The most popular and longest reigning actor to play the Doctor, Tom Baker’s return to the role is nothing short of explosive. His Big Finish adventures have had that certain unique blend of drama and absurd humor that made his era so remarkable. The details on his second series reuniting Baker with the late Mary Tamm and John Leeson have been coming in, but the finale looks quite amazing! It’s a Dalek-filled finale for the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 in this forthcoming full cast Doctor Who audiobook
Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor on TV, 1975-81), Romana (Mary Tamm, 1978-79) and K9 (John Leeson, 1977-present day) become embroiled in an epic battle with the Daleks in the second season finale of The Fourth Doctor Adventures.
The Final Phase is released in July 2013, and also features David Warner (Titanic, The Omen) and Toby Hadoke (Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver) reprising their recurring roles of Cuthbert and Mr Dorrick. Nicholas Briggs (Doctor Who, Torchwood) is the Voice of the Daleks.
Written By: Robert Banks Stewart, adapted by John Dorney, directed by Ken Bentley Release date: January 2012
The Doctor and Leela have arrived on Earth in what appears to be a sleepy English village, but all is not what it seems. Ghosts stalk the land, a haunted mansion draws attention to itself like a lightning rod and time has become broken, events erratically re-arranging themselves around the time travelers who seem immune to the alterations, but not the consequences.
Just who lives in the haunted Grange and what kind of threat does he pose to humanity? The truth is mind-staggering in its scope and stretches into a future on the brink of collapse just as the present teeters on the brink of destruction.
The arrival of Tom Baker in Big Finish audio productions is cause for celebration to be sure. I do appreciate the AudioGo series, but it is so very bizarre and outlandish that is clearly its own animal and not even close to ‘traditional’ Doctor Who. I appreciate that we have both, but I have been greatly anticipating what Tom Baker could accomplish with the full facilities of Big Finish at his side. Even moreso, what would an un-produced story from the 14th season even be like? Apparently it would have more in common with the following year under Graham Williams than the story that was screened, The Talons of Weng Chiang.
Graham Williams was clearly at the apex of an era of wit and madcap humor in his Key to Time series, but is first year is no less remarkable, if only a trifle uneven. It seems that the program was struggling to find its footing and still reeling from the departure of producer Philip Hinchcliff. Neither wholeheartedly mad and not entirely free of the Gothic horror that had preceded it, Williams’ first series ended awkwardly with a low budget space opera on Gallifrey called the Invasion of Time. I posit that Foe From the Future fits more comfortably in the place of tinsel alien invaders and clumsy Sontarans than the evil Magnus Greel slaughtering the innocents of Victorian London.
For some time the myth surrounding The Foe From the Future has been that it was provided by Robert Banks Stewart unfinished and hastily rewritten by Robert Holmes into The Talons of Weng Chiang. Listening to the audio, that is clearly not the case. John Dorney has taken the copious notes and partial script for five out of the six parts and woven together a wonderful adventure that is exciting, strange and full of whimsical notions that has me craving an on-screen depiction. Of course, there are several moments that would have been laughably executed with the shoe-string BBC budget, but this is so perfectly classic Doctor Who that it is painful to not have the opportunity to view it with a friend, pints in hand.
The plot starts off simply with a mystery surrounding the Grange and a temporal anomaly that the Doctor cannot pin down. Teaming up with ‘Charlotte from the village’ as the Doctor insists on calling her, the trio soon discover that it is not just the Grange itself that is haunted by ghosts out of time. The village as a whole is being torn apart at the seams, citizens and places winking out of existence randomly, which makes the Doctor and Leela look particularly peculiar as they are the only individuals who notice. Sitting in the center of the Grange like a great big spider is Jalnik, a devious and dastardly deformed scientist from the far future, transformed into a carnivorous half man/half preying mantis who thrives on raw meat.
Discovering the time portal, the Doctor and Leela bring Charlotte from the village into the future, a single domed city besieged by massive preying mantis-like monsters. Classes are held desperately attempting to train the few remaining human beings in the manners of the 20th Century. Everything from parlance to cooking to driving a Ford Cortina is covered with laughably poor reference material.
The only hope for a race of humans contemplating extinction is to escape into the past, a world that is rapidly becoming infected by the future. The entire affair is a metaphysical noose that tightens around the throat of history with the only contortionist possible of arranging an escape being the Doctor.
The audio landscape is expertly presented, bringing the listener into a world of rural simplicity, futuristic (studio-bound) settings and apocalyptic terrains populated by roaring monsters. The tone and feel of the 1970′s is lovingly maintained from the villainous dialog to the Doctor’s witticisms. One can only imagine what a scene depicting the Doctor and his companions escaping the clutches of gigantic insects in a barren future world would look like, but it sounds brilliant!
