Battlefield

 

Four episodes

Aired between 6th September 1989 and 27th September 1989

Written by Ben Aaronovitch

Produced by John Nathan-Turner

Directed by Michael Kerrigan

Synopsis

Earth, the near future. UNIT are on military manoeuvres with a nuclear missile convoy in the sleepy English area of Carbury.  Their new commander, Brigadier Winnifred Bambera is unimpressed when the missile truck breaks down near lake Vortigen. She is even more perplexed when sounds of overhead missiles begin to sound. Little does she know that these missiles are carrying armoured knights!

In the TARDIS, the Doctor is listening to a strange transmission that he believes is coming from somewhere sideways in time (another dimension).  

He tracks the signal back to Earth and get a lift from local Archaeologist, Peter Warmsley.  He takes them to the lake and they soon finds that the signal's coming from around the area where the missile convoy is.  Using old pass cards for himself and Liz Shaw's to get Ace past security, they make it into the area.  They come face to face with Bambera who is unimpressed by their presence.  She kicks them out but is soon warned by her subordinate that the Doctor was part of unit once and when he's around things go wrong, fast! Wanting to know more, Bambera takes the Doctor and Ace to the Gore Crow Hotel but gets little from them.  

Inside the hotel, they meet the landlord and his blind wife. Ace meets a new friend called Shou Yuing, and the Doctor finds a mystical scabbard which apparently Peter Warmsley found as part of his local dig near the lake.  The Doctor suspects is far older than is dated.

Ace and Shou go outside to discuss explosives and hear sounds of fighting and a big explosion.  It turns out they were made by the futuristic knights who had been roaming around the neighbourhood doing battle with each other. 

The "goodie" knight was blown through the brewery roof by a futuristic hand grenade.  The Doctor, Ace and Shou get to the knight and remove his helmet.  

The knight seems to know the Doctor and refers to him as Merlin. Bambera turns up armed and tries to arrest them all, but they are interrupted by a gang of "baddie" knights, led by Mordred. He orders them all killed, but the Doctor plays to his role as Merlin and scares them away, but not before Mordred warns that his mother, Morgaine is coming to settle the score with Merlin.  Once alone, the gang retreat back to the hotel (Bambera and the knight, Ancelyn fighting for dominance on the way). 

Meanwhile, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart himself is called out of retirement once word of the Doctor's return is passed on.  He goes to London via helicopter for a briefing and then on through the night to Carbury. 

Mordred sets up his lair in an abandoned castle in the area and summons forwards his mother, using some arcane ritual.  The force affects the scabbard in the hotel and causes it to fly off the wall and pierce some wood, presumably pointing towards the lake.  The surge of power knocks out the lights and plunges the hotel into darkness as Morgaine arrives in this world.  

The day after, Morgaine and Mordred gather in an old church to discuss their plans. They see the Brigadier's helicopter coming in and Morgaine shoots it down.  She soon realises however that they have respect for their dead and is displeased with Mordred for allowing her to fight on holy ground. She dismisses him. 

Thankfully, the Brigadier and his pilot survive. 

They separate and try to get help.  The Brigadier comes across Morgaine and her troops, but she calls a truce so she can hold a remembrance ceremony  for the dead.  

The Brigadier honourably takes part and then goes on his way. Morgaine says if she meets him again, she'll kill him.

The Doctor meanwhile is curious about the dig and the scabbard, so he gets Peter to take him to it.  There, they find a strange inscription in the Doctor's handwriting saying "Dig hole here".  They use Ace's nitro-9 to blow a hole in the ground and find a tunnel there. Ace and the Doctor go down it and find an alien spaceship with passwords that allow access to the Doctor's voice, and King Arthur knelt on a plinth with Excalibur, clearly dead.  

The ship's defences activate and the Doctor is attacked by them. Ace enters a cubicle and is nearly drowned but shot out of the ship at the end.

Ancelyn and Bambera get to the dig site, but they're too late. They watch in astonishment as Ace emerges from the lake, brandishing Excalibur. Shou and the Brigadier end up there too, and the Brigadier goes into the tunnel, rescuing the Doctor and reuniting with him.

Morgaine in the meantime orders her knights to find and take Excalibur. She goes to the hotel and finds Mordred drinking there, drowning his sorrows. The pilot arrives and threatens Morgaine and is disintegrated for her troubles.  Morgaine is not without compassion however. She cures the Landlord's wife as payment for Mordred's drinking session. Satisfied, they leave.

