171 The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 171
STORY NUMBER: 037
TRANSMITTED: 09 September 1967
WRITER: Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Morris Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Victor Pemberton
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Tomb Of The Cybermen

The Doctor repeats what Jamie's done revealing that Haydon was shot in the back by a gun that emerged from the wall and that the "Cyberman" was just a robotic target for the weapon. The Doctor identifies the Silverfish creature as a Cybermat. Parry decides to abandon the expedition in the wake of the second death, but Captain Hopper arrives with news that the Rocket has been sabotaged and it will be 72 hours to repair it. Klieg, with more help from the Doctor, opens the main door to the underground chambers. They go bellow leaving Victoria & Kaftan behind. Kaftan drugs Victoria's coffee causing her to sleep and then reseals the main hatch. Klieg starts the sequence to free the Cybermen from their icy tombs. Viner reverses the process but is shot & killed by Klieg who starts the sequence again. He is a member of the Brotherhood of Logicians on Earth, a group of powerful thinkers who wish to use the Cybermen to gain power. Victoria awakens, and with the aid of the reactivating Cybermat overpowers Kaftan and flees to find Captain Hopper. The reactivated Cybermen corner the visitors and free their leader from the Tombs: The Cyber Controller. Klieg attempts to control the Cybermen but is struck down as the Controller proclaims

You belong to us. You shall be like us.

We're still doing The Mummy's Tomb but let's throw in "Something frozen in the Ice" to spice it up a bit. Another piece of the story inspired from horror films is the iceing on the cake leading to the sequence where the Cybermen slowly reanimate and emerge from their tombs. Well done for putting the gun down by your unconscious prisoner Victoria, really clever that!

The Cybermen we see here are essentially the same as their Moonbase equivalents, but we get to see two new additions to the Cyberforces: the first is the silverfish like Cybermats that will be crawling around later in the story. The second is the Controller: no ear handles, head light or chest unit, a darker body & face and an enlarged head with a clear brain like top. It's the Controller that will be doing most of the talking here with an emotionless drone to his voice as used for the Moonbase Cybermen.

Let's have a look at the rest of humans in the party: cast as Kaftan is Shirley Cooklin, who was then the wife of Peter Bryant. The giant Toberman is played by Roy Stewart who'll be back as Tony in Terror of the Autons. George Roubicek, Captain Hopper, has a prominent role in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me as the Stromberg One Captain. and the same year appears uncredited in Star Wars as Commander Praji, one of the Imperial Officers who board the Rebel Blockade Runner at the start of the film.

Here's how Tomb of the Cybermen's return to the BBC came about: In 1991 Asia TV in Hong Kong conducted an audit of their film library and discovered a number of films cans produced by the BBC. They contacted the BBC Film & Video library saying they had a number of episodes of Softly, Softly and 4 of Doctor Who: would they like them back. Yes please says the BBC F&VL. The films never arrived there. They were sent back to BBC Enterprises, the BBC's commercial arm responsible for overseas sales and domestic video releases, who had sold the films to Asia TV (then called Hong Kong Television) in the first place. Enterprise opened the package, discovered it was serial MM, looked it up on a list and found they were holding the missing Tomb of the Cybermen.

Enterprises now had a problem: They knew a repeat season of Doctor Who was being organised for 1992 (it launched with a special documentary, Resistance is Usless and the Hartnell serial The Time Meddler). If they returned the film prints to to the Film & Video library they would almost certainly be used for the Troughton story. But if they hung on to them they could release them quickly onto video and reap the profits of an exclusive video release for a missing story. They let the Film & Video library know they had them but, since they were Enterprise's property anyway, that the F&VL could have them when Enterprises were finished with them. Word had leaked out that there were some returned films knocking around so a cover story was put about that they were merely duplicate prints of An Unearthly Child. When the Mind Robber was confirmed as being the Troughton story in the BBC2 repeat season the recovery of Tomb of the Cybermen was confirmed to the world.

For more details see pages 223-226 of Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes by Richard Molesworth.

Missing Episodes - History, Returns and Rumours of Returns

Today the BBC have released their Regenerations boxset which contains an animation of the infamous missing Doctor Who episode Tenth Planet 4, the last episode to feature William Hartnell as the First Doctor. Over the years this episode has been subject to more rumours than any other missing episode of Doctor Who. All that survives is a clip used on Blue Peter, some footage filmed off an Australian Broadcast on a cine camera, the Soundtrack and a number of Telesnap photos.

Over the last week Bleeding Cool.com, a comics and film/tv News/Rumour site, has run a number of stories about a possible return of some of Doctor Who's missing episodes:

Will Doctor Who Have A Very Special Surprise For Us In November?
Reaction To Those Doctor Who Lost Episode Rumours
More On Those Missing Doctor Who Episodes... Or Less
The Doctor Who Missing Episodes Rumour Gains A Little More Weight. Three Tons Worth.
BBC Officially Responds To Bleeding Cool Over Doctor Who Rumours (UPDATE)
Will A Missing Episode Teaser Appear On The Doctor Who: The Terror Of The Zygons DVD?

Some of the claims made here are waaaay beyond my ability to believe so I thought we'd have a closer look at the missing episodes. Much of the data I use here is sourced from Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes by Richard Molesworth from Telos books. If you have the remotest interest in this subject then buy this book. Any errors in the data within this article are mine!

We covered the story of the missing episodes on the Blog before when we looked at Marco Polo, the first missing story:

014 Marco Polo Part 1: The Roof of the World - Videotape
015 Marco Polo Part 2: The Singing Sands - Film & Selling Abroad
016 Marco Polo Part 3: Five Hundred Eyes - Ian Levine, The Film & Video Library & BBC Enterprises Film Store
017 Marco Polo Part 4: The Wall of Lies - John Cura's Telesnap Photos
018 Marco Polo Part 5: Rider from Shang-Tu - Tape Recording
019 Marco Polo Part 6: Mighty Kublai Khan - Reconstructions
020 Marco Polo Part 7: Assassin At Peking - Is that it?

Basically the BBC junked the expensive bulky videotapes of the original recording of Doctor Who during the 1970s on the grounds that they were of no further use once overseas sales options had finished. Any copies retained were on film, used for overseas sales. However the film prints too were being disposed of at the point the figure of Ian Levine enters the story, wanting to buy old Doctor Who film prints and effectively setting in motion the events that put a stop to the disposal of episodes. We owe Ian a great debt for this.

This is the current state of the BBC archives for the Black & White episodes which cover all the stories broadcast for the first Two Doctors William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton.

