"Phil won't leave his room" - A Doctor Who Production History

[Guajolote]

"I'd had a request from the higher ups if I could feature the new Doctor a little bit more heavily than I would in a normal regeneration story. There'd been some skittishness about leaving the audience with a full 18 months of not knowing what Seventh Doctor would be like. I suppose they also wanted to monitor audience reaction in case there was anything about the character they wanted to fix before Season 24 started filming.

"I turned over a few ideas, like having some sort of flash-forward, but there was one very tempting idea. The only matter was whether Paul Stone would think it would steal his thunder and if Tony was ready.

"I had a meeting with Paul and he said that in some ways, it took pressure off him. It effectively handed him and Tony a pilot episode on the Season 23 budget. So, we had all of our lovely viewers waiting for Colin to regenerate at the end of part two of the story and we got to pull the rug from under everyone at the end of part one."

- Colin Cant, DVD extra, One By One

__________________​

Doctor Who: One By One by Robert Holmes
Producer: Colin Cant and Paul Stone

Cast Of Characters

The Doctor- Colin Baker
Zerreck- Rebecca Lacey - A former street rat and thief. Zerreck is rough around the edges but a loyal companion to The Doctor.
Marcus - Charles Simon - an eccentric and slightly sinister solicitor and executor
Cousin Simon - David Thewlis - Aunt Lizzy's son. He doesn't like his mother, sick of her constant nagging. On the other hand, he's also awful to Zerreck.
Cousin Hengyst - Daniel Peacock - Hengyst says little and sees all.
Second Cousin Pippa - Bonnie Langford - She's more sympathetic than the other family members but has delusions of living by the seaside. She also collects seashells and names them.
House - Enn Reitel (voice only)
Great Uncle Azbik - David Swift

PART TWO

The household is in disarray. Zerreck and Hengyst ask for help with The Doctor's body, but when they return with help, his body has vanished.

The doorbell rings, Zerreck is greeted by a Dr. Septimus. Septimus mentions that he is a stranger passing through who heard screaming outside.

__________________​

"It wasn't a twist or a secret that Dr Septimus was The Doctor. It just helped bring the regenerated Doctor into the plot and it fit the 'old dark house' formula to have a 'new' character come it halfway through.

"We'd decided the new Doctor would steal some clothes that fit him from the house. However, Paul and Tony weren't 100% on what their Doctor was going to wear in the new series, so we kind of fudged it. The suit he wore underneath the trenchcoat is the same one he ended up wearing in Season 24, but he has a normal bow-tie for this story. The trenchcoat and fedora were jettisoned when time came to give the Seventh Doctor his definitive look. "

- Colin Brake, DVD Extra, One By One

__________________​

Zerreck and Hengyst accept his offer of medical aid. They return to the drawing room where the family were gathered, but the only one there now are Pippa and Simon. Pippa is laughing loudly and mirthlessly. Simon is underneath a fallen bookcase and he isn't moving. Pippa has cracked.
PIPPA: It's a game! It's a game! He's strong! Simon is ever so strong!

__________________​

From a 2000 Doctor Who Magazine piece on notable guest stars. Excerpt about Bonnie Langford's role in One By One.
"I was given a script and asked to read for the role of Cousin Pippa. I wanted the part because it was so bizarre and different" Langford recalls. "She was sickeningly sweet but she had these sea shells that she named and was dressed up like some sort of bizarre Baby Jane Hudson type"
Langford, who at the time was most famous for her role on the ITV family series Just William, and a slew of light entertainment programs, recalls some fans of the program being hostile towards her guest spot at first.
“I think I was a bit of a shock to the system for most 'Doctor Who’ fans but once my character slowly revealed herself to be actually, quite deranged, people knew it was going to be a different turn. I wasn't going to turn the story into a musical"
Langford says she enjoyed her time on the set even though it came in the middle of a shakeup. The first part of One By One was Colin Baker's last episode as The Doctor. Despite the changes, Langford says that the on-set atmosphere was fine.
"I got along really well with Colin and Rebecca Lacey. Colin seemed excited about moving on"

__________________​

Zerreck and Septimus talk alone.

ZERRECK: Did you get any sense from her?
DOCTOR: Not much, poor girl. I think Simon was doing feats of strength again, like earlier.
ZERRECK: Earlier? You weren't here earl--
DOCTOR: That bookcase isn't part of it, though. He couldn't shift that. That thing was moved and one person couldn't have done it.
ZERRECK: Do you know what's going on?
DOCTOR: I have a suspicion. I need to get to the locked areas of the house. Won't be easy. Somehow, I don't think the house will open up no matter how nicely I ask.
ZERRECK: Hang on, I have a bunch of skeleton keys.
DOCTOR: I told you to get rid of those!
ZERRECK: *You* told me? Doctor?
DOCTOR: Would you believe me if I said yes?
ZERRECK: I knew it was you! I don't know how you disguised yourself as someone shorter, but I knew if anyone could, you could!
DOCTOR: It's not a disguise. This is what I look like now. That electric shock upstairs destroyed my old body, but my people can, well, develop new ones. If we're lucky. That jolt could have easily killed me outright. What's worse, it appears to have fried my sonic screwdriver. This is going to be very dangerous. (He jingles the skeleton keys in his hands) You disobeyed me, Zerreck. I'm proud of you.
ZERRECK: You're my best friend Doctor.
DOCTOR: I'm glad to hear you say that. I think that might just be the key to getting to the heart of this. You gather what's left of the family together. I'm going to the cellar.

__________________​

"Bob Holmes always said he just wrote The Doctor as The Doctor. He didn't write differently for different actors and if you just read the script, that comes across. But Colin and Tony both had different delivery styles to differentiate their Doctors from one another, without the lines ever ringing false."

- Colin Brake, DVD Extra, One By One

__________________​

To The Doctor's surprise, the cellar door opens of its own accord. The Doctor introduces himself to the House central server, saying that House should now know that he's Zerreck's best friend. Something had occurred to him. Everyone who died had in some way been cruel to Zerreck before being killed. House couldn't have realized that The Doctor's "cruelty" over the sleeping arrangements was just teasing. Azbek's death was the problem with this theory, but then even that fell into place. Azbek knew about the contents of the wine cellars and ordered the Vasvood 2397. That would have to been ordered after Zerreck's parents' murder in 2395. He knew the house too well. Azbek was Raschkin, the murderer of Zerreck's parents. The House had worked out who he was and knew had committed the ultimate cruelty to Zerreck. The house went completely mad, protecting Zerreck. The house now has to be reprogrammed.

DOCTOR: What you did was wrong, even if you did it for good reasons.
HOUSE: I have failed to serve correctly. Must I die?
DOCTOR: I don't know about that. You're not a person, with a person's motives. You'll have to be reprogrammed.
HOUSE: Will it hurt?
DOCTOR: No, it will make you a better house.
HOUSE: I want to be a satisfactory house.
DOCTOR: You will be. Enter maintenance phase and when I'm finished, you'll feel like a new man...er...mansion.

__________________​

The Doctor has a gentle and compassionate conversation with a computer that's committed murder. Tony Haygarth couldn't have asked for a better audition piece to prove that he was The Doctor. For a lot of fans, there were sighs of relief all round when the newest actor in the role showed he could do that with such conviction.

- Doctor Who Magazine, The Moment They Became The Doctor, Nov 2003

__________________​

Sometime later, the will has been read, Pippa has got something (a ticket to the seaside and her own pony) and Zerreck gets some much needed rest. Zerreck has dim memories of the house and the planet. She feels she has to stay.

ZERRECK: I...I want to stay Doctor.
DOCTOR: I know I've changed, Zerreck, but I'm still The Doctor.
ZERRECK: It's not that. Maybe it makes it easier, but I know this is where I was meant to be. I actually belong. I might even get used to the rats.
DOCTOR: Oh, the rats won't be a problem.
ZERRECK: Oh no, has he killed them?
DOCTOR: I don't think House will be killing anything soon. He's made some calls, found a place where they observe rats. Nothing cruel, just mazes and puzzles.
ZERRECK: Doctor, is there anywhere you belong?
DOCTOR: Out there, just exploring.
ZERRECK: But, you must come from somewhere.
DOCTOR: Not really. Where I come from isn't anywhere.
ZERRECK: That's why you left?
DOCTOR: You don't always need a reason to leave a place. Sometimes you need a reason to stay and if you can't find it...well...
ZERRECK: Come back and see me. Just because I want to stay here doesn't mean I don't want to spend time with you.
DOCTOR: I'll hold you to that. Oh, you'll want your lockpicks back.
ZERRECK: You keep 'em. I think you'll be needing them more that I will.
The Doctor looks at them and starts thinking of possibilities
DOCTOR: Yes. I think you're right.

__________________

Doctor Who will return for a new series next year. But there's a chance to catch up on The Doctor's adventures, starting with Terror Of The Autons, at 6pm next Friday on BBC2. More information on Ceefax page 250.

 

[Guajolote]

"I had my own ideas about casting the Doctor, but I decided it would do no harm to have a chat with Colin [Cant] if he had any advice. He said 'Imagine the location work is taking longer than anticipated and a major effect has failed. Think of an actor who you can work with under those circumstances. Someone who won't throw a tantrum and actually helps keep everyone's spirits up'.

"As I was setting up shop in the Doctor Who office, work was ending on another show I was producing. It was being transmitted at about the same time as Doctor Who. We'd had a problem with one of the actors, he'd managed to upset the cast and crew, and I'd had to replace him with someone else. [1] That someone else being Tony, who was wonderful. Now, Tony was on my list anyway, but I wasn't sure if he'd be right taking over from Colin Baker, who is tall and posh and outgoing. But when Colin Cant said that, I just knew it had to give Tony first refusal."

- Paul Stone, DVD Extra, Paradise Towers

__________________

"If Doctor Who had gone off the air and then come back, like Star Trek, we'd have a nice dividing line between a classic and a new series. Doctor Who being typically perverse has a classic series and then a bunch of fault lines.

"You can divide it on the grounds of going to film in 1987. The short-lived US series in 1996 certainly is a big shift, but it's not massively different from the last few BBC series. The 1998 version sees it as a UK production again, but still, it doesn't look and feel masively different from the other 90s series. The same goes for the 2004 revival. The changes onscreen from Season 24 onward are the changes undergone by television itself, they're not unique to Doctor Who.

"I think what happened was that the BBC, the fans and the production team had to consider just who The Doctor is. I don't mean in backstory, but in terms of how do you cast a Doctor. What is Doctorish and what isn't.

"What The Doctor has never really been is conventionally heroic. You've heard how Jon Pertwee turned down the part in 1969. Imagine him playing The Doctor like he played Gabriel Baine. That would have been a massive change in the character and it would have opened up the character to being heroic. To be honest, I think he would have played The Doctor similarly to the way Patrick Troughton did, but it's an interesting idea.

"Colin Baker, with his Byronic black outfit and piercing gaze, probably took The Doctor as close as he's ever been to a conventional hero. Even then, Colin gave a wonderfully strange performance.

"So, the series was at a crossroads when Baker had to be replaced. Whether to go even closer to heroism, try and walk the line like Baker had done or go back to a more character-actor type. He went with Tony; shortish, round face, old suit. On one level the obvious choice for a Doctor, but in other ways a bold move.

"We fans, we've all had to put up with being labelled nerdy. I think for some people, it was a shock to have The Doctor become kind of nerdy. Maybe nerdy's not the right word, but the 7th Doctor is deliberately unimpressive. So that's why I think there was the first big fan schism. We'd been labelled nerds who watched that nerdy show and we argued back 'it's gripping drama with a unique lead character'. Well, it still was with Haygarth, but Cuthbertson, Henderson and Baker were all tall and a little bit scary. I'm not sure any of us were prepared for the second coming of Troughton.

"I mean, the anti-Haygarth faction are a small minority and the general public didn't care. The 1987 series opened up new markets. In Germany, Tony Haygarth is THE Doctor by which all others must be measured.

"But for that part of fandom that had a vision of a heroic Doctor, they kept being confronted with disappointment. That's why I don't think there was all that much fuss over having an American Doctor and a woman Doctor. The sore spot in fandom was being faced with another lumpy character-actor for Doctors 8, 9 and 10.

"Every time there was a rumour of a new Doctor, you'd feel the desire from some corners of fandom for it to be someone heroic. Pierce Brosnan, Anthony Head, Liam Neeson, Sean Bean, Hugh Grant; all names that have been attached to fan rumour. The rest of the world isn't invested in that version of The Doctor. We only got the CBS series because they thought it would fit in with their schedule of wall-to-wall police procedurals, which tend to skew older.

"Maybe I'm wrong, maybe David Tennant really will replace Toby Jones, but somehow I doubt it."

- Andrew Barbicane, Fandom - Why Can't We All Just Get Along?, Convention panel, 2007

__________________
​

For all the talk of an increased budget, shooting on film and a companion with an American accent for no good reason, Doctor Who remains defiantly odd and British. I can't have been the only one who was worried that the BBC had missed the point of their own show and they were going to have the good Doctor trying to compete with The Fall Guy and The A-Team. But as soon as chubby Tony Haygarth stepped out of his Police Box in a faded suit that didn't quite fit, I knew my fears were groundless. The fact that he was thrust into that most British of dystopias, a futuristic block of council flats, was just the cherry on already very appetizing cake. The 7th Doctor Who is the very opposite of a tough guy. Mildly intimidated by rowdy teenagers and escaping from evil caretakers (it makes sense in context) by talking his way out, not fighting. And not a wobbly set in sight.

- Owen Harbottle, Sunday Mirror, September 6th 1987

__________________​

"Paul tried to warn me that being Doctor Who would change everything, but it was still a shock to the system. People always recognized me in the street before, but they didn't know who I was, just that they'd seen me in something. 'Oh, it's erm…erm, you from that thing', y'know. But once I was Doctor Who, that was it. People wanting my autograph. Fame at last.

"It was even good for ticket sales. Because there were only ten episodes in that first series, I was still able to do theatre work for the rest of 1987 and into 1988 and the box office noticed there were a lot of teenage Doctor Who fans who'd come along. They'd be waiting for me at the stage door, even though I was only in a minor role. I think I probably got a few parts because the producer knew there'd be a little boost in the number of bums on seats because I was in the show.

"Why was I the longest running Doctor? Was I? I think there's a certain amount of argument over that. But the reason I stayed with it so long was…how do I put this. I don't want to say it was the money, because I genuinely love the show, but it was a guaranteed job for a chunk of the year, I could do other acting jobs for the rest of the year and it also paid for a few nice holidays, too. It's not really that mercenary, but acting's one of those jobs where you live from role to role. But I don't want anyone to think Doctor Who was just a payday for me. I love it and like Roger always says, it's not just a part it's a family."

- Tony Haygarth, DVD Extra, Paradise Towers

__________________​

FANS WILL FLIP FOR NEW DR WHO GIRL

Canadian actress Jennifer Calvert will be climbing aboard the TARDIS as the new Dr Who companion. Calvert, 23, will be playing Flip Driver, a girl who's never more happy than when she's tinkering with an engine. The actress said, "It's going to be an interesting dynamic for The Doctor to have a companion who's almost as good as he is at building mechanical marvels." The new series of Doctor Who, its 24th, begins in September.

- The Daily Mirror, April 7th 1987

__________________
​

"I made a bit of a mistake right at the beginning of commissioning Season 24. Paul and I liked the Paradise Towers story, figuring a futuristic block of flats would be a nice starting point for a new era. Something familiar with sci-fi elements. We could ease any new viewers into the world of Doctor Who.

"Except we'd gotten so far before Paul realized the building killing off the residents was the same story as the Season 23 finale. So I had to call Stephen Wyatt and ask for rewrites. In the end, it made the story more political when it turns out the ruling class are living comfortably on the upper floors. Not such a bad outcome, but I should have spotted it earlier."

- Colin Brake, DVD Extra, Paradise Towers

__________________
​

The dust it settling. Season 24 is a success at home and abroad. There will be a Season 25 and it will be 16 episodes long to make an attractive package for the US. Because that's really the big test of the new filmed series of Doctor Who. Tony Haygarth might now be a superstar in West Germany, but deep down we all know which country's approval we're all looking for. Having Jennifer Calvert as the new companion might have raised the show's profile in Canada, but her accent is clearly a sweetner for the biggest market of all. Can Doctor Who crossover from cult favourite to something recognized from Maine to Hawaii? And if not, then what?

- Doctor Who Magazine, March 1988, Was It Worth The Wait?

[1] As happened IOTL during the production The December Rose

Originally, there was a reference to a 2003 revival, I changed this to a 2004 revival on May 6th 2021 as I decided to change some parts of where the timeline is going

 

[Guajolote]

At the higher levels of the BBC, everyone had a different idea of what the result should be of Doctor Who actively pitching itself as an international show. For some, they just wanted more sales. Some wanted it's image at home to change, to kill off the 'wobbly sets' jokes. Of course, some wanted it to start having a much higher profile in America.

BBC Enterprises knew that a 10-episode filmed series was not going to be an easy sell to the US and it would be easier if there was another season of the filmed series. That didn't stop some in the Corporation wondering why none of the US networks had shown an interest in the relaunched series. Despite reaching new markets around the world, there were still some who regarded the lack of a huge splash in the US (where it still managed to increase in sales to local stations) as some kind of failure. It's fortunate that those with the series immediate fate in their hands (the Director of Television, Head of Drama, Head of BBC1) understood the need for patience.

Another problem was the British press. It had been happy to let Doctor Who trundle along as long it was just another videotaped, multi-camera part of the BBC's output like Songs Of Praise or Terry And June. Once it started to act like it was a proper science-fiction drama, there was a suggestion that it was now less fun, less warm, less British. Fun is subjective, I suppose, but how anyone could fail to find Tony Haygarth's soft Scouse accent full of warmth and Britishness is beyond me.

Of course, some commentators decided to harp on about The Doctor's class…

- Doctor Who In The Eighties, Gordon Weythe

__________________​

Doctor Who, along with many other British institutions in Owen's Britain, has decided to go all whizzy and polished while also developing a taste for emphasizing its working class credentials all of a sudden. While one wonders what the point is of a Doctor Who with no wobbly sets to laugh at, it's also obvious that this new take on an old classic is hopelessly out of step. In this day and age, we Britons have rediscovered the joy of posh heroes. Edward Petherbridge is packing cinemas with his delightfully troubled Lord Peter Wimsey. How clever of Lew Grade to understand that taking a dash of Merchant Ivory-style of uptight British stiff-upper-lipness and adding some lovely murder is a surefire recipe for box-office dynamite. Even on the small screen, the real grand old man of British sci-fi, Dan Dare, has returned with a vengeance in the divine shape of Paul McGann, taking that old-school RAF quality to Venus and back.

- Janet Merlghane, Mail On Sunday, October 18th 1987

__________________​

The Great British viewing public liked the new Doctor Who. Apart from a couple of slightly unhinged fanzines, the fans liked new Doctor Who. Countries that had shown little or no interest took a chance on new Doctor Who. Some US stations that had no place for a 10-part series of Doctor Who were more receptive when BBC Enterprises offered them as 5 TV movies. Doctor Who was still bringing in more revenue than it did to produce, even with its new boosted budget. Doctor Who was a success. But it had gained a reputation for having flown too close to the Sun. By the time Season 26 came around, it had regained its position as hardy perennial. But within the industry and the media commentariat, a cloud hung over Doctor Who. A sense that if it was really going to compete as a worldwide brand, it would need something like a co-production and it would need to be big in America.

- Doctor Who In The Eighties, Gordon Weythe

__________________​

"It's a strange thing. People always say to me 'Y'know I thought you were a really good Doctor Who', like it's an opinion that musn't hear very often. I don't think anyone's ever told me I was rubbish. All those years I was getting rich off the overseas sales, I was still seen as the underdog."

- Tony Haygarth, Interview, Doctor Who Magazine, November 2003

__________________​

Janet Merlghane maybe one of the great villains of Doctor Who fandom for that column, but there was a germ of truth. Doctor Who was out of step with the prevailing trends of late-80s British TV. Normally when I say that, someone will say 'But it was a great success'. That's the point a lot of people overlook. Doctor Who was successful *because* it was out of step.

Late-80s Britain felt good about itself. There was money swimming around and the social agenda was broadly progressive. Dan Dare was a perfect fit, with its multi-cultural, Utopian future that was still as British as the thwack of willow on leather. Gerry Anderson's Space Police was more Transatlantic in its ambitions, but still whizzy and bright.

Doctor Who was a show for and about misfits. The Doctor cutting a Columbo-like figure in his old suit and worn, tweed overcoat. The Doctor's companion Flip was a sly parody of the feisty tough-girl one might expect in late-80s sci-fi. She had a tomboyish edge, with her fascination and aptitude for things mechanical, but she had no combat skills. Instead of high-kicking martial arts, Flip fought dirty with absolutely no shame. Which of course gave The Doctor as good a reason as any to try and avoid violent confrontations and try to think or talk his way out of a fight. The semi-regular character of Max Bolton (Private Eye) was another canny subversion. Max was a distorted mirror of The Doctor. Max tried to solve problems with toughness and usually ended up looking ridiculous (actually, he usually started out looking ridiculous, too). A man who thought he was a hard-boiled detective, but being from a distant planet didn't entirely understand the tropes he was imitating. Sylvester McCoy played the part with just the right amount of knowing goofiness.

Fortunately, Britain could still supply plenty of misfits for Doctor Who to play to. Whatever influence it lost in the playgrounds, it made up for in university common rooms.

- Deleted section from Doctor Who In The Eighties, posted on Gordon Weythe's blog

__________________​

"We weren't exactly on the cover of the NME every week, but yes, there was a sense that Doctor Who was a little bit cooler than other shows of its kind. There was a lot of polished Transatlantic stuff going around and despite the change to film, Who still felt more British and a bit anarchic. This didn't seem to have bought us enough goodwill inside the BBC.

"There was definitely jealousy from some other producers and they were putting the poison in. Enterprises was fighting for us tooth and nail, so that helped. David Dimbleby was still on our side, but there was a new Director of Television and Head of Drama and I think that as they moved in, certain parties had got to them and said Doctor Who was meant to have broken into America and failed. WE. HADN'T. FAILED! It was a long term strategy. I think some people thought anything less than getting them to cancel Cheers and replacing it with Doctor Who was some sort of misfire."

"I was thinking of moving on, but part of me didn't want to give the naysayers the satisfaction.

