Timelash

 In a nihilistic season packed with implied or actual violence, `Timelash` stands apart as being a more traditional Doctor Who story. A regular near the foot of fan votes it seems to be written off as a bit of a mess. Yet like such stories there is something of worth if you watch it with an open mind and try to forget all the brickbats that have been hurled towards it. With Pennant Roberts again lumbered with bright sets (as he was in `Warriors of the Deep`) the story is already hamstrung while Glen McCoy’s script feels like it needed more work and production values are not the best. There are interesting concepts within it but the resulting production doesn’t always do justice to them. I’ve heard `Timelash` summarised variously yet almost always in the negative but I would say its middling. I don’t even think it’s the worst story of this season but I would agree that it’s presentation does not help its case.

 

Attack of the Cybermen

John Nathan Turner was right when he claimed that “the memory cheats”. At the time he was referring to Sixties and earlier Seventies Doctor Who against which many of his stories were being unfavourably compared. Now that this era is of an even older vintage watching a story like this shows how accurate he was. I’ve always held `` `Attack of the Cybermen` as an example of how terrible the show was at this point. One moment in particular is stuck in my memory when a brick wall sweeps to one side to reveal a brightly lit group of Cybermen like some tv variety show introduction. In fact, this occurs sooner in the story than I recalled and the only reason the light seems so bright is because we’ve spent the previous few minutes mooching around in semi darkness. The story is full of little moments like this which I’d forgotten or mis remembered because it must be more than twenty years since I’ve seen it. That is not to wholly redeem the story which is rather messy at times, but does show its not as poor as I thought it was.

 

Planet of Fire / The Twin Dilemma

 Planet of Fire

`Planet of Fire` seems to have been somewhat forgotten over the years despite being only the second time the show filmed overseas as well as Turlough’s farewell and Peri’s debut. Yet amidst gemstones like `Revelation, `Frontios` and `Caves` its volcanic landscape cannot really compete when the drama happening within it is comparatively tepid. Its just one of those Doctor Who stories about which few fans have strong feelings about either way. So is that reputation justified?

Doctor In Distress

 In March 1985 Doctor Who was paused. As the previous post makes clear this was initially intended as a cancellation but because the BBC has never been the most robust decision maker and also due to a tabloid led outcry (partly orchestrated secretly by the series' production office) the halt became a hiatus. Doctor Who would be back, said Bill Cotton, the King of the BBC, but not for eighteen months. We may smile now that this gap caused such consternation; in 2025 two years is the average gap between seasons of many major fantasy shows. In 1985 however, at least as far as fans were concerned, it was simply too long to wait and they wanted to do something about it.

Thus a plan was hatched to make a high profile song to highlight an issue which, as far the wider public was concerned, had already been sorted. The people to whom this task fell were Ian Levine and Fiachra Tench. Levine had a track record as a DJ and producer of HI NRG records that were popular in clubs and were also starting to infiltrate the charts.  As the name suggests HI NRG music is supposed to be powerful, up tempo and pulsing with intense vocals. Ian Levine’s own superb production of the song `High Energy` by Evelyn Thomas the previous year is a textbox example of the musical genre. `Doctor In Distress` is not.

The Time when Doctor Who was nearly cancelled

 

Forty years ago, Doctor Who faced an existential threat that could take if off air forever. Or at least eighteen months. Yet thanks to a loose coalition secretly driven by the production office, the series lived on for another three years. This is the story of those tumultuous few weeks in 1985 when the Tardis doors could have been shut for good and what happened afterwards...

On Wednesday 27 February 1985 London's daily newspaper 'The Evening Standard' received a phone call from a never identified source at Thames Television repeating a rumour they'd heard to the effect that Doctor Who was being taken off the air "for at least 18 months". This was not a new rumour. Producer John Nathan Turner had already heard it himself the previous week from both lan Levine (his unofficial script consultant) and Robert Holmes (who'd been commissioned to pen a third Auton story) but he had, publicly at least, dismissed the idea. It's almost certain that the stories originated from one of many fans who were employed at the BBC and it was wishful thinking on the producer's part to ignore the signs of a television programme in crisis; signs that had been apparent for two months.

