Story 313: The Robot Revolution

In which the Doctor first encounters Belinda Chandra, who is having serious ex-boyfriend issues...

One night, whilst in the local park star-gazing, boyfriend Alan gives Belinda a gift. This is a certificate naming a star after her - "Missbelindachandra" - which lies in Orion. 

17 years later, long after they have broken up, Belinda is a hard working nurse and sharing a house with a group of friends. The Doctor has been searching for her, after being told by someone that she is significant for him.

One evening her home is suddenly invaded by massive robots, which abduct her and take her to their spaceship. This is witnessed by neighbour Mrs Flood.

The Doctor arrives too late to help and Mrs Flood hides when she sees him approach, not wishing to be recognised. He gives chase in the TARDIS.

The robots inform Belinda that they are taking her to their planet - Missbelindachandra One - and show her the certificate, which has signs of great age compared to her copy which has been brought from the house. She argues that it ought to have been Alan they kidnapped as it was he who bought it.

The TARDIS is unable to follow as it hits a time fracture and is forced to divert.

The spaceship also experiences this.

On arriving at the planet, they are met by a woman named Sasha 55, who informs Belinda that the robots are currently at war with a group known simply as the Rebels. They take her to the Royal Chamber where a group of people are gathered to welcome her. Seating her on a throne, the robots inform her of her forthcoming wedding with the AI Generator which rules them. This union will put an end to the war.

When she refuses to go along with this, the robots state that she has no choice. Sasha 55 invites the Royal Historian to explain the history of the planet, which was at peace until a decade ago when the robots rebelled and took over.

The Historian is actually the Doctor, and he sends Belinda a message in code - the robots being unable to hear every ninth word anyone says due to a glitch. He is also able to give the people in the room the message to attack the robots, for they are actually members of the Rebel group.

A gun battle ensues, in which Sasha 55 is killed. The Doctor is distressed as he had promised to make her his new travelling companion. He tells Belinda that he arrived here six months ago and befriended Sasha 55 and together they built the Rebel movement. The time fracture had caused him to arrive early.

The surviving Rebels go to their underground base, where Belinda assists with the wounded.

She finds herself being blamed for what is happening on this planet, as the star certificate somehow managed to travel back through time to form part of the planet's foundation myth.

Feeling guilty at what is happening here, Belinda activates a service robot and this allows the robots to trace her - intent on going through with the wedding if the Rebels are spared and it brings an end to hostilities.

She and the Doctor are taken to the AI Generator which opens up to reveal Alan, now a cyborg integrated into the machine and ruling the planet. When she had told the robots on the spaceship to take him they had obeyed, but the time fracture meant that he was brought here ten years ago. It was he who caused the robots to revolt against the humans, and so he is responsible for the war.

Belinda tells the Doctor that she had rejected a marriage proposal from Alan years ago because she felt uncomfortable with his controlling behaviour.

All this is his revenge against her for that rejection. Whilst Alan has the star certificate of the far future, Belinda holds the one brought from 2025. To join with him, she must hold Alan's copy - but the Doctor swaps the two unnoticed. A temporal paradox results, as the two copies are one and the same from different time zones.

This causes Alan to revert back to a sperm cell whilst the Doctor is able to absorb most of the ensuing temporal disturbance. The robots are now leaderless, and harmony between them and the humanoids can be restored.

The Doctor offers to take Belinda home, and she insists they get back in time for 24th May 2025. For some reason, the TARDIS will not go to Earth on that date and materialises in space - so the Doctor must find a way round this phenomenon.

Departing, they fail to see floating debris from Earth, including a London taxi, bits of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower, and part of the Great Pyramid - as well as a scorched calendar showing the date of 24th May, 2025...

The Robot Revolution was written by Russell T Davies and was first broadcast on Saturday 12th April 2025. This story launches the fifteenth series since 2005 and, as with the previous series, episodes were released at midnight on BBC iPlayer and Disney+.

This series was the second to be co-produced by Disney, who had agreed to co-fund a total of 26 episodes - which included the 60th Anniversary stories, two Christmas Specials, two seasons and a spin-off series.

The episode also introduces the new companion, Belinda, played by Varada Sethu. She had impressed the production team when she featured in the previous series' episode Boom, where she played the Cleric Mundy Flynn. She becomes the third companion actor to be cast after appearing as another character in an earlier story - Ian Marter having played Lt Andrews in Carnival of Monsters before becoming Harry Sullivan, and Karen Gillan was one of the Sybilline Sisterhood in The Fires of Pompeii before being cast as Amy Pond.