SEASON 1 1963-1964	EPISODES (STORIES Stories)	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
An Unearthly Child	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Daleks	7	1,2,3,4,5,6,7	-	7	0	COMPLETE
The Edge of Destruction	2	1,2	-	2	0	COMPLETE
Marco Polo	7	-	1,2,3,4,5,6,7	0	7	MISSING
The Keys of Marinus	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Aztecs	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Sensorites	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Reign of Terror	6	1,2,3,6	4,5	4	2	PARTIAL
SEASON 1 TOTAL	42 (8 Stories)			33	9
SEASON 2 1964-1965	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
Planet of Giants	3	1,2,3	-	3	0	COMPLETE
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Rescue	2	1,2	-	2	0	COMPLETE
The Romans	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Web Planet	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Crusade	4	1,3	2,4	2	2	PARTIAL
The Space Museum	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Chase	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Time Meddler	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
SEASON 2 TOTAL	39 (9 Stories)			37	2
SEASON 3 1965-1966	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
Galaxy 4	4	3	1,2,4	1	3	PARTIAL
Mission to the Unknown	1	-	1	0	1	MISSING
The Myth Makers	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Daleks' Master Plan	12	2,5,10	1,3,4,6,7, 8,9,11,12	3	9	PARTIAL
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Ark	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Celestial Toymaker	4	4	1,2,3	1	3	PARTIAL
The Gunfighters	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Savages	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The War Machines	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
SEASON 3 TOTAL	45 (10 Stories)			17	28
SEASON 4 1966-1967	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
The Smugglers	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Tenth Planet	4	1,2,3	4	3	1	PARTIAL
The Power of the Daleks	6	-	1,2,3,4,5,6	0	6	MISSING
The Highlanders	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Underwater Menace	4	2,3	1,4	2	2	PARTIAL
The Moonbase	4	2,4	1,3	2	2	PARTIAL
The Macra Terror	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Faceless Ones	6	1,3	2,4,5,6	2	4	PARTIAL
The Evil of the Daleks	7	2	1,3,4,5,6,7	1	6	PARTIAL
SEASON 4 TOTAL	43 (9 Stories)			10	33
SEASON 5 1967-1968	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
The Tomb of the Cybermen	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Abominable Snowmen	6	2	1,3,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
The Ice Warriors	6	1,4,5,6	2,3	4	2	PARTIAL
The Enemy of the World	6	3	1,2,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
The Web of Fear	6	1	2,3,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
Fury from the Deep	6	-	1,2,3,4,5,6	0	6	MISSING
The Wheel in Space	6	3,6	1,2,4,5	2	4	PARTIAL
SEASON 5 TOTAL	40 (7 Stories)			13	27
SEASON 6 1968-1969	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
The Dominators	5	1,2,3,4,5	-	5	0	COMPLETE
The Mind Robber	5	1,2,3,4,5	-	5	0	COMPLETE
The Invasion	8	2,3,5,6,7,8	1,4	6	2	PARTIAL
The Krotons	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Seeds of Death	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Space Pirates	6	2	1,3,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
The War Games	10	1,2,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9,10	-	10	0	COMPLETE
SEASON 6 TOTAL	44 (7 Stories)			37	7
TOTAL	253 (50 Stories)			147	106

However this wasn't the state of affairs as Ian found it when he first tried to buy episodes of Doctor Who. The BBC's Film and Video library had just 47 episodes from this period in it, all on film. That left 206 missing episodes of Doctor Who from the first 6 years of the show.

It should be noted that the BBC's paperwork at the time showed that Film & Video library held *48* episodes of Doctor Who. One was missing: Dalek Masterplan 4 - The Traitors, which had been borrowed by Blue Peter and never returned. Over the years this story has mutated to read that Blue Peter had lost Tenth Planet part 4, hence why the Film & Video Library only had copies of episodes 1-3. To this day it's uncertain why the Film & Video Library only hold the first three episodes. Blue Peter borrowed Tenth Planet 4 from BBC Enterprises and are presumed to have returned it there.

A large of complete stories were found in the possession of the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC Enterprises, which included some episodes already in the Film & Video library. The BFI was also found to be holding the complete prints of 3 Troughton stories/21 episodes which they then returned to the BBC. This again includes episodes already in the BBC Film & Video library and is also the largest find of missing episodes outside of the BBC itself. Put these together and you have 116 episodes with 137 still missing.

A further 31 episodes have been found since then:

7 episodes The Web of Fear 1, Ice Warriors 1 & 4-6 and Dalek Masterplan 5 & 10 have been found on premises owned by or formerly owned by the BBC. It's worth mentioning this as the BBC are in the process of leaving Television Centre!

14 episodes have been returned from overseas broadcasters: In 1984 Reign of Terror episodes 1-3 were returned from Cyprus while the missing 3 episodes of the Time Meddler & War Machines were returned in 1985 from Nigeria, a single episode of the Celestial Toymaker from the ABC (episode 4: they'd been sent it in error by a broadcaster in Singapore!) and all 4 episodes of the Tomb of the Cybermen from Hong Kong. The last of these finds was in 1992. Both the Cyprus and Nigeria returns consist of more episodes than were missing. The return from Cyprus also included Aztecs 1, 3 & 4, all six episodes of the Sensorites plus a duplicate of Reign of Terror 6: Reign 4 & 5 & Axtecs 2 were destroyed in the Greek Invasion of the Island. The Nigeria return was 14 episodes not just the 6 listed above: the BBC already had all 6 parts of the Web Planet plus 1 part of the War Machines and Time Meddler. That represents the largest find to date outside of the BBC and the BFI. With the exception of the lone Celestial Toymaker episode and the incomplete but explainable Reign of Terror, the overseas finds from TV stations all represent complete stories. Cyprus & Nigeria also demonstrate that multiple complete serials can be returned at once.

10 episodes have been returned from private collectors. These are all prints that have somehow walked out of the BBC or another broadcaster at some point and which were believed destroyed: Reign of Terror 6, The Crusade 1 (New Zealand), Galaxy Four 3, Dalek Masterplan 2, The War Machines 2 (Australia, the very first returned missing episode), The Underwater Menace 2, The Faceless Ones 3, Evil of the Daleks 2, The Abominable Snowmen 2 and Wheel in Space 3. This is a wide spread of episodes from the 1st to the 5th season. A print of the Dominators 5 has been found in private hands and Invasion of the Dinosaurs 1, one of the only missing Pertwee episodes also came from a private source. So the spread of episodes out there is wide. But to date no complete story has been returned from a private source: They all have come back from television stations.

This table lays out the origins of all the episodes currently held by the BBC. Note some duplication and multiple copies of some episodes!

