Countdown to Regeneration: Eighth Doctor

Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor only ever had one screen outing, in the 1996 movie Doctor Who. That ended with him flying off on his own, to find his future in books, comics and audios only. Russell T Davies was all for not even counting him as a Doctor when a character had to name them all in Queer As Folk. It took until Human Nature for him to be acknowledged on screen in the revived series.

In 2013 he surprised everyone by turning up in a short prequel episode - online only - to the 50th Anniversary Special. He came back, only to regenerate into John Hurt's War Doctor. That image of him, from Night of the Doctor, has become his official BBC image ever since, rather than the version seen back in 1996.

Countdown to Regeneration: Seventh Doctor

Doctor No. 7 - Sylvester McCoy. In the same way that the Sixth Doctor's regeneration is actually seen in one of his successor's episodes, so the Seventh's is seen in the Eighth's one and only full story. The big difference is that McCoy was there to film the event in person. The BBC didn't want him involved - thinking the public would associate him with the dying days of an unloved franchise, so not suitable for a big glossy relaunch. We're all glad they were overruled - he's one of the best things in it.

Countdown to Regeneration: Sixth Doctor

The Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker. Big Finish can produce whatever they want, but the fact remains that the Sixth Doctor ends his life falling off an exercise bike after a "tremendous buffeting" from the Rani, and his final words on screen - in Trial of a Time Lord Part 14 - were indeed a complaint about carrot juice.

And no - I don't think it's a very good portrait either.

Episode 41: A Bargain of Necessity

Synopsis:

In the crypt of the derelict church Ian realises he has walked into a trap when soldiers appear - accompanied by Leon Colbert...

Leon has him tied up and then begins questioning him about the identity of the English spy James Stirling. He has been searching for this man for months.

At the prison Lemaitre is listening in as the Doctor is reunited with Barbara and learns of her recapture with Susan. Once Lemaitre has been called away by Robespierre, the Doctor decides to trick the Jailer into freeing the women. First of all he lets the man know that Barbara is a leading opponent of the government. Capturing them is why he was sent to Paris in the first place. Were she to be allowed to leave, she would lead them to her co-conspirators. The Jailer is taken in by this, and Barbara suddenly finds herself allowed to go free. She makes straight for Renan's house - who is now alerted to the fact that Leon is a traitor. 

He goes to the church crypt and is in time to rescue Ian. He is forced to shoot Leon dead.

Back at his house, Barbara is upset by the news of Leon's death, and argues with Ian and Jules about taking sides in such a complex conflict.

The Doctor has been able to meet with Susan when the Jailer demands to know why he is not following Barbara. The Doctor counters that he expected the Jailer to have followed her - so her escape is all his fault. He then proposes that they can redeem the situation by repeating the plan with Susan. 

However, Lemaitre arrives back and puts a stop to this. He informs the Jailer that Susan is not to be removed from her cell unless by his direct command.

He then confronts the Doctor privately and informs him he knows he is not a Regional Official. He shows him his old clothes and ring.

Lemaitre tells him that he will release Susan - but only if he is taken to Renan's home.

There, Barbara has made peace with Jules and Ian over Leon's death.

The Doctor arrives - and everyone is shocked to see Lemaitre walk in behind him...

Next episode: Prisoners of Conciergerie

Data:

Written by: Dennis Spooner

Recorded: Friday 7th August 1964 - Television Centre Studio 4

First broadcast: 5:30pm, Saturday 5th September 1964

Ratings: 6.9 million / AI 53

Designer: Roderick Laing

Director: Henric Hirsch

Critique:

For this episode the story moved to TC4 at Television Centre. Verity Lambert agreed to another drama carrying out some filming during the studio rehearsals. In the end only material in the production gallery was filmed apparently, featuring the crew running the title sequence (according to the screenplay). Even this was eventually cut - if it ever existed at all - when the programme - The Day of Ragnarok - was finally broadcast in January 1965.

Earlier in the week, the cast had relocated to a new rehearsal venue - a London Transport training centre close to Television Centre in White City.