The Doctor and companions split up and go in separate cars back to the hotel. They encounter the knights on their way and Bambera and Ancelyn are separated from the others, their car being wrecked in the fight. Not being able to do anything for them, the Doctor and the rest go back to the hotel to find the residents of the area are being evacuated. Peter Warmsley and the landlord protest, but the Doctor uses a Jedi mind trick to convince them otherwise. They all go but Shou Yuing manages to slip away and hide.  

The Brigadier is happy about the UNIT preparations and shows the Doctor they have specialist weapons to deal with Daleks, Yeti's and Cybermen. They even have Bessie brought to the area. The Doctor asks if they've got any silver bullets, just in case. 

The Doctor and the Brigaider go in Bessie to the missile convoy, trying to reach it before Mordred and his troops, and the Doctor tells Ace to draw a chalk circle and stay in it at the first sign of trouble. 

Morgaine senses that Ace and Shou are alone and vulnerable and seizes her chance to get Excalibur. She summons The Destroyer - a Demon from another dimension. Hearing the after effects of this, Ace and Shou draw the circle. Morgaine tries to use head games to wrest the sword from them, but the girls withstand them, leaving Morgaine little option but to go there herself with the Destroyer and try to get the sword directly.

Mordred and his troops do indeed attack the nuclear missile convoy and there's a big battle. Bambera and Ancelyn make it to the fight and there is chaos all around. The doctor turns up, living up to his role as Merlin and decries the battle. Mordred laughs and says it's only a diversion and Morgaine is getting the sword. The Doctor speaks psychically with Morgaine who offers a trade - Ace for the sword. The Doctor threatens Mordreds life, but they scoff at it, saying that Merlin hates violence. The Brigadier however puts a gun to Mordred and Morgaine leaves him to die.

With psychic communication cut off, the Doctor, the Brigadier and Mordred get in Bessie and head back to the hotel, just in time to find it being shaken to the ground.  They find Ace and Shou in the rubble. They explain that they ended up giving up Excalibur before they were killed but did manage to find some silver bullets. The Doctor is grateful, as he can't replace Ace.

Mordred slips away in the commotion.

The group see a dimensional portal in the corner of the room. The Doctor and the Brigadier go through it to the old castle to confront Morgaine and the Destroyer. They go back and forth with arguments, and Ace following through knocks Excalibur from Morgaines hand. She warns the Doctor to give it back or she will release the Destroyer from the chains that keeps him at bay from devouring the world. He calls her bluff and she does indeed free him.

Mordred turns up and argues with his mother for abandoning him. Together they teleport away out of the path of the Destroyer. 

The Doctor, Ace and the Brigadier run away too, but the Doctor decides to go back, loading the Brigadier's revolver with the silver bullets they found. The Brigadier knocks the Doctor out however and takes the gun, telling him he's to sacrifice himself as the Doctor is too important. He goes back and after threatening the Destroyer, pumps six shots into him. The demon explodes and throws the Brigadier out of the window. Thankfully, they find him alive. Then the Doctor, the Brigadier and Ace return Excalibur to the alien spaceship, finding a note from a future Doctor that tells him Arthur died ages ago.

The Doctor then returns to the convoy to see that Morgaine and Mordred have gone there to set off the missile.  The Doctor knocks out Mordred and pleads with Morgaine, convincing her that nuclear obliteration is definitely something dishonourable. She agrees and stops the countdown.

The Doctor asks Bambera to lock Morgaine and Mordred up. 

All's well that ends well, the group retire to the Brigadier's massive country house. The girls all go on a shopping spree, leaving the Doctor, the now finally retired Brigadier, and Ancelyn behind to cut the grass and make dinner.

Trivia

• This story has a lot of "lasts in it as we close on the classic era of Doctor Who
• It is the last time we see the console room in the classic era (excluding the 8th Doctor's TV movie)
• It is the last official time we see the Brigadier in the show (although he did do an episode of Sarah Jane Adventures) 
• It is the last time we see Jean Marsh in the series too, her other credits include the First Doctor adventures - The Crusade and The Dalek's Master Plan
• It is the last official use of Bessie. We'll only see her in flashbacks now
• It is the last story Ben Aaronovitch wrote for the series too

• However, it is the first time that UNIT has been portrayed in a multi-national light and the reshaping of them in this story would be instrumental in how they would come to look when the show was re-launched in 2005.

