The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

Chapter the 312th, which depicts the war between the land and slightly under the land.

Plot:

The Doctor, Amy and Rory land in a Welsh village in 2020 that is somehow populated only by one family (it's probably something to do with Covid restrictions, it being 2020). A nearby drilling project has penetrated to a record-breaking depth, but this seems to have woken up something under the ground. The father of the family Mo has gone missing, and based on the Doctor's investigations he was sucked down below the ground. Soon, Amy disappears this way too. Rory and the Doctor protect the others - Mo's son Elliot, Elliot's Mum Ambrose, Ambrose's Dad Tony, and Tony's colleague on the drill project Nasreen - when a group of creatures travel up from below and attack. Eliot is taken, but the Doctor and Rory manage to trap one of the creatures. It is a Silurian - one of the original inhabitants of the Earth from prehistory - called Alaya. The Doctor and Nasreen travel in the TARDIS to the Silurian city under the ground to negotiate a hostage exchange. They find a vast colony, most of whom are in suspended animation. Mo and Amy have been held there by a scientist Silurian Malohkeh, but manage to escape. They find Eliot in suspended animation, but can't release him, then catch up with the Doctor and Nasreen.

Silurian military commander Restac, who is a relative of Alaya's, wants to kill all the humans, but Malohkeh wakes up their leader Eldane who prevents this. Elliot is released. Meanwhile, on the surface, Tony is ill from a Silurian sting; this, plus fears for her missing son, leads Ambrose to torture and kill Alaya. Amy and Nasreen negotiate with Eldane on behalf of Earth. But Rory, Ambrose and Tony arriving with Alaya's body puts a bit of a dent in those proceedings. Tony has set the drill to destroy the Silurian underground city, but the Doctor sends a timed energy pulse to destroy the drill. Eldane agrees - a bit too readily - to put his people back in suspended animation and wait 1000 more years, with the humans agreeing to spread the word down the generations to prepare for an amicable solution at that time. Restac goes on the attack, killing Malohkeh. Eldane sets off toxic fumigation to force the Silurians back into hibernation, so Restac is without her army. Tony decides to stay and go into hibernation too, so he can be cured of the Silurian venom in a millennia's time. Nasreen stays with him. The others race to escape before the drill explodes. As they reach the TARDIS, they see the mysterious crack that's been following them around the universe. The Doctor risks pulling a piece of shrapnel out of the crack to see if he can work out what caused the explosion that fractured reality. Restac staggers into view, dying from the toxic fumes and shoots Rory. He falls near the crack, and the time energy escaping from it erases him from existence. Amy forgets him. After dropping Mo, Ambrose and Elliott home, the Doctor examines the shrapnel - it's a piece of the TARDIS door.

Context:

Watched from the disc in the series five Blu-ray box set in early October, with a week's gap in between the episodes. I was accompanied by two of my three children, boy of 15 and girl of 12 (the eldest is now living away from home at university, and we miss him). Both of them were tickled by the 'futuristic' setting of the year 2020, and made comments about nobody in the narrative wearing masks or socially distancing (but it could be set in January or February 2020, of course). The youngest proudly told me before the first episode that Doctor Who had featured in Heartstopper (characters are seen watching David Tennant in The Runaway Bride in the latest run of that Netflix series).

Milestone watch: I've been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, and I'm now closing in on the point where I finish everything and catch up with the current stories being broadcast serially. Another domino falls, as this post marks the completion of eleventh Doctor Matt Smith's entire televisual Doctor Who era. This makes a total of four Doctors done so far (the seventh, eighth and fourteenth Doctors having been completed before Smith). This post also marks the completion of another season, the 29th out of the total of 40 seasons to date (at the time of writing): classic seasons 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-12, 14-18, 20, 21, 23-26, and new series 2, 4, 5-7, 9-11, and 13).

First Time Round:

I always have trouble remembering my first impressions of Matt Smith stories; don't know exactly why. It's probably a combination of factors - it's a while ago now, the series wasn't as much of a novelty as the early period after the 2005 relaunch, and I had more going on in my life. What I have done in the past if I came up short was to use the First Time Round section to tell a completely different anecdote, mostly from the wilderness years when the show wasn't on TV as a regular series: nearly dying on New Year's Eve 1985, watching Blakes 7 videos with my school friend Paul, reading Doctor Who Magazine back copies rather than revising for my A-levels, interviewing for a university place in Durham, not attending a Doctor Who convention in my first week at university, being accused of shoplifting, attending a Tom Baker book signing, and what it felt like to be a fan in the slump between the years 2000 and 2003. I've run out of those anecdotes now, so will have to rack my brain for something that was going on in May 2010. Oh, of course, it was the beginning of the end of my country. A few weeks earlier (just before The Vampires of Venice) a general election in the UK had returned a hung parliament, so there were a few days of negotiations. Then, just before Amy's Choice, the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, had made a speech from the Rose Garden behind 10 and 11 Downing Street. They had formed a coalition government, allowing the Conservatives (the majority partner) to systematically dismantle anything and everything good. Policies would have started to be announced around the time of the Silurian two-parter, including the Fixed Term Parliament Act, which mandated that there would be minimum five years before there was a chance to get them voted out. Maybe this is why I struggle to remember the period - at some conscious or subconscious level, I don't want to.

Reaction:

The problem with reviewing any story featuring Malcolm Hulke's lacertilian legions is what to call them. At various points they have been known as Silurians, Eocenes, Earth reptiles, Homo Reptilia and probably a few more handles I've forgotten. I will stick with Silurians; even though it is wrong, it was what they were first called. Another problem with the Silurians is that they are a great concept, but a difficult fit for Doctor Who stories. Their backstory is more complex and lengthy than some other villains, which is not the best for filling in new viewers with on the fly during an action adventure storyline. The Doctor dumps all the info over the audience in a speech in the second part of this story. In two times 45 minutes of story, why was there no opportunity to tease this information out more gradually? Well, most of the first episode withholds the Silurians' identity and appearance to ramp up the tension and excitement. I wouldn't necessarily want it done differently, as the first part is rather good. The scenes of characters being sucked under the Earth, the siege scenes with Silurians barely perceptible, zooming past the camera as a blur, the distorted POV of characters being experimented on by a Silurian in a surgical mask. It's all great. Sooner or later, though, if the concept is going to be treated appropriately, the horror movie has to turn into the more sedate drama of people sat round a table negotiating. Trying to meld those two halves together in a coherent way is difficult. The original Silurians story from 1970 is essentially the same, horror and action adventure at the start and end, negotiations in the middle. It probably seems more harmonious as a whole than the more jarring changes in the Matt Smith story only because the length (seven episodes) smooths out some of the joins.

I don't fault the writer Chris Chibnall or director Ashley Way. The flaw is built in to the central concept, which tries to have its cake and eat it by presenting the Silurians as both a set of horror monsters, and as a group of people with legitimate claims. For example, Alaya - the first Silurian we are presented with in the story - is aggressive and prejudiced against humans to a ridiculously heightened degree. She makes the race seem less than empathetic, undermining the second part; but, she has to be nasty enough to be killed by a human; if she isn't, then there wouldn't be any dramatic tension in that second part, where her death undermines any chance of a peaceful solution. The two conflicting halves cancel each other out. Even if Chibnall hadn't given Alaya the taunting and manipulative dialogue, she looks like a monster, so inevitably would appear to be one in the visual grammar of Doctor Who. Obviously, the one addition to Silurian biology made in this story, a whiplash tongue with venom sting, isn't helping matters either. Many would say that Alaya's just one of a species that are infinitely varied just like humans; but, one of the more peacenik Silurians is scientist Malohkeh, played by Richard Hope, and he experiments on people. Why spend the first episode framing him as Doctor Mengele if you want him to be sympathetic? For the thrills, obviously. When the potentially more sensible negotiations section starts, it has two randos representing Earth. This seems to stem from having so very few characters in the story, probably for reasons of narrative or production economy (or both). If the Silurians agreed to terms, though, how in hell would Amy Pond and Nasreen Chaudhry have then persuaded the nations and governments across the globe? It's silly, and glaringly obvious from the outset that things will go back to the status quo with the Silurians hibernating again, and the issues side-stepped.

