Doctor Who (19 page)

This season featured the Black Guardian trilogy, in which the cosmic villain who had chased after the Key to Time came back for revenge, recruiting a young student named Vislor Turlough to kill the Doctor. The boy failed but joined the TARDIS, the Black Guardian forcing him to try again. By the end of the trilogy, the Doctor realized the truth and that the young man had been coerced. The hero offered him forgiveness and Turlough remained on the TARDIS while Nyssa found a new life as a physician in Earth's future. Though the idea of a hidden enemy aboard the TARDIS was appealing initially, many felt that extending this sub-plot for weeks and weeks greatly diminished the threat. Even Mark Strickson, who played the role, later said that the plot didn't sustain well across such a large portion of the season.

Davison was also growing more impatient with the filming of the show. He believed that the TARDIS crew members were being written as characteristics rather than fully realized characters. Rehearsal time tightened, and the directors sometimes rushed through filming. In one case, Davison recalled a time when they skipped rehearsal for one scene altogether, and
he was filmed walking into an area without properly arranged lighting, leaving him quite literally in the dark.

Season nineteen also had budget concerns, sacrificing two episodes to fund
K-9 and Company,
a spin-off pilot JNT hoped would become its own show. Starring Elisabeth Sladen and John Leeson, the story featured Sarah Jane now having strange adventures on her own. At her side was K-9 Mark III, sent to her special delivery from the Doctor. The pilot failed to generate interest and Sladen often joked later that the end result was a little embarrassing.

Eric Saward also had difficulty with JNT. The script editor wanted to bring back a little of the old humor and suggested recruiting Robert Holmes, as he had written some of the most famous stories and had established much of the Time Lord mythos. But JNT resisted both ideas, feeling they would regress the program rather than push it forward.

Figures dropped again. Some viewers were confused by the many references to events depicted on the show years ago. Omega hadn't been seen or even mentioned in almost a decade, so his sudden return didn't seem all that dramatic to viewers under ten. (Although reruns were now broadcast, this was still when people caught them by chance and couldn't call up episodes via a streaming service.) A grim tip of the hat occurs in the season finale story “The King's Daemons,” when the Doctor remarks that the Master isn't performing up to his usual standards.

Perhaps the biggest proof of how odd the program had become was the introduction of a new character in “The King's Daemons”: the shape-­shifting android Kamelion. First seen as a tool of the Master's, Kamelion was freed from the villain's control and joined the TARDIS. While JNT thought K-9 was silly, an android was perfectly acceptable.

Behind the scenes, Kamelion wasn't an actor in a suit. It was a real mechanical device that John Nathan-Turner had decided to use in the show. Unfortunately, the production team had a difficult time controlling the robot's movements and making sure his mouth moved in sync with recorded dialogue from actor Gerald Flood. For this reason, it was said that Kamelion preferred to stay on board the TARDIS. After his first appearance, he wasn't seen again until the Fifth Doctor's second to last adventure “Planet of Fire,” when the Master takes control of him once again, leading to the
android's destruction. Peter Davison was happy to be rid of the prop, even though he hadn't had to work with it often.

The Anniversary

JNT had to sacrifice part of the next season's budget in order to air a twentieth anniversary TV special. He convinced the BBC to broadcast the special in the anniversary month of November, putting it in between the twentieth and twenty-first season. He then negotiated with the Australian Broadcasting Commission to help fund it.

Saward once again approached Nathan-Turner about bringing back Robert Holmes, this time to write the anniversary special. After some discussion, JNT agreed to meet with the writer. Holmes, however, had his own reservations, not eager to reference too much past continuity that he himself hadn't established. He accepted the task, nonetheless, and began writing a script he entitled “The Six Doctors.” The title was a nod to an intended plot reveal that the First Doctor (played by Richard Hurndall) is actually a cyborg infiltrator sent by the Cybermen, a joke on the fact that viewers knew this wasn't the deceased William Hartnell.

But Holmes was having difficulty with the script and informed Saward that he didn't think it would work. The script editor understood and thanked Holmes for informing them ahead of time, suggesting that the writer might return to pen a different tale in the subsequent season. Saward then commissioned a new script from Terrance Dicks, who agreed on the condition that the story include neither Daleks nor a K-9. After Dicks began writing the script, JNT had him include a single Dalek and a cameo for K-9 Mark III.