Season 1: 1963-1964	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
An Unearthly Child	4	1,2,3,4	1,2,3,4
The Daleks	7		1,2,3,4,5,6,7
The Edge of Destruction	2		1,2
Marco Polo	7
The Keys of Marinus	6	5	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Aztecs	4		1,2,3,4
The Sensorites	6		1,2,3,4,5,6
The Reign of Terror	6				6 (1982), 3 (1985)		1,2,3 (1984, Cyprus)
Season 2: 1964-1965	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
Planet of Giants	3		1,2,3
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6	5	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Rescue	2		1,2
The Romans	4	1,3	1,2,3,4
The Web Planet	6	2	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Crusade	4	3			1 (1999, NZ)
The Space Museum	4	3	1,2,3,4
The Chase	6		1,2,3,4,5,6
The Time Meddler	4	2					1,3,4 (1985, Nigeria)
Season 3: 1965-1966	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
Galaxy 4	4				3 (2011)
Mission to the Unknown	1
The Myth Makers	4
The Daleks' Master Plan	12				2 (2004)	5 & 10 (1983)
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	4
The Ark	4	3	1,2,3,4
The Celestial Toymaker	4						4 (1984, Australia)
The Gunfighters	4	4	1,2,3,4
The Savages	4
The War Machines	4				2 (1978) Australia 1,3 (1992)		1,3,4 (1985, Nigeria)
Season 4: 1966-1967	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
The Smugglers	4
The Tenth Planet	4	1, 2, 3
The Power of the Daleks	6
The Highlanders	4
The Underwater Menace	4	3			2 (2011)
The Moonbase	4	2,4
The Macra Terror	4
The Faceless Ones	6	1			3 (1987)
The Evil of the Daleks	7				2 (1987)
Season 5: 1967-1968	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
The Tomb of the Cybermen	4						1,2,3,4 (1992, Hong Kong)
The Abominable Snowmen	6				2 (1981)
The Ice Warriors	6					1,4,5,6 (1988)
The Enemy of the World	6	3
The Web of Fear	6					1 (1978)
Fury from the Deep	6
The Wheel in Space	6	6			3 (1984)
Season 6: 1968-1969	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
The Dominators	5	1,2,4,5		1,2,3,4,5
The Mind Robber	5	5	1,2,3,4,5
The Invasion	8	2,3,5,6,7,8
The Krotons	4	1,2,3		1,2,3,4
The Seeds of Death	6	1,2,4,5,6	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Space Pirates	6	2
The War Games	10	2,5,8,9		1,2,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9,10

This then leaves the following 106 Doctor Who episodes as missing from the archives:

Season 1: 1963-1964	9 Episodes of 42
Marco Polo	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
The Reign of Terror	4, 5
Season 2: 1964-1965	2 Episodes of 39
The Crusade	2, 4
Season 3: 1965-1966	28 Episodes of 45
Galaxy 4	1, 2, 4
Mission to the Unknown	1
The Myth Makers	1, 2, 3, 4
The Daleks' Master Plan	1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	1, 2, 3, 4
The Celestial Toymaker	1, 2, 3
The Savages	1, 2, 3, 4
Season 4: 1966-1967	33 Episodes of 43
The Smugglers	1, 2, 3, 4
The Tenth Planet	1
The Power of the Daleks	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Highlanders	1, 2, 3, 4
The Underwater Menace	1, 4
The Moonbase	1, 3
The Macra Terror	1, 2, 3, 4
The Faceless Ones	2, 4, 5, 6
The Evil of the Daleks	1, 3, 4, 5, 67
Season 5: 1967-1968	27 Episodes of 40
The Abominable Snowmen	1, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Ice Warriors	2, 3
The Enemy of the World	1, 2, 4, 5, 6
The Web of Fear	2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Fury from the Deep	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Wheel in Space	1, 2, 4, 5
Season 6: 1968-1969	7 Episodes of 44
The Invasion	1, 4
The Space Pirates	1, 3, 4, 5, 6

So how does this help us with rumours of missing episodes?

Well as far as single episodes go I'll potentially believe that anything is possible! The only exception here is Dalek Masterplan 7: The Feast of Steven which was never telerecorded. I think we can safely say that's gone for good. Next down the likelihood scale is an episode of Dalek Masterplan/Mission to the Unknown turning up: only one set of prints is known to have been made of these 12 episodes and that story was rejected by the censors in Australia, the only country to ever try to buy them. And yet THREE episodes of this serial are in the archives, all of which were found on BBC or "removed for safe keeping"

But if you're looking for a complete story to come back that's probably going to involve a set of prints recovered from a TV station abroad. Paperwork reveals the fate of *most* of the prints of Doctor Who episodes the BBC sold abroad and nearly all the time they were either destroyed by the overseas broadcaster on the BBC's instructions or returned to the BBC themselves.

Another element that effects overseas sales is that not every country bought every story. In general Hartnell's first two seasons were sold more widely that the rest. So while Marco Polo was sold to (deep breath) Australia, Canada, Malta, Singapore, Gibraltar, Aden, Trinidad & Tobago, Nigeria, Rhodesia, Barbados, Hong Kong, Uganda, New Zealand, Ghana, Zambia, Jamaica, Cyprus, Kenya, Bermuda, Thailand, Mauritus, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Iran and Ethiopia (phew) Power of the Daleks was sold to just Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and we know that New Zealand sent their copy on to Singapore reducing the number of known film prints of this story to just two. As we've seen above NOBODY bought the Dalek Masterplan, although copies were in Australia and got rejected by their censors so we can assume that the prints that survive today are the same ones returned to the BBC. So logically the chances of a print of an episode of Marco Polo surviving are far greater than finding a print of an episode of the Dalek Masterplan ........ and yet we still have 3 episodes of Dalek Masterplan and nothing of Marco Polo!

A set of prints of missing Series 3 Hartnell stories - Galaxy Four, the Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, The Savages and S5's The Smugglers survived in Sierra Leone till as recently as 1999 when they were destroyed in shelling in that country's civil war.

But there are a number of prints of episodes who's fate is unknown. Here's a list of the stories, which episodes are missing and which country bought them and hasn't been able to account for their fate:

FIRST DOCTOR
Marco Polo	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	Ethiopia Jamaica Malta Thailand Mauritus
The Reign of Terror	4, 5	Gibraltar Ethiopia Jamaica Malta Thailand Aden Trinidad & Tobago Rhodesia
The Crusade	2, 4	Gibraltar Ethiopia Jamaica
SECOND DOCTOR
The Abominable Snowmen	1, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar Nigeria
The Ice Warriors	2, 3	Gibraltar
The Enemy of the World	1, 2, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar Nigeria
The Web of Fear	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar Nigeria
Fury from the Deep	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar
The Wheel in Space	1, 2, 4, 5	Gibraltar Nigeria
The Invasion	1, 4	Gibraltar
The Space Pirates	1, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar

Note the presence of several African nations on that list. See this map by the Wonderful Books people for more details of what was sold where.

I think that list above is a crucial one as it highlights what's possibly still sitting in TV company vaults somewhere and if someone suggested a complete story had been returned to the BBC one of the first things I'd do would be to check the name on that list to see if it was possible.

So if someone said to me, as an early version of the current round of rumours stated, "Power of the Daleks has been returned" I'd say "Only three countries bought it: Australia sent theirs back to the BBC and confirm they no longer have it. New Zealand sent theirs to Singapore and both no longer have it. Nobody who bought it doesn't know where their prints went". Sad but true. I'd love to see Power of the Daleks.

