Tides of Time # 15 ------rom onnos

programme's core fans. Thanks to the OUDWS, of course, things have A look hock on 19805 Doctor changed. I still own only a few copies of actual stories, as I don't think I would ever organise my time sufficiently to watch them at the mo- Who from 1989 ancl 1994 ment. However, over the past five years, I have been able to see most of the series' episodes; in fact, I have TSEEMS very strange to be writing this article producer of the programme and ap- probably watched more Iafter what seems in some ways to have been a plying his very visible 'signature' to during my time at Oxford than at very brief decade. It can't, surely, be nearly ten Doctor Wbo as it emerged from the any other point in my life. years since the starburst title sequence and Peter 1970s. Now it looks like we are on Some of my assessments have Howell's rearrangement of the theme music her- the verge of a new era, with new changed since 1989, when my opin- alded the start of the 18th season of Ooc/or Who names behind 's future. ions were made up from impres- with The Leisure Hive, a story that, for all its Indeed, John Leekley, Peter Wagg sions left at different ages and the faults, was strikingly different to what had gone and the rest of Spielberg's creative judgements laid down from above before. The props may not have (hanged all that team at Amblin Entertainment ap- from the lights of Doctor Who fan- much, but Tom Baker was somewhat more with- pear to create a new Doctor Who dom. We all know now that there drawn, the incidental music had an altogether from the stones of the edifice the are many ways in which a story can more sophisticated quality, and, of course, the BBC neglected for so long, a build- be good and bad. The Leisure Hive titles and theme music had undergone a radical ing whose architecture was a mix- was not liked by the Heads of De- transformation. ture of various styles, sometimes partment at the BBC because direc- with little respect for what had gone tor Lovett Bickford spent more It seems even stranger to be retyping before, sometimes a loving recre- money on it than he was allowed to. the above almost five years after I ation of earlier work, but often mis- However, when I last saw it in 1992, first did so on myoid manual type- sing the crucial details incorporated I though it one of the more sophisti- writer. It's now over I-i years since by the previous custodians. cated Doctor Who stories produced: the 18th season of Doctor Wbo My perspective has changed too. the incidental music composed by began, and the beginning of what In 1989, I had seen very few old Peter Howell combining with a until very recently was the 'modem Doctor Wbo stories, and had never series of impressive visuals, such as history' of the series, John Nathan- had access to the pirate videos that the spacecraft docking sequence Turner first appearing as the were then the hard currency of the and the plant-like realisation of the Argolins, to create a believable world in which a languid society, centred around individual pleasure, fails to stop the evils of the past coming to surface again. Having said that, I do think the Foamasi would have been better wearing business suits, as in some of the original drawings, an image I believe that was rejected by the producer as too close to the self-conscious satirical allusions enjoyed by his prede- cessor, Graham WilIiams, in the seventeenth season.

Ah, yes. The decade suddenly lengthens consider- ably when I recoll that there was another story in 1980 before The LeiJlJre Hive. The Horns of Nimon, with its numerous shortcomings (ond I'm sure I needn't remind anyone of them), did have Tides of Time :t 15 '9 • • o envc -e quite on effect on some children a few years younger than I was at the time. For months oher the close of the story, the five-, six- and seven-year aids could regularly be seen stomping around my school playground with their hands attoched to their foreheads, fingers pointing at on angle of 45 degrees, declaiming such gems as, "Who dares disturb the Nimon?" or words to that effect. Unfortunately for their young fans, the consumption of worlds, society Since writing the above, I have seen the Production Unit Manager on that story, a Mr by society, planet by planet, a fa- more evidence to the reception of Nathan-Turner, wasn't keen on returning the vourite of the WilIi..amsera. Import- Doctor Who at the close of the Nimon as he was other creatures to have crossed antly, a lot of it is played with more 19705, and have thought about the the Doctor's path in the pas!. conviction than may of the stores problem of the mass audience deser- that John Nathan-Turner put out in tion of 1980 more. I subscribe to I have seen The Horns of Nimon the later 1980s. what I suspect is becoming a re- twice at OLDWS. and have enjoyed ceived opinion, that the audience it both times. It goes out of its way to were less than impressed by some