December 10: Delta and the Bannermen Part Three / Dragonfire Part One

Considering how they've only got an episode left, there's a surprising amount of incident packed into these 25 minutes. There are a number of skirmishes between the Bannermen and various parties as they try to track Delta down, but there's also time for some quieter moments as well, and for a proper ending too.  This means that the whole episode feels really quick and exciting.

Ray examines Billy's bike while the Doctor, Mel, Weismuller, Hawk,
and Goronwy look on. (Delta and the Bannermen Part Three) ©BBC

And there are definitely some great moments here: the tracking device hanging from the goat, the honey trap set for Gavrok and his men, the way in which Goronwy's description of bee behavior mirrors Billy's efforts to become a Chimeron...it's a well thought-out episode with a definite undercurrent of intelligence, elevated by the little touches present throughout the story.  It's also nice how humane the ending is; other than Gavrok, the Bannermen are left alive to be taken a way for trial, rather than all dead -- and Gavrok dies because he falls into the booby trap he laid for the Doctor, so there's a sense of poetic justice as well.

Delta and the Bannermen is a quick, breezy story from new writer Malcolm Kohll -- it's energetic, entertaining, and charming, with a welcome summery feel to the proceedings.  And, more impressively, there's not really a sense that anything is rushed (which won't be the case for many of the 3-parters coming up) -- everything happens at the right moment, and you don't get the feeling that you're missing anything.  It is something of a "slight" story -- nothing here strikes you as Important or Monumental -- but frankly that's a plus; it's about time Doctor Who got back to making fun stories that aren't weighed down by excessive continuity or inflated self-importance, and Delta and the Bannermen fits the bill admirably.

But now it's time for part one of Dragonfire, which was promoted as the 150th Doctor Who story -- a number which involves not counting Shada (fair enough) and splitting The Trial of a Time Lord into four stories (something that Nathan-Turner insisted back in season 23 wasn't the case).¹⁵⁰  But anything for a bit of promotion -- especially at this point in the show's history...

Dragonfire also bears the personal distinction of being the first new Doctor Who that I actually remember watching.  I have earlier memories of the show, but they were all of stories that had aired a number of times (such as Spearhead from Space).  Dragonfire, on the other hand, was a brand-new story, and as I was sick at the time, I got to stay home and watch it as it was broadcast (instead of on tape later) -- which is probably why I remember it.

The episode itself isn't terribly memorable though.  There are some nice interactions between Glitz, the Doctor, and Mel, as they encounter each other in an Iceworld café.  We're also introduced to a young woman named Ace who, frankly, makes Mel look like cardboard in contrast.  It's not a perfect characterization by any means (there are a number of less-than-stellar moments, such as Ace yelling about not having parents), but what's striking is how much more interesting Ace seems as a character than Mel does.

The villain of the piece, Kane, is suitably creepy, and I like the idea both of how he's so cold that he can kill people by touching them, and by the mark of Kane that Belazs bears on her palm.  "As long as you bear my mark, I own you," Kane tells Belazs.  There's also enough going on to keep things interesting, but nothing really stands out so far.

Well, except for that damn cliffhanger.  Dragonfire Part One is rather infamous for having one of the strangest cliffhangers of all time, where the Doctor appears to be trying to climb down a sheer ice cliff by hanging from his question-mark umbrella.  It might be acceptable if they had given us any sort of indication as to why the Doctor is trying to get down there, but as it is it looks like they just wanted to give us a literal cliffhanger, rationale be damned.  But that's the image we're left with as this episode closes.  Sigh.







¹⁵⁰ We'll get into even more complicated numbering shenanigans when "Planet of the Dead" -- billed as Doctor Who's 200th story -- comes along.

December 9: Delta and the Bannermen Parts One & Two

Delta and the Bannermen is Doctor Who's first 3-part story since 1964's Planet of Giants (unless you count The Two Doctors, and nobody really does), and it's the first 3-part story intended as such from the outset.  And after the somewhat brutal opening (and are the Chimeron soldiers meant to look like army men, or is that a coincidence?), the fun really begins.

