Serial 18: Galaxy 4

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companions: Vicki, Steven

Written by: William Emms
Directed by: Derek Martinus & Mervyn Pinfield

Background & Significance: Season three of Doctor Who might be the most peculiar and experimental the show ever got. It featured a standalone, Doctor-less, companionless one part story, a twelve episode Dalek epic, a companion-centric, Doctor-lite story, a four-part story that jumps seven centuries into the future halfway through, and a western that's also kind of a musical. It's a weird ass season, full of experimentation for the show.

But season three started somewhat more auspiciously.

By the time "Galaxy 4" rolled around, Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert was on her way out the door. This story and "Mission to the Unknown" were produced in the same production block as season two, but held over for the start of season three as the show tended to do back in the day. We've already talked about "Mission to the Unknown" and how good that was, but this is the last time Lambert got to produce a fully actualized story in the traditional classic, Doctor Who mold. Unfortunately, because there's a transition aspect to each producer taking over the show (producers typically shadowed their predecessor before assuming the reins in full) Wiles was apparently partially responsible for the production of this episode. And apparently it was not all peaches and cream, Wiles going so far at one point that he was reportedly thinking about firing Hartnell (which set the tone for his producership more than anything, I'd say).

But yes. "Galaxy 4". Written by one-time Doctor Who writer William Emms (who had written for Z-Cars and other contemporaneous ilk) and directed by first-time Doctor Who director Derek Martinus (who directed this only because Mervyn Pinfield backed out at the last moment) who would go on to direct some terrific stories across the rest of the 60s, it really is the quiet end to the Lambert era on Doctor Who. That's not to say Lambert went out without some great hits, but honestly it feels like she was building to "The Chase" or "The Time Meddler" (take your pick) and this story becomes one of the real forgotten stories of Doctor Who. That's probably because it's shoved in an easily looked-over place in the Doctor Who canon. Or because it's got a rubbish title. Or because it's entirely missing. I mean, why talk about "Galaxy 4" being missing when you can talk about "Marco Polo" or "The Massacre" missing. Those are the bonified classics.

Now that'll change, I'm sure, once the recently recovered third episode hits mass distribution, but until then we're still relegated to a story that's largely forgotten and widely dismissed and I have to wonder if that's deserved or not. And of course, me and my wonderings is why I do this blog. Or something. I don't know. Maybe I'll figure that out some day.

So let's get to it!

Serial 31: The Highlanders

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Ben, and Polly

Written by: Elwyn Jones & Gerry Davis
Directed by: Hugh David

Background & Significance: In the Classic series there's always a crossfade across Doctors and production teams and it always takes a little bit for the production to steer the show into a new and interesting direction. This is perhaps most evident in "Robot," in which Tom Baker's first story is a Pertwee story produced by Barry Letts and written by Terrence Dicks. At its most lengthy, we have the transition from William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton.

"The Highlanders" is a big transition point, and not only because it's the first story to feature the 2nd Doctor's key companion: Jamie Robert McCrimmon.

Written by the developer of Z-Cars and one-time Doctor Who writer Elwyn Jones, "The Highlanders" finds itself as a bridge of sorts. That's not surprising. "The Highlanders" is a historical, and really the last true historical until "Black Orchid" some fifteen years later. And if you wanna go for something more attainable, like Doctor Who in a historical setting, you'd still have to jump all the way to "The Time Warrior", which was seven years after this. As a historical, it's clear it's on the way out. "The Time Meddler" as a thing pretty much cripples the pure historical by introducing science fiction elements (which makes for an admittedly cooler story) while "The Massacre" was a glorious swan song for John Lucarotti's brand of intense character drama.

"The Gunfighters" and "The Smugglers" are still fantastic.

But this is the last historical we'll talk about on this blog, and I feel it's a good time to look at the historical outside of a Hartnell context. Sure, the last time we did a historical was an unmitigated disaster (and possibly the worst entry I've written for this blog, hence the lack of link) but I think that maybe we can bring in some discussion or what have you as we dissect this moment of transition for both the Troughton era and the show in general. Historicals? What is it about them? And Troughton? How does early Troughton look as we slowly brush up closer and closer to his regeneration.

