Dirk Gently (TV series)

Dirk Gently
Titlescreen of series 1, based on Gently's painted whiteboard.
Genre	Comic science fiction/Detective fiction
Created by	Howard Overman Douglas Adams (novel)
Written by	Howard Overman Matt Jones Jamie Mathieson
Directed by	Damon Thomas Tom Shankland
Starring	Stephen Mangan Darren Boyd
Composer(s)	Daniel Pemberton
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	3 (+ pilot) (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Howard Overman Saurabh Kakkar (ITV Studios) Brian Minchin (BBC) Eleanor Moran (BBC - Pilot) Jamie Laurenson (BBC - Pilot)
Producer(s)	Chris Carey
Editor(s)	Matthew Tabern
Cinematography	Ole Bratt Birkeland
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	ITV Studios The Welded Tandem Picture Company
Distributor	BBC Cymru Wales
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC Four BBC HD (repeats)
Picture format	HDTV 1080i
Audio format	Stereo
Original run	16 December 2010 – 19 March 2012
Chronology
Related shows	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
External links
Website

Dirk Gently is a British comedy detective drama TV series based on characters from the Dirk Gently novels by Douglas Adams. The series was created by Howard Overman and stars Stephen Mangan as holistic detective Dirk Gently and Darren Boyd as his sidekick Richard MacDuff. Recurring actors include Helen Baxendale as MacDuff's girlfriend Susan Harmison, Jason Watkins as Dirk's nemesis DI Gilks and Lisa Jackson as Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce. Unlike most detective series Dirk Gently features broadly comic touches and even some science fiction themes such as time travel and artificial intelligence.

Dirk Gently operates his Holistic Detective Agency based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things", which relies on random chance methods to uncover connections between seemingly-unrelated cases. He claims that he follows the principles of quantum mechanics, and although the majority of his clients suspect he may be a conman he often produces surprising results. With the help of his assistant, Richard MacDuff, Dirk investigates a number of seemingly unrelated but interconnected cases.

An hour-long pilot episode loosely based on plot elements from Adams' 1987 novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was broadcast on BBC Four on 16 December 2010 and was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Critical reception was generally positive.^[1] A full series of three one-hour episodes was subsequently commissioned in March 2011 and was broadcast on BBC Four in March 2012.^[2] The series is the first continuing drama series produced for the digital channel.^[3][4]

The series is produced by ITV Studios and The Welded Tandem Picture Company for BBC Cymru Wales and shot in Bristol. The pilot was written by Howard Overman and directed by Damon Thomas. The full series was written by Overman, Matt Jones and Jamie Mathieson and directed by Tom Shankland. The series along with the pilot episode was released on DVD on 26 March 2012 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment.^[5] An original television soundtrack album featuring music from the series composed by Daniel Pemberton was released by 1812 Recordings on 5 March 2012.^[4]

Production

Background

The novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has its origins in the incomplete 1979 Doctor Who television serial Shada, featuring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Location filming in Cambridge had been completed, but a studio technicians' dispute at the BBC meant that studio segments were not completed, and the serial was never transmitted.^[6]

As a result of the serial's cancellation, Adams reused a number of ideas from this script and his other Doctor Who scripts as the basis for a new novel, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, published in 1987. Adams published another, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul in 1988 and at the time of his death in 2001 was working on a third installment to be titled The Salmon of Doubt, fragments of which were published posthumously. Each novel features new characters and scenarios, although Dirk (real name Svlad Cjelli), his "ex-secretary" Janice Pearce and Sergeant, later Inspector, Gilks recur in each.^[7]

The first Gently novel had previously been adapted into a stage play, Dirk and a BBC Radio 4 series by Above the Title Productions which was first broadcast in October 2007 and featured comedian Harry Enfield in the title role.^[8][9][10] According to James Donaghy, Douglas Adams was frustrated that his Dirk Gently novels were never adapted for the screen.^[1]

Announcement

During Hitchcon - a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy convention - Ed Victor, a literary agent who represents Adams's estate announced that a television adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was in production. Stephen Mangan was announced to be playing Gently, with Darren Boyd as MacDuff and Helen Baxendale as Susan. It is the first television adaptation of Adams' Dirk Gently series, although characters from the books had appeared in a 1992 episode of The South Bank Show.^[11][12]