Because the overriding sense throughout these two episodes is one of energy and fun.  Even when danger seems imminent (such as throughout part two, with the impending arrival of Gavrok and his Bannermen), it's still an exciting sort of danger; you want to find out what will happen next, rather than dread what's coming.  That's not to say it's a light and breezy story (the destruction of a bus filled with alien tourists is proof enough of that), but rather that they've got the balance between entertainment and menace right.

It was a good move, filming this at an actual holiday camp, because it gives everything a feel of verisimilitude as well as brightens things up no end.  (Even if the camp does look a tad rundown in some shots -- but that's really what you want, isn't it?)  Add in the surrounding countryside, which also looks gorgeous, and this is certainly a story that's nice to look at.  And not only that, but it's filled with great actors as well.  There are the big names, like Ken Dodd and Stubby Kaye (Stubby Kaye!  In Doctor Who!), but all the supporting actors are wonderful as well, with Richard Davies as Burton, Hugh Lloyd as Goronwy, Sara Griffiths as Ray, Don Henderson as the amazingly evil Gavrok... everyone does a great job of making this story as entertaining and engaging as they can.  Even Bonnie Langford seems to snap into focus, as Mel is asked to be more of an ordinary woman than a genius computer programmer with an eidetic memory (why Pip & Jane Baker ever thought perfect recall was an ideal characteristic for a companion is beyond me), and Langford seems far more interested (and interesting) here than in earlier stories.  And while the Doctor has resorted to a few malapropisms, they're generally low in the mix while his other characteristics rise to the surface -- almost all of his interactions with Ray are rather wonderful to behold, giving off a sense of awkwardness mixed with genuine care and concern.  McCoy is really coming into his own here, and the cliffhanger, where he's outraged at Gavrok's shooting at his white truce flag, is very well played.

It's a quick-moving story (well, only three episodes -- it has to be, right?), with some great dialogue ("Now, let me try and get this right.  Now, are you telling me that you are not the Happy Hearts Holiday Club from Bolton, but instead are spacemen in fear of an attack from some other spacemen, and because of the danger, you want me to evacuate the entire camp?") and some fabulous performances.  It doesn't feel forced or strained.  So far Delta and the Bannermen is firing on all cylinders.

December 8: Paradise Towers Parts Three & Four

The Doctor tries to convince the Blue Kangs and the Red Kangs to
work together. (Paradise Towers Part Three) ©BBC

Part three is in much the same vein as parts one and two and is just as entertaining to watch.  The cannibalistic nature of Tilda and Tabby (heavily hinted at in parts one and two but fully revealed in part two's cliffhanger) is rather shocking but entirely in keeping with the atmosphere of the story, and I like how Pex gets to be a hero by bursting in at just the right time, even if he doesn't realize it.  There are also some nice moments between the Chief Caretaker and the Doctor -- particularly the way in which the Doctor and the Chief end up switching positions during the interrogation -- and while the creature in the basement with the glowing eyes is a bit daft-looking, the idea behind it is still compelling.

Really, the only real major problems come in part four, and that's almost entirely because of Richard Briers' decision to play the Kroagnon-controlled Chief Caretaker as a sort of zombie, almost literally slack-jawed and wide-eyed staring as he shuffles through the corridors.  And I don't even mind that too much -- Briers seems to be playing a character who's unused to inhabiting a body, so while it might be playing it a bit too broadly you can still see what he's going for.  And this is offset by all the other good stuff going on.  Watching all the various groups in Paradise Towers come together is really nice, and their team efforts to destroy the robotic Cleaners are suitably entertaining.  And while Pex comes off as a coward for a lot of it (his yelling for help while Mel is being attacked is hilarious -- although, as a side note, the shot of the machine dying after Mel shoots it in the eye is really really good), he gets to redeem himself in the final moments.  This is followed by a touching memorial that shows how the various groups are continuing to work together and genuinely coexist in the Towers.

