Sixth Doctor Episodes

Summary


Season Twenty One Episodes

The Twin Dilemma


Season Twenty Two Episodes

Attack of the Cybermen
Vengeance on Varos
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Timelash
Revelation of the Daleks

Season Twenty Three Episodes

The Trial of a Time Lord 1-4 - The Mysterious Planet
The Trial of a Time Lord 5-8 - Mindwarp
The Trial of a Time Lord 9-12 - Terror of the Vervoids
The Trial of a Time Lord 13-14 - The Ultimate Foe

The Awakening

Two Episodes
Aired between 19th January 1984 and 20th January 1984

Written by Eric Pringle
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Michael Owen-Morris

Synopsis
Tegan wants the Doctor to take her to the sleepy town of Little Hodcombe where her Grandfather lives - she simply wants to visit him.

As it turns out, Little Hodcombe has a tradition of re-enacting a bloody Civil War battle that occurred there in 1643.  The village regulars split into opposing sides and fight the war game over a weekend and close the village so nobody from the outside gets accidentally hurt.

There's only one person in the village, Mrs Jane Hampden, a local schoolteacher that thinks things have gone too far... well, her and Tegan's Grandfather who has mysteriously gone missing. Jane is captured by Magistrate and temporary leader of the Roundheads George Hutchinson, and forced to remain their prisoner until the wargames are concluded.

The TARDIS arrives in the right time, but because of all the re-enacting, Tegan believes they're in the wrong time.  They see a mysterious figure in 17th century clothing as they emerge from an old church where they landed, but the figure goes out of sight and disappears. They're eventually caught by the Roundheads and taken to see Col Wolsey - Hutchinson's 2nd in command. 

Hutchinson and Wolsey explain the situation and Tegan gets upset when she finds out her Grandfather is missing, running away to be on her own. 

She gets her purse snatched by the mysterious man who rushes into a barn. When she follows him, she finds the ghost of an old man.

The rest are captured but soon escape. The Doctor goes to investigate the place and finds a young man by the name of Will who believes he's a psychic projection from the 1600's. 

They go to the church and see a priest hole and begin to follow it. 

Turlough goes to find Tegan and rescues her from the ghost but they're soon re-captured. Tegan is made to wear an outfit and is told she'll become the "Queen of the May". 

The Doctor meanwhile finds that the priest hole leads from the church where a symbol of a creature known as the Malus resides, and leads down towards a secret entrance in Col. Wolsey's house.  In the tunnels he meets Jane who found a way down from the house and together, they evade the Roundheads looking for them. They also find a small piece of metal that the Doctor identifies as Tinclavic - a material mined by the Terilleptils on the planet Raaga (see The Visitation for more).  This metal is mainly used by the people of Hakol who have harnessed psychic energy.  This all leads the Doctor to believe that the metal is connected to the legend of the Malus. 

They go back to the church and are confronted by the evil entity as a giant stone face of the Malus appears from behind an old wall.

It summons a psychic projection of a Cavalier Solider, but the group escape and run off. 

This encounter makes the Doctor think that the Malus is controlling Hutchinson to re-create the chaos of the Civil War - the period in time when it first landed on Earth and is trying to harness the psychic energy of the horrified people being slaughtered to regain its strength.

The Doctor and Jane go to Hutchinson and try to convince him to stop, telling him that the staged final battle will actually be real, but he doesn't listen and actually orders Wolsey to kill them. He leaves the room and the act to Wolsey, but he believes the Doctor and switches sides. Together, they rescue Tegan and put the May Queen clothes on a straw dummy. Wolsey takes the dummy and parades it through the streets before it's supposed to get burned at the stake - buying the rest time to escape.

When Hutchinson figures out what's going on, he orders Wolsey shot, but Will turns up with a flaming torch and provides enough of a distraction so that Wolsey can get away and they all reach the TARDIS.

Turlough meanwhile has been imprisoned with Tegan's Grandfather. They too escape and make it back to the TARDIS in time to find out that the Doctor has found a way to use the TARDIS to cut off the Malus' psychic feed.

They are attacked by ghosts in the church, but Hutchinson's men enter at the wrong time and one of them ends up getting decapitated.

Hutchinson himself turns up as the Malus desperately controls him and tries to stop the Doctor and his companions. 

Will throws himself at Hutchinson and they have a fight, resulting in Hutchinson being thrown into the mouth of the Malus as it dies. 

The church begins to blow up and the Doctor gets them all to safety in the TARDIS. 