Both Troughton and Pertwee agreed to return, though some negotiation took place with the latter actor, who wanted more money. Tom Baker refused to commit fully until he had read the script. Terrance Dicks gave the Fourth Doctor the strongest part on the justification that, while Peter Davison was the current Doctor, Baker was still the most popular. But Tom Baker finally declined. Rather than relay his decision by phone or mail, the actor met with Nathan-Turner in person to explain his reasons and wish the project well.

JNT had hoped that Colin Baker would return to reprise his role of Commander Maxil, but a schedule conflict prevented him. If the casting had gone according to plan, some wonder if JNT would have decided not to cast Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor later, the actor becoming fixed in viewers' eyes as a different Time Lord. Carole Ann Ford reprised the role of Susan for the first time in nineteen years. Ford and Davison hoped to address the emotions of the Doctor reuniting with his granddaughter after so long, both of them now very different people. But JNT nixed the story point, saying it was too much like a soap opera rather than a science fiction story, and fearing the familiarity between Davison and Ford could be mistaken for romance.

Filming didn't go smoothly, and the Doctors found it disappointing not to have more scenes together. JNT believed warring egos would cause problems and kept each Doctor separate for the most part. Davison later observed the silliness of this fear: “We're each our own Doctor.”

“The Five Doctors” was delayed by two days to air in cooperation with that year's charity broadcast of Children in Need. This didn't affect the broadcast schedule at PBS in Chicago, though, which aired the special on the actual anniversary date, November 23, 1983. As a result, “The Five Doctors” became the first of two
Doctor Who
adventures to air outside Britain first. (The other is the 1996 TV movie.)

Soon after accepting the role of the Fifth Doctor, Davison had run into Patrick Troughton, who advised him not to remain more than three years. After the experiences of the twentieth season, even the relative success of “The Five Doctors” didn't seem enough. Davison took Troughton's advice and didn't renew his contract. The next season would be his last.

Darker Days

“Oh, marvelous. You're going to kill me. What a finely tuned response to the situation.”

—Fifth Doctor, from “Frontios” (1984)

 

In the twenty-first season, JNT went for darker stories to increase viewer interest. “Resurrection of the Daleks” by Eric Saward depicted civilians
gunned down in the streets by policemen and had a higher body count than several action movies. To this day it retains the highest number of on-screen deaths for a
Doctor Who
adventure. Fittingly, the Doctor became more sarcastic over the course of this year.

The story has the Daleks' chief scientist, Davros, attempt to create a new Dalek race, a plot by the Dalek Supreme to infiltrate Gallifrey, yet another precursor to the Last Great Time War. At the story's climax, Tegan acknowledges the darker direction of the show, leaving the TARDIS because traveling with the Doctor is no longer fun and involves too much death.

After leaving the show, Janet Fielding became a theatrical agent and represented Paul McGann when he became the Eighth Doctor. She became an outspoken advocate of stronger women in television and film and criticized
Doctor Who.
After declining to participate in audio dramas for years, she had a change of mind in 2006 and has participated in multiple Big Finish adventures, reprising her role as Tegan.

After “Resurrection of the Daleks,” the next story, “Planet of Fire,” features Turlough's departure as he reunites with his father's people and finds a new home. The same adventure introduces Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown, an American college student studying botany. Played by Nicola Bryant, Peri was John Nathan-Turner's attempt to appeal to Americans just as he'd hoped Tegan appealed to Australian viewers—though in this case, the actor was actually British. Going for sex appeal, the show introduced Peri in a swimsuit and she sported various formfitting costumes for her adventures. Bryant was happy to take the role, her first professional part on television. She got along well with Davison, joking later that he was indeed an old soul like his Doctor and that he reminded her of her father.

Peri's first outing as an official companion came in “The Caves of Androzani” in 1984, Davison's final regular appearance as the Doctor. Along with the return of Robert Holmes as a scriptwriter, this story debuted former production assistant Graeme Harper as a director. To this day, fans speak glowingly of “The Caves of Androzani.” It had superb direction, a well-paced story, sharp dialogue, and a heroic sacrifice in the end. Harper's much more hands-on approach and Holmes's writing impressed Davison instantly, and the show's lead said later that he would have happily stayed another year if this was how episodes were filmed.

As happy as he was with his final adventure, Peter Davison has often pointed out (with laughter) that the camera angle during his final moments meant that one of his favorite performances was upstaged by Nicola Bryant's cleavage.