"Paul Stone left at the end of Season 25 and John Dale came in and for a while, I thought everything was OK. Then just as Season 26 was about to go before the cameras, John called me into his office and asked me if I wanted to move on. I thought I was being fired, but he dropped this bombshell on me. He said 'I have a feeling they're going to cancel us after the next series. I think once they have 52 episodes of film, they're going to use that as an excuse to close us down. You might want to move on so you don't get caught up in being part of the team that oversaw the cancellation of Doctor Who'. I was in shock."

- Colin Brake, The Other Other Colin, DWM, 2006

__________________​

"Fans don't like to admit it but Doctor Who has always been political. Sometimes slightly, sometimes deeply, but it's never been an apolitical show. When politics isn't at work within the fiction, it's at work in the production. The cancellation crisis of the early 90s is as much about the way Britain was changing as it was about attractive episode counts for syndication.

"The Seventh Doctor's era had something of the disillusioned traditional Labour supporter to it. Dan Dare and others were examples of the internationalist, but slightly homogeneous Owenite 'Programme for Change'. Lurking in the shadows was the biggest enemy. The sense that the UK should be more like the US. The growing dissatisfaction with Owen's prosperous, but tightly regulated UK. The desire for proper consumerism. The tempting mix of sophistication and excess. Within that was the sense that only American money and knowhow could produce proper sci-fi and fantasy. To compete in the post-Star Wars world, Doctor Who was going to have to become more like Star Wars. Doctor Who's future must surely lie on the other side of The Pond. There was recrimination at the fact that a proposed Doctor Who movie had been scuppered by the move to a filmed series that didn't want the competition [1].

"Doctor Who, the resolutely British, broadly left-wing series was doomed. At least before the axe (or ax) could finally fall, we got a couple of things to disrupt those plans".

- Rayne Norvell, Jewel fanzine, 1996

[1] That's what happened to Coast To Coast/Daltenrays film proposal ITTL

 

[Guajolote]

AHC: Prevent Doctor Who going to the US

Monday 9:15pm
biffin

The CBS TV movie and series were a misstep, IMO. It killed the momentum Doctor Who had been building up since the switch to film and its failure led to the desperate move of having a female Ninth Doctor to claw back some recognition. Is there anything that could stop the move to the US and just have Doctor Who continue as it had been as a BBC Production?
-----------
Monday 9:25pm
BeatleBlades

To be honest, I don't think it's possible. British culture was just going that way. Britain had been a bit inward looking in the 80s. David Owen couldn't sell his own party of the idea of a more European Britain, never mind the rest of the country. There was just a bit of desire for the US to notice us and maybe have a more consumerist society in the UK after long years of social democracy.

Perversely, Owen probably turbo-charged the British interest in America. If you don't have him being PM, maybe you won't have Al Gore being compared to him and getting a lot of campaign staff from the pool that got Owen re-elected in 1987. Al Gore winning the White House meant a lot of the more "right on" people in the UK softened their stance towards America after spending eight years hating Reagan.

Also, Ninth Doctor's casting had nothing to do with "clawing back some recognition". But that's a story for another thread.
-----------
9:27pm
Bullseye82

You can't stop it. The ultimate example of a British sci-fi show going off the rails to appeal to the US already happened before the CBS Who. If Starwatch can't stop it, nothing can.
-----------
10:11pm
BeatleBlades

Ouch, ouch, ouch. Don't say St*rw*tch. Some of us haven't recovered from that mess.

- Excerpts from alternatehistory.com board thread

__________________​

The history of Starwatch is difficult to navigate because it was such a mess, a lot of stories about it are more about assigning blame rather than what actually happened. Putting together things said by the people I trust most and allowing for bias in the anecdotes of other people, here's what I have.

Starwatch promised an approach that would hark back to the "good old days" of TV sci-fi. A claim strengthened by the involvement of telefantasy doyens Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee in the original pitch. No-one said it out loud, but everyone recognized that the main attraction offered was a return to something like the Delgado and Cuthbertson style of Doctor Who. [1]

"Starwatch wasn't some kind of protest against Doctor Who as it had developed in the 80s," says Andrew Barbicane, author of The Starwatch Chronicles. "It was just that there was a generation of TV writers coming up who'd grown up with that rich seam of sci-fi and fantasy of the 70s and felt a need for some like it to return. It was quite the opposite of the malcontented project some of the fan press labelled it. The same audience that liked modern Doctor Who also rather fancied something a bit more traditional, too. Everybody wins."

"In the end, it became the canary down the coal mine for how British telefantasy might have been treated in the 90s. It was not a happy story."

- Starwatch: "The Essence Is Out Of Phase", Cult TV magazine, July 1998 [2]

__________________​

British television was undergoing an upheaval and every aspect of the industry would be questioned as the BBC/ITV duopoly prepared for the multichannel era; at Westminster, this development awkwardly straddled a further shift to the left. The plans were drawn up under the Lab-Lib pact; as much as Owen proclaimed that this arrangement was simply a bargain of necessity, many observed that the Prime Minister was more comfortable overseeing an alliance with the Liberal Party than when Labour subsequently won a clear majority in the 1987 election.

Both government and broadcasters had accepted the inevitability of direct-to-home satellite TV being commonplace by the 1990s; however, the threat of a trash TV free-for-all – often predicted by media commentators noting the trajectory of cable TV offerings in the USA – was met with tough legislation. An amendment to town and country planning laws restricted the size of satellite dishes which could be installed at residential properties in the UK; despite staunch opposition from Rupert Murdoch's press outlets, the new regulations became law in January 1985.

Thus, satellite reception would be a 'walled garden' with the winning licensee, British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), marketing its innovative squarial; the device fitted neatly under the regulation diameter of 40cm. BSB would initially advertise a four channel service; the BBC were offered two slots, but decided to take only one. BBC3 would principally serve as an overspill channel, allowing for extended coverage of sport and news events; at other times, peak-time rebroadcasts of Open University material and archive BBC content filled the schedule.

Although the natural option for the remaining channel would have been some kind of 'ITV2' service, the ever-present political battles within the network of regional companies would prevent any such plans. As it was, Thames – the London weekday franchise holder – was already pursuing its own satellite distribution plans; more broadly, ITV had enough on its plate with the recently launched Channel Four and the troubled breakfast provider TV-am.

Into this void stepped the upstart Television South (TVS); recently installed as the provider for the South and South East of England, the buccaneering company had big plans for expansion. Having failed in its attempts to secure network ITV slots for drama and entertainment output – the 'big five' cartel unwilling to cede control of peak-time slots to the newcomer – the Maidstone-based company responded with an audacious bid to extend its reach far beyond local transmitters.

In February 1984, James Gatward attended the NATPE Market & Conference in San Francisco; touring the various events, the TVS founder networked at a manic pace. His efforts paid off; two crucial alliances were secured, with both Disney and Viacom joining the ambitious 'TVSat' consortium. Back in the UK, LWT also joined the pack; all three entities would become minority shareholders and supply archive material to the new service.

Finally, ITN agreed to produce news programming – a regulatory requirement for any successful bidder – to the channel. TVSat won the final satellite slot unopposed, with a view to launching in 1987; with its public service obligations and programming back catalogue secured, TVS itself would now begin work on its original programming. The company was clear that any new series must have broad appeal; with BSB's initial reach predicted at just 1m households, international distribution was vital if the productions were to justify a significant budget.

- Broadcast magazine, "Television In The 80s", Dec 1989

__________________​

So, Starwatch was to be TVSat's secret weapon. A new sci-fi adventure series exclusive to the satellite channel. The hope was that the expense of a show with such a limited UK audience would be offset by international syndication. "Little by little, the original pitch got watered down," recalls co-creator Chris Leach. "But TVS were spending a lot of money and promises were made that once we got into the swing of things, we'd see a bit more of the original concept."

Jon Pertwee was kept on as Starwatch founder Jason Havlin, but the role of scientific advisor, Professor Patrick Caledon was scrapped and replaced with Dr Sam Lonsdale, "special operations co-ordinator".

"TVS wanted a younger lead actor, we went along with it on the understanding that he'd be a MacGyver type figure," says Leach. "In the end, we lost control of the project as TVS started throwing more money at it and pulling out would have caused a hell of a mess for a lot people who didn't deserve it."

Antony Hamilton, perhaps best know to British viewers as the second lead actor in the adventure series Cover Up, was cast as Sam Lonsdale. "He wanted to do it our way," says Lonsdale. "But by this point the series was pulling in different directions. In some episodes Lonsdale is a thinker, in others he's just another action man."

"TVS had watered the original idea down so much to appeal to the American market as they saw it. Then the American TV companies looked at it and said 'Why would we want that? If we buy a British show, we want it to be British'. And the British reaction was the same, only more pointed. Eventually Starwatch became a byword for the Americanisation of British ideas."

- Starwatch: "The Essence Is Out Of Phase", Cult TV magazine, July 1998

A billboard ad from the time. When asked about the changing of the original concept of the robot assistant, Leach just rolls his eyes and says "next question".
__________________​

"I don't think Starwatch influenced what happened to Doctor Who in 1990. I think that was a tussle between BBC Television and BBC Enterprises. It's all politics."

- Jaz Forsdyne, SenitnelCon, Nottingham, 2005

__________________​

It looks like the day has finally come. Once the BBC has the magic number of 52 episodes of the filmed series of Doctor Who, the show will come to an end. Season 27 is the last season of Doctor Who.

- Editorial, DWB, August 1990

__________________​

We've had many, many letters about the rumours that Season 27 is to be the last. All we can say is that we've had no official confirmation from the BBC.

- Editorial, Doctor Who Monthly, October 1990

__________________​

How did we survive 1990? On the 6th of December I, along with millions of others, sat down to watch Empire Of The Daleks part two. I was on the verge of tears as the credits rolled on what I believed was the LAST EVER episode of Doctor Who. And then it happened and I almost fell out of my seat!

- 1990: The Agony And The Ecstasy, Doctor Who Monthly, 1996

__________________​

"That was the last in the current series of Doctor Who, but fear not, the good Doctor will return for a new series of adventures in 1992."

- Continuity announcement over the end credits of Empire Of The Daleks part two

__________________​

"Fifty-two is a magic number in television sales because it's one episode a week for a whole year. But sixty-five is even more magical. It's five episodes a week for thirteen weeks. Enterprises had a couple of enquires from broadcasters that indicated they'd be interested in a package of sixty-five. Enterprises then went on to strongarm BBC1 into commissioning one more series. There wasn't time to get a proposal in for a commission in the 1991 schedule so the production office kept busy by compiling a repeat run of classic stories for the summer on BBC1."

- John Dale, DVD Extra, Empire Of The Daleks

__________________​

[1] Starwatch was a real TV proposal. The story of what happened IOTL can be read here. The pitch video is on YouTube.

[2] IOTL Cult TV magazine folded with the June 1998 issue, but it's survived a little longer ITTL, maybe because the Baine Boom shows have created a few more telefantasy fans.

Thanks to Gary Rodger, who co-wrote the Broadcast magazine, "Television In The 80s" section. Thanks also to Hamish Bland who alerted me the existence of Starwatch.

 

[Guajolote]

The first story of Season 27 had been called Lucky Devil and maybe it was fate, but Doctor Who seemed to enjoy a burst of good luck that ran counter to the apparent death sentence hanging over the show.

Luck seemed in short supply at the outset of production. Producer John Dale had been given a budget cut. The BBC had decided that as Doctor Who was a show winding down, there was no need for extravagance. Dale went back to one of his predecessors to turn this limitation to his advantage.

"I admit, I consciously decided to go 70s style on Season 27," recalls Stone. “They'd always been careful with their budgets so that they could divert some of the money to a couple of spectacular looking stories, while other stories could trade on atmosphere instead of effects. I only needed one spectacular story, the last. So, I decided to start the series with low on effects, high on atmosphere story. For that, I just had to get Peter Hammond to write it. People have complimented me on having a terrific idea, but I think the good fortune we had was mostly down to Peter. He turned it into a triumph."

As it was, the cancellation rumours would draw viewers to Doctor Who who hadn't seen the series in years. What they would find would be a story very similar to the perceived "golden age" of the series in the 70s. Hammond wrote The Doctor with the same easy charm and dry humour as Delgado and Cuthbertson. Tony Haygarth managed to deliver some of The Doctor's aphorisms as if he wasn't sure he would get away with it, showing a boyish glee when his wit hit home. It was a perfect synthesis of two different approaches to the character. The new companion, Selnasian diplomat Koryn Jath played by Seeta Indrani, had the same intellectual bemusement at "primitive" social mores as Kay Gee had had. All in all, just as the eyes of the nation as a whole returned to Doctor Who, it was perfectly placed to demonstrate that, yes, it was just as good as it had been in the old days.

This success caused a flurry of activity at the BBC. The proposed BBC2 repeat run became a BBC1 repeat run. BBC Radio 4 commissioned two six-part adventures starring Haygarth and Indrani, to run in Spring and Autumn. Finally, plans for the next TV season, originally the result of pressure from BBC Enterprises to make a more attractive syndication package, were now plans for the triumphant return of a well loved institution. The 1990 "uncancellation" had given the show enough momentum to carry it comfortably to its 30th anniversary.

Someone else sprang into action when the "year of no Doctor Who" was announced. He saw the break in production as an opportunity to transfer Doctor Who to his employer, Amblin Television.

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

"Can I answer a question you didn't ask? I was talking to Roger earlier and he says the two most obvious questions are 'where do you get your ideas from?' for writers and 'did you think you'd be talking about this years later?' for actors. (audience chuckles) Roger wasn't being mean, I'm not sure he knows how. He said they're only the most obvious because they're the questions most people want to know the answer to. I think he was trying to tell me if I got asked the 'did you think' question not to treat it as a silly question.

"Here's the thing, I didn't really think I'd be sitting here in front of so many people. I know Doctor Who was and is very popular, Tony gave me a full rundown on what to expect, but I thought I was going to be the 'and also' of Doctor Who assistants…sorry, it's companions isn't it? Roger doesn't like it when people say 'assistant'.

"It was an open secret that the season I was in was meant to be last, at least until the BBC found a co-producer to relaunch it in the States. So, I had no illusions that I was going to be up there with Jenny and Gabrielle as one of the most popular…companions. I was just going to be the name between Jennifer Calvert and the next, turned out to be, erm…the American one, what's her…? Leah Remini, that's it! So yes, the companion list would go 'Jennifer Calvert and then Leah Remini, oh yes, Seeta Indrani was in there somewhere'.

"If I'd know that all that behind the scenes stuff was going to make Doctor Who so popular again, I think I'd have asked for a different wardrobe. I know you guys…and some of you girls, like that succession of velvet-look catsuits, but I think I'd have gone for something more dignified. I did question it at the time, because everyone was laughing about Teri Hatcher in…thingumy…Starwatch. Her catsuit was all spangly wasn't it? Still, I did wonder if I was doing the right thing. I suppose it didn't do her any harm in the long run, but it could have completely derailed the career of a less assured actress.

"Another thing. There were letters to Points of View saying 'She looks lovely in those tight clothes, but why must she wear those big clunky boots? They spoil the effect'. Let me tell you, those 'big clunky boots' were wonderful. Not only comfortable and practical, I would have looked silly running around in heels like the letter writers wanted, they were also lovely and warm on location. Tony was wearing two pairs of socks because those beaten up old suede shoes weren't keeping out the cold."

- Seeta Indrani, convention appearance, 1999

__________________​

I assume you've all listened to The Last Cyberman on Radio 4. Is it just me or was that so good that the lack of visuals didn't matter? It was really Doctor Who, not just a stopgap. I eagerly await Triumph Of The Ice Warriors this autumn.

- Doctor Who Magazine editorial, June 1991

__________________​

"It's interesting what you said about the radio series, because I thought the same thing at first. When I got the call from Radio 4, I thought it was a bit opportunistic; get all the Doctor Who fans tuning in and staying for The Archers. I had a meeting with the producer and he started telling me about how what appealed to them about Doctor Who was its audience was young. It was all pretty high-minded really. Get a younger audience tuning into Doctor Who and maybe some of them will listen to the news afterwards. That was the hope, not boosting the listenership of The Archers, which didn't really need any help. I bet all that'll get edited out."

- At Home With…Tony Haygarth, BBC Radio 4, 1998.

__________________​

Between Seasons 27 and 28, the BBC's plans for Doctor Who remained fundamentally the same, but the effects were hoped to be different as far as the viewing audience was concerned.

The original plan, what we might call the "cancellation plan" was to wind up the filmed series after 52 episodes and concentrate on finding a US co-production deal. The unexpected success of Season 27 moved the powers-that-be onto what we might call the "continuation plan". While there would be no TV episodes of Doctor Who produced for 1991, the show's profile would still be high with the Radio 4 series and the summer repeat run. Behind the scenes, a co-production deal could be sought and hammered out. Season 28 would go out and Doctor Who would officially end as a BBC production. The production office had permission to produce a 30th anniversary special, so that would be it for Doctor Who in 1993 and all being well, the co-production would be ready for 1994. So in markets that had shown Seasons 24-28, Doctor Who would just continue, albeit in a modernized form.

It didn't work out that way and some aspects of the plan would prove to be a headache for the eventual co-producer. But Doctor Who was now a show that appeared to enjoy the confidence of the BBC.

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

"Ha! Yes, you can tell which bits Gordon I wrote and which bits I wrote. In Gordon's view, once Season 28 was commissioned, it was all plain sailing until 1993. Gordon's not wrong, because he's interested in the show from 1963 to 1993.

"Originally, it was going to be two distinct works. Gordon would write it up to 1993 and then I'd take it from the CBS pilot onwards. But the eras overlap messily. From one point of view, 1991 is a year the whole enterprise was kept simmering, followed by a solidly popular season and then a year's gap and the 30th anniversary special, which was a bit of an instant classic. That's the end of BBC-only Doctor Who in the 20th Century and it's a happy ending.

"From my point of view, 1991 is the start of the next era and it's a turbulent one. Amblin have made their interest known and the BBC had initially been treating Doctor Who as something that needed to be rested and then revived. It takes large organizations longer to notices things, so they're still treating it that through the first half of 1991. They're smiling on the reboot proposals and all that mythology about the Doctor's homeworld. By the end of 1991, they've noticed that the show is hugely popular again and they're suddenly telling Amblin it has to be a continuation. They're just beginning to test Amblin's patience and then the 30th anniversary special kicks into gear. The one the BBC told Amblin not to worry about, the one the BBC said was 'a little thank-you to the fans'. That ends up getting reworked and the cast is announced and Amblin go ballistic. I really don't know why they didn't spike the deal there and then. According to Roger, bless him, it was all his fault. He had a point. God, I miss him.

- Andrew Barbicane, Convention appearance, 2006

__________________​

"Just as we were going to press, we received the news that Roger Delgado had had a heart attack. We wish him a speedy recovery and all the best to his wife, Kismet."

- Doctor Who Magazine editorial, December 1992

__________________​

Put down that obit file, you young rascal! You don't get rid of me that easily! The doctors told this Doctor that the attack was just a warning and that I'm to take it easy. Feet up for old Roger as usual, but I think I have to forgo the brandy. Giving up the cigars was bad enough, but probably saved my life this time around so mustn't grumble.

All the best to everyone at Doctor Who Magazine,

- Letter from Roger Delgado to Gary Russell at Doctor Who Magazine, January 1993.

 

[Guajolote]

Put the big reveal in spoiler tags so you don't see it while scrolling

After the highs and lows of 1990 and 1991, 1992 seemed to pass by in a daze. Season 28 held onto the audience won with Season 27. Many fans were overjoyed to see the season being produced by Barry Letts. "In all modesty, I was just brought in to keep it ticking over. I returned to the production office to find an efficient operation. It was just my job to make it sure it stayed that way. It went off without a hitch."

While BBC Enterprises wouldn't be making any more requests for further series, there was no question of this being the definitive final series of Doctor Who. If the Amblin deal fell through, the BBC was now more likely to press ahead with a series of its own. On top of all this, before Season 28 ended it was announced that 1993 would see a feature-length 30 anniversary special. No-one knew yet, but the fireworks behind the scenes would be as spectacular as anything onscreen.

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

The heart attack was a nasty shock, followed by a sad realisation and finally a strange reassurance.

I don't have to explain the shock. But once I'd established that I wasn't going to die this time around, I was left with the realization that I was an old man. Seventy-four was a grand, old age and I wasn't going to be able work at the same pace. I had a horrible vision of being unable to do anything for myself and being a burden to Kismet. I felt the pain of not wanting to retire, I've always loved my work, but also the fear of not being able to enjoy whatever time I had left with my beloved wife.

Then came the reassurance, or rather the reassurances. The doctors told me that the attack was a warning sign. I had to take it easy, but not give up altogether. After the doctors, I got a visit and some advice from The Doctor. Iain Cuthbertson stopped by to see how I was and told me about how he'd had recovered from his stroke and readjust his working methods and schedule. Finally, of course, there was the outpouring of love from my Doctor Who family all over the world.

Iain's visit reassured me on another level. He'd been unable to fully take part in the 20th anniversary special and there was a big 30th anniversary special coming up and I wasn't going to be able to carry on like I used to. But Iain said there was no danger of the fans being disappointed in me. "If it's anything like like the 20th, they'll just be happy to see you back. That was what I kept hearing from the fans. They were just happy to see me back in uniform, so to speak."

I hoped the Doctor Who production office would be similarly upbeat.

- Roger Delgado, "Scornfuls, Spaniards, Sleuths And Spacemen", 1999

__________________​

"We knew from the beginning that we had to have a plan in case any Doctor couldn't take part for any reason. Not just for reasons of health, any one might have decided they didn't want to do any more Doctor Who or might have had a better job to go to. We considered ourselves lucky that every living Doctor was onboard. Each one had different levels of availability, so that had to be written around, but at least we were going to be able to get a scene with all of them together.

"The plan to help lighten the load was to add another Doctor. It was based around an idea I'd had in the 70s but had never run with. A future Doctor, maybe the last Doctor. One whose work correcting the web of time had come at the cost of his own timeline. His past is completely broken. We'd had that story where The Doctor changed Dalek history and I wondered, how would that effect The Doctor's history? What happens to the previous Doctors who've had adventures that were part of the unchanged Dalek history? Have they been changed? That was where the idea of The Lost Doctor came from.

"I'd had different plans for this notional Doctor depending on who may or may not be available. Having a full compliment of Doctors with Colin, Tony and Don able to handle some action stuff, we didn't need an action Doctor. So we could have a Doctor who could take some talky scenes and move the plot. We asked Peter Cushing, but he very politely declined.

