Know Your Cybermen...

A little blog update.
Starting later this week there's a new series of occasional posts looking at the evolution of the Cybermen, story by story. This comes on the heels of last year's (very) popular series looking at the Daleks.
Hopefully each week I will be covering a Cyberman story, the ongoing TARDIS Travels, plus a classic story review (unfortunately it is Time-Flight up next. Sorry...). All that plus any news that is worth commenting upon.
And don't forget I am now on Facebook - just haven't worked out how to make the link. I told you it would take me a couple of weeks to work that out...
The first Cyber-post should be up tomorrow night, with Season 18 of the TARDIS Travels on Saturday.

Radio Times 10th Anniversary Poll

The latest issue of the Radio Times, out today, contains the results of a Top Ten Poll of the new series stories, to tie in with the imminent tenth anniversary of the programme's return. Only stories broadcast since 2005 are counted. Blink takes the top spot with over 14% of the vote, but lower down there are some items of note - especially if you compare with the DWM poll of late last year.
There are no Peter Capaldi stories in the list, and 6 of those that make it are David Tennant adventures. Discounting the 50th anniversary tale, only one Smith story makes it - Vincent and the Doctor. The Eleventh Hour was highly ranked in the DWM poll (17th overall) but is noticeably absent. Another highly praised new series story from the DWM poll was Human Nature / Family of Blood (9th). Also absent. As is Dalek. The End of Time was way down at number 82 in the DWM poll - far from the top ten of the post-2005 stories. Subtracting all the classic series stories above it, it came 30th.
Biggest surprise is that the The Day of the Doctor can only manage 4th position in the RT poll. (Technically, Tennant gets 6.5 of the 10 stories).
Why the differences? Well, obviously, six months have passed since the DWM poll and opinions vary over time, but most probable factor is the demographic of the RT readership. This poll would represent far fewer younger, or overseas, readers.

Story 121 - Earthshock

In which the Doctor and Adric are arguing, and Tegan and Nyssa are left to keep the peace between them. The young man wants to return to E-Space, and the Doctor refuses to take him as the trip would be too dangerous. Adric has worked out the co-ordinates, and says Romana can help him find his own people once he is through the CVE. The Doctor materialises the TARDIS in a cave system and goes outside to cool down. Tegan and Nyssa follow, and they note the number of dinosaur fossils in the rocks. The Doctor tells them of the asteroid strike theory explaining their extinction - and muses how he always meant to go back and find out... Unbeknownst to the time-travellers, a military expedition has just entered this cave system in search of a missing scientific party. It is the year 2526, and Earth is on high alert due to an imminent conference. The expedition is led by Commander Scott, and he is being guided by Prof. Kyle - sole survivor of the missing party. Monitors on the surface detect the Doctor and his companions. In the cavern where the party was last seen, Scott captures the Doctor and accuses him of being responsible. They are then attacked by two figures who do not register on the monitors.

They are androids. Their weapons have totally disintegrated the missing scientists. They are programmed to protect a buried hatch. Scott and his troops manage to destroy them. When the hatch is opened, it reveals a powerful bomb. The TARDIS systems are used to jam the detonation signal whilst the Doctor defuses it. One of the androids proves to have contained a signal booster. Whoever is trying to detonate the bomb is based somewhere in deep space, as Nyssa tracks the signal there. The culprits are Cybermen.
With the bomb deactivated, the Doctor decides to travel to the source of the signals, and Scott insists on accompanying him, with Kyle and his troopers.
In space, a freighter is approaching Earth. The captain, Briggs, is annoyed at the delays caused by the extra security. Security chief Ringway is more concerned that a couple of crewmembers have gone missing. The TARDIS materialises in the hold, and the Doctor and Adric set out to explore. They are captured by Ringway and taken to the bridge - accused of being behind the disappearances. Second Officer Berger reports strange power fluctuations - the ship's energy is being drained. With their bomb deactivated, the Cyber-Leader has devised a new plan. In the hold are thousands of silos. Each contains a dormant Cyberman. The ship's power is being directed to these. Soon, a whole army of Cybermen is reanimated, and they fight the crew in order to take over the ship.

