I begin my top three Doctor Who adventures with a wonderful story that rounded off Jon Pertwee’s second season as the Doctor. It is a testament to the production team that they managed to work within the constraints of the Doctor’s enforced exile on Earth with such skill and creativity, and they saved the best in Season 8 until the very end.
Of all the stories in my top ten, I think The Deadly Assassin is the one that will be most surprising. Not because it is in any way a bad story – but it is not necessarily one that is universally acclaimed as a classic. The story however is very important in Doctor Who’s history on two counts; it is the first time we travel to the Doctor’s home world of Gallifrey (not counting the brief scenes in The War Games and The Three Doctors), and it is the first time we see the Master portrayed by an actor other than Roger Delgado.
It’s the end. But the moment has been prepared for …
Logopolis is a story I both love and hate all at once. A fitting end to Tom Baker’s seven seasons as the Doctor, I remain unable to watch this story without believing that maybe, just maybe, if I wish hard enough the Doctor won’t die at the end of episode four. But he always does, it’s always heartbreaking, and I am always moved by Baker’s calm implacability as he acknowledges his time has come to a close … and a new season is about to begin.
Peter Davison’s debut as the Fifth Doctor owes much to Season 18 Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead’s love of mathematics. When invited to replace the original Season 19 debut story with a new script, Bidmead would revisit certain ideas he had used in Tom Baker’s swan song Logopolis – in particular the concept of recursion, which in that story had manifested itself as a TARDIS within a TARDIS. For Castrovalva, Bidmead would put this concept on steroids.
Peter Davison’s first broadcast adventure was not actually his first recorded adventure – by this stage they had recorded Four to Doomsday, The Visitation, and Kinda. In practice this works extremely well, providing a TARDIS crew already well settled with one another, allowing them to pull off an ambitious regeneration story. Picking up directly from Logopolis (including a rare pre-title sequence film section reprising the regeneration) the TARDIS crew escape from the Pharos Project on earth to find the Doctor highly unstable – the first time in the show’s history it is overtly suggested that a regeneration can go wrong. The Doctor spends most of the adventure trying to find a peaceful space in which to recover while his regeneration completes – initially a room in the TARDIS known as the Zero Room, then latterly a dwelling of simplicity, the titular town of Castrovalva. Behind this story, very much in the theme of recursion, are layers of traps within traps, all set by the Master.
Kindapping and then releasing Adric at the very start of the adventure, the Master impels Adric to send the TARDIS directly into a supernova. In the truest style of the Hooded Claw, the Master then lays a trap within a trap – the town of Castrovalva itself. Leaving information about the fictional town in the TARDIS databanks, the Master uses Adric’s mathematical genius to use a skill revealed in the previous adventure of Logopolis – the capacity to build matter through pure mathematics. Adric constructs the entire town as a trap for the remaining TARDIS crew, and the Master lies in wait (disguised, obviously!) for the right moment to strike.
The more thoughtful reader might conclude with some justification that the entire plot is needlessly complicated – but to write off the story on these grounds would be to miss the enjoyment of the story. In rather the same way that The Edge of Destruction was crucial for building the relationship of the initial TARDIS crew of Season 1, Castrovalva really allows the viewer to get a better flavour for how Nyssa and Tegan would relate to the new Doctor; unfortunately for Adric, he spends most of the episode imprisoned by the Master, perhaps foretelling the rather grim destiny the producers had in mind for him. While the inspiration for the story is undoubtedly mathematical (making this story one of my dad’s favourites) it is not so overtly mathematical that it is impossible for the less mathematically minded (viz. me!) to follow!
Davison himself plays his role superbly – there is a wonderful moment in episode 1 in which he appears to regress to the mannerisms of the First and Second Doctors – very well acted, and an utterly charming nod to the show’s heritage. As debut stories go, Castrovalva is one of the very best, and a very pleasing conclusion to the ‘New Beginnings’ trilogy. Perhaps because it borrows so heavily from themes in Logopolis, it is harder to imagine this story working so well as a standalone adventure. The fact that it nevertheless does, is very much to its credit!
Want to watch Castrovalva? You can buy it today on BBC Store for £4.99
The Keeper of Traken is an example of the BBC taking a very good story, and making it even better by incorporating a new element. Unlike The Armageddon Factor, a weak story requiring the narrative of the Key to Time to rescue it, The Keeper of Traken would have worked as a perfectly good story even before series producer John Nathan Turner spotted the opportunity to use the position of the villain to serve a greater narrative need.