"We knew Roger was feeling guilty about being on light duties, so I called him to tell him of this plan. He took a great deal of interest and wanted to know who we were going to cast. I told him we didn't have anyone yet and he got very excited. He'd just been talking to a friend of his and he was sure he'd say yes. Would it be OK to ask his friend?

"Note that Roger didn't say who his friend was. He was a devil for that sort of thing. Wicked sense of humour. He wanted to let me squirm a little as I wouldn't know if it was John Gielgud or Bozo the Clown. Roger knew everybody. I had squirmed enough and I asked Roger who he meant.

"I dropped the phone with surprise.

"The following day, Roger called, said his friend was very interested, wouldn't want all that much money and his agent would be giving us a call.

"I dropped the phone again."

- PJ Hammond, DVD extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

Spoiler

CHARLTON HESTON IS THE DOCTOR!

- Doctor Who Magazine cover, April 1993

__________________​

"I gather his presence is a bit of an outlier for Doctor Who fans. Of course, Doctor Who is a bit of an outlier in his filmography. He himself admitted that the surprise election victory of Al Gore in 1988 had caused him to lose perspective a little and maybe overstate his case. I think Doctor Who was an opportunity to do something that might take attention away from some of the interview clips that had been dogging him."

- Biographer Harlan Baulke, DVD extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

"Hello, chaps. This is my dear friend Chuck. He's promised not to talk about politics."

- attributed to Roger Delgado at rehearsals for The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

The sometimes insular world of Doctor Who fandom was more or less nonplussed at the casting announcement. But without him, it's unlikely that The Wrong Doctors would have secured its choice Christmas Day on BBC1 slot.

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

"I was a bit put out by this 'Lost Doctor' idea when Peter [Hammond] explained it to me. I know Roger couldn't be involved as much as he wanted to be, but I didn't see that as a reason to introduce an interloper. Of course, Peter was playing the same trick on me Roger played on him. When he told me who'd be the Lost Doctor, I had to admit he'd be crazy to turn him down.

"It was really just down to Roger trying to be helpful. I think he felt guilty at not being able to carry his share as he saw it. At rehearsals he kept apologizing for not being quite as quick on the cues as usual. He was fine, naturally. He held himself to a higher standard.

"The BBC were all for the special being called The Lost Doctor, but Peter insisted they stick with the original title as it referred to all of us. Very diplomatic. That diplomatic side helped with the US deal, apparently."

- Colin Baker, convention appearance, 2007

__________________​

I hadn't been happy with the prospect of a 30th anniversary special. It indicated to me a lack of commitment by the BBC to the co-production deal. I did wonder if the talks with Amblin were being used as a bargaining chip in some other deal I wasn't being told about.

The BBC reassured me that this was just a "thank you to the fans" and nothing Amblin had to worry about. Then I saw the casting announcement and I hit the roof. The BBC people I'd been talking to were equivocating and I was all for pulling the plug. The day was rescued by PJ Hammond, previous Doctor Who producer who'd been drafted back in to oversee the special.

"I gather we've been causing you a bit of heartache," he calmly said. "I'm calling to reassure you. This is the last in-house BBC production of Doctor Who for the foreseeable future. As far as I'm aware, Doctor Who's future is with Amblin.

"About that bit of casting." Bit of casting?! Mr Hammond was a perfect example of British understatement. "It just so happens he's a friend of Roger's and I think he's just doing it for a bit of a laugh." I wasn't sure I trusted Mr Hammond. "We're not paying him all that much. I think he's going to get a tiny percentage of the home video sales on top of that, but it's peanuts compared to what he could usually ask for." Then his tone changed.

"Mr Segal, have you had some difficulty selling the idea of Doctor Who to your co-workers? Are they wondering why you're involved in this insignificant little show?" I had to admit, he'd read the situation perfectly. "We all go through it, we Doctor Who producers." He thought of me as a Doctor Who producer, that was reassuring. "Just show them that casting announcement. If he's in, it's not that insignificant, is it? I bet you won't find any actors you're looking at being quick to turn you down now that they're following in his footsteps." I was beginning to warm to him. I had to ask why he'd been able to say all this and no-one else had. "It's the BBC," he sighed. "None of this will occur to them until next year." It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

- Philip Segal, Regeneration - The Story Behind The Revival of a Television Legend, 2000

 

[Guajolote]

It's the 27th anniversary of the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who, so here's the first bit of The Wrong Doctors.
__________________________________________________

We open on The Doctor running through wrecked streets, barely recognizable as being Earth. Daleks are pursuing The Doctor, screeching that they will exterminate him. Just in time, he makes it into the TARDIS; Koryn is behind the console.

"Doctor, what happened?"

"I don't know! The Dalek invasion was defeated in the 2160s! I was part of it. Check the location readout!"

"London, 2170."

The TARDIS console's central column begins to move by itself. Koryn looks to The Doctor who says quietly and gravely, "It's the Time Lords. I'm being taken to the homeworld. Things are about to get very serious."

OPENING TITLES

The Doctor and Koryn step out into a white void. Time Lords come to escort The Doctor and Koryn in different directions. Koryn looks to The Doctor who nods that it's OK. Just before they're separated, he reaches in his jacket pocket and fishes out a battered paperback book, which he hands to Koryn.

"It's not dangerous, but it can be very boring."

The Doctor is brought into a white marble room and is surprised to find his four previous incarnations waiting for him.

A white marble room​

Seven: "What's the matter, fellers...Blue Meanies?"

Three: "Daleks where they shouldn't be. Where did you run into them?"

Seven: "London, 2170."

All the Doctors wince.

Six: "That would confirm our worst fears."

Lord Dezan (Alfred Burke) enters. "There is a concerted attack on your personal timeline. We have attempted to remove each of your incarnations from the timestream. We are unable to find the first two, which raises troubling possibilities."

"They are safe." Everyone turns around to see a new figure. Tall, old, dignified, elegantly dressed and easily noticeable in his bright red jacket. "I was able to warn them and hide them between dimensions. I had planned to do so for all of you, but it appears the Time Lords had the same idea."

Dezan tries to hide his surprise. "And who are you?"

"I am The Doctor. Don't ask me which number. I don't know. I'm from far in your future and this whole situation is my fault. I destroyed the Daleks – or, from your point of view, I will destroy the Daleks. It's become a fixed point. Their history can only end one way. But someone has told the Daleks from an earlier point in history of what will happen. This is their last ditch effort to destroy you and me and prevent their destruction."

Lord Dezan speaks up. "We did not bring these different incarnations to protect them. It is felt that by bringing you here, we might give you time to plan and mount counterattacks against the Daleks. There is a corresponding Dalek attack to each incarnation so each of you will be placed at an appropriate point in your timeline to handle the situation."

The Doctors agree, except for the Seventh. "Wait a minute. You're not going to put my third self up against the attack on my third self, are you? That'd be a waste of the element of surprise."

The Third Doctor responds. "I think I can see where you're going with this. Every Dalek will be expecting to find a certain version of me. If they find themselves up against a different version, they'll be on the back foot."

"Right Daleks, wrong Doctors", agrees the Sixth with a smile.

The Fifth Doctor looks to the future Doctor. "Can we take it that the Daleks are being launched from the same point in time-space? They'll only be aware of what's happening as they observe the changes to the timeline. They won't have the advantage of being able to study any historical record."

__________________​

"Peter had the time travel element all mapped out. I don't think I fully understood it, but I think even Peter will acknowledge that it didn't need to make much sense. All the Doctors have to get together, here's an excuse for them to do so."

- Terrance Dicks, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

"This is convoluted even for me", sighs the Fourth Doctor.

"You're both right", says the future Doctor with a smile. "I'm going to be waiting for the returning parties on the Dalek ship to destroy their units as they touch down."

"Sounds dangerous", says the Seventh. "Dezan, go to wherever you're keeping Koryn and ask her to help me. Not me me. Him me", he gestures to the future Doctor.

Just as Dezan is about to leave, the Seventh Doctor snatches the handheld computer display from him. "I assume this has information of the attacks. Aha!" He turns to the Third Doctor. "I think you'll like this one. You're about to meet Max Bolton for the very first time. Nice feller, just wishes he was Sam Spade. His office is on the planet Kipth…"

__________________​

"Roger wanted to take part, but his doctor – his doctor, not his Doctor – was very strict about what Roger could and couldn't do. Peter asked him if we could do something where Roger was sitting down the whole time, if that'd be OK. He added if Roger was sitting at a desk, we could have some papers on the desk with Roger's lines, so that would take some pressure off him. The doctor said all that sounded good. Roger did as he was told and he got to save the day sitting down. He was word perfect, as ever, but he did say that knowing the lines were in view saved him some stress."

- Terrance Dicks, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________

1989 publicity still of Sylvester McCoy as Max Bolton PI​

Max Bolton, PI, is running through the mean streets of Kipth. He makes it back to his office only to notice the lights are on. He pulls out his trusty Mahgruh X-8 laser pistol but before he can kick the door open, a voice calls from within. "It's alright Max. It's me, The Doctor." Max cautiously enters the office to see the Third Doctor sitting behind his desk.

"I may look and sound different, but it's still me. I helped myself to coffee, but I cleaned up after myself." Max looks at his tiny office kitchenette to see all the washing up has been done. "There's only one guy I know in this godforsaken galaxy who enjoys washing up. It must be you, Doc."

"Haven't seen any Daleks recently, have you?"

"Ugh! Fortunately, no. I have about a dozen gangs of mooks out for my blood, but rather them than Daleks."

"Tell me about these 'mooks'."

We flash back to a few nights ago; Max is explaining events to The Doctor. "It was meant to be a simple case. Some dame had hired yours truly to see if her old man was playing house with something tall, blonde and hot-to-trot. I found where he was hanging out and it wasn't a love nest, by cracky."

"Max, you appear to have slipped from Private Eye slang to 19th Century gold prospector."

"Really? Anyway, this place he had keys to was just a room full of maps and files with a nearly dead man in the middle. I went to see if I could help him and he just said 'Take the egg, let them through'. After that he went from nearly dead to very dead."

"What did he mean?", asked The Doctor. We return to the present.

"I haven't got a clue, Doc. He didn't give me anything, but since then, I've had various guys chasing me around town shouting 'where's the egg?'"

The Doctor leans his head on his hand and appears to go to sleep. Suddenly, his eyes open and he demands "Empty your pockets!" Max obeys and there amid the transit tickets, skeleton keys and candy bars is a metallic egg. Its surface is complex with what could be hundreds of facets.

"He hid it on your person as you bent over him. This is not good, Max. This is a Dalek time portal, an army of Daleks could flood through if it was activated . Your wayward husband case was a Dalek agent, presumably promised some position of power. Fool! Still, at least we have it now. You haven't had any visitors so far, so I think we have a little time to play with. I'm just going to the TARDIS. I parked it in this little side room, I trust that's alright with you."

The Doctor walks to the TARDIS, [1] leaving Max on his own. No sooner has The Doctor gone than the police burst in, charge him murder and carry him away. As Max is being dragged out of his office, concealed in the stairwell is a group of very dangerous looking men waiting for the office to be left empty.

As we cut to a moody shot of Max in the back seat of a futuristic squad car, we hear his internal monologue.

Me getting pulled in for icing the guy was bughouse. Sure, I'd be a suspect, but they'd have to have something more to actually slap the bracelets on me. I shoulda realized that if things get bughouse and The Doc is in town, it's no coincidence. Things were so crazy, I wasn't all that surprised when Sergeant O'Malley turned the car around and let me out slap bang outside my office. Actually, he's called Peacekeeper Advanced Norgax but he lets me call him Sergeant O'Malley.

Max is about to enter the building that contains his office when he hears the voices of a bunch of 'goons' who are on their way out. Max presses himself against the wall and is horrified to see that they have the egg! Once they're gone, Max dashes in and up the stairs to his office. "Doc! What gives?" The Doctor is slumped forward. His voice is weak.

"They used a neural disruptor, Max. I couldn't stand it. I had to give it to them."

"How'd they get a neural disruptor tuned to a Time Lord nervous system?"

The Doctor suddenly brightens up. "They didn't! Bear with me, Max. I have my reasons. I think we're about to have visitors and it's time for me to play Easter Bunny again."

The Doctor makes the egg appear in his grasp through sleight of hand.

The Doc I know is sly, but gentle. He's no loser, but he'll play the loser to get his own way. I was not sure about this guy. Was The Doc always a good guy? He looked the devil in every Earth cartoon I'd ever seen. His next request didn't make me feel any better.

"Max, gag yourself with this handkerchief and hold your arms behind you're back as if you've been tied to the chair."

I trusted The Doc just enough to play along, but I had butterflies in my stomach. When the "visitors"arrived, the butterflies moved out to make room for a whole colony of very large bats. Our new guests represented Orvu Denn. Denn is fifty-seven years of bile, paranoia, greed and violence poured into a ten-thousand credit suit.

One of the goons speaks: "Who are you and what's the deal with Bolton?"

"I am Colonel Wer Quien (retired). I found this bungler trying to find a very special egg. I'm trying to cut down on eggs, very bad for the hearts, y'know"

__________________​

"Roger added that line in rehearsal."

- Terrance Dicks, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

"However, if you're in the market for eggs, I do have one to sell. Shall we say fifteen-thousand?"

The Doc was playing a very dangerous game, but everything about him said he had nerves of iridium. After a couple of eternities and a side of forever I could see that the mighty Denn gang was going to blink.

"Ten."

"Twelve."

"Done."

"Congratulations, you've bought yourself an egg."

The goons pass The Doctor a translucent red plastic slab, about the size of two boxes of matches laid end to end.

With that the Denn boys left like lambs. The Doc indicated I could take my gag off.

"What gives Doc? I thought that thing was dangerous."

"The original is very dangerous, which is why it's still in my TARDIS. What I've been handing out is the product of the TARDIS replicator; completely inert."

He opens Max's desk drawer. It's full of metal eggs!

"There should be enough for every interested party and if you continue to be my 'hostage', then it should keep you safe from reprisals as it's Colonel Quien who's doing these deals"; he holds up the red credit slab. "Besides, twelve thousand credits should be enough to set you up in a new office out of reach of any 'bad guys'.”

"Colonel Quien" cut a few more deals that night and submitted to tortures that didn't mean squat to a Time Lord.

We see The Doctor sitting at the TARDIS console, turning dials and switching switches, his face is grave.

Not long after I set up in my new and expensive office on Cablou 5, I heard from a mutual friend that The Doc did activate that Dalek portal, right next to a very large, very fierce sun. A couple thousand roasted Daleks later he went back to his home planet. I'm glad The Doc is a good guy, 'cause when the situation calls for it, he's badder than the baddest bad guys I know.

[1] As Roger Delgado is meant to stay seated, I imagine this is achieved by cutting to a closeup of McCoy tracking his gaze across the office, indicating the movement we can't see.

Next time: A little bit of politics

Thanks to Andrew Hickey for his help with the plot and Gary Rodger for help with the formatting

 

[Guajolote]

The TARDIS lands on the Dalek warship and the future Doctor and Koryn emerge. The room is filled with pictures of The Doctor, diagrams and infographics [1]. The Doctor places a hand on the TARDIS. "Sometimes, you are quite brilliant. Take a look Koryn, a Dalek classroom and I'm the subject of all the lessons. The one place on a Dalek warship the TARDIS wouldn't look out of place."

From the Christmas 1993 Radio Times​

The two travelers peek outside the classroom into the corridor. "Where are we going?" asks Koryn.

"We need to find the departure and return points of the Dalek squads that are attacking my timeline. We can't risk survivors returning to the warship and alerting Dalek command that there are counterattacks by unexpected versions of me. Back into the doorway!", the Doctor barks. A Dalek glides down the corridor, stops before an alcove and says "CALL-TRANSPOD".

An open lift slides down to fill the alcove. The Dalek steps inside and demands "MAINTENANCE-ROOM-7"; the lift zooms away.

Koryn turns to The Doctor to see him totally absorbed in a handheld device that might be a Gameboy or something like that. "It might be hypocritical, but these Daleks have become too dependent on technology. A few generations ago I'd have been in trouble, but now…"; he holds up the handheld device which is displaying a map. "The Daleks have a central computer database to draw upon, all stored in chips attached to their organic parts. I was able to access it like the 'computer hackers' of old. One cybernetic race has already been neutralized because of this. Surprisingly foolish of the Daleks not to learn from their mistakes."

"A gadget for everything. You haven't changed, Doctor."

"I have three things that will save us. This little thing," he holds up the handheld device "this equally little thing," he holds up something like a small gas mask, to fit over the nose and mouth, it has what appears to be a small filter canister in its centre. The Doctor holds his frock coat open slightly, "And finally, this waistcoat. We're going to win this Koryn."

The Doctor carefully steps into the corridor and stands before the alcove, putting on the facemask. He gestures at Koryn to join him. He speaks through the mask and what comes out is a screeching Dalek voice, "CALL-TRANSPOD". When the lift arrives, The Doctor and Koryn step into it. "PORT-NINE-CONTROL" he barks. He winks at Koryn and the lift carries them away.

London, 1986. Sophie Chen is walking the streets wearing sunglasses and with her head down. She freezes in her tracks. We see a group of people hanging around outside a bank. They're a basically unremarkable group of middle-aged suburban types, but they are all scowling, eyes darting back and forth as if expecting trouble. Fear plays across Sophie's face. She slowly turns around and starts to walk away when she notices a Police Box a few yards away. It wasn't there before. Her paces quickens, but she's being careful not to draw attention to herself by running. As she reaches the box she searches her pockets and finds a key. Her hands shake as she unlocks the door and slips inside.

__________________​

"This was the period where I started to meet a lot of TV pros who had grown up watching Doctor Who. When we started work on this, the set guy asked if it was possible to feature the wooden console room from the 70s. That was something Paddy had commissioned to take up less space, though I can't remember if the Jules Verne look came from her or the designer. Anyway, I'd said to the set guy on Wrong Doctors that as much as it was a lovely idea, that set was long gone. 'I have a friend who has one' he said. Sure enough, he knew someone, a film and TV pro who'd built a wooden TARDIS set in his garage and was willing to share it with us for a nominal fee."

- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

Sophie is shocked when she enters an unfamiliar TARDIS console room. An unfamiliar Doctor is less of a shock. "Doctor, have you changed again?"

"In way yes, in another way not yet. You must be from my future. The TARDIS is currently in communication with future versions of itself and it seems to trust you." The Doctor gestures to an armchair that didn't appear to have been there earlier. The Doctor glances down at the small TARDIS console and having done so, walks over to a large, mahogany sideboard where a chrome covered machine sits; it's an all purpose hot drink machine. "Coffee, white two sugars, yes?" Sophie smiles at The Doctor's avuncular manner. The Doctor places her drink and a plateful of chocolate digestives on a side table. As he gets himself a cup of tea and a vanilla slice, his manner becomes more grave. He sits himself in yet another chair that wasn't there a moment ago. "Something tells me it's a long time since you smiled...tell me about it" he says, bringing the tea to his lips, his now piercing gaze fixed on Sophie.

As Sophie speaks, we see a montage of bleak streets, headlines on news vendors' stands and politicians on TV. "It all happened so gradually. There were some violent incidents…terrorists, gangsters…all the stuff that you see in the papers, but…there was this MP who started to say they were all linked. Every time someone was found dead, every time there was an explosion somewhere in the city, he said it was all part of one big scheme. He made all sorts of implications as to who was behind it, but underneath the things he said was the same central idea, it was foreigners. Another MP, Morgan Lacey, you know him? No? He started railing against…again, it was very broad. He seemed to object to the 1980s. Every sign of modernity, swearing on TV, androgynous pop stars it was all an assault on the 'glorious traditions' of the British people. You see where this is going? The papers liked him and suddenly the 'assault on glorious traditions' people teamed up with the 'foreign violence' people and everything started to be blamed on foreigners. After the stock market crash in 1984, they started to place restrictions on what jobs foreigners could do, how much they could earn and then where they could go. Morgan Lacey ended up as Prime Minister and not long after that 'British' started to mean 'white'. I mean, I was born in Chichester, but today I was going to the bank on the only day of the week I'm allowed to go. But there was a crowd of 'patriots', ready to intimidate anyone like me."

"An old trick, but every civilization seems to fall for it sooner or later. One thing concerns me more than anything else, what should be the least important part of your story."

"What's that?"

"There wasn't a stock market crash in 1984. History has been changed."

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...IT'S TIME FOR ONE IN A MILLION!"

The opening titles of a gameshow are playing.

"AND HERE'S YOUR HOST, TERRY SLADE!"

Terry (Royce Mills) strides confidently onto the set and begins to chuckle his way through his opening monologue. "I dunno, have you seen the queues for food these days? And these outsiders complain that…"

The picture mixes through to the programme playing silently on a TV in a shop window. A handful of people are watching, among them The Doctor and Sophie.

__________________​

"We asked quite a few real game show presenters, but they all didn't like how the host in the script is a bit creepy and a racist and there was the risk that their everyday, proper hosting duties would get tainted by association. Bob Monkhouse was sympathetic, but he'd already had a straight role in Season 27 and didn't want to spoil it. Royce was already booked to do Dalek voices for us and a light just went over my head. He had this great humorous face and he'd worked with Dick Emery and Kenny Everett. I just knew he'd be able to give the part a 'showbiz' feel."

- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

Sophie winces at the gameshow. "Come on, Doctor. I know his routines of old."
"No, wait. Why is everyone so fascinated by a show they can't hear?"

As if to underline his point, the small crowd starts to laugh a rasping, barking laugh. The Doctor asks one of them what's so funny. "He's got a comical face, hasn't he?" The person's attention turns to Sophie. "What's she doing here? She's one of them!"

"She's my servant!" says The Doctor desperately.

"Well, I suppose that's OK. You being her better and everything. But you need to get her out of here."

"Yeah, a Chinese takeaway!" shouts one hateful wag. The barking laugh resumes as Sophie and The Doctor walk briskly away.

Eventually, The Doctor and Sophie walk up to the Houses of Parliament. The Doctor walks up to the policeman guarding the entrance. The Doctor beams with fulsome cheer.
"Good evening. A cold night to be out on duty. I hope those rogues in there award you a pay rise before they award another one to themselves."

"No unauthorized persons beyond this point."

The Doctor's grin freezes and an undertone of menace enters his manner. "Do I look unauthorized to you?" He moves closer to the policeman, towering over him. "Do you maybe think that I'm…foreign? Do I look foreign to you?"

"Y-you sound…"

"I sound what?" The Doctor is still smiling mirthlessly.

"S-scottish?"

"Scotland is part of Great Britain. Do you know what Great Britain is? Do you have even the first idea of what Britain's greatness is?" The question hangs in the air. "I am going in there to see my old pal Morgan Lacey, do you understand?"

