Wild Blue Yonder

Chapter the 292nd, wherein the Doctor and Donna get all bent out of shape even though there's Not-Thing to worry about.

Plot:
The TARDIS is out of control after Donna split coffee on the console. After a brief stop in an apple tree and a hello to Isaac Newton, the time travellers arrive in a vast and empty spaceship at the edge of the universe. The Doctor sets his time and space machine to mend itself, and he and Donne explore; almost instantly, though, the TARDIS dematerialises without them. The Doctor realises that they have landed in a hostile environment, and the ship will not return until they have neutralised these hostilities. They find many mysteries aboard. Why does the ship reconfigure itself every so often after strange words are spoken over the ship's PA? Why is a rusty old robot moving very slowly down a corridor? And why was the airlock opened three years ago? Before they can find answers, the Doctor and Donna meet copies of themselves; these are predatory entities, the Not-Things, that can mimic people. Luckily, they find it difficult to get the shapes exactly right, allowing the real Doctor and Donna to know who's Who, but the Not-Things are quick learners. The real versions of our heroes get chased around by the fakes, and slowly piece together what is happening. The captain of the ship ejected herself into the vacuum three years ago to stop the Not-Things copying her, preventing their piloting the ship back to civilisation. She then set a slow trap - the ship is gradually instigating its self-destruct process, with the robot moving into place to press the final button; the strange words were a countdown. The Doctor speeds up the countdown; as it nears completion, the TARDIS returns. The real Doctor and Donna just manage to escape and the Not-Things are blown up. Back in London, Wilf has been waiting for the TARDIS to come back; the world around him is in chaos, with everyone having seemingly gone mad...

Context:

It feels like this one's only just been on TV; it was not long after my initial watch and even less time since rewatching it on the Blu-Ray which I got as a Christmas present from the fam. For this blog post, though, I got to experience it afresh in a different medium, as I was reading the novelisation (see Deeper Thoughts below). I read the book in a few days in February 2024, then had another look at the TV episode to make sure I remembered the visuals clearly enough for its write-up. 

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. I have completed 20 out of the total of 39 seasons to date (at the time of writing). There are also specials in between those seasons (mostly in the new series years post 2005), and I've completed most of those too. With this one done, I only have two other specials to date to cover: The Giggle, last of the trilogy that saw Tennant and Tate returning, and Jodie Whittaker's swansong The Power of the Doctor.

First Time Round:

This story was watched on its debut broadcast in the UK on Saturday 2nd December 2023 live from the BBC iplayer by the whole family (Better Half and all three children, boys of 17 and 14, girl of 11). We'd put up the Christmas decorations during the hours before broadcast and I was feeling festive, so I poured myself a large cocktail to accompany my viewing. I probably made it too strong and/or I'd not eaten enough that day and/or I'd not had enough sleep the night before, but this drink went straight to my head. I could barely stay awake through the broadcast, and turned in for the night immediately after the story finished. Even through that fug, it was clear to me that I'd watched something remarkable. My early night alas led to sitting up wide-awake at 4.30am the next day. Unable to sleep, I crept downstairs to the living room and killed time until everyone else was up by watching something akin to a Doctor Who panto, then watching Wild Blue Yonder again.

Reaction:

At the time it was first shown, the immediate reaction from some fans was disappointment about what Wild Blue Yonder didn't feature, rather than what it did. In a cruel irony, the minimalism of the story meant it was marketed with more secrecy than the other two 60th anniversary specials around it (having little that could be shared without being a spoiler), and that left a gap into which overheated imaginings flooded. Before one could say 'Clown-face emoji', people were speculating that this secrecy was because Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi and all the other Doctors, companions, villains and monsters would be appearing. It's interesting that the nature of the Not-Thing creatures could have allowed some scope for cameos: the script says that the creatures can copy but they aren't as aware of shapes as us, and that they have access to the full memory of the Time Lord: they could have copied wrong and briefly ended up with some old faces of the Doctor. But the nature of the tale was minimalism not the maximalism of some fans' expectations. The production team had what they considered to be - and it's a feeling shared by a lot of us, to be fair - the dream team of David Tennant and Catherine Tate back, and they were going to make full use of them. I can see if you're more of a fan of Eleven and Amy, or Twelve and Clara, or whoever, it would be disappointing in an anniversary year to concentrate on just one team, but tiny cameos by those characters likely wouldn't have satisfied anyway (and this is assuming they'd have all been willing and available to appear). Creating a decent narrative with many returning characters is hard, and often leads to messy results. Wild Blue Yonder has a clean and elegant story that any additions would have muddled.

Because the simplicity of the arrangement of elements in the piece is its key strength, I'd almost be tempted to lose the pre-credits sequence where the Doctor and Donna meet Isaac Newton. It's fun though, and sets up a running gag in this story and those shown after it that the Doctor and Donna have inadvertently changed history so that gravity is instead dubbed 'mavity' by its discoverer. Is this just a piece of ongoing silliness, or will it pay-off as some clue to future traversing of the multiverse? Time will tell. The other aspect of the pre-credits sequence that had an impact was the colourblind casting of Nathaniel Curtis as Newton. He was great, and it was fantastic to see him in Doctor Who; it also annoyed some inflexibly-minded people on the internet (whether you see this as another plus is entirely up to your own judgement!). These few, mild controversies aside, the story was the sort of straightforward narrative that it must be incredibly complicated to write and to direct. The later duty fell to Tom Kingsley, and on the basis of his work here, it would be great to see him return to the show. The story relied on two very different types of scenes: quiet and emotional interactions between the Doctor and Donna (or their doubles in different combos - some of the most heartstring-tugging moments turned out to be when one character was baring their soul to an imposter), and big effects scenes with contorted fairground-mirror versions of our heroes attacking. Kingsley and crew handled both with aplomb. There was some magnificent production design on display here, with use of elegant bubbling hydraulics or organic goo as set dressing in various of the spaceship's chambers, courtesy of designer Phil Sims, all of which were lit beautifully.

Then, there were the sets that weren't even really there. Will we one day look back on the effects work used here to put the Doctor and Donna into vast metallic spaces, and think it looks dated? Will green-screen technology improve in future such that this work looks rudimentary by comparison? I can't see how myself, as I could not see any join. Every detail seemed to have been considered from the design of the alien captain floating outside the ship to the alien numerals on the control panels, from a cute rusty robot to the majestic vista of the ship floating alone in the inky blackness. It all looked amazing, but the material had the depth to mean it wasn't all just shiny surface. Even the smallest moments, like Donna and the Doctor stopping themselves from bickering when things start to go wrong, or the haunted moment where the Doctor talks with not-Donna about his newly discovered Timeless Child status - it all resonated. The early scenes of the two characters just hanging out are a joy, finding the name Mrs. Bean unfeasibly funny. If all that wasn't enough for you, then at the end it played the last magnificent card of its hand, and we got a scene with Bernard Cribbins as Wilf. The actor's final scene in any production, so we were so blessed to get it. Wilf's joy at seeing the Tennant Doctor, despite the chaos going on around them, could melt the frostiest of hearts. Maybe none of the concepts in the story are exactly revolutionary: Doctor Who has done the regulars alone on an abandoned spaceship many times, and the mimicking Not-Things are like a rerun of the creature from Midnight. The story is much more optimistic than Midnight, though, and that's because in that story the Doctor and Donna were separated; the joy of Wild Blue Yonder is seeing them together.