This is problematic because of the real world analogues of this fictional conflict. It doesn't need much spelling out: "We have a claim to this place extending far back in time", "Yeah, well you haven't been around for a long time and we live here now", "We will retake this place, it's our historic birthright", "No way, where would we live?", "Not our problem, you need to make way for our settlements", "Not without a fight", etc. etc. These sort of conflicts have occurred throughout history right up to the present date, and therefore need to be treated sensitively. It's troublesome to interrogate such issues in dramatic form if one side are dressed as lizard people. Even if we could put aside the risk of crassness - it's only a fantasy show aimed at a family audience after all, not meaning to offend - what is the best we could discover? The morality of such conflicts is complex, and the best we are likely to end up with after 90 minutes is philosophy at approximately the level of Culture Club's The War Song. If we dispense with the backstory, we would just have Silurians doing traditional Doctor Who monster stuff; to be fair, that's what their creator Malcolm Hulke ended up doing. In the follow up to his first Silurian story, The Sea Devils, the earth reptiles are reformatted to just be action adventure antagonists with the moral complexity largely ignored. Similarly, Silurians have made many returns to Doctor Who after this 2010 reintroduction, but there haven't been any more land claim negotiations included in those stories. That aspect seems to have gone into permanent hibernation. At the time of writing, though, a Doctor Who spin off is in production featuring the Sea Devils, which from the title - The War Between the Land and the Sea - might just be dabbling in that moral complexity again. Perhaps over a five episode mini-series that doesn't have to be Doctor Who exactly it can be made to work.

Other points of note: the moments from the wider series arc are much more successful than the Silurian story. The mysterious crack turning up in the end is very unexpected and dramatic; Rory's death scene and the scene where Amy tries to hold on to her memories of him but fails were both well played and emotional. The reveal that the shrapnel the Doctor has pulled from the crack is a part of the TARDIS exterior is nicely intriguing. The new design of Silurian make-up is effective. The regular cast are all on good form, particularly Arthur Darvill as Rory. It's got a phenomenal guest cast. Neve McIntosh gets the most interesting material to work with, and makes an indelible impact in both of her two roles. She got to return regularly to play a more nuanced Silurian in future stories. Everyone else is wasted to a greater or lesser degree bringing life to dull characters. Enough time has now gone by for Meera Syal and Robert Pugh to come back to the series playing other roles; it's too late for Stephen Moore, alas. There was definitely mileage in a claustrophobic chiller with a small group of people trapped with a violent and manipulative Silurian; there was probably mileage in a grander, more epic story of two races trying to find peace; trying to do both dragged the resultant story down.

Connectivity:

The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood and Survival are both themed around the dangers of conflict; both feature sequences set underground and races that are anthropomorphised versions of creatures found on Earth (cheetahs in Survival, non-specific lizards in the Silurian 2-parter).

Deeper Thoughts:

From reptile scales underground to musical scales underground: Part 2 of The Happiness Patrol BFI events write-up, Q3 2024. At the end of the first part of this epic - see the Deeper Thoughts section of the Survival blog post - an email had arrived. A week after the wrong version of The Happiness Patrol was shown, the BFI contacted attendees including yours truly to generously and unexpectedly offer free tickets to a rescheduled event where the new special edition version would be showcased, definitely and for reals this time. As it was inserted into the schedule at the last minute, the new screening was at an awkward time, 4.30pm in the afternoon on a Sunday, 29th September (about a month after the initial screening); three of us (me, Chris and Alan) were still able to attend. The later than usual start made travelling up less frantic, and we met for a spot of Sunday lunch before the screening, then ambled along the South Bank to the BFI and took our seats in the NFT1 theatre. Hosts Justin Johnson and Dick Fiddy made merry with the unusual situation from the off: "Welcome to the monthly screening of The Happiness Patrol" said Johnson, with Fiddy joking that in a month's time they would be showing an 8mm black and white version. Turning serious for a brief moment, Johnson gave appreciation to everyone, audience and panel members, that had made it back for this rescheduled slot, but then added of Sheila Hancock that "She's been banned from today's event; she spoke too much". The first item on the agenda was the social media round-up, with Johnson suspecting that some people were now making comments in the run up to BFI events deliberately to get read out, as with the tweet saying that fans who attended both times could "say that they've been double-Dicked". Johnson deadpanned that he was "horrified" that anyone would think he ever used Dick's name as a double entendre.

NFT1

After the quiz, with a final jokey and rhetorical question ("What is the name, address and phone number of the person at the BBC that sent the wrong files?"), there was the first instance of what Fiddy jokingly called "Deja Who". Pete McTighe, a major creative force behind the Blu-ray range, instrumental in creating the special edition of The Happiness Patrol, was invited to the stage to whet the appetites of the assembled about what they were about to see. In other words, to give the same interview he had given a month before. He revealed from his pocket a Blu-ray of the correct version of the story that he'd brought "just in case", and again talked about the insertion of cut material and restructuring of the narrative that had been done to what he feels is an "underrated gem" featuring two stars of the show "at the height of their powers". Again, he highlighted that the intention was to build up the world of Terra Alpha more than could be done with the original budget of "20 quid and a ham sandwich". After McTighe, there was another returning guest: model-maker and puppeteer Stephen Mansfield. This time he hadn't brought the Fifi puppet with him, as it had been assumed that the same people would be attending as had done the previous month, so all would have seen it already. A quick poll of the audience with a show of hands demonstrated this view was only half right: the audience was about 50/50 split between single and double-Dickers (any free tickets that hadn't been claimed by original attendees were put on general sale). Mansfield came up with a few new comments for those of us that had been before. A crucial moment for him was Fifi's death scene, which comes at the end of the story but was shot early on. It is a "tall order" to expect a puppet to be convincing all the time, and he was worried until he saw the emotion that could be wrung from a good actor such as Sheila Hancock working with his co-creation. He relaxed after that.

Our hosts

The house lights then went down, and the first two episodes of the story (in the correct new edition, no doubt to many gasps of relief) were shown. I was skeptical going in, but what has been achieved in these updated episodes is miraculous. The CG backdrops can never have quite the detail or feel of physical sets shot on video, and yet there are seamless sequences where the camera pans from one to the other, or they both share the same frame. McTighe's world building aim has definitely been achieved. The narrative has more time to breathe, with additional scenes inserted of the Doctor and Ace exploring. Lesley Dunlop's Character Susan Q seemed to suffer most from the drastic editing for time that was done on the original, and there are many more sequences featuring her now. There's also much more humour, like the moment where the Kandyman says "I don't give interviews" or a character from this very bureaucratic world tells another that "You need a permit to hide here". There is some reordering of material, but nothing jars and things flow along nicely. It wasn't just the episodes that were new on this day in September; the BFI had done a good job in providing some new onstage content too. After the two-thirds point of the story had been reached, there was a brand new onstage panel focussing on the sonic aspects of the Happiness Patrol. This featured Dominic Glynn (composer of the incidental music for the Happiness Patrol), Adam Burney (the harmonica player featured on the story's soundtrack) and Mark Ayres (audio restoration whizz for the Blu-ray range, amongst many other things). Ayres commended the new edition version that we'd just seen, describing The Happiness Patrol as "a lost classic, hopefully now being able to shine a bit".

