Countdown to 60: Renewal

Number 10, and I'm only just coming out of the Hartnell era. Hartnell's departure is such a significant moment, however. We don't have him retire, or die, or walk off into the sunset, to be replaced by a new character who will fulfil his role in the series.

After complaining of increasing weakness - "This old body of mine is wearing a bit thin" - he hurries back to the TARDIS, leaving Ben and Polly behind. It's as if he knew something monumental was about to happen and needed to be prepared for it. Inside the TARDIS, he operates the controls - though some seem to be working independently of him. He collapses and is found by his companions lying on the floor. 

They then see his face blur and change, and in a few moments a younger, darker haired man lies in his place.

To get some idea of what the heck has just happened, we have to move into the next episode - the first instalment of The Power of the Daleks. Most of this story is spent with Ben refusing to believe this dark-haired bloke is the Doctor - despite both he and Polly seeing the change. (Did David Whitaker / Dennis Spooner not check to see where they were when the change took place?).

These days we call it "Regeneration" but that wasn't coined until the final episode of Planet of the Spiders. Here, it is very clearly called "Renewal". "That's it. I've been renewed". It's also claimed to be intrinsically linked to the TARDIS - the Doctor states it couldn't have happened without it.

If you read old copies of Doctor Who Weekly / Monthly, they subscribe to the notion that the Troughton Doctor is a younger version of the Hartnell one. It is only much later that the series confirms he is another incarnation of the Doctor - one of 13 according to a rule set down by Robert Holmes, but since thrown out the window. (Though the draft scripts stated clearly that the Doctor had changed more than once before - "I fight it every time" / "...the last time I changed...").

Film and TV franchises have changed lead actors many times - sometimes having them a whole new character (such as the steady stream of prissy British detectives who get sent out to the Caribbean to solve all those Death(s) in Paradise) or they are supposed to be the same character (like Supermen, Spidermen, or James Bonds).

Lead actors change for various reasons - push and pull. In the case of Hartnell, his increasing ill health left the production team no choice but to replace him. Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis hit upon the incredibly clever - genius - idea of having the Doctor, as an unknown alien, have the ability to change his body into an entirely new persona - physically and mentally / behaviourally.

The series could continue with a brand new actor, playing the exact same heroic explorer - just with a quirky new personality and fewer fluffs...

Inspirations: The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

It's the series finale, so its main job is to tie up the recent story arc. This time round, we've been given a sort of finale-prequel episode - Utopia - which has already done much of the hard work. We know that Prof Yana is the Master, his identity hidden by a Chameleon Arch, and so this explains the Face of Boe's last words - "You Are Not Alone".

As the two-part finale begins, we see that the Doctor, Martha and Jack escaped from imminent attack by the Futurekind by fixing Jack's Vortex Manipulator. They arrive in London to find that the General Election has taken place and Mr Saxon has won - and Martha identifies the new PM's voice as that of the person who just stole the TARDIS. Thus, the Harold Saxon story arc - begun back in Series 2 - is explained.

Russell T Davies had always planned on bringing the Daleks back in the first series, and the Cybermen in the second. The third was earmarked for the Master from the outset.

The Master had last featured in the 1996 movie, played by Eric Roberts, in which he had been dragged into the Eye of Harmony. Here, it is explained that he was saved from this state by the Time Lords in order to fight in the Time War. He quickly ran away from this and hid himself via the Chameleon Arch, taking on the Yana persona.

Ever since he had first appeared back in 1971, in Terror of the Autons, the Master had been involved in some very odd schemes - ranging from the badly thought-out to the downright crazy. Initially, he seemed to ally himself with alien powers and it had to be pointed out to him time and again that they would turn on him as soon as they got what they wanted from him.

Once into his Anthony Ainley incarnation, he seemed to get crazier with each appearance.

RTD had to provide the character with some sort of motivation, and hit upon the idea that he didn't just act crazy - he actually was crazy. This would explain some of his more bizarre schemes.

He hit upon the notion of the constant noise in the Master's head - a never-ending drumming. This would prove to form part of a later story arc.