We join the story with Tom Baker’s time in the TARDIS drawing to a close. Romana and K9 had left in the previous story, Warriors’ Gate, and the Doctor and Adric had finally managed to escape from e-Space back into n-Space. The TARDIS is then drawn off course by a mysterious entity, an elderly man sat upon a throne, who reveals himself to be the titular Keeper of the Traken Union – a society (as the Doctor puts it) based upon ‘people being terribly nice to each other.’ The position of Keeper enables one individual to become an ordering principle, maintaining peace and order throughout the system, but when an incumbent Keeper dies the time of transition is always difficult. The present Keeper requests the help of the Doctor to meet an unknown evil, which he feels is centred around a calcified statue known as the Melkur.
The Doctor arrives on Traken to find distrust rife among the Five Consuls of Traken, the ruling council who serve the Keeper. Unbeknownst to the Council, one of their number, Kassia, has come under the influence of the Melkur, determined that her husband Tremas should not become the new Keeper. Melkur turns out to be no mere static statue, and has already murdered one man. The Doctor and Adric become the scapegoats for Melkur’s actions, as the Melkur uses Kassia to discredit Tremas and to become Keeper nominate herself. When the old Keeper dies, ‘Melkur’ uses his link with Kassia to become the Keeper himself.
So far, the story follows exactly the original intent of author Johnny Byrne. The story would have centred around Melkur as a malevolent being, and as planned he would have been defeated at the end of episode 4. John Nathan Turner however, spotted an excellent opportunity to use Byrne’s story to resurrect a very old foe indeed. Rather than make the Melkur the calcified body of an alien being, we discover at the end of episode 2 that there is another TARDIS on Traken, and by the end of episode 3 the audience realise, long before the Doctor does, that the Melkur statue is the TARDIS of his old enemy, the Master – superbly realised (in mannerisms, if sadly not in makeup!) by Geoffrey Beevers, who reprises the decayed Master portrayed by Peter Pratt in The Deadly Assassin. At the end of his regeneration cycle and facing impending death, the Master proposes to use the powers of the Keeper to steal the Doctor’s body and regenerate himself.
While the Master is thwarted, as Byrne always intended the villain to be, the story does not end on a happy note. The Doctor and Adric depart, leaving Tremas with his daughter Nyssa to clean up the damage caused to Traken. Nyssa’s character would prove so popular that Turner would bring her back in the following story, Logopolis, providing actress Sarah Sutton with an honour shared by Frazier Hines of staying as a companion for longer than the original story they were scheduled to appear in. For Tremas however … his own name was the most crucial change in the whole script, a fateful foretelling of his destiny. For the eagle-eyed of you will have spotted that ‘Tremas’ is of course an anagram of ‘Master’ … leading to one of the show’s most iconic moments, as the Master exults: “A new body! At last!” And takes over the body of Tremas. With more than a passing resemblance to Roger Delgado, the new Master sets off in pursuit of the Doctor …
The Keeper of Traken is a wonderful story. The sets and costumes are all beautiful, the story clever without being complex, and Beevers’ Master is deliciously malevolent. The characters are superbly realised, and particular credit is due to Anthony Ainley, who had the chance to demonstrate his capacity to play a very good man, before embracing with relish the evilness of the Master. Even Adric, who usually gets a bad press, demonstrates that alongside Nyssa he could have grown and developed in the role – the story being a firm confirmation (alongside Kinda) that the Season 19 TARDIS was very much overcrowded.
While the story very much leads into Logopolis, and is best enjoyed as the first in a trilogy, it is also a superb standalone adventure that manages to pay homage to the series’ history without alienating viewers who (like me!) had not grown up with Delgado’s Master. To me, that is one of the highest compliments you could pay any classic episode of Doctor Who!
If you wanted to enjoy The Keeper of Traken for the first time, you can watch it for £6.99 on the BBC Store
We have reached a special section in my classic episode countdown, as over the next three weeks we will be reviewing three stories that I struggled to place in a clear order, mainly as I have come to regard them as one story in three parts. The three stories come at the end of Season 18, when Tom Baker’s time as the Doctor was coming to a close, and at the very beginning of Season 19 as Peter Davison took on the unenviable role of filling Baker’s shoes. Baker had played the Doctor for seven years, significantly longer than any of the previous actors to play the role (Hartnell and Troughton were in the role for three years; Pertwee for five) and the prospect of a new actor stepping into the role generated a large amount of uncertainty.