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, McTighe

Glynn thought the story was a "wonderful gift" as music was built into the script; plus, the styles required varied wildly from awful lift muzak to the soulful harmonica motifs. Burney, who was only 19 when he performed said motifs, explained that all his work took place after the TV studio sessions. Like many an auditioning actor ('of course I can ride a horse'), Richard D. Sharp, who played the harmonica player Earl Sigma in the story, had said he could play. On watching the footage it quickly became clear that he couldn't. Burney had to shape what he was playing to best match Sharp's movements: "I think we got away with it". Ayres explained that as part of his remastering job, he noticed there was one brief moment of Sharp's performance still in there, which came as a surprise to Burney. Sylvester McCoy's live Television Centre performance of the spoons is still intact on the original recordings, and survives to the new edition. To extend Glynn's original set of cues to cover the new material of that edition, Ayres used every trick in the book, stretching, looping, even playing some backwards. Just before the panel ended, Glynn mentioned that he'd also scored the last ever classic story Survival: "So, as I always like to say, I killed it off." "That was my job," shouted McCoy from his seat in the audience. The lights then went down again, and it was time for episode three. It wouldn't be possible to fix every issue with the script (see my original blog post on the story to see if you agree with me on what those issues are), but McTighe has managed to smooth over some things. The fact that there seems to be no audience in the forum, for example, is explained by there being a curfew in place that is highlighted in some of the CG additions. The death of the Kandyman is built up much more, and there is new model work and explosions to up the dramatic ante. The final frame after the credits is an "In Memory of" slide for the late writer of the story Graeme Curry, which was a lovely touch.

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, Mansfield

Pete McTighe came back onto the stage, this time accompanied by Chris Thompson, who had marshalled the new effects work we'd just seen. The chat with the two of them had been planned for the previous session, but couldn't take place once the wrong version of the story was shown. This was particularly tough on Thompson who lives in Belfast, and had to fly over twice. He showed the audience the new miniature of Helen A's escape craft, having made this - from many Kenner Star Wars toys stuck together - and many similar new models for new editions of the stories of season 25 for the box set. He had brought more of them over for the first BFI event, but unfortunately not this time as they'd been damaged in transit first time round: "The combined might of the Daleks and Cybermen was nothing compared to easyJet baggage reclaim". McTighe explained that a lot of the material reinserted came from early ('71') edits of the episodes that had been retained in the archive. Thompson also illustrated how ambitious McTighe had been in pushing for the scope of what could be changed in the story; Thompson had originally presented a plan with 20 new special effects shots; McTighe asked if they could have "an extra 40". Speaking for all of us, Johnson told them both that they had worked wonders. After a brief and nice moment of applause for the normally unsung BFI staff who were setting the stage up with more seats, the final panel of the day got underway. The panel a month earlier had been the biggest I'd ever seen at a BFI event; this one was was even bigger. Onto the stage, to much applause, came designer John Ashbridge, director Chris Clough, script editor Andrew Cartmel, guest actor Rachel Bell (who played Priscilla P), plus the star duo of Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy.

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, Glynn, Burney, Ayres

There wasn't a single repeated anecdote from this final panel. The organisers of the event from both BFI and BBC deserve kudos for getting the key players back, finding new people to attend too, and keeping it fresh. Initial questions went to the two people who hadn't been present a month before; Bell had enjoyed seeing her younger self and loved the special edition, adding that she was "going to have to watch the original"; "Some of us did that quite recently," replied Johnson, to much merriment from the audience. Ashbridge gave a dramatic pause on being asked what he thought of the new version before replying that he thought it was "absolutely stunning"; "Phew!" said Johnson; more merriment. "If only Chris [Clough] and I could have done that first time". Clough explained that the 'fondant surprise' death of the Kandyman couldn't be shown in full in the original as it would have been impossible to have so much liquid in the studio. Later, Clough was asked how they achieved the fluid seen flowing into pipes in the Kandy kitchen: "God knows". Johnson talked to McCoy about some comments he'd made at the previous Happiness Patrol event, about the show being a vehicle for politics, that had subsequently made the news. McCoy was unrepentant, of course, and mentioned in his reply that his one stipulation on getting the part was that the Doctor never use a gun. He said that the Doctor would always "use this" pointing to his head, and added that this constituted good acting "as there's nothing there". Picking up on the drama with messages theme, a couple of the panel pointed out that there is a line in The Happiness Patrol about banning demonstrations, "And that's now, isn't it?!".

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, McTighe, Thompson, Escape ship model

Bell reminisced about taking her two children (aged seven and nine at the time) to the studio, and also a separate time when all the Happiness Patrol trooped in together to the canteen, where their short skirts were reportedly popular with some of the diners. The shortness of the skirt also led to a floor manager's comment relaying instructions from the gallery, which Bell retold: "Can you tell Rachel to put her legs closer together, please?". McCoy thought on first seeing the guest cast assembled "Oh my God, it's the Royal Shakespeare Company". Aldred remembered that before her first ever studio session, she didn't know where Television Centre was, so asked Bonnie Langford ("I figured she'd probably been there [while] in the womb"). Ashbridge had recently watched all the Doctor Who stories he'd designed for an interview by Doctor Who Magazine, and decided that The Happiness Patrol was his favourite - as it was studio-based, he had full control over the look, even though there were huge challenges equating the vision of the script with the resources and technical ability available. When Bell was asked if she was ever remembered by anyone for Doctor Who she said no, but added that this was because she's not recognisable as her younger self. She related the sort of exchanges she now gets with the public: "I know you?" "Oh?" "Yes. Don't you work in M&S?". Everyone loved the design of the Kandyman, though Cartmel said his first thoughts on seeing it were "That's fantastic - they're going to get sued"! McCoy thought that David John Pope had such poor vision in the Kandyman costume that he was lucky not to cut his own finger off in the scene when the character does the same. During a discussion about the proclivity of 80s TV to feature gunge (like the fondant surprise in Happiness Patrol), the TV show Tiswas was mentioned; "Ooh, I was in Tiswas" said McCoy somewhat wistfully.

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, Ashbridge, Clough, Cartmel, Bell, Aldred, McCoy 

There were a fair few comments about the flimsiness of the Police Box prop that was taken on location to perform as the TARDIS. McCoy also noted that people used to use the interior as a public convenience. He acted out being inside it holding his nose, desperately waiting for a cue: "Please say action"! It was such a chatty panel that there probably wasn't a need for an interviewer, although Johnson did need to shush them when they were nattering away while an audience member was waiting to ask their question. A great audience question asked was about who should be cast if ever there was a docu-drama of the making of 1980s Doctor Who. After it was confirmed to him that the suggested person was still alive, McCoy put forward TV astrologer from years gone by Russell Grant to play producer John Nathan-Turner. Kit Harington was suggested for Andrew Cartmel. A person to play McCoy proved harder. As Clough put it: "Sylv's unique". After briefly suggesting himself "I'd do it again", McCoy thought Johnny Depp could play him ("He's a bit dodgy though"); Sophie mentioned Ben Whishaw to play McCoy. One of the last audience questions compelled Rachel Bell to say "Were there any sexual problems?", which I'd say only about 10% of the audience understood, but I was one of them (google "Dear John UK" if you are similarly in the dark). Then, it was all over, and we decamped to the bar. Johnson said at one point of the special edition that it was definitely worth a month long wait, and he's right. As testament to this, Chris - probably the most difficult to please of our group of regular BFI attendees - loved it. At the time of writing, there's only a couple of weeks before the box set is released, and I can't wait to see what has been done with the special editions of the other three stories in the season.

In Summary:

War, war is stupid and people are stupid, and love means nothing in some strange quarters...

Survival

Chapter the 311th, it was 1989 but the cats were still much better than in 2019.