Paul Freeman as Jelnik is absolutely astonishing as one of the maddest of villains ever. I clocked back one of his rants three times to savor the insanity inherent in his delivery. Louise Jameson is of course an old hand at the audio format by now, but paired up with Tom Baker again must have been a mixed blessing. We all have heard that there was some friction on the set back in the day between the two, but you’d never know it seeing as how well the pair gel in the audio format. Leela is granted some stupendous moments to shine and the Doctor’s moods run a marathon gamut from heroic to sheer lunacy.
Despite my anticipation, I had misgivings about these missing stories and after hearing the harsh criticism targeted toward The Foe From the Future in online reviews, I lowered my expectations. Additionally, I had heard Tom Baker lilting toward the ceiling like a balloon filled with spiked Lucozade in the Paul Magrs AudioGo series which caused me to gird my ears for embarrassment. All the same, this was truly a joy to listen to and genuine treat for fans of the Tom Baker era as it moved from the dark era of Holmes and Hinchcliff and into the absurdity of the Williams years.
Highly recommended.
The Foe From the Future was bundled together with (the less impressive) Valley of Death in the Fourth Doctor Lost Stories Box Set released by Big Finish. It can be ordered directly from their site or from online retailers such as Mike’s Comics.
Further releases for 2012, additional Tom Baker adventures and a new Companion Chronicles story featuring Carolin Shaw as Liz Shaw, the companion to the Third Doctor.
Click on the images below to pre-order from Big Finish. They can also be ordered domestically in the US from Mike’s Comics.
Story 1.03
Wraith of the Iceni
Starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela
By: John Dorney, Directed by: Ken Bentley
Britain. The height of the Roman occupation. The Doctor has brought Leela to ancient Norfolk to learn about her ancestors… but has no idea how much of an education she is going to get.
Because this is the time of Boudica’s rebellion. When the tribe of the Iceni rises up and attempts to overthrow the Roman masters.
As Leela begins to be swayed by the warrior queen’s words, the Doctor has to make a decision: save his friend… or save history itself?
Release date: 31 March 2012 Energy of the Daleks
Starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela
Story 1.04
Written and directed by Nicholas Briggs
The Doctor and Leela find themselves in the middle of London at the time of a new energy crisis. The GlobeSphere Corporation seems to have all the answers – but several thousand protestors beg to differ.
What is the connection between the National Gallery and a base on the Moon? Has radical thinker Damien Stephens simply sold out, or does he have a more sinister agenda?
The Doctor has detected a mysterious energy reading. Could it be that the most evil creatures in the universe have returned to claim ultimate victory once and for all?
Release date: 30 April 2012
Trail of the White Worm
Starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela
Story 1.05
By Alan Barnes, directed by Ken Bentley
Details to come, featuring Geoffrey Beevers as the Master.
Release date: 31 May 2012
The Oseidon Adventure
Starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela
Story 1.06
By Alan Barnes, directed by Ken Bentley
Details to come, featuring Geoffrey Beevers as the Master and the Oseidons from The Android Invasion.
Release date: 30 June 2012
The Companion Chronicles: Binary Story 6.09 Starring Caroline John as Liz Shaw Written by Eddie Robson, Directed by Lisa Bowerman
A damaged alien computer is being guarded by UNIT troops, but the soldiers simply vanish…
Usually the Brigadier would call in the Doctor – but on this occasion the Time Lord is being kept out of the loop. Instead, it’s up to Elizabeth Shaw to oversee the project to repair this alien technology, and recover the missing men.
And then Liz vanishes too.
Trapped inside the machine, Liz faces a battle for survival against a lethal defence system. And this time, she must save the day without the Doctor at her side…
The classic Doctor Who adventure that pitted the Doctor against the dreaded shape-changing Zygons remains one of my most beloved adventures (still not on DVD for some weird reason). Full of horror, mystery and atmosphere, it also shows Mad Tom Baker in trim form acting his socks off. (full review here)
Like many Hinchcliffe-era stories, the action, Hammer-style horror and violence are played up with several particularly stirring moments such as someone who appears to be Harry Sullivan coming at Sarah Jane with a pitchfork and of course the Zygons themselves lunging after Sarah from the corner of a dark hallway. But in the end it’s all made quite family-friendly thanks to the cutest Lochness Monster ever.
This jigsaw captures that nostalgia and makes you work for it as well. Fun stuff.
Story 1.01 By Nicholas Briggs Released 31 January 2012 “Have you ever been stuck in Gloucester during a heavy rain?… Worse than that.”
Tom Baker, the man who served the longest time as the lead in Doctor Who, has returned to the role that made him a household name.