Connectivity:

Both Wild Blue Yonder and Full Circle feature crafts situated outside of the area of space in which the Doctor normally travels (the edge of the universe in the Tennant special, a different universe in the Baker serial). In both ships, activity is happening at a somewhat slow pace, the original crews are long gone, and the ships are instead inhabited by interloper creatures who are adept at developing to suit their new environment. 

Deeper Thoughts:

Target Acquired: Further Novelisation Collection. The original Target imprint, owned by a number of publishers over the years, was the home of novelisations of almost all the Doctor Who television stories. Starting in the 1970s, it kept going until the early 1990s, when the available pool of stories to turn into books ran out. For a number of years before 2024, a relaunched Target range has been running. It published all the stories that hadn't been available for whatever reason first time round, closing the gaps, published alternate versions of previously novelised stories, and it started on converting the new series stories from 2005 onwards too. In fits and starts, batches of books have come out for readers and collectors to enjoy. This latest batch of three are a bit different, though. Even in the old days, television production and book publishing timelines rarely aligned; the Target novelisations were on their own schedule, often covering a story many years after it had been shown on the TV. Now, because the production schedule of the 60th anniversary specials and Ncuti Gatwa's stories is substantially ahead of transmission, it is possible to have synchronised tie-ins. The three book versions of the 2023 anniversary specials starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate were available in audio form immediately after broadcast, with the paperback versions coming out in January 2024, only a few weeks after the television showings. The authors picked to write the books all seem aptly chosen. Gary Russell takes on the most traditional script, The Star Beast, Mark Morris covers the horror-inflected Wild Blue Yonder, and James Goss the fast-paced and camp finale of the trio, The Giggle.

The first few pages of The Star Beast are loaded with continuity in-jokes and references (calling back to the original comic strips, the classic series, and the new series) and it got a bit overwhelming for this fan. One starts to fret that every detail must link to something from Doctor Who's past, and if that happens to be a Virgin New Adventure novel one hasn't read, or a Big Finish audio to which one hasn't listened, then one's missing out. It settles down after a while, though, and it wouldn't be intrusive to someone less steeped in lore. The book is structured into seven longer chapters, separated by fun epistolary interludes. From experience of the novelisations of recent stories, an hour long special usually provides enough material for an 150-page paperback without the need for the author to create too much extra. There's even a couple of omissions, probably because the action didn't work in book form; the reporter at the steelworks is missing, as is the intercut flashback late on of Rose chanting "Non-binary" over and over. The small amount of action added (an early scene where Rose sees the Doctor use his sonic screwdriver, more scenes featuring the character of Fudge) is almost certainly material cut from the TV version before broadcast. Beyond this, Russell uses the tried and trusted technique of adding a POV character that provides a perspective of certain scenes as they play out (something Malcolm Hulke often did in early titles in the Target range). This character Stew Ferguson is one who had fleetingly appeared many years before in TV Doctor Who, but you'd never guess where in a million years. All told, this is an entertaining version of the story, satisfyingly getting into the characters' heads (you'll come out with a fuller understanding of Sylvia Noble for a start).

Morris's prose in his adaptation of Wild Blue Yonder is more unobtrusive and economical, in keeping with the story's minimalist feel. The tale is told briskly without any significant changes, capturing the characters' emotional reactions without lengthy paragraphs about their inner life. No in-jokes here (or at least none that I noticed), no new material (I half expected a prologue featuring the original captain of the craft ejecting herself into space, but this is left as backstory) and no new characters. The cast list is so small that Morris has no choice but to get inside the Doctor's head occasionally, which could be a risky endeavour - the character still has to retain some mystery. When it's done, it's done well: there's a wonderful moment of the Doctor summoning up new resolve after a moment of vulnerability (when he pummels the walls in frustration, as seen on TV).  Given the visual nature of the setting and the monstrousness encountered there, the success of the book lies in how well the descriptions capture the images; again Morris keeps things simple and effective with the occasional comparison to a slug or a scorpion, but nothing overblown. Good chosen nouns and verbs, not too many modifiers. The only gesture at ornamentation is making the chapter headings the alien words for the numbers in the countdown in descending order, Fenshaw, Coliss, Brate, etc. The overall approach might be too functional for some readers, but it is in line with the material it is adapting, and allows the strength of the story to come through.

Goss's The Giggle is at the other end of the spectrum, rainbow-hued, sugar-rich and quirky, again as befits the tone of the original TV version. The chapters (listed as a set of moves as in one of the Toymaker's games) are told from an omniscient viewpoint, the narrator of which turns out to be the Toymaker himself. There are hints of this early on, but it's revealed in full about a third of the way through. Steven Moffat did something similar with a different narrator in the novelisation of The Day of the Doctor a few years back, and I found it too mannered and distracting for that story. Here, it works because it fits the character and plot of endless game-playing. It allows the action to occasionally be punctuated by parodies of games and puzzles, or bits of concrete poetry illustrating the action. The book even takes on the structure of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book when Donna is exploring the corridors behind the Toymaker's shop. Elsewhere there is meta humour, where the Toymaker breaks the fourth-wall (if books indeed have four walls). I think the only time these alienation devices get in the way is during the more emotional moments. At the end of the story where the Doctor is born anew but still exists in his old version too, getting to do his therapy out of order, the narration returns to the normal style; all the time I was reading it I was therefore distracted by wondering who was narrating this if not the Toymaker, and if it was him, why he was suddenly being so respectful. It's the most interesting of the three books, and probably my favourite overall; but all three are worth reading. I hope to see more from the Target range soon. These are definitely not the last tie-in books being released close to the time of broadcast, as next story on The Church on Ruby Road has already come out in hardback. I expect a paperback edition will come out sooner rather than later.

In Summary:

If you think about it, it was a multi-Doctor story with familiar monsters and multiple returning companions. I don't know what people are moaning about!

Full Circle

Chapter the 291st, where the Doctor artfully dodges having to return Romana to Gallifrey.

Plot:
The Doctor, Romana and K9 are in the TARDIS en route to Gallifrey, but things go wibbly when they pass through a highly-scientific (magic) portal that leads to another universe, e-space. Instead of Gallifrey, they land on Alzarius. This is seemingly a temperate paradise where people harvest fruits and swim in rivers and the like. Then, Mistfall comes - an environmental change every five decades or so caused by the planet's orbit in space. This is a time where the people must shelter inside the Starliner, a ship that crashed on the planet years before bringing castaways from another world, Terradon. The people are told the atmosphere becomes poisonous during Mistfall, but it's merely a time when homicidal creatures emerge and roam around. The authorities of the people on the Starliner, a three-person committee called the Deciders, are cagey about sharing any details of these Marshmen with the people. Why could that be? A few young rebels, the Outlers, are stuck outside the ship when it is closed up, and meet with the Doctor and Romana. Two of these Outlers are Varsh and his brother Adric. The Marshmen knock K9's head off, and a marsh spider bites Romana which puts her under the Marshmen's control. The Doctor meanwhile enters the Starliner. The Outlers are separated from Romana in the TARDIS, and accidentally materialise it inside the Starliner. Romana helps the Marshmen break into the Starliner.

The Doctor confronts the Deciders and discovers some truths: the ongoing Starliner maintenance work that the people are engaged in is pointless busy work: the ship has been ready to take off for centuries, but nobody knows how to fly it - the records that survived were all about maintaining the ship, but nothing survived about operating it. The other revelation is that the people on the Starliner did not come from Terradon, they are instead descendants of Marshmen who invaded the ship many generations before. As someone had gnomically pointed out early on, they've come "Full Circle". Although, if they'd come full circle, wouldn't they be evolving into Marshmen again? I'm not getting how they've come full circle. This is like people getting a 180 mistaken for a 360; the people of the Starliner have only come "Semi-Circle", if you ask me. Anyway, Varsh is killed fighting to hold back the invading Marshmen, The Doctor manages to cure Romana, repel the Marshmen, and to get the Starliner in the air to take the evolved Starliner dwellers off into the stars. When he, Romana and K9 leave, Adric stows away on board the TARDIS.

