The Man From Gallifrey: A Colin Baker Redux

This TL will rewrite the Colin Baker years. No Trial, no abrasive character traits and a lot less violence. Also without that bloddy stupid multicoloured outfit!

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You need to get rid of John Nathan Turner, first. The Multicolor Coat was his idea as was the 6th Doctor abrasive Character.
I have no idea who be a good choice to replace Turner.
 
The Sixth Doctor is in many ways the most un-impressive of all his incarnations. Dressed in a dark sombre suit and tie he doesn't stand out as much as his previous selves. He is a very jaded, world weary individual who questions his place in the universe. As he says to Peri:

"I've spent 5 lifetimes trying not just to defeat evil but to understand it and just as I think I've grasped the concept of evil, it changes and when it changes as many times as I've seen it happen then it makes me so disenchanted"

This melancholy however doesn't affect his moral stance. He knows evil must be destroyed.

There is something else. Something mysterious. Its as if this Doctor is fated to be something more than just a timelord...

NEW TARDIS CONTROL ROOM:
7ec09cebb4a117d4f2b04628a71ab9c1--console-alternative.jpg
 
OK well lets manipulate the future and make Andrew Cartmel Editor in 1984.
In 1984 Cartmel is working for Shape Data Flow as a Graphic Programmer. At best He done one or two unmade scripts but he has no connection to any one in the BBC at that Time.
So Sorry that will not work.
 
The Sixth Doctor is in many ways the most un-impressive of all his incarnations. Dressed in a dark sombre suit and tie he doesn't stand out as much as his previous selves. He is a very jaded, world weary individual who questions his place in the universe. As he says to Peri:

"I've spent 5 lifetimes trying not just to defeat evil but to understand it and just as I think I've grasped the concept of evil, it changes and when it changes as many times as I've seen it happen then it makes me so disenchanted"

This melancholy however doesn't affect his moral stance. He knows evil must be destroyed.

There is something else. Something mysterious. Its as if this Doctor is fated to be something more than just a timelord...

NEW TARDIS CONTROL ROOM:
View attachment 470554
So far so good.
I like the Tardis Control Room. Is that your work?
 
Ok so lets bring back Philip Hinchcliffe as editor
The control room is just a picture I found online.
 
I’m liking the parallels with OTL’s Cartmel Master Plan.

This is a fascinating thing to do, probably the most interesting time to change Doctor Who when it had hit its peak and was about to begin its downfall. I like what you’ve done in changing the mood, the costume, the character to something akin to the McCoy years but I wonder what else. Is JNT still producer? I’m not one one of his detractors; my views are more nuanced. But he was “persuaded to stay” several years too long. No one should have stayed in the producer’s chair as long as he did.

How about Saward as script editor? I tend to find him overly fond of antiheroes, ‘80s cynicism and dangling plot threads and not sufficiently fond of the Doctor as a character or what he stands for. I’d get rid of Saward ahead of JNT.

Beyond the show itself there’s still Michael Grade, who still hated the show, and the fact that something had to give to fund the embryonic EastEnders. Will you change anything at the level of the Beeb itself? Bear in mind it’s not just Michael Grade at the upper echelons of the Been who hated the show; as the sole remaining show in the archaic format of 26 episodes per season, a series of serials, it was seen as very old fashioned.

So many ways this could go. Count me in!
 
All stories 4 x 25 mins each (No post regenerative amnesia B/S)


1. Stasis
The Doctor and Peri are coming to terms with both his regeneration and the auto-reconfiguration of the TARDIS when they receive a strange signal on the chronometric spectrum. The Doctor is puzzled "that isn't normal" he tells Peri

The Tardis lands on a research ship orbiting a black hole. Seized by security they are taken to the bridge. They are informed that the ship is experimenting with traveling through a black hole. The ship's captain Baxter (David Daker) is angered by the interlopers but when the Doctor informs him that they picked up the signal he is intrigued and orders their release.

Taken to the canteen The Doctor continues to be impressed with Baxter's efforts. He tells Peri that the Timelords never experimented with blackholes due to their inherent danger Baxter's team could be the first to achieve faster interstellar travel.

One of the ship's technicians are maintaining the ship's systems. Suddenly he feels a huge pulling sensation. Its the last thing he feels.