Following his departure from the scarf and floppy hat that he donned on televised adventures for seven years running, he has had his share of controversy in regards to a reunion with his fellow Time Lords. Part of this may be that it was the single greatest role of his career and he had not planned on that being the case. It should have been a stepping stone, not a tomb stone. While Baker had received several offers during his time as the Doctor, after he left, all of them dried up. Somewhat dejected, he refused to take part in the 1983 story, The Five Doctors. He did appear in a cameo for the 30th Anniversary debacle, Dimensions in Time, but he had made it plain that he was very particular about how he would take up the mantle of Who again.
He recorded three series of audio adventures penned by Paul Magrs which were far and away more eccentric and bizarre than anything that he had done on TV. It seemed that if he were to become Doctor Who again, he was not interested in continuing down the path laid out for him in the 1970′s, which is understandable but difficult for fandom to understand. Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann each have taken great divergences from their on screen performances when recording an audio adventure, but in Tom Baker’s case, it was just so very different.
The story goes that he openly criticized the scripts sent to him by Big Finish when he was asked to take part in the audio revival, so one would expect that Destination Nerva would be very special indeed.
His arrival in a new series of stories dubbed to be set just after The Talons of Weng Chiang is an incredibly weird decision. If anything, it detracts from the enjoyment of Destination Nerva and I consider it a mistake. This is not, as the advert tells us, a return to Saturday teatime 1977. It’s a different persona and attitude and that takes getting used to.
Leaving Professor Lightfoot and Henry Jago on the foggy streets of London, the Doctor and Leela arrive in the aftermath of a violent battle between a British regiment and strange alien beings set inside a manor house. The only survivor gives the travelers very little to go on and even the listener is lost in a sea of explosions and mise-en-scène dialog. The idea put forth by writer/producer Nicholas Briggs was to start right off with action which again I think was a mistake. An alien spacecraft takes off, destroying the manor house. The TARDIS takes flight after it and arrives instead aboard a vessel bearing workmen bound for Space Station Nerva, several hundred years later.
Inside the space station, nothing is working correctly and the staff are struggling to keep systems operational with little success. A charismatic stranger arrives and starts to spread a deadly infection, threatening to take over the entire station and then… much more. The stranger is Lord Jack, the same man who slaughtered several aliens and stole a spacecraft in 1895. His intentions are unclear at first, but he is obviously up to no good.
The Doctor and Leela have to not only earn the trust of the station staff and quickly find a solution to the dilemma, but also uncover the mystery of the spacecraft in the 18th Century manor house and just how Lord Jack has survived for hundreds of years in deep space, expanding the British Empire to alien worlds through brutality and cruelty.
Until mid-way through the second act, I had little to no idea what was going on.
The infection spread into a massive epidermis, invading the inner workings of the space station as well as the exterior. A horrifying mental image, it also elicits a fearful response from the listener as it is spread by contact and the creature itself is fast becoming impossible to avoid. The Doctor, Leela and ship doctor Alison Foster are taken aboard an alien vessel and informed that the virus is a weapon. The aliens are determined to have revenge on Lord Jack for his past crimes, deeds that the entire human race will pay for once the virus reaches Earth.
Once I did understand the plot, I enjoyed it much more. The infecting ‘flesh monster’ was a suitably eerie and discomforting threat and the Victorian madman a formidable villain. But why was it set on Nerva at all? And what were the aliens all about? The two part format left the entire affair feeling a bit on the short side, yet as it was there was far too much unneeded material on the space station. In short, this one needed more development time.
"It's Saturday evening teatime in 1977... all over again."
As a script, Destination Nerva has some very clever notions about colonialism and a very unique approach to the human race’s reaction to alien contact. But it is very heavy handed and mired in sub plots that pull from the stories strengths. The cast is quite strong (if over the top in parts, but perhaps that was to recapture a 1970′s Who mystique?) and the audio landscape is lush, but… it never really comes together.
I did enjoy the Dudley Simpson-esque musical tracks, but this too placed far too much attention on the just how different Tom Baker was to his 1977 self.
It’s a shame that the plot of a frustrated Victorian Lord leading a campaign across the stars, a colorful idea, received little more than an off-screen sequence. The idea doesn’t get enough space to really come through on its own and ends up feeling far more like a paper-thinly-veiled political statement.
The return of Tom Baker is an odd one and something that will take getting used to. Just as the Fifth Doctor in the audios is far wittier and possesses sharper intelligence, this version of the Fourth Doctor is much more eccentric and irascible. It should come as no surprise that these characteristics are present in Tom Baker of the 21st Century as he has openly stated his version of the Doctor is mainly an expression of himself and he has changed. The line delivery is off, the tempo and meter out of rhythm, which is disconcerting given the whiskey-fueled lyrical quality of his televised persona.
Louise Jameson is of course superb as Leela and delivers her lines with the same other-worldly warrior quality that we all know and love. She has had much more experience with Big Finish and it shows, but she and Tom are also getting along far better this time around, which is nice. The characters of Leela and the Doctor spark off of each other splendidly to the ear which is a great strength that will serve this new series well.
