Science Fiction

Is any of this important, Doctor?

World building can be tricky business, particularly on Doctor Who. Too much exposition, often from a writer in love with his or her creation, bogs down proceedings, leading to long sequences of characters talking about the setting and elucidating the backstory rather than interacting with it; too little, by contrast, leaves viewers bewildered, wondering why they should care about the fate of Beta Seven or the plight of the Greebles. With the shift to fourteen episode seasons in Season Twenty-Three, three episode stories, like Ian Briggs’ “Dragonfire” (Story Production Code 7G), become commonplace, leaving scant time to create the world through which the Doctor will cavort. One solution, as in “Delta and the Bannermen,” is to make the setting paramount, the plot something of an afterthought relative to the narrative energy created by simply exploring the surroundings. Briggs takes the opposite tack, hurtling the Seventh Doctor, Mel, and future companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) through a series of action-laden sequences in the trade colony known as Iceworld, counting on the audience’s prior experience with generic (and some rather specific) science fiction settings and tropes to fill in the abundant background gaps left by the script.

Still, viewers need to be grounded in the world somehow, and Briggs, producer John Nathan-Turner, and script editor Andrew Cartmel solve that problem through the person of Sabalom Glitz (Tony Selby), the lovable scoundrel last seen during “The Trial of a Time Lord” some eighteen months prior. Though his identity is not elaborated upon in “Dragonfire,” trusting the audience to remember his casual relationship with the truth and essentially amoral nature—a belief in the power of continuity that plagues that season-long story—context clues suffice. The Doctor’s ready rapport with the con artist signals that an adventure is afoot. For those viewers who remember him, the setting immediately makes more sense as a futuristic playground, even though it has been barely sketched out on screen.

Needing money to pay his debts to the colony’s ruler, Kane (Edward Peel), Glitz comes into possession of a treasure map leading into the caverns below Iceworld, on the planet Svartos, guarded by the legendary ice dragon. It’s the mystery of this very creature that has drawn the Doctor to the outpost, so when beleaguered waitress Ace curses her boss using a dragon-related insult, the Doctor’s curiosity immediately goes into overdrive. (It must be noted that the Doctor and Mel liken the dragon to the Loch Ness Monster, a being that the Doctor has, on two separate occasions, revealed to be an alien, albeit a different one each time.) Glitz, in need of the purported treasure to retrieve his impounded spaceship, rather too coyly lets himself be persuaded to seek out the dragon, on the condition that Mel and Ace stay behind.

Briggs and director Chris Clough intercut the scenes of Glitz, Ace, Mel and the Doctor in the colony bar, which features a motley of extraterrestrial species—extras in plastic masks and facial makeup, to be sure, but effective at creating a budget “alien cantina” nonetheless—with Kane and his second in command, Belazs (Patricia Quinn), discussing how they have tricked Glitz into entering the caverns on an as-yet unexplained mission. Kane seems to have hypnotic powers, to say nothing of his ice grip and liquid nitrogen sleeping chamber. The audience gets just enough of his creepy demeanor and strange physiology to sustain interest, even though his motive remains obscured, just like his command center, the BBC’s fog machines working overtime to suggest sub-freezing temperatures.

After Ace loses her job for chucking a milkshake at a snooty customer (Shirin Taylor), she and Mel retreat to her slovenly quarters, where the plucky teen reveals that she’s a student from Perivale, in London, with a penchant for the more explosive aspects of chemistry. An orphan, she has no desire to return to her home planet, having been suspended from school for blowing up the art room with her patented “Nitro Nine” before a “time storm” whisked her from, ostensibly, 1987, to the future. Ace then demonstrates the explosives’ potency by blowing up an ice blockage, leading to them both being arrested and presented to Kane, who seeks to enlist her in his growing army of frozen mercenaries. One threatened detonation with Nitro Nine later, the dynamic duo escapes to the ice caverns, where Briggs, aware that he only has three episodes to unspool the plot, drops them, on cue, right in front of titular beast…

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This is the real Fifties.

For a series regarded as quintessentially British, very few moments on Doctor Who stand out as purely—which is to say, peculiarly—rooted in the British experience. True, there have been occasional references to cricket and boarding school, and explorations of British history make up an entire sub-genre of stories, but they all remain explicable, understandable, to the moderately well-read viewer from beyond the English Channel. That is, until Malcolm Kohll’s “Delta and the Bannermen” (Story Production Code 7F), showcasing that most specifically British of all institutions: the holiday camp.

Established as an inexpensive, all-inclusive getaway in the early twentieth century, the holiday camp, exemplified by the Butlin’s chain, typically features a series of shared, spartan accommodations not unlike barracks—and indeed several camps were used as such during the Second World War—with group meals at fixed times and elaborately planned entertainments on the fenced-in camp grounds, from fun races and skits through to dances and bathing beauty competitions. A veritable army of young people would serve as camp hosts, running the festivities and doing their best to engage campers in activities. While American analogues to the British holiday camp exist, as in the Catskills resorts of the ’50s, the incessant focus on constant communal interaction sets these camps apart. The visual language of the British holiday camp—bright colors, workers in matching blazers, and utilitarian architecture within a walled compound—makes for an instantly recognizable setting, at least if you happen to be British.