Keeping Busy

“I still do that, the voice thing, I got that from you. . . . 'Cos you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor.”

—The Tenth Doctor to the Fifth, from the mini-episode “Time-Crash” (2007)

 

Davison continued to appear in various television shows and stage productions and joined the show's thirtieth anniversary charity special, “Dimensions in Time.” In 2007, he played King Arthur in the London production of
Spamalot
and starred alongside his daughter, Georgia Moffett, in
Fear, Stress, and Anger.
In 2007, he also returned to
Doctor Who
in the mini-episode “Time Crash.”

“It was a very cleverly written piece,” Davison said. “It was about the Tenth Doctor remembering being the Fifth Doctor but also about David Tennant remembering watching me on TV. . . . A funny thing about ‘Time Crash' was that David was surprised at some of what [writer] Steven [Moffat] pointed out in it. He joked that he hadn't realized he sometimes resembled me with some of his behavior and the ‘brainy-specs' we both wear. I was just happy to fit into the old suit—I'm larger now. David's foolish for buttoning his jacket up all the time. When he comes back years from now to meet a future Doctor and he's larger, he'll regret that. . . . I'd be happy to show up for the fiftieth anniversary as well, if they'll have me.”

15

A Volcanic Experience

“Change, my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon.”

—The Sixth Doctor to Peri, from “The Caves of Androzani” (1984)

 

Born in London during World War II, Colin Baker studied to be a lawyer but changed course at twenty-three, enrolling at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art—despite his father's disapproval of the profession. Throughout the '70s and early '80s, he made regular TV appearances, including an episode of Terry Nation's
Blake's 7.
Following his regular role on
The Brothers,
he found TV jobs lacking and went back to theatre. He said in an interview for
Timeless
#3, “That's the trouble with TV series: They tend to restrict your future employment. So I did a lot of touring. . . . I was pretty constantly employed, I'm pleased to say.”

Colin Baker had considered asking his agent to try getting him the role of the Fourth Doctor when he'd heard Jon Pertwee was leaving but decided against it. When Tom Baker was leaving the role seven years later, Peter Davison was announced before anything could be done.

He had been quite excited to join “Arc of Infinity,” later telling
Timeless
:

 

I've never been one to regard a small part as a small part. So this guy Maxil struck me as the most important person in the show . . . and at the end of it, John Nathan-Turner said to me . . . ‘This isn't about Maxil the guard, it's about the Doctor. . . . Could you tone down the reactions, please, and the acting in the background?' Ha ha! But because of that, when Peter Davison said a few months later that he was going to leave, JNT thought of me for the part of the Doctor. So it paid off in the end!

 

Colin Baker became the first actor cast as the Doctor who had already appeared on the show in a different role. Also unlike the previous Doctors, he was a dedicated science fiction fan, counting Ursula le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, and Frank Herbert among his favorite authors. In 1984, he told
Doctor Who Bulletin,
“After the recording [of ‘The Caves of Androzani'], I went home, got out of my car, opened my front door, walked in to where my wife was sitting watching television, and stood there and said, ‘I am the Doctor.' She looked at me and said, ‘Oh, yes? Could you take the rubbish out, please?' ”

As is often the case in
Doctor Who,
he was told to keep his casting a secret until the announcement went out. During our chat at New York Comic-Con, Colin Baker said, “John Nathan-Turner and I were at a pub, and Peter Davison showed up purely by chance. JNT was so determined to keep me a surprise, I needed to pretend we hadn't been talking about
Doctor Who.
I had to make up some story instead of saying, ‘Yes, I'm the next Doctor.'”

When Davison did find out that Colin Baker was taking the role, he played a joke by warning Nicola Bryant to be wary. On meeting Baker, Bryant proceeded with caution at first but quickly realized that the man was friendlier than his Doctor would be.

Building the Sixth Doctor

“Oh, Doctor. If that coat is an example of their top-of-the-range raiment, I'm not surprised they're exclusive. I imagine you are their only customer.”

—Evelyn Smythe to the Sixth Doctor, from the audio drama
Real Time
(2002)

 

Not surprisingly, John Nathan-Turner first wanted to establish how the Sixth Doctor would dress. Colin Baker didn't wish to appear native to a specific period of Earth's history nor some imagined future. Initially, he suggested something in black, more akin to the Master or the First Doctor. JNT suggested instead that the Sixth Doctor wear a costume in “very bad taste.” Colin Baker agreed, imagining several items thrown together without a care if they clashed.