It's by no means perfect, but Paradise Towers does a lot of things right.  The ideas are really strong and, while we might wish for better realization of those ideas here and there, they still shine through.  There's a distinctive look and feel in the Towers; visually, there's a unity at play here that makes this place feel both real and slightly caricatured.  In this respect this is (with the possible exception of parts of The Ultimate Foe) the closest Doctor Who has gotten to looking like its comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine; it's all too easy to imagine this as a storyline there, with art by John Ridgway.  This gives everything a heightened, fantastic (in the best sense of the word) feel, and this leads to one of Paradise Towers' main strengths: a world where the pictures and the dialogue are telling the same story.  It's stylistic and charming, with just enough of a skew to keep your attention throughout.  It's also a uniquely seventh Doctor story (certainly it's hard to imagine Wyatt's particular blending of dialogue styles between groups surviving being edited by Eric Saward, but in Andrew Cartmel's hands this aspect clearly comes through) that manages to be fun, fresh, and genuinely entertaining.  As I said, it's not perfect (some of the aforementioned casting, the impractical design of the Cleaners), but it's a lot easier to forgive this story's sins than those of several other stories (particularly recently).  Build high for happiness, indeed.

December 7: Paradise Towers Parts One & Two

And suddenly the McCoy era arrives.

There's definitely a different feeling about these first two episodes of Paradise Towers.  I wonder if it's partly because this is really the first story edited by Andrew Cartmel (his name is on Time and the Rani, but by his own admission he didn't actually do much work on it), but it's certainly distinct from anything we've seen in quite some time.

The first thing that's worth noticing is how filthy and dirty everything looks.  This is a good thing, as the Towers are meant to be run down and dirty, but they really do a nice job with all the graffiti and caked-on dirt along the edges of corridors.  Even the frosted windows look dingy as they let brownish light in.  And thankfully, there's a lot of nice moody lighting to help sell the scene even more.  When one thinks back to the set of Warriors of the Deep, and the floodlighting everywhere, you start to realize how much of a refreshing change this is.

The second thing worth noting is how distinct and reasonably well-defined all the various inhabitants are.  Yes, there are some casting problems (some of the Caretakers seem too young, all of the Kangs seem too old, and Pex isn't nearly as much of a Stallone-esque meathead as the script wants him to be), but the striking thing about this is how easy it is to look past these problems.  Stephen Wyatt's script sparkles with enough idiosyncrasies (the Kangs' slang terms, the Caretakers' reliance on their rule book) that the characteristics of these different groups comes through, and it doesn't really matter that the Red Kangs look like they're in their 20s -- you know what the story is getting at, and that works just fine.  And it certainly helps that the structure of this story is different enough from other recent Who stories, in both concept and execution, to maintain the audience's interest.

And into this environment the Doctor and Mel are inserted.  This is a story where McCoy starts to really put his stamp on the show -- his reactions here feel fresh and unique to this incarnation, and thankfully the malapropisms have disappeared.  And while Mel is wandering the Towers more or less separated from the Doctor, she more than manages to hold her own -- her conversations with Tilda and Tabby, the two Rezzies, are enjoyable, and she gets some genuinely good moments with Pex (her chastising of his destructive behavior, her crestfallen reaction to learning that he's a fraud).  This feels like a world that existed long before the TARDIS arrived, rather than one with a specific problem for the Doctor to solve (as the recent crop of stories has occasionally felt).

So far Paradise Towers is smart, clever, and genuinely funny at times (such as the "Are you annoying these old ladies?" gag), and while there are some problems that show up here and there, they're generally easy to look past.  A rather wonderful breath of fresh air, but can the concluding episodes keep it up?

December 6: Time and the Rani Parts Three & Four

A somewhat surprising thing happened; I actually found myself somewhat enjoying these two last episodes.

That's not to say they're actually good (and there are still times when they're very bad indeed), but there are moments that entertain.  Beyus's continued determination to collaborate because the alternative is the death of his people is noble even if it's presented as misguided, and the discussion between Ikona and the Doctor about the idleness of the Lakertyans is also rather nice.  (The Centre of Leisure set is also nicely done.)  Ikona is also one of a handful of good performances on display here (Faroun is another) that do lead to something worth watching.  And while the realization of the giant genius gestalt brain is rather silly, the idea is a striking one.  Plus, even though we've barely got a handle on this new Doctor (and, weirdly, they seem to have decided that his primary characteristic is malapropisms), the Rani's problem of the Doctor causing confusion when he's hooked up to the gestalt is both entertaining and rather difficult to imagine the sixth Doctor pulling off in quite the same way -- which means that this new seventh incarnation is already taking form in new ways.  Finally, while the Rani's interactions with the Doctor in these episodes tend to be of the plot exposition variety, they're still nevertheless entertaining to watch.