So let's get to it!

Serial 108.5: Shada

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor), Paul McGann (8th Doctor)
Companions: Romana II, K-9

Written by: Douglas Adams, Gary Russell (audio adaptation), Gareth Roberts (novelization)
Directed by: Pennant Roberts (and Gary Russell)

Background & Significance: As of the day I'm posting this, there are 106 episodes missing from the Doctor Who archives. The number would be 108, but two were returned to the archives last December and the number decreased accordingly. Unfortunately, those missing episodes were the first recoveries in eight years and it's doubtful many more will ever be recovered. To travel in the other direction, Doctor Who is going to outlast all of us because it's infinitely malleable and so long as stories exist, Doctor Who has the potential to exist. I'll be sad if there's Doctor Who stories still coming out after I die, but if there aren't I'll probably more disappointed than I ever would be sad.

As fans, this leaves us with the notion that Doctor Who has created a need that will never truly be satisfied. There are points where you might burn out on Doctor Who, but you'll always come back because you will always want your experience to be as complete as possible to make up for the fact that there's one in ten episodes that you will never see, and because there's stories that will air long after you die that you'll never see because you're, well, dead. We're obsessed with the gaping hole left simply by being Doctor Who fans, by the infinite wealth and treasure trove we alone are privy to and the wasted opportunities strikes us as inherently wasteful, because why waste a good story?

Which brings us to "Shada".

"Shada" is the only Doctor Who story that can never truly be "complete". Unlike those stories missing from the archives, (which hypothetically could be returned despite its unlikelihood) "Shada" was completely written, partially produced, and never completed, which is entirely different.

The serial was intended to be the last big hurrah of the Graham Williams era. Williams himself was really done with the program by this point, and between Tom Baker's increasing irritability and not being able to get a budget near what he wanted it to be (it's never near what you want it to be, which is, inevitably, "infinity dollars" (or "infinity pounds" as this case might be)) he decided to go out on an story penned by his script editor, Douglas Adams, one that would be funny and delightful and rompy and basically everything Williams ever wanted his era to be. He even planned for it to have a good budget, having been recently slammed his first two seasons by failing to account for a big, six-part season finale, which is why "The Invasion of Time" and "The Armageddon Factor" are so insanely, unbelievably cheap-looking. So he pinched his pennies and made "The Nightmare of Eden" and "Horns of Nimon" (and even "Creature From the Pit") on an unusually small and tight budget.

It was all looking to go awesome. There would be Time Lord intrigue (which Williams always worked into his season finales) and Douglas Adams's own particular brand of humor and lots of money so he could go out on a proper note.

And then this labour dispute happened in December and they targeted Doctor Who because Doctor Who was a really good target that would get their point across. Williams fought to get the whole thing done in time and did good on the location work and made some progress on the studio time, but the labour dispute turned even more sour, the BBC postponed all recording dates in December, and because Christmas programs were way more important to the BBC than Doctor Who, Williams found it impossible to schedule the five recording dates he needed to finish the story and get the whole thing done before the story would actually make it to air.

So Williams's planned swansong never aired and "Horns of Nimon" became his legacy.

The part that stings most about this is that Williams had half a complete serial, and that's the part that I think gets in most people's heads about this. The whole story is a big ol' question mark that's gotten Doctor Who fans since it first didn't air. (And who can blame them? Just hearing the titular "Shada" is a Time Lord prison is enough to kick your brain into overdrive. I know it was a story I became particularly enraptured with when I first became aware of it. Hell, I still am and I'm not even a Douglas Adams fan) The fact that we'll never see it as it "should have" existed is the biggest kick in the teeth and the one that pushes Doctor Who fans from "intense curiosity" to "obsessive need."

