Episode 56: Conspiracy

Synopsis:

Ian and Delos discover that they are to fight wild animals in the arena...

The next morning, the Doctor learns from Tavius that "Maximus" is expected to carry out some sort of action, but has little time in which to do it.

Poppaea has suggested that Nero host a feast in honour of the Corinthian lyre player when Barbara is brought in by the major-domo and introduced to her new mistress. The Emperor cannot help but show his own lascivious interest in her. In the palace corridors, Barbara just manages to miss bumping into the Doctor and Vicki as Nero pursues her.

Vicki is left to explore on her own as the Doctor goes off to meet Nero. She finds herself in a kitchen-like laboratory, presided over by a woman named Locusta. She introduces herself as Court Poisoner. 

Seeing the interest that her husband is showing in the new slave, Poppaea determines to get rid of her as quickly as possible. She goes to Locusta and orders a new poison from her. 

Once it is mixed and placed in a drink, Vicki decides to switch it with an identical goblet.

In the caldarium, the Doctor tries to learn from Nero what intrigues are afoot, in order to work out what Pettulian's part was in them. Nero is sure that there are no conspiracies, as he is usually the author of them.

A short time later, Nero gives Barbara a gold bracelet and is about to share a drink with her when she manages to slip away. The Doctor rushes up and announces that the drink is poisoned, after Vicki has told him of the swap. The Emperor forces his servant Tigilinus to try the drink - and he drops down dead.

Poppaea blames Locusta for the failure to kill Barbara, and orders her sent to feed the lions in the arena.

That evening, the banquet gets underway. It is going well, until Nero announces a special entertainment - a performance by the great Maximus Pettulian. The Doctor tells his audience that the piece he is about to play is so subtle that only those with the most refined hearing will be able to distinguish it. He then plays the lyre silently. The audience, not wishing to appear lacking in artistic refinement, pretend to hear and enjoy the music - including the Emperor. When he has finished, the Doctor points out to Vicki that he has used the idea of the Emperor's New Clothes - the story by Hans Christian Andersen in which a vain ruler is duped into going naked when he thinks his clothes can only be seen by people with the taste to do so. He reveals that it was he who gave the Danish writer the idea in the first place.

Nero is furious at the amount of applause which greets the Doctor, and is overcome by jealousy.

In a foul mood, he takes himself off to the arena of the gladiator school, dragging Barbara with him. She is shocked to see that one of the fighters is Ian. He calls out to her that he will rescue her. The two men are then forced to fight, and Delos soon overpowers Ian.

Seeing that Barbara knows and has feelings for the defeated slave, Nero orders Delos to despatch his opponent...

Data:

Written by: Dennis Spooner

Recorded: Friday 8th January 1965 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 30th January 1965

Ratings: 10 million / AI 50

Designer: Raymond P Cusick

Director: Christopher Barry

Additional cast: Ann Tirard (Locusta)

Critique:

Farce: A comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterisation and ludicrously improbable situations...

A ridiculous situation or event, or something considered a waste of time...

They say that one of the key ingredients of great comedy is timing. Broadcasting the most openly farcical episode of an intentionally comic story on the day of Winston Churchill's funeral is, to say the least, a case of very bad timing. Of course, the production team weren't to know when the old warhorse was going to kick the bucket and get himself planted, so they were simply victims of circumstance - which, ironically, is a common component of farce.

Whilst the story overall has featured a degree of humour from the outset, it has been rationed only to certain sequences so far - such as Ian and Barbara's teasing of each other at the villa in the first episode. The idea that this story is an outright comedy from start to finish is clearly a false one. There are far more scenes of human misery - murder and enslavement - than there are funny moments. 

The comedy reputation derives mostly from this third instalment.

This is the one which has a higher farcical quotient - with Nero's attempts to seduce Barbara and her manoeuvres to avoid him; the near misses between her and the Doctor / Vicki in the palace corridors; Tigilinus' "comedy" death; and the business between Hartnell and Derek Francis in the caldarium.

The character of Tigilinus is presented here as a comic figure, a humble servant who acts as cup bearer. The historical character associated with Nero was quite a different person.

Gaius Ofonius Tigillinus was the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard from 62AD to the Emperor's death in 68AD. He had gained his position through friendship with Nero's mother, Agrippina the Younger, and had a deserved reputation for cruelty. When Nero died, he switched allegiance to his successor Galba. However, he only lasted a few months (this was the 'Year of the Four Emperors') and the next ruler, Otto, ordered his execution. He committed suicide before sentence could be passed.