It turns out when the Malus is dead that Will is still with them. He was brought through in a time rift unlike the psychic projections of the rest.  The Doctor promises to take him home, but at the request of Tegan, not until they've spent a few days as guests of her Grandfather, which was after all, the entire point of going to Little Hodcombe.

Trivia

• There was many a laugh in the outtakes as the horse and cart the Doctor and co. escape on ended up going through a prop of a gatehouse and demolishing it

• The reason why Will is not a psychic projection in this story is because there was a discussion about him becoming a companion (much like Jamie in The Highlanders). Ultimately, Eric Saward and John Nathan-Turner dismissed it as they thought the character would become tedious as he went to more mundane locations but would be forced to ask far too many questions

• There is a deleted scene from this story that shows Kamelion connecting to the TARDIS data banks. Tegan confronts him but he acts smarmy, like Turlough did. It was cut because the episode overran. 

The Review
This is a story to be enjoyed for the feeling it provides, as opposed to the actions is displays.  Like the Daemons, this is a story about an ancient, malevolent force that's been trapped in a sleepy little village. It strikes the vein of the Wicker Man and folk tales of things buried in hills.

There's a nice touch at the start where you assume it's the 1600's, but it's actually the 1980's and the sets are on the whole quite well done.

The biggest problem it has is that it's a two part episode, so everything feels rushed.  The purse snatching ghost and the old man are just there- there's no real reason.  There's not much character development or reasoning behind a lot of it. I guess you're just expected to take everything as said, don't question anything and just enjoy.

And that's the problem.  The Malus looks amazing, but let's face it. It's inept. It summons the odd ghost but the Doctor kills it very easily.  It controls Hutchinson, but he's never pro-active enough to kill anyone.  Some of his men fight on his side, but as soon as the Malus is defeated, everyone's ready to say "oh don't worry that you tried to burn Tegan at the stake, I'm sure you didn't mean to".

In summary, this is a very atmospheric story with great props, but a bit lackluster in execution.


Rating 

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

7 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Highlanders 

• The War Games

• The Daemons

• The Android Invasion

• The Visitation

Warriors of the Deep

Four Episodes
Aired between 5th January 1984 and 13th January 1984

Written by Johnny Byrne
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Pennant Roberts

Synopsis

The superpowers of the human race are locked in a cold war, pushing humanity closer to Armageddon with threats of nuclear obliteration.  A number of undersea bases are in operation and have the capability of launching nuclear weapons. It is aboard one of these bases that the TARDIS materialises.

The Doctor is still having trouble with the controls, but Tegan and Turlough agree that it's worth looking around the ship, just to ask their permission to stay for a while and repair the ship.

Two things are happening at the same time however.  First, two traitors from the enemy superpower have infiltrated the base: Doctor Solow and Nilson - the second in command, conspire to gain control of Maddox, a young Ensign who's mind is made to control the nuclear weapons.

Second, a trio of Silurians named Icthar, Skibus and Tarpok glide their undersea cruiser towards the base.

Icthar gives the order to waken an army of Sea Devils that they carry in their hold with the intent to invade the base. 

The humans pick up signs of their approaching craft and launch an unmanned probe, so Icthar orders that the Myrka destroys it.

The Doctor and co. in the meantime are discovered but with the loss of their probe, the base staff believe they are spies and they try to apprehend them, knocking the Doctor into a tank of water in the process. 

The others continue to run, but it results in Turlough getting captured to allow Tegan to escape.

The Doctor finds a way out of the water tank and disables a guard, taking his uniform and infiltrating the bridge where he sees Turlough being questioned by the commander - Vorshak.  Turlough tries to tell the truth about their presence, but nobody believes him - things are made even more suspect when Tegan is captured herself.  Suspicions continue until the Silurians start to invade and storm the airlocks. The Doctor reveals himself and tries to convince Vorshak to stand down, but Vorshak refuses and sends his crew to defend the airlocks.

Meanwhile, Solow and Nilson succeed in controling Maddox's mind with a simple device and begin to sabotage the base. 

The Doctor and Tegan go down to the airlocks and see that the crew are getting overrun as the Myrka - a fearsome beast, attacks and devastates the crew.  Elsewhere, the other airlocks are assaulted by Sea Devils.  The Doctor claims he knows a way to defeat the Myrka and convinces Vorshak to let him try.