"But she's a…"

"She is my personal servant. She knows her place. Do you know your place?" Once more the question is left hanging. After a few moments The Doctor and Sophie walk past the policeman without any resistance.

Inside parliament Sophie says "That was frightening."

"The one bright spot in authoritarian regimes. You can get around certain protections by just shouting louder. I'm ashamed of myself in one way, but I need to get a good look at this Morgan Lacey."

The Doctor strides into one of the House of Commons bars, takes off his Inverness cape and tosses it to Sophie who staggers under the weight. While the conversation doesn't stop, it quietens down to take in the new stranger. The conversation returns to its normal volume and The Doctor turns to Sophie and says under his breath "One of this lot is Morgan Lacey?"

"Over there, with the white beard. He didn't bother to look around when we came in."

The Doctor looks at the man and freezes. Lacey (John Thaw), sensing he's being watched, turns around and on seeing The Doctor his face too registers shock. Lacey strides over to The Doctor, all smiles. "Well, fancy meeting you here. I was told to expect you, but to turn up here in the heart of government? That's bold, even for you. Well, now your here, I must invite you back to Number 10. I really do insist." Lacey is holding the Tissue Compression Eliminator!

The Doctor and Sophie are sitting in a briefing room, under armed guard. "I suppose you know the Daleks are involved," says Lacey. "They recognized my power. Especially my hypnotic power. Impressed?"

"I've heard it before and it wasn't any better then."

"Before?"

"We're out of sync. From my point of view, you've been running around doing this routine for quite some time. Your future is bleak. I shouldn't interfere, but I will say just once. Turn back. Don't give in to evil."

"Evil? Oh dear, you haven't changed enough. These people are blank slates. I don't need to find the evil within them or turn them from good to evil. I just need to put an idea, any idea, into their brains and they seize on it, live for it, die for it, kill for it."

"How?"

"Through their most treasured possessions. Their closest family members. Their televisions."

"It can't work. You've forgotten, Time Lords can turn thoughts into transmissions, but there's no transmitter on Earth that can carry the bandwidth of a mind. Unless you replaced the whole broadcast infrastructure.

"If you can't see what I'm doing here Doctor, perhaps you're stupid enough that *your* mind could be transmitted with no problems. Come on, Doctor, can't you see that we're on the same side here? The Daleks want to sow dissension and cause a third world war, so they can swoop in and take over after the people of Earth have worn each other out with the fighting.”
“I told them I'll help them, but I've made a change to their plans. I'm giving people a common enemy, and also a common leader -- well, perhaps not so common as all that. I am going to unite the people of the Earth, not divide them, so they can stand together against the Dalek invasion, with me as their leader. I'm saving your pet humans for you, Doctor! Of course, if some few hundred million of them have to die so I can save the rest, a simple utilitarian calculation shows it's worth it. The end result is a more peaceful subordination to a superior race, which must be their inevitable end. Just like you, Doctor, and your little pet person here." He gives out a rasping, barking laugh. Sophie looks at The Doctor, shocked.

"Doctor! It's the gameshow!"

"I'm afraid you're right, Sophie. A big fan of One In A Million, Prime Minister?"

"I…I've seen it."

"That's the signal! Your influence was just to get you to a position of power and to realign the political landscape. But the signal is one of sheer hatred. The Daleks have been playing with you. This isn't the inevitable rise to power you dreamed of. They had to break the timeline to get you to this position. Now the hatred in these people is out of your hands."

Lacey shows an emotion that must have been alien to him before now. He's embarrassed. Speaks with a fury, but his voice quavers. "They betrayed me."

"You're a fool. But a young fool. You can't deal with the Daleks. It's not too late to change…"

"NO! I have seen how easy it is to mislead this world. I will be its master!"

The Doctor bows his head in sorrow and says quietly, "No. You won't."

"I will have my revenge on these Dalek creatures!"

"That's more possible. I assume your TARDIS is somewhere nearby. Go back to before this started. Destroy the Daleks and remove their tampering with time."

"I will”, sneers The Master, "but only to set the stage for my own takeover." He opens a door, steps inside and the door vanishes with a familiar grinding sound.

"We'd better get back to my TARDIS. The timeline is about to shift." The Doctor opens the door to another room and shouts, "The Prime Minister wants a ministerial car sending to the front door to carry me and my assistant to our office."

Back in the TARDIS, The Doctor stares intently at a display on the console.

"Time is changing, Sophie. Do you want to remember these events? While you're in here you have the choice."

"I think so. It hurts, but I need to be aware of how these things happen."

"In case it happens again?"

"Next time, I might not be the outcast. I might belong to the class that's in charge."

"I like the way you think, Sophie."

"What happens to Morgan Lacey?"

"He'll be back, starting out from an earlier point. I can't quite remember what happens to him. It was another occasion when I was with my other selves, that always clouds the memory afterward. But I know when I try to think about it, I get that tight feeling in my stomach. Whatever happens to him is very, very bad."

 

[Guajolote]

The future Doctor and Koryn are in the deserted control gallery of Port 9 of the Dalek warship. The Doctor is intently studying a monitor.

"The timeline is shifting, repairing itself." He starts to fiddle with a patch bay. "Koryn, can you just keep plugging and unplugging the cables here. Keep sending different signals to different parts of the ship."

"OK, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to change some the programming so that the timeline monitor is more sensitive to minor shifts which are always happening. The bridge of the ship will be seeing history as in a constant state of flux, which means they won't be expecting their time patrols returning any time soon especially not the one that was meant to arrive in Port 9."

Elsewhere, the TARDIS has just landed and in the console room, The Fifth Doctor is studying the scanner. Outside appears to be a deserted patch of land. There are a few small buildings nearby and in the distance what appears to be an aircraft hangar. Beyond all that appears to be sea. Finally he spots something like a golf buggy speeding towards the TARDIS.

The Doctor steps outside the TARDIS as the buggy comes to a halt. From the passenger side steps a burly security guard (Adam Fogerty) holding a futuristic rifle. "You look like you expect trouble", says The Doctor. "I hate to disappoint, but I don't think I have any to give you."

"It's alright, Doctor, he's with me", says a familiar voice. Stepping from the driver's side of the buggy is Zoe Heriot.

"Zoe! You recognize me! You remember me!"

"Don't worry, I got a message from some of your friends." She holds up a white hypercube with a wry smile. "They said it was important. Anyway, welcome to Project Cornucopia."

We fade to the buggy approaching a small building. Zoe's voice fades up, indicating some little time has passed.

"The social upheavals of the last 10 years have brought about a new interest in environmentalism and fears about overpopulation." The buggy comes to a halt and the passengers step out. "What we're standing on now is a landing pad in the Atlantic Ocean. The real work is all done in a bio-dome beneath the waves." She opens the door of the building, the guard steps inside as Zoe ushers The Doctor in before joining him.

We see a huge greenhouse, full of colossal plants. In the middle of all this is a lift shaft. The view tracks down the shaft until it reaches the floor and Zoey, the guard and The Doctor step out. "The great fear is that one day, we'll run out of land to grow things on," says Zoe. "This is a possible alternative. Obviously, we can only have so many of these domes, so we're also experimenting with the yield and size of the plants…". She breaks off as an alarm bell starts ringing, quietly but insistently. "Code M, Dr Heriot," says the security guard. "I'm sorry, Doctor," says Zoe. "One of our service droids will escort you to the break room. You can wait there until I get back."

From the DWM Archive article on The Wrong Doctors​

The lights come on in the darkened break room the moment service droid Lambda and The Doctor enter. "Doctor, please take a seat. The television responds to voice commands. Can I bring you any refreshments?" "Coffee, white, two sugars, please." "I will obey. Is there anything else?" "Tell me, Lambda, what is a Code M alert?" "What is your security clearance code, Doctor?" "Oh, it's not important." Lambda leaves to get The Doctor's coffee. The Doctor looks around and works out how to turn off the light. He carefully walks to the far wall opposite the door and draws back the blind. Outside in the ocean are sinister, glowing red lights, moving slowly, apparently scanning the base. "Code M, I presume", mutters The Doctor. The lights suddenly come on in the room and someone (Richard Beckinsale) gives a yelp of surprise.

__________________​

"Richard Beckinsale was one of the people who visited me after my heart attack. We'd been on friendly terms since he was in one of my Poirots. He was saying how Eric Morecambe had 'bullied' him when he was doing a guest spot on one of their shows. Eric and Ern liked to rehearse and rehearse and Richard said that after a while, he was getting tired and his skin was getting grey. Richard said he was waving away help and Eric was having none of it. Eric had had enough problems with his heart to recognize the signs. An ambulance was called and after that, Richard said it was similar to what one hears about Alcoholics Anonymous. It was like Heart Attacks Anonymous and Eric behaved like a 'sponsor'. So Richard became my 'sponsor', I suppose. On one of his visits, the cheeky sod asked if there was a part in the Doctor Who special. Well, I couldn't refuse. So I gave PJ a call and when all was said and done, it was the shooting of Don's part that best fit in with Richard's schedule."

- Roger Delgado, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't realize anyone was in here. I wasn't told to expect anyone. And you are?"

"A friend of Dr Heriot. She just calls me The Doctor, so does everyone else."

"But your name is?"

"Not something I like to be reminded of."

"I'm Bentley. Working out of lab 5: cacti and succulents. I sometimes help out with fungi in lab 4."

"How many labs do you have?"

"Just the five. Have you been give the tour?"

"No, Dr Heriot was called away. A Code M alert."

"Ah, that's why you were looking at the outside with the lights off. I'm not sure I believe her, I don't think it's sapient life spying on us, just some curious fish."

Lambda enters "Your drink, Doctor. Professor Bentley, can I get you anything?"

"No," says Bentley pointedly. Lambda leaves.

"These things give me the creeps. I prefer the old ones. Less human looking, more cute."

"How many of the new ones are there? Lambda's the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet so presumably…"

"Thirteen."

"And when did they arrive?"

Bentley suddenly looks suspicious. "I think Dr Heriot had better answer your questions."

As he says that, Zoe arrives. "Ah, I see you've met Professor Bentley, Doctor. I hope…"

"Professor Bentley asked if you'd given me the tour and I was telling him you hadn't."

"Well, there's time for that tomorr…"

"I really would like to take the tour as soon as possible."

"I'm really not sure…"

"For old time's sake, Zoe. Old time, like the space station, or Dulcis, or that time with IE."

Zoe frowns. She does not care for this Doctor's manner. "Very well," she sighs.

Zoe is driving The Doctor through the main greenhouse in one of the buggies. She points out things of interest, but The Doctor doesn't appear to be listening. He's tinkering with something that looks like a miniature radio. Satisfied, he places it on the dashboard of the buggy. He interrupts Zoe's tour spiel.

"That thing should prevent any electronic eavesdropping. Tell me about the Code M alerts, the red lights outside the dome and when those new service droids arrived."

"Doctor, I'm a grown woman and a respected scientist I don't need you rushing in to save the day."

"Ordinarily, I'm sure that's the case. But my people sent me here because they expected serious trouble and I think whoever's causing the trouble is using your presence here to draw me out."

"Well, why did it have to be this version of you? Why couldn't it be my Doctor?"

"Because this is a trap for your Doctor. If I'm the one who trips it, I might just gain an advantage. Who runs Project Cornucopia?"

"It's part of an international effort, overseen by the Atlantic Science Federation."

"Atlantic? So not all countries are involved?"

"No. Some countries just don't see things our way. There's something of a struggle."

"A Cold War? Plus c'est la même chose."

Zoe stops the buggy. "Just what are you trying to say?"

"I'm here because there are several attacks on the timeline being launched by the Daleks. I don't think your presence here is the whole reason for the attack. This is all too benign. If this place was just a great big undersea farm, the Daleks would just come in guns a-blazing and they haven't. What do they want? By the way, is there a cold lab?"

"Lab 3, yes. But why?"

"Let's take a look at Lab 3."

Among the cold, clean and white expanses of Lab 3, Zoe looks around fearfully.

"Doctor, we're really not supposed to be here."

"You get used to it. I'm rarely meant to be anywhere. Do you have diving suits or diving bells? Something to help me get a better look outside."

"We have both of those things. What does that have to do with Lab 3?"

"Nothing, I'm multitasking. Aha!"

Zoe looks around to see that The Doctor has opened a fridge with his sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor! What are you doing?"

"Confirming a theory." He slams the fridge door shut and locks it again. He starts to walk back to the buggy. "Were you with Project Cornucopia from the start? Did you see the dome being constructed?"

"Erm, no. I joined nine months into the project. Doctor, I can't keep up with you."

"We're not supposed to be here." He's already in the passenger seat. "Let's get out of here and out there. Next stop, diving equipment."

In the docking bay Zoe and The Doctor find staff members Stark (David Swift) and Nolan (Bob Sherman) waiting for them.

"Bentley told us you were giving someone a tour and we really need to know more about him," Nolan says angrily.

"I'm generally known only as The Doctor. My name is John Smith, which is an even less useful name than 'The Doctor'. I met Zoe on Wheel Station 3. One of you fellows works in Lab 3?"

"I do," says Stark.

The Doctor approaches Stark. Unintentionally, there's something of the gangster about him as he whispers gruffly, "I'm also completely immune to bacillus alsosasvesti."

__________________​

"'Álsos asvésti' being Greek for 'Lime Grove'. The Latin for 'Lime Grove' is 'Lime Grove', so we had to go Greek. Shepherd's Bush didn't translate well in either language."

- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

Stark looks shocked. His mouth opens but nothing comes out.

"Zoe and I are going outside. I think I know what's going on in here. The last unanswered question is out there."

Nolan and Stark look on as Zoe and The Doctor leave for the mini-sub.

"I think that man is trouble," says Nolan.

"He already is, but if he really knows what's going on out there, I think we'll have to bear it."

Inside the mini-sub, Zoe asks The Doctor "What was that with Stark?"

"Project Cornucopia is a front for a germ warfare lab."

Zoe looks distraught. "You can't be right! How…how would you know…?"

"My suspicious nature, I'm afraid. I'm here because there are Daleks involved and they're not going to show interest in a farm. The Daleks would just destroy it in the hopes of robbing a growing population of its food. You gave me the impression of competing ideologies on the Earth, which indicated to me one or both sides would have weapons stashed somewhere. Does this have some sort of x-ray or thermal camera? Something that can see through walls, maybe?"

"Yes, there are a few cameras for penetrating the water, foliage, coral, that sort of thing. Hang on, the depths are that way. We're facing the dome. What are you looking for?"

"Service droids. Let's see.” He turns a dial to change camera. "No, no, no AH! Look at that!"

"What is it?"

"Inside that droid is a mutant. A Dalek mutant. You have five labs and you're so understaffed Bentley has to help out in fungi, but you have thirteen service droids. When Stark has something very nasty and very effective developed, the Daleks would have killed you all and launched a germ warfare attack. Now, let's go into the depths. What year is it, Zoe?"

"2093."

"Of course it is," The Doctor smiles.

"Doctor!" Zoe screams as red lights become visible in the distance. The Doctor fiddles with the sub radio until he's satisfied he has the right frequency.

"This is a vessel from Project Cornucopia. I am The Doctor. I represent some of the humans in the dome, but I am not a human myself. I request an audience to explain that there is a presence on this planet that poses a threat to all life on Earth."

There is an agonizing moment of silence.

"Vessel, you are recognized. Follow us."

"Zoe, you're about to meet the Sea Devils."

Bently, Stark and Nolan are in the break room. There's a palpable tension which is broken by a flash of yellow lights and voice crackling across speakers.

"Project C-crackle-pia this is-crackle-Heriot. Await-crackle-at dock. Am returning. Sub damaged. The Doc-crackle-dead. Repeat-crackle-damaged-crackle-tor is dead!"

The men have rushed to the docking bay. Zoe has taken a seat and is breathing heavily.

"The Doctor's been killed! There's an invasion coming!"

"What invasion?" gasps Stark. Zoe ignores him and grabs handset mounted on the wall.

"All service droids to Lab 3. Defensive mode."

Service droid Delta enters the room.

"May I enquire as to the nature of the alert in Lab 3?"

"The Doctor has been killed by Sea Devils," says Zoe. The three men look at each other confused. "They're launching an imminent attack. They're going to blow open Lab 3 to enter the dome.

The droid stays still. Its emotionless face hiding the Dalek intelligence inside. Zoe's eyes narrow. She's aware that the Dalek is trying to decide whether to believe her.

"They know about the bacilli in there. The Doctor told them and paid for it with his life."

The lights on the droids chest flash red and yellow. "I have sent a signal. Twelve droids will enter Lab 3. I will remain and monitor your safety."

A low thrum reverberates through the dock. The sound of all the vessels approaching the dome. The noise stops. It is soon replaced by a harder to define noise.

"For God's sake what is that?" asks Bentley. Stark has run the television screen in the dock and has brought up thermal image of the dome.

"It's boiling! The water around Lab 3 is boiling!"

The air is split by the sound of screaming droids.

Droid Delta turns to Stark. "You will explain!" The unnerving calm has gone from its voice.

Unseen by Delta, Zoe has pulled a gun from her jacket and unerringly aims it at the lower back of the droid and fires. As the droids falls to the floor, Zoe lets the gun fall from her hands.

"I'm sorry, Zoe," says a familiar voice. The Doctor has entered the dock, flanked by two Sea Devils.

"Where the devil did you come from?" Nolan asks incredulously.

"Slipped in with my friends here during the excitement. These two gentlemen", he gestures to the Sea Devils, "are here as part of a diplomatic visit to Project Cornucopia. As you've all no doubt worked out, the invasion was a ploy to draw the Daleks away to Lab 3, which has been attacked by microwave heat weapons. I'm afraid that this has also resulted in the sterilization of all projects stored there. My old friend Louis Pasteur really knew his stuff."

Stark appears somewhat exasperated, but is already accepting the situation. "The Atlantic Science Federation has some information shared by UN intelligence operations, so I'm not really surprised that this happened. But I think you need to understand that my work is necessary."

"You have come this close," The Doctor holds his index finger and thumb close together, "to developing a weapon that was going to be used to annihilate the human race. It just so happens that through my superior diplomatic skills, I have arranged for this species to save all life on Earth. Give a call to the Atlantic Science Federation and tell them that the race of people sometimes know as 'Sea Devils' are willing to talk. Germ warfare is out, but their knowhow will make Project Cornucopia a tremendous success." He turns around and the air of menace leaves him completely. He gives a sad but warm smile.

"Zoe, I know this wasn't easy. Killing is a disgusting thing, but sometimes it's the least of a vast number of evils. Catch your breath, gather your thoughts and before I go, give me the tour. The real tour."

Later, outside the TARDIS, The Doctor and Zoe are saying their goodbyes.

"Here's hoping next time I see you will be a social call," says The Doctor.

"What happened to Jamie, Doctor?"

"His memory was wiped like yours, but now your memory is restored, there's no excuse not to return his. Anyway, the Time Lords owe me a lot of favours."

"What about all this? Does it all work out?"

"I can't tell you that. 2093? Not a bad year. There are better."

"Like 2094?"

The Doctor gives a wry smile and enters the TARDIS which soon dematerializes.

 

[Guajolote]

In the Dalek warship, Port 9 all the monitors go blank. "Was that part of your plan, Doctor?" asks Koryn.

"No," replies The Doctor. He checks his handheld computer. "There's a real time distortion occuring. I'd made the Dalek instruments hypersensitive to normal fluctuations that it's shut them down. One of my past selves might have done some clever, or maybe something stupid, or…"

"Or?"

"All my selves are in trouble."

***​

On the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS, the lights are flickering and he's grimly holding on to the console as the TARDIS is shaking violently. The usual grinding sound of the temporal engines is louder and deeper. Suddenly, with a huge BOOM the craft is still. The TARDIS has landed.

The Doctor leaves the TARDIS to find himself in a fog shrouded forest. There's a low moaning wind and The Doctor soon becomes aware of distant, disorted screams and nearby, unintelligible whispers. "Good job I don't believe in ghosts," he muses to himself "or I'd be very, very anxious right now."

He is jolted from his reverie by a clear voice calling him.
"Doctor? Are you here? I thought I heard the TAR--" The Doctor places a hand on the shoulder of the person shouting, spins her around and places a finger on his lips.

"Kay Gee," The Doctor whispers "I'm extremely glad to see you. I'm not sure I want people to know I'm here. Not until I know where 'here' is."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know." Any further explanation is temporarily halted by a sudden vision of a screaming woman flying past them. Standing still but passing as a blur, like she's being transported on a huge turntable.

"Doctor," gasps Kay "didn't you once say you didn't believe in ghosts."

"I hope I'm wrong. I can think of scientific explanations, but they worry me more than the existence of spectral souls. Tell me how you came to be here."

"I was part of a group of historians gathered to study the historicity of…well, of 'The Doctor'."

The Doctor's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Did you use your special insight on this project?"

"No, I dragged my heels, made suggestions of negligible usefulness. I wanted to observe. Something about the project didn't seem right. Suddenly, the whole party found itself…transported…housed in a castle…HERE." Kay has to raise her voice, the screams, whispers and visions have increased. The Doctor and Kay find that they are now huddled close together. The Doctor suddenly pulls away, seized by an idea.

"WAIT! WAIT! Right to left! The 'ghosts' or whatever, the voices, they're all moving right to left. This is a vortex! Let's keep moving to the centre. I suspect this castle is in the eye of the storm!" He once again takes Kay's arm and they tramp onwards.

Eventually, they reach the castle. The voices have become so distorted they're blended into an unnatural hiss and hum. The ghosts are now just a constant fog.

"You managed to get out," says The Doctor "how do we get in?"

"The layout is similar to some 14th Century castles I've studied. There's a secret passage that leads to what might have been a river. If it was, it's dried up. It was a short drop, but I don't know how we'll get back up."

"How about we walk up the front door and see if it's unlocked?"

"You haven't changed that much," says Kay.

"I was rather hoping you wouldn't say that, but my course is set. In we go."

The two struggle through the spectral gale, across the drawbridge and to a small opening set in the vast, wooden door. This smaller door has been left open, swinging on its rusted hinges. Through the door and across the courtyard they go until they enter the great hall. The door to the hall slams behind them and the noise decreases significantly, a few of the ghosts flicker like white flames, giving off a few low moans. The Doctor freezes, causing Kay to become very anxious. "Doctor?"

"I can sense it. Broken time. Something terrible has happened here, is happening here, is going to happen here. I'd turn and run, but I don't think I can escape it."

"You wouldn't run away, Doctor!"