He was reputedly closely involved with the Great Fire of 64AD. According to Tacitus, when the fire had finally been brought under control, it broke out again on his private estate in the Aemilian district - leading people to believe he was fanning it intentionally.

Locusta is also based on a real person - but she was never "Official Poisoner to the Court". Originally from Gaul, she did help Nero and his mother poison those who stood in their path to the throne, like the Emperor Claudius and his son Britannicus. Nero is supposed to have had her train up other poisoners, and she is regarded today as the world's first ever serial killer.

She survived the death of Nero - but only just. She was executed by Galba, along with other favourites of Nero, in January 69AD.

I read a review of this story once, in which the author bemoaned the fact that the arena at the episode's conclusion was underwhelming. They seemed to think that it ought to look like the Colosseum. That famous Roman landmark was only built after Nero's death - it gets its name from the massive golden statue of Nero, in the grounds of his Golden House created on land cleared by the Great Fire. 

Rome's first amphitheatre was a wooden one, and it did not get a more permanent structure until 29BC. 

Attached to the arena was a gladiator school, or ludus, which had its own smaller practice arena. In this episode, it is most likely this school arena that Nero has taken Barbara to. 

Below is one of my photos, taken in October 2018, of the gladiator school associated with the Colosseum - the Ludus Magnus. Note the curved structure in the upper right corner, which marks part of the footprint of the oval practice arena.

Chris Barry and Ray Cusick were quick to acknowledge that a Roman banquet did not see its guests sitting on chairs around tables. They reclined on couches known as triclinares (of the triclinium, or dining room). In a domestic setting there would have been three of these, with the head of the household taking the central one. For an event as large as an Emperor's, many triclinares would have been set out - but the studio at Riverside (see the set model image below) simply wouldn't be able to accommodate an authentic set-up.

Barry considered using some of his 75 minute recording time to retake the scene of Nero's entrance from the second episode, which he had not been happy with. However, he changed his mind and elected not to do this.

William Russell had cut his wrist during the rehearsals for the closing sword fight - and Peter Diamond sustained a cut to the forehead during the actual recording.

At one point Francis accidentally referred to himself as "Claudius Nero", instead of the scripted "Caesar Nero".

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the Sondheim musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962) might be one of this story's inspirations. The scene I was thinking about involved a pair of goblets - one of which was safe whilst the other contained poison. Naturally, these got mixed up.

One is also reminded of the 1955 Danny Kaye movie The Court Jester. This also features two cups - one safe, one not - and there is a rhyme which Kaye has to remember to illustrate which is which:

"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew which is true".

The Doctor appears to have visited Copenhagen at some point just prior to 1837, as that was the year in which The Emperor's New Clothes was first published by Hans Christian Andersen (1805 - 1875).

Trivia:

• Unfortunately, events on the national stage hit the ratings badly. Obviously we cannot put the low audience down to the comedy elements, as no-one would have known about them until after the episode had aired - but the appreciation figure would show exactly what the viewers thought of it at the time of watching.
• This was the longest episode of the story, at 26' 18". The instalments on either side run to just over 23 minutes.
• The recording date - 8th January - marked William Hartnell's 57th birthday.
• Jacqueline Hill was absent from rehearsals on Wednesday 6th January, visiting Ealing for some filming for The Web Planet.
• Ann Tirard returned to the series to play the Seeker in The Ribos Operation.
• A major-domo was a chief steward or servant, responsible for the running of a household - a slave in a position of authority over all the other slaves.
• The caldarium was the hot room of a Roman baths. 
• Third Doctor Jon Pertwee had been one of the stars of the original London production of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, but failed to win his role for the 1966 cinema version. That went to Phil Silvers. Pertwee was given a small cameo by way of consolation. On location one morning, he learned that Silvers was refusing to come on set, and agreed to step in and replace him. However, a member of the production team warned Silvers that he was about to be replaced and so he hurriedly arrived on set. Pertwee never forgave the crew member who had gone to speak with Silvers.
• Below, Christopher Barry's set model for this episode, which helped him plan his camera moves. We can tell which episode this covers from the three tables, laid out in a U-shape just right of centre at the front - the set-up for the Emperor's feast.

Countdown to 60: The Final End... Not!