Meanwhile, Solow and Nilson realise that aliens are attacking and discuss what to do.  Nilson tells her to escape in a pod whilst he continues the sabotage.  She tries, but is killed by the Myrka as she nears the airlocks. 

The Doctor ultimately gets hold of an ultra-violet ray and kills the Myrka.

Vorshak heads to the bridge and orders Nilson via radio to get in touch with their superiors and inform them of the attack.  When he arrives, he finds Nilson has not completed that order.  Nilson reveals himself as a traitor, kills Maddox so they can't use their weapons and tries to escape by taking Tegan hostage. The Doctor blinds Nilson with the ultra-violet ray and Tegan escapes. Nilson stumbles into a bunch of Sea Devils and is killed.

A valiant defence is put up, but ultimately, the rest of the base falls to the Sea Devils and Vorshak cannot contact his superiors because of Nilson's sabotage and he can't use nuclear weapons because Maddox is dead.

When the Doctor is brought as a prisoner to the bridge, he recognises Icthar from the last time he met them (see Doctor Who and the Silurians). He tries to broker peace, but Icthar doesn't trust the humans to keep it.  He intends to use the bases missiles to start a nuclear war in which all the humans will be wiped out, then the Silurians can live in peace. 

The Silurians are an advanced race and find it easy to undo the sabotage caused by Nilson and connect their own device into the system. 

Turlough and Tegan escape, finding their way to a storage area.  They manage to get the Doctor in there and look for ways to defeat the Silurians. A Sea Devil finds and attacks them, but accidentally shoots some Hexachromite Gas cylinders that spray on it and turn it to mush. 

The Doctor refuses to use the gas, believing it will be committing genocide, but he's forced into it as the Silurians will destroy humanity if he doesn't.  He connects the Hexachromite to the air vents and pumps it around the base.

As the reptiles begin to die, they set off the missiles.  The Doctor hooks himself up to the missile system to stop it, but as he does so, Icthar in his dying gasps kills Vorshak.  The Doctor stops the missiles with just a second or so to spare, but he laments all the loss of life, saying there should have been another way.

Trivia

• Even before production started on this story, Peter Davison announced that he'd be leaving, spurred on by Patrick Troughton's advice to him at the start of his tenure to "do three years then get out".  He said many years later that if the earlier quality of stories had been as good as his third seasons run, then he might have changed his mind.  This meant that the recruitment for the next Doctor was ongoing at the time of this filming

• The filming itself was problematic as Margaret Thatcher had called an election early, the BBC were forced to cover the events, and the studios booked for this serial were in use.  It caused many delays and left the crew with very little time to make this story - a knock on effect that would be very visible after the fact.

• To add to the frustrations, bureaucracy got in the way -  the lighting crew for example refused to make the sea base dark and foreboding, as there was a belief that dark sets would make it impossible to see things and viewers would believe there's something wrong with their sets.  That's why the base is so incredibly white - for what it should have looked like - think Ridley Scott's Alien

• Speaking of Aliens, the Myrka was another nightmare in production.  It was huge, it was uncomfortable and it wasn't even ready to go until the day of actual filming, giving the people who wore it (co-incidentally they were the same people who played Dobbin the pantomime horse in Rentaghost) no time to get used to it.  The paint on it was still wet and transferred to walls and Tegan's outfit.  It was so bad that the special effects unit went to John Nathan Turner and asked him to cut it from the script. He refused and said it was one of the unique selling points of the story (Jar Jar Binks anyone?).

• Ingrid Pitt was also a late addition as Doctor Solow.  Her karate taught by Elvis was one of the key scenes that executives would look at (along with the bendy foam doors and the Myrka) when deciding to axe the show

The Review

So as mentioned in the trivia, what was meant to be a dark, brooding telling of Cold War tensions ended up as a rushed and badly put together hash of foam and paint. But was it only that? I don't think so.  Taking a look back at pieces like the Curse of Pelladon, we can see the story's good enough to see beyond the pr**k in a cape - Alpha Centauri and praise it all the same.  The Warriors of the Deep not so much.

It's not necessarily the story that's bad, but everything around it. In other words it's badly visualised.  The costumes although as 80's as you can get, are worse than the ones in Robots of Death.  The acting on just about everyone is terrible and would look overboard even in the 60's.  Even dark sets wouldn't get around that.

The sentiment behind the story is good, but every step of the process to get there is so drawn out that it's just....tedious.  That's the best word I can find for it. Tedious. 