Initially costume designer Pat Godfrey came back with what Colin Baker later described as an interesting and “exquisitely tasteful design of lots of apparently clashing colors.” But JNT deemed it “too good,” so she was asked to redesign it, resulting in a patchwork, multicolored coat that she personally found appalling. Along with this, the Sixth Doctor wore bright yellow trousers, a bright waistcoat, a long floppy polka-dotted bow tie, and the now-familiar question mark shirt. Colin Baker often commented later that the costume kept him warm in cold locations at least, and wearing it meant he didn't have to look at it himself.

Some have remarked the Sixth Doctor's costume accurately reflected pop culture of the time. As Russell T. Davies said in the documentary
Doctor Who: A New Dimension,
“If you go back and see photographs of yourself in the '80s, they're absolutely terrible, and we all look shocking. And there's Colin Baker in the loudest, most colorful, most 1980s fashion you could have.” In a 1987 interview with Michael Sibley, Colin Baker said, “I did keep saying that I wanted to change the costume, but it's a large expense, unfortunately. John liked it as it was and so was not prepared to waste money, as he saw it. They did let me have new waistcoats and ties, just in order to make the timescale clear. I had a different tie and cat button in each of the different time zones.”

The cat button on his lapel, which the Sixth Doctor occasionally touched for luck, was Colin Baker's personal addition. As he explained in an interview for this book, “There's that work by Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Cat That Walked by Himself,' and there's a repeated line, ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.' I thought,
Well, that's rather like the Doctor, isn't it?
I still like that bit because it hints at the Doctor's nature. The rest of the costume doesn't; it gives you the wrong message about what kind of man he is and what kind of program it is.

“I wanted the Doctor to be alien and complicated,” he added. “He'll fight for good and the weak, but he won't always react as we think a typical hero would. If he acts too human, why bother making the character a Time Lord with a mysterious past? He's irascible, argumentative, and impatient with people. He doesn't think to take an extra moment to be polite. ‘Don't bother me with social graces, I have evil to fight.' But he can be disturbed by certain types of destruction and loss. . . . I was contracted for three
years initially, and, since I mentioned it would be nice to peel layers of the character, John Nathan-Turner agreed and thought I should start off very unpredictable, rather like William Hartnell, and slowly over many stories my Doctor would become more heroic, maybe more mellow. That suggestion of unpredictability wound up turning into this idea that I would have moments of madness during my very first story.”

Rather than have the Sixth Doctor's debut adventure begin the next season, Nathan-Turner decided to air his first story immediately after Davison's departure. He feared that the nine months before the twenty-second season began was too long for viewers to wait and they might not care enough to come back to the show. JNT put out the word that he and Eric Saward were accepting submissions for the Sixth Doctor's first adventure. The accepted script was from Anthony Steven, who had previously written episodes for
All Creatures Great and Small, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,
and TV adaptations of classic literature.

Colin Baker revealed his Doctor's new costume to the press in January 1984. Production for his first full adventure, “The Twin Dilemma,” began weeks afterward and later than intended, due to a labor dispute. Though he enthused for the shoot and the press, Colin Baker was dealing with a personal tragedy. A month earlier, his two-month-old son, Jack, had died of sudden infant death syndrome.

Strange Beginning

The Fifth Doctor had suffered mental complications and bursts of amnesia in the hours following his regeneration. Nathan-Turner suggested doing this again for the Sixth Doctor but in a more extreme way. In “The Twin Dilemma,” the Doctor is pleased with his new form and persona. Peri protests that the previous incarnation had been sweet, which the Doctor finds annoying, saying that he never cared for that version of himself.

Despite a brief anxiety attack, the Doctor seems well enough. But suddenly he attacks Peri, convinced she's an enemy, then backs away in fear at the sight of his own reflection. The Time Lord bursts into laughter and then forgets the whole event moments later.

JNT believed the Sixth Doctor's fits of madness would sharply contrast his regeneration with the Fifth Doctor's, who seemed lost and frightened at first. But in the case of “Castrovalva,” fans not keen on the timid, amnesiac Fifth Doctor only had to wait until the end of the story to see him grow into a more stable and assertive character. That wasn't the case for Colin Baker, who was still abrasive and possibly unstable by story's end. This, along with his bad attitude toward his companion and the fact that he had mocked the Fifth Doctor only a week after the heroic sacrifice in “The Caves of Androzani,” left many viewers with a bad first impression that they would be stuck with for nine months. Insult further compounded injury when, right before the credits rolled, the Sixth Doctor declared: “Whatever else happens, I am the Doctor—whether you like it or not.”