In short, if you are looking forward to closing your eyes and imaging Tom Baker from 1976 when listening to Destination Nerva I think you will be sorely disappointed. That said, it is the first step in a new journey and I have heard that the second story The Renaissance Man is a vast improvement.
Doctor Who Destination Nerva can be ordered directly from Big Finish and local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.
Tom Baker by Benjamin Cook (click the image to read his amazing interview)
Here’s an oddity for my eyes, a vintage preview for the infamous 1979 series of Doctor Who.
This featured such stellar gems as City of Death and dire dregs such as Horns of Nimon.
The Daleks returned for the first time in several years, but appeared battered and worn, a far cry from their previously deadly selves. Extras dressed in surplus alien costumes from Blake’s 7 couldn’t even be bothered to die properly and simply slumped to the ground, apparently grateful for the rest.
I have only seen a couple of trailers such as these from the classic program; one featuring Pat Troughton as the Doctor hesitantly warning viewers of terror coming their way in The Web of Fear, and there’s a later teaser made up of scenes previewing the Jon Pertwee classic Ambassadors of Death and one in which Tom Baker receives a communication from the Brigadier, leading to Terror of the Zygons.
This one is very peculiar in that it has a narrative in which a disembodied voice warns the Doctor of the coming great peril. Stirred from a deep sleep like a hibernating bear, the Doctor grouchily responds but is then ordered to forget that he was told anything. He retreats to his TARDIS posting a sign to not disturb until the new series begins airing (clever reminder there).
It’s very odd and fits the weird cosmic fantasy angle that the program explored at the time along with a camp sensibility. A strange time capsule, perhaps it also confirms that the current program is taking influence from this period? You be the judge.
It’s a mind-blowing experience to listen to Tom Baker return to his role as Doctor Who in the new series of audio adventures released by Big Finish. He is still a genuine eccentric, but has aged into a rather acerbic and almost crotchety personality. But his quirkiness shines still through, albeit in new ways as heard in ‘Destination Nerva’ where he compares the peril from beyond the stars as being only worse than getting stuck in Gloucester during a heavy rain shower.
A classic is as classic.
Lalla Ward (Romana II) and Tom Baker (The Doctor) circa 1979
The final relic from the Graham Williams era, Nightmare of Eden is hardly regarded as a high point for the program. Dodgy special effects and wobbly walls abound and it also features the silliest accent ever witnessed since The Underwater Menace.
Nevertheless, the program is light fare and the last story to be released from Tom Baker’s middle period on the program when comedy and fantasy reigned (aside from the incomplete Shada).
Two spacecraft fuse in a hyperspace collision, and with the dimensional instabilities threatening everyone aboard, it’s fortunate the Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward) and K-9 arrive to help. But when a crewmember is found clawed by a ferocious creature, it seems there’s something even more frightening stalking the corridors. But what can this have to do with a zoologist, Professor Tryst, his CET projection machine, and a planet called Eden?
Special Features
• Commentary with actors Lalla Ward (Romana) and Peter Craze (Costa), writer Bob Baker, effects designer Colin Mapson and make-up designer Joan Stribling. Moderated by Toby Hadoke
• The Nightmare of Television Centre – A look back at a somewhat troubled production with three of the behind-the-scenes crew who worked on it
• Going Solo – Writer Bob Baker talks about The Nightmare of Eden
• The Doctor’s Strange Love with comedian Josie Long and writers Joe Lidster and Simon Guerrier
• Ask Aspel – LallaWard’s appearance on the popular BBC children’s show
• Radio Times Listings (DVD-ROM)
• Programme Subtitles
• Production Information Subtitles
• Photo Gallery
• Coming Soon Trailer
• Digitally Remastered Picture And Sound Quality
Due for release on the 2nd April from Amazon UK.
Two key adventures from the Seventh Doctor’s era are collected in this long awaited box set containing Dragonfire and The Happiness Patrol. Dragonfire bridges the light drama period of the program with the more sophisticated stories that were to come and also introduces new companion Ace (played by Sophie Aldred). A fan favorite character, Ace became one of the more popular companions of the classic series alongside Sarah Jane Smith, Leela and Joe Grant. The story itself is a bit of fun, a revenge story nested within a treasure hunt. It seems very innocent (the goofy monster helps) but you may be in for a shock in the conclusion, still one of the most memorable moments of the program. The model work of Ice World is also amazing.
In sharp contrast, The Happiness Patrol is a daring social commentary that is hindered by being studio bound and a very small budget. The hand puppet Fifi doesn’t add anything to the dignity of this one, but it remains one of my all time favorites from the McCoy period. The Kandyman, an impressive animatronic suit, is a monster that you adore or despise, but it made the press by presenting children’s sweets as evil (imagine!).