Shooting on the pilot commenced early in October 2010 in Bristol.^[7] The director was Damon Thomas and the producer was Chris Carey. Although it was commissioned by the BBC, it was produced by ITV Studios with The Welded Tandem Picture Company. The pilot was first broadcast on BBC Four on 16 December 2010 and was repeated a number of times during the next month.^[13][14]

The pilot gained a commission on 31 March 2011 for a three-part series of one hour-long episodes broadcast on BBC Four in March 2012.^[3][4] The series is the first continuing drama series commissioned by BBC Four.^[3]

Adaptation

The screenplay of the pilot by Howard Overman is not a direct adaptation of the novel, but uses certain characters and situations from the novel to form the basis of a new drama centred around Dirk.^[15] Speaking about his interpretation, Howard Overman stated in an interview with Benji Wilson "I'm not even going to try to adapt the book: you can't adapt this story. Especially not on a BBC Four budget. We made the deliberate decision not to do a straight translation of the books. If we'd done that the fans would have felt badly let down, because you can never portray that world on the screen as well as it's been done in people's own imaginations...If you just do a straight adaptation like The Hitchhiker's Guide film, people are always going to be quite brutal about it because it's never going to live up to their expectations."^[16]

Dirk drives an old brown Austin Princess in the production.

Stephen Mangan, writing a BBC blog on the programme stated "In my opinion, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul are unfilmable as written...too much happens, there are too many ideas".^[17]

The pilot concentrates on two relatively minor plot strands in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: the disappearance of a cat, and the simultaneous disappearance of millionaire Gordon Way. Although time travel is involved in the solution, the novel's entire St Cedd's College / Electric Monk / Coleridge strand is omitted, although key words relating to these elements do appear on Dirk's whiteboard when it is first seen, though they are never subsequently referred to.^[1][16][18] Other elements from the book, such as the trapped sofa, are also absent and the setting is updated to 2010, with email and voicemail replacing the answering machine messages in the book. There are changes to the characters too, one notable one being that Susan is Gordon's ex-girlfriend rather than his sister.^[18]

Several additional elements from Adams's novels, in particular St Cedd's College, were later to appear in the full series. Interviewed about the series, Stephen Mangan noted that "All three episodes are very different in tone and you get a different Dirk with each one...He's on the run from the police in one of them and in another there's a bit of romance in the air, which for Dirk is a surprise because he's probably the most asexual character on TV... There seems to be a vogue for dark, realistic, gritty detective series, apart from perhaps Sherlock. Dirk has so much humour in it. How many other detectives mix detection with quantum mechanics or drive a 30-year-old brown Austin Leyland Princess?"^[19]

Each episode of series one was written by different writers, who are mostly known for their contributions to science fiction and fantasy programmes; series creator Howard Overman also created Misfits and has written for Merlin, Matt Jones has previously written the Doctor Who stories "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" and Jamie Matheson wrote the film Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel and has written scripts for Being Human.^[20]

Cast

Stephen Mangan, best known for his role in the television series Green Wing, and subsequently Episodes, was cast in the main role as holistic detective Dirk Gently. Mangan already knew the novel and the author's works, stating in a press release "I've been a fan of Douglas Adams ever since the Hitchhiker's radio series which I used to record as a child and listen to over and over again in my bedroom. It's such a thrill to now be playing one of his brilliant characters. Dirk is a chaotic, anarchic force of nature with a totally unique take on the world. He is described as 'lazy, untidy, dismissive and unreliable'. I've absolutely no idea why they thought I'd be right for the role."^[15] Cast alongside him were Darren Boyd and Helen Baxendale, both of whom had previously worked with Mangan in Green Wing and Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years respectively.^[7] Darren Boyd and Helen Baxendale returned for the full series, with the character of Richard MacDuff becoming Dirk's "partner/assistant" for each of the episodes.^[19] Other regular cast members are Jason Watkins as Detective Inspector Gilks and Lisa Jackson as Dirk's secretary Janice Pearce.^[21]

The programme pilot featured appearances from Doreen Mantle, Anthony Howell, Miles Richardson, Billy Boyle. Episode one saw guest appearances by Paul Ritter, Cosima Shaw, Ken Collard, Colin McFarlane and Miranda Raison. Episode two featured roles for Bill Paterson, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Lydia Wilson, Andrew Leung, Will Sharpe and Bethan Hanks. Episode three features Lisa Dillon and Tony Pitts.^[21]

Filming

Wills Hall at the University of Bristol was used as the fictional St. Cedd's College, Cambridge.