The Rani and the Doctor. (Time and the Rani Part Four) ©BBC

Of course, it's not all good; unless I'm drastically misremembering the quality of her later appearances, this is hands down Mel's worst characterization on the show.  She's reduced to lots of screaming and being helpless and very little in the way of anything proactive.  You'd think the team who wrote Mel's debut story (where she's considerably more interesting than she is here) would have given her more to do, but no.  She's pure background material.  There are also some dodgy overdubs (notably, "Look out, they kill!" before the insect lights have killed anyone) and some awkward plotting (everyone points it out, but the Rani's plan is foiled because she doesn't have a rocket with an adjustable trajectory).

But considering how poor the first two episodes were, I'm genuinely surprised to find that these two have risen from the level of "painful to view" up to "barely watchable" -- high praise, I know, but considering where this story appeared to be going it's something of a welcome change.  If you're willing to just switch your brain off and essentially watch a broad pantomime version of Doctor Who, this story just about fits the bill.  It's understandable if you don't want to do that, but even then there are a handful of decent bits and bobs in these four episodes to reward the patient and/or generous viewer.  All damning with faint praise, I realize, but it's some small comfort to know that in the final analysis, Time and the Rani isn't a complete waste of time.

December 5: Time and the Rani Parts One & Two

So Colin Baker has been sacked, despite the best efforts of John Nathan-Turner to convince Michael Grade to let him stay.  (This was after Nathan-Turner thought he was leaving the show as well, and was therefore somewhat irked to find that no, he was back in as producer for the new season.)  But no; the best Grade will do is to let Colin Baker do one final story to bow out on.  Baker, not unreasonably, refuses to do this.  (As Baker has since said, "[I]t's like your girlfriend giving you the push and saying, 'But you can come back and spend a night with me next year!'"¹⁴⁹)  And so the opening story of season 24 becomes the debut story for seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy.  Meanwhile, Nathan-Turner's also hired a new script editor named Andrew Cartmel to help oversee the next three seasons, and he knows he needs a script pronto, so he turns to his old standbys Pip and Jane Baker, who willingly set about first writing Colin Baker's swansong, and then, with a few minor tweaks, McCoy's debut.  Time and the Rani is the result.

The sixth Doctor regenerates into the seventh. (Time and the
Rani Part One) ©BBC

It opens with a pre-titles sequence as the TARDIS (in a cutting-edge-for-1987-but-rather-crude-by-today's-standards CGI sequence) is forced down by the Rani, who then strolls into the TARDIS and tells her alien helper, "Leave the girl; it's the man I want."  But this forced landing, which seems to have only knocked Mel unconscious, is enough to trigger the Doctor's regeneration, because apparently Nathan-Turner has decided that of course you have to show the regeneration.  (Fandom occasionally tries to justify this by saying that the sixth Doctor was dying from whatever adventure happened just before the events seen here (or that this was a deliberate sacrifice to get to the proactive seventh Doctor -- read the New Adventures for more on this idea, if you're so inclined), and that the Rani's device simply triggered what was an impending regeneration anyway; a nice idea, even if there's nothing on screen to substantiate this.)  But if Baker's not coming back for four episodes, he's certainly not coming back for thirty seconds, and so it's painfully obvious that it's McCoy in a blonde wig as the "change-over" happens.  And then it's straight into the new title sequence, complete with new theme arrangement.