Ringway reveals that he is in the employ of the Cybermen, paid to smuggle them to Earth. The conference about to start has been designed to forge an alliance against them, and this is why they planted their bomb. Now that this has been foiled, the Cyber-Leader intends to seize the freighter and crash it into the planet. The ship's power systems utilise anti-matter. Scott and Tegan emerge from the TARDIS and give battle with the Cybermen. Ringway is overpowered, but the Doctor fails to stop the invaders taking the bridge. The Cyber-Leader kills Ringway for his incompetence. Tegan is captured, and the Doctor is forced to allow the Cyber-Leader to take the TARDIS - in order to use it to observe the crash. Adric must stay on board with Briggs and Berger. On entering the TARDIS, the Cybermen kill Kyle. A device is installed on the navigation system of the freighter to prevent it being diverted from its collision course. Adric begins to unlock it. His tampering causes the ship's engines to go out of phase and it starts to move back through time. The Cyber-Leader orders the Doctor to follow it. Scott reaches the bridge and frees the captives, and they make for an escape pod.
At the last moment, Adric returns to the bridge to complete his work and the pod leaves without him. A dying Cyberman destroys the locking device - preventing Adric doing any more. The Doctor notes that the freighter has travelled back some 65 million years. It was not an asteroid which destroyed the dinosaurs... The Cybermen have caused humankind to rise, rather than destroy it. Scott radios the ship to say Adric is still on board, but there is nothing the Doctor can do. The freighter crashes - and Adric is killed. The Doctor destroys the Cyber-Leader with the boy's badge for mathematical excellence, which is gold-rimmed. It lies broken on the floor...

This four part adventure was written by Eric Saward, and was broadcast between 8th and 16th March, 1982. The credited script editor is Anthony Root, but he did next to nothing with this - a means whereby Saward could get away with script editing his own script.
The story is significant for two things - the return of the Cybermen after a 7 year absence, and the death of Adric. This was the first companion demise since both Katarina and Sara Kingdom perished in The Daleks' Master Plan back in 1965 / 66. It was obvious that the TARDIS was too crowded, and that someone would have to go. Generally, there wasn't enough plot to go round three companions. The producer's first choice was for Nyssa to leave - but Peter Davison stepped in and fought for Sarah Sutton to be kept on. He always maintained that she was his "best-fit" companion and he would have been happy just to have her and her alone on board the TARDIS. Matthew Waterhouse wasn't happy that he was being killed off - hoping to leave the door open for a potential return at some point.
The Cybermen are totally redesigned since their last appearance. The basic shape of the headpiece is retained, with the trademark handles, but now the chest unit is incorporated into it. A nice touch is the inclusion of the silvered jaw of the actor visible - reminding us that these are not just robots but converted humanoids. The main body of the costume is from a flight-suit, with all the sub-surface heating elements. As with the previous Cyberman story, the Cyber-Leader is denoted by having black handles on his helmet. His No.2 is the Cyber Lieutenant. It is not just their appearance that has undergone a transformation. The Cybermen are once more shown to be a real threat, rather than the bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an antiquated spaceship. They are back, big time.

Since JNT took over as producer, he has started to include some fan-pleasing excerpts from previous stories in the narrative. The demise of the Fourth Doctor had seen glimpses of all of Tom Baker's companions, plus a few of his adversaries. In Part Two of this story, the Cyber-Leader informs his Lieutenant about the Doctor - and this is illustrated with clips from The Tenth Planet, The Wheel In Space, and Revenge of the Cybermen. Fans who had wet their trousers at the climactic moment of the previous evening's episode went and wet them all over again.
Onto the guest cast. Woefully miscast is Beryl Reid - one of the worst cases of stunt casting for the publicity ever perpetrated by JNT. The character should be something akin to Ripley from Alien, rather than your grandmother. Scott is James Warwick. he was in Robert Holmes' The Nightmare Man (directed by Douglas Camfield). Kyle is Clare Clifford, who was well known for medical soap Angels. Berger is June Bland, who will return to the series as the blind landlord's wife in Battlefield.
The Cyber-Leader is David Banks - a part he will reprise for the remainder of the Classic Series. His Lieutenant is Mark Hardy, who will also reprise this role.
Episode endings are:

1. Realising that the bomb signal is being boosted from elsewhere, the Doctor wonders who might be responsible. Cut to the Cyber-Leader and his Lieutenant. "Destroy them. Destroy them at once!"...
2. Exploring the hold, the Doctor and Adric hear screams and find two dead crewmen. Ringway suddenly appears behind them, telling them that murderers are executed on this ship...
3. On the freighter's scanner, the Doctor sees that there are hundreds of Cybermen...
4. Adric's broken star badge lies on the floor...