Ace Adventures Box Set (DVD)
In these two classic stories Ace joins the Seventh Doctor aboard the TARDIS where she’s soon battling a biomechanoid and liberating a world where just feeling sad can get you shot!
Dragonfire
On the planet Svartos, the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Mel unexpectedly encounter an old friend – Sabalom Glitz. Joined by Ace, a teenage waitress with a love for explosives, the group ventures off to find the fabled Dragonfire treasure.
• Commentary
• Deleted / extended scenes
• Trivia subtitles
• Video & audio restoration
• Coming Soon Trailer
• Radio Times Billings (PDF)
• Making-of documentary
• Photo gallery
• Danny Bang – documentary
• The Doctor’s Strange Love – documentary The Happiness Patrol
On the planet Terra Alpha, the population constantly displays happy smiles. Anyone feeling remotely glum disappears. Quickly. Having heard disturbing rumours, the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace arrive to topple the entire regime.
• Commentary
• “Ace” wishes Blue Peter Happy Birthday (archive clip)
• Isolated score
• Deleted / extended scenes
• Trivia subtitles
• Video & audio restoration
• Coming Soon Trailer
• Radio Times Billings (PDF)
• Making-of documentary
• Photo gallery
• Politics In Doctor Who – documentary
An extraordinary discovery is made near an isolated base in Antarctica. A seed pod dating back some 20,000 years. UNIT catches word and sends their scientific adviser to investigate. The power mad eccentric collector Gabriel Chase also learns of the find and sends two of his best operatives to retrieve the pod and kill all witnesses.
After arriving, the Doctor recognizes the pod as extraterrestrial, a Krynoid in a state of gestation. He is too late to stop the infection of one of the members of the crew who rapidly begins to transform from animal to vegetable matter. With the destruction of the base, crew and creature, Gabriel Chase believed that he had succeeded in snatching a one of a kind artifact. The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith narrowly escape the devastation only to face further danger at the hands of Chase’s thugs and of course a massive plant monster, a Krynoid creature so massive that it defies the attacks of UNIT forces.
The Krynoid monster - a face only a mother could love
Directed by Douglas Camfield and written by Robert Banks Stewart, Seeds of Doom is a classic of the Hinchcliff era, combining tropes from popular horror films and featuring memorably evil characters such as the devious Gabriel Chase. In addition to an excellent cast, superb script and dynamic direction, Seeds of Doom also has an astounding score courtesy of Geoffrey Burgon (who also contributed the spine-tingling music in Terror of the Zygons).
Character Options is apparently releasing an action figure set based on this story with a re-release of the 11 Doctors set version of the Fourth Doctor and a re-painted Axon. That particular figure will have come full circle as it was initially intended to be a Krynoid figure and was instead painted in red hues and released as an Axon in true form.
The previously released Axon action figure
Accessories will include a cutlass and a pair of Krynoid seed pods.
Images have circulated from Australia, but there has been no official word as of yet.
Story 077 Written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Transmitted 22 February – 1 March 1975
(Today’s article is by guest reviewer Hal Winter)
I watched The Sontaran Experiment a couple of days ago on a whim and to my surprise enjoyed it more than previously, so that’s the serial I’ve chosen.
The Sontaran Experiment was the first Doctor Who serial to be filmed under new producer Philip Hinchcliffe ( the previous, Robot, had been made at the end of the Season 11 block by Barry Letts) and was also the first to be shot entirely on location on OB video. As such it was an experiment on the part of Barry Letts to use the studio time and location work usually allocated for a single six-parter and instead split them between two separate serials, one of four episodes (which would become Ark in Space) and the other of two. While this might seem inventive The Sontaran Experiment is usually seen as filler between the much more accomplished and acclaimed Ark and Genesis of the Daleks, a view that it is extremely difficult not to sympathize with.
The Sontaran Experiment was scripted by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, a prolific Doctor Who writing team who are nonetheless somewhat notorious for their overestimation of what was possible on a Doctor Who budget and the general unevenness (or even mediocrity) of their writing, though they earned their greatest infamy for creating a certain robot dog.
It is true that The Sontaran Experiment suffers from Bob ‘n’ Dave’s tendency for rather undernourished characterization, but this is perhaps more forgiveable than usual due to the constrictions of the two-part length. Experiment has a particularly simple story, following directly from Ark in Space’s ending. The Doctor with Sarah and Harry have transmatted to Earth in order to confirm that the diode receptors are in good working order to receive the Ark’s occupants (of course if they hadn’t been the Doctor and his friends would’ve been in trouble!).
Once there they discover that the post-apocalyptic Earth isn’t as deserted as they first thought. The Doctor and Sarah both soon have separate encounters with bedraggled astronauts from a Galsec colony who have crashlanded after having intercepted a fake distress signal. The Galsec colonists who the Doctor meets are inclined to blame him for the disappearance of several of their fellows, though the Doctor notices that one of them, Vural is in possession of non-human technology, and tries to convince them that he has come from Nerva, a place they consider a myth (quite how Galsec have never encountered Nerva isn’t explained) but is rather more inclined to mock them for being idiots which is fair enough.