Plot:

The Doctor takes Ace back to Perivale, but nobody seems to be around. This isn't just because it's a Sunday, but because people are going missing, including some of Ace's old mates. The Doctor investigates some black cats that he spots in the area, buying some cat food from a shop run by Hale and Pace to tempt them out. They are kitlings, psychic creatures that can be used to aid hunters in tracking down prey. Someone mysterious (it's the Master, obvs) is using them to track the Doctor. Ace encounters one of the hunters in a recreation ground - it is a half-human half-Cheetah creature on horseback. It gives chase and when it catches her, it transports Ace and itself to an alien planet. Ace finds her friends Shreela and Midge there with a young lad called Derek. They have all been surviving as best they can there since they were transported; another of Ace's old friends Stevie has been killed. The Doctor is also transported to the planet alongside a keep fit instructor / TA soldier Paterson. At an encampment with many Cheetah people outside, the Doctor is greeted by the Master. He has brought the Doctor there to help him escape. The planet is sentient and alters people the longer they stay there, turning them in to Cheetah people. The Master is already changing. Original settlers on the planet, who bred the kitlings, thought they could control the planet's power but succumbed. The hunters and kitlings can only seem to transport people one way (as the Doctor puts it, they can only return home with their prey). Escaping the Master, the Doctor and Paterson meet up with Ace's party. During a Cheetah person attack, Midge kills a Cheetah person and Ace wounds one. This starts them both on the path to becoming Cheetah people, meaning that they will be able to take people home.

The Master uses Midge to return to Earth, the Doctor and the others use Ace. Shreela and Derek thank Ace and the Doctor and rush off home; Paterson is less grateful and goes off to teach a keep fit class to some teens. There, he finds that the Master and Midge have used the Cheetah planet power to entrance the group of lads he was set to teach. They kill Paterson. The Doctor and Ace track the Master and Midge to Horsenden Hill where the Doctor and Midge race towards each other on motorcycles (it's not clear what this is supposed to achieve). When the bikes collide, Midge is killed but the Doctor is thrown clear. The Master and his gang advance on Ace, who cannot fight without sealing her fate and changing for good. A Cheetah person she had formed a bond with on the planet, Karra, arrives and chases the group off. The Master kills Karra. The Doctor catches up with the Master in Perivale and is transported back to the planet (the Master calls it 'his new home'); the Master is full-on feral now, and their conflict is causing the planet's destruction. The Doctor is also coming under the planet's influence and just stops himself from attacking the Master. Just as the Master is about to strike, the Doctor transports himself back to his home, the TARDIS, leaving the Master behind as the planet dies in flame. The Cheetah people transfer to some other place and the hunt goes on. The Doctor finds Ace, and they walk off towards new adventures, the Doctor making a speech as if he knows this is the end of the last ever episode of the classic series...

Context:

As will be detailed more in the Deeper Thoughts, I was lucky enough to get tickets for The Happiness Patrol BFI event at the end of August 2024 to tie in with the final Sylvester McCoy Blu-ray box set (of season 25, Sylv's second run from 1988, the year before Survival). As soon as I knew I was going to be able to publish my write-up of the event, I knew I'd need a suitable story with which to pair it. There couldn't be anything random (aside from the BBC's Blu-ray release schedule) about which story to pick as I only had one of McCoy's stories left. So, I overrode random selection, and Survival it was. The story was viewed from the Blu-ray disc, all in one go, one evening in early September. I then had to wait another month before I could publish the blog as the one event at the BFI turned into two, and I wanted to write them both up close together (more on that is also outlined in the Deeper Thoughts section below).

Milestone watch: I've been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, and I'm now closing in on the point where I finish everything and catch up with the current stories being broadcast serially. This post marks the completion of another Doctor's entire televisual era, making a total of three Doctors done so far; the seventh Doctor (as portrayed by Sylvester McCoy) follows the recent completion of Paul McGann's eighth Doctor and David Tennant's fourteenth Doctor. Neither of those other two had much in the way of an era, though. Sylv is the first to be completed who had the role over multiple seasons, and I will miss the wee fellow. This post also marks the completion of another season, the 28th out of the total of 40 seasons to date (at the time of writing): classic seasons 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-12, 14-18, 20, 21, 23-26, and new series 2, 4, 6, 7, 9-11, and 13).

First Time Round:

The final Doctor Who story of the classic era, and - even after much experience in using a VCR for the previous four years - I still couldn't capture the whole thing onto a video tape. I was out for the second episode, and the programmed recording didn't work, so I only saw the first and last parts of Survival. I mentally pieced together the action that I'd missed as best I could, but didn't see the story in full until the sell-through VHS came out in October 1995. As the original broadcast was during a period I was most disconnected from Doctor Who news, I did not have any idea that this was going to be the last story for a good while, but I definitely remember picking up on the hopeful yet elegiac tone of the Doctor's final monologue and having some suspicions. The Doctor Who news I did get at the time was from the tabloid press, where a few months earlier in the Summer I'd read a story telling me that Gareth Hale and Norman Pace, UK comedy stars of the time, were going to be appearing in the series; aside from that, everything was a surprise.

Reaction:

There is often mention that Survival anticipated the 2005 series vibe (mainly because it features a housing estate). There's only a very short sequence in the block of flats, though; the rest of the earthbound sequences in the story are set in suburban rather than urban spaces. The decision to set and make this story in contemporary Perivale might have been forced upon the production by the offhand mention of Ace's home town when she was first introduced a couple of years earlier (perhaps producer John Nathan-Turner was working through an alphabetical list of suitable SE locations, the last companion before Ace came from Pease Pottage), but they make the most of it. Doctor Who often makes comparisons between the ordinary and extraordinary, but mostly just in dialogue - Survival makes the counterpoint a key visual feature of the story, cutting back and forth between alien vistas and a recognisable suburbia of convenience stores, milkmen, youth clubs and people washing their cars. It's rare and refreshing to see Doctor Who set in a place that was, not to put too fine a point on it, exactly like where I lived at the time (and no doubt a lot of viewers like me). I'd grown up watching Doctor Who on a street and in a house very similar to those being depicted - the alien was now invading my world. Doctor Who had never done this before (a short sequence where Sarah Jane is dropped off in a suburban street in The Hand of Fear is the only thing that came close); it took them to the very end of the classic series to do it. It's not really been done much since, either (Fear Her is the only example that comes to mind). It gives the story a unique energy and atmosphere, and - although it wasn't planned this way - works as a distillation of Doctor Who, and this era of it in particular, for the series' final outing on TV.

Taking the world of tooth and claw survival represented by the Cheetah planet back to the 1980s London of wannabe yuppies, with Midge's slick 80s suit and motorbike being the most obvious signifiers, highlights the political nature of the story's underlying theme. Thatcherism is being criticised here more precisely than in something seemingly more satirical like The Happiness Patrol (see Deeper Thoughts for more on that story). The Doctor screaming out the same phrase "If we fight like animals, we'll die like animals" in both environments at the climax to underline the parallel is subversive and radical, but wouldn't trouble anyone for whom the theme has whizzed overhead without being caught. They can still enjoy this as an action adventure. That's down to very good writing, script editing and direction. Survival's not quite perfect on that score, but it's tending towards perfection. Like other three-parters of McCoy's tenure, it has a few too many characters - this is most obvious at the start of episode three when, having been returned safely from the alien planet, a few people say happy goodbyes and rush off never to be seen again when there's still a third of the running time left. It's much better managed than in previous years, though; none of these characters had unnecessary subplots cluttering up the narrative, and the other three-part story of the year (Ghost Light, broadcast before but made after Survival) was even tighter. Watching, one just feels in one's bones that these people should be given another year to hone things, as they are so close to getting it 100% right. Alas, it wasn't to be. The significant characters are fully fleshed out anyway, so a little clutter didn't detract.