How obsessive a need, you might ask? Well, plenty of people have attempted to get a faithful retelling of Shada up and running for years and years. Ian Levine did one in the early 80s with script inserts in place of scenes that weren't filmed (and apparently now has a cut of the film that he personally financed with animation to fill in the gaps that weren't filmed). Nathan-Turner worked after the show's cancellation to secure Tom Baker to provide linking narration to the existing clips to piece the whole thing together in a way that would make it make sense, getting a home video release in 1992, which remains the best he could do. Big Finish got permission from Douglas Adams's estate to produce an audio adaptation of Shada with animatics to visualize the story as best as possible. Because they couldn't get Tom Baker to reprise his role they asked then-incumbent Doctor Paul McGann to be The Doctor for the story and adapter Gary Russell wrote around it in such a way that it made sense. This was released in May of 2003.

Fast forward to this year: for the first time, Adams's Doctor Who story has been novelized by Gareth Roberts based on Douglas Adams's script and notes. It's the first time an Adams Doctor Who story has been novelized.

It's been an unsurprising obsession, but my question becomes "so how is it?" We have three different source texts to work with: Nathan-Turner's Tom Baker narrated home video release in 1992, Gary Russell's 8th Doctor Big Finish audio/animatic adaptation in 2003, and Gareth Roberts's novelization. I think it'd be a good idea to talk about all three of these and see which one works best, which one doesn't, and how do they all add up to the larger picture of the swansong Williams (and Adams) never got? Not only that, but how do these two Doctors' interpretations compare? It was written for Tom Baker, but how does Paul McGann do?  Was Douglas Adams really a great Doctor Who writer? Can we as a mass collective of Doctor Who fans ever move on?

Strap in, kids. This is gonna be a long one.

So let's get to it!

Serial 150: Dragonfire

Doctor: Sylvester McCoy (7th Doctor)
Companions: Mel, Ace

Written by: Ian Briggs
Directed by: Chris Clough

Background & Significance: After a whole season of Mel as The Doctor's companion, Bonnie Langford had decided that she did not want to be Mel anymore. She feared typecasting (which, as it turns out, was an entirely founded claim) and wanted to move on. It probably didn't help that Mel is [unfairly] hated by vast majorities of Doctor Who fandom despite Langford being actually quite good. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and was never really given a fair shake until Big Finish went in and proved to everyone how utterly brilliant she could be.

So the decks were clear for a new companion.

To prep, Nathan-Turner and script editor Andrew Cartmel started the process off creating a new companion, sketching out a few ideas and characteristics they thought would be good for a new companion. Affectionately code-named "Alf", they planned for this character to take over as The Doctor's companion in the upcoming season should Bonnie Langford choose to actually depart as she was thinking. To see if their other writers could come up with anything better, they handed the rough sketch to "Delta and the Bannermen's" Malcolm Kohll and "Dragonfire's" Ian Briggs to see if they could do anything with the concept.  (This, by the way, explains why Ray in "Delta and the Bannermen" is a totally Ace-y character, but we'll talk about that in a few weeks.)

History, as we know, went with Ian Briggs's character: Ace.

Let's back up, though. Ian Briggs was a fresh new Doctor Who writer whose mission statement was to make something with a comedic bent. In response, he went and basically homaged all of his favorite movies, and when one homage didn't work out he simply went and changed the source of the homage. This, unfortunately, was mostly lost on the audience of "Dragonfire", who can't ever seem to see beyond the "that cliffhanger moment is stupid" and see that the whole thing as a big ol' Star Wars homage pulp adventure running through a bunch of ice-flavored BBC sets. While being camp. Utter utter camp. So like last week we have a story that is utterly and completely derided story that wound up in the bottom 10% of the Doctor Who Magazine Top 200 poll. And I really have to ask, is the hate deserved?

So let's get to it!

Serial 7: The Sensorites

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companions: Susan, Barbara, and Ian

Written by: Peter R. Newman
Directed by: Mervyn Pinfield & Frank Cox

Background & Significance: Because the first season alternated between educational historical adventures and educational sci-fi tales, the original plan was to have a sole pair of writers write the whole show. Based on his success with "The Daleks", Terry Nation was the obvious choice to continue carrying the sci-fi torch for the show. Hence, "Keys of Marinus". For the historicals they chose John Lucarotti, who did a kick ass job writing "Marco Polo," and then knocked it out of the park writing "The Aztecs", which is to this day the quintessential historical.