Sarah on the other hand meets the half-crazed Roth who hides her from a robot that had previously abducted him and the other missing astronauts too. Traumatized and paranoid Roth tells her of a sadistic alien in the rocks that has been experimenting on him and his friends and from whom he has only recently escaped. Once they are captured by the robot after helping the Doctor escape Sarah (if not the audience) is shocked to discover that the alien is a Sontaran, not Linx but Styre (Kevin Lindsay).
Much of the rest of Part Two is taken up with examples of Styre’s, erm, unusual experiments and an amusing fight between the Doctor (looking suspiciously like stuntman Terry Walsh in a bad wig) and Styre in which the Doctor uses the Sontaran’s arrogance against him and also affording Harry Sullivan the opportunity to monkey around with Styre’s ship on the Doctor’s orders (Harry had spent much of the story falling in holes and sneaking around trying to help the Doctor and Sarah) which leads to something more than just Styre’s plans deflating.
The Sontaran Experiment isn’t going to win any plaudits for being one of the best Doctor Who serials but it *is* for all its flaws a perfectly competent and enjoyable story. Experiment is undeniably lifted by Kevin Lindsay’s splendid guest performance as the loathsome Styre and fantastic work from the regulars; Elisabeth Sladen illustrates why she is still perhaps the Doctor’s most popular companion giving a quirky, charming performance as the likeable Sarah while Ian Marter is thoroughly engaging as decent if clumsy Harry Sullivan.
Marter’s excellence is in spite him being slighlty underused something that was always likely to be a problem when the exuberant energetic Tom Baker was cast as the Doctor.
Speaking of Baker, here in only his second-filmed story as the Doctor he has already begun making the part his own, there’s something about Baker’s charm and charisma that makes even potentially grim material palatable. Even at this early point he is able to give the dramatic elements weight and the comedic, sparkle. His parting ad-lib to the Sontaran Grand Marshal “Not today, thank you” perfectly encapsulates this Doctor’s whimsical mocking attitude toward the warlike, the ignorant, the pompous, and the villainous alike. It is somehow typical that such was Baker’s commitment to the material at this point that he managed to fracture his collar bone when lunging at Lindsay’s Styre.
Rodney Bennett’s direction is a neat appetizer to his sterling work on Ark in Space while Robert Holmes’s sturdy plot framework means that Bob Baker and Dave Martin don’t lurch too badly off-track (though Vural’s treachery was down to mind control in the first draft which is more interesting than what we get on-screen). It is perhaps the grimmer material that most clearly sees Hinchcliffe and Holmes marking out their territory, as it’s hard to see Barry Letts allowing the sadism that Styre practices make it to the screen.
All in all The Sontaran Experiment may not be a classic but it is a worthwhile adventure.
Story 097
Written by Graham Williams and Anthony Read
Transmitted 4 February – 11 March, 1978
1978 was a turbulent time for Doctor Who. After three years of success under the team of Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes, it was time for a change. Incoming producer Graham Williams was charged with reducing the violence and horror that had pervaded the program during the Hinchcliffe era. As a young father, he was sensitive to the reception that the images presented in Genesis of the Daleks and Deadly Assassin would give a young child. With a concept that would explore the fantastic elements of science fiction, Williams set out on his mission to craft a more other-worldly version of the program than had been seen. This is evident in programs such as The Invisible Enemy and Underworld. The last minute addition of Horror of Fang Rock by Terrance Dicks, the genius of Chris Boucher’s Image of the Fendahl and the un-subtle satire of the Sunmakers rounded out season 15… but what about the final adventure of the year?
For the finale, a return to Gallifrey was planned, one that would marry the decrepit civilization of Deadly Assassin with the God-like beings of The War Games. An exploration of a ‘drop out’ society was planned and Williams contacted an old associate David Weir to pen a gripping 6-parter. When Weir’s planned script ‘Killers in the Dark’ (often mis-remembered as ‘The Killer Cats of Gin Sengh’) proved un-film-able, Williams and script editor Anthony Read threw together a story that faced the challenges of not only wrapping up the season but doing it cheaply.
Add to these problems the fact that Tom Baker had become so egocentric that he demanded a say in the selection of writers and directors and you have a recipe for disaster (of course Williams took Baker before the Head of Serials who talked Baker off the ledge, so to speak). This is a time when Doctor Who was attracting viewing figures over 10 million per episode, a crucial period for a program struggling to stay together.