Although the series is set in the London boroughs of Camden Town and Islington, the series was shot entirely in Bristol. Areas and buildings featured in the programme included the Guildhall, the Bottle Yard, St Thomas Street and the Greenbank area.^[22][23] The second series episode also featured extensive filming around the University of Bristol, with Wills Hall doubling as the fictional Cambridge College St. Cedd's.

The production's location manager, Rob Champion, noted that each location had to be chosen carefully to avoid featured giveaway clues to Bristol, in particular any building made of the local building material, limestone.^[24] He noted that "Episode 2 was the greatest challenge as it included two days material in a Robotic Laboratory. Bristol has such a thing...a joint venture between the two universities, with a very helpful professor, but its landlord was an American corporation with the most unimaginably anal restrictions on access. They basically didn't want us there and took the best part of two weeks to say so...We eventually settled upon a brand new building at the Bristol-Bath Science Park where they could not have been more helpful. All this on a BBC4 budget."^[24]

Music

The series's soundtrack was composed by Daniel Pemberton. In creating the distinctive sound for the main titles and incidental music, Pemberton made use of a Marxophone, a zither which is a cross between a hammered dulcimer and a piano. These instruments were produced in America between 1927 to 1972.^[25] The soundtrack also mixes in a harpsichord, synth, bass guitar and drums.^[26][27] A soundtrack album featuring music from the series was released by 1812 Recordings on 5 March 2012.^[4]

Plot

Dirk Gently (real name Svlad Cjelli) operates a Holistic Detective Agency based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things". To solve cases, Dirk relies on random chance methods for example "Zen navigation" (following people or vehicles who look like they know where they are going, in the hope that they will lead somewhere you want to be) or throwing a dart at a board of words to select the direction of his detection. By following up on apparently random occurences and whims, Dirk discovers connections between seemingly unrelated cases and often produces surprising results. He claims that he follows the principles of quantum mechanics (although it is implied when he speaks to an expert in these fields that he doesn't really understand them); most people suspect he is just a conman and he rarely gets paid by clients and is therefore in almost permanent financial difficulty.^[16][28]

In the pilot episode, Dirk bumps into a former university friend, Richard MacDuff, who has been made redundant from a job at an electricity board, and takes on a case for him. During the course of his investigation, Dirk hypnotises MacDuff and persuades him into investing his £20,000 redundancy money in his failing detective agency. MacDuff therefore becomes Dirk's partner in the business and "assistant" on investigations.^[28] Richard MacDuff's girlfriend, Dr Susan Harmison, was also at university with the pair and is deeply sceptical about Dirk's abilities. Also present at the Agency is Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce, whom Dirk has not paid for years and who therefore refuses to do any work.^[28]

Episodes

Reception

Pilot

Stephen Mangan plays the titular holistic detective in the series.

The pilot episode gained 1.1m viewers (3.9% share) on BBC Four, which was over three times the channel's slot average.^[3] Critical reception for the pilot was largely positive. Several mentioned that it was only a loose adaptation of the novel, although the general consensus was that the essence of the original was maintained. Sam Wollaston in The Guardian stated "Coming to it fresh, it's a neat story about aforementioned missing cat and time travel, with a smattering of quantum physics and the fundamental connectedness of things. With a lovely performance from Doreen Mantle as the old lady/murderer. Stephen Mangan's good in the title role, too – a teeny bit irritating perhaps, but then Mangan is a teeny bit irritating. So is Dirk Gently, though – it's perfect. Funny too. Quite funny."^[30] James Donaghy, also writing in The Guardian stated "Personally I hope Dirk Gently gets made into a full series. The programme shows promising glimpses, has a strong cast and Misfits already proves Overman can write. And a BBC4 adaptation feels like a good fit – Gently being exactly the kind of playground-of-the-imagination curio the BBC made its name indulging."^[1]