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that the Daleks need Doctor Who far more than Doctor Who needs the Daleks. When the series was brought back in 2005, people at the BBC automatically assumed that the Daleks would feature. Jane Tranter assumed they would be in the opening episode, but RTD argued for keeping them back to mid-series to act as a mini-reboot, should the initial audience fall away.

The assumption that the series would include the Daleks annoyed the estate of Terry Nation, who argued that they co-owned them and had to give permission. At one point this permission was withheld, and so the Spheres were devised (which would ultimately manifest as the Toclafane). For the estate to hold back use of the Daleks would have been a remarkably stupid thing to do, for it would result in no new income. The whole point of a legal estate is to safeguard a legacy - but it is also designed to provide income for the deceased's descendants. Think of all the Dalek merchandise released since 2005, and you'll see just how much money the estate would have been throwing away.

Back in 1966, 'Dalekmania' was in full swing, and Terry Nation had visions of spinning them off into as many profitable avenues as possible. He had already agreed to a stage play (which didn't make him any money, apart from a number of Dalek casings which he could hire out to church fetes), they were in a comic, and there had been a movie starring Peter Cushing. Nation took elements from his The Daleks' Master Plan and devised a TV series for the Daleks, which wouldn't involve the Doctor. The heroes would be the Space Special Security Service, including Sara Kingdom (despite her recent death), her brother and a humanoid android. Nation offered this to the BBC, including the use of his stage play casings (for a fee), but they refused to bite. 'Dalekmania' was already on the wane, and the Beeb already had Doctor Who.

Nation then looked further afield, especially to the US TV networks. He desperately wanted to make it in America, after having come into contact with so many US TV executives involved with his ITC adventure series. Any move to produce a Dalek series in America would involve exclusivity. Any interested network would want some control over rights - ideally a 50-50 split as Nation had enjoyed with the BBC. This meant withdrawing the Daleks from Doctor Who.

Busy on other, more lucrative, projects, Nation stopped writing Dalek stories - happy to hand over to David Whitaker, who had been scripting Dalek material (often uncredited) since the beginning.

The second Troughton Dalek story - Evil of the Daleks - would be the last time they were to feature in the series, as Nation prepared to take them overseas.

The production team wasn't overly upset. Thanks to the Nation co-ownership, Daleks cost extra money to use - whereas the increasingly popular Cybermen had no such budgetary strings attached.

Their departure would be marked on screen, with a final apocalyptic battle on Skaro that would see them wipe themselves out in a civil war, initiated by the Doctor.

The Dalek comic had featured an Emperor, which Nation had always disliked. He had instead created the Black Dalek to lead the race. For such a big story, Whitaker elected to include the Emperor, though it was quite a different version to the comic one, which was mobile, golden in colour and topped with a huge globe. The TV version took an insect queen as its inspiration - a huge bloated unit, unable to move from its central chamber. This was an idea reflected in the set design.

When it came to the final battle, word came down from Sydney Newman to amend the ending slightly - to indicate that the Daleks weren't completely destroyed. He was keeping the door open for their potential return. Handling the battle scenes was future director Tim Combe. He had a small light continue to throb like a heartbeat at the centre of the wrecked Emperor, suggestive of a hint of life.

As it was, Nation was unsuccessful in his efforts to sell the Daleks in America. He quickly discovered that the movie had failed to make any kind of impact over there, so there was nothing to build on.

That he continued to withhold the Daleks until Season 9 is a myth. We know that he was interested in having them feature in the opening story of Season 6, to be written by Whitaker, but then pulled out when he discovered that the production team wanted to have them meet the Cybermen.

Doctor Who had survived quite happily for four seasons without the Daleks, replacing them with the Cybermen, Ice Warriors, the Master and a host of interesting new monsters like Autons and Silurians.

After Genesis of the Daleks, they were only occasionally brought back (only once per Doctor in the end). The series was once again showing how it did not need them.

Lately, the Daleks have been dragged out for every New Year Special, as well as the Centenary Special, and frankly many of us are a bit sick of them. Maybe RTD will want to feature them in the 60th Specials, or use them to help establish Ncuti's 15th Doctor, but I hope not. 

Terry's grandkids need Doctor Who, but Doctor Who does not need the Daleks.

The Art of... The Romans

The novelisation of The Romans is by Donald Cotton, who wrote a pair of Hartnell historical stories which have a similar structure to Spooner's tale - three episodes with a lot of humour, followed by a fourth which is full of violence and bloodshed (The Myth Makers and The Gunfighters).