Overall, still one of the great Doctor Who stories. It was voted 24th out of 241 in last year's DWM anniversary poll. The Cybermen are brought back and brought back well. The first cliffhanger is still one of the best ever. Adric has been poorly written of late, and Matthew Waterhouse's performance has often shown up his inexperience, so it is time for him to go. He might not have been happy with the way he went, but it made for a real shock at the time - no pun intended.

Things you might like to know:

• The decision was taken to roll the end credits of Part Four silently, with the broken badge against a black background. At the time it seemed the sensible way to do it but, on watching later, it does look a bit naff. JNT got the idea from Coronation Street, when one episode went out with silent end credits, but that was for the death of Rovers Return stalwart Minnie Caldwell, who was a bit of a national treasure. Adric just never quite warranted the same respect.
• Despite being a fan of a certain age, I have so far managed to avoid the "you had to have been there" bit that a lot of others come up with. But the end of Part One makes this an exception. You Had To Have Been There - that evening, 8th March 1982. When people talk about squealing and running around the room (or indeed losing control of their bladder functions), they aren't making it up. 
• Pat Phoenix of Coronation Street was first choice to play Briggs. Still wouldn't have worked.
• You'll notice that the Cyberman chin sections become opaque after a while. This was due to the battery packs, on the top of their heads, sliding down the actors' faces as perspiration unstuck the tape holding them in place.
• And look out for the lady reading a script under a stairwell at one point (as Tegan is on the stairs).
• One of the android costumes will return, with a respray, for the Raston Warrior Robot in The Five Doctors - where it slaughters Cybermen. Oh, the irony.
• The Cyber control console contains elements reused from the set of the "Nostromo", in Alien.
• The dialogue accompanying the clip from The Wheel In Space refers to events in Tomb of the Cybermen. At the time of production, that story was still lost and no relevant clips existed.
• Of course the story is not perfect. Some things don't make sense (but when the Cybermen have a plan, things rarely do). The Cyber-Leader can get quite emotional at times, and we also see a couple of Cybermen apparently having a bit of a gossip in a corridor. There are still loads of them on the freighter after the others have left, and their reactivation is never explained - we just get a cut to a lever moving by itself.
• "So, we meet again - Time Lord". At the time, this sounded as if it was this specific Cyber-Leader who had met the Doctor before. He could have been referring to we, as in the Cybermen as a whole, of course. It has since been established that when a Cyber-Leader is destroyed, its knowledge, experience etc. are transferred to another Cyberman who then gets upgraded.
• As well as reprising the Cyber-Leader role for the remaining Cyber stories through to 1988, David Banks got quite obsessed with them. He also played the Cyber-Leader in The Ultimate Adventure stage play (and the mercenary leader, plus getting to play the Doctor when Jon Pertwee took ill), as well as writing a book about them - which includes the first serious attempt at Cyber-Chronology. And he also penned a Cyberman New Adventures novel (Iceberg).

The Face of Boe-k

Well, I've finally gotten round to joining that thing they call Facebook. Wait until it's going out of fashion, then join - that's me.
I'm there under my full nom de guerre - Gerry Donnelly. (Apparently there is more than a hundred of me). I'll work out shortly how to do the whole shortcut thing, but if you are interested you can find me here or hereabouts:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009203385162

There's even a picture of me - but don't let that put you off.
I will be posting on Facebook whenever I post on this, but it will also be an opportunity for me to muse on other things as well - stuff that I wouldn't normally put on here. Do please use it to get in touch. Not that you ever use the comments function much. Never known such a quiet bunch of Doctor Who fans...

TARDIS Travels No.17

And so we get to Season 17 - the one with the TARDIS Randomiser that generally never does what it is supposed to do, as we shall shortly see...