Foremost amongst the characters in the guest cast given material with which to shine is Anthony Ainley as the Master. This might not seem that unusual to the uninitiated; he is the lead antagonist and a recurring guest cast member who's worked on the series on and off for a decade, after all. But he's never before been given any kind of motivation, let alone a credible and interesting one as he is here. Ainley's a decent actor, so his performance - putting on an urbane front as he is wrestling with the beast within that threatens to overpower him, then finally giving in to it at the end in a violent tussle, consumed by the urge to destroy the Doctor - is effortlessly the best he gave in the series. It is flights above the panto moustache-twirling he usually had to deliver. Julian Holloway as Patterson is also excellent, paired with the Doctor for most of the running time and providing both comic relief and dramatic complication, while finding a good balance between the two. It's such a fun performance that it's almost a shame he has to die, the script making a sacrifice of a character who on the surface was ruthless but was revealed to be a coward underneath. It's sad to note that the character was running a service of youth outreach of a type that, however bleak the 1980s is painted in Survival, is much less likely to exist in 2024. Midge is perhaps just a smidge under-written meaning that a few of his lines and actions seem difficult for Will Barton playing him to get a handle on, but this is a tiny quibble and it's mostly a good performance. Sophie Aldred gets some interesting material reacting to the attraction of the alien planet as personified in Lisa Bowerman's Cheetah person Karra (though based on writer Rona Munro's comments since, the intended lesbian subtext ended up much toned down from what she had wished).

There's some great dialogue from Munro (and a nice little speech dubbed on the end written by script editor Andrew Cartmel when it was becoming obvious that this would be the last Doctor Who story broadcast for a while) and some strong science-fiction concepts: a planet whose influence starts to change those that stick around on it for too long, with their base instincts to hunt and kill activated and having to be resisted, is an interesting idea for Doctor Who. Watching characters - even, towards the end, the controlled and controlling seventh Doctor - succumbing to this power really upped the thrill factor of the story. Then there's the kitlings, feline carrion that look like black cats who can transport themselves between worlds and form psychic links with the humans that train them; then, there's the conflict being played out on the planet being directly linked to the planet's disintegration; then there's the concept that those turning into Cheetah people can only transport themselves in one direction because they can only return to their home with their captured prey. This creates the drama in the middle episode where everyone is waiting for someone whose home is Earth to change, and therefore offer them all a hope of escape. This volume of integrated and innovative ideas is rare in any Doctor Who, only seen before in Christopher Bailey's Mara stories earlier in the decade. Munro's similar journey into the dark places of the inside is expertly realised by the various creative persons working on the story. Alan Wareing gets great performances and creates some interesting visuals: the Cheetah people's planet is filmed in a quarry like many a Doctor Who planet over the years, but judicious choice of angles and application of video effects make it feel like a truly alien locale.

Also going above and beyond to create atmosphere in the story is composer Dominic Glynn. Just as in the previous year's story The Happiness Patrol (see Deeper Thoughts) Glynn creates the character of an entire planet with his expert application of instruments and motifs; in Survival, a mournful, wailing electric guitar accompanies the scenes on the alien planet, with piano used to underscore scenes in Perivale. Script, direction and music come together for some truly great dramatic moments, my favourite being the scene where Ace - believing the Doctor to be dead - is advanced upon by a group of thugs under the Master's command. She chants to herself that she must not fight (or she'll change into a Cheetah person for good) but still they advance. The only place where the stunt action of the script isn't realised very well is in the sequence immediately before this where the Doctor and Midge collide on motorbikes. It's unnecessary to the plot, and was just a bit too ambitious to be realistically staged. The realisation of the Cheetah people comes in for stick from some, but I think it's perfectly acceptable. The body and costumes are really rather good; the masks slightly less good, but still okay. Not so effective is any attempt to depict a dead cat on screen (they just look cuddly toys), and the animatronic kitling doesn't convince (it looks like an un-cuddly toy). I'm not sure whether they even needed the animatronic version particularly, though perhaps they didn't want to be left wholly at the mercy of the animal performers and their handlers - getting all the footage they needed that way would have been like herding cats, I suppose. 

Connectivity:

My blog post for Survival was originally planned to follow The Curse of Fatal Death which would have neatly meant two stories on the trot featuring the Master as an adversary where he's been genetically cross-spliced with another alien baddie, both followed by a reasonably large gap before the show would be seen on BBC1 again. Alas, the snafu at the BFI (see Deeper Thoughts below for more details) meant the Survival post was delayed a few weeks. Luckily, there's still a connection to highlight between Survival and the story it now comes after on the blog, Real Time: both stories feature an established comedy double-act playing a more dramatic double-act in the story.

Deeper Thoughts:

From Black Cats to Pink Ladies: Part 1 of The Happiness Patrol BFI events write-up, Q3 2024. In an inadvertent first, the humble little Happiness Patrol (as we will see, felt by many to be an unloved tale) is the only Doctor Who story ever to have two BFI events to tie in with its release on Blu-ray. On August 31st, the plan was that the new special edition of the story made for the Blu-ray would be shown along with the usual panels, quiz, etc. I was the most relaxed I'd ever been attending a screening that final morning of August 2024, because I had no travelling to do. I'd stayed over in London the night before (the Better Half had met up with friends for an event at the Royal Festival Hall on the Friday night, so we booked the evening in a hotel on the South Bank and enjoyed a London mini-break). I was able to meet long-term fan friend David for a leisurely breakfast, then amble over to the BFI to meet the others (Chris, Alan, Scott) at the BFI. Maybe this was why I wasn't particularly put out when they started showing the wrong version of The Happiness Patrol on the big screen. Before that, when we were settled in the auditorium of NFT1, things had started as usual: hosts Justin Johnson and Dick Fiddy walked out on stage, and lots of people took photos including yours truly. "I don't know," said Johnson "How many Dick pics do you need?!" They started with a round-up of social media comments with someone online suggesting that everyone should be wearing pink to attend as was done for the Barbie movie screenings in cinemas in 2023. "Most of our audience look more like Oppenheimer," said Fiddy drily.

There was then the usual quiz; one of the prizes was a self-assembly Kandyman action figure (i.e. a bag of Liquorice Allsorts); nobody could answer the question of whom Sylvester McCoy played in fan video The Zero Imperative, so they gave Sylv himself the prize as he at least could remember he played a Doctor, if not the Doctor (it was Doctor Colin Dove, fact fans). After that, the first interviewee asked up to the stage was Pete McTighe, one of the major creative forces behind the Blu-ray range, who had been instrumental in creating the special edition of The Happiness Patrol. The aim of this first interview - unfortunately, as it turned out - was to talk up this new edition to whet the appetites of the assembled about what they were about to see. McTighe commended the creativity and persistence of everyone involved in the original production, in front of and behind the cameras (his mention of Sheila Hancock's performance as Helen A got a big round of applause). His idea was that the special edition would help the original production out with some effects that they wouldn't have had the time or money to create, to help in world building. McTighe had access to over 60 hours of footage, not all but some of which is on the Blu-ray in its raw form. A lot of the material that was cut for time has been reintroduced, meaning each of the three episodes is now at least 30 minutes long. Some restructuring of scenes has also been done, particularly in the first episode, which reportedly makes the story flow and feel different. McTighe talked about extending the sequence of the Kandyman's death, and jokingly apologised for the spoiler. Johnson asked if anyone in the audience had never seen the story before, and a couple of hands did go up. McTighe was due to be back on stage later to talk more about the special edition once we'd all seen it, but that was destined not to happen.