• The Brigadier was originally meant to die during this story, but Ben Aaronovitch couldn't bring himself to kill such an iconic character, so he brought him back

• The Doctor in this season has a change of clothes, discarding his beige jacket for a dark brown one. This was intentional, to subtly show a shift from a light hearted wanderer to something more calculating and dark as we will come to see in the other stories of this season

• As most people know, the underwater spaceship scene went awry when Sophie was in the cubicle filling up with water. The person who made it misjudged the pressure and the water cracked the glass. The crew hauled her out of there, not because of fear of drowning, but because they feared her being electrocuted by the water pouring over cables as it spilled out

• Episode 1 of this story has the lowest viewer rating in all Doctor Who to date. This is somewhat unfair and skewed however, as the England World Cup Qualifier was shown on BBC 2 at the same time

The Review

Battlefield shines a light on one of the many curious areas of history that Doctor Who has always curiously shied away from.  Granted, these are Space-Knights from another dimension with crap firing guns and hand grenades, but the names are pretty much the same as in our mythology. For that reason alone, I tend to look upon the story more favourably than maybe it deserves.

Having said that, there's a lot to like in here if you're willing to put up with the little bit of awfulness that comes with it. It's the little things I find that are entertaining, such as the sense of sinister mysticism that is brought in with Morgaine and the Destroyer that summons up feelings almost as good as the devil worship in the Daemons or Image of the Fendahl. It's the poignant speech at the end of the story by the Doctor to Morgaine, and even the playful scenes with the £5 piece and the crisp packet in the hotel. These are glimpses that Doctor Who still has it when it's needed most. But scattered amongst these is also glimpses that Doctor Who is changing, perhaps for the better in some respects. UNIT for example is multi-national now and looking a little bit more like a military operation, although the purposes of them arsing around a British village with a Nuclear missile is somewhat of a puzzle. It also shows the changing of the guard with the Brigadier officially getting a retirement story.

With all this going for it, plus the best looking monster we've ever ever seen in Doctor Who (perhaps even to date), it is a wonder why it's not ranked higher in people's opinions.  To that, we have to look at the haphazard scenes that come with it - such as the irrational way the UNIT troops let everyone waltz around their nuclear missile, even giving them a lift away from it. The Bambera / Ancelyn relationship is at times both endearing and painful to watch, the acting is at times very overdone and everything to do with the spaceship is just awful.  There's also pointless aspects to it too.  The scabbard and Excalibur turn out to be of no consequence whatsoever (other than protecting Ace in a circle). The puzzling way Morgaine wants to kill and rule, and yet is distraught to find out Arthur's dead, and also, just how do they intend to keep her prisoner?

Battlefield is without question one of the better Seventh Doctor stories, and a personal favourite of mine. It is highly suggested viewing for anyone wanting to get into the Seventh Doctor era, but alas, it falls somewhat short when compared to the show overall.

Rating

7 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

5 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

The Crusade

The Time Warrior

Robot of Sherwood (Doctor Who, Series 8)

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

Four episodes

Aired between 14th December 1988 and 4th January 1989

Written by Stephen Wyatt

Produced by John Nathan-Turner

Directed by Alan Wareing 

Synopsis

As the TARDIS is flying through the universe, a junk mail drone appears in the console room and invites them to go to the Psychic Circus.  Ace hints that she doesn't want to because she doesn't like clowns, but is goaded into it. They set their course for Segonax, the planet where the circus is running.

On Segonax, a man and a woman (bellboy and flowerchild) flee from clowns chasing them in a hearse. They split up, and Flowerchild hides in an old painted bus. She searches for, and finds an old box, but is killed by a robot. One of her earrings falls in the dust. The clowns meanwhile, eventually find Bellboy and bundle him into the hearse.

The TARDIS arrives on Segonax and as they make their way to the circus, they meet an old lady who is selling food from a cart. 

They find that many "outsiders" come and go to the circus, something that really annoys the locals.  On their way, they briefly meet Nord, a motocycle ganger, 

Captain Cook (an intergalactic explorer) and a companion of his called Mags whom he treats more like a primitive species.

As they make their way to the circus, the group (minus Nord who goes off ahead without them), come to the painted bus.  Ace pockets the earring, and they soon encounter the robot bus conductor.  Captain Cook looks on nonplussed as the rest try to find a way not to be killed. 

