The Visitation

 

A well- remembered story from 1982, `The Visitation’s` position in the history of the show is enhanced by following in the footsteps of `The Sea Devils` and `Robot` in having its production examined for the `Making Of Doctor Who` books. As a result we are almost as familiar with behind the scenes stills as those taken front of camera. The so-called pseudo historical was always a popular option for the show making the most of its limited budget in a way that gleaming spaceships and alien worlds would always struggle with.  This was a popular story with viewing figures over nine million for each episode peaking with 10.1 million for part four, very healthy even by early Eighties standards.

 

Review- The Season 15 Collection

 

Season Fifteen brims with character and is bristling with ideas. If the production values sometimes flag you hardly notice because there is so much going on. Admittedly it’s not always cited as a fan favourite because it was the point at which Tom Baker’s presence became larger than life but if you enjoy that- and I certainly do- this is essential classic Doctor Who. Season Fifteen is a changeover season and these can be the most interesting ones where a production team are finding their feet and yet aspects of their predecessors remain. The results here are more varied than you’d expect.

 

The Sunmakers

 

The Season 15 Collection bluray box is about to drop and, cards on the table, you’ll never convince me that the Graham Williams years are bad and that may be because I was the right age for them and therefore always will be.  At that point I may have abandoned the series altogether where it not for the fact that it became witter, sillier and more willing to take chances. Honestly all this stuff about production values – we didn’t notice on our over richly coloured analogue TVs watching just the once. Plus, the appeal of Doctor Who then- at least for me- was not the special effects but the stories and the dialogue. I still maintain I learned more interesting words watching the show in this period than I learned concurrently at school.

All but one of the stories in this season have already been reviewed on this blog in 2017/18 - see links at the foot of this post. Due to personal reasons I wasn’t able to do `The Sunmakers` so I have done so below. A look at the extras in the box set to follow on the main blog shortly.

Doctor Who - The Nightmare Fair

 

In this unpublished article from a couple of years back I examined the script to see what the unmade Toymaker story `The Nightmare Fair` might have been like.

 Five years after leaving Doctor Who, Graham Williams was due to return to the programme with the story `The Nightmare Fair`. Scheduled for the pre-hiatus version of season 23 it was ultimately never made though there have since been a couple of audio adaptations and Williams himself novelised the story. As producer he’d been subject to certain restrictions including budgetary cuts and a directive to tone down what had been seen by some as gratuitous violence. Ironically his return came at a time when Doctor Who was again under scrutiny over its more extreme content. As far as is known the story never reached the casting stage but studio dates were booked to start in May 1985 and arrangements made to shoot some location footage in Blackpool itself. 

Daleks Reloaded!

 

The Daleks in colour and Destination Skaro

The question of how modern Doctor Who should relate to its long history arose twice in the last week or so with these programmes. `Destination Skaro`, though ostensibly a sketch for Children in Need, reconfigured one of the show’s most iconic characters. `The Daleks` meanwhile was premiered tonight as an edited down colourised version of the second story. Both broke unspoken rules suggesting that whatever the new `Whoniverse` will be like, it will not be quite as expected.

 

Some thoughts on Doctor Who Season 20

 

I recently bought the twentieth anniversary season Collection so thought that as well as watching the extras, I'd give the actual stories a gander as well. Some of them I'd not seen in ages.  For an anniversary event, season 20 can seem odd with its best stories leaning on the more abstract and its less good ones the more traditional. Not exactly a great advert for the show’s history but a suggestion of a new direction? Forty years distance does allow the more nuanced feel of the season to shine rather more than had it been rammed full of big action stories. There may seem to be long sequences were not a lot happens but the better parts of the season are still rich in content if not pace. So now its recently been released in a great big blu ray collection it’s a good reason to re-watch. Here’s some thoughts on each of them from a 2023 perspective…

Arc of Infinity

Notwithstanding the Ergon, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Fan lore suggests a third-tier tale and while it’s definitely not in any danger of being an under rated classic it does open the season with some verve considering the more thoughtful pace of the rest of the stories. It’s a traditional offering with the added luxury of location filming supported by a decent attempt from writer Johnny Byrne to justify the location. Byrne’s behind the scenes interview hints at aspects that perhaps were shunted to one side by the shopping list of contents – Omega, Tegan coming back (having never really left), Amsterdam – that sit awkwardly together. Coincidence is essential in fiction but the levels it rises to here are somewhat implausible. The story does manage to froth up into a decent thriller though would surely have been better had the antagonist been a new character.