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, McTighe

After McTighe left the stage, a statement from Happiness Patrol's writer Graeme Curry's family was read out. They were in the audience, but probably thought they would be too emotional to make the statement in person on stage; it brought a tear to the eye. Curry died in 2019, and it seems that for most of the time after his only Doctor Who story's broadcast until 2019, he only heard negative things about the story, though in later years he did become aware that it had a few fans out there. It is a shame that he didn't live to see how well the story he wrote, as broadcast in 1988 and without any further changes, went down with the audience at the BFI in August 2024. For that was the version that was shown. It was clear from the first scene after the credits that something was up; if the idea of the special edition was to add effects shots to better build the world of Terra Alpha, then one would expect to open with something a bit grander than how the original version started. After a few more minutes, the picture froze and the lights came up. Johnson came on stage and explained that the wrong version had been sent, and we were watching the standard version of the story. They were looking at a way to rectify the situation, but it seemed unlikely that they could get the correct version to the BFI now before the allotted slot for the day's event ran out. He apologised again before going offstage, but said "This is what the BBC sent - to throw them under the bus"! The first episode then resumed, and was followed by the second, again as broadcast in 1988. You can find my write up of the story for the blog here, but I have to note that I was much more positive watching the story in the BFI than I was back in 2018.

(L to R) Fiddy, Mansfield, Fifi

I could probably do some clever-clever remarks at this juncture about the people in the audience - like the populace of Terra Alpha - being scared to seem unhappy, but they reacted honestly and warmly to what they were seeing, even though it wasn't what they were expecting. I was swept along too: it's a funny script and elicited many big laughs from the crowd; in character and out, McCoy and Aldred are a fun duo to spend time with; all that material that was cut makes it rattle along at a fair old clip; the music and the visualisation of the Kandyman and Fifi are superlative. Talking of the latter, Fifi was the next guest invited onto the stage after the end of the second episode. Well, strictly speaking it was Stephen Mansfield, creature creator and puppeteer, who with Susan Moore built some of the nasties of the McCoy era including Helen A's pet. Johnson and Fiddy, coming back on with a 'show must go on' attitude, talked about a routine disappearance style punishment for whoever it was at the BBC that had screwed up, and then invited Mansfield onto the stage. With him came something balanced on a dais and hidden under a cloth (and it was fairly easy to guess what). Mansfield talked about the particular position he was put in doing his puppetry work to bring Fifi to life on set, which was mostly on the floor sticking his hand up between Sheila Hancock's legs. His journey to restoring Fifi started when rummaging in a props lockup (which also contained puppets from 1980s satire show Spitting Image and the Destroyer from Doctor Who story Battlefield whose latex had "gone crispy"). He saw Fifi looking forlorn, its expression almost "imploring" him, so decided to return the puppet to its former glory. The air bladder control that made the eyes move still works, and - once Fifi had been revealed with a theatrical flourish - this was demonstrated on stage.

Fifi

The final episode was shown next, followed by some clips from the Value Added Material of the Blu-ray set; there was the set's trailer, an excerpt from Looking For Dursley (a documentary about Remembrance of the Daleks guest star Dursley McLinden), and a section from Googlebox style extra Behind the Sofa with various Who luminaries commenting on The Happiness Patrol. It all looks great, as usual. Once that was done, the main panel came out - it was the largest I've seen at a BFI Doctor Who event for some time with five people involved in the production coming up on stage for Q&A: director Chris Clough, Script Editor Andrew Cartmel, main guest star Sheila Hancock, who played Helen A, and stars Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy. Hancock was the biggest draw, and did dominate a little bit, but it was a lively panel in general, and everyone got a chance to shine. Hancock made it clear up front that she hadn't understood what was going on in the plot at all, but thought that it was an explosion of creativity, extolling the virtues of the effects, costumes, and make up. "You were good too, darling," she added to Sylv. She could see that it was a story with a moral, and that it did "sum up a dreadful period" of 1980s Thatcherism, but "I never followed the plot ... those little people, who the hell were they?". This instigated the first of many moments through the remainder of the event where Cartmel explained aspects of the story to Hancock. Later on, she queried what the point of the man wandering around with the harmonica was, and it's a good question to be fair. Early on, Cartmel highlighted how good the music - including the harmonica - was, and namechecked composer Dominic Glynn. Sticking with the musical theme, McCoy in typical self-deprecating style said that his "one talent" was playing the spoons, as he does to accompany the harmonica playing in one scene.

Sylv makes an entrance

When asked what he'd made of watching a story he performed in at a much younger age, McCoy said he was asking himself all the way through "Who is that chap, I recognise him?". There was a lively discussion amongst the panel members about the campness of the story, with many putting forward the view that underneath the trappings there was a lot of darkness, while others nonetheless thought it was "ultra camp, though" with the "pink TARDIS" being a giveaway. Cartmel explained that what might not come across is that the Doctor and Ace have landed in the "bad part of town" where infrastructure was crumbling but had facades erected to mask this, as in parts of "New Orleans or Venice". Clough outlined that they had filmed scenes with the cameras tilted to give a film noir effect, but once they fell behind schedule that was abandoned. The soundbites started to come so thick and fast that I didn't always have time to scribble down who said what. Aldred said that you can "Thank Chris [Clough]" for her performances throughout the series, new and old, as "He cast me", "So he's to blame," added someone - probably Sylv. Cartmel talked about Bassetts (the company in the UK famous for their liquorice sweets) getting upset about the potential breach of copyright that the Kandyman represented. "Who could have seen that coming?!" joked someone. "Ronnie Fraser was off the booze at that time" (that must have been Hancock); "You're obsessed by bike leathers"; "We are a cultured country"; "Nadine Dorries!". The story was initially seen as one that was badly received, but Cartmel thought that had changed of late, with it being embraced by a younger generation; "Well, they like sweets" said one wag. Someone, probably Clough, felt nostalgic at the wrong files being delivered to the BFI; it put him in mind of many a BBC cock-up he'd experienced in years gone by.

(L to R) Johnson, Clough, Cartmel, Hancock, Aldred, McCoy

A good-natured disagreement occurred between Cartmel and Johnson; the latter had an interesting fact written down on a card that The Happiness Patrol was the last Doctor Who story made wholly in studio until 2024's Boom, but Cartmel thought that Ghost Light also qualified. Ghost Light, as the obsessive fans in the audience (guilty as charged) knew, featured some establishing shots taken on location during the production of Survival. A question about making guest casts feel comfortable elicited a standard response from Sophie about Sylv being a good company leader, but Hancock bristled a bit about the suggestion that it was good to make things 'fun'. "Are you a killjoy?" asked someone whom I again did not have the chance to record, such was the speed at which the comments were coming. Hancock explained that after working long and hard on productions, she never liked it when the uninitiated said that "'It must be such fun.' Fun? This is my job, it's not a hobby!" Cartmel revealed that, although he and Curry had had Thatcher in mind as the template for Helen A, they had not passed this on to Hancock, who had come to it naturally in reaction to the script. When McCoy was talking about being told about the cancellation of Doctor Who, Hancock enquired whether more had been made after Happiness Patrol and was told that there had been another year of stories. "So, it wasn't this one that finished you off?" she asked, sounding a little relieved. McCoy shared something that I've never heard him say before, that a 1963 speech by the then UK leader of the opposition Harold Wilson led to the creation of Doctor Who, as the BBC were then inspired to make a scientific show. It's completely untrue, alas: this was the famous 'White Heat of Technology' speech that Wilson gave at his party conference; online sources differ as to whether it was presented in early October or late September, but either way Doctor Who was late on its development and had started production by then.