of parody the cliches of Doctor Wbo The arrival of John Nathan-Turner as producer certainly sorted out the casual viewers from the the excesses of the seventeenth sea- that script editor Douglas Adams re- fans, and indeed the hard-core fanatics from the son, and the arrival of Buck Rogers portedly hated, but a number of fans regular Who watcher, among the nine- and ten- simply delivered the final blow, fol- thought should remain as necessary year aids of my area. The rival attraelion of the lowing in the wake of Star War as it elements in the drama whose hack- glossy, filmed BucK Rogers on ITV,coupled wtlh did, although I suspect Bucle Rogers neyed natures should not be pointed was more vulgar Uu.dgefor yourself out. Conidor scenes involving the revolutionary change in the programme's ap- pearance meant that only hardened addicts were - Buck Rogers is being repeated on Soldeed and later Romana and the watching by leisure Hive Part 3. I think that the BBC 2 on Mondays at 6 p.m. - Edl. Nimon are repeated, for example, Doctor "Who was to find itself fight- drawing the viewer's attention to the news that K9 would be departing was the last straw for many of my age group. I wasn't too ing against the perception that it repetitive nature of the series; the bothered about this - while most of my contem- couldn't compete with science fic- Doctor's 'all-knowingness' is under- poraries were only vaguely aware that at leas! tion films from the CS for the ensu- mined by both Romana and K9 at one ertor had played the Doelor before Tom ing decade. When Michael Grade various points as well, something Baker, I, as a Doclor Who Monthly reader, who himself expressed this view during that was then controversial, and was wrote a synopsis of each story after it was trans- the 1985-86 hiatus, the BBC were fa- disliked by John Nathan-Turner. It tally seen to endorse this view, even must be time for the Society to have mitted to form a supplement to The Making of Doctor Who, knew that the series had survived in though John Nathan-Turner's re- a look at this story soon [It comes up the past without K9. As we soon faund out it quest for more money so that the next year - Edl. The Nimon are was shortly to do without Tom Baker himse~. ' production theme could spend more simple and effective, and their threat, time and devote more of the BBC's resources to the programme had been consistently rejected. A difficulty with resisting the Star Wars legacy, was that both' Graham WilIiams and John Nathan-Turner visibly attempted to accommodate it. John Nathan-Turner did this by try- ing to make Doctor Wbo more vis- ually sophisticated, but within a few years the video effects and the el- egant costume designs (Foamasi and giant cacti not withstanding) had de- generated into a parade of CSO and brightly coloured, barely mobile alien races far worse than the bulk of the monsters created by the visual Tides 01 Time #: 15

although it is ~tjll :1 bonus. vlost of the time it copes well with the fact that money had largely run out by the time it went into production; Lo- gopolis the planet appcaring as frag- ile as the fabric of the universe that the computations of the Logopoli- tans were defending. The regener- ation is still my favourite, the most organic interpretation of the Doctor's periodic transformations. and the flashback sequence (the first of many to appear in the 1980s) for once is dramatically valid, the viewer . effects and costume departments in villain is rather late",-in the day, and being reminded how much the Doc- the 1970s. that discovery is reliant, in part 3, on tor's circumstances had changed Williams W:lS quoted in Doctor the audience remembering who the since the fourth Doctor had Wbo - 77JeUnfolding Text in 1983 Master is and what he looks like, struggled up from the UNIT lab as saying that the strength of Doctor and the make-up applied to floor, over six years ago. Who was that it was part of the Brit- Geoffrey Beevers is different to the ish tradition of character-led drama, mask worn by Peter Pratt in The 1981 was the year in which there were the most but he was a professional and, Deadly Assassin. Although the early Doctor Who repeats transmitted in the 1980s. anticipating R2D2, introduced K9 to reviews of the story referred to its The fact that the BBC repeated seven stories - appeal directly to the gadget-fasci- 'renaissance' theme, the look is far including four old ones in the BBC 2 Five hues nated child audience the tenors of more generally ancien regime than of Doctor Who season - has to be a factor in the Philip Hinchcliffe producership that: the Fosters are the stylised 18th the ratings success of the first Peter Davison see- might have been losing. But, to re- century peasants, and Trakenite so- son. Doctor Who is something of an acquired turn to the 1980s... ciety seems far from the ideal world laste. The magnetism of several weeks of Daleks, that the Consuls so devotedly