An Unearthly Fuss

 

How one writer’s son stopped Doctor Who’s first four episodes appearing on the iPlayer

 It seems that the placing of all the extant classic Doctor Who being made available on the iPlayer will be missing four vital episodes.  Variously called `An Unearthly Child` or `The Tribe of Gum` this was the world’s first encounter with the Doctor and for a select few fans the series was all downhill from here. (I’m joking, aren’t I?) The son of the story’s credited writer Anthony Coburn- who is called Stef Anthony Coburn - has declined the BBC’s payment for the story meaning the episodes cannot be included in the iPlayer package. There’s quite a bit to unpack in this incident not least because X (aka Twitter) has been busy with messages ranging from sympathetic support to vituperative allegations as the drama frogs swarm. 

 

The Robots of Death

 A triumph that still hums with energy! Looking back at one of classic Doctor Who’s best ever stories. 

Earlier this year I saw the World of Wonder exhibition and amongst the many exhibits from the series’ past and present were some robot masks from this 1977 classic. Even now, mounted on stands devoid of the rest of the costume, they look impressive. So it is for the story they come from. Its one of those tales that they could remake today without the need for much alteration, Sure the Sandminer -which in real life was quite a modest sized model – could look better, you could have more robots, a larger crew. Yet the essence of the story works just as well forty-five years later.

There is something stately and unhurried about ‘The Robots of Death' that makes it a joy to watch every time. On paper the story is hardly original, purloining much of its content from the likes of either Murder on the Orient Express or Isaac Asimov's Robot stories, while the use of mostly brightly lit sets and a robotic enemy realised by people in costumes and masks could have been a disaster. Yet the story towers over these potential problems with ease to create a timeless 90 minutes that is amongst the very finest Doctor Who ever made. It also remains one of the series’ most quotable stories yet crucially this above average dialogue never obstructs the flow of the story, often aiding it along.

Fan Scene CT 1978

 In the final look back at some of the early years of the DWAS publication Celestial Toyroom we alight at 1978. In Gallifeyan tradition we've been travelling largely backwards in time from the early 80s and before 78 CT was more or less just a Swaps and Pen Pal zine so not really of significant interest even then. Unless of course you wanted to offer rare items for a genuine Chumbly bathmat or something. In 1978 however it became a monthly newsletter though back then news was much thinner on the ground than you might expect. In fact the front page was not current news at all but imagined headlines each relating to a particular Doctor Who story. Most of the news was included inside Jan Vincent Rudzki's Presidents Column while the rest to the issue comprised press cutting, announcements and, yes, still the swaps and pen pals which in fact went on for many years. So, here's some scans of some of the issues to give a flavour of what they were like. It may seem inconsequential now but back then we used to get quite excited by the arrival of each issue if only to try and guess what colour paper it might be printed on! 

Fan Scene - 1979 October- December

 

October

That rumour of a Marvel Doctor Who publication becomes fact this issue with the news of the new Doctor Who Weekly which for 12p (cheaper than most fanzines!) will give you a professionally produced Doctor Who fix every seven days. The editor Dez Skinn is adamant it is not a comic but a magazine including a comic strip. Meanwhile, two of the three Convention organisers are now leaving meaning that there is no one to organise next years. In his column JVR talks about the event highlighting a move away from just guests to showing visual material. “The best part for me,” he writes, “was the incredible atmosphere during the showing of the old episodes.” He mentions guests not wanting to repeat themselves by attending every year though he chooses to mention Jon Pertwee who was of course something of serial repeater of anecdotes! At the end of his column outlining the latest Ref Dept releases, J Jeremy Bentham thanks people for their ideas and signs off by adding “part of that future could depend on reaction to Doctor Who Weekly`…” Watch this space...