"Not permanently, but I wish I could withdraw to think, to plan and I can't."

"THE TIME LORD IS HERE! THE CEREMONY WILL BEGIN!"

The Doctor and Kay suddenly find themselves being grabbed by unseen people. Strangely, they apologize under their breath. "Sorry, Kay, but we don't know what else to do."

"Doctor!" Kay shouts. "It's the people from the historicity group!"

"BIND HIM!" cries a pale, emaciated man in a black robe (Murray Melvin) as he steps into the light. "Defiler of Skaro, you shall pay! Bind him to the altar!"

The "altar" is a large wooden table and the people who seized The Doctor do their best to tie to him to it. They just about manage it, but their efforts are halting and uncertain.

"Skaro?! This is Skaro?"

"These are the ruins of Skaro after you destroyed the Daleks in the Final War."

"I don't know about the Final War. That's my future, but I'd hazard a guess that I'll let the Daleks destroy themselves. I really don't think I should be here. This is too far after my time."

"From the ruins of the Final War we shall reach back to the First War and change our tragic history. The breach shall be opened with blood!"

A machine has been brought in. Looking like Satan's own fridge with a keyboard and monitor interface roughly patched into it. "Listen everyone, that is a time vortex generator," The Doctor shouts to the room. "There are no ghosts! Those are time echos!" The assorted members of the historicity team move forward uncertainly but are stopped by the shouts of the Thal.

"These are the echos of the suffering of Skaro! The many who suffered in the long war. They can be saved." He moves towards The Doctor. "You saw what the First War did to Skaro, but having seen it you didn't use your great powers to go back in time and prevent the suffering. Even when your own people gave you the chance to prevent the Daleks spreading throughout the universe you couldn't do it. You let them spread their evil and when you had enough of playing the hero, you wiped them out, leaving Skaro a sterile world. But the powers of the vortex are within you. Time is in your blood and with that blood I will access time and undo the evils done to my home world."

"You don't understand," screams The Doctor. But he is stopped as the Thal steps forward and grabs The Doctor's arm. We see Kay wince as The Doctor screams. The Thal moves towards the Time Vector Generator. In his hand he holds a dagger and the blade is wet with a few drops of The Doctor's blood!

***​

On the Dalek warship, The Lost Doctor frowns. "Have you noticed, Koryn? There doesn't seem to be any alarm. A huge distortion has shut down the time monitoring equipment and there are no flashing lights, no klaxons." He ducks down beneath a monitor station and starts pulling wire out, trying to jump start the equipment. "Daleks aren't noted for their calm. Something's up. AH!" The monitor flickers into life. After a little adjustment, The Doctor manages to get a signal. "Oh, no," he gasps. Enough finesse. I'm just going to have to throw a spanner in the works." The Doctor finds an intercom and broadcasts throughout the ship. "I am in Landing Bay 9 and I'm not a Dalek. Come and get me, boys!" He steps away and says to Koryn "When the Daleks get here, stand behind me."

***​

On Skaro, the Thal places the dagger in a chamber in the Time Vortex Generator. The Sixth Doctor pleads, "You're making a mistake! You can't rewrite history."

"You have changed history, frequently."

"I've changed it and tried to aim for a better outcome, but I can't write it. To be the author of history, I'd have to have total control over all of time. Every action, every consequence would have to be guided by my will. I wouldn't trust myself with that power and I've never encountered an entity I would trust."

The Thal gazes at his monitor. "The vortex profile complete. I am ready to open the breach." But suddenly, the number of ghosts increases. They appear and disappear from different points in the room. Their modes of dress differing.

"These are the new ghosts," The Doctor shouts. "New victims of new wars. Possible wars. You can't stop the First War with one action. You can delay it. You're seeing the time ghosts of Thals and Kaleds who might never be born or might never have been born. These are the ripples of the action you are about to take. Every time you set your mind to a course of action, the potential changes."

"You are on time's side. Maybe you think yourself to be time's champion. But you don't know how it feels to have have time cut through your life like a sword."

"I DO!" It's The Lost Doctor. He has entered the hall.

"How did you get here?" splutters The Sixth Doctor.

"Interesting story, I'll tell you some time."

***​

Flashback to the Dalek warship. Daleks flood in to Landing Bay 9. The Lost Doctor holds his hands up and smiles. "I never thought I'd be pleased to see you."

"WHO-ARE-YOU?"

"Who else would be poking around your landing bay dressed like this?"

"YOU-ARE-THE DOCTOR!"

"I didn't say that. You can't be sure who I am. Maybe I'm just a big fan of…"

"SILENCE! THE-DOCTOR-HAS-TWO-HEARTS! I-WILL-SCAN…bzzz…nzzz…zzz…bzzz"

Rapidly, each Dalek falls to the same mystery ailment. They stop moving and their screeching voices are replaced with low buzzes. The Doctor turns to Koryn, puffs out his chest and straightens his waistcoat. "The third weapon?" smiles Koryn.

"Woven inside is an information matrix. The Dalek scan is vulnerable. They scanned me for two hearts but absorbed the information, like involuntarily reading a bar code. The information is overwhelming their processors and being transmitted to every Dalek on the ship."

"Why didn't you do that before?"

"Because now every Dalek onboard is locked up, there aren't any left to pilot this thing and before long, it's going to drift aimlessly until it finds a gravity source to pull it in and crash. On top of that, the heating, air pressure and other systems won't be being monitored, so there's any number of things that could kill us. And that's not the worse thing."

"What's worse than us being killed?"

"We won't find out what their plan is."

***​

Back in the great hall, The Lost Doctor is speaking. "I found out what their plan was. I was able to find that this was their destination. I set the warship on a crash course with the nearest sun and brought my TARDIS here. I had to realize that this wasn't all about me. For once I figured in the Dalek plans, but I wasn't their ultimate victim.

"They're using you. The attacks on me were to narrow down my movements, make it hard to have my other selves help each other. While I was fighting a battle on different fronts, but the only one that mattered was the one here."

The Lost Doctor is walking carefully towards the Thal. "You want my blood? You can have it," he says as he gets close enough to the Thal to take the dagger from him. The Doctor pricks his thumb and smear some of the blood up and down the blade. As he returns the dagger to the chamber, the ghosts begin to subside.

"Let me show you what I found out. Let me show you the timeline that was the Daleks' ultimate aim."

On the monitor is an image of thousands of Daleks. "They were going to let you reach back to the First War, but once you did they were going to pounce and seed the Dalek race from hundreds of years earlier. Kaleds and Thals would be converted. These ruins wouldn't be restored, they would no longer exist. All of Skaro would be a Dalek habitat."

"No," gasps the Thal.

"You wouldn't just lose Skaro. You would never have even had it in the first place."

The number of ghosts is similar to what it was at the beginning.

"Let me turn this machine off. Let the ghosts rest."

"You can't know what I feel. The loss."

"I lost myself, friend. I do tamper in time, to make things better. There are limits to what I can do, what I should do, but I haven't always judged them right and now I can remember endless pasts, but I don't know which is mine. I know I have loved truly maybe once, maybe twice in my life, but I remember countless loves and I don't know which is mine. I mourn people who turn out not to have died, or to have never been born. I even remember dying thousands of times. But here I am. Eventually, the changes I made had an imapct on me and I had to absorb them. I don't just have to live with my choices, I have to *have lived* with them. But I think I've ultimately made things better. That's how I know who I am. That's who The Doctor is."

***​

The Doctors, except for the Seventh, are gathered again on the Time Lord homeworld and discussing plans for getting back to their respective timelines.

__________________​

"Tony got a bit of a short shrift in the end. There had been a subplot involving him, but there were time and budget pressures and he said to me 'I've been playing this part for the last six years, I don't mind giving the others a bit of space'.

"His part of the plot was going to tie up a lot more to Colin's Doctor potentially being killed on Skaro and breaking the timeline. Every time we looked at something to edit out, Terrance encouraged me to cut out plot rather than action. I said to him 'Are they going to understand it?' and he said 'They'll understand it *enough*, that's all we need'. I suppose he was right."

PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, The Wrong Doctors

__________________​

The Seventh Doctor finally enters. "Now this is over, I was finally able to do what I was planning to do in late-21st Century London. I ended up in 2093 this time, but no matter. Come in, my dear."

Susan walks in. "Is this the party, grandfather?" she says.

"Oh no," says the Seventh Doctor. "I just thought they'd all like to come along."

Lord Dezan protests. "This crossing of your timestream has served its purpose, I cannot permit it to continue for a social…"

"Dezan!" snaps the Seventh Doctor. "Let us have this. We've saved the universe AGAIN. Don't be such a…such a…TIME LORD!"

"I cannot countenance…"

"Tell you what, you can come along and keep an eye on things. You might even enjoy yourself. It's a housewarming or an annivesary or…well, it's a party being thrown by some very old friends."

***​

We see a long shot of a cottage on a winter night. The Doctors, including the First and Second seen from the back, walk up the path and knock at the door. The door opens and we hear the voice of Ian Chesterton. "Doctor? Susan? Look who's here darling! Who are your friends?"

"It's a long, long story, Ian."

Next time: Some actual production history!!! Phew!

Thanks to Andrew Hickey for helping with the plot

 

[Guajolote]

PJ HAMMOND PART OF AMBLIN DEAL

- Dreamwatch headline, March 1994

__________________​

"Philip Segal was happy that I had spoken to him plainly. The BBC were happy that I'd smoothed things over with him regarding the 30th anniversary special. So when Philip asked that I act as a consultant, the BBC were happy because it kept Philip happy.

"Philip even managed to stay happy after I gave him my opinion on the work his scriptwriter had done so far."

- PJ Hammond, Doctor Who Magazine interview, 2002

__________________​

Sorry if I seemed a bit negative on the conference call, but I've taken a look at the series "bible" and I still feel the same way.

The Doctor is a wise, old man with no origin story to speak of. I think the script you have could be made into a very entertaining fantasy film without any of the trappings of Doctor Who.

You asked about the possible reception in Britain and I don't think it will be positive. There's already a natural prejudice against an American version of Doctor Who and this "chosen one who is the brother of The Master (he's appeared in the show something like twice in the last 20 years and those appearances were anniversary treats for the fans), is the grandson of Dezan (he's just an exposition device for the 30th anniversary) and is also a descendant of Omega" lives up to those prejudices.

The Daleks in the script aren't Daleks in any meaningful way. You might as well change them a little bit more and save yourself the bother of licencing.

I'm so sorry I can't be more positive, but I wouldn't be doing you any favours if I didn't tell you how I feel. You have every right to ignore me. You're the boss.

- Memo from PJ Hammond to Philip Segal

__________________​

Because the original series didn't answer many questions about The Doctor's past, the Doctor's home planet in the bible has the placeholder name "Unici", this simply being taken from Universal City, the location of Amblin's HQ.

Despite mining whatever they could from the BBC series, they somehow overlooked the character of Persimmon from Season 25, implied to be The Doctor's younger sister.[1]

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

Thanks for being so understanding about my last memo.

I know US TV is all about demographics, but Doctor Who has had excellent numbers with viewers 18-24 since the BBC started measuring things like that in any depth. But its appeal isn't exclusive to any demographic. It hooks in the whole family. It works on different levels and that contributes to its selling point. Every demographic can watch it with any other demographic and get something out of it. But for that to work, it has to have a little bit of archness and flippancy. A teenager or adult can watch it with a child and let the child get caught up in the adventure while the older viewer can appreciate that The Doctor has a wry outlook on some of the stranger elements of his adventures. In an episode a few years ago the baddie of the week snarled "Resistance is useless" only to be met with The Doctor shooting back "You think I won't do something because it's useless? Do you think I dress this way because each item has a purpose? Did you think this enamel badge with hornet on it gets me 10% off strawberry milkshakes at the bowling alley? It doesn't. Besides, I prefer chocolate." That's Doctor Who!

- Memo from PJ Hammond to Philip Segal

__________________​

All this led to a very strange period in the development of the co-production. Segal might not have agreed, but was happy that Hammond was being straight with him. However, there were questions at the BBC as to whether Hammond was going to screw up the deal with concerns that didn't jibe with the realities of television in the 90s.

At Amblin, studio head Steven Spielberg took a look at the project to see why questions were being raised.[1] Spielberg did not like the direction Doctor Who was taking, citing the too close resemblance to Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Segal was sent back to the drawing board.

At the BBC, there was a feeling that maybe Hammond had been able to anticipate Spielberg's objections and therefore Hammond was now worth taking seriously. Hammond was invited over to Amblin. The BBC were happy that Amblin was happy with Hammond. Amblin was happy that the BBC were happy. There was still a lot of work to be done, but Amblin's Doctor Who was beginning to come together.

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

Peter,

Your point about Doctor Who's appeal across demographics is music to CBS's ears. They're looking to Doctor Who to bring in a younger demographic, but with that comes the fear of alienating their current audience, which skews a little old. If we fail to capture the younger demos but play well with CBS's current audience, then it wasn't all for nothing and we have a fighting chance.

- Memo from Philip Segal to PJ Hammond

__________________​

AMBLIN DEAL IN CRISIS?
New Doctor Who pilot sacks scriptwriter and changes direction

- Banana Split fanzine, Autumn 1994

__________________​

It was at the point when the various parties were reaching a solid agreement that fan sources decided all was lost. This then got picked up by a few mainstream sources with column inches to fill. While it didn't put the deal at risk, it was a great source of frustration to everyone involved to see their work being misreported in this way.

- Doctor Who In The Nineties, Gordon Weythe and Andrew Barbicane

__________________​

Here's the story as I'm hearing it from someone who's close to what's happening.

1. The Doctor being the Master's brother and searching for his father is the old script that was rejected by Spielberg.

2. The pilot and the series (if there is one) isn't going to be a complete remake. Again, that was the old script. The new idea is that it's just going to pick up with a new Doctor already on his travels. No overt references to the past, but also nothing to separate it from the old series. There are plenty of TV stations outside the US that are just getting around to showing Season 28. They would like something they can show as Season 29.

3. CBS are smiling on the idea of a more mature actor playing The Doctor. It's true that Paul McGann was being sought for the original remake idea, but I don't think he's going to make time for Doctor Who now that he's the new James Bond.

4. There's no embargo on the Daleks, but PJ Hammond has suggested they not be used in the pilot.

5. There isn't a new script, but when there is, there probably won't have any Time Lord mythology. Hammond is only a consultant, but everyone is listening to him and he still regards the Time Lords as a plot device. The Wrong Doctors wasn't a case of Hammond changing his mind about whether the Time Lords should appear. He just thought they provided the quickest way to bring the Doctors together.

6. There is no rapping TARDIS.

- post to rec.arts.drwho September 1994

__________________​

TONY DANZA IS THE DOCTOR

- Banana Split fanzine, Spring 1995

__________________​

CBS wanted Tony Danza. The BBC wanted anyone they thought people would watch. I didn't not want Tony Danza, but he had a star power at that time that would probably overpower Doctor Who. I tried to guide CBS in other directions.

- Philip Segal, Regeneration - The Story Behind The Revival of a Television Legend, 2000

__________________​

TONY DANZA IS NOT THE DOCTOR

- Doctor Who Magazine, March 1995

__________________​

I pulled together a list of actors who were willing to come in and audition. I was resigned to CBS probably insisting on an American actor. If that happened, I tried to make sure the US actors were real character types and a bit "lumpy" as Peter Hammond kept saying. It was a ploy for time, but it didn't end up the way I expected.

- Philip Segal, Regeneration - The Story Behind The Revival of a Television Legend, 2000

__________________​

Peter,

Ask Jo to show you the audition tape. See if you're thinking what I'm thinking.

- Memo from Philip Segal to PJ Hammond

__________________​

Number 5, right?

- Memo from PJ Hammond to Philip Segal

__________________​

Number 5. Right!

- Memo from Philip Segal to PJ Hammond

__________________​

Who is he? Where did you find him? Are CBS on board?

- Memo from PJ Hammond to Philip Segal

__________________​

Biog attached. CBS are fine with it.

- Memo from Philip Segal to PJ Hammond

__________________​

NATHAN LANE IS THE DOCTOR

- Doctor Who Magazine, September 1995

__________________​

*ring-ring* *ring-ring* *ring-ring*

- Tony Haygarth's phone, November 1995

[1] Belinda Lang, in case you were wondering.

The TARDIS corridor on the above book cover is from Rob Semenoff's Who 3D site and is used under a Creative Commons 3.0 Licence (non-commercial, attribution, share-alike).

 

[Guajolote]

"The BBC had this series Quiller that was picking up a lot of attention. It was tougher and more realistic than the Bond films at the time and some of the critics were saying that Quiller was doing what the Bond films should be doing.

"United Artists were happy with the money my Bond films were making, but understandably Cubby was looking at the creative direction, as was his right. Eventually, there was so much talk about Quiller, about how way-out Moonraker was, about how Bond had to be reinvented for the 80s that I started to feel a little bit unloved. I felt like I was seen very much as 'The Bond of the 70s' and six years was a good run. I decided to quit while I was ahead."

- Roger Moore, The Making of For Your Eyes Only

__________________​

"I'd been asked before and turned it down and I would have turned it down again after what I'd seen of Moonraker, but there'd been a lot of talk about how the producers were looking for a change of direction. Not to do down Cubby Broccoli or Roger Moore, I respect their work enormously. But those films, very successful films, weren't the kind of thing I wanted to do. I wanted to bring the character back to Ian Fleming's novels and in those, Bond is a more grounded and troubled figure. From what I'd heard in the industry, EON were ready to go in that direction. Maybe we went too far in the other direction, but I'm proud of the work I've done."

- Timothy Dalton, The Making of For Your Eyes Only

__________________​

"It isn't any more violent than any of the previous Bond films, but the attitude towards violence is different. They set out their stall in the pre-credits sequence. I mean, we open on Tracy Bond's grave, so we're already harking back to Bond's darkest days. On paper, the killing off of this 'not-Blofeld' character was a little bit humorous. EON was taking a shot at Kevin McClory, all very cheeky. But Dalton comes across as extremely vengeful, no quips. I think that got the audience in the wrong mood. [1]

"It's worth noting that McClory was getting close to making his own feature film based on Thunderball, with Sean Connery showing interest in writing and maybe even returning to role of Bond. Connery and potential distributors reconsidered at the prospect of going up against a new, young Bond.

"EON stuck quite closely to the original story of For Your Eyes Only. They had to expand it, naturally, but like he short story Bond's mission is 'off the books' and it's simply an assassination to 'send out a message'. It's like Callan!

"That said, I get angry when people call Dalton 'the depressing one'. For Your Eyes Only is dark compared to Moonraker, but Dalton's Bond still enjoys the good things in life and is still on the side of right.

"It's like Don Henderson on Doctor Who. He might be dour compared to his more jovial predecessor, but he's clearly playing the same character. Like Henderson, I think the early reaction soured the experience enough for the lead actor that it pretty much guaranteed he was going to leave as soon as his contract expired.

"Reagan's America was feeling gung-ho. Callaghan and then Owen's Britain would prove to be cautiously optimistic, but that wasn't a given at the time. EON took a gamble and went left, but the way things were going went right. It was a great direction, but out of its time."

- Gordon Weythe, The Best Of Bond, ITV 2005

__________________​

Vindicated by History

Timothy Dalton's more downbeat, violent portrayal of Bond fits perfectly next to Paul McGann's less morally certain, tougher Bond of the 90s and 2000s. At the time, most viewers had grown comfortable with Roger Moore's lighthearted Bond.

- TVTropes

__________________​

Casting Nicholas Clay as Bond put the films back in step with the zeitgeist. Britain, appearing more egalitarian and economically strong, started to feel a safe nostalgia for its class system and it became a good time to be posh. Lord Peter Wimsey was filling cinemas and Dan Dare had replaced Doctor Who in the affections of space-mad children (oh, the irony of Paul McGann being prized for being posh).

Clay is sometimes spoken of as the "Boy's Own" Bond. With his dashing good looks, less promiscuous nature, this being the age of "safe sex" and more amiable manner compared to his predecessor: Clay's Bond almost comes across as a clean-living chap from the boy's papers of the early 20th Century.

His Bond was no wimp and was willing to engage in violence if necessary, but he wasn't a cold-blooded killer either. One strand continuing from Dalton's time was Bond's guilt after killing. Some villains were dispatched without too much concern, but Clay's Bond was another who didn't quip after every killing and occasionally let regret play across his face when he killed someone who didn't see it coming.

The underlying irony is that Clay wanted to play the part closer to the Dalton style (he's the only screen Bond to have a facial scar like his literary equivalent). The films undoubtedly benefit from the creative tension between Clay and EON.

- James Bond Souvenir Special Magazine, 2001

__________________​

AHC Derail The James Bond Franchise In The 90s

Tuesday 8:37pm
BeatleBlades

OK, here's a crazy idea, but bear with me. Have The Deer Hunter be a bigger hit. Off the moderate success of that film, Michael Cimino got the greenlight from UA on The Johnson County War, started overspending, got fired and replaced with David Lean. The film did mediocre box office, but UA had a brand new James Bond to show the world and that more than saved the studio, even if it did get renamed UA-Transamerica.

But if The Deer Hunter had been a bigger hit, Cimino be able to ride out the last few waves of "New Hollywood" auterism [2], then maybe UA are less inclined to fire him and The Johnson County War is an expensive bomb. Then UA are more vulnerable and maybe likely to make missteps.
-----------

Tuesday 9:01pm
Stingaree

You really need a POD in 1978 to derail Bond in the 90s? How about Nicholas Clay turning it down and EON going with Pierce Brosnan instead?
-----------

Tuesday 9:10pm
BeatleBlades

Yes. I think with huge corporations getting your POD in early enough leads to the most plausible scenario. Those old dinosaurs don't move that fast.

I don't think Brosnan could have derailed Bond, though he might have been a little bit by-the-numbers. Bond doesn't have the character quirks that Simon Templar has and that Brosnan was able to exploit to such great effect on the Saint series. [2]
-----------

Tuesday 9:14pm
Stingaree

The Deer Hunter is hardly the stuff of blockbusters. It's pretty grim, I don't know how you'd make it bigger.
-----------

Tuesday 9:27pm
BeatleBlades

It actually suffered from Death On The Nile being as huge as it was. EMI Films started throwing more publicity and resources at Nile once it became clear they had a hit on their hands. If Albert Finney had stayed on as Poirot, he probably wouldn't have hit the publicity rounds quite as enthusiastically as Roger Delgado.
-----------

Tuesday 9:37pm
Swinker

If you derail Bond in the 90s, you don't have the WTFness of Freddie Mercury and Kylie Minogue's duet on the driven, doomy theme to Better Off Dead. Who wants to live in a world where that didn't happen?