The Independent published two reviews. Alice-Azania Jarvis was extremely positive, writing "...there wasn't very much you could fault about the production at all. Right down to the quirky camerawork and youthful, poppy soundtrack (who would have thought the Hoosiers could be so right in any situation?), the director, Damon Thomas, got it pretty spot-on. The result was a pleasingly festive-feeling adventure; part Wallace & Gromit, part Doctor Who, part The Secret Seven. And the best thing? There wasn't a Christmas tree in sight. Douglas Adams once claimed that Gently would make a better film character than his more famous hero, Arthur Dent. Based on last night's experience, he may well have been right."^[31] John Walsh's review for The Independent was cooler about the adaptation, although he praised Mangan's performance: "Given the talent and style on display, it should have been a scream. In fact it all seemed a little moth-eaten. Though set in the modern day, it was staggeringly old-fashioned...You could overlook these faults, however, for the joy of Stephen Mangan's performance as the titular gumshoe. With his alarmed-spaniel eyes and jutting-jawed stroppiness, his geography teacher elbow-patches and Medusan hair, he radiates mess...His ineptness as a sleuth provided some fine comic moments.^[32]

Paul Whitelaw in Metro was also positive, although he noted "At times it felt forced, with a sense of trying slightly too hard when a touch more subtlety would have brought out the essential Adamsian eccentricity."^[33] Dan Owen of Obsessed with Film noted that the adaptation played with the idea of inexplicable situations: "Purists may grumble this isn't the Dirk Gently they wanted to see, but it's more accessible and practicable. And while Dirk Gently is certainly another gimmicky detective series (yawn), its details are unique and engrossing enough to shrug off the genre's clichés. In some ways it's a pastiche of whodunits, taking the genre's often tenuous explanations to an outrageous extreme."^[34]

Paul Whitelaw in The Scotsman noted that "Although Adams's more ambitious concepts are sidelined in favour of a more prosaic - if nonetheless enjoyable - sci-fi mystery, Overman captures at least some of the wit and whimsy of his distinctive comic voice" going on to suggest "This modestly-budgeted pilot suggests potential for a series, so the deviation from Adams's originals makes sense. It also adds yet another very British oddball to the pantheon currently occupied by Doctor Who and Sherlock.^[35]

Series One

Critical opinion to the full series was mildly positive. The adaptation from the Adams' novels was the focus of several reviews. Jane Simon, writing in The Mirror stated "It's just a shame creator Douglas Adams isn't around to see how Howard Overman has ­transferred Dirk to the screen. He'd definitely approve.^[36] Mark Braxton in the Radio Times likewise agreed that "Overman has plucked the comic essence of Adams from his novel...and worked it into a digestible, enjoyably eccentric format."^[37]

AA Gill writing in the Sunday Times March 11, 2012 wrote 'Who'd have guessed that this would ever get recommissioned?...It has to get a nomination as the greatest waste of the most talent for the least visible purpose or reward."

Others complained that the series was not an exact adaptation of the novels. Nigel Farndale in The Telegraph stated "I struggled with Dirk Gently...It had nothing to do with Stephen Mangan's considerable comedic talents, still less with Darren Boyd who plays MacDuff, the Dr Watson to Dirk's Holmes. It is more to do with my devotion to Douglas Adams, upon whose comic novel this series is based...in Douglas Adams, 90 per cent of the pleasure is in the prose, the narration, the felicities of language."^[38]

Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent felt that the programme's qualities were "spread a little too thinly over a nonsensical thriller plot' and that "laughs... were far too widely spaced in a script that could have done with a lot more editing."^[39]

Several critics compared the production with the big-budget BBC One detective series Sherlock, the second series of which was broadcast in January 2012. Writing in Metro, Keith Watson said "There's no doubt Sherlock has raised the detecting duo bar on TV...it's more than a match for Sherlock on the dialogue front, neatly catching the surreal humour that was the Adams trademark...but there was no disguising the fact that Dirk Gently was a five-star script being filmed on a one-star budget, making it look like a designer label knockoff when set against the production values lavished on Sherlock.^[40] Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian, meanwhile, found a comparison between the tone of the series and 1960s spy/detective capers; "Never since The Avengers has there been anything so unremittingly silly on British television as Dirk Gently...Dainty harpsichord music tells us we're back in an era of TV misrule, in whose glory days John Steed, Mrs Peel and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) played fast and loose with viewers' intelligences."^[26]

The first episode had 737,000 viewers and a 3% audience share^[41] but this fell to 415,000 and 2% share for the second episode.^{[citation needed]} Series one, including the pilot episode, was released on DVD on 26 March 2012 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment.^[5]

References

External links

• Dirk Gently, BBC Online
• Dirk Gently at the Internet Movie Database
• Dirk Gently at the British Comedy Guide
• Official production team Twitterfeed

Ive been quite busy but not able to podcast

heres are some text reviews ive done for Starburst.