Many of the holiday camp guests in “Delta and the Bannermen” are not British, instead being Navarinos, “[s]quat, wrinkly, purply creatures,” transmogrified into human form in preparation for a nostalgia trip to Disneyland on Earth in 1959. The Seventh Doctor and Mel tag along on their trip, in a spaceship designed to look like a bus, by virtue of being the ten billionth customers at an intergalactic toll booth, winning spots on the tour as a prize. Also tagging along is Delta (Belinda Mayne), whom we see fleeing from a group of armed ruffians at the start of the story, defended bravely by what, to all intents, appear to be life-size plastic green army men.

There’s a curious lack of concern on the Doctor’s part about this nonchalant excursion of aliens into Earth’s past, even after the galactic tour bus smashes into an early American satellite, causing the Navarinos to land, somewhat shy of Anaheim, in Wales after the Doctor’s intervention with the TARDIS. Rather than immediately removing the aliens via his own perfectly functional time-space craft, he suggests they all stay at Shangri-La, the holiday camp they have fortuitously crashed next to, going so far as to ask the camp’s mechanic, Billy (David Kinder), to help Murray (Johnny Dennis), the Navarino tour guide, fix the “nav pod” on the interstellar bus.

Such temporal infelicities soon pale, however, as one of the Navarinos, Keillor (Brian Hibbard), turns out to be an intergalactic assassin who recognizes Delta as the “Chimeron queen,” relaying her location to Gavrok (Don Henderson), leader of the Bannermen seen hunting her at the beginning of this story’s first episode. And as a three episode story, events must needs move fast. (Season Twenty-Four, like the season just past, is budgeted for only fourteen twenty-five minute episodes, leading to a pair of three episode stories to close out Sylvester McCoy’s abbreviated debut season.) Kohll doesn’t even wait until the middle of the story to have Mel scream, as in the first episode cliffhanger she witnesses an egg carried in a glowing disco box by Delta start to hatch an unlikely green chicken…

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Build high for happiness.

As befits a science fiction show, Doctor Who adorns its plots with scientific trappings, drawing on physics and chemistry and applied mathematics, both fanciful and real, to propel and occasionally deepen the stories on offer. Seldom, though, does the series invoke social science, making Stephen Wyatt’s “Paradise Towers” (Story Production Code 7E) something of a rarity, presenting not some technological conundrum in its exploration of a decrepit mega-structure but an anthropological mystery. The question of how a gleaming residential resort turns into a dystopian shambles in the space of ten or so years drives the entire story forwards, and Wyatt devotes extensive screen time to the various sub-cultures that have developed amidst the detritus, much as another writer might lard expository scenes with technobabble about quantum flux reversals or temporal continuity generators.

Dystopian settings feature frequently enough on Doctor Who, the most recent examples being “Vengeance on Varos,” “Timelash,” and “The Mysterious Planet,” but typically such stories emphasize stopping a clearly defined antagonist, the warped culture inevitably a side effect of this malign influence. While “Paradise Towers” ultimately presents a Big Bad for the Doctor to defeat, the real plot complications stem from the behavior patterns of the inhabitants of this structure, the true villain only being revealed towards the end. When the Seventh Doctor and Mel arrive at the eponymous holiday destination, its amenities described in an infomercial on the TARDIS screens, they find not sun-dappled lounge chairs or luxurious mud baths but a decayed ruin. The Doctor’s curiosity peaks, and he begins to dig about the rubble and rubbish, only to have his archaeological meanderings interrupted by the Red Kangs, a group of crimson-clad young women armed with crossbows who, they quickly inform him, are “the best.”

In Doctor Who‘s early years, the Doctor quite often finds himself confronted with alien species which, although possessing that universal ability to speak English (later handwaved away as a function of being a Time Lord or the intervention of the TARDIS), behave in distinctly non-human ways, as in “The Sensorites” or “The Web Planet” especially. Here, on an unnamed planet, ostensibly populated by Earth-descended humans, the Seventh Doctor must channel those long-past experiences, and he shows a handy facility with understanding and mirroring the ritualistic behavior of the Red Kangs, winning their good graces—until they tire of the games and tie up him and Mel. Empathy only goes so far, it seems, and the plot is ticking.