I have to confess, I quite like both the new titles and the theme.  It's probably nostalgia in some regards (as the McCoy stories were really, for me, the first set of brand-new Doctor Who that I'd experienced), but there's still quite a bit to enjoy.  The theme's back to a more upbeat, heroic sound -- and we get to hear the middle eight again in the opening credits -- and the title sequence is very swish, with the galaxy swirling about as the TARDIS moves through it; it's a hell of a lot better than that pre-titles CG sequence.  I don't even mind the wink that much; the silver face is a neat touch and the result is a lot better than the abandoned attempt at making the sixth Doctor wink.  It's all rather thrilling.

Sadly, the same can't be said for the actual episode. McCoy's actually not too bad here, even if they keep giving him pratfalls and malapropisms; you can see where his performance will be going in some of the quieter moments here, with a sense of gravity and a touch of world-weariness.  Meanwhile, Kate O'Mara seems to be deliberately playing this with a welcome bit of theatricality, and her impersonation of Mel is really rather entertaining indeed.  But everyone else is largely useless -- the real Mel spends most of her time screaming (well, it feels like it, at least) and the native Lakertyans are a weak-willed bunch, with only the rebel Ikona standing out in any way.  The Doctor's costume change sequence (after swimming in Colin Baker's coat for most of the episode -- and note that he's wearing the Mindwarp/actual trial sequences costume, rather than the "future" Terror of the Vervoids one) feels like it's going through the motions, as if it's a requirement to see McCoy in old Doctors' outfits before showing us the real one -- which itself isn't bad, although the question mark sweater is ludicrous, but doesn't really seem of the same mind as the previous outfits tried on (so, a bit like Tom Baker's costume scene in Robot, then).  It's an oddly joyless scene.

Things sadly don't improve much in part two.  There's more farting about with trying to make the Doctor think he's the one performing this experiment, not the Rani, and Donald Pickering and Wanda Ventham have to try and look dignified beneath some rather ugly alien makeup.  And Mel still seems off here -- which is especially strange when you note that there's only been one Mel episode so far that hasn't been written by Pip & Jane.  But no, she's generally unlikeable here until Ikona finally believes her and they start working together.  Her first encounter with the newly-regenerated Doctor is also rather wonderful (unconvincing judo throw at the start aside) -- if the story had been more like this scene things might have gone better.

Still, it is generally nice to look at; it's another quarry, but the effects shots are rather impressive, and care has clearly gone into the exterior of the Rani's lair.  The smoking skeleton of the recently deceased Sarn is also well done, even if surprisingly graphic for what feels like a lightweight story.  And the Tetraps (the hairy creatures with the bat wings) are also designed well, even if they're not as effective when they actually have to do things.  But the visuals alone aren't enough to save this story; let's hope there's a dramatic increase in quality for the last two episodes.







¹⁴⁹ Howe-Stammers-Walker, The Handbook: The Sixth Doctor, p70.

December 4: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts Thirteen & Fourteen

(The Ultimate Foe parts 1 & 2)

Finally, we're getting something imaginative and more than just business as usual from this story!  The Ultimate Foe (or Time Inc., if you prefer) is set the task of wrapping things up, and it actually does this surprisingly well -- particularly given the nightmare that was going on behind-the-scenes.¹⁴⁷  We get a reasonably satisfying explanation about why this trial is happening: some secrets were stolen from the Matrix and hidden on Earth, so the High Council moved Earth a couple light years, accidentally wiping out most of the planet in the process, and renamed the place Ravalox -- and all was well and good until the Doctor stumbled upon evidence linking Earth and Ravalox.  Therefore, discredit/execute him in a trial (although it's maybe not quite such a good idea to feature the thing you're trying to cover up in said trial), and the High Council's actions would remain undiscovered.  This leads to a deservedly oft-quoted speech from the Doctor:

In all my travelings throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators.  I should have stayed here.  The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core.  Ha!  Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, they're still in the nursery compared to us.  Ten million years of absolute power; that's what it takes to be really corrupt.