Visually, the inspiration for the story was retro-1950's Sci-Fi, with the robots, their spaceship and their weapons having a tinplate toy-like appearance. The planet has a cartoon-ish quality, as well as being reminiscent of cityscapes seen in the 1930's Saturday morning matinee serials of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. The 1980 film version of the former had gone for a very similar look.

In terms of the script, RTD wanted the episode to reflect a hugely topical issue - namely what is termed the "Manosphere" and the Incel subculture. Incel is short for "involuntarily celibate". They are men who find difficulty in forming romantic or sexual  relationships, and who blame this on women rather than any inadequacies of their own. They are deeply misogynistic and some have taken this to extremes of violence against women. Alan's controlling behaviour and the great lengths he takes to get revenge on Belinda for standing up to him reflect some of these ideas.

Only a few weeks before The Robot Revolution aired, Netflix streamed the drama Adolescence, which dealt with this subculture. In this a 13 year old schoolboy (played by Owen Cooper, who has won numerous awards for his performance - some as the youngest ever winner) is arrested for killing a female classmate, having been influenced by toxic social media influencers and misogynistic websites.

It's all there in the story, but RTD refrains from bludgeoning the audience with it as some others certainly would.

Several critics thought it more noticeable and actually disliked the way that this serious subject matter was handled within such a lightweight story.

The guest cast includes Evelyn Miller as Sasha 55. She appears in popular crime drama Gangs of London and featured in sci-fi series Foundation.

Jonny Green plays Alan. He seems to have been cast for his voice mainly - he's seen under heavy prosthetics for most of his scenes - as he is a regular Big Finish audio actor. This appears to be his only on-screen role to date.

Stephen Love, who plays Robot 1, was also a Wrarth Warrior in The Star Beast, as was Robot 2 actor Robert Strange, who also portrayed the Bogeyman in Space Babies.

The robots were voiced by Nicholas Briggs.

Anita Dobson returns as the enigmatic Mrs Flood, which brings us to this year's story arc. 

As well as her, we also have some impending disaster going to befall the Earth on 24th May 2025 - the date of the final episode of this series. Moffat did something very similar with Series 5 and Amy's wedding day - also timed for the final episode's broadcast.

We also have the Doctor unable to reach that date, which is obviously connected, but it will mean that the next few adventures will have to see him attempt to do so, in order to get Belinda home.

There's also mention of a mysterious "he" who has told the Doctor that she is of importance to him.

Overall, it's a season opener from RTD so it's only to be expected that this will be a bit of a bright run-around, with some humour and some striking visuals that will go down well in the trailers. It is so much more successful than the previous year's dreadful Space Babies, so the season feels as if it has gotten off to a better start. Sethu gets more than enough screen time to impress, though we knew quite early on that she would only be staying for this one series.

Things you might like to know:

• Rather than simply ignore the resemblance of Belinda to Mundy, the Doctor claims that they are distantly related.
• This episode was originally to have been a stand-alone story, to be screened mid-series. RTD2 then amended it to make it the companion introduction piece.
• Shots of the Rebel ships attacking the city in the trailer prompted some fans to believe that the Daleks would be appearing, as they resembled their saucers in the brief clips.
• Cars from the 1950's and 1970's were visual inspiration for the design of the robots, which were built up from 34 different 3-D printed components.
• RTD2 added the flatmates to the abduction scene as he realised it was unrealistic for a nurse to afford such a large property on her own. These scenes were recorded as pick-ups during production of a later episode.
• The episode was to have opened with scenes showing Belinda's family, but the writer decided that a story springing from someone getting a star certificate should really open with them getting said star certificate.
• Critics were almost unanimous in disliking the way Sasha 55's death was handled, as the character had been so poorly set up. We're only told she's significant to the Doctor after she's already dead.

Inspirations: Hell Bent

Hell Bent closes the ninth series of the revived Doctor Who, and has the main job of trying to tie up various story arc points - and of writing out Clara Oswald as the companion.

The arc this season has been the issue of "the Hybrid" with a number of candidates put forward - the Doctor himself, the Doctor / Clara, Davros, Time Lords / Daleks, Ashildr, Zygon Osgood...