William Hartnell insisted that the snooker table not be used, as the noise disturbed his concentration. Ordinarily he was a keen player of the game. (He was also a big fan of the dartboard, and would spend his weekday nights based in London playing the game at his local pub). Hartnell also objected to some aspects of the catering at the new venue - specifically the powdery camp coffee. He insisted on Nescafe or fresh filter coffee. Tim Combe had to go out and buy a jar of the former.

An additional issue was Carole Ann Ford's habit of sunbathing in full view of the LT personnel attending their training courses.

After being side-lined for much of the first four episodes, Barbara gets the chance to shine in her arguments with Ian and Jules over the rights and wrongs of the Revolution. Her argument is that in this sort of conflict such shades of black and white are harder to define. Leon had been just as much a patriot as Jules and believed he was doing the right thing for the cause. It is another fine moment for Jacqueline Hill, and reminds us of her character's moral debate with the Doctor in The Aztecs.

As with the previous episode - The Tyrant of France - this instalment no longer exists in the archives. We mentioned last week how the only known surviving copies were destroyed by bombing in Cyprus. The director opted not to purchase telesnaps either. For the DVD release in 2003 both episodes were animated to complete the story.

Backgrounds, and the majority of characters with their costumes, could be copied from the surviving recordings. In some cases however, no image existed of a character - such as Ronald Pickup's physician, or of a specific location such as his surgery or the church crypt.

Compare the top image below from the animation with the actual screen image from the synopsis above to see just how close the artwork was for the scenes where footage existed to copy. The image at the bottom, of Jules aiming his gun at Leon in the crypt, had to be made up entirely from scratch as no images using this particular set exist. BBC / Radio Times photographers tended to only attend a couple of recording sessions at most - sometimes only the one.

When it comes to animating lost episodes, there are three routes to take. The first is to try to ensure that the new material matches as seamlessly as possible with any existing episodes. Two examples of this might be Episodes 1 and 3 of The Moonbase, or Episodes 2, 4 - 6 of The Faceless Ones. The second route is to seize the opportunity to do whatever you like - especially when there are no existing episodes to compare things with. The most obvious example of this is The Macra Terror.

The third route carries the most risks. This is where you do something to honour existing material, but still attempt to stamp your own mark on the animations, borrowing some of The Macra Terror's "I can do what I want with this" approach. The recent animation of The Abominable Snowmen is a good example of this. They have honoured the cast playing western characters, the sets and locations - but then imposed totally new character design for the Det-sen monks - making them fit their idea of what Tibetan monks look like, despite being voiced by white English actors. (The design chosen for Songsten does not fit the voice at all).

Parts 4 and 5 of The Reign of Terror do honour the cast and sets of the lost episodes very well. Where they've had to make things up, they don't stand out like a sore thumb.

The problem, however, lies in the direction. It's dreadful. Had they decided to ignore the surrounding episodes and done their own thing that might have been acceptable - foolhardy but brave - but they are trying to match their animation with very static studio scenes, mostly medium close-up 2 / 3 shots, with only a few portrait close-ups dotted about.

The animation opts for lots and lots of close-ups - but not of the variety shown in the actual episodes, where a close-up means a portrait shot of the actor. Instead we get many shots of people's eyes and hands, which simply aren't evident in any of the four existing instalments. There is also the problem of too many shots per scene and fast intercutting between. Someone opening a door involves about a dozen individual shots, including close-ups on eyes and hands. The short, simple line: "It's probably just a chill" has three shots covering it.

Had a film or TV programme been directed and edited in this way it would have been laughed off the screen as amateurish or pretentious. It is significant that no later animations ever adopted this directorial style. The company behind this effort was Big Finish. They clearly needed to stick to audio.

Trivia:

• The half million viewers lost last week were regained this week but the AI figure remained at 53.
• A competition was run by Big Finish, the prize being an animated version of the winner. This was to be used for a speaking soldier in the church crypt scenes, for whom no real image existed. He's the soldier with the anachronistic-looking beard.
• Fight Arranger David Anderson, who had played the Guard Captain in The Aztecs, once again plays a soldier in this episode.
• It was during rehearsals for this episode that David Whitaker announced his departure from the show, and that Dennis Spooner would be replacing him.
• The day before broadcast Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop featured on the BBC Light Programme in response to a listener's letter about the electronic music used in the series.