Of course, this didn't quite pan out in the way they wanted it to. Writing takes a while. That's why you have Dennis Spooner writing "The Reign of Terror" and Peter R. Newman writing this story.

"The Sensorites" is a much maligned story. In that big ol' "Mighty 200" poll, it was voted the worst Hartnell story not called "The Space Museum" and the worst of its season. And "Second Worst Hartnell" had to happen to some story some time. It just happened to happen to "The Sensorites". It's unfortunate, really, because "The Sensorites" is still Doctor Who at its most nascent. The goal was to do a story based on spectacle and mind-bending (heh) concepts. This was limited by the BBC's casual disregard for the programme's potential, as they had decided it would be filmed in the cramped and inferior Lime Grove Studios. Producer Verity Lambert fought valiantly against this and (being Verity Lambert) managed to get better studios on the other side of the season. For now, smaller sets were what was available for "The Sensorites", which greatly limits its ability to go for "spectacle."

And I can tell people this background. They still won't listen. The only way to MAYBE change minds is to talk about it.

So let's get to it!

Serial 60: Day of the Daleks

Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)
Companions: Jo Grant

Writtten by: Louis Marks
Directed by: Paul Bernard

Editor's Note: Hey, guys! I have the week off because I'm prepping for what's going to be a really... weird entry in a few weeks. So Cassandra is here and talking about a big ol' loopy time travel story. But with Daleks. Word on the street is she liked it. And you know what they say about 'dem streets...

Background & Significance: This story is kind of a big deal. 

As the first story in Doctor Who’s 9^th season, “Day of the Daleks” promised to not only open the season with a bang, but also—well, Daleks.

Since their apparent departure in the epic Troughton serial, “Evil of the Daleks,” the Doctor’s first foes stayed off the air for essentially four years, before the BBC started wheedling script editor Terrance Dicks and producer Barry Letts to bring them back.  

But bring them back they did, and, though originally intended to appear at the very end of the season, instead got inserted into this lively little adventure, to open the season with a bit of spectacle.

“Day of the Daleks” is written by Louis Marks who wrote the enjoyable serial “Planet of Giants” wayyyy back in Hartnell’s second season.  He would later go on to write “Planet of Evil” and “Masque of Mandragora,” which gives him a pretty solid track record, at least in my book.  It’s directed by Paul Bernard, who would later go on to direct “The Time Monster” and “Frontier in Space,” so his track record after this is…not so good.  I honestly have no idea if this was a fluke or what, because… wow.

Anyway.  Enough of all that, let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 40: The Enemy of the World

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Victoria

Written by: David Whitaker
Directed by: Barry Letts

Background & Significance: Story wise, "The Enemy of the World" is the exact middle of the Troughton era. Coincidentally (as this isn't always the case), it's the exact middle of Troughton's second (middle) season.  It's most famous for being the one in which "The Doctor is the bad guy" and Patrick Troughton plays the evil villain of the story, the devious Salamander.

But really it looks to me like this is just a big ol' changing of the guard.

This is the final story to be produced by Innes Lloyd, the man who had overseen the previous two seasons worth of Doctor Who, taking over after the departure of John Wiles starting with "The Celestial Toymaker". He'd overseen the show through its first ever regeneration and after continuing on the show far longer than he had planned or wanted to, he left after this story with script editor Peter Bryant stepping up to take the producership reigns. To replace Bryant they found a young fellow named Derrick Sherwin to be script editor and Sherwin in turn quickly hired his friend Terrance Dicks to be his assistant. This is also the last story to be overseen by Sydney Newman, who was the head of BBC drama going back to before "An Unearthly Child." So yeah. One of the guys who ushered in Doctor Who is no longer a force involved after this story.

To further complicate this massive changing of the guard, we have David Whitaker back and writing another story that defies our expectations yet again. "Enemy of the World" is the sole story in this entire season that isn't a base under siege. No. Whitaker comes up with something totally different: a James Bondian inspired story featuring Patrick Troughton as the villain. To play up the Bond (and really, so much Bond), they bring in Barry Letts on to direct the story. So yeah. The Patron Saint of Bond-based Doctor Who got to preview his own entire era a year and a half before he actually took over the show. It wasn't the plan, sure, but it's interesting that the first script editor is teaming up with the future producer to usher out a bump in production team with a unique story before it gets all sieged under bases again.