Even if they didn't harshly criticize the new Doctor, many simply found “The Twin Dilemma” an uninteresting adventure. Some blamed this fault on writer Anthony Steven not having experience in science fiction, prompting Peter Moffat to request rewrites by Saward when he complained that parts of the story didn't make sense. Others look toward the many disagreements between Saward and Nathan-Turner over the direction. In any event, the damage was done and the next season already seemed shaky.

Off and Running

When the twenty-third season began, the Doctor was still suffering gaps in his memory. He was no longer violent with Peri, but still often impatient and insensitive.

The season continued the previous year's higher level of violence. In “Attack of the Cybermen,” the villains crush a man's hands, forcing him screaming to his knees as blood pours. The Doctor later uses a Cyberman gun to shoot the villains. These scenes shocked some, while others pointed out that Cybermen were meant to be vicious and the Doctor only grabbed the gun in self-defense when he had no means of escape.

In “Vengeance on Varos,” the TARDIS lands on a planet where reality TV forces people into deadly situations, the audience often voting on whether they live or die. The commentary on television violence and viewer
desensitization invited quite a lot of criticism, particularly when a person who attacked the Doctor falls into a pool of acid and the hero glibly says, “You'll forgive me if I don't join you.” Colin Baker defended that violence had always been a part of the show and that the Doctor had often caused the destruction of his enemies, even if he usually did it indirectly. The Third had used martial arts, while the Fourth used blow guns (“The Deadly Assassin”), took an enemy hostage with a bomb (“Destiny of the Daleks”), and even brandished a gun on rare occasions.

During this season, the format also changed so that stories now ran in two episodes of forty-five minutes rather than four episodes of twenty-five minutes. This changed the familiar pacing and allowed for only one cliffhanger in each story. The show's Saturday evening time slot also pitted it against ITV's broadcast of
The A-Team.
Along with this ratings competition, the system of measuring viewership also came into question. People now had access to VCR technology and could watch at their convenience rather than during fixed time slots.

The season continued with fights against Davros, the Daleks, the Master, and a Time Lord called the Rani, a woman with no scruples about using living subjects for her biological experiments. Meanwhile, the Doctor's relationship with Peri was shifting slowly, making them friends who bickered and teased each other. It may have been a shaky season for viewers, but Colin Baker considered it an incredible time in his life, confident that his hero would continue to develop nicely. He told several people that he intended to remain longer than Tom Baker.

The Dark Times Begin

“We could very well be stuck in a limbo of space and time.”

—The Sixth Doctor, from “Vengeance on Varos” (1985)

 

The BBC supported the show less and less as the 1980s progressed. The UK economy suffered from inflation, but the BBC didn't adjust the program's budget accordingly. During the late 1970s and early '80s, America had been releasing more and more science fiction shows and films with respectable budgets and production values. According to many, there was a growing
feeling at the BBC that science fiction was becoming an American genre, something their sensibility and their budgets couldn't match.

According to Colin Baker, “During the 1980s, not just at the BBC but also in much of Britain, there was an increasing embarrassment towards science fiction, that it was popular drama rather than legitimate drama. It's a ridiculous attitude since science fiction lets you explore any topic, social commentary, any aspect of humanity. . . . People were especially embarrassed by
Doctor Who
since on top of being science fiction it was really meant for kids. But that makes it important because children benefit greatly seeing a hero who wants to investigate and looks beyond the obvious. . . . My stories had violence absolutely, but many children's stories and fairy tales are scary, too. It makes the danger real and the hero important.”

The show also fell victim to Michael Grade, who became controller of BBC One in 1984, a position he held for roughly two years. He quickly caused controversy when he canceled broadcasts of the hugely popular US series
Dallas.
Some felt that he had done so to show that he was helming the ship now. The numerous and immediate protests from viewers prompted him to change his decision, however. But he said he still had to cancel a program to save money for production of a new drama. Many already knew that Grade didn't care for
Doctor Who,
and during an interview he referred to it as a terrible, tired old format past its prime and laughable when compared to science fiction stories such as
Star Wars
and
E.T.
Grade announced to John Nathan-Turner that
Doctor Who
was leaving the airwaves.