The TDP will return.

Herokin DVD

http://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/dvd-and-blu-ray-home-entertainment-reviews/2457-dvd-review-hirokin-the-last-samurai

Nightmare of eden

http://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/dvd-and-blu-ray-home-entertainment-reviews/2222-dvd-review-doctor-who-nightmare-of-eden

Ace Box Set

http://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/dvd-and-blu-ray-home-entertainment-reviews/2224-dvd-review-doctor-who-ace-box-set-dragon-fire-a-the-happiness-patrolhttp://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/dvd-and-blu-ray-home-entertainment-reviews/2224-dvd-review-doctor-who-ace-box-set-dragon-fire-a-the-happiness-patrol

The Deamons

http://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/dvd-and-blu-ray-home-entertainment-reviews/1993-dvd-review-doctor-who-the-daemons

I know itas not the same as a podcast but Im sure you will like them

regards

Michael

For the United States Navy ship, see USS Shada (SP-580); for the Arabic emphasis sign, see Shadda; for the village in Azerbaijan, see Şada.

Shada
Doctor Who Serial
Shada, the prison planetoid of the Time Lords.
Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companions Lalla Ward (Romana) David Brierley (Voice of K-9 Mk. II)
Others Christopher Neame — Skagra Denis Carey – Professor Chronotis Daniel Hill – Chris Parsons Victoria Burgoyne – Clare Keightley Gerald Campion – Wilkin Derek Pollitt – Dr Caldera John Hallet – Police Constable David Strong – Passenger Shirley Dixon – Voice of the Ship James Coombes – Voice of the Krargs James Muir, Lionel Sansby, Derek Suthern, Reg Woods – Krargs
Production
Writer	Douglas Adams
Director	Pennant Roberts (original)
Script editor	Douglas Adams
Producer	Graham Williams (original) John Nathan-Turner (video)
Production code	5M
Series	Season 17
Length	Incomplete (original) 6 episodes, 25 minutes each (intended)
Originally broadcast	Unaired (original) 6 July 1992 (video release)[1]
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Horns of Nimon The Leisure Hive

Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season (Season 17), but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming. In 1992, its recorded footage was released on video using linking narration by Tom Baker, the Doctor to complete the story.

The script, with adaptions, was later produced by Big Finish Productions as an audio play, with animation and was made available on BBCi and the BBC website in 2003. This version saw Paul McGann take on the role of the Doctor, with Lalla Ward reprising her role as Romana II, with an otherwise different cast.

A novelisation of the story written by Gareth Roberts and returning the action to the Fourth Doctor and Romana was released in March 2012.^[2]

Synopsis

The story revolves around the lost planet Shada, on which the Time Lords built a prison for defeated would-be conquerors of the universe. Skagra, an up-and-coming would-be conqueror of the universe, needs the assistance of one of the prison's inmates, but finds that nobody knows where Shada is anymore except one aged Time Lord who has retired to Earth, where he is masquerading as a professor at St. Cedd's College, Cambridge. Luckily for the fate of the universe, Skagra's attempt to force the information out of Professor Chronotis coincides with a visit by the professor's old friend, the Doctor.