The Silurians don't really look like the Silurians we know and love. Neither do the Sea Devils (although the Samurai Armour is a nice touch).  They don't even act like it.  The Sea Devils are more than happy to be minions and cannon fodder for Icthar and his band. It just doesn't ring true - it's convenient for the sake of plot. 

The only one who's even remotely convincing is Peter Davison himself and for that, the rating will go up a couple of points because the end scene where everyone's dead and he says there should have been a better way is the entire point of the story and he delivers it with pathos.  You're right, Doctor, there should have been a better way....a better way of making this story.

Rating

5 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Underwater Menace

• Doctor Who and The Silurians

• The Sea Devils

• The Zygon Inversion (Doctor Who series 9)

The Five Doctors

One feature length episode

Aired on 23rd November 1983

Written by: Terrence Dicks
Produced by: John Nathan-Turner
Directed by: Peter Moffatt

Synopsis

Someone on Gallifrey is using a Time Scoop to pick the Doctor out of his timeline at various points in his life, including during his previous incarnations.  To assist these Doctors,  they also take various companions that each Doctor will be familiar with.

The exception to this is the Fourth Doctor and Romana who accidentally get trapped in the vortex when the mysterious figure tries to transport them with the Time Scoop.

This has a painful side effect for the Fifth Doctor, who is chilling out with Tegan and Turlough at the Eye of Orion. 

It makes him weak and he begins to fade in and out of existence.  Luckily, he's aware of why and he sets the TARDIS in motion to try and track down the source of it.

Once they land, the Doctor collapses and Tegan and Turlough are pretty powerless to do anything.  Not long after this, the First Doctor and Susan, his Granddaughter walk into the TARDIS, having just escaped from a mirrored maze where they defeated a Dalek.

Being in the area where his previous selves are presumably located, allows the fifth Doctor to recover.  Between himself and the first Doctor, they come to the realisation that they're on Gallifrey in the Death Zone.

Meanwhile, the second Doctor meets up with Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart at his reunion in UNIT. 

They're both taken by the time scoop and when the second Doctor sees a great tower in the distance, he also realises that they're in the Death Zone. He explains that it's the tower of Rassilon, where the great first Time Lord is buried. Legend has it that the Death Zone was created by ancient Time Lords when they were sadistic and compassionate. They used the zone like the Romans used the Colosseum, putting people and creatures in it for sport. The tower of Rassilon was added after as a resting place for Rassilon himself.  Although he's supposed to be the greatest of all Time Lords, rumour has it that Rassilon was crazy and a bit of a tyrant too.

The second Doctor knows that the only way out of the Death Zone is to get to the tower, and so they set off.

In the Citadel on Gallifrey, the High Council (led by Borusa) calls in the Master, employing him to track down the Doctors and bringing them out, back to the Citadel.  They give him a seal of the High Council and a transmat device. In return, the Master will be given a full set of regenerations.  The Master accepts.

On his travels, the Master meets the third Doctor, but fails to convince him that he's there to help. 

Strange laser bolts come from the sky and attack them, leading the third Doctor to believe that it was the Master.  The laser bolts hit Bessie and the Doctor and Sarah Jane are forced to carry on via foot to the tower.

After some debate with himself, the fifth Doctor takes Tegan and Susan out into the zone to go to the main entrance to the Tower of Rassilon. 

They can't take the TARDIS straight there because of a force field stopping it. On their way, they meet the Master too. The fifth Doctor is similarly distrusting, but their conversation is broken up when they're all attacked by Cybermen. 

The Doctor uses the Master's dropped transmat device and goes to the Citadel whilst Tegan and Susan make it back to the TARDIS.  The Master is captured by the Cybermen.

Once at the citadel, the Doctor realises that the Master was telling the truth.  He begins to uncover the insidious plot, implicating someone from the high council of being behind all of this.  Evidence is found to suggest that the Castelan is responsible, but he protests his innocence and he's shot and killed before he can confess.

Meanwhile, the second Doctor and the Brigadier are forced to flee from Cybermen into a series of caves beneath the tower.  They encounter a Yeti and are almost trapped when the roof falls in, but they find a way out and continue into the tower.

The third Doctor has similar troubles as he and Sarah Jane encounter a Raston Warrior Robot. 

Luckily, the robot gets distracted by a group of Cybermen that turn up and they take their chance, getting hold of some rope and javelins nearby to help them scale the mountain at the side of the tower.

They use the steel rope and hook it onto the top of the tower, zip-lining out onto the top entrance of the tower.