The Doctor eventually outsmarts the robot and destroys it with its own laser shooting ticket machine.

Disgusted by Cook's apathy, they split up. Mags and Cook arrive at the circus, just in time to see Bellboy get punished by a sole family of three in the otherwise deserted big top for his escape.  They are eventually imprisoned.

Ace and the Doctor get to the circus and sit down, commenting on the almost deserted ring. The show begins and the Doctor is invited to take part in the show which he accepts, despite Ace asking him not to.  He is also duped and imprisoned with Mags, Nord, and Captain Cook.

As this is happening, Ace is chased by the Chief Clown who recognises the earring. She loses the clowns in the corridors of the circus and finds Bellboy tied up. He is taken away by the Chief clown to help repair some robots he's supposedly created.

Back in the cage, Nord is chosen (with help from Cook) to go into the ring. He fails in entertaining the family and is obliterated. Not long after this, a geeky boy on a bike (whizkid) turns up. 

He too is imprisoned, but is too obnoxious and naive to realise it. The Dcotor and Mags escape into the circus to find Ace, but Cook refuses to go.

The Doctor and Mags find some stone corridors where there is a chasm with spewing energy and a great psychic eye at the bottom. 

Before they can figure out what it is, Captain Cook and a bunch of clowns find them and capture them. Cook helped because he has no intention of going in that ring and will do whatever it takes to stay alive, including sending in the others first.

Ace meanwhile has been recaptured and locked up in a room with a load of clown robots. 

She faces her fears and defeats them, finding Bellboy in there also.  He tells her that the circus was once much different, before they came to Segonax.  He gives Ace a remote control for a large robot he built and helps her get out of the room.

Back in the circus, Whizkid has his turn in the ring, also disappoints the family and is obliterated.

The Doctor escapes again, thanks to a distraction set up by Mags, and meets Deadbeat, the Janitor.  He is dumb and speaks little, but seems to spark some kind of memory in him.  He leads the Doctor through the corridors and they find Bellboy and Ace. Bellboy recognises Deadbeat as "Kingpin" the former leader of the circus, and realises that something's happened to their memories.  He remembers too much and urges the Doctor, Ace and Kingpin away, whilst he orders the robot clowns to kill himself so he doesn't have to live with the memory.

The trio make it to the chasm with the psychic eye.  Once there, Kingpin shows them that the eye is somehow connected to a mirrored eye necklace he wears.  They realise that the medallion is incomplete, the eye shape is missing the eyeball.  The Doctor figures out that it's what Flowerchild was trying to find.  The clowns start coming after them and the Doctor instructs Kingpin and Ace to go to the bus whilst he improvises.  

The Doctor is captured again, but suggests to Mags and Captain Cook that they all go into the ring together to buy the others time. They all agree, but once in the ring, Captain Cook turns on a "moonlight" spotlight on Mags and she turns into a werewolf. 

She chases the Doctor for a bit, but ultimately kills Captain Cook before turning back.  

Out on Segonax, Ace and Kingpin reach the bus. They find the eye piece, which restores Kingpin's memory. 

The conductor robot comes back to life and attacks them again. Kingpin tells Ace to hit the self destruct on its head which she does. They start heading back to the circus.

Back in the ring, the family are getting restless and are clearly not human.  The ringmaster and fortune teller are sacrificed by the Chief Clown to appease them before he runs out to find Kingpin and Ace.

Mags leaves the circus and meets up with Ace and Kingpin and they lay a trap for the clowns.  

The Doctor confronts the family and unveils them to be the Gods of Ragnarok, alien beings that feed on entertainment. 

He nevertheless starts a bunch of tricks to entertain them.

Back in the desert, Ace, Mags and Kingpin find the big robot that Bellboy built and use the remote control to turn it against the clowns.  They kill them all and the group steal the hearse to get back to the circus. They look for the Doctor but can't find him. Kingpin fears he may be in the "dark circus" an extra dimensional space where the beings come from. It can only be accessed by the stone corridors and the psychic eye. They go there, but before they can use the medallion they fight with a resurrected Captain Cook. 

He takes the medallion and Mags shoves him into the chasm. 

The medallion materialises at the Doctor's feet. Fearing him, the gods fire energy at him but the eye protects him, their attacks set off a chain reaction that destroys the "dark circus". He gets out just in time as it all blows up and meets Ace, Kingpin and Mags in the wastes as they watch the circus get destroyed.  