- Excerpts from alternatehistory.com board thread

__________________​

"Clay's time perfectly straddles the 80s and 90s. His first film, 1987's Octopussy, is a romp. A big action film with great lines and the status quo properly restored at the end. But by the time of Better Off Dead, he's firmly a 90s Bond. That last film starts to pick up threads left in the other films to form the end of a character arc. Bond's nemesis is a bratty hacker, played by 25-year-old David Wilson. [3] A cyber-thriller showing that the internet spread across the world in places even SPECTRE in the 60s couldn't have reached.

"They'd could have gone wrong with the Bond girl. I think there were a lot of female leads at that time who were written as 'feisty' and they just came across as unpleasant. I like how both Bond and Dr Rose are trying to back off from forming a relationship. We didn't want a replay of the previous film From A View To A Kill, where Scarlet Silk [4] is constantly insulting Bond and mocking him for being old, before falling for him in the most unconvincing way possible. Amanda Donohoe deserved an Oscar. No such problems with Kelly Hu in Better Off Dead.

"Better Off Dead is about Bond getting older and whether he can keep living the life of a Double-0 agent. Because we knew it was going to be the last Nicholas Clay Bond film there was always that possibility that they might, just might kill Bond off. They didn't, off course, but that tying together of storylines, interrogation of the very idea of James Bond and the doomladen atmosphere, it's the perfect alignment of Bond for a new era."

​

- Gordon Weythe, The Best Of Bond, ITV 2005

__________________​

"Yes, I got passionate about the subject on that Best Of Bond show. I could tell they wanted to follow the usual narrative. Dalton is too dark. Clay is too frothy. Bond didn't get good again until Paul McGann. It's nonsense. There haven't been any bad James Bonds. Dalton was ahead of his time, but Clay was perfect for his time. Here's a way of seeing how well they capture the character. When you have your beginning to end Bond watches. c'mon we all do it, switch Dalton and Clay. Go Moore, Clay, Dalton, McGann etc. The films play better that way. Nicholas Clay's Bond has a lot of Roger Moore's qualities, but dialed down and as the films head into the 90s, the shades of grey start to creep in."

- Gordon Weythe, Laser Cult-tacular Convention, 2007

__________________​

But McGann scotches the idea that he'll be a working-class Bond. "James Bond will always love the high-life, he'll still be drinking vodka martinis. But I want to show a certain toughness. Bond didn't just become a spy out of nowhere, he was a naval commander. I want to bring that military quality to the character. He'll be cultured but tough, with a down to earth quality that's a holdover from his having to lead men as Commander Bond. Bond went to Eton, but he got expelled. That's my Bond."

- GQ Magazine, November 1995

__________________​

1996 looks likely to be a year of surprises. In the reverse of all expectations, the next James Bond film Mightier Than The Sword is going to imply that it's a fresh start showing Bond early in his career, whereas the Doctor Who pilot is going to continue where the BBC series left off, including an appearance by Tony Haygarth.

- Laser Magazine Quarterly, Winter 95/96

__________________​

[1] I recall reading that this intro was decided on even when IOTL it was thought there'd be a new Bond

[2] I'm thinking a TV series, not film series if you're wondering

[3] The son of Brian Wilson from the T2580 storyline. Both this thread and that are part of the same timeline.

[4] They can only be so faithful to Fleming. Even though the girl in the story is called Mary Anne Russell, that isn't going to fly as a Bond girl name in a movie.

[PS] I'm thinking both M and Moneypenny are recast for the first Dalton film. Donald Houston and Diana Weston, in case you were wondering.

 

[Guajolote]

"So, a special sneak-peek at the new blu-ray, this is the first public screening of the TV movie in HD.

A couple of things to go over. I've seen a copy of the script and it's a different colour of paper every few pages. I once drew a diagram of which scene belongs to which draft of which writer's vision. I was trying to devise a drinking game, but decided it wasn't worth it.

"Anyway, for those of you who've never seen this before. It might get confusing in places because a scene from one draft made it to the screen, but the explanation got cut when another scene got switched for a different draft. There's one bit that'll really have you scratching your heads. There isn't actually an explanation for it. Someone just misunderstood how things work and no-one did anything about it.

"Enjoy!"

- Andrew Barbicane, convention appearance, 2016

Pre-Credits

The film starts with darkly lit establishing shots of Los Angeles at night set to a dramatic keyboard score. A shadowy male figure is making his way through the streets seemingly on a mission. Following him at a distance is The Doctor (Tony Haygarth). The figure walks into a run down convenience store. The Doctor slips in behind him. The figure is wandering around as if inebriated and raises a weapon, causing The Doctor to scream "DON'T DO IT!"


The film cuts to Det. Hendrie (Robert Bockstael), a middle-aged cop, and his partner Kate Montez (Leah Remini) taking an eyewitness report on a recent flashing incident in what appears to be the same seedy neighborhood. Hendrie spots a flash of light and hears an unearthly sound from a nearby street. The concerned officer tells Kate to keep an eye on things while he investigates the flash. Hendrie arrives at the convenience store to find everyone unconscious and one man dead. Outside on the pavement is The Doctor, apparently having been thrown through the window. Hendrie uses his radio to report what's he's found.

The denizens of the store are waking up, but Hendrie has persuaded them to stay where they are. He pops out to take one more look at the body. Hendrie takes a closer look as the body starts glowing bright lights. Hendrie is holding the body's arm. He screams as the light blocks out the screen.

A panicked Kate arrives moments later to join her partner, who is worried he might have been blinded by the light coming from the body. Montez surveys the scene, weapon drawn. The people inside the store are huddled up, scared by the scream. Hendrie tells Kate about the dead man glowing. There are two extremely weird things to account for: The body has gone, and Hendrie appears to be ten years younger.

Post-Credits

The following day Kate returns to the scene, having not slept well. She discusses with CSI whether the case is homicide, as the body is missing. Walking into the shop, Kate initially thinks she's alone. It becomes aware there's someone else there when Kate looks up and spots a man wearing a white pinstripe suit and gaudy paisley scarf. This is The Doctor (Nathan Lane). He's focused intently on an electronic device in his hand. At first Kate thinks he can't see her, but he begins to speak to her without looking up from his device. "Tell Hendrie I'm sorry for running out on him like that but I was trying to follow my assailant." He pulls out a pocket watch with his free hand. "His sight will have come back about an hour ago."
"Who are you."
"I suppose I'm a witness. As soon as I know enough, I'll let you know."
"You are not supposed to be here!"
"I think you're right. But I don't know where else I can be. I'm hoping I can find out before it's too late."
"Look, come with me to headquarters and we can talk about what you saw."
"I'll call you." The Doctor walks out of the shop. Kate runs outside and asks where the man in the white suit went. Nobody seems to have seen anything.

Montez returns to her precinct to find two men in black suits claiming to be government agents at her desk. She is informed that the incident is now a federal case and that Police Captain Reynolds (R.D. Reid) has handed over the files. Kate looks through the window into Capt. Reynolds’ office. He shakes his head. Kate sits at her desk and rubs her eyes. When she opens them again, The Doctor is sitting opposite her. "Are you some kind of hallucination?"
"I don't think so. If I am, could you hallucinate me a more comfortable chair?"
"No-one saw you leave the convenience store."
"A cheap conjuring trick, no use in a real emergency. Someone is running around this city with a projected energy weapon."
"A what?"
"A gun that fires energy instead of bullets.”
“You mean a ray gun?”
“Well, if you must use such gauche terms, I suppose so, but it does rather make this sound like a children’s game, when we’re dealing with something deadly serious.”
“Ray guns don’t exist.”
“True, at least not yet. Someone is going around shooting people with something that should not exist at this time. I know it sounds crazy and believe me, I was hoping to find a non-crazy-sounding explanation."
Kate looks at him doubtfully, maybe being taken off the case is a blessing.
"It's not my case anymore, take it up with the feds."
"I don't trust them, Kate, I trust you."
Kate looks at The Doctor like he might be worth listening to. The Doctor cranes his neck to look in the office of Capt. Reynolds. Reynolds is looking straight back at The Doctor. The Doctor leans towards Kate and murmurs.
"This isn't the place to discuss things. As soon as you can get out, meet me in the police phone box on the corner of Mountjoy and Vardon."
"Police phone box? We don't really use those anymore, and anyhow there isn't one on Mountjoy and Vardon. I can't meet you at a box that isn't there."
"Not at, in. You won't be able to miss it."

Some time has passed and in a strange, futuristic looking room, The Doctor is flicking switches on a six-sided console. He gazes at a large screen showing a map of LA with pulsing red dots overlaid. He looks down at a smaller screen on the console. The TV news is showing a story of a missing man, in fact his previous body. He pauses the broadcast and looks sadly at the extremely accurate sketch of his old self. Flashback to the convenience store. The old Doctor pleading with the man with the gun. The Doctor's body flying through the window. Hendrie crouching over the body. The Doctor glowing and glow fading to show the new Doctor. The Doctor clambering to his feet looking at Hendrie and deciding to leave him and go after the man who shot him.

Kate parks her car and makes her way to the corner of Mountjoy and Vardon. Sure enough, there is the large, blue and unusual form of a British Police Box. Kate walks around it and then gingerly places a hand against one of the doors. There's a gentle, mechanical click and the door swings open. She pushes it and peers in. The box appears to be empty and the back wall appears to be white stone, patterned with huge circles. There's another, deeper mechanical sound, and the wall splits in two and swings away. It's not a wall, it's a pair of doors, behind which is a huge, futuristic room. In the middle is a hexagonal console, off in a corner tinkering with a coffee-maker is The Doctor.

The Doctor is excited to see an increasingly confused Kate. He has to explain the TARDIS to her but the full strangeness of the situation is clearly overwhelming her. Kate lets out a scream that lasts for a full seven seconds. The Doctor looks at his coffee machine, "I'll give you decaf".
Kate runs to the doors, but they're closed.
"What have you done to me?"
The Doctor flips a switch and the inner doors open.

"Kate, I haven't *done* anything to you. If you want to go the outer doors are right there and open normally, but I'd really rather you sit down, drink this and I'll explain."
Kate sits nervously at one of the seats around the console. The Doctor has put Kate's coffee, and a plate full of biscotti on a small tea trolley that he has wheeled up next to her.
The Doctor tells Kate that he’s been investigating these ray gun shootings, and believes that there might be something connecting them.
“What, you mean besides them all having been shot with ray guns?”
The Doctor sighs. “I was forgetting that you work for the LAPD. Such a narrow view of things. Why you can’t all be like that Italian lieutenant I used to know... what on Earth was his name? Well, anyway, yes they’ve all been shot with, as you put it, ‘ray guns’, but why these particular people, in these particular places, and why with such an ostentatious weapon when had they instead been shot with a normal projectile weapon hardly anyone would have batted an eyelid.”
“I would have.”
The Doctor looks at her for a second. “Yes... yes, I rather think you would, at that.”
“So what do you think the connection is?”
The Doctor grins. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

The Doctor flips a switch on the TARDIS console and the large screen runs through hundreds of maps in a fraction of a second before stopping on one. The Doctor flips another switch and the TARDIS starts making an unearthly grinding noise. He turns to Kate, gives a sly, little smile and asks Kate if she's interested in history. Kate catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror to see her hair and clothes have changed to that of a 1920's flapper. Kate asks what is going on. The doors open and she realizes she has traveled back in time. The Doctor goes to a newspaper stand and, after searching through a coin purse and revealing the presence of many different alien coins, buys a paper for two cents. Flipping through the paper, the Doctor finally hits upon the story he's looking for. The Inglewood earthquake, July 1920. Later on, The Doctor and Kate have travelled out to Inglewood to look around. The Doctor checks a handheld device and says that there's a distinct energy signature, just like the TARDIS showed him. The earthquake wasn't natural, there was some sort of landing here. On returning to the TARDIS, Kate is shocked to find her hair and clothes have changed back. She's almost just as shocked that the Doctor's haven't, but when asked, he's incredulous at the idea that he'd want to change such a stylish ensemble.

The TARDIS has arrived back at the corner of Mountjoy and Vardon. Kate is not amused to find that several hours have passed, but The Doctor tells her the TARDIS is a bit temperamental. Kate gets back to her car to be accosted by the feds she saw at her desk earlier.

TO BE CONTINUED

The version of the TARDIS seen above is from Rob Semenoff's Who 3D site and is used under a Creative Commons 3.0 Licence (non-commercial, attribution, share-alike).

 

[Guajolote]

Kate is in an interrogation room and one of the federal agents, Agent Collins (Julian Richings) has a folder on the table in front of him. He tells her that at regular points in history, certain scientific, even extraterrestrial issues have caused crises that have been solved by the presence of a strangely dressed person called "The Doctor" and he or she (Kate raises an eyebrow at this) is usually accompanied by the appearance of a British MacKenzie Trench Mark 2 Police Call Box. Collins shows Kate pictures of other "Doctors", speculating on the true nature of this person or organization. He demands to know what happened when she visited the Police Box (they had her followed) and what The Doctor is doing in LA. Kate says he wouldn't believe her, when she's interrupted by a knocking at the interrogation room mirror. Collins terminates the interrogation and steps out, opening the next door to let him in the ante room behind the mirror. He's shocked to find The Doctor sitting there, toying with a metal cylinder.
"You're trying to build neural disruptors here? I can't say I approve, but I'm happy to say you're years away from making them work. It'd take an intellect like mine to make one work. Like this."
The Doctor taps Collins on the temple with the cylinder, Collins collapses. The Doctor fetches Kate out of the interrogation room. Kate wants to know how The Doctor found her so quickly. "Quickly?" says The Doctor, "It took me six months. It's just quick for you because I was able to land at this time." The Doctor explains that in the short time he's been in the headquarters, he's establish that there's some sort of advanced weapons programme going on, which makes him suspect a link to the energy weapon that "killed" him. The Doctor suddenly stops, swipes a keycard in a lock and vanishes into a room. Kate stands there for a moment and The Doctor shouts "Come in here, I'm holding you hostage." Kate rolls her eyes and follows him into the room.

The Doctor is seated at a computer and is typing furiously. He explains that if the weapon was developed there, it doesn't explain why the man who shot him was walking around zombie-like. Once he can answer these questions, he can think of a course of action, take it and leave LA and let Kate get on with her life. Right now, he needs Kate to guide him around as his regeneration has made him a little forgetful, a little uncertain how to approach people and things. He stops speaking, he's found something. The weapon was found in the possession of a worker on the extension of the LA Metro underground. The man had apparently gone mad and the weapon had been turned over to an agency armorer. Kate confesses she doesn't like where this is going. The Doctor taps a few keys and a video appears on a large monitor in another part of the room. It's dated the same day that the investigation started. The day the agents took the files away from Kate. Agent Collins is talking to the camera, opposite him sits another man, sitting perfectly still, only his eyes darting around, paranoid.
"We were able to apprehend the armorer, Kelly here. As near as we can tell, he was still testing the weapon, but he was using public spaces to do so. He had managed to keep his task in mind, but…we had a suspicion that the way the weapon responded to touch might run…I don't know how to put this. This weapon may have acted in a way that has…reprogrammed Kelly. As if it has run software and Kelly's nervous system is the hardware. It's made him…emotionless." At this, The Doctor places his hand over his mouth, registering shock. On the screen Collins continues,"Since his apprehension, the weapon has become inert, only this blinking light indicates any power inside. We must now turn our attention to the presence of the dangerous alien…" The Doctor shuts the video off. The humor has drained from his face. The light has gone out in his eyes. He tells Kate this is far worse than he expected. The weapon needs charging and it is sending a signal to its original owner to come and charge it. Kate asks about "the dangerous alien". The Doctor smiles sadly. "Oh, Kate. I'm the dangerous alien."

The senior director of the agency (Dan Lauria) is reading a report at his desk. Suddenly, a voice breaks his concentraction and he nearly jumps out of his chair. "That one will wait. You need to update this one," says The Doctor as he throws the huge, heavy file about himself onto the desk. "I'm the latest face of the dangerous alien in that file. I want to talk to the Metro worker. I assume you're keeping him here and I hope he's well looked after."
"What's to stop me calling every agent in the building up here to take you and your cop friend here away for a very long time?"
The Doctor holds up a black cylinder. "This is a mind-controlled module. I only have to think and it will unleashed an electromagnetic pulse that will black out the West Coast all the way up to, and probably including, Seattle." The Doctor closes his eyes and makes no other move, and a line of green lights light up on the tube. Then they start to change to amber. The director concedes defeat.

The cell door opens and the director escorts The Doctor and Kate inside. "Give me ten minutes, director. By the way, when all this is settled, Detective Montez here is my hostage, all wrongdoing is on my part and my part only. OK?" He breaks out a smug grin that the director would just love to slap. Turning around, The Doctor's manner becomes quiet and concerned. He looks deep into the inmate's eyes and the man stops shaking. The Doctor explains to Kate it's telepathic hypnotism. The man doesn't seem to be aware of his surroundings, but The Doctor addresses him directly, apologizing for not knowing his name and saying he won't go looking in his mind for that information. "I'll be an excellent houseguest. I'll tidy up a little without prying. After that, you should be feeling better, and I'll have the director hand you over to some friends of mine at the UN who have a place where you can recover. The next part will be a little scary, but don't worry, I'll calm you down once I know what I need to know."

He pulls a small notebook and pencil out of his jacket pocket and makes a little sketch. "Did they look like this?", he asks. The man becomes agitated and screams one word "SILVER!". The Doctor gently places his hands on the man's temples and looks into his eyes again. He holds the notebook up and the man says, "Silver men, they…looked like that," pointing at the sketch. He tries to say more but The Doctor gestures to say it's OK and he should rest. The Doctor says he'll tell the agency that their guest's mind has cleared and someone from the UN will be in touch. On leaving the cell, The Doctor looks at Kate and here we intercut with unnatural eyes lighting up in darkness. Contours become visible, contours that match The Doctor's sketch. The Doctor says one word to Kate. "Cybermen".

The Doctor and Kate enter the TARDIS control room. He brings up a page of text and diagrams up on the screen. "There are the answers you want, Kate. Cybermen used to be human beings, but gradually replaced each body part as it wore out, replaced with an electronic version. But they're not robots. Often there's a human brain inside, sometimes other organic parts that are felt to be functioning."
"How does this make them evil?"
"They lost their emotional responses. Emotion isn't just carried in the brain. There's no fluttering sensation in an electronic heart. A being that’s had its stomach removed because it doesn’t need to eat can no longer get a sinking feeling. No adrenaline. What emotions remained were seen as a weakness, so they removed them. But every Cyberman used to be a sapient lifeform like you or I."
The Doctor starts fiddling with the console.
"Where to now, Doc?"
"The Metro building site where that poor man saw the Cybermen. And Kate?"
"Yes?"
"I am many things, but I am not a 'Doc'."

The TARDIS lands in a concrete tunnel with a floor of churned up soil and rock. Inside the control room, The Doctor has just fetched a cardboard box from a side room.
"You're not suggesting we got out there, are you?"
"Not at all, I'm going to use a flying camera," he holds up a hemispherical thing, half the size of a baseball, covered in a lenses. "It can relay a semi-panoramic view back to me, I can try and spot where the Cybermen are."
"That little thing can fly? I'm impressed."
"It can't fly by itself, that's why I'm going to hot-glue it to the underside of this model aeroplane," he lifts the plane out of the cardboard box. Kate rolls her eyes.

Some time later, a model of a Fairey Swordfish biplane is buzzing its way through the partially built tunnel. Inside the TARDIS, The Doctor is looking at the viewscreen, remote control in hand and First World War leather flying helmet on his head. Kate spots something. At a point the building hasn't properly reached yet, there's a spot where the soil has caved in. There's an opening. The plane flies down it and after a little while it's in a huge chamber of Cyberman tombs! The tombs are empty! The Doctor turns to Kate and reminds her that the Cyber-weapon at the Agency was singnalling its owners to come and recharge it. That means there's a Cyber platoon headed for the Agency right now. The Doctor slams on the TARDIS fast return control and is soon back in Agency HQ.
"The Cybermen will probably have split up and found routes through the sewer system, converging here," says The Doctor as he checks his watch. "Wee small hours, but I suppose these spy hangouts have a lot of people on duty overnight. There's going to be violence, Kate. You carry a gun, don't you?"
"The Agency took it." The Doctor goes over to a wooden trunk and brings out a powerful-looking revolver.
"Kate, promise me you'll only use this if your life is in danger."
"Wait. There's going to be violence from evil aliens, but I can only shoot in self-defence?"
"Yes. I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill them, but this way, there's only blood on my hands."

Agent Collins is in the lobby of Agency HQ, just saying his goodbye to guard at reception when The Doctor bursts in and cries "Collins! Can you evacuate the building?"
"Well, not exactly, I could try and initiate a lockdown. Why?"
"The 'weapon' has been signalling and the beings that created it are on their way. Where's the nearest manhole cover?"
Collins turns to the receptionist, "Crombie, I think we need to put the building on lockdown. OK, what's this about ma…" CRASH!
The glass wall of the entrance is shattered and a group of Cybermen stomp in. The Doctor steps in front of Kate to protect her, Crombie dives underneath his desk, Collins pulls his gun but is shot by a Cyberman.
The Doctor steps up to the lead Cyberman.

"I know what you want. If I give you the weapon back, will you go?"
"Doctor," the Cyberman has an unnervingly calm voice, "you know that is not how we operate. We have been woken earlier than we intended, but the level of technology is sufficient that the people of this time will be suitable for conversion."
The Doctor is a about to reply when a group of agents in flak jackets appear and open fire on the Cybermen. The Doctor grabs Kate and spins her round and behind Crombie's desk where both she and The Doctor duck down.
"Kate, did you count how many Cybermen?"
"Eight."
"You sure?"
"I'm a detective. I'm trained to observe."
"Excellent," says The Doctor as he reaches over to grab a radio that Crombie keeps under his reception desk. The Doctor asks he if can have the radio but as there's a gun battle going on, Crombie doesn't seem bothered. The Doctor opens up the radio and then grabs a handful of diodes and other electronic flotsam out of his pockets. Using something appears to be a soldering iron, but made of transparent plastic. In seconds he's added all sorts of extra tech to the workings of the radio, turned the radio on and tuned it to a frequency that's broadcast a strange electronic wow-wow-wow-wow. The Doctor jumps up from behind the desk and addressing one of the shooting agents shouts "TRUST ME, ANOTHER GROUP OF CYBERMEN ARE ON THE WAY. WHEN THEY GET HERE, RETREAT. UNTIL THEN, THEY'RE NOT GOING TO KILL YOU, THEY'RE JUST KEEPING YOU BUSY."
The Doctor whips another gadget from his pocket (we recognize it as a sonic screwdriver), points it at the glass partition and door to the rest of HQ, lets out a high pitched tone and, grabbing Kate, jumps through the space created and runs to the elevators.

