Delta and the Bannermen Episode 2

Season24@30. There’s a fab little moment which personifies this most unusual story. The Doctor lifts a wooden gate for Ray to drive her bike through and then goes back to close it (countryside code of course) but does so leaving himself still on the outside. There’s a look, a sort of half shrug and then he just ducks underneath. It’s a tiny bit of comic timing that shows both that this adventure will not be hemmed in by what we might expect from Doctor Who and also that it is a very playful story indeed. At times it is more like a moving postcard than an episode. This attitude is there all the way through starting with the resolution of the cliffhanger which is both clever and then later a bit silly. Gavrok prefers to send a signal to blow up his informant and all that is left afterwards is his pair of smoking blue suede shoes. Its an album cover at least! Yet later Gavrok can’t find Delta because he made the mistake of vapourising his informer. 

Gavrok on the lookout for space buns and tea!

The small touches are what makes this episode gleam as brightly as the summer Sun in which it seems to have been filmed. As motorbikes and sidecars trundle about the lush countryside, the incidental music riffs on Dick Barton and rock and roll and even turns the series theme tune into a sort of country and western affair. Billy- whom as far as we know is actually human- is quite open to accepting the girl he fancies has just given birth to a green baby and is an alien. He’s fine with the idea of the Tardis and aliens and just about anything. In any other story this would be ridiculous but here it is a perfect fit. Burton too is accommodating once he’s seen the Tardis interior (I wish they’d actually filmed him in there reacting). Mel meanwhile does the same thing she did in the previous story and decides to have a nap in the midst of proceedings. We know of course that companions will need sleep but is she the only one we’ve ever seen going out of her way for a snooze while all sorts of exciting things are going on?

Of course, of course there is Garonwy too. This philosophical beekeeper is equally accepting of green babies and what’s more he talks to bees. And the Doctor knows all about that it seems. I recall back in the day we speculated on whether Garonwy is a retired Time Lord after this episode but whoever he is it’s good to find someone like Hugh Lloyd and other older actors getting a look in. Gavrok himself is actually much better than I remember him to have been because while Don Henderson’s performance teeters on parody the character is more ruthless than the usual villain of the time. He obliterates the coach without a second thought (or more crucially without a long speech allowing them an escape). He has committed genocide against the Chimerons. Oddly we haven’t so far found out what his beef is with them. Talking of meat, I think it’s excellent to have him chomping on a large slice as he threatens the Doctor. Not so sure about the sticking tongues out though.

I suppose the episode does lose some of the momentum of the opener and to modern eyes the very idea of charging about without phones and sat nav seems odd but it is refreshing to find Doctor Who outside in fields and lanes and by lakes. It so rarely takes the time to be a scenic programme and director Chris Clough really takes advantage of the scenery. This is also the story where the famed late 80s Doctor Who explosions started. You have to admit that in the 70s this was one area where even the most intricately choreographed Havoc fight was let down whenever someone lobbed a grenade and a sort of bigger version of a stage flashpot went off- or worse it had orange smoke. The late 80s was when the show gained some full blooded proper explosions and this is the episode where it begins. Big bangs and crucially flames and like more or less everything about this episode, marvellous. (Read that with a Welsh accent of course!)