Context:

I watched this from the Blu-ray across two weekends in January and February 2024, two episodes at a time with a week between them. The younger two of my kids (boy of 14, girl of 11) were in attendance for some periods, but it didn't hold their attention throughout. The youngest was particularly enamoured of K9 and his adventuring around Alzarius accompanied by Paddy Kingsland's jaunty motif. She was very unhappy when he was beheaded and took no further active part in the story, as she thinks - quote unquote - that "K9 is the best!". I wonder that a lot of children watching thought the same when this was first shown; the production team appreciated the metallic mutt much less than the audience, and continually - and often brutally - wrote him out of stories, before finally getting rid of him altogether a couple of stories after Full Circle.

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 current stories being broadcast serially. This story marks another season of Doctor Who completed, classic series 18, Tom Baker's seventh and final run from 1980/81. This is the 20th season completed out of the total of 39 to date (at the time of writing). In full, I have now completed classic seasons 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14-18, 20, 21, 23 and 25, and new series 2, 6, 10, 11 and 13).

First Time Round:

One of my earliest glimpses of Doctor Who ever was from this story, when I was changing channels on the TV. This was before I became a fan and regular viewer, but exactly how long before I cannot tell as I'm not certain whether this glimpse was during the original broadcast in the autumn of 1980 or the terrestrial repeat in Summer 1981. It was a moment with Romana under the influence of a Marsh Spider bite with tendril lines over her face, which seared itself onto young me's memory. I watched the complete story from a reasonably good tape-to-tape copy from fan friend David (mentioned many times before on the blog) in 1992; then, in the years thereafter, I collected it in incrementally better fidelity on sell-though VHS when it came out in 1997, then DVD in 2009, and finally Blu-Ray in 2019.

Reaction:

Famously, Full Circle was written by a teenage fan. Andrew Smith was 17 years old when it was made, 18 when it was shown, but he'd been pitching ideas to the production office for many years before this one was finally developed and produced. Smith is undoubtedly therefore responsible for making all teenage fans for the next ten years wrongly believe they could be in with a shot of getting their Doctor Who story made (and yes, I was one of them); more positively, a few of those young scribblers ended up creating Who stories for books and audio during the wilderness years when Doctor Who was not on TV, and this was one of the things that kept interest in the show alive such that it could eventually return. If Full Circle hadn't been made, maybe Doctor Who would not still be a going concern now, showing as it did that the writing of Doctor Who didn't have to be an old man's game? What's curious though, is that it's not exactly an idea bursting with youthful vigour. If you didn't know, you'd probably guess it was written by a middle-aged man, with its themes of indecision, impotence and fear of getting replaced by another incoming generation. This may be because Smith was a preternaturally mature talent (and he was), but it might also be connected to the script editor Christopher H. Bidmead. In every one of the three stories in the loose e-space trilogy that kicked off with Full Circle - for all of which Bidmead was screenplay midwife as he was for all the stories during the year - there's a spacecraft that can't take off, usually crewed by ineffectual men (often with beards). This is one of the more energetic of this type of story in season 18 - often the visuals during this season are aiming for operatic grandeur (The Leisure Hive, Warrior's Gate) rather than thrills and spills.

The vitality in the story, and the excitement in the visuals, comes mainly from the director Peter Grimwade's approach to the material. Grimwade had worked on Doctor Who in various capacities before, but this was his first director gig, and he would make his mark with Full Circle and a number of other stories over the next couple of years as either director or writer. The script gifts him one great sequence, where the marshmen arise from the depths and advance, and a couple of juicy story reversals. Grimwade gets the most out of these. The first of these reversals is that the Starliner has been ready to take off for centuries, but nobody knows how to fly it; the second, that the inhabitants of the Starliner are not the descendants of the original crew and passengers that crashed generations ago, but are instead descended from the hyper-adaptive Marshmen that broke in many years before. Again, this is satisfying as presented, but the lifecycle gets more confusing if one gives it any thought after watching. The main issue I think is the inclusion of the marsh spiders. If the idea is that they evolve into Marshmen, then why are both presented as existing in the same environment at the same time? Is the spiders' power to control people whom they bite significant to the evolution? Or is it, as I suspect, just to add another monster and create some frightening moments? To be fair, a lot of those moments work (one was so effective it stuck in my mind for many a few years - see First Time Round above), and it's good to give Lalla Ward the chance to do some possessed acting, which she almost never got to do (other companions would be hypnotised left, right and centre).

In general, Grimwade is better at getting effective sequences on location film than he is in the multi-camera studio (he'd get better at creating dynamism in the latter environment in subsequent stories he helmed). A few of the scuffles on the Starliner are a little messy. The performances Grimwade gets out of his cast are generally of high quality. George Baker, James Bree and Alan Rowe (the last of whom had previously been in many Doctor Who stories including Horror of Fang Rock - see Deeper Thoughts section for more on that story) as the Deciders do solid work; Tom Baker gets to do some nice righteous anger scenes confronting them. The younger members of the cast playing the Outlers all comport themselves well, even Matthew Waterhouse as incoming regular Adric, who was inexperienced with TV work. The character he's saddled with doesn't do a new young actor any favours. Initially conceived by the production team as a kind-of Artful Dodger in space, the scripts subsequently produced for him just don't present the character as anything like that. He's instead a precocious member of the elite, with intellectual skills, but no street smarts, who - one assumes from the scenes in Full Circle - will gradually learn during his travels with the Doctor (in other words, exactly the same arc as Romana when she was introduced). Adric isn't eventually developed that way either, and ends up as a character without a raison d'etre.

Adric is, though, the first new regular character of a new regime, and they would get a bit better at creating such characters anon. With these first signs of changes to the regular cast, bringing in younger actors, Full Circle feels like the first proper John Nathan-Turner story. The scripts for the previous two stories (The Leisure Hive and Meglos) would not have been out of place in seasons run by the previous producer, indeed the first was a script from the go-to writer of that previous era given a 1980s paint job. Full Circle, with a new young writer, a new young director and a new young regular was the point where things really started to change.

Connectivity:

Both Full Circle and The Caves of Androzani are four-part 1980s stories produced by John Nathan-Turner. In both, there is a plot point about the orbit of the planet on which the story is set periodically causing environmental changes (Mistfall on Alzarius, mudbusrts on Androzani Minor).

 

Deeper Thoughts:

From Alzarius to Ruta 3: Season 15 screenings at the BFI Southbank, 4th February 2024. Some milestones one passes without noticing. In July 2023, with the blog post for The Power of Kroll, and without any fanfare, I finally covered the entire Doctor Who oeuvre of producer Graham Williams. This write-up of a Williams-related BFI day has therefore to be attached to a Tom Baker story from after his time, albeit only the third story to be broadcast after Williams had left and the producer job had been taken on by John Nathan-Turner. The next story broadcast after Full Circle was a reworking of a Terrance Dicks script that Williams had commissioned to be his first produced story (eventually being replaced by Horror of Fang Rock). Despite some differences of look and feel where Nathan-Turner wanted to distance his stories from the previous era, 1980s Who generally builds on what Williams achieved. The three seasons where Williams was in charge, from 1977 to 1980, saw a widening out of the styles and tones of tales that could be told compared to Tom Baker's early stories, including more literary and lyrical styles. Chris Chapman, director of a new feature-length documentary Darkness and Light - The Life of Graham Williams made this point in his introduction to the doco, praising Williams's "intergalactic imagination". The screenings at the BFI were to tie-in to the latest Collection Blu-Ray box set, season 15, on which Darkness and Light was to be a special feature. But the day - and in particular the doco - also served as a long overdue tribute to everything that Williams achieved with Doctor Who.