Fans believed the four beat drumming was based on the Doctor Who theme music, but RTD claimed it was based on his alarm clock.

The Master had often targeted Earth, purely because the Doctor was trapped there, and later just because he knew that this was the Doctor's favourite planet - so it made sense that the new incarnation would also set his sights on Earth and the human race.

Stealing and adapting the Doctor's TARDIS allows him to create a Paradox Engine - enabling the future humans (now Toclafane) to wipe themselves out in their own past.

The Toclafane derive from the planning stages of Series 1. At one point the BBC had angered the Terry Nation estate by assuming that they could use the Daleks without gaining permission and organising payments. The estate therefore decided to withhold agreement to use them.

Robert Shearman had to adapt his episode to feature an alternative villain - something known as the "Sphere". A single one would feature in the sixth episode, with a whole army of them in the finale.

As it was, the situation surrounding use of the Daleks was resolved, and the Spheres were held back for potential later use. That turned out to be the finale of Series 3.

With a younger Doctor in the TARDIS, RTD decided on a younger Master to contrast with him.

In the same way that the Doctor has always had a companion, it was decided that the Master should also have one - in his case a wife. This couldn't be the same kind of friendly mentoring relationship, however. The Master is clearly abusing his spouse.

The Master was an expert hypnotist, at least in the Delgado days, and so a form of mass hypnosis plays a role here. He is using a satellite network to boost his subliminal messaging to the entire planet.

UNIT feature - his old foes - and here they have a new toy: the Valiant.

This has all too obviously been inspired by the SPECTRUM Cloudbase from Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet.

Just before he flies out to join it, we see the Master at an airfield. He is wearing a black coat which has a bright red lining - hinting at Count Dracula's cape, but also one of Jon Pertwee's.

The scene with the Master watching the Teletubbies was inspired by a sequence in The Sea Devils where he was seen watching The Clangers.

Other references to the Pertwee / Delgado era include the phone conversation between the two Time Lords, where they discuss the old days and mention Axons and the like.

With the Time Lords all gone, and Gallifrey destroyed, fans never expected to see the Doctor's homeworld in the new series. However, here the Doctor reminisces about it and we get a flashback sequence in which we see the Citadel (based on the version which was first used by Doctor Who Monthly's news page). We also see some Time Lords clad in the robes and collars first designed for them by James Acheson in The Deadly Assassin. The sky appears to be an orange colour - taking us back to the description Susan gave in The Sensorites - though there it was supposed to be the night sky which looked that colour.

The same flashback shows us the young Master approaching the Untempered Schism - and he is dressed in the plainer black and white robes of the tribunal from The War Games Part Ten.

In Planet of Fire, the production team had contemplated confirming that the Master was the Doctor's brother - something which the original 1970's team had never planned. They had thought of making him another aspect of the Doctor - his darker side, not unlike the Valeyard.

A joke is made of the brothers idea, with the Doctor laughing at the notion.

Journalist Vivien Rook was named after real journalist Jean Rook, who had once written a critical piece about Robert Holmes' more horrific stories for the series.

The Master's speech to the country at the beginning of the first instalment opens with "Britain, Britain, Britain...", which is how Tom Baker usually began his Little Britain narrations.

He also starts another speech with "Peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully...", which was almost what the Ainley incarnation included in his blackmail message in Logopolis.

RTD did toy with giving the Master a new Tissue Compression Eliminator weapon, but thought that it would be one gadget too many, having already got the Laser Screwdriver and the Toclafane.

It is suggested that Jack becomes the Face of Boe. We had seen his home in the Boeshane Peninsula in the Torchwood episode Adam. It's never been confirmed but it would explain his great longevity and how he knew that the Doctor wasn't the last Time Lord and about Yana.

There is an unbroken run of episodes, should you choose to create a smaller story arc, comprising TW; Captain Jack Harkness, TW: End of Days, Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords, Time Crash and Voyage of the Damned.

Next time: Neighbours Meets The Poseidon Adventure...