Fan Scene- CT 1979 July- September

 

July

`Invasion` is the headline of July’s issue which in time lag fashion reports on the 1979 Blackpool gathering which took place in May on Cup Final Day in Blackpool. More than 40 members from around the country converged on the resort and its Exhibition for a social weekend organised by J Jeremy Bentham.  Meanwhile Panopticon 3 is round the corner and tentative guests include Dick Mills, Graham Williams and Douglas Adams. Attendees will get to see Oceans In the Sky, the evocatively titled DWAS drama department film. This ambitious project is reported here to have taken three years to make at a production cost of £3,000 (which is something like £12,000 today).  Sets built include a Tardis console and it has a score written by Mark Ayers in his youth. Twenty actors appear in it and the Doctor is played by Leo Adams and the companion by Diane Woodley.

Fan Scene- CT 1979 Apr- Jun

 

April

`Monsters` declares the lead story in the rather thin April issue declaring “the prolonged absence of monsters from Doctor Who will soon come to an end.” This comes from the mouth of new script editor Douglas Adams who is quoted as saying “I think we’ve shied away from the monsters for long enough so I hope to bring them back.” This story suggests that Adams approached the script editor job with considerable energy at first. Meanwhile its revealed that the first story of the season will be titled `Destiny of the Daleks`. John Leeson’s departure from voicing K9 is also confirmed though the rumour is a new actor will be taking on the tin dog’s distinctive vocals next year. It is also time once again to vote in the Season Poll with Season 16’s stories comprising the Key to Time Season up for you votes. Last year’s winner was `Invasion of Time`.

Fan Scene CT 1979 Jan - Mar

 

The world of Doctor Who as it was reported in the Doctor Who Appreciation Society newsletter Celestial Toyroom aka CT.
January

As 1979 dawned the DWAS newsletter was being co-edited by David Auger and Gordon Blows and had an amateur yet well- constructed quality that gave it, appropriately enough, a news paper look. `Tony Read Quits` was the main headline in January’s edition. Anthony Read, as he was officially known is, according to the article credited with instating a policy that the Tardis is fully controllable. Arguably the more important news is that his replacement will be Douglas Adams who is described simply as “the author of this year’s Pirate Planet` showing that Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had yet to become very widely known. `Disco Dr A Hit` CT also reports referring to the latest version of the title theme by a group called Mankind. Apparently it’s selling a thousand copies a day taking it from number 67 to number 45 in the singles charts and was featured on Top of the Pops. Bear in mind that there is a six week or so lag between things actually happening and being reported in CT so we learn that while there wasn’t time to organise a Xmas party this year people can meet in the One Tun pub on 21 December. Of course being Doctor Who fans they can just travel back in time a month! There’s an Obituary for Brian Hayles who died recently after completing The Moon Stallion.

The Sea Devils

 

I remember when a continuity announcer said that the next story would be called `The Sea Devils` and I had no idea if this was some sort of monster or period pirate piece. Since then I’ve always loved `The Sea Devils` and now I can't quite believe its fifty years since I first saw it. Inevitably it can’t thrill me like it did as a child but yet it still has a magic. Many parts of it fizz with energy and even if from this distance it can look ramshackle at times the overall effect is still strong. Part of the reason why its endured is the very experimental incidental music by Malcolm Clarke and the design of the Sea Devils themselves. Even if their eyes don’t move! So forgive if this is less a review and more notes. 

 

Earthshock still shocks 40 years on!

 

It is forty years since Doctor Who fans got two big shocks with `Earthshock`. I was lucky enough not to know what was coming up in this story so I was able to be shocked indeed.  Anyone who watched the episode live back then will tell you what a big impact it had- the latest DWM has some examples- and all this time later it remains one of those stories that you watch with anticipation. The edge is still there- this is not a cosy watch like for example `Revenge of the Cybermen`, it’s a thriller with bite. It wasn’t just fans who were affected by `Earthshock`. It proved to be a hugely influential story on this period of the series which turned out to be a good and a bad thing. On the positive side it’s style led to a number of subsequent stories pushing the envelope when it came to both scripts and presentation such as `Caves of Androzani,` `Revelation of the Daleks` and `Vengeance on Varos`. However it also started a trend for a more violent streak in the show which ultimately was a contributing factor to the 1985 hiatus.