New producer John Nathan-Turner therefore decided to adopt a trick first used when Baker replaced Pertwee. In Season 12, the production team used the familiar faces of UNIT for Baker’s debut story, before bringing back the familiar foes of the Sontarans, the Daleks, and the Cybermen. For the conclusion of Season 18 and the beginning of Season 19, JNT brought back the character of the Master, last seen as Delgado’s Master in Frontier in Space, and as a charred husk in The Deadly Assassin. With Roger Delgado sadly departed after his untimely death in 1973, the decision was taken to cast a Delgado lookalike, Anthony Ainley, and to show the regeneration of the decayed Master into a new, younger Master. A further idea to bring Elisabeth Sladen back to play Sarah Jane Smith for four episodes proved ultimately unsuccessful – Sladen quite sensibly realising she would have played a bit part at best.
Following on from the E-Space Trilogy, the series follows a loose trilogy beginning with The Keeper of Traken, in which the Master returns, followed by Baker’s swansong Logopolis, in which the Doctor falls to death attempting to foil the Master’s latest madcap plan for universal domination. While not initially intended that Ainley would return for Peter Davison’s debut story Castrovalva, it was eventually decided to have the debut of Season 19 follow directly from the conclusion of Season 18, meaning that one is able to watch from Keeper of Traken to Castrovalva as one continuous narrative, even though each story is independent and stands strong in their own right – perhaps reflecting why BBC initially released these stories in a single boxset entitled ‘New Beginnings.’
I struggled to place these three stories in order. I love them all equally, have come to regard them as one story, and if I could award them joint 26th place, I would have done so. I have nevertheless chosen to bite the bullet and attempt to rank the stories – and over the next three weeks you will get to find out which of the three I have enjoyed the best.
By 2014 I was tantalisingly close to completing my Doctor Who DVD collection. Notwithstanding the agonising over whether to buy the DVDs with currently missing material (The Moonbase for example) a few stories remained, not least this one. And while it was kept until last, it was certainly one of the best!
First of all, let me share why such an excellent adventure was off the shelves for so long. Not only did the BBC get rid of the original broadcast tapes for the Hartnell and Troughton eras, Jon Pertwee’s era was also badly affected. While his entire era survives, certain of his stories only survived in broadcast quality in black and white – examples including Terror of the Autons, The Daemons, and The Ambassadors of Death. For most, they were able to procure low grade colour versions, which could be combined with the high resolution black and white prints to produce something approximating the original broadcast tape – the Destruction of Time website has a good account of this process.
The Mind of Evil is somewhat unique however, in that no colour footage at all survives of the story. To recover the original colour, the BBC had to use an ingenious process called “Chroma Dot Recovery.” In short – when the BBC converted the original broadcast tapes to black and white film to sell overseas, little dots (the aforementioned chroma dots) were included, indicating what the original colour had been. Using this information, the producers were able (at length and great expense) to recreate the original colour, as they had done for the Ambassadors of Death – a video showing how this process was used for Dad’s Army can be watched here.
So far so good. Except episode one doesn’t have any chroma dots! As Richard Molesworth would explain in Wiped! the dots were due to a mistake in the process of creating the film, and for the first episode the BBC technicians had processed the film properly – leaving no dots! For us in the 21st century, the only way we are now able to enjoy this episode in colour is thanks to the reconstruction team who painstakingly coloured in EVERY SINGLE FRAME of the 25 minute episode. With that in view, the greatest miracle is that they were able to produce the DVD at all!
Once complete and colourised however, the story is far from a disappointment, and is a real highlight of the U.N.I.T. Era of Doctor Who. The Doctor and Jo travel to Stangmoor Prison to watch a ruthless criminal be processed by the ‘Keller Machine’, a device supposedly able to deprive individuals of their most evil impulses. The Doctor suspects all is not well, and he is right to do so – for his old enemy the Master is at work in the background. The machine is in fact an alien creature that targets the worst impulses of those who come into contact with it and imbibes them. The Master proposes using the device to seize control of the prison, then to use the inmates to steal a highly destructive weapon from U.N.I.T (it must be acknowledged that this story is not Captain Yates or Sergeant Benton’s finest hour …)
Convoluted though the plot perhaps is, as ever it is the principle stars that make the story a joy. Delgado and Pertwee shine in every scene, especially where they face one another, and Katy Manning very quickly shakes off the damsel in distress stereotype of Terror of the Autons, being active and assertive. And of course, who can forget the wonderful moment in episode five where the Brigadier infiltrates the prison, dressed in civvies and affecting a Cockney accent …
You may reach the end and ask one pertinent questions: why is the Master trying to start World War 3? Why seize control of the prison in such a convoluted manner? How come Benton and Yates are the only people not murdered by the convicts? To pick on these quibbles however is to rob yourself of the enjoyment of an excellent, gripping, and entertaining drama. It may have been the Pertwee story I waited longest for, but the wait was certainly worth it!