And that's just a taste.

So let's get to it!

Serial 79: Revenge of the Cybermen

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Sarah Jane, Harry

Written by: Gerry Davis
Directed by: Michael Briant

Background & Significance: Now that we're really rapidly approaching the home stretch of this blog, I think it's become terribly clear which eras of Doctor Who I enjoy and which I do not. I've come to find the Pertwee era one of the most fun eras while I've really come to dislike a vast majority of Troughton due to its lack of both ambition and originality (which is unfortunate, because I love his Doctor). But the era that I have to always mention right up front is the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. I went into it initally with my arms crossed and without any real desire to partake. "I'd like the comedy", I thought. "I have no taste for horror."

I was wrong about that. Hinchcliffe/Holmes is almost definitely my favorite era in Classic Who. I'm always in the mood for one of their stories because they're just so damn enjoyable (if not flawless) and it really is one of the most consistent runs of Doctor Who in terms of sheer quality. The run of stories from "Robot" to "Horror of Fang Rock" is one of the most outstanding runs in all of Doctor Who history where the lows are more than watchable and the highs are nigh untouchable and some of the best Doctor Who ever produced. What's here is the stuff of legend, and regardless of quality I'm always eager to jump back in whenever I need a Doctor Who fix because what's here is so good, if nothing else than aesthetically. Fortunately there's usually a bit more to go on than pure aesthetics more often than not, but other times? Shrug. That's what you got.

With all that in mind let's talk about "Revenge of the Cybermen".

"Revenge of the Cybermen" is the black sheep of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. It's widely regarded as their weakest story and "a mess" to put it mildly. But why is this one singled out when "Android Invasion" is an equally impressive candidate? My guess is "Android Invasion" benefits from being buried in the middle of its season, in between two dynamite Robert Holmes stories whereas this story is tacked on at the end of a very strong season, estranged from everything else by what's been called the best Dalek story of all time. That's to say nothing of the pressure of giving the Cybermen a return after a six and a half year absence, nor the pressure of making it something of an informal sequel to "The Ark in Space". Of course, this pressure was only magnified by the return of former script editor and co-creator of the Cybermen Gerry Davis coming back after seven and a half years to pen their return.

Throw in a production haunted by a curse from a petrified witch and you've got yourselves a ball game.

So let's get to it.

Serial 8: The Reign of Terror

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companions: Ian, Barbara, and Susan

Written by: Dennis Spooner
Directed by: Henric Hirsch & John Gorrie

Background & Significance: One of the things that strikes me most about the first season (or really, the first two and a half ish seasons) of Doctor Who is the way they applied a structure to the show's stories. It's something that's repeated later in Doctor Who's history (see the Davies era), but it's never more readily apparent than it is here. The structure here was to alternate between science fiction and historical stories, with the original plan to be one person writing the historical stories while another wrote the science fiction stories. And this pattern holds for the first few stories, where we have Terry Nation doing two science fiction stories in a row and John Lucarotti doing two historical stories in a row.

Unfortunately, this pattern didn't quite work out in the way the production team thought it would (writing takes a long time) and Nation wasn't able to write the sci-fi story after "Keys of Marinus", leaving us with "The Sensorites." Likewise, Lucarotti couldn't do the historical after "The Aztecs".

Enter Dennis Spooner.

Dennis Spooner was a successful children's television writer who found his way into the Doctor Who offices through a relationship with Terry Nation. He was pitched the concept of doing a Doctor Who story set during the French Revolution by script editor David Whitaker, leading Spooner to reappropriate the historical into something much more... comic. Spooner's interests and talents were in comedy after all, and unlike Lucarotti, he didn't have a background in the historical subject he was writing about, which led to a much... broader sort of tale.

What we're left with is "The Reign of Terror", which is easily the forgotten historical. Everyone knows "The Aztecs," and "Marco Polo" is legendary for the fact that it's missing. "Reign of Terror" is not so talked about.