Cotton chose to tell the story in the form of letters, diaries and journals by a variety of characters, from assassin Ascaris to Poppaea, and poisoner Locusta to Ian and Barbara.

The cover would be sure to attract the casual buyer - with the fire and some Roman Emperor on his throne. A shame it isn't the Nero from the televised story, or even one based on the real Emperor, who we know from a number of busts. (Apparently the artist wasn't given any BBC photographs, and so used an image of Peter Ustinov from the movie Quo Vadis as a reference).

The Great Fire appears on all of these covers, despite only featuring at the very end of the fourth episode, and then only seen at a distance.

The artist is Tony Masero, and the book was first published in September 1987.

You will know from the last of these "The Art of..." posts that The Romans was released on VHS in September 1994 as part of a double-pack accompanied by The Rescue. On Andrew Skilleter's cover this story is represented by the Doctor in Roman costume, a central panel featuring the burning city, and the SPQR mosaic band along the bottom section.

Like the VHS, the Region 2 DVD was released as part of a box set coupled with The Rescue. The Great Fire forms the backdrop to photographs of the Doctor (with lyre), Ian and Barbara, and Derek Francis' Nero. Release date was February 2009. Apparently some copies of the DVD had a mistake on the rear cover, claiming the story was written by David Whitaker instead of Spooner.

The Australian / Region 4 release has the same cover, save for a wider orange band along the bottom.

The US DVD did not get its own individual release. Instead, it was packaged in a single sleeve with The Rescue. This was released in July 2009. Apart from a burning building, the cover focuses more on Vicki's introductory story.

Even though this is not a missing story, there are those who like to listen to the soundtracks. This was issued in May 2008 with linking narration by William Russell, who is also interviewed. The cover comprises a rather gaudily coloured photo-montage, including the now obligatory flames.

The audiobook was released in January 2023, and has taken a different approach to other adaptations. As mentioned, Cotton elected to tell the story in the form of various letters and journals by a number of participants, and so the audiobook employs a large cast representing these numerous individuals.

The cover is a repeat of the book's artwork and doesn't really make the most of the larger, squarer format.

DWM 587 & 1988 Chronicles

A bit late owing to my being indisposed, so just a quick word about the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine. It contains a tribute to the late Chris Boucher, and includes his The Robots of Death as this month's Fact of Fiction piece.

We have the rundown of the contents of the Season 9 box-set, plus a making-of piece on its trailer.

Items relating to the forthcoming episodes are, as always, spoiler free

Being an anniversary year, I was expecting another major poll. Instead of the paper version from 10 years ago, however, they have decided to do it on-line and in stages. This month you can vote on the stories starring the First and Second Doctors. This remains open until 6th March. The following month will see voting open for Doctors Three and Four.

The poll is available at the magazine's website.

Finally, there is news of the latest issue of the Chronicles publications - this time covering 1988 and the 25th Anniversary. This will be released on Thursday 16th February.

Countdown to 60: They Must Be Fought

DOCTOR: No Ben. We can't go yet.

BEN: Well why not? They don't want us here.

DOCTOR: Because there is something evil here and we must stay.

HOBSON: Evil? Don't be daft!

DOCTOR: Evil is what I meant. There are some corners of the Universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought...

Every Doctor has at least one defining moment. It's a particular scene in which a speech or monologue is delivered, which tells us something about this particular incarnation of the character - as well as adding to the Doctor's overall persona. It's generally a statement of his beliefs, setting out what he is - or what he is not.

More recently it has come to be known as the "Stonehenge Moment", after Matt Smith's address to the massed alien spaceships gathered above the Pandorica location. It's actually Smith's second such moment - the first being his speech to the Atraxi towards the conclusion of his first appearance in The Eleventh Hour.

These sorts of moments are very much written into the revived series scripts - from Eccleston's words to Rose about feeling the Earth move beneath his feet to "Have a great life". I've just written a piece on Voyage of the Damned, in which Tennant addresses the survivors (but direct to camera) about Gallifrey, Kasterborous, 900 years of age, and saving people - summing up a bit of who he is and what he does.

Capaldi has too many moments to mention, whilst I can't really think of a single one for Whittaker that doesn't sound like she's preaching or being patronising.

The First Doctor's defining moments tend to be the self-reflective ones - such as his brief eulogy for Katarina, and his musings on the fleeting nature of companionship in The Massacre. The scene which is always repeated - related to the latter - is his farewell to Susan.