de- coupled by the formal's originality, secured The news that 'Tristan' was to take over os the fend. Harmony for the 'Whoniverse' viewers in 1963 and 64 (and helped to introduce fihh 'Doctor Who' I think helped attract more of Christopher H Bidmead was the Patrick Troughton); they were held 10 the pro- viewers os the season progressed. I was quite cause of stagnation, breeding the gramme almost by the fact that it was broadcast fond of The Keeper of Troken at the time, until decay on which could almosl every single week of the year. In the era the sudden revelation of the Master os the chief feed. of nine-month gaps (1985·86 being something of villain in the plot sent it above Full (jrde as my An article by Philip McDonald in o special case) screening of repeats is vital to re- favourite story so faT. The ending, as the Doctor DW;\{ a couple of years ago argued mind the public that the programme still exists. and Adric leh, was puzzling, leaving the adver- that entropy was not just the theme The lack of repeats since 1984 bears at least tised new , , behind, and appar- of but the whole 18th sea- some responsibility for the low ratings that 00(- ently criminally wasting the brief appearance of son. Certainly The Keeper of Trahen tor Who has suffered since Season 23. the Master. The problem was solved by the Mas- is about social decay, the veneer of ter's regeneration - by its nature, one of the perfection obscuring the moral cor- One can go too far in pursuing the very few real 'horror' scenes in the series history ruption of the Trakenites. That it is absence of Doctor Who reruns as the - and the dovetailing into logopolis, a superb the Trakenite leader who is most lost cure for the programme's ills fol- end to the Baker era. 11 may be criticised as aware of the problems of his society, lowing 1985. The Five Faces of Doc- being incomprehensible to a large sector of the Tremas, who becomes the raw ma- tor Who helped weaken the viewing public, particularly as, aside from the terial for the Master'S regeneration at association of Tom Baker with the mathematics, it derived much from the pro- the end of the story leaves the role - a wise precaution if Peter gramme's post, but I stili find it on excellent viewer in a suitably pessimistic Davison was to successfully over- send-off and the regeneration scene remains my mood for Logopolis. come his predecessor's seven-year favourite of the six. I don't now think that Logopolis signature. A5 those who have read depends as much on a knowledge Marcus Hearn's articles on press I noticed I put 'Doctor Who' in of Who lore as I once thought, coverage of the programme in DWi\1 quotation marks there, when I was referring to the programme as the name of the lead character. I'm not sure if I would be so strict now- adays, now we know that there sev- eral uses of the name in the 1966/67 season; one way or another. Certain- ly, the orthodoxy of the 1980s was that the Doctor was just 'the Doctor', not 'Doctor Who', but it was only in 1982 that the character was de- scribed as such in the closing credits. I still like The Keeper of Traken, even though we learn who the Tides of Time # 15 .2,

uncorn promising action scenes, to- gether making 'serious' drama, un- like the allegedly 'juvenile and frivolous excesses of Tom Baker whe.. under the producership of Graharn Williams. Subsequent exposure to the di- verse fOlTI1oSf televised Doctor Who from the 70s has made this inter- pretation of the Pertwee and Tom Baker eras obsolete, and cast doubt on what Nathan-Turner was trying to do. 1 would suggest that when Nathan-Turner spoke of 'action -dra- ma' he was in fact thinking more i.n terms of his earlier background on All Creatures Great and Small, a series which avoided being serial melodrama like the soap operas, but at the same time, like its successors One by One on the BBC and Heart- beat on ITV, derived most of its ap-

;/'. .-.:. peal from human interest stories set low·..••..• ~-:-~~_ ""l" may have gathered, not even John at 5.20 p.m. (loo early for ~~4minS~~le slot to in specific times and locations. Nathan-Turner's publicity machine acting as a 'hook' 10 the evening's viewing) and He may have intended to com- could stop newspapers from ident- then 5.45 p.m. (opposite The A Team a phenom- bine elements of this with more ifying Tom Baker as the Doctor until enally successful programme which hod built up traditional aspects of the pro- well into Davison's time in the role its audience substantially during the 18 month gramme, such as technological hard- by which time the actor had alread; hiatus), and thence to the 'death slot' against ware, alien species and the rest, in signalled his intention to leave. (oronation Street for three years, has meant that order to create a new Doctor Who However, the idea that the public the production team have for some time been that Nathan-Turner believed could will flock back to showings of old