 Episode 1 of 'Attack of the Cybermen' had garnered impressive ratings of nine million but they had dropped to seven  million for the second part. By 'Mark of the Rani' part 1 they'd dropped alarmingly to around six and a quarter million; a fall of almost a third. This had been noticed by the press who were on alert for a cancellation/crisis angle, a situation heightened by rising complaints about the level of graphic violence in the season which had been voiced publicly in the 'Radio Times' and on Points of View. The casual viewer seemed to be turning off as the season progressed, frustrated by increasingly un linear storylines that baffled many, as did an increasing reliance on old motifs and continuity by the barrel load. In place of spectacle and dark corners came nasty violence epitomised by an unsympathetic Doctor whom kids simply did not like. At the same time the BBC was looking to re-route budgets to enable the launch of breakfast television and the expansion of daytime programming. Some senior figures saw this as a chance / excuse to axe their least favourite sci-fi adventure. So when the ratings for season 22 took such a dramatic tumble Doctor Who was already vulnerable. 

 

Doctor Who - The Nightmare Fair

 

In this unpublished article from a couple of years back I examined the script to see what the unmade Toymaker story `The Nightmare Fair` might have been like.

 Five years after leaving Doctor Who, Graham Williams was due to return to the programme with the story `The Nightmare Fair`. Scheduled for the pre-hiatus version of season 23 it was ultimately never made though there have since been a couple of audio adaptations and Williams himself novelised the story. As producer he’d been subject to certain restrictions including budgetary cuts and a directive to tone down what had been seen by some as gratuitous violence. Ironically his return came at a time when Doctor Who was again under scrutiny over its more extreme content. As far as is known the story never reached the casting stage but studio dates were booked to start in May 1985 and arrangements made to shoot some location footage in Blackpool itself. 

The Time When the Doctor was fired

On 24 November 1986 Colin Baker appeared on the kids show Saturday Superstore a normal promotional event for the incumbent Doctor promoting his latest season. However something he said during the interview seemed far more significant not long afterwards. Asked where he would go if he had a real working Tardis he replied: “I think I’d probably go back to the beginning and start it all again because I’ve enjoyed doing Doctor Who so much that I would like to go right back to the beginning and do it all again, because I’ve met so many nice people and talked to so many nice people that it would be nice…to go back and start from scratch.” These are not the words of someone nearer the start than the end of his tenure because although it had yet to be announced he knew at this point that he had become the first Doctor to be directly sacked from the role.

Good Times! #21 PanoptiCon 25 2002

(originally published 2002, zine unknown)

The familiar purple robed and golden masked figure of Heironymous strolling about in the road outside Manchester's Palace Hotel is a bit of a giveaway really. Skirting past in case there's a video camera lurking, I'm met by a Sea Devil taking the steps surprisingly well and once inside there's a Voc padding around the lobby. Yes, it's twenty five years since the very first Panopticon was held in a church hall in London and nowadays it seems to have relocated to a gothic hotel oop North. The umpteenth event was a surprise addition to 2002's convention calendar and, as it turned out, rather a disappointing one. The two main attractions had to pull out, leaving a void that was difficult to fill not least because the main hall had very little atmosphere and echoey sound that seemed out of sync with the big screen. Then there was David Bickerstaff whose interviewing style was off-putting and often unsupportive of the guests (nobody paid to see him). Nevertheless a lot of the audience seemed fairly happy, though many who attended June's big shouty SFX Event have commented on the relative lack of atmosphere at Doctor Who events. 

Good Times! #20 Blue Box 4 and Battlefield 6 2001

Blue Box 4(first published in Fringeworld 2001)

Bristol is not Mars but for the country's beleaguered public transport system it may as well be. Why else would I have to board the 9.13 train (itself a journey up to town from where I live) a full 24 hours before the event began? Arriving at 12.30, I had to wait two hours to meet Neil Hutchings from his London train and, after exploring the city for a while, the moment came to find the venue. Most conventions are within a stone's throw of a town or city centre but the Aztec Hotel is approximately 15 miles away in a bleak, deserted industrial park served by one bus; the only option as a taxi fare would have been prohibitive. Tallying all this up with the registration fee for the weekend, £45 and the (admittedly very favourable for a 4 star hotel) £30 per night room fees, something like £125 has been spent before a single person asks Wendy Padbury what its like in space. The real bone cruncher, however, comes as it gradually becomes clear that the Aztec holds a monopoly on all food and drink in the area. There is a lovely country pub opposite owned by them which has marginally lower prices, but check these out - a pot of tea £2.50. Sandwiches £6.95, buffet £10. Any money saved on the room rates is soon clawed back because there is nowhere else to eat or drink; even the alcohol is higher than London prices. So, let's face it, overpriced photos of Sylvester gurning with a stuffed ferret are the least of our worries!That said the Aztec is an excellent hotel full of wooden floors, beams, low ceilings and faux Tudor decoration. The staff are tremendously helpful and friendly more so than in any convention hotel I've been in. Hopefully they get a fair cut of all that cash flowing in. 