The revelation of all this comes via the Master of all people, who's been hiding out in the Matrix and is frankly better here than he's been his last few appearances.  Anthony Ainley seems to delight in playing the role of a spoiler, come to undo the High Council's actions ("I've thrown a pebble into the water, perhaps killing two birds [the Doctor and the Valeyard] with one stone, and causing ripples that'll rock the High Council to its foundations.  What more could a renegade wish for?" is delivered with particular glee), and he's much more interesting here than when he's trying to kill the Doctor.  And I utterly adore the way the true nature of the Valeyard is just casually tossed away by Ainley: "They made a deal with the Valeyard, or as I've always known him, the Doctor, to adjust the evidence, in return for which he was promised the remainder of the Doctor's regenerations."  Also, full marks to composer Dominic Glynn for not highlighting this reveal until the Doctor cottons on to it.

But what a fascinating idea!  The concept of a dark Doctor from the future -- "an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation", as the Master puts it¹⁴⁸ -- is a striking one, and it also makes the current sixth Doctor seem more moral in contrast.  This sixth Doctor has been alien and often nontraditional in his approach to concepts of good and evil, but when placed next to the Valeyard, who seems significantly more corrupt, the sixth Doctor's virtues become more apparent.  And then Robert Holmes, the man who wrote The Deadly Assassin, sends the Doctor and the Valeyard into the Matrix to have an entertainingly surreal battle, with loads of Victoriana and bureaucracy swimming around.  This is an environment in which the Doctor seems both out of place and in his element as he fights his future self (his ultimate foe in more ways than one, you might say -- another reason why that's a much better title than Time Inc. ever was), trying to both play by the Valeyard's rules and to work out how to build to a final confrontation.

The Doctor and the Valeyard in the Matrix. (The Trial of a
Time Lord Part Fourteen) ©BBC

Once again, given the production nightmare, the fact that Part Fourteen is as coherent as it is is a testament to the Bakers' abilities.  It's not quite as wonderful as Part Thirteen was, but there are some great moments: the Doctor's confrontation with the Valeyard on the beach, the fake trial the Valeyard sets up in the Matrix, any scene with Sabalom Glitz in it (although the best one is when the Master tries to hypnotize Glitz with a shiny watch, swinging it back and forth, leading to Glitz trailing off: "Splendid, splendid." the Master says.  "Listen to me.  Are you listening, Sabalom Glitz?"  "Not really," Glitz replies, totally unhypnotized.  "I was just wondering how many grotzits this little bauble cost you") -- these all add up to a memorable resolution.  And while there may be some less scintillating moments (including, infamously, "A megabyte modem!" and the ludicrous pink heart-like haze surrounding the scene demonstrating that Peri and Yrcanos are happily married -- oh right, Peri's not dead; that was one of the Valeyard's fabrications), on the whole this ends very satisfactorily.  Although ponder the paradox at the end, as Mel seems ready to travel with a Doctor who hasn't met her yet -- and note that the last words spoken by the sixth Doctor here are "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice!": this will matter in a moment.  But it's still a great ending, as we see the Valeyard has escaped to fight the Doctor another day (though, an off-hand reference in "The Name of the Doctor" aside, the Valeyard hasn't made a reappearance or even really been mentioned on televised Who since).

I suspect that The Trial of a Time Lord, as an entire story, has improved with age.  Audiences are now willing to devote more time to longer-running threads that run through a series of unrelated stories (indeed, Steven Moffat has been making it a huge part of his run on Doctor Who -- although he seems to have dialed it back in his most recent series), and the trial part of The Trial of a Time Lord fits this style very well: a few hints here and there to suggest that something else is going on, leading to the big reveal at the end of the season, with implications for the future as well.  It may have confused viewers at the time (one of the primary criticisms often leveled at this story -- although the audience appreciation figures are all reasonably high, suggesting this may not have been the case), but the season as a whole holds together very well.  If there's a complaint to be made, it's that the individual segments often play it safe, opting for familiar, well-worn paths rather than trying something new, beyond the overarching theme.  As with Terror of the Vervoids, the whole thing isn't bad (and The Ultimate Foe leaves one with, perhaps, a greater feeling of goodwill toward this season than it actually warrants), but at this point in time, not being bad isn't really good enough.  But with the departure of Saward and Colin Baker, the shake-up that this show really needs might finally be around the corner.

