My Time with the Fifth Doctor

Nineteenth Season
As dictated in the trivia for the episodes, Peter Davison had his stories first four stories shot out of sequence to help him get into the swing of things and decide how the Doctor would be played.  This highlights that not even the production team knew what they wanted from him. Tom Baker had been such a character as to drown out everything around him.

I think for the nineteenth season, Peter Davison did a good job of holding his own for the most part, but left a character that was for the most part shall we say a little mild mannered. 

The quality of stories in this season are dubious to be kind, but there are some real gems in here when Eric Saward gets to play around - namely The Visitation and Earthshock. Many fans like Kinda, but for me it misses the mark and tries to be a little bit too intellectual and hits this side of boring.  Still, it was a good attempt.

The season rounds off with a wet fart of a story - Time flight. It wasn't necessarily all the writers fault that it ended so bad, but with time and budget pressures, this was a definite anti-climax to the death of Adric in the previous story.

Twentieth Season
This is the runt of the litter as far as Fifth Doctor stories go.  The aim of this season was supposedly to bring back classic monsters in each story, but for a lot of it (because of script issues and strikes) they got altered and shifted.  The reality of what we saw was a lack luster resurgence of B list monsters and lots of redundant attempts at suspense.

The majority of these stories were poor, with barely anything to keep the viewer drawn in and engaged. One notable exception was the introduction of Turlough and his treachery, but that was resolved (or rather, should have been) by the end of Mawdryn Undead, so we got eight more episodes of him stupidly trying to sabotage the Doctor and the hollow threats of the Black Guardian when he failed.

If you thought things couldn't get worse, there was the hairbrained scheme of John Nathan-Turner to introduce an actual robot to the cast. It wasn't any worse than the disastrous Time Flight and it was only two episodes, but by god, it's not any better either.

Thank heavens then for the Twentieth Anniversary Special!  This was a cheesy ball of nostalgia, but it was done in the right way.  It succeeded in every way where Season Twenty had failed abysmally.  We got old favourites in abundance, and Peter Davison was more than happy to share the limelight with them. This was the turning point.

Twenty First Season

After the slow burn of a start with Warriors of the Deep, this season finally got to where the Fifth Doctor stories should have been from the start.  Only Planet of Fire was a miss, the rest were more or less slap bang in the middle of the target. The stories were gritty, engaging and raised the stakes with the Doctor in a way that hadn't been seen since Season Fourteen.  This was a sign of great things to come as The Caves of Androzani heralded in a new Doctor.  Or at least, so we thought at the time...

The Doctor
Much to his credit, Peter Davison, whether by design or accident, ended up underplaying the Doctor.  For me, his mild mannered persona served to highlight his kindness.  He was in a way, much more relateable than any Doctor before him.  Now, some would say they don't want to relate to a 500+ year old Time Lord, but to me, it helps with audience engagement. 

The best case for this is the final story, The Caves of Androzani.  If Colin Baker's Doctor would have been in this story, he would have buggered off and left Perri to die!  If Tom Baker's Doctor had been in it, he'd have swanned about, wise cracking jokes left, right and centre and come up trumps with very little consequence of feeling of danger.  The fact that Peter Davison's Doctor was genuine and kind hearted, helped to sell the scenario and brought the tragedy of his death home in a way that woul have been impossible to do otherwise.

The fifth Doctor for me will remain one of my favourites and I think it's a crying shame we didn't get at least another season from him in the shape of the Twenty First.  The possibilities would have been amazing.  I will have to content myself with Big Finish for that.

Favourite Moment

As mentioned above the final scenes of The Caves of Androzani.  The fact that this man, this Time Lord gives up his own life for a girl that he's only just met - not to save the universe, but to save one person.  It is supremely powerful and sums up the Doctor's persona to a T. 

Worst Moment

There are so many, but most of them are entire story's long.  None particularly stand out over others, so I would say the worst for now would be the point in Time Flight when the Khalid is killed and looks dead with gunk and everything, only to be inexplicably revealed to be the Master. I mean, why go to all that length with the goop just to say "surprise!"?

Favourite Story

The Resurrection of the Daleks

Caves of Androzani comes in a very close second. This story I guess sneaks into number one because I grew up watching it again and again. I was captivated by all of it. The policemen with sub-machine guns, the terrifying voice of Davros, the ways that the Daleks are shown to be as ruthless as they always should be... It's just great even if it's a mess with all the plots

Worst Story

Time Flight

If it was hard to choose a best story, it is downright near impossible to pick a worst one.  Peter Davison was seriously let down by the quality of stories that he was given. A few of them, as is the case with Time Flight actually, were okay on paper, but the realities of constrained budgets and time meant that the realisation of them was truly god awful.  I shudder at the thought of ever having to watch this story again and with the grace of god, I won't ever get the feeling to.

Favourite Companion

Nyssa

Nyssa is my favourite. She sparks memories of Liz Shaw to me, and whilst there was always a danger of having a "smart" companion on board the TARDIS, Nyssa was always pitched at just the right level. She was smart, but never left the viewer behind.  She was kind and thoughtful and cared about the people around her. It's just a shame that they picked such an awful story for her to go out on - she deserved a better ending.