Now free of the gods' influence, Kingpin says he's starting the circus up again to travel the galaxy. Mags agrees to join him, but Ace and the Doctor decline as they have other adventures to go on.

Trivia

• The story was filmed on location in a (you guessed it) quarry. Once all the outdoor shots had been completed, the crew went back to do the studio shots, only to find that a large quantity of asbestos had been found in the studio ceiling and the place was shut

• With fears of this becoming another Shada, John Nathan-Turner and co wracked their brains for a solution, eventually coming up with the idea to hire an actual big top and put it in a BBC car park and film the interiors there!

• As if you needed to guess, the character of Whizkid was the crew making fun of the geeky Anorak wearing Dr Who fans - a bit of a cheek really 

• The Great Soprendo (TV magician of the 70s and 80s) was brought in to teach Sylvester all the tricks he performed in the dark circus

• When filming the final scene of the circus being destroyed, Sylvester was given assurances that he would be safe and to casually walk out of the tent.  What nobody knew was that the demolition team had put in a lot more explosives than everyone else thought, so when it went up, it really went up!  McCoy was very professional and never flinched, but when the shot was over, feared that the clothes of his back would be on fire!

• Finally, it's interesting to note that the ringmaster is Frost from Aliens

The Review

Okay, as with a lot of the Seventh Doctor stories, this one has a good potential, but the execution leaves something to be desired.  The sinister circus is a staple of a great horror story and the fear of clowns is deep rooted in most of western society (there's a reason IT did as well as it did). Because of this, the show should be a sure fire hit.  

The story has some good moments and even though a lot of the first episode is walking through a desert meeting wacky people, it works really well, to the point where you have to wonder if Douglas Adams actually wrote it.  The characters are funny and quirky and interesting. The Chief Clown is also superbly acted and really makes you feel creeped out at times.

The story then is mainly let down by a failure to capitalise on this promising start.  It feels half-arsed. The entire bit with the eye medallion, the Gods of Ragnarok and the climax is just cobbled together with very little reasoning or thought - it was done with a "it'll do" mentality.  Now, that's likely because of the stresses of the studio being shut down, but still, the thing suffers greatly from it.

One saving grace is that for those who look at the bigger picture as you do when you watch the show in order, this is a key story in which the Seventh Doctor is manipulating and working on things.  The very fact that the junk mail robot appears inside the TARDIS and isn't blocked by the inter-dimensional force field means that he wanted it to come.  He manipulates Ace into agreeing to go, even though he knows she hates clowns, and seems to be aware of the Gods.  We will be seeing far more of this manipulation in the coming season.

Overall, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is not, it's merely The Okay Show in the Galaxy, but it's worth watching, even if for the missed potential.

Rating 

5 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

5 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

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Silver Nemesis

Three Episodes
Aired between 23rd November 1988 and 7th December 1988

Written by Kevin Clarke
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Chris Clough

Synopsis

Two groups of people are interested in a comet that is crash landing on Earth at Windsor on 23rd November, 1988: the first is a bunch of Nazi's who have been residing in South America, led by an Aryan man called De Flores.  The second is a Jacobean woman - Lady Peinforte, and her assistant, Richard.  They have employed the use of a mathematician to calculate the comet's exact angle of descent. Once they know it, they kill him and take potions to travel in time to 1988.

Elsewhere, the Doctor and Ace are in Windsor, enjoying a nice bit of Jazz when his pocket watch bleeps. It's an alarm set to remind the Doctor of something important, but he can't remember what.  It seems it's to do with here and now however, as gunmen open fire on them and they narrowly escape by jumping in the river. After fishing themselves out, they go back to the TARDIS and the Doctor uses Ace's modified tape deck to discover that indeed, the Earth is in danger of destruction. 

He takes Ace and they travel to the bowels of Windsor Castle where he says he's looking for a silver bow which he suspects is part of it. 

Now in 1988, Lady Peinforte and Richard have brought with them a silver arrow which begins to glow as the comet hits Earth. 

In Windsor's basement, the Doctor feels the impact of the comet and determines it's to do with the nemesis- a piece of living metal that he brought with him from Gallifrey and sent out into space to keep it out of the hands of enemies. It crashes down every 25 years, and he sends it back up again, but it brings with it destruction, heralding significant events with it, such as the assassination of Kennedy, the start of WWII and so on. Thankfully, the nemesis is useless without two other bits of living metal - the bow and the arrow - both made of this living silver and hidden by him. Unfortunately for the Doctor, the bow went missing in 1788.