Chris Chapman

It was almost a full audience in NFT1 hearing Chapman speak despite it being a 9.30am start on a cold Sunday. He explained that the project could only go ahead with the blessing of the Williams family; happily, when he approached them and explained his intentions they agreed to go ahead. The narrative of the documentary is propelled only by the interviewees and the lion's share of material comes from the family, Graham's window and three children, each with a subtly distinct perspective on a man who's been absent from their lives, but not their hearts, for over three decades now. Before the screening started, Chapman entreated us to avoid sharing too many details on social media, to better allow people to find out any new information provided within the context of the documentary itself. It was the right advice, which makes it difficult to share much more. I will just note two things: one is that Williams died in Summer 1990, which happened to be a point where I was re-embracing my fandom after a few years of more casual enthusiasm for the show. The tragedy coincided with my joining the Doctor Who Appreciation Society and re-subscribing to Doctor Who Magazine, so I saw a lot of detailed career retrospectives and other tributes to him then. Despite all that, I learned a lot from this documentary. Second, after it had ended - just like with Chapman's JNT documentary Showman (see the Deeper Thoughts section of this blog post for more details) - I needed a moment or two to process it. Be prepared for it to provoke some emotion. As it was, there was a full 45 minutes before the next screening, a showing of a new version of Horror of Fang Rock with new effects, made for the Blu-ray box set.

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, Ayres 

The hosts for this event were as usual Justin Johnson and Dick Fiddy. They brought all the usual trappings of these events, including many a double entendre: talking about a recent podcast they did together that had done good numbers, Johnson said "Dick does always boost the ratings". They invited Mark Ayres up for a brief chat about the 5.1 mix we were about to hear (which was very effective). Then, Johnson read out some of the twitter activity connected to the screening. Someone was moaning that their train was delayed because of a trespasser at Slough, "Don't they know I have Louise Jameson to see". Someone else was wondering if "any cute boys" might be in attendance. "You're not going to find them in this audience" said Johnson, eliciting a chorus of Panto boos from the assembled. The quiz followed, with answers to trivia questions getting the person that could shout "Dick" first and loudest some swag. After that there was an impromptu chat with fan and comedian Frank Skinner, who is sometimes in the audience for these events and is cajoled onto the stage to give a fan's view, or to make the audience laugh, both of which he did on this day. He talked mainly about Terrance Dicks, his onetime neighbour, about whom was made the magnificent documentary Terrance and Me that Skinner fronted ("Though not one deemed good enough to be shown at the BFI" he added in mock hurt, though the Blu-ray set that the documentary was on never got a BFI screening as it came out in the middle of Covid restrictions). He also shared an anecdote about spending a night in what he thought was a disused lighthouse with his partner, that turned out not to be disused at all. This culminated in the punchline "Those glow in the dark condoms were a waste of money."

(L to R) Johnson, Fiddy, Skinner

The first two episodes of Fang Rock were then shown. My blog post on the story, form early on in the blog's life, can be found here. The new effects for the crash of the ship at the end of episode one are much better, but they still run as long as the original (which infamously holds on the model-work far too long). I'd have been tempted to trim it down, but that's probably impossible given the way the new effects are presented on the discs (as branching versions of the episodes rather than as a separate versions on their own). The main thing that stood out on this watch, though, was just how good the story is, with whatever effects. A slightly duff model shot notwithstanding, Horror of Fang Rock is top drawer Who, one of the best. It might get forgotten that it's quite so good, as it's never been in the top ten of polls, up there with Talons or Genesis or Caves; but, watching it again I realise, as the youth might say, that it slaps (more on slaps in a moment). Invited on stage in between the two halves of the story was the person responsible for the new effects Chris Thompson. Chris has worked on many of Pete McTighe's short films that act as trailers for the box sets (including the one for season 15 that was shown later on that day in the BFI). He had to view lots of footage of boats crashing into one another for research, which was "weirdly therapeutic". Apart from the boats, the first two episodes had a lot of subtle improvements of rotoscoping in the lamp room scenes, but the major contribution to the story had not yet been seen by the audience, as it featured only in episodes three and four: a new version of the Rutan creature. Thompson had successfully pitched to do the creature as a practical effect using puppetry, which I think was a great decision: the texture of the skin and the tendrils would never have been as easily achievable on a budget if it had been done CG.

Thompson (L) shows Johnson the Rutan puppet

The final two episodes were then shown, and the new Rutan looked great; it was also accompanied in the new sound mix by some farty, squelchy noises that amused a lot of the BFI audience. The only other major audience reactions were related to the (deliberately) irritating character of Adelaide - there was a round of applause when Leela slaps her during a hysterical outburst, and another when she died. The episodes being done, Thompson came back on the stage to display the model Rutan in all its green glory. Next up was a selection of clips from the Blu-ray box set's Value Added Material. We were shown excerpts from the new Making Of for Fang Rock, from Darkness and Light (for those that hadn't been around earlier), some funny moments from Behind the Sofa, and the short film / trailer depicting Leela on Gallifrey fighting Daleks during the Time War. This last one was then discussed by Pete McTighe and Louise Jameson, who both came up, one after the other, onto the stage. McTighe had wanted to right the historical wrong of Leela's (and Louise's) half-hearted exist from the series, and also take the opportunity to have Leela meet the Daleks (something she never did in her time in the TARDIS on TV). Asked about a spin-off featuring the older Leela, Jameson told the audience to "Ask Russell" as in T. Davies, and added that she'd be back "in a nanosecond" if she was asked. McTighe, when asked about the budget for this latest short film, which - from what was on screen - looked to be larger than usual, said it was "20 quid and a ham sandwich". He also attempted some expectation management, suggesting that people couldn't expect big productions every time, and that he might have to produce a more traditional clips-based trailer occasionally in future. This was over-excitedly reported online later with headlines suggesting the trailers were being "rested", but that wasn't what he was saying.

Johnson (L) and McTighe (R)

McTighe left the stage, and a couple of the guest cast of Horror of Fang Rock joined Jameson: John Abbott (Vince) and Annette Woollett (Adelaide). Jameson touched on some subjects she's covered many times before. Her difficult relationship with Tom Baker when making Doctor Who, which has come semi-circle since then to the point that they're now good friends (Johnson mentioned that in 2013, when they had BFI screenings for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, Baker only agreed to attend if Jameson was coming too), and her hasty exit from the programme. Graham Williams was hoping to persuade her to stay until the very last moment, so she didn't get the kind of ending for the Leela that she'd have desired, dying heroically saving the Doctor's life. Woollett confirmed that on her insistence Jameson gave her a full-on slap rather than use any stage fakery. She also thanked everybody for the work they'd done on the new version, which made it in her opinion a "completely different show". Abbott gave a shout out to the late Colin Douglas for his significant contribution to the story as Rueben and as the Rutan mimicking him, and for giving him acting advice during its making: "Always be doing something before they shout action". Woollett revealed that she'd played the sister of Abbott's character on Emmerdale Farm, many years after working on Doctor Who, but Abbott had no memory of this. Tom Baker seemed to have been challenging to work with for both these guest actors: he did lots of improvisations with Abbott in rehearsal, then suddenly threw them all out when it came to recording. He stood on the hem of Woollett's dress as she was entering a scene, as he thought it was funny.