Steven Moffat also wanted the Doctor to return to Gallifrey to explore some of its mythos - including that of regeneration. He would arrive there as a man out of control - out for revenge for what the Time Lords had done to him in the previous episode, and for what had happened to Clara, even though she had died through her own misadventure and had specifically asked him not to hold anyone but herself responsible for her fate.

One inspiration Moffat had for the Doctor at this time was the character Shane, as played by Alan Ladd in the 1953 Western.

This in turn inspired the director to give the opening sequences at the barn-like building (first seen in The Day of the Doctor and later shown to be a childhood haunt of the young Doctor in Listen) a Spaghetti Western feel.

As well as these elements, Moffat also wanted to conclude Ashildr's story - showing her still living at the end of the universe and therefore older, and somewhat wiser, than the Doctor himself - someone whom he would now listen to.

When it came to looking at regeneration, Moffat had noted that a number of Time Lords had properly died after being fatally injured instead of regenerating, such as the War Chief, Morbius and incidental characters in The Deadly Assassin and Arc of Infinity.

Moffat wrote a sequence in which the Doctor would deliberately 'kill' a Time Lord - though first checking that they were not in their final incarnation. This scene is contentious to say the least, as the Doctor is (a) seen to wield a gun and (b) has zero justification for shooting the General - who regenerates into female form (and a different ethnicity), and who suggests that they have usually been female throughout their existence.

The General, as played by Ken Bones, had been introduced in The Day of the Doctor.

Ohila of the Sisterhood of Karn appears on Gallifrey, having been seen earlier in the opening episode of the series, but first introduced in the 50th Anniversary prequel mini-episode Night of the Doctor. 

The Brain of Morbius had previously stated that Karn was in the same region of space as Gallifrey and there were ancient ties between the Sisterhood and the Time Lords. (Though for her to be here, when Gallifrey is time-locked in a pocket universe at the end of Time, she must have been there on the last day of the Time War - except she's on Karn in The Magician's Apprentice...).

Rassilon also returns, though in regenerated form. (Timothy Dalton was busy making Penny Dreadful in Ireland at the time and unavailable to reprise the role so it went to Donald Sumpter, who had previously appeared in The Wheel in Space, The Sea Devils and SJA: The Eternity Trap).

After banishing Rassilon,  the Doctor assumes the Presidency of the High Council of Time Lords - a role he previously adopted in The Invasion of Time, and which was offered to him again in The Five Doctors. By Trial of a Time Lord we learned that he had been deposed, though the Inquisitor offered the role to him once again - only for him to suggest she take it up herself.

Moffat wanted the original TARDIS console room design to be seen at some stage in the story. One had been recreated for the 2013 drama An Adventure in Space and Time, and this was currently on display at the Doctor Who Experience a short distance from the BBC studios. With the Doctor arriving on Gallifrey via the confession dial, leaving his own TARDIS behind, it was easy enough for a different one to be included as he would require it to get back to his own, left behind in present day London.

The implication is that this is the default interior design for all TARDISes. 

This one has a white console, whereas the Doctor's was seen to be pale green in the Pertwee era, however. (Painted this colour to appear white in B&W of course).

That TARDISes appear to be metal cylinders in outward appearance matches the scene in The Name of the Doctor where we saw the Doctor and Susan first steal the ship. The ones seen in Part 10 of The War Games were more box-like, as was the Master's in The Claws of Axos.

Moffat's decision on Clara's ultimate fate was that she would become a traveller in space and time just like the Doctor whom she sought to emulate - and so this TARDIS could then be given to her.

Moffat never intended Clara to stay dead - a trope of his going back to the many deaths of Rory Williams. (Unfortunately this simply undermines the conclusion to Face The Raven and much of Heaven Sent, which is why so many fans dislike the episode).

The diner is the same one seen in The Impossible Astronaut - really a venue located on Cardiff Bay - with its distinctive Elvis painting on the restroom door.

Making cameo appearances are a Dalek, Cyberman and Weeping Angel in the Cloisters, plus one of the Cherub angels introduced in The Angels Take Manhattan.

Next time: four weddings, but no funeral...

The Twin Dilemma & Extras Discs (S21 - The Collection)

The Twin Dilemma:

The last of the story discs is number 8, and this features Colin Baker's debut.

Often voted the worst story ever (though I'd argue there have been some right old clunkers recently), one of its problems is that it came the very next week after the story usually voted best.

This is the only story of the entire set not to have any new VFX as an option, either new or legacy, but it does finally get a Making-Of documentary. The DVD only really had a costume featurette (the one where they replaced Baker's costume with a dark suit, just to show what the actor himself wanted - though a darker Doctor in a black suit might have been just a little too close to the Master). 