Worst Companion

Kamelion

Aha!  You thought I'd pick Adric didn't you?  Well, as whiny and spoiled as he was, we did get to see glimpses of how great it would have been to have him when he was alone with the Doctor in Keeper of Trakken.  Plus, we got a great ending when he was written out of the show.

Alas, Kamelion the malfunctioning robot was as pointless as he was irritating. From the very start it was an ill conceived attempt to bring in a strange new companion after the flop of K9 and Company (which coincidentally, I liked, but so did JN-T).

The robot never worked and was quickly abandoned in a storage cupboard onboard the TARDIS until it was time to write him out again.  Everything about him is just redundant and even if it had worked exactly like it should have done, my guess is that it would have been as overpowered as K9 ever was and would have been abandoned anyway.

The Caves of Androzani

Four Episodes
Aired between 8th March 1984 and 16th March 1984

Written by Robert Holmes
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Graham Harper

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Perri to Androzani minor, a sister planet of Androzani Major and it's little more than a ball of dust, filled with caves that occasionally spew hot mud. The Doctor's interest is piqued when he sees signs of a craft recently arriving and a mono-skid unloading something in the caves.

As they investigate, Perri puts her foot into some kind of sticky web.  The doctor clears it off from her and they continue, eventually getting captured by a bunch of human soldiers. Things escalate quickly as they take the Doctor and Perri to be gun-runners, supplying illegal weapons to a renegade called Sharaz Jek, a man who hides in the tunnels.

Despite the Doctor and Perri's protests, they are sentenced to death by a ritual shooting known as the red cloth.  Their sentence is passed by Trau Morgus, a ruthless businessman who is funding the expedition of soldiers on Androzani Minor to find and kill Jek.

The pair are tied to stakes and shot, but it turns out that somewhere along the line, they were switched out for android duplicates. The real Doctor and Perri are taken to Sharaz Jek's hideout and told they'll remain with him for all eternity.  Jek is a madman, driven mad by isolation in turn caused by hideous disfigurement that forced him to wear a mask at all times.

Whilst they are prisoner, the Doctor and Perri discover one of the soldiers, Salateen, has also been captured and duplicated. His android is currently infiltrating the command, finding out every action that General Chellak makes and reporting back to Jek.  Salateen explains to them that they've been poisoned by raw Spectrox (the thing Perri stepped in) and that they'll be dead in two days from Spectrox Toxaemia if they don't find the milk of bats that hide very deep caverns under Androzani Minor.

The Doctor is determined to find that milk, and he works out that the androids Sharaz Jek left to guard them are keyed to kill humans. He has two hearts (which the androids can detect) and therefore is not human and does not activate them.  Using this trick, he helps Perri and Salateen escape. Together, they go through the tunnels, but a patrol comes along and Salateen grabs Perri, taking her instead back to the soldiers to inform Chellack about his duplicate.

Where is Sharaz Jek you may ask?  He's gone to meet with the real gun runners and he's displeased at the number of weapons that have been seized by the soldiers. He offers a pitiful amount of spectrox (when he's sitting on tons of the stuff) to the mercenaries. They begrudgingly agree and Jek goes to get the spectrox.  The mercenaries follow, intending to kill him and take the tons, but they run into a magma beast, a creature that hunts in the caves. 

The Doctor is caught up in this and is forced to hide as the mercenaries engage the monster and kill it. They find and capture the Doctor.

Jek tells them they were fools and that he knew they were following him. He gives them the Doctor to take back to Androzani Major and promises them 8 kilos of Spectrox if they deliver the next shipment correctly. 

Salateen meets up with Chellak and tells him Jek's plan.  Together, they try to deceive the android, sending men in the wrong direction so that they can stealthily get to Jek's base, but the android sees them through walls and informs its master. 

In response, Jek changes the frequency of the identifier tags, meaning that the androids don't believe they are friends when they approach.  The soldiers are massacred and Jek gets hold of Perri once more (who is significantly weaker from the Toxaemia).

The Doctor is taken on board the mercenaries ship and discovers that Trau Morgus is in fact their employer, playing the army and Jek against themselves to drive profits of Spectrox through the roof. Morgus orders the mercenaries to take off and stay in orbit as he's on his way to the planet.  Before he can get there though, the Doctor breaks his bonds and takes the ship back to Androzani Minor, determined to find the milk of the bat to save Perri.

The ship crash lands, giving the Doctor enough time to run off.  The mercenaries chase him, but are forced to turn back as a mud-burst begins to tear through the tunnels. 

Morgus arrives and gets an update from his mercenaries, only to find that his aide, Frau Timmin has double crossed him and made him a wanted man after revealing that he assassinated the President of Androzani Major.  Morgus has to re-negotiate his position with the mercenaries to go into the caves, kill Jek and take all the Spectrox.  Only the mercenary leader, Stotz agrees, and kills the rest of his men to make sure they don't betray him.

The Doctor finds Perri in the hands of Jek, and vows to get some bats milk.  Jek gives him the remaining oxygen cylinder he has to do it.

Chellak however survived the android attack and fights his way to Jek. He tears off Jek's mask, but is trapped outside when a mud-burst comes and is killed in it.