One the other hand if, as the most common variant of the recent rumour says, "The BBC have found copies of Marco Polo, Enemy of the World and Web of Fear" I look at the list above and think, "yeah that's plausible", especially as rumours of a package of films from Nigeria have been doing the rounds of Doctor Who fans, with some evidence, for the last few years.

However if someone says "NINETY missing episodes of Doctor Who have been found!" (the largest version of the recent rumour) I'm very sceptial! The above list accounts for 45 episodes total. So we're talking about ALL the episodes on that list PLUS another 45 episodes that someone has declared as destroyed. That's an awful lot of wrong paperwork!

The current rumours then: Wait and see. I'm erring on the side of it having being massively exaggerated but there being a kernel of truth in there somewhere so it wouldn't surprise me if something was unveiled for the 50th anniversary in November. The retrieval of one of the two Yeti/Great Intelligence stories (see above) would tie in nicely with the main villain for the last season of new Doctor Who though!

Doctor Who stuff you might want to buy

Stuff you may want to buy....... It's a good few weeks for those interested in the missing episodes of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: The Aztecs (Special Edition) is out which includes the recently recovered Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock. We wrote about it here.

Then Telos publishing released an updated edition of Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes. The original was an essential reference work when writing the first year of the Blog and the updated version is even better. I've got one of the Hardback versions and love it.

The today Panini released Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #34: The Missing Episodes – The First Doctor collecting all the existing Telesnaps for the missing First Doctor episodes in a format much larger than they'd previously been presented in. here's a sneak peak inside. Get this, it's fab! Yes I know some of them are available on the BBC website but this special includes the 6 surviving Marco Polo sets and Tenth Planet 4 which aren't.

From the other end of the original run of the program you might also be interested in a copy of JN-T: The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner by former Doctor Who magazine writer/Blue Peter editor Richard Marson. You can read advance reviews at SFX and Starburst who also interview Richard about it here. I suspect we may be hearing more about this book as it gets closer to publication.....

Oh and we've got a new blog running a weekly look at Blake's 7. You can read it at http://blakesevendays.blogspot.co.uk/.

No I've not forgotten the New Series Doctor Who episodes.......

084 Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock (again!)

EPISODE: Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 084
STORY NUMBER: 018
TRANSMITTED: 25 September 1965
WRITER: William Emms
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Aztecs (Special Edition) including Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock

Hang on didn't we do this before on Valentine's Day 2011 ? Yes we did. But since then there's been a development! To Wit this episode, which only existed on audio at the time, has been found and is now out on DVD! So it's only right I sit down and watch it. Here's the summary from last time:

The Doctor & Vicki are being watched by alien eyes. They are pursued by Chumblies: Vicki is captured and taken to the Rills while the Doctor tries to sabotage the device the Rills use to convert air to ammonia which they need to breathe. The Rills speak with Vicki telling her they offered to take the Drahvins with them and they did not kill the Drahvin warrior as claimed. Maaga killed the injured soldier not them. Vicki flees the spaceship to stop the Doctor's sabotage. Steven attempts escape but finding a Chumblie outside is trapped in the airlock. Vicki convinces the Doctor that the Rills are friendly and he enters the ship to confer with them. They are drilling for power, but all they have found is a gas they are unable to use. The Doctor offers to give them power from the Tardis. Maaga starts pumping the air out of the airlock and gives Steven a choice: Surrender, die in the airlock or be killed by the waiting Chumblie. The Doctor & Vicki rush to the Drahvin spaceship to rescue him but the pressure difference has sealed the outer door preventing his escape.

and what I thought:

Top stuff again. Lovely ominous sound to the disembodied Rills voice coming from the Chumblie. We've also got some other familiar noises as several Dalek effects are used: the Dalek city door noise is the sound of the Drahvin airlock opening & closing while the Dalek control centre noise is heard in the Rill ship. The whistling noise made when the Chumblies communicate with the Rills sounds awfully like the noise made by the UFOs in the eponymous Gerry Anderson series.

There is a crucial error in this episode betraying that it was previously written for a different set of companions: Stephan does not know that he can be harmed in the airlock by pumping the air out. Now given that Steven is a trained astronaut this is unlikely. The original draft of Galaxy Four was written for The Doctor, Ian, Barbara & Vicki where Barbara would be the companion held hostage. Instead Steven takes on the role meant for Barbara but as we see it gives rise to this small but important error.

So how's that changed now I can see it?

It hasn't, I still think it's a really good episode. What it has brought home is how much the audio doesn't tell the entire story. How Maaga's speech is delivered straight to camera, how the Rills' story of how they came to be there and their first encounter with the Drahvins is partially told in flashback and how the astronaut being trapped in the airlock doesn't look half as ridiculous on screen as it sounded. Actually being able to see the Chumblies move, with the lights in them and, in at least one case, an inactive Chumblie just sitting there at the back of a scene. All these details would be lost in an animation though I'll admit if I'd been in charge of animating the episode I'd have shown the encounter between the Drahvin & Rill ships as well as the on planet encounter as a flashback, but would have known they wouldn't have shown all that on screen. In fact.... is this the first time we get a Flashback sequence used in Doctor Who? Some of Derek Martinus' direction really leaps out particularly the shot from above, but I'm not sure about the wall design for the Rill area.... I say area cos I'm not 100% sure if this is meant to be showing the inside of the Rill ship or a base that's been built round .... anyway the wall panels used don't reach the floor. So I'm guessing that it's a deliberate design decision.

We also get to see the Rills, for many years the most obscure Doctor Who monster (quite apt really for a race that spend their time hidden behind walls & glass) No photos were thought to exist of them at all until two old photos were identified as being Rills. The site linked to there says they remind them of the Guild Navigators in Dune but there's something else a lot closer to home that they remind me of: The Face of Boe!

Speaking of the Rills.....

The cast for Galaxy Four features fewer recognisable names and faces than most Doctor Who stories and very few cast members that appear in multiple Doctor Who stories. The most famous person in the cast is Angelo Muscat, who's hidden in a Chumblie here. He later finds fame and recognition as the Butler in the Prisoner. I looked Stephanie Bidmead, who played Maaga leader of the Drahvins, up to see what else she'd been in and discovered she died in 1974 at the age of 45.

I missed some details on the cast first time out. Robert Cartland who provides their superb voice returns as Malpha in the next story Mission to the Unknown. Malpha in turn is thought to return in the Dalek Masterplan but is played by a different actor there (Brian Mosely later famous as Coronation Street's grocer Alf Roberts. Inside the Rill we see is Bill Lodge later to return as a UNIT Soldier in The Silurians Episode 3 and a Villager in The Dæmons Episode 3. I mentioned Chumblie Angelo Muscat's role as the butler in The Prisoner (Is Commander Straxx now a homage to the Butler?) but I didn't know he's been an Oompa Loompa in Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as had fellow Chumblie Pepe Poupee. When the modern Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was made all the Oompa Loompa's were played by just one may - Talons of Weng Chiang's Mr Sin actor Deep Roy. One of the other Chumblies does return to Doctor Who: Tommy Reynolds was (uncredited) in Terror of the Autons: Episode Two as the Auton Troll Doll. Finally the actress playing one of the Drahvins Lyn Ashley went onto marry Monty Python member (and the voice of Wreck Gar in Transformers the Movie) Eric Idle!