That's unfortunate, I think, but not terribly surprising. It's hardly Spooner's best work, as he would go on to write the comic genius of "The Romans" and the revolutionary "The Time Meddler" as well as overseeing the script editing for a particularly strong stretch of stories across Doctor Who's second season. It doesn't help that this story had something of a changing of the guard behind-the-scenes, where the director of this story (Henric Hirsch) didn't quite enjoy working on the program and also happened to become rather ill amidst the rehearsal process for episode three. In fact, the story so disagreed with him that shortly after excusing himself from the rehearsal space (because of his illness) he was found just outside the production gallery by a PA, having collapsed.

The lesson? Doctor Who isn't necessarily for everyone. Needless to say, Hirsch never directed for Doctor Who again.With little time for a replacement, the production team quickly brought back John Gorrie, who had previously and recently directed "The Keys of Marinus".

I will say this about Hirsch, though. He is responsible for the first location shooting on Doctor Who, in which there were shots of The Doctor taking the long trek to Paris. It wasn't Hartnell, though. Just a stand-in. Which amuses me. But we still do get some lovely exterior shots, the first of many for the show. And I must admit I really enjoy that because it's iconic but also tremendously silly. I mean. It's not even Hartnell. It's a ruddy stand in!

We'll talk on this more. Maybe. Okay. Not really. You caught me.

So let's get to it!

Serial 136: The Twin Dilemma

Doctor: Colin Baker (6th Doctor)
Companion: Peri Brown

Written by: Anthony Steven
Directed by: Peter Moffat

Background & Significance: Of all the stories we've thus far reviewed on this blog, none have I been more scared of discussing than "The Twin Dilemma". It's not without reason. In a Doctor Who Magazine Poll in 2009 (in which all the readers ranked every TV story ever), "The Twin Dilemma" came dead last, lower even than "Timelash" and "Time and the Rani" (which, to date are bottom of the barrel, for me anyways). As a slight aside to this, "The Twin Dilemma" is the lowest rated story on this poll, while the story that came before it ("The Caves of Androzani") was ranked the best Doctor Who story of all time. The disparity, to me, is stark. It's weird that what's considered the best Doctor Who story of all time aired finished airing just five days before what is considered the worst.

Me? Yeah. Let's go with "worst".

"The Twin Dilemma" is terribly not good. More than anything (as with, it seems, the entire Colin Baker era) there are a series of huge mistakes and truly, truly bizarre choices that do nothing but hurt not just this serial, but the era.

One of the weird choices that deserves mentioning here, because we probably won't have space to do it later: Airing this story as the final story of Davison's final season, instead of ending it with "Caves of Androzani". The intial idea, of course, was to use this story to tease the viewership with a Doctor and get them excited and talking about that Doctor in the nine month wait for the next series. They had successfully overturned the madness of Tom Baker, and now they would show you where they were going with Colin Baker. Now you'd get excited and get buzzing and talking about it and you'd come back.

That is, of course, assuming that everyone is crazy excited about this new Doctor, which we all know, in retrospect, was not the case at all.

Most tragic, perhaps, is, of course, Colin Baker. We'll talk about it more later, but going into this, I'm going to remind you, again, that Colin Baker WANTED to be The Doctor. He wanted to be awesome. He wanted to outlast Tom Baker. To add to the tragic, he wanted people to come to their love of The Doctor. He wanted to earn it, but the thought was always on his mind. It's when you hear about the fact that he specifically went for extremely elevated diction in an effort to encourage children to expand their vocabulary by looking up the words at home that just... Yeah. That sorta thing just breaks me.

But then... you watch this. And you just... you can read the writing on the wall. You can just... it feels like a joke. Surely this isn't and can't be real. I mean, they made every single wrong decision they could possibly make. They didn't honestly think this would work. Did they?

Hang on. You'll see what I mean. Because I'm not wrong. There's a lot of lessons both in this and that we should come out learning. This is the story that started the epic and tragic fall of the classic run of Doctor Who. And it's heartbreaking to watch.

So let's get to it!