Morgus and Stotz reach Jek, but Jek kills Morgus, is shot by Stotz and Stotz is killed by one of the remaining androids.

The Doctor gets the milk and makes it back to Perri. He scoops her up in his arms and makes it out of the caves, just as the big mud burst explodes out of them.  He drops some of the milk in the escape, leaving just one dose left.  This dose he gives to Perri, saving her, but dooming himself. 

He regenerates, with the faces and phantom voices of all his companions urging him to survive, but the overriding voice of The Master cursing him to die.

The Doctor regenerates before Perri's eyes and when she asks what's happened to him, he proclaims that he's changed, and not a moment too soon.

Trivia

• Following the disastrous attempt to get Robert Holmes in the Five Doctors, Eric Saward put his foot down and insisted they needed him to write this story.  John Nathan-Turner did not like Robert Holmes in the least, but eventually relented.

• Learning from his past mistakes, Saward gave Holmes carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, so long as he killed the Doctor at the end.

• The regeneration sequence had specially filmed segments for Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) and all the rest.  This involved getting them separately and filming the sequences alone

• This is a special ending sequence in episode 4, as they used Colin Baker's face in the end credits.

• The way Morgus looks at the camera and delivers exposition or internal thoughts was caused by the actor mis-reading Graham Harper's instructions. Unfortunately, the scene it was first filmed in was shot with 30 seconds to go before the plugs were pulled in the studio, so it stood and everyone said they liked it so he kept it.

• A number of top people were indicated to play roles in this story, including Roger Daltry (lead singer of the Who) and Ian Holme (Bilbo Baggins and Ash from Alien)

• When Peter Davison came on board Doctor Who, he agreed to wear the stick of celery, but only if it's use was explained before he left.  Here, John Nathan-Turner offers that explanation

• For years to come, Peter Davision would always recount at conventions that his triumphant regeneration scene was upstaged by the gratuitous shot of Nicola Bryant's cleavage 

The Review

As explained countless times, I believe that Doctor Who works best when its at it's grittiest. The serious application of TV violence often raises the stakes and highlights the struggles that the characters go through, justifying the victory.  The Caves of Androzani has to be the grittiest of gritty stories in the entire run of the show.

It's one of the few stories in the classic era that is shot with low lighting, lots of smoke and mud. It paints a bleak image from the outset and doesn't get any better.  The characters are all selfish, corrupt and ruthless. The closest to an ally is General Chellak, and he not only orders the Doctor and Perri's death, but he is willing to kill his men, just to hide his own incompetence.

The acting is superb on near enough everyone's part. Okay, Sharaz Jek is over the top, but he's meant to be. He's mad. There is an element of melodrama going on, but compare his character to Soldeed in the Horns of Nimon. Jek is genuinely threatening and does little to play the comedy up (with the exception of "even I can't bare to touch myself" line). 

I can't help but marvel at how much information is crammed into this four part story. For example, there's four different plots going on at once here - the Doctor's mission to save Perri, the army's hunt for Jek, Jek's dealings with the mercenaries and Morgus' political manoeuvrings.   All of these are brought to the boil at the same time and none feel rushed or overdone.

The music is haunting and accompanies the scenes nicely - what more can you ask of that.

In fact the only things you can really pick with this story are the physical things. The soldiers uniforms are just as crap as they were in Warriors of the Deep - they look like they belong on the Krypton Factor rather than going to war; the magma beast looks almost right, but its frozen jaw and wobbly talons make it more laughable than threatening, and the less said about the monitor graphics Sharaz Jek uses, the better.  These are all minor points though in a sea of positives.  The magma beast is barely in it, so it doesn't matter. The uniforms were probably stylish at the time, and...well, does it matter about the monitors?

There are many, many layers of things to admire in this story, but the thing I would point out most is the entire reason why this blood drenched, depressing story works so well.  Here, we see the Doctor go to the limit, doing absolutely everything he can, and not to save the universe, not to save himself, but to save one girl that he has placed in harms way.  This girl he's just met, and he's willing to put his life on the line for her.  We never question it, because it's done so well and that's a huge credit to Peter Davison.  The sacrifice truly shows us why the Doctor is so good, and we feel the desperation of it as it goes along. If only more of Davison's tenure would have been like this.

A must see for anyone who wants to watch 80's Doctor Who, and probably Doctor Who in general.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-watchability Factor

8 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Three Doctors

• Frontier in Space

• The Talons of Weng-Chiang

• The Sun Makers

• The Power of Kroll

• Earthshock

Planet of Fire

Four episodes
Aired between 23rd February 1984 and 2nd March 1984

Written by Peter Grimwade
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Fiona Cumming

Synopsis

Shortly following Tegan's departure, Kamelion screams in pain. The Doctor and Turlough rush to find him on the floor, connected to the TARDIS data core.

As this is happening, the TARDIS picks up on a distress signal and Turlough seems to recognise it and is troubled by it - so much so that he rips out wires on the console to stop the signal.  All for not though, as Kamelion takes control of the TARDIS and heads towards the source of the signal, which happens to be the island of Lanzarote.