During the afternoon of Sunday 11th December 2011 rumours began spreading on the internet that some Doctor Who episodes may have been returned to the BBC. Then fans looked at their diary and spotted that it was the second day of Missing believed Wiped at the BFI. And then we looked at the program and saw: 15.45 NFT1 Session 1: Miscellany .... BBC Sci-fi footage (Title TBC) (BBC 1960s). Finally a little after 4pm the announcement was made that two episode of Doctor Who had been recovered: Galaxy 4 episode 3 and The Underwater Menace episode 2, bring the missing episodes count down to 106 with 90 Hartnell episodes and 57 Troughton episodes known to survive.

So where had they been? The Radio Times has a decent account of how they had been found:

“Through me,” says Ralph Montagu, Radio Times’s head of heritage and a lifelong Doctor Who fan. “I occasionally meet up with a group of film collectors and retired TV engineers at a café in Hampshire.

“A few months ago I spoke to Terry Burnett, who used to be an engineer at TVS [the former ITV franchise based in Southampton]. Somehow Doctor Who was mentioned in passing, and Terry said, ‘Oh, actually I think I’ve got an old episode.’

“I thought it was bound to be something we’ve got already,” says Ralph. “I tried not to get too excited, but he came back the next day and brought this spool with him. It had no label, so I had a look at the film leader and it said ‘Air Lock’. I thought, ‘What’s that?’ I checked online and saw that Air Lock was an episode of Galaxy 4 - a missing Hartnell serial. So then I got very excited.”

Ralph met Terry again a couple of weeks later, “And he said, ‘Guess what I’ve got.’ It was another episode of Doctor Who! Again not labelled on the can, but it turned out to be The Underwater Menace part two.”

We know for certain that the Underwater Menace 2 print was a returned one from the Australia because it has cuts to the start which precisely match material retrieved from the Australian Censor some years ago. It thus seems likely that Galaxy Four came from the same source. According to the film print appendix in my copy of Wiped the ABC in Australia confirm they no longer held their Galaxy 4 prints... Meanwhile there's a misprint on the entry for the Underwater Menace that duplicates the purchase date so we don't know what the ABC think happened to their print - hopefully the error is fixed in the new edition of Wiped due now!

Galaxy 4 episode 3 also has some material missing (again quoting from The Radio Times with Paul Venzies of the restoration team commenting)

"Even more of a challenge is a film break right at the cliffhanger, where companion Steven (Peter Purves) is suffocating in the eponymous air lock. “We’re missing 27 seconds of action completely, as well as the closing credits,” says Paul. “It’s a few shots and one line of dialogue from Maaga. But luckily we have the soundtrack and by using other visual material within the episode, we can re-create it.”"

How they've done it is quite clever: Lots of shots of the pressure gauge falling interspersed with brief sequences from the last few moments as Steven is in the airlock repeated. Work well, if you didn't know something was wrong with the print then you wouldn't spot it.

Airlock doesn't appear by itself it forms part of a larger Hour+ long reconstruction of the entire story. I won't look to closely at the episodes in the recon here because they are cut down and, like the recent animations, are someone's interpretation of what's going on rather than actual Doctor Who. Should you with to know what I think of the rest of the story then look at:

082 Galaxy 4 Part 1: Four Hundred Dawns

083 Galaxy 4 Part 2: Trap of Steel

084 Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock

085 Galaxy 4 Part 4: The Exploding Planet

Originally intended for The Time Meddler DVD, the story that precedes Galaxy 4, the recon is a triumph especially considering that no telesnaps exist for the story. In all probability none were ever taken because by this point John Wiles was effectively producer and he didn't have any taken for any of his stories - none exist for Mission to the Unknown, The Myth makers, The Dalek Masterplan, The Massacre or The Celestial Toyroom, all missing or partially missing from the archives. (see the Nothing at the End of the Lane Omnibus for more details on what telesnaps were taken when) There's an off air clip from episode one, and a long six minute sequence from the same episode integrated into the recon. The six minute sequence has a bad record on DVD: It was missed off the clip package in the Lost in Time DVD only appearing in the Missing years documentary. This time round it's still impossible to access the clip directly and indeed the recovered episode as well! I'd have made both accessible separately from the menu, instead they can only be found by fast forwarding through the disc. At least the episode starts at a chapter point (7), I'd have stuck chapter points at the start and end of the clip, but no: chapter 2 starts right in the middle. I'd have also had chapter points at the start of episodes 2 & 4 - both have points positioned too early. It isn't as if the chapters are at regular intervals:

Chapter	Time
2	00:05:53
3	00:09:14
4	00:15:31
5	00:21:13
6	00:25:55
7	00:28:12
8	00:31:39
9	00:39:15
10	00:43:18
11	00:48:22
12	00:51:52
13	00:52:34
14	00:57:42
15	01:02:42
16	01:03:46

Now episode 1 ends as 15:47... Episode 2 Starts at 28:12 and Episode 3 ends at 52:32..... Just off the chapter points. But having a quick listen to the Galaxy Four CD it seems the chapter points have been positioned at the start of the material repeated in the next episode. An odd decision: I'd associate the repeated scenes with the episode they were first broadcast in and especially given the positioning of the chapter just inside the end of episode 3.

I don't know.... I just don't think enough fuss has been made about the Galaxy 4 stuff on this release. Barely a mention on the packaging, just a line in the special features, for something that for me was THE major selling point for this release. The recovered episode is stuck in the middle of the recon with no way of getting to it directly. There's no production subtitles for it. No commentary. No documentary of any sort, nothing even to explain how the episode came back. For me any missing episode of Doctor Who that's recovered is special. Dalek Masterplan 2 & Tomb of the Cybermen hugely so but I can specifically remember the recoveries of Abominable Snowman (read about in Doctor Who Magazine), The Ice Warriors, Evil of the Daleks 2 & Faceless Ones 3 (in Celestial Toyroom the DWAS magazine), Tomb of the Cybermen (newspaper while a guest at the University health centre) and Dalek Masterplan 2 (via the much missed Restoration Team forum). As the material is presented here the feeling is amongst many fans that it was bunged on just to make people buy the Aztecs Special Edition DVD. Hopefully at some point in the future they'll be the opportunity to "go again" on this release, maybe with a full recon of the other three episode and the features I've mentioned above. I hope that Underwater Menace 2 gets better treatment than this: rumours abound that it will be paired with episode 3 and animated. I'd have been happy with the two Underwater Menace episodes and Airlock stuck in a Lost in Time 2 package with new commentaries, production subtitles and associated clips.

Doctor Who: The Aztecs (Special Edition) including Galaxy 4 Part 3: Airlock was released Monday 11th March 2013 (Today as I write this).