Journey 154: Zeos, date unknown, to Skaro, date unknown.
Personally, I like to put all the Davros stories late on in Dalek chronology - after 4000 AD. Not counting Earth or Gallifrey, the TARDIS is seldom seen to visit the same planet twice on screen. Peladon and Metebelis III are amongst the exceptions. Here, the ship returns to Skaro. It has been here one other time - but that was when it was transported by the Emperor Dalek and did not materialise as part of its normal journeyings. It selects a rather odd landing spot. The Time Lords may be at work behind the scenes here - making it another part of the build up to the Time War. Funny, otherwise, how the ship just happens to turn up on the very day that Davros is reborn...

Journey 155: Skaro, date unknown, to Paris, France, 1979.
The TARDIS materialises in a small contemporary art gallery in the city. The Doctor clearly states that this is the work of the Randomiser, as he would have chosen a better year. Strangely, until it got fixated with New York in recent years, the TARDIS seems to have had a soft spot for Paris.

Journey 156: Paris, 1979, to Florence, 1505.
The first clear case of the Doctor overriding the Randomiser, as he goes back to see why Count Scarlioni might have half a dozen genuine copies of the Mona Lisa. The ship materialises in Leonardo's workshop, but he isn't at home.

Journey 157: Florence, 1505, to Paris, 1979.
With Captain Tancredi / Scaroth distracted by his other selves, the Doctor slips back to Paris - the TARDIS materialising back in the same gallery.

Journey 158: Paris, 1979, to Mid Atlantic region, c. 400 Million BC.
In order to follow Scaroth and stop him saving his ship - and hence denying humanity the spark that will bring it into existence - the Doctor, Romana and Duggan go to the gallery and travel back to prehistoric times. The dematerialisation is witnessed by John Cleese and Eleanor Bron - providing us with one of the series' most classic scenes.

Journey 159: Mid Atlantic, 400 Million BC, to Paris, 1979.
After Duggan has knocked out Scaroth with the most significant punch in history, the Doctor & Co. rush back to the TARDIS before the Jagaroth spacecraft explodes. We assume that it once again returns to the gallery. I wonder if Cleese and Bron were still there, and what they would have thought of that...

Journey 160: Paris, 1979, to Chloris, date unknown.
Sorting through the Doctor's bits and bobs, Romana finds the Mark III Emergency Transceiver. Plugging it into the console where it ought to be, it picks up a distress call from the planet Chloris - so the Randomiser is once again bypassed. The call comes from the egg-like structure that is really the captive Erato's ship.

Journey 161: Chloris, date unknown, to a region of nearby space, same date.
The Doctor must link up with Erato's reconstituted ship to stop the neutron star that the Tythonians have despatched to destroy Chloris. He employs the ship's gravity tractor beam.

Journey 162: Chloris (space), to Chloris (planet) - same date.
Mission accomplished, the TARDIS returns to the planet - though this time it materialises in Lady Adrasta's palace rather than back in the jungle where it first arrived.

Journey 163: Chloris, date unknown, to Spaceliner Empress, c.2116.
The TARDIS is once more responding to a distress call. We know the date from the dialogue about Galactic Salvage Insurance (this being some 20 years after it went into liquidation - which was in 2096). At the conclusion, the Doctor intends to use the TARDIS to return all of the CET Machine environments to their rightful places - so (potentially) a number of unseen journeys to Eden, Vij, Zil, Darp, Lvan, Brus, Ranx and Gidi. (Seems Tryst was only interested in planets whose name he could fit on his machine. A visit to Raxacoricofalapatorius was never going to happen). Some of these worlds have also been visited by the crew of Moonbase Alpha. Or should that be Giant-Space-Egg-base Alpha...

Journey 164: Starliner Empress, 2116, to unknown region of space, date unknown.
The Doctor might not necessarily have needed to actually materialise on all those planets mentioned above. He could have just done something incredibly clever whilst getting from the Empress to here. As it is a quiet bit of space, the Doctor decides to strip down the central control console and deactivate most of the TARDIS systems. Bad move, as K9 spots a Skonnon spaceship not far off. The TARDIS is able to link to it by extending the defence system around the main doors. After the treacherous Skonnon Co-Pilot (he of the badly made trousers) abducts Romana and flies off, the TARDIS attracts a massive asteroid towards it. The Doctor spins the ship so that it bounces off the rock. (The Fourth Doctor actually does more cricket related stuff than the Fifth). Special mention for the Gravitic Anomaliser in this episode.