Jon Pertwee often reminded Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts that he would like occasional "moments of charm", so he gets little talks like the one with Thal Codal about the nature of bravery in Planet of the Daleks. His best known moment is the one where he tells Jo about his troubled youth on Gallifrey - the "daisiest daisy" scene in The Time Monster.

The Fourth Doctor sets out his stall early on - in only his fifth episode. It's his speech to Harry about the indomitability of the human race in The Ark in Space. Tom will be around for a while, so gets a few more moments - though he also seems to backtrack on his famous "indomitable" speech by comparing humans to vermin scattering through the Universe, negatively affecting other species, in the "Great Breakout" (The Invisible Enemy).

Unfortunately, the Fifth Doctor isn't as well served by his writers. He has some well-known speeches (though I find the "well-prepared meal" one from Earthshock to be embarrassing). Adric's death provides the ideal opportunity for this Doctor's big moment - but he simply suggests a trip to the Great Exhibition to cheer everyone up...

Colin Baker wasn't in the role very long - but he gets to grandstand at his trial with his tirade against the corruption of the Time Lords. McCoy has some smaller, quieter moments - such as his musings on lost luggage and burnt toast. And then there's his address to Ace as they walk away at the conclusion of the final episode of Survival: "Come on Ace, we've got work to do...".

Prior to The Moonbase, the Second Doctor's character has been unsettled, relying too much on not terribly funny comedy and silly dressing up. We only really get to see the Second Doctor we all know and love here - especially with the above exchange. There are those who don't actually approve of these comments. The Doctor should not be so belligerent, and ought to be more open to the diversity of alien life-forms in the Universe. He should not resort to violence to overcome them even when they are themselves belligerent.

However, it's an adventure series which has always concluded with the destruction of the villains - so he's only confirming what we have already observed. If he didn't fight against evil whenever he encountered it, would any of us still be watching?

Inspirations: Voyage of the Damned

For the first couple of Christmas Specials, Russell T Davies employed typical festive traditions in his scripts - subverting them to turn them into dangers to be faced by the Doctor and companion. We were given deadly Christmas Trees and tree decorations, and killer robot Santas.

A white Christmas was never down to real snow. It was the debris of blown-up Sycorax spaceships, or an artificial effect generated by the TARDIS.

Festive tunes were heard on the soundtrack - especially the perennial favourites by Slade and Wizzard - whilst those robot Santas formed brass bands playing popular carols.

Other Christmas references included the ill-fated Guinevere probe to Mars - which mirrored the real life Beagle II failure to land on the Red Planet on 25th December.

For the third Special, RTD was able to make the story festive by simply setting it on Christmas morning - even though the location was an alien spaceship, full of alien beings.

They had come to Earth as tourists, specifically to experience an Earth Christmas - or specifically a Western, Christian Christmas. The spaceship - a copy of the Titanic - has been decorated with tree and tinsel, and festive music is playing. Murray Gold's new piece, The Stowaway, has a definite Pogues vibe, reminding us of the huge Christmas hit Fairy Tale of New York.

We might have had Santa Clauses before, but so far Christmas angels hadn't been covered. We make up for that here with the Heavenly Host - clearly inspired by the Sandminer robots seen in 1976's The Robots of Death in terms of the aesthetic and the calm voices. As well as referencing the biblical host, as in a large number, the angels also act as literal hosts - performing an information service to the passengers.

The costumes remind us of the sort of thing someone might wear to play Gabriel in the local school or church Nativity play.

When the meteoroids approach, one of the passengers likens them to the Christmas star - covered more obviously in The Runaway Bride.

A new Christmas tradition is also turned to, by RTD - Christmas telly.

These days, there are some big budget movies which never see the inside of a cinema. They go straight to Video On Demand / streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, who put up a fair whack of the funding, or they end up on the growing number of specific studio-based streaming platforms - Disney being the biggest and most popular, thanks to having Star Wars, Marvel and its own massive animation history. The Paramount one relies on the Star Trek franchise.

In the pre-video age, if a film never hit the cinemas then it was simply never seen at all. In the UK, the BBC and ITV would bid for the rights to broadcast the bigger movies, and after paying out lots of money they would save them for holiday periods - bank holidays, Easter and Christmas.

One of the most popular genres of bank holiday film was the Disaster Movie. RTD clearly recalled his childhood watching these big blockbuster films on these big occasions.

One movie in particular seems to have struck a chord with him - The Poseidon Adventure.