702 Doctor Who - The Movie

EPISODE: Doctor Who - The Movie
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 702
STORY NUMBER: 161
TRANSMITTED: Monday 27 May 1996
WRITER: Matthew Jacobs
DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Sax
PRODUCER: Peter V. Ware
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Philip Segal, Alex Beaton & Jo Wright (for the BBC)
RATINGS: 9.08 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revisitations Box Set - Volume 1 (The Caves Of Androzani / The Talons Of Weng-Chiang / Doctor Who - The Movie)

The Doctor is summoned to Skaro to collect the Master's remains after the Daleks try & Execute him. The container holding the remains cracks and slime oozes out as the Tardis malfunctions and is set on course for Earth. The Tardis materialises in San Francisco on 30th December 1999 and is immediately shot down by a gang. He is rushed to hospital, while the Master takes over the body of an ambulance driver, where the efforts of surgeon Grace Holloway to save his life cause him to regenerate. The Doctor is initially bewildered but slowly gains his memory. The Master gains access to the Tardis and enlists the services of Chang Lee, a teenager who stole the Doctor's belongings to help him obtain the Doctor's body. Chang Lee gives the Master access to the Eye of Harmony that powers the Tardis which allows the Master to deduce the Doctor is half human. They come for the Doctor at Grace's house and take him to the research institute which is using a new atomic clock. They realise the ambulance driver is the Master and escape in a traffic jam, borrowing a police motorcycle to get to the institute, The Doctor steals a piece of the clock and they flee the scene returning to the Tardis where the Master is waiting for them. Doctor uses clock piece to repair Tardis. He needs to travel back in time to stop the Eye of Harmony being opened but finds the Tardis power drained. While trying to jump start the Tardis Grace is possessed by the Master and attacks the Doctor. Chang Lee starts to believe the Doctor so the Master kills him and uses Grace to open the eye so he can seize the Doctor's body, but causing chaos throughout the world as the eye's energies are unleashed. Grace activates the Tardis console, aborting the transfer of the Master into the Doctor's body, but Grace is killed by the Master before he is sucked into the eye. The Doctor takes the Tardis back in time bringing Grace and Chang Lee back to life before returning them to Earth and leaving to continue his travels through the universe.

Things that are good about the Movie: Sylvester McCoy. The Tardis set. Paul McGann. And I've got reservations about two of these. McGann is fab in this but he doesn't appear on screen until 20 minutes in and when he does he's playing the usual bemused/disorientated post regenerative Doctor. Yes it's great to see McCoy again but his stint at the start as the Seventh Doctor eats into his successors screen time. The new Tardis set, owing a debt to the Masque of Mandragora secondary control room and "Jules Verne" designs.

There's some interesting use of imagery throughout: eyes keep cropping up from the Master's (still Cheetah Planet affected?) eyes at the start through to the eyes giving away to Ambulanceman Bruce's wife that all is not well with the husband, to needing a retina scan to open the Eye of Harmony, the Eye of Harmony itself being shaped like an eye and the Doctor's eyes being forced open as the Master attempts to take his body. Then as the Doctor regenerates we get Frankenstein playing in the background as the Monster comes to life/Doctor comes back to life followed by some biblical Christ like images of the Doctor walking from the Morgue wrapped in a shroud which is continued later with the "crown of thorns" in the attempted possession by the Master sequence mentioned above.

Reaches for the hatchet.....

Right the Master's on trial by the Daleks and has requested the Doctor is going to collect his remains after his execution? Hmmm. Now I could maybe get the Daleks being a bit miffed with the Master over the failure of the Frontier in Space/Planet of the Daleks invasion but any Dalek action in retaliation against that would have begun & ended with the word "EXTERMINATE!". And if the Daleks are putting anyone on trial it's Davros we want to see post Revelation of the Daleks. Even if we allow them the conceit that they might put the Master on Trial surely the first thing they're going to do when he shows up is Exterminate him good and proper. We'll let the trial taking place on Skaro, destroyed in Remembrance of the Daleks, pass because it could quite easily have happened prior to the planet's destruction. I suspect the answer actually is that this is a huge trap for the Doctor set by both the Master & the Daleks, who've given the Master the ability to turn into this slime monster thing that can take over other people's bodies - cos he certainly wasn't able to do that before. yes, he could take over other people's bodies, there's form there in Keeper of Traken, but the slime monster thing? That's there because someone in special effects has gone "we can do this really cool moving liquid thing just like they did in Terminator 2" and someone else has gone "woooo, yeah, that'll be really cool!" and we've all gone "You've just ripped off Terminator 2".

That's not the only Terminator 2: Judgment Day rip off in the film either: the chase with the ambulance and the police motorcycle owes a lot to that film.... far more than it does to Doctor Who, Ambassadors of Death & Planet of the Spiders not withstanding.

The Doctor is half human now..... do you know what, out of all the things the Movie did I can probably cope with this the most. Yes it goes against all the ideas presented in the New Adventures that Time Lords are "loomed" (don't ask) rather than born, which rules out the possibility of the Doctor having a human mother. But it does neatly explain his fondness for Earth. The kiss between him and Grace is more of a shock as the Doctor has taken very little interest in affairs of the hearts before. But I suppose he might suddenly.....

The Eye of Harmony: OK when we last saw the Eye of Harmony it was located on Galifrey as the source of the Time Lord's power but yeah I can go with each Tardis having one, tapping into that power. It was a little less literal in the eye department the last time we saw it though. And needing a human to open it? That's not going to prove useful in most Time Lord Tardises is it?

Then there's the ending. Oh dear. Right from the very start the Doctor has been you don't go back and reverse events that have already happened. In Earthshock he doesn't go back to save Adric. And yet here time gets wound back to bring Grace & Chang Lee back to life.... It's not as if the Doctor goes back in time to make it happen either, the Tardis going back in time a bit seems to do it which is just mad.... Time flows normally inside the Tardis no matter what direction it's travelling. Any situation where we see something that has already happened on screen undone sits very *VERY* badly with. "And with a click of their fingers it never happened". Doctor Who has one previous example of changing what has already happened: Day of the Daleks. But in that instance the Doctors actions, in preventing the Dalek invaded world from coming to pass, are undoing interference with Time the Daleks have already committed.

I think in many ways the Movie serves as a lesson on how *NOT* to bring back Doctor Who. McCoy's twenty minutes at the start are a fan pleaser but they don't help to establish the new Doctor as a character at all, quite the reverse in fact by eating into his screentime. Then a considerable proportion of the rest of the film is taken up by the bemused post regenerative Doctor. Contrast this, when we get to it, with how Russell T Davies did things in Rose.