Journey 165: Unknown region of space, date unknown, to Skonnos, same date.
The Doctor patches up the ship in order to pursue the kidnapped Romana. The ship materialises in the capital city of Skonnos - just outside the Power Complex.

And that's us for Season 17. We could go on to list the various trips back and forth to St Cedd's College, Cambridge and its environs, and to the Think Tank space station in Shada - but that was never screened and so sadly falls outside the remit of this series. See you soon for Season 18, when everything changes...

Story 120 - Black Orchid

In which the TARDIS materialises on the railway station platform at Cranleigh Halt, in June of 1925. The Doctor and his companions are surprised to discover that they are apparently expected, as they are approached by a waiting chauffeur. Nyssa notices him staring at her. The Doctor has been mistaken for someone who is to take part in a cricket match. With the prospect of a few innings on offer, the Doctor decides not to correct the mistake. They are taken to the cricket pitch where they meet Charles, Lord Cranleigh. He is shocked to see Nyssa - and it transpires that she is the spitting image of his fiancée Ann Talbot, hence the earlier reaction of the chauffeur. The Doctor joins the game and helps to win the match. He and his companions are then invited to stay at Cranleigh Hall for the rest of the weekend. A fancy dress party is planned. At the Hall they learn that Lord Cranleigh is the brother of the famous botanist George Cranleigh, who discovered a rare black variety of orchid in South America. He died during the expedition. Elsewhere in the house, in a closed off wing, another occupant is kept a virtual prisoner. He is badly disfigured and is tied to his bed. He is looked after by a Brazilian servant named Latoni. The man escapes his bonds and knocks Latoni unconscious. Whilst the Doctor is taking a bath, the man enters his room via a hidden passage and steals his harlequin fancy dress costume. The Doctor finds the passage himself but gets hopelessly lost. He emerges in the sealed off wing and finds the corpse of another servant hidden in a closet.

Lady Cranleigh, mother of George and Charles, has been informed by Latoni of the escape of the man and she finds the Doctor in the wing. She agrees to inform Sir Robert Muir, local police commissioner and another guest for this weekend. Ann Talbot is in the house when she sees what she thinks to be the Doctor in his costume. He attacks and kills the butler then tries to seize her. She faints. On waking, she blames the Doctor for the crimes. Lady Cranleigh decides to lie about the finding of the body earlier, and it has been removed before the Doctor can show it to Sir Robert. He and his companions find themselves under arrest. They are taken to the village. The TARDIS has been brought to the police station. In order to help prove that they are who they say they are, the Doctor shows Sir Robert and the local constabulary the inside of the ship. They use it to travel to the Hall. The captive man has escaped again, killing Latoni. He starts a fire in order to break down his door, and this starts to spread. He seizes Nyssa - believing her to be Ann. The man is really George Cranleigh. He had been horribly tortured by the natives who protect the Black Orchid, and was brought back secretly to England by Latoni - broken both in mind and body. Ann had originally been his fiancée. Charles and the Doctor are able to convince him he has the wrong person. George slips and falls from the roof to his death. The Doctor and his companions decide to stay on for his funeral. The Doctor is given a copy of George's book as gift - "Black Orchid"...