On the island, Howard Foster, an archaeologist is returning with his team from bringing their finds up from the sea bed. Amongst the finds is a strange golden object marked with the sign of two triangles.  His step-daughter, Perpugilliam "Perri" Brown shows up and explains she's bored and intends to go backpacking in Morocco with a total stranger.  Howard is angry at first, but then offers to pay for her ticket to make sure retains her return ticket to New York and thereby making sure she's safe. He convinces her that he's left his money on the boat, but when they get there, he strands her on it in order to make her miss the flight.

Not to be deterred, Perri takes the strange artefact with the intent to sell it, changes into a bikini and tries to swim ashore.  For some reason though, she can't swim very well and ends up half-drowning herself until Turlough spots her on the TARDIS monitor and saves her.

Turlough takes Perri to the TARDIS and lays her in bed to recover, and finds the artefact. Again he is disturbed as he happens to have a strange embossed tattoo of the triangle pattern on his arm, the same as the artefact.

The Doctor, having been running all around the island trying to find the source, tracks it back to the TARDIS and uncovers it from Turlough. He asks what the artefact is, but before Turlough can fully explain, the TARDIS doors close and it begins to take off again.  Kamelion is controlling the TARDIS once again and has taken form of Howard from Perri's memories.  The Doctor confronts him, but doesn't get much sense, ultimately figuring out that they're going back to where the artefact originated from - a desert planet known as Sarn.

On Sarn, there is a community of people who have a faith worshipping Logar, god of fire.  That faith is waning as people are starting to question whether he exists at all.  The disciple of the high priest Timanov, is a boy who also bears a mark on his arm similar to Turlough.  Timanov thinks the boy, Malcon, is a chosen one of Logar and he alone can determine if heretics are burned in fire to appease the god and stop the earthquakes that seem to be troubling their village.  The community seem to be ready to overthrow Timanov and Malcon when the TARDIS arrives, and people take it as a sign from Logar.

 As the Doctor and Turlough go out to investigate where they've landed, "Howard" turns into the Master and proclaims that he's got control of the TARDIS now.

Following this, Perri runs all over the fire riddled mountainsides of Sarn, being chased by Kamelion who has taken on the appearance of the Master.

The Doctor and Turlough meanwhile find evidence that people from Trion are living on Sarn (the mark on Turlough's arm is called the Misos triangle and it's a sign of his people).

It seems that Malcon maybe Turlough's brother as he and his father went missing when they were very young (implication is that their ship crashed on Sarn).  Malcon knows of the ship and takes Turlough there who then finds out off of Perri that the Master is involved.  Together, they all race back to the village, but see that the Master has managed to convince Timanov that he is a messenger from Logar and convinces the high priest to try and execute the Doctor by burning him sacrificially.

Turlough finds some technology that disables the flame and then goes to free the Doctor.

Perri is re-captured by Kamelion / The Master and taken into his TARDIS.

The Doctor figures out that the seizmic disturbances are from the volcano that's about to erupt and kill them all. He realises that the fire in the centre of their community is fuelled by Newmismaton gas. which has renown healing properties - he assumes that the Master is after using the gas to rejuvenate himself.

Sure enough, the Master takes Perri in his TARDIS to a central control in the heart of the volcano that was put there long ago and controls the Newmismaton gas flow.  He tries to force Perri to work the controls, but she escapes into his TARDIS and tries to destroy Kamelion's control box, instead finding a miniaturised Master within it.

Like a complete idiot, the Master accidentally shrank himself when trying to upgrade his Tissue Compression Eliminator.  Now he needs the gas to rejuvenate himself.  Perri tries to slap him with her shoe, but he escapes into the innards of his own TARDIS console and is forced to open the doors to free her.

Perri goes and finds the Doctor, takes him to the control room in the heart of the volcano.  The Doctor sets up a trap by altering the system.

The Master arrives and uses Kamelion to try and dispose of the Doctor but the Doctor's trap short circuits Kamelion and he ends up being destroyed by the Tissue Compression Eliminator.

The Master, having been put into the blue flames of the Newmismaton gas is returned to normal and starts to gloat, but the Doctor fiddles with the controls and watches the flames turn yellow and the Master is burned up to nothing.

Even though he doesn't want to (because he was a political prisoner and sentenced to exile on Earth), Turlough contacts Trion and gets them to send out a ship to come pick up all the villagers on Sarn.  They arrive but tell him that times have changed and he's welcome to return home with his newfound brother.

Turlough does so and asks Perri to look after the Doctor.

The Doctor does seem intent to send her back to Earth, but she convinces him that she was wanting to travel the world anyway, and travelling in the TARDIS for three weeks is much better.

Trivia

• If you don't count the guest starring Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in Battlefield, this is the last time a male companion has an adventure with the Doctor until the series re-boot in 2005.

• The destruction of Kamelion and departure of Turlough also marked the end of a nearly 7 year run of non-human companions that travelled with the Doctor.

• According to John Nathan-Turner himself, the last words from the Master of "Won't you show mercy to your own..." would have ended in "brother". This was obviously kept secret as they didn't want to be that explicit.

• The scene where Perri is drowning was interrupted by a Norweigian man from a nudist beach who saw her and dove in, swimming to her to help, but finding out when he got there that she was perfectly fine.  Luckily, the crew got all the shots of Perri before hand.