(L to R) Johnson, Jameson, Abbott, Woollett

A discussion about Leela being one of the first Doctor Who characters to have an action figure (in the Denys Fisher range of the 1970s - Jameson's mother put it atop their Christmas tree) led to Jameson sharing a joke that a collector should say at her funeral, as the coffin comes in, that she's "worth more in the box". During audience questions, Woollett explained that she thought Adelaide was just as much of a pain as the audience did; Abbott thought that "Vince was lovely" and didn't deserve his fate. Nobody could remember a row documented in the story's production file between the actor playing Lord Palmerdale, Sean Caffrey, and director Paddy Russell - all remembered her as exacting, but sympathetic and open to ideas from the cast. Jameson was asked about any advice - or warning - she gave to Mary Tamm, who followed her in the companion role playing Romana mark one. Jameson and Tamm had both been in the same year at RADA. The first question Tamm asked her was "How much were you being paid?". Jameson didn't warn her off, and in the end Tamm got on very well with Tom, which Jameson put down to Tamm being more well-read than herself. She broke all our hearts when she said, with a crack in her voice, "I miss Mary". That goes for all of us too, I'm sure. Once the panel left the stage, the last treat was a brand-new clips trailer for the set, then it was off to the BFI cocktail bar for a drink with the fan friends that attended alongside me (the aforementioned David, plus Chris and Scott). I haven't been to a Blu-Ray event at the BFI for some time (I had clashes for the one at the end of 2022 and both of those that took place in 2023), and this refreshed my memory about how enjoyable they are. I look forward to trying to get tickets to the next one, whenever that may be.

In Summary:

Efficient, and a little bit showy; the first real salvo of the John Nathan-Turner era. Should be called "Semi-Circle", though.

The Caves of Androzani

Chapter the 290th, in which there's no point crying over spilt bat's milk.

Plot:
A twin planet system, Androzani Major and Androzani Minor, in the far future. Androzani Major is fully colonised by humans, whereas its twin planet - with its extensive cave system, and regular eruptions of superheated mud - is home to not much more than a colony of bats. A rich and powerful industrialist Morgus is in partnership with engineer Sharaz Jek to refine Spectrox - a life-extending drug made from the bats' droppings. The raw Spectrox is highly toxic, so can only be harvested by androids Jek has built. The unscrupulous Morgus doesn't want to share the profits: he provides faulty equipment, meaning Jek is caught unawares by a mud burst and almost killed. The army are sent in and capture the refinery, but Jek is able to escape with the stockpiles of Spectrox. He hides out in the caves, guarded by his androids; he knows that the public on Major will not wait forever for Spectrox and digs in to wait the army out. He purchases weapons in exchange for quantities of the drug, and infiltrates the army base with an android duplicate of second-in-command Salateen, whom Jek previously captured and kept alive for company. Morgus is secretly arranging the weapons shipments to Jek to prolong the war, as the scarcity of Spectrox is pushing up the price and making him even more wealthy. A lengthy impasse follows.

The Doctor and Peri arrive on Minor, and through accidental contact with raw Spectrox become ill. This causes everything else to unravel, and almost everyone to get killed. They're mistaken for gun-runners or spies. Jek takes a shine to Peri, and captures the Doctor and Peri before the army can execute them. The Doctor and Peri escape with the real Salateen, but then get split up. The Doctor is captured by the gun-runners, but escapes. Peri is captured by Jek again, and becomes seriously ill, falling unconscious. The army is led by the real Salateen to Jek's base. The Androids kill Salateen and the rest of the army, but get destroyed in the process. The army's commander is locked out of the base by Jek and killed in a mud blast. Morgus's crimes are uncovered by his PA and he goes on the run to Minor meeting up with the gun-runners. The lead gun-runner Stotz kills the others, as they won't team up with him and Morgus to find Jek's base. In the base, Jek attacks Morgus. Stotz shoots Jek, mortally wounding him, but not before he strangles Morgus to death. The android Salateen kills Stotz, and Jek dies in the android's arms. The Doctor travels to an area of the caves where he collects the milk of a queen bat, the antidote for the Spetrox poisoning. He rescues Peri from Jek's base after the gunfight, just as mud is exploding everywhere, and carries her to the TARDIS. He accidentally drops the phial of antidote, so there's not enough for both of them. He gives it all to Peri who recovers. He regenerates.

Context:

I watched this from the special edition revisited DVD across two weekends in January 2024, the first two episodes one day, then a two week gap before watching episodes three and four together. I was accompanied both times by all three kids (boys of 17 and 14, girl of 11). The only issue with this way of spreading out the episodes is that the second cliffhanger is the only one that's not fantastic, but I didn't think the youngsters would have the patience to sit through three episodes on the trot in either sitting, so couldn't leave things on the Doctor and Peri seemingly killed by firing squad (end of episode one) nor on the Doctor bracing for a crash landing on Androzani Minor (end of episode three). All the kids seemed to enjoy both halves, but middle child pointed out a flaw that had never occurred to me during any of the very many times I'd watched this story in the past: why doesn't the Doctor drink some of the queen bat's milk at the point when he's just harvested it? He'd be cured before making the difficult journey back to deliver the rest to Peri, and therefore would be much more likely to be successful. Waiting until she's cured first puts both their lives in more danger (and of course, because he spills some of the milk, ultimately means he has to regenerate).

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 story marks another season of Doctor Who completed, classic series 21, Peter Davison's third and final run from 1984. This is the 19th season done out of the total of 39 seasons to date (at the time of writing). In full, I have now completed classic seasons 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 to 17, 20, 21, 23 and 25, and new series 2, 6, 10, 11 and 13).

First Time Round:

I cast my mind back to watching this story on its debut BBC TV broadcast in 1984, 40 years back or thereabouts. I still have some very strong memories of the run of stories of which it formed a part. I can remember the excitement of waiting for the first episode of the first story, Warriors of the Deep, and a sudden need to rush to the loo with only a couple of minutes to go; I can remember finding myself without enough time to do homework due in the next day, which I would normally have squeezed in to the slot between the end of Doctor Who and bedtime, because the episodes of Resurrection of the Daleks were twice the usual length; I can vividly recall the negative schoolroom reactions to The Twin Dilemma. I can remember nothing about watching The Caves of Androzani, though, apart from thinking it was jolly exciting. It has always been a popular story, but I don't think it was seen, by me or anyone else, as quite as big a deal then as it is now.

Reaction:

This is another story, like Genesis of the Daleks, which is impervious to my criticism. It won't matter even one millilitre of Spectrox whether I say nice or nasty things here, Caves will always be one of the most popular Doctor Who stories, nestling towards the apex of fan polls (it came fourth out of the first 60 years worth of stories in the 2023 Doctor Who Magazine poll). Genesis is a great story with some great characters and moments, but it's not what you'd call innovative or different. Caves, on the other hand, it's a somewhat atypical story to get such high honours; it does something subtly different to the usual. At one point during this watch, the youngest child asked "Who's the baddie?" and her two siblings and I replied more or less in unison "All of them". It was nice that they'd picked up on this; every speaking character apart from Peri and the Doctor is venal, brutal, predatory or all of the above. Morgus is probably the worst of the bunch - funding a war he is publicly condemning just to keep himself rich, bumping off his rivals at the drop of a hat - and the Doctor barely gets to meet him, certainly doing nothing to stop him. In the story, the working title of which was Chain Reaction, the status quo established at the start is fatally disrupted, the balance of power shifted forever, and almost everyone killed, all because of the introduction of one tiny, random factor. The Doctor and Peri follow some tracks into a cave and accidentally contaminate themselves after coming into contact with a highly toxic material; this one action causes the world of the story to unravel without the forces of good having to do anything (which is useful as they are preoccupied with just surviving).