Regarding the clown suit, it's interesting that the Doctor himself actually acknowledges that he no longer has any dress sense - so you'd think that they would have seen sense themselves and changed it for Season 22 (and certainly for Season 23).

Some of the model shots - the freighter and the surface of Titan 3 are rather good - and video effects are okay, which is why they probably thought it not worth commissioning new VFX.

The main issues with The Twin Dilemma are the variable acting on show, the presentation / character of the new Doctor, and the gaudy sets and costumes. It's the end of season, so the money has run out and that might go towards explaining some of the production values problems. Peter Moffatt's rather bland direction is another issue.

Watching it again last night - first time in a long time - I actually thought that the twins did a reasonable job considering they weren't really actors. They'd only done a stage version of Oliver! before this.

Performances such as Helen Blatch's - an experienced actor - are worse, though she's a victim of the material she has been given. (The story might be credited to Anthony Steven but the second half is basically Eric Saward's).

Edwin Richfield is totally wasted as Mestor. They could have simply employed him for his voice and had an extra play the Gastropod itself.

The biggest issue is the Doctor, of course. In hindsight it was certainly a mistake to launch the new Doctor at the end of a season when you are going to present him as a bit psychotic - murderous, manic, or cowardly in turns. When he says "I am the Doctor... whether you like it or not", it comes across more as a threat to the audience than a reassurance. Leaving this performance in the audience's minds for 9 months was a mistake, which even JNT finally acknowledged.

The documentary is very good. Presented by Toby Hadoke it interviews cast and crew, including Kevin McNally and Colin Baker at a pub near one of the quarry locations (which Baker claims is where his rubbish now goes - I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere...).

It starts by acknowledging the story's poor reputation, but I think you may have a little bit more respect for it after watching this. The Conrad twins and Noma actor Barry Stanton are amongst the interviewees. The latter has never watched it, and is quite impressed by Azmael's death scene when Hadoke shows it to him.

For Behind the Sofa, the guest viewers are Paul and Andrew, the titular twins (Gavin changed his name). They join Baker, Langford and Bryant. 

Janet Fielding is very critical of the new Doctor's behaviour. Davison has mock annoyance at seeing Baker in his costume, and jokingly stomps off the set, leaving the others to carry on watching without him.

The rest of the disc is TV spots, and quite a mixed bag. Not just Baker items but Jon Pertwee on Pebble Mill at One and Mat Irvine on Saturday Superstore (visiting London's Science Museum with K-9).

Discs 9 & 10:

Considering that the special edition could surely have fitted onto the Planet of Fire disc, I'm not entirely sure why they felt the need to have two discs of extras. As well as that SE, Disc 9 has two of those dreadful Escape Room features - one each for the Fifth and Sixth Doctors. Other than that there is a 2013 Fifth Doctor overview and Matthew Sweet in conversation with Matthew Waterhouse. 

The fact that this appears on this set, as does the Earthshock Tales from the Tardis, gives the extras a bit of a Davison era leftovers feel.

Waterhouse does actually talk quite a bit about Doctor Who in his interview. We also hear about how he got into acting in the first place, his experience of conventions, theatre, working in New England, and moving into writing. Can't say I buy his interpretation of the exploding console scene in his final episode.

The only other big new extra is the latest road trip with Davison, Sutton and Fielding. Or rather, boat trip, as they take to the River Wey to journey to the studio to do a Behind the Sofa. Mark Strickson was supposed to be involved as well, but had to drop out.

This isn't a straightforward travelogue, as they have elected to employ elements of earlier extras - cooking from the Doctor Who Cookbook, and dining at the Doctor's Table (joined by Colin Baker). 

These were extras in their own right on other sets - so it feels like a bit of a jumble. The travel section I was fine with - the scenery is lovely - but the cooking session and the restaurant bit I could have done without.

How you take these all depends on how much you like the Davison / Fielding double act.

Last, but certainly not least, on Disc 10 we have the 50th Anniversary's wonderful The Fiveish Doctors, which comes with optional commentary. Great seeing this again.

Episode 201: Fury From The Deep (4)

Synopsis:

Watched by Robson, Maggie Harris - infected by the seaweed creature - walks into the sea until she disappears beneath the waves... 