The Review

As with Terminus, I found The Planet of Fire to be unbelievably boring.  Once again, there are minor aspects of Grimwade's stories, mainly the idea at the core of them that are interesting, and Planet of Fire does have these,  but they've been done before, and much better.

The civilisation based on a space travelling race is old hat for Doctor Who now, and once the TARDIS lands on Sarn, we're left with little of interest beyond a story that looks at the warnings of following blind faith.  That's alright, but it doesn't really focus on that theme, it just has it there in the background whilst we see a lot of messing around by men painted silver. 

Indeed, Kamelion is written out in this, and he's made one of the key elements in this story, which is fair enough, but we've not really seen him since the King's Demons, so no viewer is attached to him at all and it's irrelevant how much pain he's in because he's effectively still a robot to us. 

The running around Lanzarote and Perri's introduction wasn't too bad, and it did hold my attention for a little bit.  I'm not saying I'd like more than one episode of it (like Ark of Infinity), but when this is one of the good bits and it goes away mid-episode 1, then it's going to be missed.

The artefact plot bothers me. I mean, why is it on earth in 1984 anyway?  The Master / Kamelion additionally are a source of amusement and  frustration as they're so over the top on a constant basis that it is a complete turn off.  The less said about the entire shrunken master scenario, the better.

All in all, I would seriously recommend giving this a miss once you've seen Nicola Bryant get her kit off and half-drown.  It's such a sad thing too, as Season 21 has been a real upswing in the quality of stories for Peter Davison's run on the show. 

Dire production and I'm not planning to watch this again any time in the future.

Rating

3 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

2 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

The Time Monster

Death to the Daleks

The Brain of Morbius

Underworld

The Two Doctors

The Fires of Pompeii (Doctor Who, Series 4)

Resurrection of the Daleks

Four Episodes (aired as 2x 45 minute episodes)
Aired between 8th February 1984 and 15th February 1984

Written by Eric Saward
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Matthew Robinson

Synopsis

On a wet, run-down, London street, a bunch of strangely dressed men pile out of a warehouse and run away. London Policemen come out of the warehouse and mercilessly gun down the men, and an innocent bystander with sub-machine guns. 

The Chief Constable then takes a strange device out of his pocket and moves a switch, transporting the dead men and the guns somewhere else. The Policemen then go on their "beat" like nothing had happened.

The TARDIS rather than going to the centre of the universe, instead gets pulled down some form of time corridor.

The Doctor manages to break free of it and lands in a run-down part of the docklands near Tower Bridge.  He, Tegan and Turlough go out and try to find the end of the time corridor to figure out what's happened. As they do, they find one of the scruffy clothed men who managed to escape the murderous Policemen.  He collapses in exhaustion at first, but when he comes around, he tells them that they're in danger and not to go looking for the corridor.

Meanwhile, the Chief Constable and the bodies are beamed aboard a spaceship in the far future.  The Chief, Lytton is working for none other than the Daleks in some kind of scheme that required the men as test subjects. They weren't supposed to be killed, but it's only a temporary setback.  He turns his attentions to their big prize, a prison station in the depths of space.

On this station, a demoralised skeleton crew is present, and newly arrived Lt Mercer complains hopelessly to the stations Doctor, Styles about the poor condition of the crew and the apathy of them.  His case is soon made as the Dalek ship attacks the prison station and the crew scramble to put up a defence.  Their weapons are useless as Daleks blow the airlock and move in, but their mines prove effective and force the Dalek force to withdraw. 

Lytton is scathing to the Supreme Dalek and uses some type of gas that horribly disfigures the crew, allowing them to move in.

Back in the warehouse on earth, the Doctor convinces Stein to come with them back to the upper floor.  Stein tells them that soldiers are nearby, but the Doctor is unconcerned and continues to look for the entrance to the corridor.  Turlough mysteriously disappears and the TARDIS crew's shouting brings up the British soldiers led by Col. Archer.  They begin to question the Doctor, but are soon shaken as a Dalek appears in the warehouse! The Dalek kills several soldiers before the Doctor coordinates their attacks and gets the men to fire at its eyestalk, blinding it enough for them to push it out of the upstairs window and smashing down onto the cobbled street below.

Back on the prison station, the human Dalek Soldiers fight their way to the cryogenic section, where the sole prisoner of this place is held - Davros!  The soldiers manage to kill the security guard as she tried to terminate Davros, and Lytton gives the order to un-thaw the creator of the Daleks.

Dr Styles, Lt Mercer and a few others manage to escape the slaughter and look around for ways to stop the Dalek soldiers, stealing uniforms in the process. Turlough, having been accidentally taken in the time corridor, sneaks out of the Dalek ship and onto the station, running into the surviving crew. Together, they look for a way to blow up the prison station and end the threat of the Daleks.

Once thawed out, Davros is briefed by Lytton. He's told that the Daleks lost the Movellan war because of a weaponised virus.

Davros has been freed to find an antidote for that virus so the Daleks can once again be supreme.  Davros is weary of the Daleks past abuse of him though, and demands to stay on the station, despite a distress call having been sent back to earth.  As Lytton leaves, Davros begins to put his own plans into motion, taking control of the mind of Kiston, the human sent to help ensure he's healthy.