This 1972 release starred Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Red Buttons amongst many others. The Poseidon is a luxury liner, its passengers celebrating New Year when it is struck by a freak giant wave and turned upside down. Leslie Neilson played the captain, who perishes in the initial disaster. Gene Hackman's priest character has to help a mixed bag of survivors travel through the upturned ship from the public areas to the keel, hoping to reach their rescuers. As they move through the ship, most of the survivors are killed off, including Shelley Winters who had a fuller figure by the early Seventies.

The character of Foon, played by Debbie Chazen, is inspired by Winters' character in the film.

Chazen's dad had featured in Doctor Who in 1967 - as one of The Moonbase crew. She had been offered a role as a Slitheen in SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen (the secretary Janine), but turned it down - asking RTD for a role in the parent programme instead.

Having her and her husband in fancy dress, as cowboy and cowgirl, was included specifically to explain Foon having a lasso at a key moment in the chasm scene.

This chasm was a deliberate nod to the one on the Death Star in the first Star Wars film, which Luke and Leia have to cross whilst under attack by Stormtroopers.

When it came to a ship for his story, RTD had the ready made Titanic to fall back on. This remains the most famous disaster at sea, despite more recent sinkings such as the Concordia.

2012 would see the centenary of the sinking - the Titanic having sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic in April 1912 on its maiden voyage to New York. More than half the passengers and crew perished.

James Cameron had directed a new version of the story in 1997, one of the biggest box office hits ever, but British viewers would have much preferred the frequent TV screenings of A Night to Remember (1958) starring Kenneth More.

The ship was very much in the public eye around the time this Special was produced.

Douglas Adams, one-time writer and script editor on Doctor Who, had created a Starship Titanic for a computer video game.

42 is one of the numbers the Doctor mentions when trying to think of the protocol override code to halt the Host attacking him - a nod to Adams. RTD also has Hardaker call Earth a Level Five society - first mentioned by Adams in City of Death.

The big draw for Voyage of the Damned was most certainly its guest star. One of Kylie's creative team - Will Baker - was a huge Doctor Who fan, and would often be inspired by the programme when it came to her live shows - hence Cyberman look-alike dancers. Baker provided the link between the production team and the Australian superstar. She was approached to appear, fully expected to turn it down due to being too busy. However, everyone was surprised when she expressed a real interest, and her schedule could accommodate the filming dates.

The first Christmas Special had fallen in the middle of Rose Tyler's tenure as companion, but the next had followed her departure - allowing for a special guest star to act as a one-off companion. With Martha Jones only staying for a single season, the same could be done here - hence Astrid Peth. With the first name being an anagram of TARDIS, fans were naturally full of all manner of bizarre speculation. (The character was originally going to be called Peth Harmone).

Another guest was Bernard Cribbins, who had co-starred in the second of the Aaru Dalek movies with Peter Cushing. He was only expected to fulfil a cameo role, in a scene which played on the fact that Earth - especially London - was coming under threat by aliens every Christmas Day (The Christmas Invasion, The Runaway Bride). (The first drafts had Buckingham palace destroyed as the Titanic smashed through it, with the Queen cursing the aliens).

The newspaper vendor (named Stan in the scripts) was making a deliberate stand by refusing to evacuate. Little did anyone know at the time that he would become a series regular, working alongside the one-off companion from the previous year's Special. His love of the Royal Family was ported over, as was his background in the Parachute Regiment.

(An almost guest star was David Jason, who was considered for the role of Mr Copper - and Hollywood actor Dennis Hopper was also thought of for this, but he only had limited availability).

Geoffrey Palmer's son Charles was now a frequent director of Doctor Who episodes. Palmer was making his third and final appearance in the show - every one of his characters being killed off relatively early on (The Silurians, The Mutants).

The TARDIS falling to Earth was included (a) to add to the drama, and (b) in order to conclude the episode on Earth. Once again, the snow is not real - it's ballast from rescue ships in orbit.

For the first time in the revived series, the Doctor categorically states that he comes from the planet of Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. He also gives his age as 900 - despite it supposedly being 953 in Time and the Rani.

Giving Midshipman Frame the first name of Alonso was the pay-off for a joke started in Army of Ghosts, where the Doctor wanted to say "Allons-y" to someone with that name, just because he liked the sound.

Next time: Donna is back, so we have another screwball comedy set-up, in which everyone is watching their weight...

Hospital update...

You may have probably guessed but I'm still in the hospital. However, due to be discharged on Tuesday, so normal service will resume in a couple more days.