Continuity

• In an unfilmed scene in Episode 5, a listing of prisoners kept on Shada included a Dalek, a Cyberman, and a Zygon. Instead of these, aliens bearing resemblance to Ice Warriors were seen.
• In 1983, clips from Shada were used in The Five Doctors, the 20th-Anniversary special. Tom Baker, the fourth actor to play the Doctor, had declined to appear in the special, and the plot was reworked to explain the events in the clips.^[3]
• In the book, various references are made to past and future Doctor Who. In particular past rebellious Time Lords are mentioned including, the Master, the Rani, the Meddling Monk and Morbius.
• For the Big Finish version, Tom Baker was originally approached to reprise the role of the Doctor, but declined. The Eighth Doctor was then substituted and the story reworked accordingly.
• Although working from the original Adams script, portions of the Big Finish version were reworked by Gary Russell to make the story fit into Doctor Who continuity. This included a new introduction, and a new explanation for the Fourth Doctor and Romana being "taken out of time" during the events of The Five Doctors; the Eighth Doctorhas come to collect Romana and K-9 because he has begun to have a feeling that there was something they should have done at that time. In addition to this –
  • Romana is referred to as Madam President by Skagra in Episode 5.
  • In Episode 6 it is Romana, using her Presidential powers, who decides that Chronotis should be allowed to return to Cambridge.
  • When the policeman enters Chronotis' room, the Doctor can be heard talking about a "terrible way to see in the New Year" in a possible reference to that Doctor's first adventure.
  • Various other minor dialogue changes throughout, mostly relating to the Eighth Doctor reflecting that he has missed Romana and K-9 since they left him and how much he enjoyed their company in the past.
• When Skagra is investigating the Doctor, clips from three other Big Finish productions can be heard, exclusively on the CD version – The Fires of Vulcan, The Marian Conspiracy and Phantasmagoria. The original serial was to have used clips from The Pirate Planet, The Power of Kroll, The Creature from the Pit, The Androids of Tara, Destiny of the Daleks, and City of Death. The webcast features outlines of the first eight Doctors' faces.

Production

Original television version

The original story, as written by Adams, was scheduled to be 6 episodes. It is estimated that only about 50% of the story was filmed.^[2] Location filming in Cambridge and the first of three studio sessions at BBC Television Centre were recorded as scheduled.^[2] The second studio block was affected by a long-running technicians' dispute.^[3] The strike was over by the time rehearsals began for the third recording session, but this was lost to higher-priority Christmas programming.^[4] Attempts were made by new producer John Nathan-Turner to remount the story, but for various reasons it never happened and the production was formally dropped in June 1980.

Nathan-Turner was eventually able to complete the story (so far as was possible) by commissioning new effects shots, a score and having Tom Baker record linking material to cover the missing scenes to create six shortened episodes of between 14 and 22 minutes each. The result was released on video in 1992 as a 111 minute VHS tape, but has never been aired on television—making Shada the only Doctor Who television story never to be broadcast.^[2]

Douglas Adams himself did not regard the story highly and was content for it remain permanently unseen in any form. He once claimed that when he had signed the contract allowing the 1992 release, it had been part of a pile of other papers presented to him by his agent to sign and he wasn't fully aware of what he was agreeing to.^[5]

Levine animated version

In 2010, Ian Levine decided to fund a project to complete the original Shada story using animation and the original voice actors, minus Tom Baker and David Brierley, to complete the parts of the story that were never filmed. John Leeson would replace Brierley as the voice of K9 and Paul Jones, impersonating Baker, would replace him as the Doctor.^[2] In October 2010, Dan Hall of 2 Entertain confirmed that a DVD release of Shada was in production and intended to release it with another title.^[6]

The completed story was finished in late 2011 and announced by Levine, via his Twitter account, on September 8, 2011.^[2][7] J. R. Southall, writer for the science fiction magazine Starburst, reviewed Levine's completed version and scored it 10 out of 10 in an article published on September 15, 2011.^[8] On October 26, 2011, 2 Entertain announced that only the Shada framgents would be released on DVD, along with the 1993 documentary 'Doctor Who': Thirty Years in the Tardis and other items, possibly sometime in 2012.^[9] Southall confirmed the news that same day writing that Dan Hall, 2 Entertain's comissioning editor, was not going to release Levine's completed version.^[10]

Big Finish version (2003)

Big Finish Productions audio play
Shada
Series	Doctor Who
Release number	II
Featuring	Eighth Doctor Romana II
Writer	Douglas Adams, Gary Russell
Director	Gary Russell
Producer(s)	Gary Russell
Set between	Army of Death and Storm Warning
Length	150
Release date	December 2003

The Cast

• The Doctor – Paul McGann (Eighth Doctor)
• Romana II – Lalla Ward
• K-9 Mk. II – John Leeson
• Skagra – Andrew Sachs
• Professor Chronotis – James Fox
• Chris Parsons – Sean Biggerstaff
• Clare Keightley – Susannah Harker
• Wilkin – Melvyn Hayes
• Dr Caldera – Barnaby Edwards
• Motorist/Constable – Stuart Crossman
• The Ship – Hannah Gordon
• Think Tank Voice – Nicholas Pegg

Broadcast date: 10 December 2005

In 2003, the BBC commissioned Big Finish Productions to remake Shada as an audio play which was then webcast^[11][2] in six episodic segments, accompanied by limited Flash animation, on the BBC website using illustrations provided by comic strip artist Lee Sullivan.^[12] The play starred Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana. The audio play was also broadcast on digital radio station BBC 7, on 10 December 2005 (as a 2¹⁄₂-hour omnibus), and was repeated in six parts as the opening story to the Eighth Doctor's summer season which began on 16 July 2006.