This two part adventure was written by Terence Dudley, and was broadcast on the 1st and 2nd of March, 1982. It is the first two-parter in the series since The Sontaran Experiment, back in 1975. It is also - arguably - the first purely historical story since The Highlanders (and indeed the last of such to date).
Generally historical stories have fitted into three categories. The first are what we now term the "Celebrity Historical" - wherein the Doctor meets someone famous - Marco Polo, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare etc. Then we have the pseudo-historical - where historic events form the backdrop to some alien intervention. This story fits in to the third category, where the history merely forms the backdrop and provides some local colour, in order to tell a story about smugglers, Jacobites, or Aztec High Priests.
Except in a way it doesn't. With those earlier non-celebrity historicals, the period was a key part of the story. With Black Orchid, the historical setting is entirely immaterial. It could just as well have been set in the 1980's or the 1880's. This story is much more of a genre piece - that genre being the country house murder mystery. We are in Agatha Christie territory - except it isn't a whodunnit either. We know from the off that the killer is the bloke tied up in the bedroom. There are no red herrings amongst the house guests. The only mystery is who is he and what is he doing tied up - but that is quite easy to work out the instant we find out about the supposedly dead George.
By making George homicidal and disfigured, he becomes a surrogate monster. You could just as easily have had an alien locked up in the attic. Equating disfigurement with monstrousness is obviously wrong, and would not be done today. Shouldn't have been done then to be honest.
The TARDIS crew finally manage to get out of their standard uniforms thanks to the fancy dress ball. However, I sincerely hope that the Doctor and his companions did not wear their usual clobber to a funeral. We know the TARDIS has a massive costume store, but producer JNT does have this stupid idea about these uniforms.

The guest cast comprises Barbara Murray as Lady Cranleigh, Moray Watson (who was in the original BBC Quatermass Experiment) as Sir Robert, and Michael Cochrane as Charles. He also poses for a portrait and a photo of George in the book - suggesting that they might have been twins, though nothing in the dialogue supports this. The disfigured George (credited as "The Unknown" in Part One) is played by stunt man Gareth Milne. Ivor Salter, who had appeared in The Space Museum and The Myth Makers, returns to the programme as Sergeant Markham. Naturally, Ann Talbot is also played by Sarah Sutton.
Episode endings are:

1. The figure dressed as a harlequin strangles the butler. Ann Talbot faints, and the masked man reaches down towards her throat...
2. After George's funeral, Lady Cranleigh gives the Doctor a copy of his book.

Overall, an atmospheric enough little tale, but one that is wholly disposable. At least the companions get a whole episode of just enjoying themselves for a change. There is a sneaking suspicion that this story exists just to justify Davison's costume.

Things you might like to know:

• Yes, the Doctor actually gets to play a game of cricket. Davison's costume had been inspired by JNT seeing him play in a charity match. Davison actually bowled one of the other players out for real, and was pleased to see that this made it into the finished programme. As it turns out, he doesn't play again on screen.
• Some people think that the fact that Sarah Sutton got a double role in this was connected to her sitting out Kinda. It is all purely coincidental, as the absence from the earlier story was for contractual reasons pending decisions about her becoming a full time companion when originally conceived just for a single story.
• Peter Davison reportedly hated the harlequin costume.
• JNT planned to direct this story himself. His partner, Gary Downie, did do the choreography.
• Gareth Milne was slightly injured when he did his fall from the roof - landing only partially on the crash mats. Milne was originally just hired to do the stunt work, but director Ron Jones realised that George was a physical, non-speaking role, so he got to do the whole thing.
• The policemen act as if the police box is familiar, but boxes of the TARDIS design hadn't been invented in 1925. They came in in 1929, and only in cities to begin with - not somewhere as small as Cranleigh Halt.
• Something which makes no sense whatsoever. The Doctor is finally believed when he shows Sir Robert the TARDIS. Why? Doesn't this just mean he is a murderer with a time machine? How does being a time traveller equate to not being a killer?
• And some dodgy class politics going on at the end. Why isn't Lady Cranleigh locked up as an accessory to murder, or for at least shielding a criminal. Is Sir Robert going to help sweep it all under the carpet - just because they are the nobs from the big house?

TARDIS Travels No.16

Season 16: the  Key to Time story arc and the first incarnation of Romana. We don't know how much time has elapsed since the Doctor left Gallifrey, but he has now got K9 Mark II up and running. They are on their way to Harlegan 3 when they are rudely interrupted...

Journey 142: Gallifrey (date unknown), to location and date unknown.
The TARDIS is stopped in flight and lands on an unknown planet, possibly some artificial realm created by the White Guardian. The Doctor meets the Guardian who tasks him with seeking out the six segments of the Key to Time. There is a new companion waiting for him back in the ship, whether he wants one or not. This is Romana. She has a wand-like locator device that will trace the segments, and she has created a slot for it in the TARDIS console. (The Doctor apologises to the ship for this). The Guardian has the power to stop the TARDIS and to open the doors. The bright light which welcomes the Doctor permeates the interior of the ship through the roundels.