The Doctor and Ace go back to 1638 and discover Lady Peinforte's home (he knows her well as she was involved in an altercation with him when he launched it into space then).  He finds her gone, and the Mathmaticians calculations that point them back to the exact spot of Nemesis' return. They return to present day windsor, and after nearly bumping into the Queen, they are arrested by security guards.  

They try the honest approach and ask for guards to help them, but they're not believed and the Doctor resorts to distracting them with hypnotism so they can escape.

At the crash site of nemesis, Police arrive, but are knocked unconscious by a mysterious gas that comes from tubes in the ground.  All three parties - De Flores, Peinforte and the Doctor turn up there and are met by a fourth interested party - the Cybermen.  

A firefight ensues and the Nazi's are mostly killed, but a few Cybermen are taken down with Peinforte's golden arrows.  

The Doctor and Ace make a run for it, taking the silver bow. Peinforte and Richard also withdraw and the Nazi's are fought off, leaving the Cybermen with the Nemesis.

After another quick visit to Peinforte's home and making a mysterious chess move on the board there, he takes the TARDIS back to present day.  He explains that Nemesis is made from Validium and needs the critical mass of all its parts to work. It was created by Omega and Rassilon in the old times as a defence for Gallifrey but can be misused and so it's why he keeps it at arms reach. The bow glows and can lead them in the direction of the Nemesis.

Deflores and Richard use the arrow to also find the Nemesis. It turns out the Cybermen took it to her burial place. Together, they drive the Cybermen away with the gold arrows. They discover that the Nemesis looks just like Peinforte and that her own bones are not there.

As Peinforte is in her own tomb, and Ace and the Doctor blow up the cyber shuttle with her canisters of Nitro-9, De Flores tracks down the Cybermen and strikes a deal with them to kill Peinforte on their behalf in return for having part of the Earth when it's conquered by the Cybermen. 

They attack and Richard trades the silver arrow for their lives, taking Lady Peinforte against her will and escaping.

Believing he's got all three parts of the Nemesis, De Flores betrays the Cybermen, but soon realises the bow case is empty as it's with the Doctor.  He only just manages to escape by blowing gold dust at the Cybermen.

Meanwhile, the Doctor uses Ace's tape deck to discover that a huge Cyber-Fleet is waiting in orbit.  

He uses the Jazz tape they bought to jam the signals between them. The Doctor decides in light of the amount of ships, it's probably better for him to activate the Nemesis and order it to destroy them all.  They get to the crypt, bluff their way amongst the Cybermen and through throwing the bow between them, get it close enough to the Nemesis statue to animate it.  They run and it begins to follow.

The Doctor makes another quick trip to 1638 to make another chess move against an unknown opponent, then grabs some gold coins before coming back to 1988, materialising in a warehouse.

The Nemesis finds them and can speak. It takes the bow and is willing to be ordered by the Doctor.  The Cybermen however turn up, and it's down to Ace firing the gold coins in a slingshot to save them.  The Doctor manages to set a new trajectory in the rocket sled of the Nemesis and orders it to destroy all the Cyber ships.  The Cybermen corner Ace and the Doctor. The Doctor bargains for their lives by threatening to destroy the bow using the sled's thrusters.  They go to retrieve it, but the sled activates, killing the Cybermen.  

De Flores turn up and takes the bow. He speaks to Nemesis, but she will not answer.  A once thought dead Cyber-Leader, shoots De Flores and kills him.  He then takes the bow.  Peinforte and Richard also arrive, and she threatens to uncover the Doctor's supposed big secret unless he gives her the Nemesis. He decides that the bow is better in the hands of the Cybermen and offers it to them.  Peinforte says she will let them know all about the Doctor and old Gallifrey's secrets if the Cyber-Leader gives the bow to her, but he say's he doesn't care about any of that. 

The Cyber-Leader then makes the Doctor cancel it's destructive capabilities to which the Doctor knowingly asks it if it understood. It says it does.  He is then ordered to make the rocket sled rendezvous with the Cyber-fleet, which the Doctor is more than happy to send it up there.  As it sets off, Peinforte dives into the sled. becoming part of the Nemesis.