Good Times! #19 Battlefield 5 and Resurrection 2001

Battlefield 5 (first published in Faze 2001)

The best thing I saw all weekend? Well, actually it was a band called Mr Bridger playing at the Rocket pub, just round the corner from Coventry station. Funky Hendrix-like with a touch of Nirvana, they made US style rock seem like it could be interesting though for all the attention the Friday night punters were paying, it might as well have been Mr Bridger's Dixieland Showband. It wasn't that they were bad; it was just that they were the wrong group for this crowd. Two days and many panels later, I've come to a similar conclusion about Battlefield 5. The temptation to go on and on with anything creative is always strong but sometimes you need to sit back and remember the sparks that brought the subject to life in the first place.
Battlefield began as a feisty alternative to the established convention lore, which stated that huge gaps would elapse between panels, there would be as much behind the scenes stuff as front of camera celebs and that evenings would consist of funny videos and large scale parlour games. The convention scene needed this boost and it worked well at first. Never had the two-day event seemed so jam packed with stuff nor had it ever passed so quickly. Now ambition has inspired the team to extend the latest event to a three day stretch, the glitzy celebs are still, for the most part, the same people who've been to all the others and the cabaret has mutated from the slightly old school music hall mentality to amateur hour at a nightclub. 

Good Times! #17 DWM Birthday Bash (1999)

(first published in Faze 1999)

To begin at the end I'm being handed a slice of birthday cake topped with blue icing by none other than Mark Strickson. I've even got a bit of the '0' from the word 'WHO' so technically I am living, breathing and eating Doctor Who. Not that such a pleasure is mine alone - the lobby outside the City University's overheated Oliver Thompson lecture theatre is teeming with fellow cake scoffing fans, each being presented with their portion by a celeb. Just what is going on? Well, we're here to celebrate two decades of what is fast becoming a genuine publishing phenomenon. 

Good Times! #5 DWASocial 5 and Fan Aid 1985

DWASocial 5 (originally published in The MLG Megazine 1985. Extra material 2016)

One month after joining the DWAS exec commitee along came DWASocial 5, an event on a much larger scale than usual, due to the titanic efforts of Gordon Roxburgh, who was looking after most things while Paul Zeus gets to grips with the forthcoming three day summer PanoptiCon. Apart from discovering that a lot of dashing about is required, I also found out something which I may not have otherwise, while stuck in my usual clique, which was the warmth and friendliness of the majority of members within the society who are really a very interesting bunch often contemptuously dismissed as plebs(unfairly). Hopefully I can help change that attitude amongst some of the bigger names in the society. 

Don't Shoot- He's British Part 3

Apprehensions of national identity and the Doctor by Matthew Kilburn

Specific models of Britishness were important to a series which was beginning to be marketed more consciously and more aggressively towards stations in the United States. In 1978 Tom Baker was pictured at the head of a queue of monsters in front of the US visa applications office in Grosvenor Square, London. The launch of Doctor Who Weekly by Marvel UK in 1979 was presented as the meeting of a distinctively British hero, cerebral and eccentric, with the marketing values of the costumed American superhero. This was in part a misrepresentation, given how far Dez Skinn’s Marvel UK sought to assimilate American characters and storytelling to British comic traditions, and how the Doctor’s British identity and perceived eccentricity depended upon subtler layering than reporting suggested. However, the tone of the campaign may have influenced the fashioning of the Doctor’s identity in the ensuing decade.

Revelation of the Daleks Set Visit

Genesis of Revelation
In 1985 I was lucky enough to go on a set visit at Television Centre to see `Revelation of the Daleks` being filmed in what turned out to be the last two days of production before the infamous eighteen month hiatus. (This account was originally published in the fanzine Zygon)

It’s 1985 on a warm and windy Thursday and we are about to enter a building that is familiar yet also unknown. That is to say its exterior is something everyone in the country knows but it’s interior is altogether more shrouded in secrecy. On Blue Peter when it looks like they’re going to show you what TV Centre is like it turns out that the big studio doors open onto the outside. In fact it is even more circular than it looks from the outside to the extent that if you start off anywhere and keep walking you will eventually return to your demarcation point after passing hundreds and hundreds of rooms. There are so many rooms that you wonder whether every single employee of the BBC is entitled to one!