Through conversation, the Doctor finds out that the soldiers are a bomb disposal squad, sent to look at some strange artefacts found in the warehouse.  The Dalek that was pushed out of the window attacks the soldiers in its squid form, ultimately being killed, but it's enough to convince Col. Archer that he's in over his head. 

He agrees to go call for help whilst the Doctor and Stein go to search for Turlough using the TARDIS.  Tegan is left with the soldiers and Professor Laird, the groups scientific advisor.

Archer goes out and comes across the Policemen who murder him. The other soldiers are also murdered, but when Tegan and Prof. Laird try to escape, they encounter the same soldiers, although very cold, and calculating. They're effectively held prisoner.

The Doctor gets to the Dalek ship in the TARDIS, but as soon as they leave, he's captured by Stein who turns out to be a Dalek agent. 

He's taken prisoner and the Daleks try to replicate him, using a duplicate that is brainwashed to serve the Daleks.  The Supreme Dalek gloats that the time corridor and samples of the Movellan Virus (that the soldiers mistook for bombs) were planted on earth to draw the Doctor in so he could be duplicated and sent to Gallifrey to assassinate the High Council.

On Earth, Tegan tries to escape, but after more innocents are gunned down to prove a point, she is re-captured.  Prof. Laird is shot trying to escape and Tegan is shoved towards the time corridor, being taken to the Dalek ship for duplication.

Meanwhile, Davros has discovered that the Doctor is in the area and he sends some of his brainwashed Daleks down the time corridor to capture the Doctor and his TARDIS.

Turlough and the station crew find the station self destruct and whilst they set it up, Lt Mercer agrees to go with Turlough to the Dalek ship to find a way to escape down the time corridor once the self destruct is activated.

Whilst they're gone, Lytton and his men show up and kill Styles and the remaining station crew, stopping the self-destruct process.

Luckily, Stein overcomes his Dalek conditioning after a chat with the Doctor and the duplication process is stopped.  They soon meet up with Tegan and Turlough and the pair are sent back to the TARDIS.  The Doctor goes with Lt Mercer and Stein to confront Davros.  They get there and the Doctor threatens to end Davros' life, but he's ultimately intercepted by Lytton and his men.

In the firefight, the Doctor gets away, but fails to kill Davros and Stein goes off on his own, fearing that the Dalek conditioning is gaining control again.

The Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Lytton and his men all end up at the Warehouse, either trying to escape, or being ordered to stop Davros' Daleks.  The Doctor gets samples of the Movellan virus and drops a canister in the place, taking care of the Daleks.

On the station, the Supreme Dalek abandons all pretence of a plan and orders both Davros and Lytton killed. The Daleks turn up to kill Davros, but he uses his sample of the Movellan virus to destroy them. The joke's on him however as he also suffers from the effects of the virus and begins squirting shaving foam out of every pore.

Back on earth, Lytton realises the cause is lost, and being a hired hand and mercenary for the Daleks anyway, he decides to cut his losses, grabs his Police uniform (from somewhere) and leaves.

The Supreme Dalek contacts the Doctor and tells him they still have conditioned spies across places of authority in human areas.

Stein finally ends it by fighting his conditioning and completing the self-destruct sequence, blowing up the Dalek ship and the prison station in the process and disabling the time corridor.

The Doctor is satisfied that the Dalek threat has ended, with the duplicates ultimately returning to normal now the Daleks are all killed.  Tegan has had enough though and says it's stopped being fun and despite the Doctor's protests, she runs off and leaves them.

The Doctor is saddened at her leaving and remarks that he must change his ways (hinting that he's now too mired in violence).

Back on the cobbled streets of London, Lytton and the two murderous Policemen steadily walk off.

Trivia

• This story was meant to go in the previous season as one of the big monsters returning, but multiple re-writes stopped that happening

• The show was eventually broadcast as two episodes, not four as had been expected.  This was because they needed to free up the slot to show some of the 1984 Winter Olympics.  The production team liked the format so much that they would go on to use it for some of the 6th Doctor story's

• If you didn't know, Kiston was played by Leslie Grantham. This was his first on-screen role, and when the director of this story would go on to help make Eastenders (a popular UK soap opera), Grantham would be cast in the role of the iconic "dirty" Den Watts.  He was recommended the role for this by none other than Leela a.k.a Louise Jameson. She would in turn go on to play a part in the history of Eastenders.

• Micheal Wisher said he was very interested in reprising his role as Davros, but when it came to filming this story, he was unfortunately unavailable. Terry Malloy stepped in to fill his shoes though

• The Dalek trooper helmets were created late in the process, and although most hated them, it was too late to change them before filming began

• There is a rumour that one of the original scripts for this story featured Kamelion in a prominent role, likely that of Stein. It would have followed on from the Kings Demons and would make a lot more sense in the treachery part of it. Obviously, this was changed because the robot was pretty useless. The team would effectively re-hash that plot in the next story

• Janette Fielding had put in her resignation before Peter Davison, and Mark Strickson's contract was coming to an end too.  John Nathan-Turner however thought it better to split up the departures of the cast over multiple stories.