In the control room, Price informs Van Lutyens that they have now lost contact with a third rig - Rig A. As a technical adviser only, the Dutchman informs the Doctor that only Harris can send someone out to the rigs to find out what is happening there.

The Chief Engineer and his technicians continue to hear the heartbeat sound emanating from the impeller shaft.

As Jamie sleeps in a crew cabin, Victoria speaks with the Doctor about her unhappiness at their hazardous lifestyle - recalling some of the monsters they have faced together.

Harris is searching everywhere for his missing wife and finds Robson on the beach. Asking him if he has seen her, he merely replies that Harris will see her again very soon before walking away.

Van Lutyens informs the Doctor that he is going to go down into the impeller shaft alone to see what is blocking it - much against the Doctor's advice. He dons an oxygen mask and mounts a moving platform which will take him down the shaft. It is operated by Oak and Quill.

At the base of the shaft is a hatch leading to a pipe, which Van Lutyens opens. Below, he sees a mass of foam which begins to surge upwards towards him. He lets out a cry as he is swallowed up by it, tendrils of weed dragging him down into the pipe.

The lift platform comes up empty. The Doctor realises that he must go down himself to find Van Lutyens and confront whatever is down there - and the reluctant Jamie will accompany him.

Price informs Harris that Megan Jones has arrived at reception. She is the Director of ESGO in the UK and Robson's boss - as well as being an old friend of his. With her is her personal assistant Perkins.

The Chief is appalled to learn from Victoria that the Doctor and Jamie have followed Van Lutyens down into the shaft. Harris arrives and orders the platform be raised - but Oak claims that it is too late to stop it.

Jones and Perkins discuss the reasons for their being called here, and she is sure it is simply a clash of personalities between Robson and Harris.

When Harris and the Chief inform her of the seaweed creatures she is dismissive. She doesn't wish to take the word of the strangers who recently arrived and thinks Harris is simply upset about his wife's illness. When he tells her about the loss of communications with the rigs, she authorises a helicopter to go out and check on them.

Oak and Quill were ordered to bring the platform up as soon as the Doctor signalled, but have left the room unattended. The Doctor and Jamie find no trace of Van Lutyens and see the foam and weed rise towards them, but the alarm bell goes unheeded. They are forced to clamber up the maintenance ladder as the weed reaches out for them.

They are alarmed to find the room above empty as they emerge from the shaft, with no sign of Victoria.

They split up to look for her.

The helicopter pilot reports that the rigs are covered in foam and weed. Harris insists that they be destroyed but Jones and Perkins won't hear of such drastic measures. Robson suddenly appears and demands that the rigs are his and must be left alone. It is clear that he is mentally unbalanced. He runs off again.

The Doctor arrives and tells everyone of Van Lutyens' disappearance, and he suspects that Robson is now under the control of the weed creature.

Harris points out to Jones that the Doctor has been right about things so far, and she agrees to listen to him.

He explains that the weed is a parasite which gets its intelligence from the human brain - from the people it possesses - and they have no idea how many others are affected. The weed is forming a colony, using the rigs as a base.

Price then reports contact with Baxter on the Control Rig, and they hear him call for help as they are being invaded by the weed.

Jamie finds Victoria lying unconscious in the pipeline room, locked in by Oak and Quill.

Worried that she is dead, he finds the key and enters. She wakes in time to hear his concern for her. She tells him about the two technicians.

They then hear the heartbeat sound and look to the transparent section of pipe, seeing it full of foam and weed.

The Doctor is warning the others that the weed might spread out to consume the entire country when Jamie arrives to tell them about the pipe.

They go to the pipeline room to see for themselves.

"It's begun", states the Doctor. "The battle of the giants...".

Data:

Written by Victor Pemberton

Recorded: Saturday 16th March 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 6th April 1968

Ratings: 6.6 million / AI 56

VFX: Peter Day

Designer: Peter Kindred

Director: Hugh David

Additional cast: Margaret John (Megan Jones), Brian Cullingford (Perkins)

Critique:

As previously mentioned, Victor Pemberton was not happy at some of the changes which Derrick Sherwin made to his story. He disliked the way in which Oak and Quill were made less sinister, but he was especially annoyed at the changes made to this and the fifth episode, for the Story Editor got rid of an entire subplot which bridged the two instalments.

The Doctor's warning about the weed creatures' objectives included the concern that they now had control over the pumps, and so their toxic gas could be pumped through the natural gas pipelines into any home in the country. An emergency conference was staged near the refinery, to work out how to defeat the threat, and the fourth episode cliff-hanger was to have been a race against time by the Doctor and his companions to prevent the weed attacking this, by attempting to cut off the pipeline. (We'll look at the intended resolution to this next time).