Lalla Ward (Romana) is the only actor to appear in both the original television version and the subsequent Big Finish remake.

Outside references

In Episode 2 of the webcast version, when Chris is in his lab showing Clare the book, a vending machine-like object in the background is labelled "Nutrimat", a reference to a similar device in Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Two other references are a sequence where Skagra steals a Ford Prefect and when images of Hitchhiker's Guide characters appear as inmates on Shada itself.

In print

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who – Shada
Writer	Gareth Roberts
Publisher	BBC Books
Release date	15 March 2012[13]
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and Shada
Writer	Paul Scoones & Jonathan Preddle
Publisher	JPS Books (unofficial novelisation)
Cover artist	Alistair Hughes
Release date	March 1989
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

Elements of the story were reused by Adams for his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in particular the character of Professor Chronotis who possesses a time machine. Adams did not allow Shada, or any of his other Doctor Who stories, to be novelised by Target Books. It is, therefore, one of only five serials from the 1963–1989 series not to be novelised by Target – along with Adams' other stories The Pirate Planet and City of Death, plus Eric Saward's two Dalek stories (Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks).

A six-part adaptation of the story by Jonathan V Way appeared in issues 13-18 of Cosmic Masque, the Doctor Who Appreciation Society's fiction magazine. Douglas Adams granted permission for the adaptation on condition that it was never published in collected form.^[14]

A fan group in New Zealand published an unofficial adaptation in 1989, later republishing it as an online eBook titled Doctor Who and Shada.^[15]

BBC Books published a novelisation of this serial on 15 March 2012, written by Gareth Roberts. Roberts has drawn on the latest versions of the scripts available, as well as adding new material of his own to "fix" various plotholes and unanswered questions.^[16]

VHS, Webcast and DVD releases

VHS release: The original televsion version of Shada was released in 1992 on VHS and featured linking narration by Tom Baker and was accompanied by a facsimile of a version of Douglas Adams's script (except in North America).^[2] The release was discontinued in the UK in 1996.

Webcast: The webcast version (originally broadcast via BBCi's "Red Button") remains available from the BBC Doctor Who "classic series" website, and an expanded audio-only version is available for purchase on CD from Big Finish. This expanded version was the one broadcast on BBC7.

DVD: Ian Levine announced on 8 September 2011 that his personally-funded reconstruction of all six episodes of the serial, using animation and recently-recorded vocal tracks to fill in missing parts of the story, had now been completed.^[9][7] However, the animation was rejected by 2Entertain, and it has been announced that the shot footage for the story will be released in 2012 with assorted Doctor Who material, including the 1993 documentary More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS.^[9]

References

Bibliography

• Howe, David J; Stammers, Mark; Walker, Stephen James. Doctor Who: The Seventies (1994) (London: Doctor Who Books) ISBN 9781852274443

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Fourth Doctor

• Shada at BBC Online
• Shada at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• Shada at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Cambridge Time Traveller Group, Article on Shada,

Reviews

• Shada reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Fan novelisation

• Doctor Who and Shada ebook
• Shada reviews at Outpost Gallifrey

Webcast

• Shada at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Shada webcast on the BBC website
• Big Finish Productions – Shada
• Shada reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Shada reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

The Fourth Doctor, traveling alone in the TARDIS, arrives on a mysterious jungle planet. He soon encounters Leela, a savage from the local tribe, who denounces him as the Evil One of fable amongst her people. She has been exiled from her tribe, the Sevateem, for profaning their god, the mysterious Xoanon, which speaks to them through the tribe’s shaman, Neeva. Her father, tribal elder Sole, tried to intervene to protect her but died when taking the Test of the Horda on her behalf. Now Leela is an outcast beyond the invisible barrier around her tribal home. Neeva, meanwhile, has sent two men to murder her, an action witnessed by Leela's friend Tomas, who kills one of the men as Leela dispatches the other. In the jungle beyond that she encounters the Doctor soon wins her over by defending her from invisible monsters that rampage about, attracted by vibration of any kind. Exploring further, the Doctor finds a sophisticated sonic disruptor which creates the forcefield that keeps the creatures from attacking the village itself. Leela regales him with more folklore of her people: the god Xoanon is kept prisoner by the Evil One and his followers, the Tesh, beyond a strange black wall.