The Review

At first glance, the justifications for this story feel like those given for The Sea Devils or Earthshock.  There's serious issues with some of the plot, but somehow it retains a high score. Well, first I would argue that this story holds up better than the others in that regard. It's much more logical.

The main issue that people can level at this story is the fact that there's too much going on.  The main plot of releasing Davros to find a cure for the Movellan virus is solid. The inclusion of Lytton and the Dalek troopers adds in a humanising sense. What I mean by that is that Maurice Colbourne as Lytton can emote on screen, showing frustration and anger to play very well against Terry Malloy's Davros. 

Speaking of Davros, Terry Malloy is brilliant here, succeeding fantastically in making the character scheming, ruthless and thoroughly convincing.  Yes, he loses some of the subtlety of Michael Wisher's efforts, but this Davros has had 90 years cooped up inside a freezer. He's bound to be a little unhinged now!

A big criticism levelled at this story too is the death toll.  It is one of (if not THEE) largest in all of Doctor  Who for on-screen deaths.  As you'll know from previous stories, I'm fine with that. It's not because of my cold, dead heart either. It's because the death toll in this particular story raises the stakes.  It puts the Dalek's smack bang where they should be.  It gives you a feeling that the Daleks are merciless killers and when partnered with Lytton, pose a very real threat. 

When innocent bystanders are getting shot by Policemen of all people, just because they got in the way...it jump-starts you with a shock to the system that puts you on the edge of your seat and you start to believe that anything bad could happen here.

This is EXACTLY what the Daleks should be. They are frightening, and as a five year old boy watching this, it captivated and scared me in a way that many young people watching Doctor Who hadn't been in a very long time.

The place where this story falls down is the other sub-plots included, namely the duplicates and the assassination of the High Council of Time Lords.  It feels exactly how it looks, padding to fill the time and the acting is put together in such a way as to just make that aspect worse.  These things are small for me and I revel in the fact that this story puts the Daleks and Davros in the position of being scary once more. The lighting, music and effects all play to emphasise this and Tegan's departure sums it up nicely. It forces you to stop and take stock of what's happened here, a lot of people have died and yes, the Doctor won, but at great cost.

Criticise this story all you like, but for me, it will forever be in my top 5.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-Watchability Factor

9 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Day of the Daleks

• Earthshock

• Revelation of the Daleks

Frontios

Four Episodes
Aired between 26th January 1984 and 3rd February 1984

Written by Christopher H. Bidmead
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Ron Jones

Synopsis

The Doctor is doing some re-organising of the TARDIS when it takes them to the far limits of time, long after the destruction of earth. They end up in orbit around a planet called Frontios. 

The Doctor is reluctant to land as he says it's they're messing around somewhere at the limit of Galifreyan influence and he doesn't want to interfere with a struggling human colony they've found there.

Before he can move though, the TARDIS is hit by a meteor shower and they're forced to land on the planet.  They land in the middle of the colony as the meteors crash around them.  The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough immediately begin to help those injured in the shower, and instead of being thanked, are treated with suspicion.

It turns out that the meteors didn't fall by accident, they were sent by some unknown enemy to attack the colonists and Mr Range, the head physician believes they're the vanguard of an invasion.

Naturally, the Doctor bullies them into focusing on healing the wounded, and he sends Tegan and Turlough to get him better equipment and light sources from the TARDIS, but as they go there, they find the interior door stuck fast.  They decide instead to go off with Ranges daughter, Norna, to enter a forbidden part of the colony where the old leader, Captain Revere had a workshop.  They believe that he was working on more equipment that would give light and power.

Turlough, Tegan and Norna get the acid battery,

despite guards looking for them, and get back, but another shower arrives and destroys the TARDIS.

Chief Orderly Brazen meanwhile has spotted Tegan and company, and after sending his men after them, he goes to tell the young leader of the colony, Plantagenet. The ruler is the son of Captain Revere, and is paranoid as Range was about the Doctor being one of the invaders.  He and Brazen confront the Doctor as the meteor shower that destroys the TARDIS comes down.

As the Doctor and co stand around the smoking ruins, Plantagenet gathers a squad of men and orders the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough shot.

Turlough grabs the smoking remains of the TARDIS' hatstand and convinces them it's a weapon enough for the soldiers not to fire.  The Doctor strikes a bargain with Plantagenet to find the answer as to why a mysterious force is bombarding the colony and buys them time.

They work with the reluctant colonists, and Tegan finds in the course of this, a series of records in Mr Range's files showing unexplained deaths of colonists. 

Plantagenet tries to attack the group, but collapses with a wound from the bombardment that he's been trying to conceal.  The Doctor and Turlough get him to the medical facility and help to save his life.  In the wake of this, Turlough questions why the colonists don't dig underground bunkers to escape the bombardment, but Norna tells him that Captain Revere forbade them to do so. This prompts him to check Revere's workshop again and finds a hidden tunnel under the floor.  They go exploring in the caves beneath and Turlough says he feels a familiar fear about that place.

The Doctor and Tegan in the meantime are dealing with their own problems.  Plantagenet is mysteriously sucked underground, creating a problem as he's the only figurehead the colonists will follow. Without him, they will descend into anarchy, and the Doctor finds out that Revere told them to stop digging underground because they found evidence of monsters living in the tunnels.