Countdown to 60: Cybermen In The Snow

Number 9 - the first appearance in the programme of the Cybermen. They're called "Cybermen", and explain why, but they bear very little resemblance to what we think of as Cybermen. This lot are the originals - the inhabitants of Earth's long lost twin world of Mondas. They look unique - with cloth-like skin and cumbersome attachments on the chest and on top of the head. We see that they have human hands at the end of their mechanical arms. 

There's nothing sleek and slim-lined about them. They look like they have been crudely put together, perhaps due to time and resource pressures. The voice is a weird sing-song sound - suggestive of a tape-loop running on a low battery, or a race who have picked up only snatches of English and spliced them together.

Mondas has returned to near Earth orbit, and though a later story will suggest this was intentional, here it is implied that the Cybermen have no control over the planet. They certainly can't stop it draining energy from its twin. They and all their equipment is bound to the planet - so when Mondas perishes, they collapse and die. Interestingly, despite being the most organic of all the Cybermen, it is only their metal and plastic bodies which remain. The organic material seems to have dissolved.

All other Cybermen will be far more robotic, and will hail from their second home planet Telos, or claim to have left Mondas before its destruction. As such this type of early Cyberman was never seen again - until Steven Moffat brought them back as a gift to the departing Peter Capaldi, who was a big fan. This was in a new origins story, and so their presence was explained away by them being the earliest form of the Cyberman, which would evolve eventually into the more robotic variations.

The Tenth Planet may have featured creatures called Cybermen - but it wasn't until The Moonbase that the Cybermen as we know them really arrived...

Short break

Have to take a little break for the next week or so. In hospital on a 7 day antibiotic regime. Unless there is some big breaking news, I'll be back end of next week.

Season 14 Guests

It has been announced that actor Aneurin Barnard will be featuring in an episode of Series 14. Jemma Redgrave is also confirmed as returning as Kate Stewart. Not sure if they are in the same instalment, or if two episodes are being filmed as part of one block. Barnard plays a political candidate running for the Albion Party, who look a bit fascist. His character is called Roger ap Gwilliam.

Parts of Newport have been redressed as London shops and businesses. Last week a huge slug-like creature was filmed at Swansea University - at the same time Barnard was filming election scenes. It looked vaguely like a Tractator, but only from the rear. Again, might be from another episode of the block. Millie Gibson was seen filming with Redgrave and people in UNIT gear, but no sign of Gatwa.

Episode 53: Desperate Measures

Synopsis:

Looking for a way out of the mountain caverns, the Doctor and Ian are moving along a narrow ledge when they accidentally trigger a hidden trap. Sharp blades emerge from the tunnel wall and push Ian towards a ravine, in which a savage-looking creature lurks...

Ian uses his jacket to protect himself from the blades as the Doctor manages to reverse the mechanism. They continue their journey and spot daylight ahead. The creature is moving in the same direction, slightly ahead of them.

At the spaceship, Vicki has gone to fetch water while Barbara helps prepare a meal. She notices a flare pistol in a cabinet. As the Doctor and Ian near the mouth of the cavern, the creature is already out in the open, moving towards Vicki. Barbara sees this and grabs the flare pistol, shooting the creature dead.

Vicki is left distraught. She explains that "Sandy" was a pet, a herbivore which she had trained to come for food. The Doctor and Ian arrive to find Vicki in tears, shunning Barbara.

Koquillion emerges from a door in the tunnel and sees the footprints of the Doctor and Ian.

After they have eaten, the Doctor speaks with Vicki and assures her that Barbara had acted in her best interests, thinking she was going to be attacked, and had not meant to upset her. He announces that he is going to go and speak with Bennett.

He enters the bedroom to find it empty, yet it had been locked from the inside. He finds a tape recorder with Bennett's pre-recorded messages, and an intercom which allows him to listen to what is going on in the crew room.

He listens in as Vicki explains her story to the two teachers - of how her father and she were travelling to make a new life on the planet Astra after her mother died. They left Earth in 2493. The ship crashed on Dido. The locals invited the survivors to a great feast one night which she was unable to attend due to illness. A massive explosion occurred which killed all the spaceship survivors - including her father - as well as the natives. Only an injured Bennett survived the blast. Since then Koquillion has been protecting them from the rest of his people. Vicki is amazed to learn that the two teachers come from the 20th Century, and that the Doctor is a time-travelling alien.