Tegan manages to convince the first Doctor of the necessity to go to the tower, and they get to the main entrance, unmolested.  Turlough and Susan await the force field going down so they can transport the TARDIS.

Whilst at the tower, Tegan and the Doctor find a trapped floor, something that another encounter with the Master solves - they hide as the Master tricks the Cybermen into going across and getting killed.

The second and third doctors both meet phantasms of past companions within the tower, but overcome them, knowing that it's a mind trick created by Rassilon's will.

Eventually, the First, Second and Third Doctors all meet up in the Tomb of Rassilon and begin to decipher what the old high gallifreyan inscriptions on the tomb mean. 

They drop the force field and Turlough and Susan take the TARDIS there just in time to avoid being blown up by a cyber-bomb.

Back in the citadel, the fifth Doctor uncovers a secret room and finds Borusa in there.  He is behind it all - he brought the Doctor's to the Death Zone because the Tomb of Rassilon gives people the chance to become immortal and he wanted it so that he could rule forever. 

Now the force field is down, he transmats into the tomb and takes the Doctor with him.

The spirit of Rassilon appears and asks Borusa if he really wants immortality.

The second Doctor insists that the others keep out of it and vouches for Borusa.  Rassilon smiles and turns Borusa into stone, giving him permanent immortality in the side of his casket.

The second Doctor explains that it was all in the inscriptions - "he who wins shall lose and he who loses shall win".

Rassilon agrees to send the other Doctors back as well as the companions and they all say their farewells.

Chancellor Flavia, the remaining member of the High Council turns up and praises the Doctor, appointing him the new President.  The Doctor asks her to convene other members and says he'll be right back, retreating into the TARDIS quickly. 

Tegan is disappointed but the Doctor says he's running away, just like he did the first time.

Trivia

• This celebration was conceived two years before it aired, but there was by no means a story worked on for that long.  The original script was to have been produced by Robert Holmes, the show's greatest writer.  

• Robert Holmes got on with Eric Saward, but he had no love for Nathan-Turner and his huge list of things that the story had to have shoe-horned in.  His script eventually got adapted and used as the hub for the Two Doctors, but he passed up the chance to finish this one off.

• The team therefore turned to Terrence Dicks, calling him at 3am (because he was at a convention in New Orleans) and asking him to come on-board.  

• The completion of the script came fairly late as Tom Baker kept running hot and cold as to whether he was going to be in it or not.  The publicity shots eventually used his waxwork from Madame Tusaude's when it was clear he wasn't going to be in it.  He did however suggest using the footage from Shada. 

• The Death Zone was filmed in south wales and as it looks on the screen, it was freezing

• There was so much to do and film for this project that Director Peter Moffatt had to ask John Nathan-Turner to help him out and shoot some footage.  At least part of the Cyberman vs Raston Warrior Robot scene was filmed by JNT himself.

• The Five Doctors was shown during Children in Need, starting a tradition that would run on for a number of years 

The Review

I began this very blog by stating that my earliest memories of the show were from this story and that they'd stuck with me even now.  For a look back on that, see here.

Now that I've watched the show in sequence up to this point, it has slightly diminished my love for this story, especially as it's quite upsetting to see that Borusa is the main bad guy. It by no means spoils it though, and here's the reason why. There's lots of inconsistencies and out of character moments to pick out of it, but the the difference to other low scoring stories is that a tight, coherent story wasn't ever really in John Nathan-Turner's mind at the time. 

The Five Doctors was there to give a slideshow of classic villains, doctors and companions, and in that, it absolutely gets it right.  As other sources have pointed out, the public could have gotten a series of interviews with the cast instead (as would happen ten and twenty years later). At least the Five Doctors was meant to be given something of a high-stakes adventure for us all to enjoy.

The music is pretty great, and the feel of nostalgia is also good, especially if watched in 1983 when there was little chance of going back and seeing older Doctors strut their stuff. The Raston scene is brilliant and gives a real sense of tension, even if Jon Pertwee can't stop moving and talking as he tells Sarah Jane to not move or talk.

At the end of the day, yes, there's significant faults in logic (e.g. if they can give the Master a full set of regeneration's just like that, why does Borusa need Rassilon?). That doesn't mean that this isn't a very entertaining story.  If I give the Sea Devils 10 out of 10, then The Five Doctors surely deserves it too.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-watchability Factor

10 out of 10!

Watch this if you liked...

• The Three Doctors

• The Two Doctors

• Day of the Doctor (Doctor Who, 50th Anniversary)