unable to target the programme at a specific do well in the context of the early Doctor Who stories is a false one: the audience group. The ever-changing scheduling 80s, when the glossy American soap ratings for the screenings of The has meant that Dodor Who is no longer sacred. operas reigned supreme. Indeed, for Daemons in autumn 1992 were sig- It was still sacred enough in 1983 for the much of the decade, Nathan-Tumer nificantly lower than those of the BBCto sanction a 20th anniversary special, The was working on the BBC's answer to Gerry Anderson series and TIJe Man Five Dodors, after the 20th season proper. I was Dallas and Dynasty, Impact, along- from UNCLE which preceded it, and still dissatisfied with the 1983 stories. Arc of In- side Hazel Adair and Peter Ling, cre- not even Genesis of the Daleles, finity didn't work as an opener, fusing The ators not only of Compact, the 60s which followed The Daemons the Deadly Assossin, The Three Doctors and The series to which Impact was to be a following January, could improve Keeper of Traken into a cocktail heady for some sequel, but of the notorious the series' poor showing. At least fans, but failing to deliver for this one. I liked Crossroads. Planet of the Daleks, shown on BBC SnakeJance as tying up the loose ends from This interest of Nathan-Turner's 1 last autumn against Coronation Kinda and rescuing the Mora from that awful in human interest drama affected his Street, achieved figures comparable snake, and Enlightenment as a very intelligent producership of Doctor Who in a to the Sylvester McCoy seasons in and truly fantastic story, but Mawdryn Untfeatf variety of ways. Early on, he asked what had become BBC 1's schedul- failed for me beceuse of its undue dependence Johnny Byrne, series consultant of ing graveyard. The decline in the ap- on the show's history, with its use of the regen- All Creatures to be his script editor; peal of Doctor Who through the eration concept, resurrection of the Brigadier, Byrne refused, allowing Christopher 1980s affected not just the new epi- and so forth. logopolis drank the blood of Doc- H Bidrnead to come ill and add a sodes as they went out, but the older tor Who past and gained life; Mawtfryn was well much needed scientific and social stories which had begun with a ... undead. The Five Doctors lay somewhere be- awareness into the 18th season . strong hold on public affection. tween these two, reminding me now of many of When Bidmead left, John Nathan- the protracted TARDlS scenes during this time, Turner is alleged to have then in- 192 saw the Peter Davison era start in earnest such as Tegan's (supposed) leaving scene in The vited Ted Rhodes to succeed him. and saw - amid a fair amount of comment in: Visitotion - all a linle too cosy and damestic. Rhodes had been script editor of All ciuding a Guardian editorial - the translatio~ of Creatures but turned John Na- the programme to weekdays. While it worked in John Nathan-Turner used to talk of than-Turner's invitation down, in- the short term, anracting a large number of early in the 80s of Doctor Who as an stead becoming a senior officer on viewers from the still at that lime very popular 'action-drama' series. It was com- that ill-fated vessel. Triangle. Nationwide which preceded it, the change in day monly understood by fans at the More generally, as I noted in my from Saturday meant that the series was uplifted time that he was talking of a 'return' original article, early' 80s Who did from what was popularly seen as its roots and, to the Pertwee era as the collective become "cosy and domestic". Bid- furthermore, lost port of ils identity. The shifting fan memory comprehended it ten mead and Nathan-Turner had set up from Monday and Tuesday, to Tuesday and and more years ago, a series with a larger, more 'vulnerable' TARDIS Wednesday, to Thursday and Friday, to Saturday 'realistic' performances and crew by the end of the 18th season, 22 Tides of Time # 15

broken badge. hammering home the which is now a growing comme-rcial fact that the Doctor had had to pav a empire, Drearnwatch i\iedia,al1d has heavier price for this week's victory. not been a 'fanzine' for some years He. and the audience. had been re- now. DWASalso opposes the politi- minded that people die. Yet the de- cal origins of DWB. founded. as it mands of the programme's seems to have been, with the covert adventure format required that support of Ian Levine (uncr~dited Adric's death he all hut forgotten stOIY consultant from 1980 to 1986, when it came to the next stOIY,Time veteran fan, and intimate of John Flight. a dismal failure by common Nathan-Tumer during the early consent, and arguablv John Na- 1980s). which has turned it at times than-Turner's first major miscalcula- into a vehicle against Narhan-Turner, tion - a few scenes shot on as if he were a malicious demon Concorde does not additional whose purpose in life W:lS to destroy viewers make, particularly when