Wyatt and director Nicholas Mallett intercut the Doctor’s encounter with the Kangs via scenes of a Yellow Kang (Astra Sheridan) killed offscreen by a mysterious assailant and then a cravenly Caretaker (Joseph Young) hesitantly making his way through the dark, graffiti-festooned corridors. He discovers the bloody remains of the Yellow Kang, then encounters her killer, a Robot Cleaner, with a similar outcome. The Chief Caretaker (Richard Briers) comments, after his young charge’s death, that he will make a “nice little snack” for yet another offscreen figure, represented by flashing lights in the basement. The fairly rapid accumulation of questions in this story could easily become tedious, and typically does on Doctor Who when a writer becomes enamored of his or her own cleverness, but Wyatt manages to keep things moving, with the Doctor’s probing interrogation of the Kangs—who are all named after common objects, like Fire Escape (Julie Brennon) and Bin Liner (Annabel Yuresha)—slowly doling out answers.

The Kangs—divided into Red, Yellow, and Blue groups—rule the corridors but are frequently chased by the Caretakers, an all-male force of pseudo-police under the Chief Caretaker’s command. Both groups fear the Cleaners, which take their remit somewhat literally, treating humans as refuse to gather up. And if that weren’t enough, after Mel and the Doctor are separated when the Caretakers raid the Red Kangs, our plucky companion meets yet another group inhabiting Paradise Towers: the Rezzies, or residents, in the form of two older women, Tilda (Brenda Bruce) and Tabby (Elizabeth Spriggs), who offer her tea and cakes. The better to fatten you up, my dear…

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Where am I? Who am I? And who are you?

As Season Twenty-Four of Doctor Who kicks off, we might as well be watching a different show entirely. Only nine months separate the end of the season-long story “The Trial of a Time Lord” in late 1986 and Pip and Jane Baker’s “Time and the Rani” (Story Production Code 7D) in September of 1987, but from the vastly revised, computer generated opening sequence, replete with new, synth-heavy arrangement of the classic Grainer theme and flashy fresh logo for the show, through to the brand new title actor, Sylvester McCoy, revealed in the fastest regeneration sequence on record, producer John Nathan-Turner finally seems to bring about his long-desired goal for the series: change.

At its heart, of course, the basics stay the same. “Time and the Rani” functions as a “normal” story, with the Rani (Kate O’Mara) making a welcome return as the amoral Time Lord neuro-scientist devoted to her experiments above all else, in this case an attempt to control all of time and space by creating a planet-sized brain, as one does. The Doctor finds himself, as ever, in the heart of the dastardly scheme, one that he must put to rights. But everything in the story feels snappier, from the editing to the musical cues to McCoy’s frenetic pace about the stage. The Bakers’ dialogue likewise zings; they are, by this point, already notorious in the fandom for their unwieldy verbosity, but the sheer speed of the back-and-forths, particularly between McCoy and O’Mara, adds to the velocity, even as the words themselves feel slightly beside the point.

Indeed, the plot, such as it is, proves mostly superfluous to the spectacle. Not ten minutes pass before director Andrew Morgan delivers several fast-cut, elaborate effects sequences, shot in a quarry as befits Doctor Who, involving explosions and floating bubbles that trap unwary prey before detonating. The daring combination of practical and computer-generated effects works surprisingly well given the relatively crude technology—to modern eyes—being used. The overall experience feels new to the viewer, even as companion Mel (Bonnie Langford) and the familiar trappings of the TARDIS help ground this new incarnation in Doctor Who‘s long apostolic succession.

The Rani draws the TARDIS off course to the planet of Lakertya; the resulting crash causes the Doctor’s regeneration, shot quickly without the assistance of Sixth Doctor Colin Baker. The Seventh Doctor’s introduction leans heavily into the notion of the regeneration crisis, but rather than the unpleasant descent into madness suffered by the Sixth Doctor or the inexplicable sidelining of Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor caused by his mental collapse (both stories overseen by Nathan-Turner), McCoy’s Doctor finds his uncertainty, his disorientation, leveraged as part of the Rani’s plan, a seamless and effective transition into this new take on the character. In order to trick the Doctor into helping her experiments, she dresses as Mel, down to the frizzy red hair and shoulder pads that would put a gridiron linebacker to shame. The Doctor’s post-regeneration fuzziness, amplified by the Rani’s amnesia drugs, sees him figuring out his new identity against an antagonistic foil, so that when he snaps at her, it feels appropriate. She is a villain, after all.

The script even makes time for a light-hearted costume selection sequence, with the Seventh Doctor cycling through Napoleon’s uniform and a professor’s cap-and-gown before donning the Fifth, Fourth, Third, and Second Doctors’ ensembles, finally landing on a quite fetching beige jacket, suspenders, and hat combination. All the while, the Rani tries to manipulate the Doctor via her disguise, but the overall tone of proceedings remains light, almost breezy, in pace as well as effect—despite one side character (Karen Clegg’s Sarn) already being incinerated, her pseudo-reptilian Lakertyan skeleton lovingly lingered over by Morgan’s camerawork. As yet, there’s none of the pathos that so pervades both the Fifth and Sixth Doctor’s runs. Shades of the Sixth Doctor strangling Peri, though, the Seventh Doctor does engage in a physical altercation with his (real) companion…

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