Sherwin's argument was that the conference scenes went on too long and brought the story to a crawl - another example of Pemberton's reliance on dialogue over visual action due to his background in radio drama presumably.

Pemberton was so unhappy that he actually asked for his name to be taken off the production for a time.

He was placated by being asked to become more involved in the rewrites.

We earlier said that Pemberton had a fear of earthquakes and a bit of a phobia about seaweed. He wrote the sequence of Van Lutyens being sucked down into the pipe because of another personal fear - that of being caught in quicksand. He had included similar scenes in his radio drama The Slide.

One addition to this script by Sherwin was an extra scene of Megan Jones and Perkins discussing what might be going on, when they first arrive at the compound.

In the broadcast episode, Jamie simply spots the key to the pipeline room to rescue Victoria, but in the original script he first tries to break down the door, before piling up boxes to climb up and break in through a ventilation hatch.

Tuesday 6th February saw scenes on the beach filmed, including the shots of Maggie walking out into the sea which formed the cliff-hanger into this instalment. Also filmed that day was the scene in which Harris encountered Robson soon afterwards.

Once again, scenes involving extensive use of the BBC foam machine were filmed under more controllable conditions at Ealing, for three days from Wednesday 7th February. 

For this episode they were primarily the two sequences at the base of the impeller shaft - first with John Abineri as Van Lutyens, and then with Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines as the Doctor and Jamie come looking for him. Abineri later stated in an interview that there was a small platform around four feet below the level of the foam on which he had to kneel and then crouch down on so as to disappear under the foam blanket. However, there was a significant drop to the side of this platform and had he missed his mark he would have had a nasty fall. The foam would have obscured him so that the studio crew would not have noticed he had fallen until too late.

Joining rehearsals for Episode 4 was the Welsh actress Margaret John, playing the no-nonsense Megan Jones. She had performed alongside Hugh David on a number of productions before he stepped back from acting - including a BBC TV adaptation of How Green Was My Valley and several radio dramas.

A late addition to the script was the extended scene in the crew cabin between Victoria and the Doctor, which was included as part of the process of paving the way for the companion's departure. At one point they mention some of the enemies they have encountered - including Daleks, Cybermen and Yeti.

The scene showing Van Lutyens preparing to descend the impeller shaft was condensed.

Troughton signed a new contract for a further 24 episodes the day before recording this episode.

The opening credits rolled over a filmed reprise of Maggie walking into the sea.

One recording break allowed Hines to move from the impeller room to the pipeline room where he found the unconscious Victoria.

The end credits ran over a shot of the weed and foam seen through the transparent pipe section. In the end, some of the new dialogue between Jones and Perkins was actually cut prior to recording.

David was unhappy with some of the material and so arranged for additional recording time the following week for a remount.

Victoria's departure is further sign-posted by the scene in the crew cabin where she talks with the Doctor about their dangerous lifestyle whilst Jamie dozes on a bunk.

It's a quiet, reflective scene, which mirrors in many ways the scene in Tomb of the Cybermen between Watling and Troughton, helping to top and tail her involvement with the series.

There is a definite feeling of the action beginning to ramp up now, after the very slow build-up and mood setting of the first half of the story.

Robson is now possessed by the weed, and Van Lutyens has been abducted by it, so no more scenes of the pair arguing about what is causing the blockages in the pipeline. The authorities, represented by Jones, have witnessed first hand the nature of the threat - so we won't have the Doctor spending time trying to convince people either.

It was one of the problems of the classic series that the Doctor always spent at least two episodes just trying to convince people that there was a threat, often locked up as well - one of the reasons why RTD introduced the psychic paper for the brisker 45 minute-long stories, simply to get the Doctor into the action quicker.

As mentioned above there are many similarities between Pemberton's The Slide and its adaptation back into a Doctor Who story. The role of the Doctor was taken up by the scientist Gomez, and in the radio drama he uses that same "Battle of the giants" line.