the Doctor Wbo. Such an attitude reveals budget demands a large number of a poor understanding of the prob- studio exteriors inappropriate to the lems of producing a long-running story's ambitions. television programme in the chang- ing environment of the 1980s, and That year [1983] also saw my discovery of 'fan- perhaps a willingness by those who dom'. Having heard of DWAS, and having made know better to mislead the less cun- up my mind to join, I at last found their address ning fans of Doctor W7JO into think- (they were a much more secretive organisation ing that there are simple answers to in those days) in an issue of frontier Worlds - a problems way beyond the sphere of successful, but now defunct, fanzine - I had influence of even the most active bought at forbidden Planet in the year editor of a small magazine. and this was used to show character before, or more, to be precise, in a send up of interplay in a way that the series the DWAS newsletter, (eleslioJ Toyroom, rechris- I don't think that I was alone in drifting through hadn't done for some years. On the tened, for the occasion, The /ncestiol Boysroom. I the DoclDr Who of 1983, 1984 and into 1985 in down side, allusions to family back- recommend it to very (ex-) DWAS member totally a state of near-euphoria. Things may hove been grounds among the Davison com- fed up with their organisational skills.... wrong with the world, such os the African fam- panions didn't always work. The I was already buying the early DWB, and ine, but Doctor Who was an institution, bowed return of Tegan, looking for her kid- the contrast between it and were immense. and scraped to by BBC presenters, and seemed napped cousin in Amsterdam - and' a a claimed to be a 'news' publication, but its ad- likely 10 go on forever. Seven million viewers per in doing so walking casually in the vertising:copy ratio was heavily biased towards episode may not hove been the highest or most plot of - was a blow the former, stories being very rarely developed healthy figure, but the success of the programme to credibility; her visit to her grand- beyond one-liners. DWB started as a reaction to in America would guarantee the existing 26 epi- father in The Awakening the follow- this incarna1ion of it was only when got sodes a year at least, and nothing could go ing year made matters worse. Doctor eT; a its act together that DWB, over the next year, wrong, could it...? Who implicitly concerns people who took to its glossy, sensational format which has Good old Michael Grade changed that. have cut their ties with their back- elevated its circulation to several thousand. Suddenly, Dodor Who was an out-of-date chil- grounds, or who have had their ties dren's series, only fit to be smirked at or cut for them. Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, The warfare which resulted in the mocked. Most non-fans I knew thought that the and indeed Turlough, were all tra- competition between DWB and programme was finished. Although I think there velling with the Doctor partly be- DWAS has always struck me as sad was little doubt that the show would remmeriol- cause their home ties had been and unnecessary. It is probably a re- ise on our screens, there were a few nervous destroyed in some way, and to have sult of the mass-marketing of Doctor moments during that 18 month postponement, Tegan return to visit relatives dam- Wbo as a cult, which reached its some of which were justified, such as the aged this carefully constructed 'or- height after 1983, which has dragged phanage' of which the Doctor was an inflated, but confused, fan body not the orphan, merely the senior r'~=~~-' in its wake. DWAS,whose founders resident. "'- after all pioneered Doctor Who as a Adric's death illustrated both the 'high concept' are still having prob- strengths and weaknesses of the lems with an age where there are action-drama format as realised by several paths an individual can take John Nathan-Turner and, by that if he or she wants to find out more time, Eric Saward. On the one hand, about Doctor Who. DWAS members the audience had learned to know still generally supports the Society's Adric over the two seasons he had conservative stance, as it tries to stay been in the programme. His inno- out of controversy, but DWB is al- cence had been exploited by the Ur- ways vocal in its criticisms. bankans and violated by the DWB attacks DWAS for providing machines of the Master. He was the a poor service to its members, but, most familiar member of the cast, when they improve, accuses them of having preceded Sutton, Fielding over-involvment with market forces, and Davison. The end titles of Eartb- copying the achievements of DWB, sbocle Pan 4 rolled over Adric's i Tides of Time # 15 23