The Doctor and Range go into the tunnels when they find Norna and Turlough gone and eventually find Turlough going mad - blubbering about "Tractators". 

Turns out that the Tractators are giant woodlice type aliens that live underground.

They have the ability to move things with the waddle of their antennae and are responsible for pulling people underground and indeed for pulling the meteors (and the TARDIS to the planet).

The Doctor enters a long bluffing and negotiation process with their leader, Gravis, and finds out that the Tractators have been stranded on Frontios for centuries.

They waited until the colonists were set up then began "farming" them to use in their organic technology, the most terrifying of which is a mining machine that is powered by a living brain and torso of Captain Revere. 

They plan to use Plantagenet to replace him when he dies.

The mining machine is used to create tunnels that enhance the Tractators telekinetic control and thus pull the meteors to Frontios. The Gravis is very interested in the Doctor's TARDIS as he knows about the Time Lords and wants to use it to get the Tractators off the planet.

They hold the Doctor off and start to put Plantagenet into the mining machine once Revere is dead.

Thankfully, Brazen leads a squad down into the tunnels and creates enough of a diversion for the Doctor to rescue Plantagenet and escape. Brazen is captured and killed by the mining machine in the process.

Whilst trying to get out of the tunnels, Plantagenet explains to the Doctor that he figured out the Tractators plans. They intend to use the tunnels to enhance their abilities to ultimately move the planet and steer it through space, so they can capture other planets. 

After the Gravis is stunned, Turlough remembers from some instinctive race memory he has that the Gravis is the source of the Tractator's power. If they separate him from the rest, they will be mindless and mundane. 

The group discover that the Tractators have pulled bits of the TARDIS underground and used them in tunnel construction.  The Doctor lures the Gravis to where the console room is and manipulates him into restoring the TARDIS so it can take the Tractators off the planet. 

Unfortunately, the Gravis didn't anticipate that once the time machine was put back together, its interior would once again become dimensionally separate from the rest of the world. The Gravis becomes dormant because of this, and the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are able to take it to a different planet and dump it away from the rest of the Tractators.

They return to Frontios to say goodbye to Range, Norna and Plantagenet, and give them a hatstand to remember them by (but warn them not to mention the Doctor's involvement).

With that, they leave again in the TARDIS, but it soon starts to shake and danger looms as the Doctor fights with the controls, saying they're being pulled to the centre of the universe.

Trivia

• This is the last story Christopher Bidmead did for Doctor Who.  It was written like it had a movie budget to go with it, and so a lot of the elements were just too hard to realise on the actual budget.  To the relief of the BBC but the regret of many viewers, the more gruesome elements of the story didn't make it in. The original script called for the entire mining machine to be made of human body parts and the Tractator's translation device was a severed head!

• The practicalities as ever were a problem, and finding themselves short on time and money, the entire story was filmed in studio, rather than outside in real caves and tunnels.  The actors had to be careful how they walked so that their shoes didn't squeak on all the polystyrene

• One sad note was that renowned actor, Peter Arne was due to play Mr Range, but after he returned home from a costume fitting, he was brutally murdered.  The killer was thought to be insane and killed himself a short time later by throwing himself in a canal.

• Whatever you think of John Nathan-Turner, he was very good at publicity.  During Frontios, its believed he started the rumour about possibly doing away with the TARDIS, and the scene where the TARDIS is destroyed sure played into everyone's fear and got viewers. The truth is it destroying the TARDIS was never in question.

• By this time, the press were introduced to Colin Baker and were having a field day anyway.

The Review

The one big thing I remember from watching Frontios as a five year old was Captain Revere in the mining machine.  I remember this story as something dark and interesting. The Tractators were never scary, but the sets and the lighting and the horrible corpse make up left a good impression in my mind. Therefore, I really was looking forwards to watching this.  It could never truly live up to the image I had in my mind, but what I took away from all of this was this:  Frontios, like Snakedance, has a lot of good worldbuilding. It also has some quite good concepts, with the twist of the meteors coming down actually being from a threat under the earth, and the spooky tag line of "the earth buries its dead". 

But Christopher Bidmead loves complex stories and if Doctor who were judged on that, then this and Warriors Gate would be the highest praised stories in all of Doctor Who.  I myself find it too complex for it's own good.  There's intrigue, but it goes so overboard with it that minutes and minutes go by without any real action. It takes so long to explore the back story that it ends up being quite boring in places. 

As with what I remember, the sets, lighting, Blakes 7 helmets and the mining machine are all great.  The acting is far too over the top and cliche with both Plantagenet and Brazen being super annoying (that's part of their characters I guess, but still).

Frontios is a decent watch, once. I'll not be coming back to watch it again for quite a while I dare say, but it's far from being the worst Doctor Who, and in comparison with other Peter Davison stories, it's still up there as one of the better ones.

Rating

6 out of 10 

Re-watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Web Planet

• Doctor Who and the Silurians

• The Mutants

• Full Circle

• The Twin Dilemma

• The Hungry Earth (Doctor Who, Series 5)