Inspirations - The Leisure Hive

David Fisher had written a number of well-received stories for Graham Williams, but his last one had ended up being totally rewritten by Douglas Adams when he experienced some domestic problems. With these issues behind him, he contributed another idea which had partly come from the same background as his abortive 'A Gamble With Tim' - namely the idea of gangsters muscling in on some lucrative business. In keeping with the tone of Season 17, his new story had a lot of humour and pastiche of the gangster movie genre. His villains would be reptilian, but would wear snazzy suits and carry their weapons in violin cases.
However, there were big changes going on at the Doctor Who production office. Douglas Adams had decided to resign after just the one season as script editor as his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had really taken off. As well as coming up with a second series, he was working on the novelisation, an vinyl album adaptation, and a TV series. After a year of stress, Graham Williams had also decided that he had had enough. Even before his last story - Shada - had been cancelled due to industrial action, he had decided to quit the show. This was mainly due to the budget-busting inflation he had to contend with, headaches from some sections of organised fandom, and the behaviour of his leading man, which was spiraling out of hand. The fractious relationship with Tom Baker had led to the star threatening to resign, and Williams threatening to sack him.
On finally managing to take a holiday, Williams had broken his leg, and his Production Unit Manager John Nathan-Turner had deputised for him. The role of the PUM was primarily a financial one, looking after budgets (which is why it was JNT who had realised that filming in Paris was realistic for City of Death). Williams had tried to get JNT promoted to the post of Associate Producer on a couple of occasions, but the BBC had turned the request down. On resigning, Williams suggested JNT as his replacement.

The BBC asked around, and found that no-one else wanted to produce Doctor Who. People knew of Tom Baker's reputation as a difficult actor to work with, and they knew the show was under-budgeted yet highly complex to make. JNT was the only person keen to take the programme on, seeing it as a stepping stone to producing other shows - especially in the soap or light entertainment fields which were his passion. The BBC agreed to promote him, but insisted that, as an untried producer, he have someone more experienced to watch over him. This task was given to someone who knew the series well - 1970's producer Barry Letts. Letts had been unhappy with the way the programme had been developed since he left, disliking the overt horror aspects of his successor's period, and the silliness of the most recent series. The first task JNT had to face was the recruitment of a new script editor, and the man he and Letts brought in was Christopher Hamilton Bidmead. He had been an actor before turning to writing, and was interested in proper hard science - with a particular interest in computing. He wrote for computer magazines, using a word processor rather than a type-writer. At his interview his views on the current state of the programme chimed with those of JNT and Letts. The programme wasn't taking itself seriously, and there was too much magic and fantasy and not enough hard Science Fiction.

On taking up his new post, Bidmead was dismayed to discover that Adams had failed in his attempts to lure new writers to the programme, and the script cupboard was virtually bare. David Fisher's script about alien gangsters was just about the only one in any condition to be taken forward into production, along with an old script from Terrance Dicks which had been about to be produced when the BBC pulled it from Season 15 - more of which later. JNT also attempted to resurrect Shada.
As new producer, JNT wanted a totally fresh approach to the programme - beginning with the look and sound of the show. Regular composer Dudley Simpson was invited out to lunch and told that his services would no longer be required, as JNT wanted a more contemporary sound to the incidental music. From now on it would all be provided by the Radiophonic Workshop. This change extended to the title music. The titles themselves were now nearly 7 years old, and Tom Baker no longer looked the way he had back in 1975, so Sid Sutton was tasked with devising a new set. Out went the tunnel effect, inspired by the stargate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and in came a new star field background. The now iconic diamond logo was replaced with a fluorescent tube design, which was all the rage at the time. New VFX techniques would be used, which would enhance or replace CSO. JNT also decided that he would not use writers who had worked on the series before, and directors would, for the most part, be ones who were also new to the show. He would allow back those whom he knew from other shows he had worked on, however.
Something else JNT embarked on was the reigning in of his star. Out was to go the humour of the last couple of years, which he, Letts and Bidmead thought "under-graduate". He also insisted on a whole new wardrobe, preferring a uniform look over the mix and match costumes Baker had recently been wearing. He introduced the question mark motif on the Doctor's shirt collar, which he persevered with in one way or another for the whole of his time on the series, despite everyone but he thinking it a stupid idea. The programme wasn't called Doctor Who?.