The Mind of Evil is available to download on the BBC Store for £9.99
Next Time: Set your multi-loop stabiliser for Douglas Adams’ first Doctor Who adventure
We have reached the heady echelons of the top 50 in the countdown! Along the way we have already reviewed some superb stories, all worthy of challenging for the top 50. By now, we are getting into some of my best enjoyed stories, and kick off with a classic Jon Pertwee adventure. As regular readers will recall, Roger Delgado’s Master appeared in every story of Season 8 – a decision I am not entirely persuaded was the best, especially for The Claws of Axos and Colony in Space. So it was something of a relief to discover that Delgado did not make his return until the middle of Season 9 – and oh what a return!
After their last encounter in Season 8 finale The Daemons, the Master was sent to a high security prison. We find the Doctor and Jo visiting the Master in prison, to discover that nearby oil rigs have been attacked by a presence unknown. Investing the disturbance, they discover that the Master has hoodwinked the Prison Warden into believing he can prevent an incursion by enemy agents. Meanwhile, the Master has made contact with the titular ‘Sea Devils’ – ocean based cousins of the Silurians from the eponymous episode who bear a distinct resemblance to sea-turtles in humanoid form. His plan is very simple – to escape his imprisonment, and in so doing to help the Sea Devils destroy humankind.
Compared to their later appearance in Warriors of the Deep, the Sea Devils make for a very effective foil – certainly untrustworthy and prepared to be vicious, but also (as with their Silurian cousins) displaying the distinct impression of being an intelligent and civilised race, no worse than humanity in their viciousness. Other guest characters put in a very respectable showing, not least Naval Captain Hart who plays the equivalent role of the Brigadier in this story. A special mention also goes to the submarine crew for their scenes spent kidnapped by the Sea Devils – but especially to the BBC effects’ crew, who mistakenly managed to recreate a British nuclear submarine propeller by sheer co-incidence, and had a call from British intelligence asking where they had received the information from!
But the reason this serial is so high, as with many of Pertwee’s stories, is the personal interaction between Pertwee and Delgado. Whether their sword fight in the episode 2 cliffhanger, or the moment when Pertwee cheerfully informs Delgado “It may interest you to know, that I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow” (“You’ve done what?!“) – every moment they spend jousting on the screen is absolutely wonderful. Couple that to a genuinely good story, and you have vintage and enjoyable Doctor Who. Highly commended!
It was probably a matter of time before I managed to sneak a David Bowie reference into the blog, and I do so by referring to the song that gave rise to one of the BBC’s most ingenious drama creations: Life of Mars.
The catalyst for this post comes from this tweet featuring the new Big Finish adventure to feature Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, reprising their roles as the Fourth Doctor and Romana. I was struck by the incongruous appearance of the modern day actor alongside the 80s attire of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, and it gave me to pondering – what about a Doctor Who episode that specifically played up how anachronistic the past is? We know that the formula works – it was a big reason (alongside the frankly excellent John Simm and Philip Glennister) for the success of Life on Mars – arguably it contributed in part to the success of the Back to the Future movie trilogy.
What might it look like? Well, for that I will revisit a poll I put out last week on Twitter that was ultimately lost in the excitement over the missing episodes reply from the BBC. The poll showed an astonishing 80% of respondents agreeing that they would like to see someone take on the role of Roger Delgado’s Master in the event that Sean Pertwee were to portray his father’s role of the Third Doctor.
I ruminated on this a little, and this is the idea I have landed on. The story would feature Capaldi’s Doctor (plus we presume a new companion) crossing over with Pertwee’s Doctor – in the Third Doctor’s timeline it would take place between The Green Death and The Time Warrior, conveniently allowing the producers to allocate a new UNIT companion as a one-off for the production. It would see the two Doctors stuck in the ‘wrong’ timelines, and the majority of entertainment would come from the clash of cultures – whether Capaldi’s companion appalled at what the 70s were like, to Pertwee’s companion astonished at the wonders of 21st Century Britain (imagine the fun of a scientist from the 1970s encountering an iPad!)