Inside the elevator, The Doctor rolls his eyes when sees that the controls need a keycard. He pulls off the panel with the buttons and fiddles with the mechanism to allow them to go to the roof. Kate opens her mouth, but The Doctor is already talking.
"To answer your next question, the Cybermen want those agents to convert them into Cybermen. The battle might seem like life and death to the humans, but to the Cybermen, it's just a way of testing the convertees, so to speak."
Kate opens her mouth again. The Doctor interrupts.
"There were 16 tombs. 8 Cybermen means that they split up in the sewers just in case they got intercepted. Why? Because they were probably aware that their greatest enemy was in the area, that bold, handsome, brilliant and stylish renegade known as The Doctor! And here we are!"

Stepping out on to the roof, The Doctor turns on the radio again and it's still letting out its weird wow. The Doctor looks around for some sort of transmission equipment. He pulls the radio open, picks out the diodes he'd added to it and quickly works to add them to a transmitter.
“What are you doing?”
“Have you ever heard of an autoimmune disease?”
"OK, this might be a stupid question…" says Kate.
"It's not. The Cybermen are used to chaos, destruction, smoke and on one occasion, fake Cybermen. That last one is my fault. Cybermen now send out a signal so that two groups of Cybermen who've split can recognize each other. Jam the signal and…" he switches on the adapted transmitter with a triumphant flourish.
"Kate, go back to the ground floor…"
"The first floor?"
"Yes, fine, whatever you call it. Get the lift…"
"The elevator."
"THIS ISN'T THE TIME! Go back to reception, I'll meet you there."
"But I…"
"GO!"

Kate comes out of the elevator to find the agents have pushed back the Cybermen to the courtyard outside the entrance. To her surprise, The Doctor is already there, lurking behind a pillar, scanning the streets with a telescope. From his POV, we see another group of Cybermen climbing out of a manhole.
"Agents, fall back!" cries The Doctor.
A few agents look at him as if he's insane, but after a moment's thought, they start to run back to the building, just as the second group of Cybermen open fire on the first. As everybody else leaves the scene, The Doctor stays and watches, his face contorted by guilt.
By this time, Kate has slid behind the same pillar, but at first The Doctor doesn't notice her. Eventually, the shooting and sparks are over. Outside the HQ are the bodies of 16 dead Cybermen. The Doctor turns to go back inside.
"Kate?! Why aren't you inside?"
"I was worried about you. Why did you stay?"
"They used to be humans, or something like it. They'd lost their humanity, but maybe if there'd been more time I could have…" The Doctor lets his shoulders droop as he lets out a sigh. "I can't even let them rest in peace, that technology can't fall into human hands at this time." He pulls a box out of his pocket and presses a button on it. Explosions engulf the courtyard and with it, the dead Cybermen.

Back inside, The Doctor goes to see that the agents have already moved Collins' body. He gives a sad smile. He crouches down to look at the spot where a man died.
"Human emotion. I don't think the Cybermen really understand it. I tricked them into paranoia. Maybe that's an intellectual failure, but I don't think there's a strict dividing line between ideas and emotions. Without emotions, they can't think clearly."
Kate looks at him thoughtfully, as he continues. “I got the idea from... well, from all these people,” the Doctor waves at the Agency figures in the distance. “Spies spying on spies spying on spies. Agencies being created to protect the nation from the other agencies that have been set up to protect the nation. Plant a tiny bit of suspicion in the wrong place, and the whole system turns on itself, like an autoimmune disease.” He sighs. “Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I think the only real difference between your species and the Cybermen is that the Cybermen are more honest about what they are.”
As The Doctor gets up, an agent approaches him and Kate.
"I should thank you for saving our lives, but there will be repercussions. A pitched battle at Agency HQ. You two should make yourselves scarce for a few months."
"A few months? I have to get back to my precinct and tell my Captain where I vanished to yesterday afternoon!"
"Detective Montez, you've been sighted at a few places that you shouldn't and in the company of an known alien with a very thick file. I'll try and cover things up as best as I can with your bosses, but certain parts of this agency and, chances are, other agencies will be very interested in you. Lay low till the dust settles, OK?" The agent moves off to help with the clean up. Kate looks appalled. The Doctor smiles.
"I haven't had a guest for quite some time. I have full living quarters in my ship. Very comfortable. Also, I can travel anywhere in time and space."
Kate looks at The Doctor and gives a smile.

The Doctor and Kate walk into the TARDIS console room.
"Where to first?"
"My apartment, I need to pick up a few essentials if I'm going to be travelling for a few months."
The Doctor shakes his head at Kate's lack of adventurous spirit.
"Hey, we need to get the sleeping arrangements straight…"
The Doctor cuts her off "I tend to sleep in the library or in that chair over there. You can have the main bedroom. Through those doors, first right."
Kate is relieved that The Doctor isn't making a move on her, but she's slightly irked that The Doctor was quite so eager to point it out. For his part, The Doctor flips a switch and the TARDIS is in flight. He leans on the console, head resting on his hand.
"Spit it out! I can sense at least one more question."
"OK, how did you get down to reception so fast?"
"There was a fire hose on the roof, I threw it over the side and abseiled down."
"I don't believe you."
"At times of stress, I can levitate."
Kate gives him a disbelieving look. The next thing we see is the TARDIS, spinning through timespace.

The reception area of Agency HQ has been cleaned up, though there are a few signs of the recent shootout still to be covered over. Crombie is getting ready to start his nightshift. On the desk in-front of him is a giftwrapped box with a card:

Crombie,
Yours wasn't the greatest sacrifice that day, but it deserves recognition and reward. Thanks for helping to save the world.

He carefully opens it and finds a brand new, bright red, very expensive looking radio. He laughs.

The End

 

[Guajolote]

Jon Pertwee 1919-96

"A dandy and a clown."

That was how Jon Pertwee described himself when being interviewed by Terry Wogan in 1988. It perfectly summed up the contradictions in Jon Pertwee's life and career. He was tall, suave and is most famed for playing a Victorian adventurer who was in some ways an extension of himself. But he couldn't resist an invitation to put on a silly face and play as broadly as possible for laughs.

In his early career, Pertwee was definitely a comic actor. After his naval service in the Second World War, he found a career as a comedic radio actor, perhaps most notably on The Navy Lark. In 1966, a turn as Lycus in Richard Lester's A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum opened up a new career in the United States. While he certainly enjoyed his time there, appearing on Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In and The Lucy Show among other guest spots on US TV, he returned to the UK as he found it easier to run his career on his own terms. As he said himself, "In the US, there's a lot more studio politics and the man who tells you 'yes' today might not be there tomorrow. Over here if someone like Lew Grade or Peter Rogers says you're in, you're in". Of course, he returned just in time to take on his most celebrated role, Victorian scientist Gabriel Baine.

Inspired by his turns in horror films The House That Dripped Blood and Scream And Scream Again and by his urbane and droll appearances telling jokes on Laugh-In (outside of his more manic appearances in sketches), producer Derrick Sherwin and BBC Head of Drama Shaun Sutton felt they had found exactly the right person to breathe life into the dandified character. Pertwee made his presence felt by immediately having the character's name changed from Robert Baldick, as it appeared in the script.

The Adventures Of Gabriel Baine ran for four series, exploring diverse genres such as ghost story, murdery mystery and, memorably, science-fiction. He was even afforded a guest appearance by fellow BBC hero The Doctor. At the end of it all, Pertwee was world-famous, but somewhat typecast. Turning down offers of part too similar to Baine, he bounced back with a sitcom part in Jimmy Perry's Room Service as a long suffering manager of a hotel's room service department. It certainly didn't measure up to Perry's other sitcom work, but Pertwee's energetic performance kept it alive for three series.[1]

Once again, he leapt with ease from comedy back to drama, playing Bruce Wayne's manservant Alfred Pennyworth in three Batman films.[2]

But there was no one role that the veteran actor was proudest of, he took pride in the breadth of his career. He loved attending fan gatherings and conventions to tell anecdotes about his career (he was even willing to talk about Starwatch). Appropriately, his last major work was in the TV movie The Return of Gabriel Baine and he appeared as vital and dynamic as he did in 1972. That's the way his many fans will remember him. He will be missed.

- Tristram Phelps, Lazer Quarterly, Autumn 1996

[1] IOTL it starred Bryan Pringle and only lasted one series.

[2] I'm trusting IMDB trivia that this was a project Spielberg expressed interest in IOTL, Pertwee casting and all.

 

[Guajolote]

One thing is for sure: when this much vaunted TV movie goes out, fans will either love it or hate it.

- Jewel fanzine article "The Spirit Of '96", Winter 1995

__________________​

Well, we were right on one level. On another level, we were hugely wrong. Some of you loved it, some of you hated it, a surprising number of you couldn't make your minds up. But as to why you loved it and hated it, it feels like none of you could agree as to why! Doctor Who 1996 is a successful or unsuccessful reinvention that's to be lauded for ringing the changes/deplored for changing too much or praised for staying true to the original/condemned for sticking far too closely the show's past. The only thing you loved/hated was Nathan Lane or Leah Remini. Either that, or everything was great/terrible except for them.

If the viewing public divide on similar lines, we might be in for an agonizing time as the show might be unable to be classified as a hit or flop. Its fate could be decided by just a few degrees one way or another and the ones whose side lose will cry "Almost! We were almost right!".

- Jewel fanzine article "The Dreaded Wait", Spring 1996

__________________​

The Seventh Doctor's exit was a reflection of his entrance. Overtaken by events, a regeneration that came too soon for a Doctor who was just about to put two-and-two together and instead had to leave it to his successor to not only save the world, but also solve his own murder.

To the last, he showed his concern for ordinary people. Pleading with his murderer not that he shouldn't discharge his alien weapon at all, but that he shouldn't do so in the vicinity of so many defenceless people. For his trouble, he got thrown through a convenience store window by projected energy. To see The Doctor lying amid the broken glass, looking so small. I might have got something in my eye at that point.

- Andrew Barbicane, Fanfare For The Common Man: Looking Back On The Seventh Doctor, DWM Seventh Doctor Special

__________________​

So what was controversial? Well, I don't think it's a massive rewriting of the show's history to have regeneration be something that can be transmitted by touch. It was weird, but maybe it helped make clear what regeneration was. The TARDIS automatically changing the companion's clothes is either a huge mistake or an neat solution to a problem. The idea of an American Doctor seems to be less popular than the execution. Quite a lot of you are in the camp of "OK, it worked this time, but next time they'll screw up".

What was popular? Well, Nathan Lane and Leah Remini seem to be broadly popular with the majority of those of you who wrote in. It was good to see the time travel capability of the TARDIS being demonstrated. The TARDIS console room is universally loved, but for the most part, the movie has been praised for what it isn't. After all the alarming reports of a talking (or even rapping) TARDIS and The Doctor being the "chosen one" predicted in the dark scrolls of Omega, it was a relief to see that ultimately, this pilot was just The Doctor chasing the Cybermen around LA (or the parts of Vancouver that look most like LA).

But now we've had time to give a few views to The Murder Of The Century (we have the Germans to thank for the pilot having a proper title and the Doctor's face in the opening) we have to ask, just like Peggy Lee: Is that all there is? We've gone without a regular series since 1992 just so we could have something more or less the same. What was done that the 1987-92 series wasn't doing? Not hellish much it seems.

- Editorial, Jewel fanzine, Spring 1996

__________________

Finally this week was the much talked about American relaunch of Doctor Who. You'd be forgiven for being soured on it by the hype around the new movie. The slew of merchandise that's greeted this pilot feels like someone, somewhere is trying to blot out the memory of the previous Doctors and sell us on the idea that Nathan Lane is THE DOCTOR. But the proof of the show is in the watching and, surprisingly, the trip across the Atlantic hasn't really changed the Timelord. His companion is a US cop who carries a gun, but other than that, it was business as usual. Even the controversy of an American actor as The Doctor was much ado about nothing. Nathan Lane cut sinister American government agents down to size with dry and withering quips like a space-hopping Oscar Levant. I forgot he was American most of the time.

- Owen Harbottle, Sunday Mirror, March 3rd 1996

__________________​

"What are we going to do about Doctor Who?"

Maybe that question hasn't been asked in as many words in the BBC, but the Corporation's actions over the years have indicated that they've been seeking an answer to that question. The best answer was the one hit upon for Seasons 24-28: spend more money. But it wasn't enough. Some people wouldn't be happy until Doctor Who was up there with the other big sci-fi franchises. Some fans felt that way, some within in the BBC felt that way, some people working in US TV felt that way. It was the assumption that pushed the show around in the 90s. What it was and what it had been weren't good enough. Doctor Who wouldn't have arrived until its budget was measured in millions of dollars.

No-one seemed to have accounted for what would happen if the Americanization of Doctor Who failed. What happened in 1996 was even worse than that. American Doctor Who succeeded and then failed. The pilot gave us a Doctor-ish Doctor, a smart, independent companion and a decent, if convoluted, adventure in which the Cybermen were defeated by the Doctor's superior intellect. The fear that "the Americans are going to ruin Doctor Who" appeared groundless. Then, the series came.

"Season 29" is torn between three agendas. Amblin had a good handle on what they wanted and that was Doctor Who for the 90s. Bigger, less British on the surface but with a good, solid core of eccentricity and subversion. It's worth pointing out that thanks to his ties with Spielberg, Tom Stoppard himself was able to do some script doctoring, adding wit to the dialogue and having this first American Doctor still use British idioms and pronunciations. The BBC were happy with most of that, but weren't entirely taken with the eccentricity and subversion. They wanted something a bit more normal. As long as The Doctor was overdressed, witty and avoided violence, they didn't really care if the show was given to playing with tropes and the form and deep down, they'd rather it didn't even do that.

CBS wanted a sci-fi show that would appeal across demographics, capturing some of the appealing 18-34 audience while not alienating the older viewers who dutifully tuned in for CBS's crime shows. But by the time the show was on air, enough changes had happened behind the scenes that while CBS apparently wanted what it had always wanted, it kept changing its mind about the best way to get it. More jokes, more action, follow the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey (something the show had narrowly escaped once before). Some potentially nice episodes were clearly screwed up by the network passing notes.

My opinion is that CBS cancelled Doctor Who because they decided they'd rather have a show with fewer rules binding them. There were always going to be certain things the American Network wanted that the British Corporation would not smile on. While the BBC can't be entirely blamed that the co-production didn't work out, there was no need to abandon Nathan Lane et al. It wouldn't have been beyond the bound of possibility to keep that era of Doctor Who going as a straight-to-syndication show. But that might have meant looking to smaller American players or, even worse, Europe and the Commonwealth and apparently that wouldn't do. As was the fashion in the 90s, Britain wanted validation from the big boys in the US.

The real answer to the question "What are we going to do about Doctor Who?" is "make it as a BBC television series". The announcement in 1997 indicated that we were going to get a compromised version of that.

This posting was meant to be about the current state of Doctor Who, but the roots of where we are now go back so far. I'll write more next time, but to tease you I will tell you what the fundamental position I'm taking is.

It's 2017 and Doctor Who is finally dead.

The process that killed it off started in the mid-90s.

- Andrew Barbicane, Dimensions Of Doctor Who blog, July 2017

__________________

"I can't explain what happened with Doctor Who. For a while, it seemed like I was bulletproof. Roger Delgado is a hugely successful character actor and yet there's this weird little show that he'll always make time for. All of them, the Doctors, they all make space in their careers for this thing. So I thought I'd be fine. Then, once we started shooting, the wheels fell off. I think CBS got buyer's remorse as soon as the series was commissioned. Once the show got yanked, I started getting the 'oh, poor you' look from everyone. You know what I mean? It hurts. People start acting like failure is contagious. They cross themselves before saying your name. So Doctor Who was this terrible mark on my career. Then I bumped into Paul McGann at a party and he was dragging me into a photo op. He's saying 'James Bond and Doctor Who, together at last! Someone get a picture!'. I told him I wasn't exactly proud of Doctor Who and he said 'go back to England'. I'd done the press rounds when the series started there, but I thought I couldn't show my face. I'd killed their show. Paul just said 'I know a lot of people in the UK watched it. Trust me, in the list of great parts to play it goes 1. James Bond and 2. Doctor Who. They'll treat you like royalty.' So I went over and, Seth, I WAS A KING! It's even better than James Bond, because they keep acknowledging all the old ones. I went to see the movie when it came out and nearly fell out of my seat when my picture turned up."

- Nathan Lane, Late Night With Seth Myers, 2014

__________________​

The controversial American series of Doctor Who has finally arrived on blu-ray after a hunt for the original materials finally hit paydirt. Controversial? It felt that way at the time, but these were the innocent days before the casting of (gasp) a woman as The Doctor (possibly in a fit of pique at an uncaring Beeb). This was long before the 40th anniversary story treated Doctor Who as an amusing bit of pop ephemera that didn't merit remembering accurately. That's before we dredge up the memory of the second American Doctor and the disquieting news from the US about The New Adventures. After all we've been through, the wailing and gnashing of teeth over this series is barely a ripple in a teaspoon, never mind a larger tempest in any other size of vessel. In fact, this 29th season and feature length pilot are actually…kind of…OK. In fact, some of it is very good.

Usually, I'd leave talk of extras to the end. In this case, the whole series is understood better after looking at the blooper reel. Time and again, a cast member will stumble over a line because of its clunkiness. When it happens to either of the main stars, Nathan Lane and Leah Remini, it's usually followed by some reassurance to someone off-camera that the line will work in the next take. The reassurances get wearier and wearier as the bloopers get further into the production. The key moment comes when Nathan Lane is told to stop mid-speech and resignedly asks "Why? Did the network bring in more notes while I was busy acting?".

Nineties Doctor Who was a "troubled production" of the most tragic kind. One where everyone actually making the show had a good idea of what they were doing, but kept having to bow to the whims of executives trying to justify their presence in the endless list of credits. In the face of interference from CBS and indifference from the BBC and Amblin, the cast and crew in Vancouver were trying their damndest to make top notch Doctor Who. Even when they didn't succeed, there's one moment, one line delivery that lifts every episode.

Rewatching 1996 Doctor Who for this review, I decided to follow the guide in the accompanying booklet and view the episodes in production order. Seen this way, three distinct phases come to light. From The first episode, Clean Up On Aisle Five Million, up to and including Dalek Repentance, the show is unsteadily navigating what a Doctor Who story really is, but it's playful and smart. From Who Are The Doctor? to Too Many Stars, you can pretty much work out what the network notes have asked for. Here's the funny one, here's the dark one, please explain regeneration, please give Kate a love interest. The final three episodes are the productions two-fingered salute to the network, which might be why they never got shown on CBS. Father's Day being the most notable as the network mandated, Campbell-inspired "The Doctor should atone with his father" gets rendered as The Doctor apologizing to John Neville as "Fred" (that's his name, no-one says anything about it being a pseudonym, The Doctor's dad is called Fred) about giving up his dance lessons. And this happens ten minutes into the episode and is never mentioned again. Stitch that, CBS!

In the middle of all this are Nathan Lane and Leah Remini acting their hearts out, holding the show together. Making technobabble sound natural, making Kate's "feisty" dialogue sound funny and flippant instead of unpleasant. Most of all, they convince us that these are friends who enjoy each other's company and trust each other. The fan reputation of this series is that it's a great "might have been". But if you can put those feelings to one side, you can enjoy what we did have: a great Doctor/companion combination in a version of Doctor Who that's occasionally brilliant and does have high-quality effects.

- SFX Magazine review, September 2016

Next time: The end of history comes and goes, an article is spiked and BBC management talk too freely

 

[Guajolote]

Doctor Who has had maybe five or six hiatuses, depending how you count them. The 18 months between Seasons 23 and 24 might not count to some. Then there was 1992 to 96, or is it 93-96? How does The Wrong Doctors count? 2001-2004 perhaps tested our patience most. Hardly anyone felt hard done by when it came to the 2010-2013 and 2014-2017 gaps. By that point, we'd got used to the idea that Doctor Who will always come back. Perhaps we wouldn't have been so sanguine if we'd seen what 2017 Doctor Who was. But that's by the by. 1997-98 wasn't long, but was a much frostier time than the others.

Francis Fukuyama argued that with the fall of the USSR, communist ideology had gone with it and mankind had settled upon its final form of government, Capitalist liberal democracy, thus ushering in the end of history (look, I have a first in Economics and I almost never get to use it around here). For a while it seemed that Doctor Who had its own final form: an expensive US/UK co-production with the most state of the art effects US television could spare. That idea stalled. The end of Doctor Who history was postponed. So when "Season 29" ended in the UK on January 18th 1997, there was no guarantee it was going to come back.

On the one hand, it was a good sign that the BBC wanted the rights back from Amblin so quickly. On the other, it wasn't good that Amblin were happy to let them go because between them and CBS, they'd decided that the worst part of Doctor Who was The Doctor and held onto the Kate Montez rights because they thought that's where the future lay (denying the US a home video release of the CBS series until this year, to add injury to insult).

The gap between the last of the CBS series and the October press conference announcing a new series of Doctor Who was agonizing at the time (and don't forget the Radio 4 Doctor Who had finished at the end of 1995). The fan responses to that time are fascinating.

- Andrew Barbicane, The Wilderness Year, first draft unused DWM article 2016

__________________​

Andrew, I'm really sorry, but we're going to have to drop the article on the 1997 hiatus. Jeff at Enterprises got wind of what we were doing and asked what kind of tack we were taking. Even though everyone knows the real story, it's still embarrassing enough to some at the Corporation that they don't want the official magazine talking about it. I think that by the time we'd written an article that they could live with, it'd be rendered nonsensical.

As it is, we had have to rewritten the opening couple of paragraphs anyway. Any suggestion that The New Adventures is a disaster waiting to happen is also not being smiled on. The whole relationship with Enterprises is changing.

It's stupid, really. The whole story of what happened was in Private Eye at the time of production. Really, it's all old news.

Give me a call at home anytime after 6pm.