'fourteen episode season', and some 01 which satire on urban society. De/tu and the Banner- weren't, such as the story that Colin Baker had men, consisled of on offbeat firsl part, and 0 been sacked and wouldn't ~ in the new season. second and third part which went totally off the This rumour, as later events proved, unfortunate- rails; the Doctor becoming not just secondary, ly had a good deal of subsmnre. but superfluous. I still think it could hove been an excellent Screen One or other one-off produc- According to a 'interview' [all Levine tion, but the script was misplaced in Do(for Who. gave to DWB in 1992, John Narhan- After 0 season of mixed quality, the forthcoming Turner encouraged the press to set of stories for the silver jubilee did not fill me think Michael Grade was to blame with much confidence. for the postponement of the series. firstly because Grade had already I wouldn't say now that Paradise been in the news over the attempt Towers could have been brilliant, but by Thames Television to buy future it could have been made with com- seasons of Dallas from its maker petence. Richard Briers admitted that Lorimar - overturning a long-stand- he didn't take his role seriously - ing agreement with the BBC - and and neither did anyone else as a re- also because he didn't want to anta- sult. The costumes were straight out gonise the real enemy of Doctor of the worst excesses of a Bob Block Who, his immediate superior, jona- series. Performances in a fantasy than Powell, then Head of Drama not survived Colin Baker's dismissal. series must have conviction, and and subsequently the Controller of those in Paradise Touers didn't. As BBC1. [ still feel that The Trial of a Time my grandfather said to me when The statements that Michael Lord was a bad idea, showing that watching part 3, "This used to be Grade came out with fatally dam- Nathan-Turner and his superiors had serious - now they've turned it into aged Doctor Who as an ongoing not learned form the mistakes of The a comedy." needed series, the BBC hierarchy itself burst- Tripods, the overextended adapta- to be bleak. Its makers couldn't ing the bubble that had protected its tion of John Christopher's novels come to terms with the situation the special status on television, drawing which Doctor Who replaced on au- scripts demanded, and it remained attention to its flaws without actually tumn Saturdays. As for Colin Baker, I ill a no-man's land between comedy doing anything to remedy the situ- had the good fortune to ask him at a and straight drama. It is questionable ation. That the rumours floating convention appearance what he whether the story should have been around fandom were clearly gener- would have done had the BBC said attempted at this stage in the pro- ated 'backstage' makes the whole to him at the end of the 1986 that gramme's history. business more sordid. A riven Doctor they would like him to continue as Delta stretched the audience's Who world was revealed, where the the Doctor, but they would like him expectations at a time when a more producer was isolated within the to play the part differently. Colin conservative approach with regard BBC Drama Department and at the rightfully said that the situation to story content may have been same time had moved dangerously wouldn't have occurred, as the BBC wiser. Experimentation can be tried close to the makers of fan opinion at doesn't work like that, but obviously more easily in a self-contained 50 a time when Levine, from within the he would have done what his minute episode than in a 3 x 25 min- production office and through his employers told him to do, as indeed ute serial. The format itself was ally, Gary Levy of DWB, was ma- he always had. dated by this time, as Zenith was nipulating fandom to suit his own The character of the sixth Doctor showing with Inspector Morse and personal, somewhat reactionary was the creation of an overconfident his two hour investigations on IlV. I agenda, further destabilised the production team who misunder- wouldn't say that was series at a time when it needed stood what Doctor Who was all among the best Doctor W1JOstories support. about, and was endorsed by a Head produced, but at least its story-line of Drama who though that Doctor was uncomplicated and most of the My feelings have always been somewhat am- Who was a dated embarrassment. As performances were sound. bivalent towards Colin Baker's Doctor. I was a result, it became exactly that. quite warm towards his portrayal, but sometimes Nevertheless, I received a pleasant surprise as I think he went too far over the top in his use of Instead the world was treated to the appearance the 25th season unfolded. h was much beller what can be called 'cultivated outrage'. Some- of S~vester McCoy on the scene and a new look than the previous two years and, for the first time his 'olienness', while of similar manner to for 00(1O( Who. I think more of my age group time in more than 0 decade, there were new de- Tom Baker's characterisation during his first two gave the programme a chance in 1987 (no velopments - as opposed to consolidation - of seasons, albeit