Trivia:

• The ratings have now fallen by more than a million and a half since the opening instalment, though the appreciation figure remains stable. The ratings may be due in part to the arrival of the better weather, with people going out at weekends more. (This wasn't the first episode to be broadcast after the UK's clocks went forward - the last weekend in March these days. In 1968 they changed in mid-February).
• Owing to a production error, the original 1963 arrangement of the theme tune was used on this and the subsequent episode.
• Peter Day retained one of the prop oxygen masks from this story, adapted from a pair of skiing goggles.
• Ironically, the last time we see John Abineri in Doctor Who, in The Power of Kroll, he is being grabbed by a tentacle in a gas refinery...
• Margaret John will return to the series to play Tommy's grandmother in The Idiot's Lantern. She found renewed fame late in life as Doris in Gavin and Stacey.
• Megan Jones' counterpart in The Slide is Margaret Griffiths, also Welsh, who is from the Home Office.
• June Murphy and Brian Cullingford met during the making of this story. Reader, he married her, as Charlotte Bronte would have said. The pair wed in August 1968.
• The sea fort used in the series as the offshore gas drilling rig complex was once home to a pirate radio station - and Brian Cullingford had been station manager at this very location in 1966 - Red Sands Fort. More on this location next time when it features prominently.
• The Highlanders had also featured an unctuous secretary named Perkins - the other story directed by Hugh David.

The Caves of Androzani (S21 - The Collection)

Disc 7 contains what has often been voted the greatest Doctor Who story of all time. More recent polls might favour some of the post 2005 episodes like Blink or Heaven Sent, but The Caves of Androzani still holds its own as arguably the best of the classic era.

It had a reissue in one of the "Revisitations" box sets, so we've already seen most of the extras. 

What we get here new is a version of the story with optional new VFX - the fifth story to feature this on the set.

Other than establishing shots of the twin planets and the Monument Valley-like TARDIS landing site, these effects mainly deal with the Magma Beast and spaceships.

The monster is a lot more mobile than the very static costume, though that hasn't been replaced totally here. It's primarily close-ups which benefit from the new CGI, giving it more animated features.

Model work of Stotz's ship is replaced on a couple of occasions.

There has been a lot of criticism regarding the use of AI in the recent box-sets. This has been used to sharpen the image, but on occasion has interfered with actors' faces.

Its use is particularly noticeable in Part One of this story, in the scene set in Morgus' office where he has his video-link chat with Chellak. Morgus' face loses all movement, the lips hardly matching his dialogue.

Quite unnecessary to have employed this at all, especially if it is actually going to spoil the image rather than improve it. You'll notice the AI in operation on other stories, especially in TARDIS scenes.

Luckily the Behind the Sofa panellists are only watching edited highlights of the regular version, so director Graeme Harper's thoughts on this go unrecorded.

He joins the Fifth Doctor sofa, and unlike other guest viewers so far has a lot more involvement in the discussions about what they are watching. 

Everyone comments on how adult and dark this story is, with Aldred and Padbury stating they would have liked to have seen at least a little humour to lighten the mood occasionally.

As a story it is unrelentingly bleak, like Logopolis having an ominous feel throughout. (We go into these knowing that the Doctor is going to "die" at the conclusion, and this mood permeates the entire story in both cases).

Other than the Magma Beast costume, which was never all that prominent in the original broadcast, you really can't fault the story. Casting is perfect for every role - no stunt casting this time; the lighting is kept low and atmospheric; and - despite rehashing elements from the less than perfect The Power of Kroll - the writing is some of Robert Holmes' best. It just goes to show the difference it makes when the same material, more or less, is given to an innovative director.

Interestingly, it's not Davison who gets teary-eyed at the regeneration scene, but Colin Baker, who has nothing but praise for his predecessor's Doctor.

Of the extras we've seen before, this being Davison's last story, they have included the regular stuff like "Tomorrow's Times" and "Stripped For Action" covering the Fifth Doctor era. 

That big documentary presented by Davison's son-in-law (what ever happened to him?) is also included here.

This is the last time we'll see Davison watch his own stories. Hopefully he'll be back on a sofa for some of the Troughton ones when they finally get round to releasing them, as that was his favourite Doctor.

Planet of Fire (S21 - The Collection)

Disc 6 of the set could be described as the runt of the litter.

If you want a Special Edition of Planet of Fire then you have to look to Disc 9, one of two Extras discs in this set, for the previously released 75 minute omnibus version. As well as new VFX, director Fiona Cumming drastically edited it down and added a prologue featuring the crash of the Trion spaceship carrying Turlough's father and brother.

As for the main story disc, apart from the Behind the Sofa there are no new extras either - and this doesn't even have a guest viewer on the Fifth Doctor sofa.