As many others have pointed out, including me in blog posts passim, this story's fresh take was very successful and this made it become a template for future stories. Unfortunately, it's too restrictive a structure to emulate. A story of a cynical world devoid of hope where the heroes actions don't make much of a difference except by accident is tonally very bleak. That's fine for the sombre finale seeing out your leading man, but it would quickly become unpleasant to watch if the trick was repeated on every ordinary Saturday night. The Doctor has generally to notice and care that people are being evil and try to stop them, and for the first year following Colin Baker's introduction (entering with a rather marvellous couple of lines at the end of this story) he mostly doesn't. Lots of stories with lots of cynical characters and an ineffective Doctor follow. The writer of this story, Doctor Who veteran Robert Holmes, turned in a great script, but even he couldn't reproduce the lightning in a bottle of The Caves of Androzani in his later work for Colin Baker. Nobody else could even come close. I can't wholly blame this story's success for what happened after, though. Caves is the logical extension of a story style started by script editor Eric Saward a couple of years earlier with Earthshock, and continued since. It should have been the logical conclusion, though. It should have dawned on all involved that doing a cynical actioner without any nice characters nor hope is a dramatic dead end beyond this one-off proposition.

Just taking the story on its own terms rather than what it might have subsequently inspired, there's obviously a lot to love. Watching in two separate halves accentuated it, but it's definitely already there in the structure of the story that it falls into two main sections cleaving at the halfway point. The first two episodes are set-up so that the last two can run like a whippet to the finish line. At the halfway point, the Doctor is separated from Peri after having found out about their predicament and a way he can save them both; he spends the next two episodes single-mindedly pursuing that objective in what is essentially one extended chase sequence. That it feels seamless, and the first half doesn't seem too expository, is down to great scripting and great direction. Graeme Harper - in his first but by no means last Doctor Who story as credited director - delivers some striking visuals and a coherent set of performances than combine to produce a instantly solid and consistent story world. It was no easy target either; the tone of Caves is both doom-laden and thrill ride. Harper manages to achieve both in harmony without either cancelling the other out, and he does it with breath-taking verve: all the restless cross-fades of different glimpses of Sharaz Jek when he's first featured, not allowing the audience to get a proper handle of the character; the floating transparent hologram screen showing one character talking while another character walks behind it; all the many many gunfights (the story must hold the record for the most blank rounds expended in any one Doctor Who production). Harper - directing from the studio floor rather than the gallery - makes material recorded in Television Centre feel like a movie. He can't make the rubbish Magma Beast costume look good, alas, but he gives it his best shot.

Aside from the brief appearances of one dodgy monster, which the story doesn't need anyway (I wrote the synopsis above without needing to reference it once) everything else is a cut above what made it to screen in other stories of this period. Roger Limb produces his best incidental score. The regeneration sequence is probably the best ever - a crescendo of sound and colour inspired by the end of Beatles song A Day in the Life. Imagery does not, though, come at the expense of character. Sharaz Jek is a contender for the most complex villain in Doctor Who's history. The mask hiding his deformity, the genius and the possessiveness allude to The Phantom of the Opera - an inspiration for a previous story by the same writer, The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Like the Phantom, Jek isn't an entirely unsympathetic character, and arguably behaves more heroically than half of the cast, while obviously still being a monster. Christopher Gable grabs the role with relish and enjoys mining the contradictions. The death of the character, in the arms of his android creation, is a magnificent moment. In normal circumstances, a performance like Gable's would dominate a Doctor Who story, but the other characters are so well drawn and the actors so well cast and directed, that everyone meets him at that high level (including the two regulars). John Normington, Maurice Roeves, Roy Holder, Robert Glenister, all are magnificent. Davison's take on the desperate, reckless Doctor battling against inevitability, scornful and sarcastic about the world he finds himself in, is so good that one wishes the script had come up a year or two before: Davison probably wouldn't have left so soon had he got material like this earlier.

Connectivity:

Both The Caves of Androzani and Eve of the Daleks see the Doctor seemingly killed at the first  cliffhanger (the crash into the beginning credits for the non-episodic 21st century story, but it counts) and then be seen to be alive in subsequent scenes following soon afterwards.

Deeper Thoughts:

The Regeneration Game. The blogging of this story sees another milestone; I've now watched and blogged all the regeneration stories of the classic 20th century series. I've done most of those from the 21st century new series also, only missing the most recent two (at time of writing) The Power of the Doctor and The Giggle. The latter of these provided an interesting echo between those two phases of Doctor Who, for those in the know at least, as it featured the Toymaker as the instigator of the Doctor's change of appearance. This is a role that the character was originally planned to have in the 1960s serial where he first appeared, The Celestial Toymaker. For a number of reasons, the producers of the time wanted to recast the Doctor around that time, and it was initially slated that when the Toymaker made the Doctor visible again after a period of invisibility towards the end of the story, it would be with a different face. In the end, this did not happen, and Hartnell did a further five stories before bowing out. At the end of the fifth of those, the process that would eventually be called regeneration kicked in. The Doctor undergoes a natural but disruptive process that changes his appearance and personality. This obviously had more potential for future repetition than what would have effectively been a magic spell cast by the Toymaker; had they gone with the original plan, it's hard to imagine Doctor Who would have lasted beyond the next change of its lead (they'd either have had to get the Toymaker back again or thought or something completely different, either option further stretching the suspension of audience disbelief).

The invention of regeneration is most certainly therefore a key part of the show still being a going concern after 60 years and counting. What's interesting, though, is how slowly it took for various writers and producers to use the process to build up the drama of the show's main star leaving. As I recently mentioned when covering Hartnell's last story The Tenth Planet for the blog, the metamorphosis of one Doctor into another is tacked on at the very end in that story. It happens in the last few minutes of the final episode, not arising from the circumstances of the previous three and a bit, and without any context as to what's going on. The explanations come in the following story, making the dramatic question about whether the new Doctor will be accepted (neatly mirroring a question that might be in audience minds) rather than what act of bravery will bring about the current Doctor's end. The next changeover in the War Games is very similar: the backstory of the Doctor's people, the Time Lords, is built up throughout the ten episodes, so their capturing the Doctor and putting him on trial does not come from nowhere. It's cleverly constructed, but it's still more exposition than drama. It's only with the third Doctor's swan song, Planet of the Spiders, that the regeneration feels built in to the story as a whole. It's also where the term regeneration is first used, and the rules settle down to pattern that remained thereafter: it's a process brought on by significant injury or illness. The one thing missing (as I've pointed out before in the blog post for the next regeneration story Logopolis) was the inclusion of heroism on the part of the Doctor. This was rectified in Baker's swansong: his version of the Doctor dies saving the universe rather than facing his greatest fear as Pertwee's Doctor does.