Towards the end, the panel took a more serious turn with a discussion about how Doctor Who was rated in the 1980s. Aldred and McCoy showed their usual positivity; when asked what was their personal legacy from Doctor Who, McCoy talked about how its allowed him to travel all over the world; Aldred answered " A pension" to laughs and added, hugging McCoy, "And a brilliant friend" to cheers. Clough, though, talked with maybe even a tinge of bitterness about the "career killer" that was having Doctor Who on one's CV. Everyone agreed that show business is a very snobby business, and Hancock pointed out that it wasn't just Doctor Who but all TV that tended to be looked down on, citing people referring to her late, great husband John Thaw dismissively as "a telly actor". All seemed to agree that - though TV without any purpose "disappears into the ether and is just bubblegum" - the best TV has messages within it. This was what drew McCoy to Doctor Who as a viewer in the 1960s. Clough talked with passion about his work on Brookside in the 1980s up to 2024's impactful Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which he produced. Whether he would add The Happiness Patrol to such an illustrious list was not made clear, but clearly it has a message and speaks to people. The event wound up and we left the auditorium for the BFI bar. I discussed the story with one of my viewing buddies Chris, who is a little more difficult to please than me. It became instantly clear that the issues I'd noted when I blogged the story are definitely there. As Sheila Hancock instinctively noticed, there is no real reason to include the pipe people or the harmonica player in proceedings, and there's many other examples along those lines. The story clearly has an effect on the audience despite these problems, though. Perhaps it isn't necessary for something to be coherent to be meaningful?

I wondered whether the special edition would have uncovered a more integrated narrative to back up the story's great premise, but assumed I would have to wait until the Blu-ray was released to find out. An email sent a week after the event would prove that assumption to be wrong... 

(With thanks to Scott and Alan for some of the BFI pictures.)

In Summary:

Ultimately it wasn't the end, but - if it had been - it would have been a great story to go out on.

Real Time

 

Chapter the 310th, a fist of absolutely no fun whatsoever.

Plot:

On an unnamed planet in 3286, a regularly occurring temporal wave has caused two survey teams to vanish. The last broadcast picked up from one of the scientists suggests the Cybermen are responsible. So, another team is put together including the Doctor and Evelyn, a mysterious Cyber expert called Goddard who's bound to have a hidden agenda, various redshirts, and a 1990s comedy double-act. With the clock ticking down to the next wave, they investigate a temple containing a time portal. Some of the team are pulled into the portal and reemerge in Cyber form, but a bit rubbish - like they have been converted in a hurry and not very well. The Cyber-Controller, who sits behind the portal trapped in a future time zone, is running low on energy and parts; but it plans to recruit the Doctor to allow the Cybermen to master time travel using the portal and/or his TARDIS (it's not very clear). Goddard turns out to be a cyber-converted human from an alternate timeline in Earth's past (he was born in 1927 and left Earth in 1951). Goddard believes the Doctor is destined to join with the Cybermen who will then travel back to 1927 and use a nano-virus to convert humans into his new type of Cyberman with a brain and a skin exterior, but with internal workings made of machine.

Goddard is one of a group of rebels who have broken their conditioning. He has a reverse-engineered virus based on the original that will destroy cyber enhancement technology, and he's going to use it to kill the Cyber-controller. The Doctor believes that the virus will fall into the Cybermen's hands and they will end up creating the original virus by reverse-engineering Goddard's own reverse-engineering job (bootstrap paradox squared). Evelyn is taken as bait, and sent for Cyber-conversion, but the process is apparently halted before it is complete. One of the comedy double-act is Cyber-converted and the other is killed. The Doctor sabotages the portal, so when the next wave comes it will happen inside the temple rather than outside. When Goddard and the Doctor go through the portal to confront the controller, the converted double-act member's humanity has been reactivated on hearing about the death of his comedy partner. He attacks, and in the confusion the Doctor gets Evelyn out of the portal and back to the safety of the TARDIS. Goddard is trapped as the wave hits, but kills the Controller; unmasking it, he discovers it is Evelyn. In the TARDIS, Evelyn suggests they go to visit 1927, suggesting that she's under Cyber influence and about to start the alternate timeline cycle up again...

Context:

This is another story of nebulous canonical status, so I asked myself my standard questions to decide on its inclusion in the blog. Aptly for a Colin Baker story, it passed with flying colours. Does it star the Doctor? Yes. Does it have visuals? Yes; they may be rudimentary, but they are definitely there. Was it released as an official Doctor Who or official spin-off story (i.e. its not an unofficial fan-made proposition)? Yes. Is there a dramatic context to the story (i.e. it's not just a skit)? Yes. Was it released with the intention of being the main attraction for audience engagement (i.e. it's not just an extra on a DVD or Blu-ray)? Yes. Have I already covered it in passing with another connected story? No. This assessment done, I watched the episodes, one a night across the best part of a week, in late September 2024. The story is no longer available in its old home of the official Doctor Who website, but there are a few versions available on video sharing platforms.

Milestone watch: I've been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, and I'm now closing in on the point where I finish everything and catch up with the current stories being broadcast serially. Apart from a few extra odds and sods like Real Time that I throw in occasionally, I have completed 27 out of the total of 40 seasons to date (at the time of writing): classic seasons 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-12, 14-18, 20, 21, 23-25, and new series 2, 4, 6, 7, 9-11, and 13).

First Time Round:

Through 2002 and 2003, the official Doctor Who website launched and then hosted four webcasts - three new stories and a reworked version of the unfinished 1970s story Shada. These were primarily audio stories but with some limited animation. They got more sophisticated as they went along, and culminated in Scream of the Shalka, a potential new start for the series with a brand new Doctor and companion (the return of Doctor Who to TV put paid to it being the start of anything, of course, but that was the intention). Real Time was the second of these four. It followed Death Comes to Time. The initial launch of that story was more exciting by dint of being first, but I think its fair to say that it wasn't well received by a large part of fandom. It was muddled, unnecessarily complicated, unengaging emotionally and far too tied up in detailing lore rather than in telling a story. Real Time followed, its first episode being shown only three months after the last episode of Death Comes to Time. It was definitely seen as better, but to me it was still muddled, unnecessarily complicated, unengaging emotionally and far too tied up in detailing lore rather than in telling a story. Not to the same degree, but enough to be off-putting. I watched the first three episodes on my computer at home in Brighton in August 2002, struggling with bandwidth issues all the while, then I bailed. This watch was my first ever viewing of the second half of the story. Looking back on it now, Real Time does seem like an oddity. It wasn't striving to be a new start like Death Comes to Time or Shalka, and it wasn't a full-on retro celebration like Shada. It was something more run of the mill - a standard adventure with an old Doctor, like dozens of others that Big Finish had made by 2002 and would make in the years afterwards, but this time with pictures.

Reaction:

Real Time takes place in real time, hence the name. If you went into the episodes not knowing that, though, I think you'd be hard pushed to tell, despite the script regularly referencing the ticking clock of the approaching temporal wave. Whether events of a Doctor Who action story take place over about an hour or an evening or a couple of days, they inevitably involve frantic races against the clock and similar structures of cutting back and forth between different breathless scenes of characters trying to survive. If it were one continuous piece, the elapsed story time might be more tangible, but this is disrupted when watching episodically as the original web viewers did, and I did on this watch. As such, Real Time feels no different to any pacey Cyberman story, like Earthshock, say, except in one crucial regard. Being set in a continuity of time tends to dictate that the action also happens in a continuity of place (the area around a temple containing the time portal). The Doctor can't go off for a jaunt and visit the future of the nameless world they are on, or go to 1927 or 1951 on Earth's alternate timeline where time-travelling Cybs have converted everyone. Events in these time zones are crucial to the plot, but the audience can't be shown them. It therefore needs to be told, told, told. This means that almost all of Real Time is spent in breathless scenes of characters exchanging barely comprehensible exposition about the backstory. A story full of time-travel and paradoxes is not trying to do something straightforward like Earthshock, it's trying to do something convoluted like, say, Mawdryn Undead. But in real time. It should have occurred to at least one of the many talented and experienced people involved in this production, who've produced lots more successful Who stories elsewhere (see Deeper Thoughts for more details), that it was the epitome of folly to attempt a story in real time if it involves lots of time travel.