with more arrogance, seems to n~on sycamore leaves stuck to the monsters this the ongoing subplot concerning the Doctor's have deterred the audience enough for the audi- year!), at least for Unfortu- identity. This theme has, of course, extended into ence figures to drop by nearly three million in nately this season had been wriHen at speed, the 26th season. Can the Doctor be a contempor- the first six weeks of the 22nd season. The 45 with no time to actually think through the direc- ary of the founders of the race, Rassi- minute episodes, 0/1 to some degree badly-paced, tion that was being token. Thus there was 0 suc- Ion and ? Con lady Peinforte in Silver probably also share the responsibility. Perhaps, cession of good ideas gone wrong, such os Nemesis have been right when she implied that aher an 18 month gap between seasons and 0 Paradise Towers, which, had the background the Doctor was more than just 0 TIme lord? badly structured, 14 port 'epic' - which caused been sketched in more firmly and the temptation These ore just two of the questions that have viewers to switch off after episode one - very to do the whole thing in 0 'high camp' st~e been raised in the two most recent seasons. few would have been surprised had Oodor Who been suppressed, could hove been 0 brillicnt 24 Tides of Time # 15 r:•• and. heresy of heresies, Sophie }' -. Aldrer' wonderful though she is. was really too old for the part. I sometimes wish that Allison from Re- membrance had been the new com- panion. providing a rational foil to the anarchic . Instead we had what was in some ways an unbalanced line-up. the Doctor and both standing outside the system: Ace as a sani- tised vision of an uneducated anar- cho-terrorist, her guardian angel being the god-in-waiting figure of the Doctor, dealing for much of the time with problems he has set up before. This has an appeal on paper, and some a ppeal on screen, but the seventh Doctor was flawed in the eyes of the viewers because he began as a clown. sending the part. ib -~ -!,,"1~; and the series, up. I don't think that With hindsight, one can see that the voiced in The (utse of Fenric, or the commentary this was Sylvester's intention. I un- subject of the Doctor's identity was on the revival of social Darwinism in the 1980s derstand that there are out-takes overhyped in 1988 and 1989. The with Survival. There have been greater attempts from Dragonfire floating about line, "I'm beginning to wish I hadn't at improved characterisation, notably the attempt which show the voice of the gallery started all this," in Remembrance of 10 give greater depth 10 Ace in the laller Iwo urging him to overplay every last ac- the Daleles was wonderfully amus- stories, who has travelled a long way from the tion. However, this is the shape in ing, considering its possible implica- caricature encountered in Oragonfire. The Ooclor which Sylvester McCoy's Doctor was tions for the continuity Andrew Who of Ion Briggs and Rona Munro, and per- first encountered by the viewers (a Cartmel was trying to break away hops also of Stephen Wyatt, is much more in last, loyal five million) and it was an from, but the end result of the Cart- tune with my outlook as we enler the 1990s image perpetuated all the way me! approach was that the Doctor through his run through the part, the simply found himself in a straitjacket So, here we are in the middle of the Doctor Wbo caption slides for his even more binding than that made 1990s. Seasons 25 and 26 did tenure always showing him striking by Ian Levine and John Nathan- strengthen the programme's 'liberal' a comedic pose. The seventh Doctor Turner in the early 1980s, and the values, but they tended too far to- was, of course, fighting a losing less comprehensible. The Doctor wards the extremes of political cor- battle - being scheduled against must be a man who makes moral rectness. The ecology themes of Coronation Street was the kiss of choices, and his godlike actions in Battlefield and The Curse of Fenric death - and John Nathan-Turner's Remembrance, Siluer Nemesis and were laid on with trowels. Ace was by now flagging publicity machine perhaps also Curse of Fenric imply an attempt to bring some reality into had never been enough to secure that he had very little difficulty the series' fantasy, but she was an the image of the relatively popular wreaking apocalyptic vengeance on unrealistic character - no street- Peter Davison Doctor, let alone that his foes. In the long term, he is sim- urchin talked or dressed like that - ply less interesting, as the fascination of the Neui Adtentures books with the 'darker Doctor' has shown. It would have been better just to have downplayed the mythology with which the three seasons before McCoy and Cartmel arrived had been saturated; but, by 1987, Doctor Wbo present could not easily be dis- entangled from Doctor Wbo past. There were too many audiences to satisfy, and the task could not be achieved.