It was a shame that having refined the pattern, it only got used once more in the classic series, for The Caves of Androzani. Davison's Doctor sacrifices himself to save his friend, but - because of circumstances out of the control of the writers - the two Doctors after Davison bow out at the beginning of stories, not the end. This made it pretty difficult for their regenerations to be the culmination of anything, and they both see the Doctor lose his life inadvertently rather than because of any action by the character. In the new series, the heroic sacrifice pattern has been followed more or less for each Doctor's final story, but on occasion - The Parting of the Ways, or The Power of the Doctor, for example - the ending has still felt a bit tacked on. This is because it's a deceptively difficult thing to pull off; it has to be a somewhat sudden, accidental action that brings about the change (dying of old age is not dramatic enough, though The Time of the Doctor flirts somewhat with the idea); if the Doctor sees things coming too far in advance, he or she should be clever enough to work out some other way to save the day without sacrificing their life (as they usually do, week in week out). In order to preserve story flow, a couple of tricks are commonly deployed: either the Doctor is forewarned by a prediction of death, too vague to do something about in advance but specific enough to give the whole story an elegiac feel (The End of Time), or the injured Doctor holds back the inevitability of his death for a lengthy spell (The End of Time, again, or Twice Upon a Time).

What's also happened during the 21st century is that the series has played more with the regeneration concept outside of the Doctor's swansongs. In the classic series, there was a jokey sequence explaining a change of actor playing Romana, and a depiction of a different transformation process allowing the Master to be played by someone new, but neither were true regenerations - those were saved for the Doctor. As the new series years continued, we saw full-on regenerations for the Master, then River Song, then just some random soldier bloke on Gallifrey. The Doctor had been seen starting to regenerate midway through a story but aborting it, and we've seen him fake a regeneration. The apotheosis was the Timeless child backstory explained in Jodie Whittaker's time in the role; not only was the Doctor the progenitor of all Time Lords, the regeneration process of all subsequent Time Lords having been derived from experiments on her person, but also the Doctor had had many other faces that the audience were unaware of before being William Hartnell. The Giggle throws in another new innovation with bi-generation; this was specifically done to change the emotion of the process. After thirteen stories where regeneration is a sad goodbye, we have a regeneration with a happy ending. The old Doctor gets to hang around and - presumably? - die of old age, happy with his adopted family of Bush, Temple and Nobles. Perhaps that's enough mucking around with regeneration now. We'll see when Ncuti Gatwa bows out whether it'll be something weird and different again; hopefully, though, that won't be for a good few years yet.  

In Summary:

Obviously superlative, but one wouldn't want Doctor Who to tell such a story every week.

Eve of the Daleks

Chapter the 289th, it's recursion all over again.

Plot:
New Year's Eve in a storage facility in contemporary Manchester; owner Sarah is on duty because her colleague Jeff has let her down. Her only customer Nick comes in just before midnight as he does every year; he clearly has a massive crush on Sarah but she hasn't realised. The TARDIS materialises in the building, and the Doctor, Yaz and Dan leave it to rebuild itself after the ravages of the Flux. A Dalek arrives and exterminates Nick, Sarah and the three time travellers. They then all find themselves alive again; it's eight minutes to midnight and they are back where they started with major déjà vu. Despite their efforts to avoid it they all get exterminated again, and find themselves alive again at seven minutes to midnight. It's a rapidly deteriorating time loop caused by the TARDIS rebuilding itself, the next loop starts at six minutes to midnight, then five, then four, and so on. Two more Daleks end up materialising in this temporal fold in later loops, as they learn how to navigate it: they want to kill the Doctor because they blame her for the Flux destroying millions of Daleks. There's a Dalek forcefield around the building to prevent escape. Through the different loops, the Doctor and friends find lots of contraband items Jeff has been storing including a big pile of fireworks, and an alternate exit not covered by the forcefield. The Doctor's plan involves tricking the Daleks into shooting at the fireworks to cause an explosion that allows their escape and ends the time loop. A passer-by sees the firework display and thinks it's just been laid on for him. Sarah realises that Nick likes her, and that she likes him too. 

Context:

This one came up randomly towards the end of the year, but I held it back to watch on the afternoon of December 31st 2023. The majority of the episode is set, as indicated by the title, on the last day of the year leading up to midnight fireworks, so it makes more sense to watch it on a New Year's Eve rather than New Year's Day as it was initially broadcast. I viewed the story from the iplayer, starting off on my own; but, one by one, each of the children (boys of 17 and 14, girl of 11) came in and started watching alongside me.

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. Eve of the Daleks is the final one of the four Jodie Whittaker episodes / specials shown on New Year's Days between 2019 and 2022 to be covered for the blog. With this story, and recently having blogged The Snowmen and The Church on Ruby Road in quick succession, I have completed all the Doctor Who festive specials as at the time of writing. Another such special is planned this year, though, already having started production in late 2023, so - presuming I haven't run out of stories by the end of 2024 - this won't be the last time the blog visits the Yuletide period.

First Time Round:

I watched this go out live on its BBC1 broadcast on January 1st 2022 accompanied by the same people as eventually joined me for this latest watch, i.e. all the kids but not the Better Half who still didn't take the opportunity to see the story this time despite my encouragements that she'd like it. I remember enjoying the story very much at the time, but there was one minor thing that I do remember everyone commenting on back then, and indeed they also repeated their comments this time: nobody knew who the bloke at the end watching the fireworks was. Both times, everyone assumed that it was Jeff, the unseen employee of Sarah's storage company who is mentioned many times in dialogue. That would make more sense than who it actually turned out to be, and I needed to look it up online to find out who that was: Karl, a fairly minor character from the first ever Jodie Whittaker story. I guess it's nice to know that he's still out there somewhere, albeit wandering the streets of Manchester alone on New Year's Eve, but it didn't feel particularly necessary or apt.

Reaction:

I'd very much enjoyed Flux, the season-wide story that preceded Eve of the Daleks, running from October to early December 2021, and which I'd just rewatched over the holiday period that year (I covered it in a bumper blog post published on December 31st, the day before the Eve of the Daleks was broadcast). With this Dalek festive special only a few weeks later, it felt like Chris Chibnall's version of Doctor Who was on a hell of a roll. Alas, it only had a couple of stories left, but the era built to a high point. Eve was probably my favourite story of the Whittaker years; no major pyrotechnics, but a good, simple idea well constructed and well realised. The series had featured time loops before, but never made one the sole focus of a story (Heaven Sent doesn't really count, as it features a spatial prison, time is still passing even if the Doctor isn't immediately aware of it); it has also featured comic and romantic subplots before, but had never properly done a full-on rom-com plot either. Combining the two makes something unique for Doctor Who. It may not at first glance look unique in the wider world beyond Doctor Who; the time loop romantic comedy is a reasonably well established subgenre, certainly since the movie Groundhog Day (which is namechecked in a funny moment where it's Dan's go-to phrase to explain the situation he finds himself in). Around when Eve of the Daleks was likely being written, and it may or may not have been an influence, there was a different take on the same template in the 2020 movie Palm Springs.

What both those movies did though, and what Heaven Sent did too, was forefront the sheer length of time, the number of repetitions, that the characters go through. It's a key point in all three, as they are about being stuck trying and improving before finally achieving a goal. Eve is not like that at all; the time loop deteriorates at a steady, rapid rate, with the characters reliving one minute less before midnight each time; as such, the loop becomes the 'ticking clock' that any action narrative needs, and the story is propelled efficiently through escalations towards its climactic sequence. To do that in 60 minutes and find time to fit in a romance plotline (well, two romance plotlines, more on that in a moment) is some good storytelling. Chibnall got a lot of stick for any writing flaws in his Doctor Who work during his years in charge, so it only seems fair to give him his dues for putting together something so enjoyable. The only even slightly duff note was making love-interest Nick a little too creepy, storing the items left at his place by his many ex-girlfriends. It seems only to have been included to set up the later gag about the therapeutic power of the Daleks for Nick when they destroy all those abandoned possessions (his exs are terminated, geddit?). Even this didn't feel so bad on this watch; the performances of guests and regulars alike are of such quality that their combined efforts sell even that less convincing moment. I really do believe in Sarah's realisation that she cares for the "good-hearted weirdo" that is Nick, and I believe in the echoes that phrase has for Yaz and Dan thinking about another potential relationship.

