturbed by the Doctor's party arriving next door. They are apprehended by Stevens & Lester, and Kellman shows them Warner. Kellman wants them killed as plague carriers. Kellman monitors the Doctor & Stevens: The Doctor is convinced it's not a plague and wonders about the missing tape. Lester tells them that this is the 79 day of the plague and the station has been isolated during this time. The Doctor recognises the name Voga as the planet of gold that was a key player in the war with the Cybermen. Kellman contacts his allies by a concealed radio: The Cybermen direct their ship towards the station. Harry finds puncture marks on Warner's body and the Doctor begins to suspect what has caused the plague. He visits Kellman's room and searches it discovering the monitoring device & transmitter, but is forced to hide when Kellman returns setting a trap electrifying the floor causing smoke to fill the room. As Sarah waits for the Doctor's return she is attacked by the silver creature which bites her neck......

Huzzah, at long last over six years after their last appearance the Cybermen are back. Unfortunately the story mucks their reveal up something chronic. Yes, I know they're in the title but.. They get name checked by the Vogans before they are shown, and then the reveal is three of them standing around in their spaceship. A little wasted perhaps, no big end of episode reveal as they crash through the airlock. Once you know that the Cybermen are involved the rest of the story elements fall into place: The silver creature is some form of Cybermat (Tomb of the Cybermen, Wheel in Space) and the virus is similar to that used in the Moonbase. However since all three stories were by some distance in the past reusing them is perfectly fine. And, once you remove the botched Cyberman reveal, so is this episode.

Warner shuffles off this mortal coil during this episode so we probably aught to talk about the actor who plays him now, Alec Wallis, who was previously Leading Telegraphist Bowman in The Sea Devils which, like Revenge of the Cybermen, was directed by Michael Briant. We'll do the rest of the beacon's crew now while we're on the subject. Ronald Leigh-Hunt plays Commander Stevenson and we saw him as Commander Radnor in The Seeds of Death. William Marlowe play Lester. He was previously criminal Harry Mailer in The Mind of Evil. Many publications claim he was married to another performer in that story, Fernanda Marlowe, purely on the basis that they share the same surname but this isn't the case. He was married to Catherine Schell (Countess Scarlioni in City of Death) at the time both of his Who appearances were filmed but later married Roger Delgado's widow Kismet. Jeremy Wilkin, playing Kellman, is the only member of the cast with no other Doctor Who appearances to his name. However he was the voice of Virgil Tracy in the second series of Thunderbirds, Captain Ochre & the original Captain Black in Captain Scarlet and was in the very first episode of Blake's 7, The Way Back, as Dev Tarrant.

Lester is a bit trusting isn't he: 2 minutes after meeting the Doctor & friends, with air of suspicion still surrounding them he gives Sarah his gun! And yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, the thing hanging in the back of Vorus' rooms is what will later become known as the Seal of the High Council of the Time Lords. Designer Roger Murray-Leach worked on this story and the Deadly Assassin where he reused the design in the Gallifreyan Capitol giving it the association it's had ever since. Revenge of the Cybermen reuses several sets from Ark in Space, notably the corridor contained in the beacon's ring and the transmat room. The stories were filmed back to back, with Sontaran Experiment preceding them and Genesis of the Daleks following, to allow this to happen.

Four days after this episode aired, on 23rd April 1975, William Hartnell died. He'd been suffering from arteriosclerosis for a number of years, then had a number of strokes during the early part of 1975 and died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure on 23 April 1975.

397 Genesis of the Daleks Part Six

2011-12-24T07:43:00.001Z

EPISODE: Genesis of the Daleks Part Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 397
STORY NUMBER: 078
TRANSMITTED: 12 April 1975
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks

Sarah & Harry save the Doctor from the Dalek mutant but as he stands ready to blow the incubator room up he's unsure of his actions:

The Doctor: If someone who knew the future, pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives... could you then kill that child?
Sarah: We're talking about the Daleks; the most evil creatures ever invented! You must destroy them! You must complete your mission for the Time Lords!
The Doctor: Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other, and that's it. The Daleks cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can live without fear, in peace... and never even know the word "Dalek".
Sarah: Then why wait? If it was a disease or some sort of bacteria you were destroying, you wouldn't hesitate!
The Doctor: But if I kill... wipe out a whole intelligent life-form... then I become like them. I'd be no better than the Daleks.