There is also a conscious move to make Ooclor Who more relevant to the times in which it finds itself. 'Politicol' issues, absent from much of the 1980s, have reosserted themselves. The racism subtext and the anti-thatcherism of Remem- brance of the Oaleh and The Happinen Patrol may have been suppressed in production, but there is little doubting the ecological concern Tides of Time # 15

of ,'dcCoy's interpretation. Christopher H Bidmead. whom I stability, coupled with the increasing impact of was far too harsh on five years ago. 'the fans' on the way the series is viewed, both it would be an incomplete ~trospective of the Bidmead U'fIS writing what I termed by the BBC and the press. Hopefully the 19905 decade without a brief mention of the sole pro- 'rneta-scieuce' - it's just that he was will offer a securer future for the proqramme, ducer .for every season in production in ~:~~ doing it using concepts with some and consequently more enjoyable - os long os 1980s, John Nathan-Turner. One could write sev- scientific validity. III rht- cornpurer everyone is kept on their toes. eral books about this man and Doctor Who - he age, he was the script editor Doctor himself has already done, and may write more. Who needed. It is a pity he could not I would no longer agree that the I think that he made many mistakes: the change work with John Narhan-Turner, and I980s were an exciting time for the of title sequence and music in 1980 was too red- there was no money available to programme. for the 1980s were a ical, too alienating for many regular viewers; his give him. and his successors. the decade of decline. as the viewers de- obsession with the series' past, while pleasing in full-time assistants that they needed. serted and the production team lost the short term, ultimately resulted in overkill. His John Nathan-Turner was a presenta- the ability to make the series. The choice of Bonnie Longford as a companion was tion man. but not even the most tragedy is that the plug was pulled an interesting gamble, but Miss Longford was thorough producer or director could rust as writers such as Marc Platt, Tan sadly hamstrung by her media image. Despite do much with bad scripts which Briggs and Rona Munro were pain- these errors, it should not be forqonen that John were still unfinished when the direc- fully relearning how to make Doctor Nathan·Turner successfully kept the programme tor joined the production, as many Who, helped by directors Nicholas in the public eye via his knack for publicity and in the Cartmel era seem to have Mallet (as far as Fenric was C011- presided over 01 least four moderately successful been. cerned) and Alan Wareing. Whether seasons. There is a new production re- they could have done any good is gime imminent. it seems. but it is not doubtful, as the general audience I am not going to be embroiled in of the sort I was expecting in 1989. had lost interest. Doctor Wbo - for the 'John Nathan-Turner: Good or Amblin, according to some reports, reasons which T suspect Anthony Bad?' argument here. I think my will be unable to employ very many and James will go into their series of opinions of some of his decisions British writers as their proposed articles this year - ceased to be a have been stated or implied above. series of Doctor Who will be made in popular programme, and a barrier of Perhaps someone else could write California, under US union rules. incomprehension rose between it an article about the man for the next This is a pity, not just for the writers and its audience. In the 198Os,Doc- Tides of Time. mentioned above, but for those tor Who, devised as a programme to writers from this country who will be entertain, inform, and stimulate a On the creative side, the three script editors of prevented from contributing to a wide audience, stopped doing the the decade (excluding Douglas Adorns and An· television series that has been part of task it has performed so successfully thony Root) have all brought a distinct flavour to the British national fabric for a long for nearly two decades, and for the stories which they have supervised. Chris· time, although I am sure that there whatever reason, it failed. topher H Bidmead, in season 18, was probably are many American screenwriters trying to make the programme more 'serious' who are very capable of writing for Ma#bew KIlburn after a year under Douglas Adams, but I feel he the series. was wrong in trying to tie the programme down Based on an article first appearing to 'hard science'. While good, scientific stories The 19805 hove been on exciting decade for 00(' in The Tides of Time #1 have their place, aNempting to place Doctor Who tor Who, with four Doctors, various crises, and on a purely scientific foundation, as Terrance much doubt over the programme's backstage Dicks complained while writing Stole of Decoy, begins to appear somewhat peNy. Do(tor Who, with its reliance on time travel and regeneration, deals in rneto-sdenre, and ~ is easy for Bidmead to forget this. Eric Saward was on advocate of the 'raNling good yarn', but not 011 the stories which he edited achieved this status; many suf· fered from poor structuring - viewers' patience being tested by the interminably long TARDlS scenes, which , his successor, has found superfluous. Cartmel hod 0 shaky start, with Time ond the Roni I suspect owing little to his influence and the rest of Season 24, as previ· ously stated, being of uncertain direction. How· ever, he has nnrnrted several good, new, young writers to the programme, such as WyaN, Briggs, Ben Aaronovitch, Kevin Clarke and Rona Munro, who I hope will contribute under the new produc· tion regime anticipated.

Most of the scripts of the 1980s had potential, but they needed more work. The only script editor who really put the effort in was