- email to Andrew Barbicane from the editor of Doctor Who Magazine

__________________​

After the failure of getting into bed with Stephen Spielberg, the BBC has wasted no time in getting the rights back to Doctor Who. It was all smiles when the Corporation called a press conference to announce a new Doctor Who series in co-production with Cinema Verity, the independent production company of Verity Lambert, the original producer of the sci-fi institution. Smiles started to freeze when one executive started to waffle about how Auntie [1] would "remain open to opportunities to develop Doctor Who as a brand" and that the good Doctor's return to TV was "vital for keeping the property in the public eye". Feeling at Cinema Verity is that they've been lumbered with keeping Doctor Who alive on TV while BBC Enterprises keeps its eyes peeled for a movie deal.

- Private Eye, November 1997

__________________​

"Yeah, that might be what happened, but the real problem is that people extrapolate from that, put 2 and 2 together and get 5. I think Verity soured on the project, particularly when they couldn't get Peter Cook for The Doctor. But everything else that happened after that was not Cinema Verity issuing a 'take that' to the BBC. Especially when it comes to the eventual casting of The Doctor.

"It's really unfair to everyone involved, not least Selina, to make out that the decisions made in the production of the 1998 series were sabotage. It wasn't a case of the production team daring the BBC to cancel their Doctor Who by making outrageous decisions. I think there was a sense that the BBC weren't going to be paying much attention to the end product or that if someone actually asked the BBC what they wanted, they'd end up with something, well, something a bit like The New Adventures are now.

"Anyway, it was decided that there was room to play and expand the idea of who and what The Doctor could be. Of course, once The Doctor was cast, the BBC rushed to appear like it was their idea."

- Andrew Barbicane, Convention appearance, August 2017

__________________

After a rumoured campaign by BBC execs to cast someone a bit more "telegenic" failed, BBC management are now falling over themselves to declare themselves delighted with the casting of Selina Cadell, the first female incarnation of the Timelord.

- Private Eye, March 1998

__________________​

"Telegenic"? It's easy to forget, but in the time between the BBC series ending and the CBS series, the cultural landscape in Britain had very subtly changed. Britain's upper middle class had embraced American culture in a way they'd never dared before. 1980s Britain, despite standing apart from the move to greater European unity, had gradually transformed into a European Social Democracy. Britain had forged a distinct political and cultural identity both in Europe and the English speaking world and that identity could be enjoyed and shared by all Britons across the class spectrum. And when just anybody can enjoy a thing, the chattering classes go looking for something else they can indulge themselves with, something only they can realistically have access to. Shows like Law & Order and NYPD Blue were hailed as being fundamentally more sophisticated than anything the UK had to offer. Articles deplored the inability of the UK to produce 26 episodes of sitcom per season and the single-writer model favoured by British TV was compared unfavourably with the writer's room approach. The (relative) failure of the CBS series of Doctor Who was an unpleasant anomaly in this worldview. The US had taken something from the UK and apparently failed to improve it. The "factory floor" people at the BBC understood the need to take the format of Doctor Who back and make it as a British TV series, but some of the new layers of management regarded this with suspicion. So when presented with a Great British Eccentric character actress in the lead, there was some disquiet. A feeling that that approach wouldn't be "telegenic" enough.

All that being said, the decisions taken by the production are not to be taken as a lack on faith in their leading lady.

Those of who came out and saw me at TimeLordCon last month will remember me getting irritable at the suggestion that casting a woman as The Doctor was some sort of "sabotage" after the BBC's mishandling of the October 1997 press conference. The flipside of that is the belief that the more conventional choices made were "damage control".

I dropped a line to Graham Ardwyne, who created the companion Linda Manzetti, and he got back to me in an email that I reproduce with permission:

It's frustrating that so many so-called fans jut look at Linda, see a pretty, young blonde and say "vanilla, playing it safe". What we were doing was returning to the basic principles of a young person through whose eyes we saw The Doctor and the Doctor's world. We didn't feel we had to have any kind of overt character quirk or hook. I think the previous companions were created with an eye on "how does this one differ from the others". Certainly when the show was a constant presence, you need to do something like that. I think we were more focused on reintroducing The Doctor. Even though the CBS had only just finished in early 97, we were aware that we were following a production that had been interrupted, unfinished in a way.

Of course, Linda did differ from previous companions, in that she'd been made aware of The Doctor and sought The Doctor out, but yes, her character was mostly revealed through dialogue and Camilla Power's fantastic, fantastic performance.

As for The Doctor's costume being "by-the-numbers", well Selina worked it out with the wardrobe dept. I don't see that it's "by-the-numbers". It's maybe a little bit like the Second Doctor's, but it's nowhere near as shabby and wardrobe was always changing the tie, waistcoat and trousers. It was more a set of clothes than a "costume". Anyway, it had to be different from Nathan, who was so dapper.

Thanks, Graham.

So, Doctor Who was set to come back taking the gamble of having a woman Doctor, but supposedly reverting to tradition by having a frock-coated Doctor in plaid trousers with a pretty, blonde companion. Never mind that it was never a tradition, that's what most people thought they remembered Doctor Who being.

That harking back to false memories paid off. Doctor Who was praised for returning to its roots after its American adventure. The first female Doctor proved to be a marvelous eccentric. The Ninth Doctor often acted distracted, looking in the wrong direction, something of a dreamer. These qualities would recede as the danger grew and once we saw The Doctor's gaze become clear-eyed and her manner direct, we knew we were really in trouble. A Doctor who could embody comedy and drama. All was well.

What had passed by with little comment was the fact that some at the BBC had fought the casting and wanted someone more "telegenic". That threat never really went away.

- Andrew Barbicane, Dimensions Of Doctor Who blog, July 2017

 

[Guajolote]

By the time you read this, the first episode of what we're probably all going to call Season 30 of Doctor Who will have gone out on BBC1 and you'll have made your mind up. But there is a reason for me to tell you about the advanced press screening I attended and it's not just to show off that I'm allowed into advanced press screenings (but I am, yay for me).

It's fair to say that the pre-publicity for the show has been a bit mixed. So much has been made of the BBC's supposed lack-of-faith in this co-production with Cinema Verity that the first ever lady Doctor almost got forgotten about. Being the correspondent from the official Doctor Who magazine, my opinion was particularly sought out by the members of the "proper" press, the reviewers from media outlets that cater to people who don't know every little detail about Doctor. Heck, they don't even know to write "Time Lord" instead of "Timelord".

I don't want to think the worst of these people, but I couldn't help but feel they wanted tales of "anoraks" and "trainspotters" tearing up their copies of DWM and cancelling their subscriptions in disgust. But I reassured them, even the fans who hate the idea aren't going to do anything quite so extreme as not watch Doctor Who. The people who were representing less specialized sci-fi and fantasy titles agreed with this. They didn't need to see the new show to work out whether their readers were going to watch the show. But they needed to see the two episodes shown at the event to get a sense of whether this was going to be a show that the readers were going to talk about. Was this going to be a show people watched or an actual HIT?

After the episodes, the "proper" journalists were intrigued but nonplussed, so once again they sought me out. Again, I might be doing them a disservice, but I think some of them wanted me to dismiss it out of hand for some obscure continuity reference. I had to disappoint them and say

"I think I've just seen a really successful reinvention of Doctor Who."

- Andrew Barbicane, DWM, December 1998

__________________​

Two significant things that marked 90s TV sci-fi from earlier times were the vogue for "story arcs" tying whole series together and the increasing fascination with conspiracy theories, the latter of which could be used to introduce sci-fi elements into a more or less realistic setting while not having to deal with the huge societal fallout of things like aliens being real.

Doctor Who had made a slight concession to the conspiracy genre by having so much of the TV Movie centred around "The Agency", but that was pretty much it. It was the 1998 series that finally committed to the trends of 90s TV fantasy and it made up for being late by virtue of possessing the unique format of Doctor Who.

Forget the messy press conference, forget the "telegenic" memo. The BBC/Cinema Verity co-production is elegantly put together and it moves forwards with a unified purpose. Season 30 is dedicated to looking at Doctor Who and asking "why does The Doctor save some lives and not others?". OK, hunker down for a lot of textual analysis from yours truly. No laughing at the back.

First, the casting. It's not "stunt casting", at least not in a cynical way. When pre-production began, a huge list was complied of actors and actresses who were felt to have a "Doctorish" quality and as it was whittled down, Selina Cadell's name remained on the list. Casting a woman serves the purpose of making the audience really look at the new Doctor. By 1998 there had been only two years since 1963 where British TV saw no new episodes of Doctor Who. The ninth person to play the lead in the show ran the risk of just being "the latest one". Add to this the fact that regenerative handover from Eight to Nine wasn't shown at all in her first series. It's a neat way of setting up the viewers to look upon Cadell as "The Doctor" and not "The New Doctor".

"But what about all the references to previous Doctors?" I hear you cry. Well, that's where things get turned on their heads. The usual post-regeneration scene being one of the first things to be inverted. The Doctor herself has nothing to say about her recent regeneration and she has no companion to explain it to. But the companion-to-be, Linda Manzetti, knows all about The Doctor, or thinks she does. She isn't our point-of-view character to be introduced to The Doctor's world. Linda is, in effect, an analogue for a casual TV viewer. They know some things about Doctor Who, but now the viewer is being called upon to look closer at The Doctor by the casting of a woman; just as Linda is called upon to fully investigate The Doctor by the magazine she's working for. So the viewer at home might be seeing The Doctor with new eyes, but the companion is used to the phenomenon of someone overdressed calling themself "The Doctor" turning up and fixing crises.

There have been scripts down the years that propose a relaunch of Doctor Who that have featured a cynical person becoming a companion of The Doctor, always being ready to cut down anything too fantastic with a dry quip (or more usually, adolescent snark that the writer thinks is wit). In 1998 Doctor Who, Linda isn't skeptical about the sci-fi trappings of The Doctor's world. There's an ambiguity about whether she really subscribes to any of the conspiracy theories she writes about or whether she just makes a show of believing them because she's writing for a magazine that's similar but legally distinct from Fortean Times. But while she's largely onboard with aliens, suggestions of time travel and some strange fixer who might be multiple people or the same person somehow radically changing appearance, Linda has one big question about The Doctor. Why does The Doctor fix some things and not others?

Not every episode is about this question, but it hangs over every story as Linda joins The Doctor on her travels but doesn't find and answer to the thing she wants to know the most about The Doctor. The theme appears to come to a head in what was the season's most (undeservedly) controversial story.

- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s

__________________​

Church groups have expressed concern at the news the new series of Doctor Who will contain a story set in the First Century which deals with early Christians. Martyn Ghal, of the pressure group Stop Anti-Christian Media expressed dismay. "This is the history of a group of people who are constantly misrepresented in the media and is not the kind of thing that should be picked up by a science-fiction show for entertainment". The Doctor Who production office said that the story would be handled with sensitivity and that the writer, Kelvin Maugham, was a practicing Catholic himself. The new series will begin in October with Selina Cadell as the famed Timelord.

- Daily Mirror, April 3rd 1998

__________________

Private Eye cartoon, April 1998
__________________
​

"Yes, me being a believer meant it was going to be a sensitive and sympathetic story. However, the idea first occurred to me as a kind of joke. I thought wouldn't it be interesting to have a historical called Doctor Who And The Christians? I still sort of wish we'd actually called it that."

- Kelvin Maugham, convention appearance, 2006

__________________​

In the story The Sign The Doctor and Linda encounter a group of early-Christians hiding from Roman soldiers. Linda makes a case that this is an opportunity to derail Christianity at its outset, she then lists the wars and inquisitions that could be prevented. The Doctor refuses to countenance such an idea. In a way, the conflict at the heart of The Aztecs is replayed, but with the added frisson that the religion being discussed is one that is still adhered to by millions, including millions of Doctor Who viewers. And then we get that scene.

- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s

__________________​

The Doctor: I can't just go around upending the faith of all the Christians at this time and assume that I've prevented Torquemada or any other brutal zealotry done in the name of their god. To do that I'd have to manage the timelines, constantly having to make sure that the right action leads to the right reaction. I would become a god myself and everyone would lose their free will.

Have you ever wondered why my people are content to simply observe the timeline and not get involved? They're scared of the same thing I am, becoming the only beings in all of time with any agency. I can't quite bring myself to do what they do. I can't stand by when people need help. But I can only handle the problem that's before me as best as I can in the hope I don't break history. I can help that group of people who are being pursued by an empire that wants them dead. It's a fact that there will come a day that other empires will be born claiming to subscribe to the same beliefs, but that's not something I can worry about right now. Yakov, his family and friends need help and I will give it to them.

If their god really is out there, I can't tell you why it would let good things happen to bad people. But I can explain why I do. Facing the options of uncaring observer or the only true force in time, I've messily tried to navigate the middle, like a unicyclist who hasn't had quite enough practice. I'm trying to do as much good as I can, but sometimes it's not possible or I just fail. I'm not a god, I'm just a man. [looks down and sees female form] And I can't even get that right.

- Doctor Who, The Sign by Kelvin Maugham, BBC1 December 5th

__________________​

And that seemed to be the answer to the question.

But it isn't.

The series isn't over. The question is going to be asked again and it's going to hurt.

- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s

With thanks to Tyler Adams of the wonderful Goon Pod for the brilliant Private Eye cartoon

 

[Guajolote]

This is a shorter chapter than usual, but I think it's better I leave one bit of info at the end hanging before continuing.

In their Discontinuity Guide Vol 2 Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping had to create a new subsection for the 1998 series "Deliberate Inconsistencies".

At first, there were letters to DWM about how the new series wasn't respecting continuity when it made incorrect references to past adventures. Then a few more attentive viewers noticed there were then things being said that contradicted the contradictions. Then The Doctor mentions the Brigadier retiring in 1992 under something of a cloud. But in episode 1, she'd said he was still in active service and had attained the rank of General.

The episode The Cowboy In Trafalgar Square explains things in terms of time disruptions that cause the sudden appearance of anachronistic things in Britain in 1998, not least the aforementioned cowboy who appears in Trafalgar Square, horse and all. While Robin Nedwell's accent isn't the greatest, he has a wonderful chemistry with Selina Cadell and Camilla Power. I don't think I was the only one who was hoping that he might become a new companion or a recurring character like Max Bolton (PI)…

AND THEN

While The Doctor and company have been chasing anachronisms and spouting temporal physics, a few more contemporary items have appeared out of nowhere. Confidential documents that topple political careers, cause the UK's foreign relations to sour and generally make Britain look foolish. The show then looks at its main character and launches a strange, meta-fictional attack, delivered by Robin Nedwell without any kind of American accent, wobbly or otherwise.

The Cowboy: Why have you spent so much of this decade away from your second home? I like to keep abreast of events, so I noticed all that messy business in Los Angeles and I just knew that had to be you. But then I looked back at your timeline before that. You haven't been around here since about 1992. You deserted Old Blighty in the 90s and I saw that left me a new canvas to paint on. I wanted you to be here to see my masterpiece, so I thought a few "time disruptions" would get your attention. I call this "the decline and fall of the British Empire". And all this is before the world finds out every picture in the National Gallery is a fake!

The Doctor: It's you!

The Cowboy: Of course it's me! Sorry, didn't I make it easy for you by calling myself Mr Abbott? Or maybe an anagram, Ken Moth, Tom Henk? Or perhaps I should have just made it obvious and run around in a habit and keep calling myself The Monk. Anyway, it's too late. I've ruined your pet country and you've only yourself to blame. By the way, before I go, I had some little hand in helping UNIT shape its policies after I convinced them to put Brigadier Knight out to pasture. They're a bit hostile to you now. I've told them where to find your TARDIS, I imagine it'll be impounded by now. Bye!

And that had been why we'd seen inconsistencies. It's also why The Sign had a strange little scene about other Time Lords approach to the web of time, with particular mention of The Monk. It was an arc. Why can't The Doctor change some things? No reason at all says The Meddler. But we still have three episodes left in the season, so it's not going to end there.

AND THEN

Linda is killed.

- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s

 

[Guajolote]

"I had to novelize that story. Given the direction of the books at the time, I could be sure another writer wouldn't take those scenes in the opposite direction."

Graham Ardwyne, Convention appearance, 2009

__________________​

In the 80s, particularly in comics, there'd been a vogue for deconstruction. Looking at popular stories, particularly ones that appealed to children and adolescents and holding them to the standards of higher forms of literature or even real life. Alan Moore's Watchmen being the gold standard of this kind of thing.

But after deconstruction should come reconstruction. After his Watchmen, Moore was called upon by DC to reconstruct Superman after various other writers had followed Frank Miller's lead an deconstructed him until the character was useless. The whole dark age of comics seemed to be spreading into other genre properties and there was a general desire to make out "this is not you father's" whatever. Everybody's trying to reinvent things for the new century and in most cases, that meant "darker".

Then we get cases like Batman. Batman was reconstructed without really being deconstructed. The Spielberg films had explored Batman's tragedies but also his triumphs. Harrison Ford played Bruce Wayne as troubled and driven, but a man whose plan to save the city was audacious rather than insane. As a result, Batman didn't get a big deconstruction in the comics. DC ringfenced him from the rest of the comics culture, lest someone mess up what Hollywood had managed to do.

The Doctor was arguably in the same class as Batman, reconstructed without deconstruction. Every change of production team and actor saw the show being re-evaluated. Linda's death on the surface looked like it was part of that deconstructionist dark age thing, but it turned out very, very different.

To begin with, the way it was handled was less brutal than the two companion deaths in the 60s. We just saw the barn, knew Linda was inside and then it was blown up by a Silurian.

Bear with me, I'm going to break down two episodes of Doctor Who that you could watch for yourself. But I want to highlight every little thing that's building to the end of Season 30.

Season 30, episode 12 might just be the worst set of circumstances that The Doctor has ever been through. TARDISless, hunted and still somehow trying to negotiate a peace between humans and Silurians, even though one of the latter species has killed The Doctor's friend. A peace is negotiated, the Silurian who killed Linda is offered to The Doctor for killing and The Doctor, normally the champion of life, doesn't really know if she wants to kill the Silurian or not. She shakes her head and gasps "Just take him away. Lock him up." The Silurians withdraw and The Doctor is left alone. In a blur, UNIT return the TARDIS to The Doctor for preventing a massacre, but advise her to steer clear of Earth. So The Doctor goes inside the TARDIS and…nothing. She just stares at the console for an age and then flicks at the controls without much enthusiasm.

All that leads us to The Doctor on a hillside in the Lake District "some time before the invention of climbing boots" so she can be alone. Leaning on a rock, reading a book in some unearthly language. For a moment, on first viewing, I was expecting the credits to roll slowly and the series to end there. Except, in my shock, I'd miscounted. There's one episode left, so I realized there had to be a cliffhanger. There was.

- Andrew Barbicane, Dimensions Of Doctor Who blog, July 2017

__________________​

"You ran away." The voice of The Meddler was not a welcome sound. The Doctor had to admit, she was a little surprised that he would stoop this low.
"I never thought you were actually evil, not like some of the others I've had to deal with. Amoral, maybe, but to follow me here and mock me over the death of a friend…"
"I'm not mocking you. I'm trying to make you see. Your way isn't moral, it's just fussy. Go back and get Linda. Pluck her from the timeline. You and the Time Lords have entirely the wrong idea. The people inside the timeline don't suffer if we change history. They don't notice. The changes change them. The new history we make is the way things have always been as far as they can tell."
"They don't consent. You rob them of free will."
"It's not the same for them. They don't feel it like we do. That's our gift."
The Doctor said nothing. She clearly felt it useless to argue.
The Meddler scowled at what he perceived as a form of piety. He shouted "Come out now! Tell The Doctor what you think of her 'morality'."
A figure emerged from the boulder that was the Meddler's TARDIS.
"Doctor?"
"Linda?"

- novelization of A Broken History by Graham Ardwyne

__________________​

I haven't mentioned the novelizations yet. As fandom grew up, the novelizations of TV stories started to turn from children's books into Young Adult books. Things hinted at onscreen started to be dealt with in depth in the books and the envelope was pushed about what was acceptable to go out under the Doctor Who brand. Authors who came up through fandom were called on when the original scriptwriter of a TV adventure passed on the chance to novelize the story. These books became the setting for all kinds of fan theories and even fan battles to play out. Hand in hand with this approach was a somewhat adolescent tendency to appear deeper and more grown-up than the TV adventures. Inelegant plotting, such as companion departures that were a little hasty, were treated as ethical failings on the part of The Doctor. This resulted in lots of scenes being given over to companions remonstrating with The Doctor, perhaps as surrogates for the authors who were biting back at the "children's show" that obsessed them. It struck me as inevitable that this would end up being picked up by the TV series.

All this meant that, as jawdropping as that cliffhanger was, I knew what was coming next. Linda would give a speech about how The Doctor had let her down and how could she let her die and…

Obviously, that didn't happen.

- Andrew Barbicane, Dimensions Of Doctor Who blog, July 2017

__________________​

Linda said "Take me away from here," and walked into The Doctor's TARDIS. The Meddler tried to catch The Doctor's eye, to register his disgust at her self-righteousness, but The Doctor just gazed after Linda.

Inside the console room, The Doctor quietly entered, prepared for some kind of outburst from her friend.
"Can he hear us in here? That man. The Cowboy or whatever."
"No. Linda, I…"
"You're not going to take me back to die are you?"
"No, what's happened has happened. You weren't in that barn when it blew up. That's a fact now."
"I'm glad to be alive, but…I'm more on your side than his. You explain why you do what you do. That guy just does it and expects a round of applause."
For the first time in what felt like a long time, The Doctor smiled.

- novelization of A Broken History by Graham Ardwyne

__________________​

That scene drew some criticism in some fanzines at the time. There was a feeling it made The Doctor too powerful and to do that was to make The Doctor "patrician". Yeah, there was a lot of Sixth Form politics going around at the time. The Doctor was middle-aged and clever and some fans felt The Doctor needed to be put in her place by young people. Like the 60s,perceived Britain had a broadly progressive, left-wing government so the urge to be anti-establishment seemed to turn on how unfair it was to be governed by people who didn't read the NME. Maybe I'm being grumpy.

But the fact remains that there was a growing gap between Doctor Who the television series produced by the BBC and Cinema Verity watched by millions of people and Doctor Who, the pop cultural property that thousands of people had grown up with and made an essential part of their view of the world. The fandom that was writing and buying the novelizations. The fandom that was dead-set on deconstructing The Doctor, even as the TV series was setting out why that wasn't necessary, why The Doctor saved some people and not others.

You don't need to know how the rest of the story ends, do you? Just watch it, the solution isn't brilliant, but it holds together. The important part is that it ends with The Doctor and Linda exhausted, but still friends and looking for somewhere to chill out for a while.

- Andrew Barbicane, Dimensions Of Doctor Who blog, July 2017