Countdown to Regeneration: Fifth Doctor

 

Today it's the Fifth Doctor - Peter Davison - and a line from The Caves of Androzani. His final word was actually "Adric".

What's Wrong With... The Time Warrior

Some of the issues with this story can be laid squarely at the door of its director. Alan Bromly, who would later be lambasted by Tom Baker and sacked from Nightmare of Eden, was old-fashioned and uncomfortable with technicalities such as VFX. He refused to accept ideas from others on how to achieve such effects.

You have to wonder why Barry Letts hired him in the first place...

The main effects shots Bromly refused to accept concerned the explosion of the castle at the conclusion. The director used stock footage of a quarry blast - and this is exactly what it looks like.

The arrival of Linx's spaceship is far from impressive as well.

We see Hal the archer encourage Bloodaxe and the rest of the soldiers to flee the castle - but not Meg and the rest of the women in the kitchens.

Linx obtains the scientists from the late 20th Century - so why does he not obtain weapons from that time period as well?

Why would an alien, who has never been to Earth, select weapons which fit neither the period he's in, nor the period he has visited, and yet they are exactly of a known human weapon design? Why get his scientists to build them when he could have stolen them ready built? Just because they are expert in one field, it doesn't mean that the scientists would have the skills needed to make firearms.

Where did the gunpowder come from so quickly?

The scientists act like zombies, so did he really need them to begin with? Couldn't hypnotised locals have been used instead, or those from a closer future time period?

The biggest question about his scheme - how does he know where and when to even begin looking for what he needs? He's clearly only at the castle for a short time before he's off plundering equipment and scientists from more than one location in his future. How could he possibly know about these, and then know that the Brig had moved everyone?

If Sontarans have such time travel in the 12th Century (assuming it is the time of the Crusades, but that's only a guess) why have they not won their war against the Rutans by the time we get to Fang Rock?

Long before we had this story on VHS, fandom was convinced that an anachronistic potato featured in the kitchen scene between Sarah and Meg. We now know this isn't the case - but there is an anachronistic apple variety in the scene where one is used as target practice. The Cox's Orange Pippin dates to the 1820's.

It doesn't say much for the Brigadier's security measures that no-one else picks up that Sarah is half the age of the person she is purporting to be. Rubeish notices fairly quickly, and he's blind as a bat.

How can the Doctor and Brigadier not spot that Sarah has gone into the TARDIS in search of Rubeish? They're standing only a couple of feet away, and Sarah even calls into the ship within earshot.

How likely is it that she would have proceeded inside once she saw the console room beyond? Wouldn't she be more likely to pull back? Not only has she gone on into the console room, but she must have then headed beyond and through the internal door for the Doctor not to see her once he entered to travel back to medieval times.

Sarah is convinced the Doctor is up to no good - but for absolutely no good reason. Later she'll convince Sir Edward and Lady Eleanor of his guilt, but after he's captured he simply says it's someone else, and they automatically accept this. Sarah seems surprised that the Doctor knows about UNIT, despite the pair of them spending the whole first episode in a UNIT run facility with the Brigadier.

It seems almost sacrilegious to criticise one of the best cliff-hangers of the classic era, but Linx didn't do a great job in checking no-one was around to see him take his helmet off in the castle courtyard, did he? He's as observant as the Doctor and the Brig.

For him, his physiognomy is standard, so why does he want to keep his appearance hidden in the first place? He considers humans primitive, so why should he care what they think about his looks? And why does he suddenly not care about hiding his appearance in the later episodes?

The guard at the gate, joking with his colleague after the Doctor and Sarah have entered in their monk outfits: one of the worst acting performances ever.

Rubeish addresses one scientist as Morrison - and then a totally different scientist as Morrison...

The Doctor gets shot in the face by Linx, so later fetches a photographer's light reflector to prevent a second attack. Why does Linx not simply aim lower when the Doctor shields his face?

Last - but by no means least - how on Sontar did they get Linx's spaceship into that chamber?

Countdown to Regeneration: Fourth Doctor

The BBC Twitter / Facebook portraits and quotes continue. Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, and his final words from Logopolis.