The nemesis goes into the midst of the fleet, blows up and destroys them all. The Cyber-leader aghast, asks how. The Doctor said Nemesis understood, but it didn't have to comply with the order.  The enraged Cyber-leader is about to kill the Doctor, but Richard saves him, killing the Cyberman with a gold tipped arrow.

The Doctor takes them all back to 1638, where a grateful Richard entertains them with music and food and a game of chess.  Ace asks the Doctor what secret Peinforte had, who actually is he? 

 He puts a finger to his lips and listens to the music.  

Trivia

• The story was always to have the word "silver" in it, as it was there to mark the 25th Anniversary of the show. It was a natural conclusion therefore to also include the Cybermen as the villains, even though the writer asked for the Daleks.

• When Kevin Clarke was asked what idea he had for the script, he didn't have a single clue, but he bluffed his way through a meeting, suggesting that Doctor Who is actually God himself.  John Nathan-Turner liked the idea and said Kevin Clarke could go with it, but he could never reveal it explicitly. 

• When Clarke was writing the script, he went to lengths to avoid naming De Flores' men as Nazi's, especially as Germany had just begun to watch the show.  However, the Director had other ideas and put swastika's everywhere.

• Anton Diffring who played De Flores was not impressed with the part at all.  It seems he'd played stereotypical Nazi's like this for most of his career and hated it.  He only agreed to do the part because he could come to the UK and watch Wimbledon.  He sadly died a year after this was made

• The production company asked permission to both film at Windsor Castle, and for Prince Edward to be in the story, but both were declined

• The crowd that's getting a tour of the castle actually contained lots of past show directors and actors, including Nicholas Courtney, the Brigadier himself.  He was approached by John Nathan-Turner during this and the result of their conversation can be seen in two stories time.

• The waste ground and the gasworks site that was used for this story was the site where the Millennium Dome was eventually built

The Review

Silver Nemesis is one of the rare Doctor Who shows for me that I remember fondly from being a child, and when you watch it as an adult is particularly cringe worthy.  The bits that allured me to it are still relatively good now, and are no doubt the best parts of the story- Ace fighting the Cybermen with a catapult- the Cybermen emerging from their ship in all their chrome plated glory.

If it was an action film, then it would have had a halfway decent attempt at it.  The scenes are fast paced and exciting. The three way showdown in episode two is surprisingly good. The problem comes when you have to make sense of it all.  A lot of the plot is just nonsense e.g. why did the Doctor keep allowing the nemesis to return to earth if it instigates all the bad stuff? Where is the bad stuff that HAPPENED in 1988?  How did the Germans get to the UK from South America so quickly?  

It's interspersed with comedy also (the skinheads and llama's), which is a bit meh, and ultimately just wastes time, as does the repeated trips to 1638, although that is a nice hint that something bigger is going on.

One thing that you could say is that this is effectively the exact same plot as Remembrance of the Daleks, but done worse. Neither plot is glorious, but it's the components in it that make up the enjoyment.  Unfortunately for this story, there was less character development, less intrigue and a lot more nonsense going on for it to be an equal.

Rating

4 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

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• Remembrance of the Daleks

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The Happiness Patrol

Three episodes
Aired between 2nd November 1988 and 16th November 1988

Written by Graeme Curry
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Chris Clough

Synopsis

On Earth Colony Terra Alpha, the worst crime you can commit is to be sad. There are strict police patrols that roam the streets looking for offenders (called the Happiness Patrol). They are backed up by undercover officers, trying to root out the malignant people they call "killjoy's". The whole show is run by a female dictator known as Helen A.

The Doctor and Ace go to Terra Alpha upon hearing rumours of its brutal regime and a whole host of "disappearances". Wandering the streets, they come upon Trevor Sigma, a human who is conducting a census of the population. They are shortly after met by the Happiness Patrol who arrest the Doctor for being a spy, recruit Ace into the police force and they paint the TARDIS pink to brighten it up.

Whilst being held in a waiting area by a guard called Priscilla P, the Doctor meets a man who used to write terrible jokes and is sentenced to death. He says better to die by the Happiness Patrol than by Helen A's secret - the Kandy Man. He is allegedly an evil scientist who experiments on victims.


Indeed, the Kandy Man is responsible for devising public executions of the most heinous people, and is fond of drowning them in strawberry fondant.

Ace soon makes a friend in young member Susan Q and convinces her to let her go.

She finds the Doctor and they escape in a motorised Go Cart, but it's not long before Ace is recaptured. The Doctor then meets a blues harmonica player called Earl Sigma, who helps him get to the Kandy Man's kitchen.

