The background to this story, in a nutshell, is that the Bannermen are engaged in a campaign of genocide against the Chimeron.
Why?
No reason is ever given for this action. We don't know if they are doing it because they themselves want / need it to happen, or if they are mercenaries carrying out their crimes for another party. If the latter, that's never mentioned so we have to assume that they want the Chimeron wiped out for their own reasons.
It would have been nice if some sort of explanation had been given on screen. A couple of lines from Delta would have sufficed.
(There is a reason given in the novelisation - a terribly weak one - but that's no good for the people watching this on broadcast).
Their fearsome reputation is definitely unwarranted if this lot are anything to go by. They are tricked easily and often, and beaten by a bunch of civilians using 1950's technology or homemade traps.
We're told they have a war fleet - but this appears to consist of a single ship. They had two, but a couple of Chimeron were easily able to steal it. Their massed ranks seem to add up to about a dozen troops.
They do at least have the power to time travel - as does Nostalgia Tours. The latter are evidently a company with a very poor reputation, yet they are able to travel in time for mere pleasure jaunts. At least one of these coincides with a key moment in Earth's technological progress - the early Space Race.
I thought that the Time Lords were supposed to be policing time travel? It wasn't that long ago they were sending the Second Doctor to stop Dastari.
If Bannermen do indeed have time travel technology, surely they could have used it to eliminate the Chimeron at any earlier point in their history when easier to achieve?
Being the 1950's there would have been all sorts of implications for Billy forming any sort of relationship with one of the campers, and people would have had a lot to say about Delta's status as a single mother. They've picked the nice bits of the '50's - the music and nostalgia factor - but ignored the social realities of the decade. (Imagine what an RTD2 / Gatwa story with the same set-up might have been like. Or maybe not...).
Mel, who has done a fair bit of space / time travel by this stage screams her head off at the green baby - but Billy hardly bats an eyelid?
Billy steals some of the child's food. What made him think it would make him turn into an alien like Delta in the first place? And why would a foodstuff cause a genetic transformation in an entirely alien species? If people turned into cows after drinking milk then we might see where he was coming from.
The Chimeron lifecycle appears to be based on insect life. I do hope Billy knows that a lot of female insects eat their mates after procreation...
No matter how much in love they are, is going on a picnic - without leaving any word of where you can be reached in an emergency - really the brightest thing to do when you know genocidal aliens are on their way, specifically intent on killing you and your child? It's no wonder the Chimeron are on the brink of extinction...
If you are fleeing genocidal aliens, it is probably best not to mention your species to a bunch of strangers on a holiday outing. One of the fellow passengers just happens to be a bounty hunter who knows all about the Bannermen / Chimeron conflict - so much so that he has a direct line to Gavrok. Considering that no-one knew Delta was going to turn up and join the tour, that's one heck of a coincidence.
Gavrok doesn't want to pay Kiellor the bounty, so kills him - but does it before he has bothered to get the exact location and so has to land and run around the countryside hunting for Delta.
Gavrok shoots the Toll Master, yet allows Hawke and Weismuller to live, even wasting a couple of soldiers to guard them - men who would have been more usefully employed on the search, surely?
Even with a special code, it is highly unlikely that you could ever have gotten through to the White House from a standard Police Public Call Box.
I have found evidence that Police Boxes could be found in Cardiff and Newport, but none in any rural district of South Wales.
I've stayed in a holiday camp, and there's no way that the grass in front of the chalets would be allowed to grow that long during the season.
We hear the music for Housewives Choice when everyone is having lunch - even though this was broadcast between 9 - 9.55am on the Light Programme. And the music for Music While You Work is playing over breakfast, when this was broadcast between 10.30 - 11am, and again between 3.45 - 4.30pm, according to the BBC Genome project for summer 1959.
Most of the male Navarino tourists dress as Teddy Boys. Holiday camps catered primarily for families (competitions ranged from Bonny Babies to Glamorous Grannies), and people identifying as a particular youth sub-culture would be frowned upon due the potential for violence. It wasn't until the end of the 20th Century that camps began to specifically advertise themed musical weekends, now that the families were going elsewhere.
Haha! Thanks for reminding me about this! One of the gripes I had with NuWho was the number of individuals and races that were capable of time travel culminating in, amongst other things, a hotel with doorways to different places in time! And yet it seems the seeds for all that were sown during the classic era after all!
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