The bigger draw however would be that the villain of the piece would be Delgado’s Master – and I personally would love to see one of two Bens portraying him; either Ben Miller (who I actually really enjoyed as the Sheriff of Nottingham) or Sir Ben Kingsley. Not only would it be a fitting tribute to the Pertwee era, but it could potentially tie up one of the oldest loose threads in Doctor Who history. That is to say – that the BBC could then bring back Geoffrey Beevers, who has been having something of a renaissance in Big Finish productions as the decayed Master. It would not be hard given the make up required to make him resemble the Peter Pratt Master, or his own version from The Keeper of Traken. And thus the story could give a much more satisfying conclusion to the Delgado era than his disappointing exit in Frontier in Space.
I grant you that the idea set out above is very much a classic series’ fan’s wildest fantasy. But oh what a story it could be!
No review of the classic series can be complete without referencing the Doctor who deserves his time in the sun, and a story that is only second in his era to a story that is jaw droppingly brilliant. Which is unusual, because I hated the TV Movie when it was first shown!
This in fact was the first Doctor Who story I watched that was not a repeat or on VHS – and from the moment I heard they were bringing it back I simply could not wait to watch it. Until this point, my Doctor Who enthusiasm was enjoyed through the medium of VHS, and the occasional reminisces of my dad. Now it was back (and as the BBC said, it’s about time!) through a special one-off television movie featuring Paul McGann as the new 8th Doctor.
Let’s begin by acknowledging the elephant in the room. It was produced by an American television company, and therefore is much closer to Macgyver in production values than spaceship-suspended-from-a-string courtesy of Auntie Beeb. It contains that kiss between the Doctor and his companion, Dr. Grace Holloway, which prompted the following reaction (inspired by classic murder-mystery spoof Murder by Death) from me:
All that said – if you suspend disbelief and ignore some of the obvious plot holes and continuity errors, this is a thoroughly enjoyable story. McGann is superb as the Doctor, beginning a reputation that would grow through Big Finish audio stories, and finally flourish through a stellar six minutes in Night of the Doctor. The supporting cast play their roles with aplomb, even if Eric Roberts does grate somewhat as the Master. And while the production values are undoubtedly American (big, loud and dramatic) you cannot fault their professional edge. Poor Sylvester McCoy, who was brought back pretty much to be shot, suffer a botched heart operation and then regenerate, surely would have given his eye teeth to have the production budget this story had during his era.
The story itself is straightforward (ish …) – while transporting the Master’s remains back to Gallifrey, the TARDIS is knocked off course and lands in San Francisco on the eve of the new millennium. The doctor is shot in a gang shooting, and regenerates after surgeons attempt to correct his anomaly of two hearts. The Master meanwhile escapes, takes over the body of a hospital worker, and enlists a gang member who has stolen the key to the TARDIS to help find the Doctor. The Master’s aim is simple – to use the power of the TARDIS to steal the Doctor’s remaining lives. The Doctor meanwhile, rescued by Dr. Holloway, is trying to remember who he is, and fix the TARDIS before the Master’s abuse of it ends the world.
Compared to the hormone fest of the Eleventh Doctor and River Song, this is comparatively tame fare – I have grown to love this story with time and appreciate it for what it is – in no small part as the novelisation embellishes many of the details and explains the plot far more satisfactorily. I remember once watching it on a big screen projector and thinking that it would have been spectacular in the cinema – while Day of the Doctor was undoubtedly the better story, I think the BBC could take a better queue from Paul McGann’s first outing as the Doctor if they were to ever produce another adventure for the big screen.
If I have come to appreciate the story even more with age, the other thing that has increased over time is my regret that Paul McGann did not get at least one full season as the Eighth Doctor – a regret that has only increased after Night of the Doctor. What adventures we would have enjoyed … this story therefore belongs in the same category as as tales like The Time Meddler and The War Machines – a thrilling glimpse of what could have been … an allusion to an era of the story that we fans can only imagine.
Nevertheless, I am thankful not just that this story was made, but that the BBC have woven it into the history of the show so well. It deserves its place in the classic era of the show.
Dan Talks Doctor Who 