Given that the story had such a limited set of characters, it's essential that they are cast well, and Eve of the Daleks is cast impeccably. Aisling Bea is phenomenally good in this, a major star turn, but Adjani Salmon matches her. The sudden realisation, after a careless word from her, that he's caused her to be in danger, and his decision to sacrifice himself, is a powerful but understated moment. Nick Briggs's vocal work as the voice of the Daleks should not be overlooked either, he even gets to deliver a couple of jokes (including, in the line "I am not Nick", an in-joke). Even a small role like Pauline McLynn's performance as Sarah's Mammy, who wishes her daughter a happy new year just before midnight (as she's convinced, and won't be told otherwise, that the lines will be busy later), is perfect. The regulars are on top form too. Yaz's feelings for the Doctor have been such a slow burn across the previous three years that to have them suddenly acknowledged by Dan was almost shocking. It was great to have both the characters prompted by Dan face up to their long-term denial. It nicely sets up the episodes to come where this is explored in more depth. That those later episode's slightly fumble the emotional arc of their relationship shouldn't reflect badly on Eve; it should also be remembered that this episode, as well as those in Flux that proceeded it and the following two specials of 2002, were made under the most difficult circumstances of any modern Who, with ever-changing Covid restrictions impacting everything.

I think that the stories in 2023 have tied things up neatly and retrospectively fixed any loose ends of the Doctor and Yaz subplot, anyway. Clearly the Doctor is restless and needs to be constantly moving, and has concerns about how this may impact any close relationship; she explains this to Yaz in Legend of the Sea Devils; after that, she wants to regenerate alone to protect Yaz from the loss of her Doctor, and that regeneration starts a process of healing. By regaining an old face, the Doctor knows that he has to go back and fix another relationship that didn't get closure, and in doing this and then going through bi-generation, the restlessness and constant movement can stop and the Doctor is able to sort their mind out and have some settled time, with friends rather than in a romantic relationship. This then allows the fifteenth Doctor to be free of any baggage. It's a shame for Yaz, of course, but she has the ex-companion network from The Power of the Doctor to help her get through it. It wasn't perfectly presented, but as an emotional arc crossing multiple stories, multiple showrunners and multiple Doctors, I think it is pretty amazing (but maybe I'm just a good-hearted weirdo). Eve of the Daleks kicks all that off, and also has action and comedy and some wonderful emotional moments ("Not many people would have done that - some close friends and family included, actually" "I've never told anyone... not even myself"). Lovely.

Connectivity:

Both Eve of the Daleks and The Church on Ruby Road are festive specials of the 2020s set in a city in contemporary England.

Deeper Thoughts:

Time Travel: back and forward. The last couple of years, I've had a go at predicting what will unfold in Doctor Who's year to come, as well as validating how well (or how badly) my predictions turned out for the year just gone. This post early in 2024 covering a New Year story seems like a good place for this exercise. If you want to play along at home, my guesses for 2023 were in the Deeper Thoughts section of the Robots of Death blog post here. I started strong, as I was bang on the money in predicting that the Doctor Who festive special would return to Christmas day. Perhaps it looks like a fairly obvious move with hindsight. Doctor Who had trialled being a Sunday night heritage brand for the whole of Jodie Whittaker's time playing the Doctor, and its festive specials moving to the first of January slot fit with that. Bringing back Russell T Davies suggested, given that it was something he'd done with much fanfare before, a return to Who as a shiny Saturday night and Christmas day proposition, and so it has come to pass. There have been some grumblings online about the overnight ratings not being as good as they should be for Ncuti Gatwa's Christmas special, but it nonetheless did very well, with the consolidated weekly ratings even better - I can't see it being moved from Christmas Day in 2024. I didn't make many other predictions about the content of the 60th anniversary specials as most of it had already been heavily rumoured (the Meep, the Wrath Warriors and the Toymaker were all spoilered in 2022). The one thought I had would be that any other returning elements would likely be from stories in the era from 2005 onwards rather than the 20th century stories. I was completely wrong there; the only other significant return was from Bonnie Langford as Mel who is resolutely classic era (bar a brief cameo in Jodie's last story).

For 2023 home video releases, I didn't predict (nobody really predicted) the return of missing episode animations, which had seemed to on indefinite hiatus from reports in 2022. Only one - The Underwater Menace - came out in the year, but this was one more than expected. William Hartnell story The Celestial Toymaker, backstory of the third of the 60th anniversary specials The Giggle, is slated for release sometime in early 2024. The different animation style seen in the animation's trailer suggests it is not being worked on by the same team as Underwater Menace, so I would hazard a guess that they'll have moved on to another story - I'll take a punt and suggest this will be the long-awaited version of Patrick Troughton Cyberman story The Wheel in Space (a short section of one episode was animated as a test years back, and it would be good to have the whole thing done). There was also a 2023 newspaper article in the UK that reported rumours of two stories being animated, The Celestial Toymaker and another Hartnell, The Smugglers. If the report was right about the former, could it also be right about the latter? Another thing that nobody predicted for 2023 was a completely new range of classic stories: colourised and re-edited versions of older stories. The Daleks in Colour is also slated for release early in 2024 after its broadcast and iplayer debuts in 2023. It's been confirmed that another story is being worked on; my guess would also be a Patrick Troughton Cyberman story, The Tomb of the Cybermen. I predicted three Blu-ray collections sets for 2023, but only two were released, perhaps because there's less room in the schedules with all the other stuff mentioned above. My guesses for the specific seasons were 6, 13 and 20 - only one of the three being correct.

As well as the 20th anniversary year set, there was also Jon Pertwee's third run, season 9, to enjoy in 2023 Blu-ray glory. I'll assume two sets for 2024 too; I'm the least well-connected fan ever, but I have heard a whisper that season 25 (Sylvester McCoy's second year) is imminent, so I'll go with that for one; for the other, I was going to pitch season 13 (Tom Baker's second year) for the third year running - I've got to be right sooner or later - but then a rumour circulated that it's going to be season 15 next (Tom's fourth year) so I'll have to go with that instead. What about predictions for new Doctor Who on the box? Another curve-ball that's been thrown at anyone trying to predict 2024's new broadcast content is the possibility of spin-offs. There's a persistent rumour about a spin-off with an eight word title (I'm not going to reveal it here), but aside from the probable potential for one old monster to feature the stars, structure, number and length of episodes are a complete mystery. Not much more is known about Ncuti's first series, either. I don't know why, but I'm getting a feeling that the stories are going to accentuate the new. A new UNIT 'family' has now been developed including Kate Lethbridge-Stewart as played by Jemma Redgrave, Ruth Bradley's scientific advisor Shirley Anne Bingham and the aforementioned Mel; I would guess there will be a couple of stories back on Earth where one or all of those characters appear. Will we see old monsters too? Davies has hinted at further supernatural threats, which might allow for creatures with some built-in brand recognition (like Goblins, say) without them having to be from Doctor Who's heritage. I doubt it will be too long, though, before Ncuti gets to face the Daleks or the Cybermen or both. That's about enough guesswork, I think - check in back here in a year or so to see how well I did!

In Summary:

Eve of the Daleks. Of the Daleks. The Daleks. Daleks!