Watching the resultant production is rather like being hit over the head repeatedly with an online fan wiki. It's very hard to follow, and even harder to care much about. To pick one detail that's representative: the very first scene depicts two people who are presumably alternate timeline Cyber rebels sending presumably Goddard back in time; but anyone watching this scene first time won't have a clue who they are or what's going on, and can't work it out until at least episode 5 when all the backstory is finally laid out; by that time, though, there's a real risk that they'll have forgotten all about this first scene. The scene also has the rebels refer to the person being sent as "Doctor", which was deliberate misdirection, I assume, but just muddies the waters further. The scene takes place in 1951, but in a technologically advanced Cyber base so it doesn't look or feel like 1951. What was the point of having the rebels come from an alternate 1951 rather than the story's 'present day' of 3286? It doesn't add anything except more confusion. I'm assuming, given that the story ends on a massive cliffhanger, that it was setting things up for a sequel, a story set in 1927 (when Goddard was first converted as an infant) in which the Doctor would presumably have discovered that Evelyn was under Cyber influence, and put things right, saving her and the timeline. Whether because of a change in the BBC Website team or at Big Finish (who produced the story), or for some other reason, the sequel never came. The ending to Real Time remains unresolved to this day. I'm ambivalent about this. Whatever issues it had, Real Time was a step up in terms of comprehensibility after Death Comes to Time; with a sequel to tie up the many loose ends, it might be thought of more fondly. Alternatively, when one's on a losing streak it's perhaps best to quit early.

Big Finish being involved in a web production means that Colin Baker's allowed to perform the role without having to shout and bluster as he was made to do on TV (by 2002, his Doctor was in a deserved renaissance period thanks to the more sympathetic writing and direction of the audios). Those like me who didn't follow the audios got to experience Maggie Stables playing Evelyn Smythe (a companion character invented for Big Finish). The dynamic between the Doctor and an older female companion is an interesting one, and works well with Baker's approach to the Doctor. Lee Sullivan's art that accompanies the audio is good, with interesting Cyberman design, and a blue version of the Sixth Doctor's costume (this change was made to save the artist realising Colin's usual colourful patchwork affair, but it's generally preferred by fans as the original is a hideous eyesore). The combination of Big Finish and web budget may have meant a stronger draw for contributors. Whether they needed that to get comedy duo Stewart Lee and Richard Herring involved, I do not know. Both do well considering they are not actors; their interplay is natural and balanced between comedy and seriousness; Lee's character's Cyber conversion and subsequent rediscovery of his humanity on finding out about his close colleague's death is the best part of the story. What's odd is that Lee and Herring stopped performing together, amicably, at the end of the 1990s. Aside from a very few and very brief appearances together for charity benefits and the like over the years, Real Time represents their last work as a duo, which is a quirky end for sure. Another bit of stunt casting is of Yee Jee Tso, who played Paul McGann TV Movie companion Chang Lee, appearing in a different role. It's a pretty thankless role with the most exposition to spew of everyone, but nonetheless he too comports himself well. Featuring aspects of classic series, TV movie, and with a eye to the future in a new medium, Real Time is itself something of a nexus point in the history of Who; it's just a shame it wasn't a simpler story.

Connectivity:

Both Real Time and Dot and Bubble feature a main adversary (the Cyber-Controller, the Dot system) that's technologically enhanced, with a metal casing and red eye(s). In both stories, this adversary controls multiple other creatures that are at least semi-organic.

Deeper Thoughts:

Poachers converted to Cyber-Gamekeepers. I've mentioned a few times before on the blog that I have only listened to a very small number of Big Finish Who stories over the many years that they've been made. Only seven stories, in fact (four were the very first Paul McGann starring audios that came out in 2001, because I was curious, the other three were some of those made available on BBC Sounds around Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, because they were free). Given their ubiquity in fandom (they must have created nearly a thousand Doctor Who stories at the time of writing, and they're still churning them out), that low a percentage is remarkable given I'm a fairly active Doctor Who fan, but there's only so many hours in the day. I have in the past, though, listened to a much higher percentage of the Big Finish audios' precursors. These were called Audio Visuals, and were unlicensed and fan-made Doctor Who stories distributed on audio cassette in the 1980s and early 1990s. Somehow, nobody involved in their making was prosecuted by the BBC for flagrant breach of copyright. I assume no profit was being made; I listened to a few tapes that were loaned to me by long-term fan friend David mentioned many times before on this blog; he copied them from other friends, who got them as copies from other friends, and so on. If any money exchanged hands at the start of that chain, I was definitely unaware of it. I doubt it, though, as that wasn't the point. It was instead a chance for everyone involved to do something they really wanted to do in creating engaging new stories based on their favourite TV series, honing their skills. This paid off, as many of the people involved have turned what started as a hobby into a professional career, and a few have even got to work on the series proper.

Big Finish's CD cover for Real Time's audio release

A couple of the key team behind Audio Visuals were Gary Russell (co-creator, writer and producer) and Nicholas Briggs (writer and voice artist playing the Audio Visuals Doctor for most of the stories). Both went on to have significant roles in Big Finish doing Doctor Who stories in a similar way, but with more polish and crucially with a licence from the BBC, so everything was legit. Both would also work on the new series after the show returned in 2005. Briggs has done voice work as Daleks, Cybermen and numerous other monsters, working with every Doctor in the revived era. Russell worked as a script editor on Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as at different times editing Doctor Who Magazine, writing many Doctor Who books (novelisations, novels and non-fiction) and comic strips. He wrote and directed Real Time (anyone can have an off day) and has kept the animation flame alive with work providing visuals for 'missing' Doctor Who stories surviving on audio like Fury from the Deep and The Abominable Snowmen. Bill Baggs, who produced the Audio Visuals stories alongside Russell, has never worked on the new series, but after Audio Visuals he founded BBV Productions to make low-budget video stories using Doctor Who characters or concepts licensed from their owners, or using Doctor Who acting alumni in different roles. A notable person involved in BBV Productions was Mark Gatiss, who wrote many stories in the PROBE series featuring Caroline John as Liz Shaw. He of course went on to write several episodes of new Who, and star in a few too.

Real Time's cast including Nick Briggs

Gatiss, Russell and other writers who'd worked on Audio Visuals also wrote original novels for the Virgin New Adventures range in the 1990s. Paul Cornell was a key contributor to the Virgin New Adventures range, having started writing fan fiction in the 'zines and comic strips in Doctor Who Magazine. He would go on to write a couple of very well regarded new series stories in the early years of the revival. Keith Barnfather's Reeltime Pictures, who Nicholas Briggs was heavily involved with for many years, produced both documentaries and video fiction. Though nobody involved who wasn't also involved with other productions ended up working on the new series, Barnfather still gave opportunities to showcase further work of Who people like Terrance Dicks, Kevin Davies, Mark Ayres, and Philip Martin. Writers who worked on Big Finish audios such as Robert Shearman went on to write for the new series. A later key member of the Big Finish team Scott Handcock was script editor on the most recent (at time of writing) episodes of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa. Like some kind of metaphorical dandelion clock, Audio Visuals set a hundred seeds onto the wind to fly off into different corners of the Whoniverse, land, and take root. And most of this happened in a period inaccurately called the 'Wilderness years', between 1990 and 2004 when Doctor Who was not being made as an ongoing series by the BBC. That period clearly wasn't a wilderness, it was a crucible of creativity. I'd lobby to rename them the 'Crucible Years' except that sounds too much like a retrospective documentary about early televised snooker in the UK.

In Summary:

An overcomplicated story unfortunately means this is a Real waste of Time.