However Gharman interrupts telling them about the meeting which they attend. Hovering at the back they retrieve their possessions, including the Time Ring, from Ronson's desk but noticing Nyder leaving the room they follow him to Davros' office where they struggle, forcing him to reveal where the tape of the Doctor's Dalek knowledge is kept, destroying it with a Dalek gun. Nyder escapes, locking them in the office where they realise the Time Ring must have been dropped in the corridor outside. Through a viewscreen showing the main lab they witness Davros calling for those who support him to stand with him, and then see the remainder, including Gharman & Kavell, gunned down by Daleks. Sevrin, worrying about his friends, has entered the Bunker and frees them. The Doctor sends him, Sarah & Harry to the surface where Bettan is preparing to blow up the Bunker. He returns to the Incubator room which is destroyed when a Dalek rolls over the exposed detonation cables triggering an explosion. Davros notices the automated Dalek production line has been started and, questioning who ordered it, discovers a Dalek initiated the action. He asks Nyder to turn it off but he is gunned down by the Daleks. The Doctor flees from the Bunker, with Bettan detonating the explosives destroying the Daleks pursuing him and sealing the Bunker. They access the Bunker's closed circuit tv system and witness the extermination of the remaining Kaled scientists, Davros pleading with his creations and his own extermination at their hands. The lead Dalek instructs his troops

We are entombed, but we live on. This is only the beginning. We will prepare. We will grow stronger. When the time is right, we will emerge and take our rightful place as the supreme power of the universe!!!

The Doctor, Sarah & Harry bid goodbye to Sevrin & Bettan and as they activate the Time Ring to take them back to the Tardis the Doctor contemplates their mission

Failed? No, not really. You see, I know that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years, I know also that out of their evil must come something good.

Remember during episode 1 I said I'd done the episode summary from memory? Well apart from a few minor details I managed the same for all six episodes of this story!

As usual the last episode of the story ramps the action up a bit with a few exterminations and a couple of nice explosions but first we get the Doctor's debate as to if she destroy the Daleks: Davros wants the ultimate power, here the Doctor does his best to refuse it. Oddly when the Dalek destroys the Incubation room later the Doctor almost downplays the significance. Then there's Davros learning that valuable lesson that so many Doctor Who characters have: Never trust the Daleks. His creations turn on him and he ends up pleading for them to use one of the very traits that he himself ordered eliminated from their makeup. He's been one of the very best Doctor villains and, like his creations, has been comprehensibly destroyed on his first appearance. The Daleks were back a little under a year after their first appearance but it takes Davros slightly longer to return. Many think he never should have and would have preferred him confined to just this one appearance as the Daleks seem weaker with him in later stories. Maybe that then is the true outcome of the Doctor's mission: he's somehow caused Davros' survival, perhaps warning him during that recorded session of the Daleks' history of treachery, and Davros' presence in the future disrupts the Daleks and dilutes their effectiveness.

You have to laugh at the time ring getting lost in the corridor: It's an old fashioned Terry Nation "this has happened to the Tardis to keep the heroes trapped here" plot line :-)

One last returning cast member for us to consider: John Gleeson, the speaking Thal Soldier, will return as Charles Winlett in The Seeds of Doom in just under a year. The Daleks & Davros however would have to wait much longer: They wouldn't be back until September 1979's Destiny of the Daleks. But the next story sees the return of a monster that's been absent from the show, bar brief cameos, for over six years!

Genesis of the Daleks is something special, not just because it's really Doctor Who's only go at an origin story for one of it's monsters. It's a superb tale from start to finish, darker than most with possibly the best villain the show has ever seen. I'd argue that it'd not a particularly good Dalek story though as the creatures themselves are hardly in it and for much of the time are reduced to mindless shock troops in Davros' hands (hand?) till they take charge of their destiny in the closing moments of the story. It's highly thought of by Doctor Who fans but I suspect the one of the reasons it's not exhorted as "the best Doctor Who story" is our over familiarity with it. It's been repeated FOUR times by the terrestrial BBC:


Annual Christmas Repeat 85-minute compilation	27 December 1975	BBC 1
Doctor Who & The Monsters two 45-minute episodes	26 July to 2 August 1982	BBC 1
30th anniversary repeats	8 January to 12 February 1993	BBC 2
Aborted Pertwee Repeats	1 to 29 February 2000	BBC 2

It seems almost every time the BBC do a repeat run that Genesis is what they reach for leading to a little bit of "oh know, not Genesis again, why aren't they repeating Invasion of the Blagblasters?" But it's Tom Baker, arguably the most popular classic Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Smith, arguably the best companion, Davros, arguably the best villain the series has had and The Daleks who are by someway the best monsters.

And we continue to lap Genesis of the Daleks up even if it's not on the television. Terrance Dicks' 1976 novelization is reputed to be the best selling Target book. It's the only Doctor Who story to have a record released of it's soundtrack - I played the cassette version over and over as a child - and it's since been re-released on CD several times. It was initially released on video as a double pack with The Sontaran Experiment in October 1991 (alongside the Deadly Assassin) then resurfaced in a WHSmiths exclusive boxset alongside Davros' other appearances in Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revalation of the Daleks & Remembrance of the Daleks. The BBC isn't keen on releasing DVD sales figures that often but up to December 2007 the Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks DVD had sold 81,000 copies since it's release on April 26th 2006. By comparison The Five Doctors, released in 1999, had sold 61,000 copies in the eight years to the same date. Genesis of the Daleks was re-released in Doctor Who : The Davros Collection DVD set, again containing all five of Davros' on screen appearances but also including the Big Finish stories he features in.