Cast: Being an American production you wouldn't expect the cast to have any prior or future links to the program. Sylvester McCoy obviously served as the Seventh Doctor, though according to the information text on Doctor Who - The Movie Revisitations DVD the BBC had been keen for the past Doctor part to have been taken by Tom Baker. This, along with Tom's proposed prominent part in Dark Dimension does tend to show the BBC's lack of faith in the incumbent Doctor. Replacing him is Paul McGann, famed for his appearance in Withnail and I. He has several brothers, all of whom are in the acting profession. Grace Holloway is played by Daphne Ashbrook an actress with a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine credit to her name as the title character in the season 2 episode Melora. The Master/Bruce the Ambulance Driver is played by Eric Roberts, the brother of film actress Julia Roberts. His wife Eliza Roberts plays his on screen wife Miranda.

Location filming for this story, and the studio recording, took place in Vancouver, Canada, which is rather flatter than the San Francisco setting for the story. At that time Vancouver was a popular area for TV series to be filmed in with genre series The X-Files being filmed there.

The Movie was the brainchild of executive producer Philip Segal who'd carried it with him through employment with several TV organisations including Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, hence the origin of the "Steven Spielberg does Doctor Who Movie" rumours. Indeed American interest in the series may have played a part in the initial 1989 cancellation and certainly helped to spike the proposed Dark Dimension 30th anniversary story. Both Director Geoffrey Sax and Writer Matthew Jacobs was English: Jacobs had even visited the Doctor Who studios when his father Anthony Jacobs appeared as Doc. Holliday in The Gunfighters.

Although well received in the UK, the movie didn't do so well in the US and didn't lead, as hoped, to a series being developed. As I said at the top I like the two actors playing the Doctor and I like the Tardis set but much of the rest of I'm not that fond of. However I've heard about some of the proposals for doing Doctor Who for a US audience and what we got is far, far better than some of them believe me. And if you don't check out the documentary on Doctor Who - The Movie Revisitations DVD which lays out in full the story behind this production. I think for me personally it marks a point in the years following Survival where Doctor Who passed from "It could come back" to "that's it, we're done with TV Doctor Who". It turned out I was a little bit wrong....

Doctor Who - The Movie was novelised for BBC Books by Gary Russell, former The Famous Five actor (he was Dick Kirrin) and Doctor Who magazine editor (1992-1995). The Video release of this story, (20th May 1996 iirc - the Internet is vague, but I can recall buying a copy on my first day working for Bacon & Woodrow It wasn't, it was 22nd May two days later, with thanks to m'learned colleagues and Doctor Who Toybox), caused some controversy: In February, three months before, all existing Doctor Who videos were withdrawn from sale. At that point Hand of Fear, released 05/02/1996, had only been on sale for two weeks making this a hard to find item. The video contained more footage of Sylvester McCoy being shot than was show on UK television. The video, by nature of it's early release, is also missing the caption shown before the UK broadcast dedicating it to Jon Pertwee who died May 20th 1996.

The first DVD release of this story occurred in the UK on 13 August 2001 with a commentary track by director Geoffrey Sax. A clash of dvd distribution rights between the BBC and Universal, who produced the story in the USA, prevented it's release there. Doctor Who - Revisitations was released in the UK on 4th October 2010, adding new special features and a Sylvester McCoy/Paul McGann commentary to the restored film and releasing it with new versions of The Talons Of Weng-Chiang & The Caves Of Androzani. A US DVD release of the Movie finally followed on 8th February 2011.

Interregnum 1: Adventures & Dimensions

In many ways the early 1990s was a great time to be a science fiction fan@ Star Trek: The Next Generation ruled supreme in the USA and eventually, three years after it started, came to the BBC. TNG begat a number of sequels (DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) but it's also the catalyst for the televised science fiction boom: Babylon 5, Stargate, X-Files, Sliders, Space: Above and Beyond..... during the 90s everyone got in the act. Really the only thing missing was Doctor Who.

Not that the early 1990s wasn't a good time to be a Doctor Who fan! The videos swung into a regular pattern of two every other month and were *finally* in episodic format and moved away from the Pertwee/Baker stories they concentrated on. Target continued to novelise books and when they ran out of TV stories they, under new owner Virgin Books, followed the successful Star Trek book line from Pocket Books (and reprinted by Titan in the UK) and started producing original fiction for the Seventh Doctor continuing the series in New Adventures from June 1991 and later with the Virgin Missing Adventures from 1994. The New Adventures started out in trusted and well known hands with John Peel, lauded for his recent adaptations of Hartnell Dalek stories, writing the opening book. The second was written by Terrance Dicks and you can't get a book more authentically Doctor Who than writing "by Terrance Dicks" on the cover. Incidentally his book, Exodus, is probably the closest to the TV version and the easiest to turn into a television production. Former Target editor Nigel Robinson produced the third book, Ghost Light script writer Marc Platt the fifth and script editor Andrew Cartmel the sixth with Ben Aaronovitch contributing later. But new names started creeping in as well, and they're names you might recognise too: Paul Cornell wrote the fourth book, Revelation, and became the first person to be repeat commissioned on the range. Mark Gatiss wrote the eighth book, Nightshade, with references back to the Quatermass series. Gareth Roberts writes the 11th book, The Highest Science, and later found his niche on the Missing Adventures line writing season 17 Tom Baker stories. Gary Russell & Matt Jones both provide later books as does one Russell T Davies already gathering a following for his cult children's series Dark Season (1991) and Century Falls (1993). All these names will reappear later..... And while we're on the subject of Children's television it's worth mentioning that on ITV a series called Press Gang was airing, also gathering decent reviews, by a young writer called Steven Moffat....

By that point we'd had a repeat season which started in January 1992 featuring The Time Meddler, The Mind Robber & The Sea Devils. In February of that year Tomb of the Cybermen was found in Hong Kong and returned to the archives while towards the end The Restoration Team showed off the first of many pieces of technological insanity to marry colour from an off air US NTSC video to sharp b&w film picture to produce a colour version of the Daemons which was repeated followed by Genesis of the Daleks, Caves of Androzani, Revelation of the Daleks & Battlefield, concluding in May 1993.

Rumours were then flying around about a planned 30th Anniversary special: It would reunite all the surviving Doctors in a script written by Adrian Rigelsford, a fan turned writer who at the time was producing reference works which are now viewed as somewhat dodgy due to the providence of interview material used, and under the trusted eye of director Graeme Harper. However this project was cancelled on orders from on high (for reasons which wouldn't become clear until much later). It's a shame because they were planning to film at Royal Holloway College, University of London while I was there doing my degree.

What we got instead was a documentary, Thirty Years in The Tardis, aired on 23rd November that year covering the show's history directed by fan Kevin Davies. Davis had worked on the animation sequences in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, produced the game graphics end title sequence for Terrahawks and produced the much lauded Don't Panic documentary on Hitch Hikers. Here he married interviews with specially shot footage recreating key scenes from the show's history. An extended version would be released in 1994 on video as Doctor Who - 30 Years in the Tardis which is due to get a DVD release shortly alongside Shada and many assorted oddments that couldn't be included on previous DVDs.