The director selected to helm the first story of the new season - Fisher's set of scripts which were initially known as Avalon - was Lovett Bickford. He wanted to use techniques which hadn't been seen on the programme before - such as single and hand-held camera set-ups. Doctor Who had always been recorded in studio using the multi-camera set-up, where the director selected his shots from several cameras in the gallery. This was a relatively quick way of doing things, as the scene could be lit just the once overall. For the single camera way of working, each shot had to lit separately, which was time-consuming. This would lead to Bickford rapidly falling behind schedule, and going over budget.
The new visual aesthetic is there from the opening shot. It is a long tracking shot across Brighton beach, taking in a number of brightly striped beach tents. We hear the popular tune Oh! I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside (written 1907), and the sound of someone snoring. Eventually, after what seems an age, the camera goes beyond the tents to reach the similarly shaped TARDIS, with the Doctor sleeping in a deckchair beside it. Tom Baker had just returned from a promotional tour of Australia, so scenes where he is huddled up with face obscured by hat and scarf are actually an extra. Baker arrived later in the morning, jet-lagged, to record his scenes with Lalla Ward.
Another of things which JNT, Bidmead and Letts had agreed upon was the exiting of K9 from the series, as they disliked anything which made it easy for the Doctor. he should use his wits, rather than any magic wand or mobile weapon. You'll recall that David Brierley had quit as the voice of K9 when JNT wouldn't guarantee him an on screen performance in Season 18. JNT talked John Leeson into returning, on the condition that the character would be written out before the end of the season. It was decided that it would be incapacitated in some way in all its remaining stories - despite a lot of money being spent on upgrading the prop. As it was, Brighton's shingle beach proved too great a challenge for the prop, and you can clearly see that it is being pulled along on fishing line in the scene where it trundles along the beach with Romana.

If we're talking a lot about what was going on behind the scenes with this story, then it's because there was an awful lot going on behind the scenes with this story. The actual plot, as mentioned, was quite straight forward. Fisher named his alien gangsters Foamasi - an anagram of Mafiosi. The humanoid race were named Argolins, and were described as plant based beings. This is why they have green-ish faces and small seed pods on the top of their heads, which drop off when they are approaching the end of their lives. This element of their nature isn't all that clear on screen. The Foamasi infiltrate the Leisure Hive complex on Argolis by pretending to be a couple of businessmen from Earth, hiding in rubber suits. There is no explanation as to how they can fit inside these suits, as we see the Foamasi are quite bulky in their natural form. Russell T Davies was probably thinking of this problem when he devised the Slitheen in 2005. They are one of the few alien races whose language the TARDIS cannot translate. There's a sub-plot of the Doctor being put on trial for murder, as his scarf is found on a strangled man. It's never explained how the Doctor came to be parted from his scarf, and it's true that just because his scarf was round the dead man's neck, it doesn't mean he was the murderer. It would be an extremely foolish killer who leaves such an obvious clue as to his guilt behind at the scene of the crime, yet no-one picks up on this.

Argolin technology is based on Tachyonics - a scientific element introduced by Bidmead. A tachyon is a hypothetical particle which always travels faster than light, despite conventional science stating that nothing can go faster than light. They were first proposed by physicist Arnold Sommerfeld but named by Gerald Feinberg, from the Greek tachus which means 'speedy'.
Despite Bidmead's insistence on real science being incorporated, the Argolins use Tachyonics for everything but going faster than light - from regenerating themselves to anti-gravity squash and parlour tricks like making parts of their bodies split off.
Next time: as promised, a look at what was voted worst story of the Tom Baker era in DWM's 50th anniversary poll. Maybe it's because it is a bit of a throwback to Season 17, with comedy pirates and a talking cactus for a villain...