But yes, it's time to say goodbye to Colin Baker, who was unceremoniously fired by BBC1 Controller Michael Grade after season 23 aired (thus unfortunately making that "Carrot juice" line his final one as the sixth Doctor).  Many of the scripts Baker was saddled with were problematic, and much of what he was asked to do in terms of performance was questionable, but Colin Baker himself managed to rise above this to create a compelling new persona -- larger than life and often abrasive, but still the same Doctor we'd come to know and love.  Anyone who's listened to some of his Big Finish audios will know that Colin Baker plays an excellent Doctor, and that the sixth Doctor definitely works as a character -- it's simply a sad fact that the televised stories didn't afford him quite the scope or control over the character to really make this clear.  There are certainly gems to be found during his era, but the fact that sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find them isn't his fault, and by the end of season 23 he was firing on all cylinders.  Michael Grade made the wrong decision, and Colin Baker frankly deserved better than he got from the show.

But it's the nature of the show to always keep moving forward; now it's on to season 24 and a brand-new Doctor...







¹⁴⁷ The story so far: the original season 23 had to be scrapped, as you'll recall, and John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward came up with the idea of having a season-long story about the Doctor being on trial.  The first two segments went relatively smoothly, it seems, other than some last-minute requests by Head of Drama Jonathan Powell to make some major changes to Robert Holmes's segment -- which were eventually worked through, but Saward became unhappy with the disrespect he perceived from Powell toward Holmes, a man he respected very much.  Saward also found that the last two segments of the trial format were going very poorly -- at least three writers were approached and had scripts found wanting (either by Saward or Nathan-Turner) before Pip & Jane Baker came along for parts nine to twelve.  In addition to all this, Saward found his relationship with Nathan-Turner was deteriorating (he felt Nathan-Turner was emphasizing and paying attention to the wrong things and disagreed with a number of decisions being made) and he was rapidly losing the stomach to keep working on the show.
     Then Robert Holmes died, having only written the first episode of the concluding segment, and Saward was devastated.  He wrote up the final episode, based on the discussions he'd had with Holmes, only for Nathan-Turner to disagree about the ending (Saward had written a "down" cliffhanger ending that showed the Doctor and the Valeyard locked in a struggle as they fell through a time vent, inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty's death in "The Final Solution"; Nathan-Turner disliked this on the grounds that it would make it too easy for the BBC to cancel the show, if the last shot was of the Doctor apparently going to his death).  This, it seems, was the final straw; Saward withdrew use of the final script and quit the show entirely.
     Nathan-Turner, now desperate for a final episode, turned to Pip & Jane Baker, who, after a story conference with Nathan-Turner that apparently included a third party to witness the fact that Nathan-Turner hadn't told the Bakers anything about Saward's part fourteen script, went off and wrote their own ending based on everything that went before and a handful of locations that had already been scouted (Saward's script, for instance, apparently required the use of a large round building that ended up not being used in the Bakers' script, though you can still see it in some of the Victorian sequences).  Fortunately the Bakers were able to turn in a script that was largely coherent, thus saving the day.

¹⁴⁸ Obviously this slightly odd description (not necessarily a future Doctor so much as a dark distillation offshoot) is intended to not have to actually cast Michael Jayston (or some equivalent) as an evil thirteenth Doctor, and it's also the case that the language is such that, given that we've subsequently seen that the Doctor has more than twelve regenerations, we might not have actually witnessed the creation of the Valeyard yet.  But with the recent revelations, in "The Day of the Doctor" and "The Time of the Doctor", both of a War Doctor between McGann and Eccleston and that the Doctor's almost-regeneration in "Journey's End" does count as using a regeneration, an interesting correlation shows up.
     To recap: if McGann is the 8th incarnation, then Hurt is 9, Eccleston is 10, and Tennant is 11.  But then Tennant uses up a regeneration in "Journey's End", thus also becoming 12.  And what happens in "Journey's End"?  A little after the regeneration we get a second Tennant Doctor (the metacrisis Doctor), one who we're told was "born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge" -- not exactly an "amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature", but close enough (as well as matching up with the "between your twelfth and final incarnation" description surprisingly well) to at least require some thought.  Pure speculation, obviously, but more has been built with less.