The Doctor finds a hidden trap door which leads to the door in the caverns. Beyond is a great chamber which he recalls was the Hall of Judgement. He waits here for Koquillion. When the creature arrives, he announces that he knows that he is Bennett in disguise. The people of Dido are humanoid, and only wear insect-like masks like his during their ceremonies.

Bennett reveals that he committed a murder on the spaceship. He then engineered the explosion at the feast to cover this up. Vicki has been kept alive to provide him with an alibi.

He attacks the Doctor but is stopped by the sudden appearance of two Dido people. Terrified, he tries to flee into the caverns but plunges into the ravine to his death.

The Doctor passes out, and wakes to find himself by the TARDIS.

Ian and Barbara ask him if they can take Vicki with them. He has had the same idea and so puts it to her to decide. She accepts and enters the TARDIS - astonished by its massive internal dimensions.

After the ship has departed, the two Dido people enter the spaceship and destroy the radio, so that the rescue ship will never arrive...

Soon after, the TARDIS materialises and the Doctor confirms a perfect landing - but Ian and the others notice definite movement. The ship has landed on a narrow ledge. It rocks back and forth for a few moments then tumbles down the slope...

Next episode: The Slave Traders

Data:

Written by: David Whitaker

Recorded: Friday 11th December 1964 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 9th January 1965

Ratings: 13 million / AI 60

Designer: Raymond P Cusick

Director: Christopher Barry

Additional cast: John Stuart & Colin Hughes (Dido People)

Critique:

This episode sees the first occasion in which someone has entered the TARDIS for the first time since An Unearthly Child - so we get the first proper "it's bigger on the inside" show of amazement. When Ian and Barbara first entered the ship, we - the audience - were too busy being amazed ourselves to fully appreciate their reactions. Vicki is also the first person to be invited into the TARDIS by the Doctor, whereas Susan was already travelling with him, and the teachers forced their way in.

This first sight of the console room will become a sort of rite of passage for all new companions from this point on.

Despite only being two episodes in length, Whitaker has left a few plot holes - or apparent inconsistencies.

The backstory to the crash is left unclear. It is not known if Bennett engineered the crash, or if it was simply coincidental and he capitalised on it. If the crime had been discovered before the crash as he claims, you have to question how he was then allowed the freedom to go about setting up the explosion which killed all of the other survivors, save for Vicki, and the Dido people.

It is also odd that Vicki's father should leave his sick daughter all alone on a potentially dangerous planet to attend a feast.

The exact nature of the two Dido people is left up in the air as well. Where have they been all this time? Are they ghosts - as Bennett seems to think, judging by his reaction? If they are real, and the last of their kind, then what possible future can they have? Are there other survivors hidden somewhere?

Technically, the TARDIS crew didn't need to take Vicki with them. The Doctor already knows that the Dido people are benign - they didn't harm him after killing Bennett - and the rescue ship is now less than 72 hours away. Vicki could simply have stayed with the Doctor and his companions until it arrived.

One of Whitaker's main failings was his science. (It will reach its nadir with The Wheel in Space). Here he has a spaceship less than three days away from a planet, unable to locate that planet without some sort of radio beacon. 

Would the rescue ship simply turn round and go home again once the signal was lost, or would it check out the local planets anyway since it had come all this way?

If it found evidence of the crash site but no Vicki and a dead Bennett, wouldn't that make things worse for the Dido people? With no-one to explain what really happened, the Earth people might take reprisals against the Dido survivors - blaming them for the murders of the Astra ship crew.

By running off with Vicki before the ship arrived, the Doctor might have left the Dido people in a real mess.

The use of the Dido construction tool in the fight between the Doctor and Bennett in the Hall of Judgement was unscripted, but added late in rehearsals.

Cusick's design for the Hall made great use of dry ice and low lighting to hide the fact that it comprised mostly pillars and black drapes.