All of this back story is necessary to understand that The Invasion of Time had many challenges to overcome both financial and creative (the production of Killers in the Dark had already begun and script editor Robert Holmes had just departed). As a fan, the six episode format is something that I dearly miss as it usually involved one plot that seemingly resolved and then transformed into another. Both Seeds of Doom and Invasion of Time are great examples of this. This is of course back when Doctor Who was essentially a serial drama transmitted weekly and frankly there’s no comparison today.
The story opens with a very Star Wars-esque scene in which a space craft zooms past the camera. The Doctor signs an agreement with a trio mysterious figures rather flippantly. When he returns to the TARDIS, he commands K-9 to silence Leela and sulks by his scarf rather pensively, staring off in a maddened way. It is clear that something important and dangerous is afoot.
Arriving on Gallifrey (where painted wooden balls are used as technology), the Doctor somehow bamboozles the lackadaisical Time Lord society into accepting him as a candidate for the Presidency and turns their culture upside down. Of course given that there are about twenty people actually living on Gallifrey, that’s an easy accomplishment. It’s always very amusing to me when Doctor Who attempts to depict an entire planet’s population with a shoestring budget and it ends up looking like the population of a college dormitory on a holiday weekend.
The production value fluctuates madly throughout this six part adventure with any scene filmed in the TARDIS looking like it was lit from a bare bulb left on the floor. Make-up, costumes and set construction suffered from the lack of ever-dwindling money and it shows that the production team was struggling just to get this thing in the can. Even so, the drama is rather gripping at times and there are some excellent cliff-hangers. I cannot say that The Invasion of Time is one of my favorite Doctor Who stories or even one of my favorite Tom Baker stories of 1978, but it does achieve a lot for its limitations. Finally utilizing the mad-cap persona of Tom Baker, it makes the viewer question the sanity of the Doctor and also delivers quite a few moments that leave the viewer anxious to see what happens next.
The script, hastily assembled as it was by Williams and Read, is actually very clever and has some of the finest cliffhangers in the program’s history. Arrested as a renegade then declaring himself President, and finally a traitor to his own people, the Doctor is painted as having finally gone over the deep end. After played up the eccentricities of the Doctor throughout the series, it is entirely believable that he would gleefully betray his own people to an alien invasion force.
The problem arises when the mysterious alien invaders, the Vardans, are revealed to be first shimmery sheets of tin foil and then three young actors dressed as Captain Video. In many ways that is the biggest detriment that Invasion of Time has, a failure to realize the ambitions of the script. Apparently the original idea involved a race of cate people outside of Gallifrey, a scene set in a vast amphitheatre and a civil war between the ruling and under class of the city… but all were cast aside as unfilmably expensive. However, what we get is a very poor man’s rendition of much the same.
The ambition to more fully develop Gallifrey and return the Time Lords to their place of god-like power falls somewhat flat. In the William Hartnell era, the Doctor’s home was a fantastical place with picaresque landscapes. The Time Lords of The War Games are ethereal beings with the ability to manipulate time and space at will. The Time Lords are seen throughout the Pertwee era as members of a technocratic society, but hardly all-powerful, often using the Doctor’s expertise to solve problems for them, such as the moment when one of the mightiest Time Lords, Omega, threatened all of creation from beyond a black hole. Unable to halt Omega’s attack, the High Council recruited the Doctor, but thinking that multiple iterations of him would solve the issue more easily, brought together three versions of the renegade Time Lord for the first time.
It has been pointed out that crossing the Doctor’s time streams in The Three Doctors is far more important to the mythology of the program than was first thought and makes the time lines more mutable and fragile (witness Genesis of the Daleks, for instance).
The major change in the depiction of Gallifrey was in Deadly Assassin where the Doctor’s society was shown to be a decrepit ailing race of senile beings living in the wake of a legacy so great that it harnessed the power of cosmic forces. Williams hoped to find some middle ground between Holmes’ vision and the more cosmically powerful Time Lords in Invasion of Time and it’s a mixed result.
The same four or five sets are recycled to represent an entire city, supporting actors range from exemplary (the stunning John Arnatt as Borusa plays theatrical tennis with Baker and Milton John is extraordinary as the toad-ish Kelnar) to laughable (everyone else).
Tom Baker delivers one of his most impressive performances here and yet he takes the mickey on more than one occasion making it his most uneven story ever. At times he is sparkling with madness and intensity and other times he is just hamming it up for the camera (‘Not even my sonic screwdriver can get me out of this!’ he mugs at the camera). This is of course a clear sign that the actor was growing too big for his britches and worse was still to come in the next two years, but this could be the first sign of Baker’s egomania pervading the program.