The screams of the technician echo throughout the ship. The Doctor and Peri are the first to the scene. The technician is found on the ground frozen solid.

A post mortem is carried out on the body but to no conclusion. Peri suggests to Baxter that the experiment be called off. Baxter refuses saying the technician's death is a tragedy but to call off the experiment would be wrong.

The Doctor initially enthused by the experiments becomes despondent. He questions why do people bother trying to progress when all it does is lead to death. Peri cheers him up and then asks him how he thought the technician died.

The Doctor is unsure. There was no sudden drop in temperature and all the systems were normal...then he realises something. He remembers the signal the TARDIS picked up. He explains that that signal was an imbalance. Its as if something was pulling space itself.

Later that night The Doctor and Peri sneak into the ship's computer banks. Using the sonic screwdriver The Doctor copies information from the banks and then set off back to the TARDIS. 2 stun shots stop them.

Coming to in a cell The Doctor and Peri are confronted by Baxter who demands to know why they were in the banks. The Doctor counters by saying he knows why the technician died.

"You're not trying the travel through the black hole. You're trying to pull whatever is on the other side to here. That's why the technician died. The time distortion locked him into a distortion that he couldn't handle"

Baxter coldheartedly replies that the true aim of the experiment is to punch through black holes to provide instant travel. The Doctor warns him that the chronometric forces would kill anyone who tried like the technician.


Baxter says he is now ready to perform the final experiment. He leaves the Doctor and Peri with the guards.

Back on the bridge Baxter orders the final experiment to begin. A huge beam emanates from the ship and starts to penetrate the black hole. The whole ship is buffeted by a gravity wave and is slowly pulled towards the hole.

The Doctor and Peri overcome the guards and race to the bridge to stop Baxter. But its too late. The gravity wave has locked the controls. The Doctor orders the ship's crew to get to the TARDIS. As they dematerialise they watch the ship with Baxter pulled into the black hole.

Later on after they have deposited the crew safely. The Doctor and Peri ruminate on why people are prepared to do such things. Its not a question they can answer.
 
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Interesting not only that the new Doctor arrives fully formed and seems to get some character development but that we get a story which breaks the rules in having no traditional “monsters” and appears quite budget-conscious.
 
Glad you're liking it so far. This TL will have a mixture of the darker nature of Hinchcliffe's first tenure and the social commentary of the Pertwee years. The "monsters" will be different...perhaps in ways that will be surprising

David Daker as Baxter:
david-daker-photo-u1.jpg
 
You need to get rid of John Nathan Turner, first. The Multicolor Coat was his idea as was the 6th Doctor abrasive Character.
I have no idea who be a good choice to replace Turner.
And Grade.
Removing JNT could be easy, his sexual activities come to the notice of the gutter press, for example. Preferably after Grade does horribly.
 
2. Full Fathom Five
The Doctor and UNIT encounter the Hydrax. An aquatic-based lifeform who have been living in hibernation off the north sea for millennia and have been awoken by deep sea drilling. UNIT under the command of Brigadier Bambera (Angela Bruce) are a more combative team which dismays the Doctor and leads to him openly fulminating against humanity's propensity for violence.

The Doctor is able to stop the war between the races after 2 people were killed. The Hydrax are reinterred in their chambers and the government agree to leave the area alone.

Before the TARDIS leaves the Doctor lambasts Bambera saying that she may be a brigadier but she has a lot to learn about being a brigadier.
 
Seems to be going in an updated Pertwee direction not only in the echoes of The Silurians but in a more noticeable political subtext. This Doctor seems to be setting himself against the mid-Eighties zeitgeist.
 
Exactly. The 80's were very political but in a very different way to the 70's. This TL will be very political but more "in your face".
 
Moonshot
The Doctor and Peri land at the Kennedy space centre in 1969 and uncover a soviet plot to destroy the Eagle lunar lander and the command ship by detonating two bombs. Discussions abound about capitalism and communism. Peri recalls a story about she and her father watched Armstrong land on the moon. Several months later he was dead from cancer.

The duo succeed in foiling the plot and The TARDIS dematerialises from the dark side of the moon seconds before Armstrong sets foot on the moon
 
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