During the studio rehearsals, Jacqueline Hill was slightly injured by the flare pistol. The charge was more powerful than she thought when it went off in her face. On the recording, you can see the charge simply fall off the end of the prop.

William Russell's description of Koquillion as "cockylickin" was an ad-lib.

Christopher Barry elected to reuse some of the sound effects from The Daleks, which he had also directed. He also re-employed some of Tristram Cary's music  from that story.

The dying Sandbeast noise was an adaptation of a dying Dalek sound effect.

Trivia:

• This episode saw a one million rise in viewing figures - beating the previous Dalek story - as well as a three point increase in the audience appreciation figure. It remains one of the highest rated episodes ever, and was the first to enter the Top 10 TV programmes of the week.
• Many guidebooks call the natives of Dido "Didonians", but on screen they are only ever referred to as "the Dido People".
• Having voiced the spaceship captain and played the Sandbeast in the first instalment, Tom Sheridan had hoped to play one of the Dido People as well, but this was rejected.
• The TARDIS tumbling off the ledge was the first thing filmed for this story - on Monday 16th November at Ealing Film Studios.
• When the Sandbeast emerges from the cave, just before Barbara spots it, you can see someone moving around in the background - presumably William Russell or Hartnell.

The Art of... The Rescue

The novelisation of Doctor Who: The Rescue was the final work by Ian Marter. Best known for playing Harry Sullivan in Seasons 12/13 he had met representatives from Target at a BBC party, where he expressed an interest in attempting a novelisation. His first was The Ark in Space, as it was a story which featured his character prominently. The book was characterised by some graphic body horror, and by rewriting the means by which the Doctor and companions leave the station at the end (he has them leave in the TARDIS). His next novel was the next story as broadcast - The Sontaran Experiment - which entailed extending a two-part story to the range's then 126 page limit. He also had to work around his own changed ending to the previous book.

He wrote a number of other stories, including two Cyberman ones, despite hating them. He also contributed a spin-off book for the short-lived "Companions of Doctor Who" range - a conventional spy caper involving Harry. He was planning another of these - one that possibly killed off his character - when he died from diabetes complications on his 42nd birthday.

The predominantly green cover is by artist Tony Clark. We have a portrait image of Koquillion, and a full image of the Sand Beast. Unusually, the Doctor is caught in the act of turning - either towards us or away - and the final element is the wall sculpture from the tunnel which triggers the spike trap at the end of the first episode. I believe the Hartnell image comes from Marco Polo - he's opening the TARDIS door as he glances back.

The green colouring, Hartnell's Doctor, and the insect-like face of Koquillion (it was based on microscope images of a fly) often confuses this with the cover for Planet of Giants in my mind.

When BBC Video began releasing Doctor Who on VHS, fans were unhappy that stories were being edited together, or shown in condensed form (The Brain of Morbius was the 60 minute compilation version). When they stopped editing the stories, fans then complained about six part stories being split over two tapes, which you had to buy separately (so double the cost). Arguments then ensued over what to do with the two-parters. Some wanted them grouped together on a tape of their own (The Edge of Destruction sharing with The Rescue for instance). Others suggested adding it on to a reissue of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Instead, the BBC released The Rescue coupled with The Romans, which immediately follows it, and has a cliff-hanger connection - despite the BBC cutting this).

Released in September 1994, the artist is Andrew Skilleter. A side-on image of Koquillion and a portrait of Vicki  represent this story. The US VHS followed in March 1996.

The Rescue and The Romans remained linked for the DVD releases. The Region 2 disc arrived as part of a "Vicki Tales" box set in February 2009, with a cover design by Clayton Hickman.

The Region 1 DVD also coupled the story with The Romans. Unlike the UK release, however, the individual stories did not have their own artwork as this was a double DVD in a single slipcase. It was released in July 2009.

The audiobook of Ian Marter's novel was issued in April 2013, read by Maureen O'Brien. The cover makes use of the larger area available by placing the main image in a circle, surrounded by darkness - a clever way of using the same image but in a more interesting way.

The story was released on Blu-ray in December 2022. Koquillion featured on Lee Binding's cover.