The Vardans invade Gallifrey thanks to the Doctor usurping power from the frankly gullible High Council of Time Lords. After exiling Leela to the exterior of the city, it appears that the Doctor has turned into a villain somehow which frankly is one of the most interesting moments of the entirety of Doctor Who. Of course, it’s all a cunning plan and involves some jiggery-pokery with K-9 and a magic button to resolve the threat. The build up is so impressive that the resolution cannot help but be a let down, yet even so the manner in which the Doctor subdues the Vardans is so bad that one would expect it from the new BBC Wales series (circa Davies/Tennnant). The ideas itself of the Invasion of Time is inspired and brilliant, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
In the wake of apparent victory over the Vardans comes the unexpected realization that Gallifrey has been invaded while its defenses were down by a power-hungry alien race. The options initially intended involved the Daleks or Cybermen which were vetoed as too uninteresting but for a moment just think of a trio of Daleks arriving for the cliffhanger of part four and you can imagine how much more amazing this story could have been.
But… maybe that would just mean an Ogron would have tripped over a deck chair.
Even so, after four rather gripping episodes strung together by remarkably sharp scripting, the entire affair falls apart and its at the expense of one of my favorite ‘monsters,’ the Sontarans.
To be fair, one could arrange the amount of quality stories featuring the Sontarans on the head of a pin, but even so it is disappointing to see the warrior race reduced to a run around through a hospital basement posing as the interior of the TARDIS and nearly stumbling over a deck chair into the pool (imagine if that had actually happened!). At this point, the Sontarans had featured in two other stories, each time utilizing a single Sontaran operating alone from its battle group. This was quartet staging a landing party on Gallifrey… and it was very disappointing. Not nearly as poor as ‘The Sontaran Stratagem’ many years later, but bad.
Whereas in ‘The Time Warrior,’ they were shown to be a deadly, cunning and noble race, and in ‘The Sontaran Experiment’ displayed as sadistic monsters, they are sad faded versions of their former glory here. Goofy, slow-moving and with the reflexes of a box turtle, it’s a wonder the Sontarans ever got around to accomplishing anything.
Of course this story marks the departure of both Louise Jamison as Leela and K-9 (mk I). Neither makes any real sense as Leela is hardly the marrying kind and her out of the blow love affair with the cardboard Andred is laughable (the actors vainly attempted to signpost the affection with the odd moment of touching on screen, but it’s just a bad idea). Of course Leela would have better been suited to a warrior’s death at the hands of the Sontarans, but given that the program was reaching out to a younger audience, that was not to be.
Jamison is quite good in Invasion of Time, but it must be said that she is given some dreadful material to deal with and is nearly upstaged by the prototype for Romana, Rodan (no relation to the Godzilla monster of the same name). Rodan is a socialite living a sheltered life of protected solitude only to become exposed to conflict and aggression. It only stands to reason that Rodan should have left with the Doctor if Leela was to remain behind, but no dice. The character ends up making little sense.
Additionally, the departure of K-9 is a non-event as he is merely replaced by another (identical) version begging the question why leave K-9 on Gallifrey at all?
In the face of any character development in the first part of ‘The Invasion of Time,’ the Doctor is chased throughout the corridors of Gallifrey and then the corridors of the TARDIS itself with the Key of Rassilon the much sought after prize. He gets a lot of grief for his regionally accented Sontaran Stoor, but I rather enjoy Derek Deadman as the over-zealous/over the-top power-mad alien soldier. If he had been any more reserved, the latter part of this adventure would have sagged. As it is, Deadman injects a much-needed element of megalomania that the damp Vardans failed to deliver.
The resolution to the entire affair revolves around a legendary weapon that no Time Lord could possibly assemble, let alone use… the D-Mat gun.
A magic button by any other name…
The Invasion of Time was a story with massive roadblocks in its way. The budget, script and actors were all problematic to varying degrees. In the end, what we get is a somewhat fractured adventure that is equal parts genius and embarrassment (the multiple shots of the hospital basement, the scenes in the TARDIS apparently lit by a bare bulb on the floor) and fans are left wondering what happened. The reality is that Doctor Who constantly batters against the same problems at the best of times and 9 out of 10 times comes out on top. In this case, it was a fifty/fifty.
The character of the Doctor is developed in leaps and bounds, perhaps signposting the madness that he would exhibit in subsequent years. The notion that our hero could have turned against his people is a stunning one and explored in great detail here. However, the lack of material, money and talent to realize this adventure leaves it lopsided. I can’t completely discard ‘The Invasion of Time’ as a dud for its many successes, but at the same time I cannot forgive its staggering lack of quality control.
One may argue that’s Doctor Who in a nut shell.
Released by Character Options, a special action figure set commemorates this story with a new variant of Leela, the D-Mat gun and Commander Storr, the third Sontaran to be released from the classic series alongside the Time Warrior and Sontaran Experiment (I’m not holding my breath for a Two Doctors set).
Doctor Who 'Invasion of Time' Action Figure Set
The Invasion of Time action figure set is available in the US from Mike’s Comics and in the UK from Forbidden Planet.
It’s a Dalek-filled finale for the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 in this forthcoming full cast Doctor Who audiobook