But what you won't see on Video or DVD is Dimensions in Time, a two part special made for Children in need uniting the casts of Doctor Who and EastEnders. Returning from Doctor Who are Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor & Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor with (deep breath) Sophie Aldred as Ace, Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman, Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates, Caroline John as Liz Shaw, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Louise Jameson as Leela, John Leeson as K-9, Lalla Ward as Romana, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown, Bonnie Langford as Mel Bush and Kate O'Mara as Rani. For all bar McCoy, Courtney, Sladen & Leeson it would be their last appearance as these characters.

The show was filmed using a new 3d process relying on motion that would be invisible for those watching without glasses but give added effects for those who had them hence some of the odder effects like the heads of the first two Doctors flying round the room.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately depending on your point of view: I take the latter) the contracts for the actors for this show stipulated that this was a production for charity and as such was not for commercial release so it has never been released on Video and will never be released on DVD. Even more fortunately my video copy has gone missing! Sadly YouTube came to my rescue. I watch this so you don't have to....

..... and that was excruciatingly bad. Blipvert scenes cut together so rapidly you haven't a hope of telling what was going on if the plot made any sense whatsoever. Dire.

And what's worse is that the vote, for which Eastenders character would help the Doctor, went the wrong way. It obviously should have been Big Ron, instead of Mandy, because the actor that played him had been an extra in Destiny of the Daleks. One of the other then current members of the Eastenders Cast with Who form, Mike Reid (The War Machines) gets a brief moment on screen and the experience obviously didn't put Louise Jameson off the soap because she joined the cast a few years later.

To think we got this (mercifully) brief rubbish instead of a new feature length Doctor Who episode!

And then the rumours about an American TV Series remake/pilot movie started rumbling loaded and louder.....

701 Survival Part Three

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."

EPISODE: Survival Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 701
STORY NUMBER: 156
TRANSMITTED: Wednesday 06 December 1989
WRITER: Rona Munro
DIRECTOR: Alan Wareing
SCRIPT EDITOR: Andrew Cartmel
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Survival

Karra comes for Ace and calls for her to go hunting. On Earth the Master struggles to reduce the Cheetah planet's influence on him. The Doctor worries how far Ace has changed and whether she can be brought back. Ace is found by the Doctor who reduces the planet's influence on her. He warns he of the dangers of allowing the influence to spread but she agrees using the power to bring them, Patterson and the remaining youths back to the Tardis in Perivale. The Doctor knows that the Master has been brought to Perivale by Midge so they start searching at the flats where he lived, where they find a dead cat and young girl. Ace lapses under the Cheetah planet influence detecting Midge at the youth club. Midge turns on Patterson when he arrives killing him. The Doctor & Ace track him to the top of the hill where she lapses again. Midge moves to attack them on motorcycle and Ace has to be dissuaded from fighting him. He and the Doctor charge at each other on Motorcycles and Midge is killed in the explosion. Ace believes the Doctor has gone too and is attacked by the youths but Karra appears from the Cheetah planet and drives the youths off. Karra confronts the Master but is slain by hi,. The Doctor wakes up on a nearby rubbish pile. Karra dies in front of Ace transforming back into a human as she does. The Doctor corners The Master as he tried to steal the Tardis, but the Master's feral nature takes over transporting them back to the dying Cheetah planet where they struggle. The Doctor realises they musn't fight or it will destroy the planet but the Master attacks him. As he goes to bring the rock down on him the Doctor teleports himself back to Earth and the Tardis. One of the Cheetah people comes for Karra's body leaving Ace alone on the hill where the Doctor finds her. She tells the Doctor that she wants to go home, home to the Tardis and they leave together.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."

And that's it. The original Doctor Who series is finished and I concluded my viewing of the original series at 14:19 on Tuesday 19th June, a little ahead of schedule.

Yeah it's a good episode again. The Motorbike thing is a little pulled from nowhere: we don't see motorbikes until just before the scene and it all looks a little staged with the bike being left there for the Doctor to ride on. Dramatically it serves a purpose: it temporarily removes the Doctor from the action and gets rid of Midge but it sticks out like a sore thumb. It also caused problems during production: stunt manager Tip Tipping walked off the production after a disagreement with Eddie Kidd, brought in to help stage the motorbike stunt, over it's safety.

The story itself is good: Ace brings the Doctor home, albeit at a cost to herself. If I'm reading the story right Ace still has the Cheetah people influence inside her but it's sleeping as their world was destroyed. The Cheetah people have moved on somewhere else so there's the possibility that she's moved on somewhere else..... We don't know how the Master got to the planet and although we see him trapped there at the end he's escaped from similar situations before. Which leads me to the Doctor: how does he manage to escape from the planet? Is he too coming under it's influence?

In case you miss it there's an important point made about Ace in this episode, and emphasises again by dialogue art the end: When she brings the surviving humans and the Doctor home yes she does bring them to Perivale, but she brings them to where the Tardis is in the town. Perivale's not her home anymore, the Tardis is.

One new location this episode: The Medway estate is the council estate shown. The child that appears at the flat there (named Squeek) is a young Adele Silva now better known as a model and actress on Emmerdale.

This is the last episode of the Twenty Sixth season of Doctor Who, and is it turned out the last episode of the original run. The possibility that this would happen arose in post production and Sylvester McCoy was summoned to provide the voice over speech that closed the episode to give the series some sense of closure, over a forlorn and mounrful version of the middle eight from the theme music. The reasons the show were cancelled are myriad and it's not 100% clear what eventually tipped the balance. Yes it was doing well ratings wise but it had been scheduled up against Coronation Street and nothing is going to do well there. A popular theory is that the BBC didn't like Doctor Who (and science fiction in general) backed up by the BBC still not having bought Star Trek: The Next Generation despite it now being in it's third season. When they eventually did the following year it got slotted into the teen programming slot at 6pm on BBC2 previously occupied by repeats of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. And then rumbling in the background were rumours of movies and American versions..... I've just sat down and watched Endgame on the Doctor Who - Survival DVD and virtually everyone there has a different theory/reason for why it ends without any definitive answer being given.

Script editor Andrew Cartmel was headhunted to script edit Casualty in 1990 while producer John Nathan-Turner was finally relieved of the producership when the production office was closed in 1990. At that point he was one of only two remaining staff producers working for the BBC as a system of independent production was adopted. JNT still continued to be involved with the program, producing special releases for BBC Video & Audio as well as helming the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time. John Nathan Turner died on the 1st May 200s. Sophie Aldred went on to work in Children's television, which led to a career in voice over work. Both she and Sylvester McCoy would return for the Dimensions in Time in 1993 and McCoy would later appear as the Seventh Doctor for the US TV Movie version of the show in 1996. This was Anthony Ainley's last television appearance as the Master but he later reprised the role for the Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctors CD-ROM video game in 1998. He passed away on 3rd May 2004 and became the first Doctor Who actor to get his obituary in Wisden.

Survival was adapted as a Target book by it's television author in October 1990. It was released on video in October 1995, and on DVD on 16th April 2007