Journey 143: Location and date unknown, to Ribos, date unknown.
The locator is taking the ship to another location when their target moves, so the TARDIS must be travelling in "local time" at this point. They have arrived in Shurr, the main city of Ribos - a planet in the Cyrrenhic Alliance. It is in the midst of its 30 year long winter.

Journey 144: Ribos, date unknown, to Zanak, date unknown.
They are actually making for Calufrax, but something goes wrong with the materialisation. Romana blames the Doctor's failure to do things by the book - i.e. the TARDIS operating manual. When she tries - by the book - they land normally. Only it is not Calufrax. Zanak is where Calufrax is supposed to be. It transpires that Zanak is a hollow, time jumping world, and it has materialised itself around Calufrax. This is why the Doctor wasn't able to make his landing - it coinciding with the time-jump.

Journey 145: Zanak - city to the Bridge overlooking the city.
The Doctor pilots the ship to the Bridge, control centre for the planet. It materialises in the chamber where the Time Dams maintain old Queen Xanxia in her last moments of life. The TARDIS is used to both block Zanak's next time-jump (to Earth) and to fill the hollow centre with the remains of the previously destroyed victim planets.

Journey 146: Zanak - the Bridge to location nearby.
The TARDIS moves from the Bridge, which is then blown up by the Mentiads.

Journey 147: Zanak, date unknown, to Boscombe Moor, England, 1978.
The ship materialises in a field near the Nine Travellers - a prehistoric stone circle. We see another room just off the console room - a dark space in which there is what appears to be a small fridge, in which the Doctor has been storing the Key segments. There must be a stock of umbrellas aboard the ship, as the Doctor quite nonchalantly throws one away. (He had a favourite one back in The Krotons, so obviously there is more than one). The TARDIS' molecular stabiliser is used to repair K9 after he is smashed up by an Ogri.

Journey 148: Boscombe Moor, England, 1978, to Tara, date unknown.
A verdant world with a temperate climate - at least in the region where the ship has materialised. The TARDIS clothes store has costumes arranged by planet in alphabetical order. In a cupboard is the Doctor's fishing tackle. Tara might possibly be an Earth colony world, in which case we are in the far future.

Journey 149: Tara, date unknown, to Third Moon of Delta Magna, date unknown.
Delta Magna is definitely an Earth colony, so sometime well into the future. The TARDIS materialises in the middle of the marshes, so K9 is stuck on board.

Journey 150: Third Moon of Delta Magna, date unknown, to orbit near Atrios, date unknown.
The TARDIS materialises in space, some distance away from the planet where it should have arrived. The implication is that this system has been moved about a bit by the influence of the unseen Shadow world. The Atrians register the ship on their scanners and assume it is a Zeon weapon, and so launch a missile at it.

Journey 151: Atrios: orbit to planet, date unknown.
Escaping the missile, the TARDIS materialises in the underground city on Atrios, close to a sealed up section where there just happens to be a transmat to Zeos. The Shadow has the ship transported to Zeos. The light on top of the Police Box shell has changed to a blue colour. When the TARDIS doors are opened, a particularly harsh light beams out - not usually seen.

Journey 152: Zeos to Shadow's planet.
The planet is referred to as such throughout, but on screen it appears to be a manufactured space station. Possibly the designers not being told something about the script?

Journey 153: Shadow planet, to Zeos.
The Doctor takes the TARDIS back to Zeos so that the computer Mentalis can be stopped from triggering Armageddon in this sector of space. Drax's ship is also somewhere on this planet. The White Guardian appears on the scanner - but it is actually the Black one in disguise. The Doctor is able to deploy all of the ship's defences to stop him seizing the Key. This seems to contradict the power of the Guardians back in the opening episode of the Season. To prevent him from tracking them down, the Doctor fits the Randomiser to the navigation controls - whose uselessness just happens to have been the initial prompt for this series of posts, if you recall...
Next up, Season 17 and a return to Skaro...