Personally, I wasn't too keen on the SE as too much detail was cut, and the prologue rather jarred with the broadcast version in its look and feel.

The similar re-edit on Cumming's Enlightenment worked a lot better.

As for the story itself, Peter Grimwade was given a huge shopping list of things to include - writing out Turlough, including providing some background to the character; writing out Kamelion; writing in new companion Peri; having the Master involved (and potentially writing him out as well); plus making extensive use of a foreign location.

He argued that he should have been invited to the location recce, as he could have fed this into his writing. But JNT didn't want another director possibly interfering with Cumming's ideas for shots. Also, JNT had fallen out with him by this stage due to his perceived snub following the postponement of "Warhead", when Grimwade didn't invite him to a meal.

Saward did attend the recce, but claimed he was employed as little more than a chauffeur.

This will prove to be the writer / director's final contribution to the series.

Considering the shopping list, Grimwade does well incorporating everything in a fairly satisfactory manner. Turlough gets his background (the writer having introduced him and already plotted a backstory for him) and it's fitting that the Master be involved in Kamelion's demise as he was there in the beginning. Peri takes some getting used to, as initially she's a bit of a spoiled brat.

The plot is a bit clichéd, with a society worshipping an ancient alien visitor, and there's the obvious inspiration from She, which had already inspired The Brain of Morbius. (I find it hard to believe the similarity in planet names is just coincidence).

The location looks great - just a pity they couldn't have used a British location for the opening to act as contrast. It looks like the TARDIS has simply moved elsewhere on the island.

The Art of... Fury From The Deep

Victor Pemberton was quite insistent that he be the only one to novelise his story, and managed to convince Target to allow him to do so with an increased page count, usually only 127 or so pages. Range editor Nigel Robinson worked with Pemberton to try to reduce it but found this impossible, so it went out as a "Bumper Volume" with 189 pages - but at a higher price.

Pemberton gave some of the characters first names - such as Harris being Frank, Van Lutyens being Pieter and Price being David. Background motivation is added for Robson - his wife died in a car crash whilst he was at the wheel some 20 years beforehand. Blaming himself, he has thrown himself into his work to the point of obsession.

Interestingly, despite Pemberton's claims to have invented it, the sonic screwdriver does not appear in the opening beach scene with the pipeline inspection hatch.

The cover is a rather low-key affair by artist David McAllister, depicting a conventional drilling platform far out at sea, with tendrils of seaweed rising in the foreground. Perhaps more ominous weather conditions might have given the cover more atmosphere.

Paul Mark Tams had put forward an art concept following his commission to provide the cover for the novelisation of Doctor Who radio drama Slipback, but this was not taken up as it featured a Doctor other than the current one. (Tams, who was also involved in the music industry, had previously contributed artwork for the Doctor Who and Dalek annuals, and would go on to be one of those responsible for the single "Doctor In Distress". He later championed attempts to get K-9 back on screen, collaborating with Bob Baker).

The novel was published in 1986. A reprint was scheduled for June 1994, but the reprint range was discontinued before this could happen.

The soundtrack was first released as part of the BBC Audio Collection in cassette format, featuring a photomontage cover depicting images from the location filming of the opening episode - Troughton wearing his distinctive woolly hat.

The narrative was linked by Tom Baker, in character as the Fourth Doctor recalling this adventure.

This was released in October 1993.

February 2004 saw the soundtrack re-released on CD, this time with narration by Frazer Hines. The colourful cover montage once again relied on location images from Episode One, but also found room for Mr Quill from the recovered Australian censor clips, as well as an entirely made-up gas rig design.

Those censor clips had featured on the Lost In Time DVD set, released in 2004. This also included film trims from Episode 6 as well as some colour home movie footage of the climactic scenes.

The story was animated and released on DVD / Blu-ray in September 2020 on Region 2, though US fans had to wait until the following March for the Region 1 version. (Australia only had to wait two months).

As usual there was an expensive steelbook release to accompany the regular one. Its artwork opted to concentrate on the sequences added to the story depicting giant tentacles of seaweed threatening the helicopter - scenes which never appeared in the televised programme. We also see them grabbing the TARDIS, something which doesn't even appear in the animation.

The novelisation was released as an audiobook in July 2011, read by David Troughton, and using the McAllister artwork.

And finally, another photomontage piece of artwork used to illustrate the story on the moviedb website prior to the animation being released. This actually uses the correct sea fort locations used for the rigs as filmed by Hugh David.