He finds that the Kandy Man is actually a robot made of sweets but is evil nonetheless.

The Kandy Man finds them and ties them up but before he can carry out a devilishly tortuous death using sweets, the Doctor tricks him into melting his feet to the floor with lemonade. This allows the Doctor and Earl to escape into a pipe that carries the fondant.

It's here that they meet a race of sub human creatures known as the pipe people.

 It's not long before the Doctor  befriends them and they take him to where Ace is being held with Susan Q (who has been arrested for treason).The pipe people distract Priscilla P and Ace and Susan escape.

Earl departs, helping to cause rebellion elsewhere in the city.

As the Doctor, Ace, Susan and the pipe people move through the tunnels, Helen A's pet - Fifi is sent in after them.

The dog like creature is soon subdued with a can of Nitro 9.

The Doctor eventually meets Helen A and doesn't like what he sees - Susan Q's imminent execution via the fondant tube. He leaves again and goes back to the Kandy Kitchen. He makes a deal with the Kandy Man to divert the fondant in return for unsticking him, which he holds up at least until the deed is done. The Doctor simply sticks him to the floor again once the Kandy Man starts to act menacing once more.

Having thwarted their own execution, Ace and Susan are brought to Helen A and told they will audition for the Happiness Patrol publicly. The implication being that if they're not sufficiently good (or funny?) enough, they will "disappear".  The Doctor sees their audition posters.

He effectively rescues them with the help of Priscilla P who is fed up of not being in the patrol and being overlooked by Helen A.

The Doctor, Ace and Susan escape back into the tunnels and soon find out from the pipe people that Fifi is on the loose again. Earl meets them and the Doctor gets him to play his harmonica loud to attract the dog, but also causes a cave in of crystallised syrup, killing the beast.



They get back to Helen A's HQ via the pipe to the Kandy Kitchen (and hound the Kandy Man into it via the uses of a roaring oven) before moving on. The pipe people divert the fondant, killing the evil bertie basett.

With revolution all around her, Helen A prepares to flee, but her husband and Trevor Sigma have stolen the escape shuttle and go without her.  She is eventually subdued and confronted with the emotions she has lacked when she finds out that Fifi is dead.

With the regime disbanded, the Doctor forces them to paint the TARDIS back blue and he and Ace set off for another adventure.

Trivia

• This story came about from throwing ideas about as the writer had absolutely not a single idea in his head about what to write. It was Andrew Cartmel who gave the prompt of a planet where everybody was forced to be happy, and things went from there.

• There's no denying it. The Kandy Man was heavily inspired by Bertie Basset from the Bassets Liquorice All-sorts sweets.  Needless to say, the company did not appreciate their mascot being made to look like a serial killer. The BBC got off light though, with them just promising not to do it again.

• The original version of the Kandy Man however wasn't even going to be like that. He was a human being and more like a joseph Mengele type criminal insane scientist.

• One thing older viewers may find familiar is Helen A. The actress played her as a satire of Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time. Her ruthlessness and her befuddled husband in the background are all giveaways. Cartmel and others have tried to play this down over the years, but the actress gets really defensive if anyone challenges this and insists she was told to play it like that

• The story was originally intended to be filmed in black and white to add to the Noir feel, but it was decided against

The Review

This story harks back to the olden glory days of Doctor Who with an intriguing concept and almost childlike simplicity. Indeed, the concept is quite good with very sinister overtones coming into the fray as if you're not happy you will be made to disappear in a ruthless and merciless way, whilst at the same time that sickly sweet appearance that everything is fine is emphasised by the use of pinks, smiley faces, and the Kandy Man's fondant.

This is yet another story that should work, and most of the actors give it a try. Kandy Man, as much as he looks like a fool, is pretty menacing because he's so unrepentant evil. Helen A, and Earl are also great. It's unfair to pick on some actors for letting the side down, so instead I will say that a few of them played it as camp as could be, and that detracted from the show.  To help them along, the fact that the city streets were just the slick black studio floor, and the low budget gave us pathetic go carts that couldn't outrun a snail...it destroyed credibility.

The end result for me was frustration. It was a good idea poorly executed. The Happiness Patrol wanted everyone to laugh and smile, but this show has made us do so at their expense, with only some of the sinister being left intact to even vaguely grab my attention.

Rating

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

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