The Sevateem have meanwhile decided to launch an attack on the domain of the Tesh to free their god. They are led by the combative Andor, who is determined to free his god, and also believes that an attack will unite the people. Andor suspects Neeva of being a false prophet, and Tomas tells him of Neeva's assassination attempt against Leela. Still, Andor believes the attack will succeed and is prepared to go ahead.

Two warriors are scouring the jungle when they find the Doctor, and they too call him the Evil One, making a protective hand gesture which the Doctor interprets as the sequence for checking the seals on a Starfall Seven spacesuit. The warriors seize the Doctor, but not Leela, and take him to the village council, where his face is shown to all the tribe. Andor is convinced the prisoner is the Evil One, and has him confined. However, Leela manages to free him by using poisonous Janis thorns, which paralyze, then kill the victim. The Doctor is horrified by this and instructs her "No more Janis thorns, Ever".

The pair flee the village and head to a clearing beyond, in which the Doctor is greeted with a stunning sight: carved into a mountain nearby is an impression of his own face. The Doctor cannot recall clearly why his face is depicted so, and persuades Leela to return to the village to find out more, despite the death sentence upon them. They return to Neeva’s holy tent and the Doctor inspects the ancient tribal relics, recognising them as artifacts from an Earth survey expedition. He also finds a transceiver used by Neeva to hear the commands of Xoanon. It speaks with the Doctor’s own voice, conveying exhilaration on hearing the Doctor that "At least we are here. At last I shall be free of us."

They then head off to inspect the dark Wall that stands at the entrance to the realm of the Evil One. The Doctor deduces it is a primitive time barrier, and is convinced the Sevateem warriors will be massacred if they attack the fortress of their enemy, the Tesh. From a distance they see the massacre unfold, as laser beams cut down warriors armed only with crossbows and other basic tribal weapons. Half the tribe is lost in the assault and one of the elders, the devious Calib, is first back at the camp where he finds the Doctor and Leela. He is evidently intent on using the Doctor to break Neeva’s hold on the tribe by exposing the faith in Xoanon as misplaced mythology. Leela’s friend Tomas also arrives, and is appalled to find Calib has stabbed Leela with a Janis thorn to prevent her exposing his schemes. The Doctor gets Tomas to help him move Leela to Neeva’s tent, where he uses a bio-analyzer to synthesise an antidote to the poison.

When the surviving warriors return, the Doctor, Leela and Tomas are invited to address the tribal elders in defence of their lives. Leela makes matters worse when she accuses Xoanon of causing the trap at the Wall. Calib intervenes to suggest the Doctor is not the Evil One, and this can be proven by getting him to take the fabled Test of the Horda. In the centre of the village is a pit full of Horda, two-foot-long worms which hunt in packs and react to the movements of their prey. They are reputed to strip flesh from a man in an instant. The Sevateem evolved the Test of the Horda as a measure of justice and bravery. It involves suspension on a rope above the pit, and accused characters are gradually lowered into the pit by means of a rope. The Doctor is given a crossbow which has to be fired at the exact moment to sever the rope without causing him to fall into the pit – which is, of course, the fate of the guilty. The Doctor succeeds, and is therefore presumed to be a non-malign influence and freed. He proceeds to examine some relics of the tribe and repairs a disruptor gun. He also tells some of the tribe that the Sevateem are the descendants of a “survey team” which left a Starfall Seven Earth colony ship. The Doctor and Leela then go to examine the face in the mountain, and they climb into the face by scaling the Doctor’s teeth.

Neeva returns to his tent, where the voice of Xoanon tells him that the tribe will be destroyed, and the mysterious being then causes the sonic disruptor to shut down, leaving the village open to attack from the invisible beings. These descend on the village, killing indiscriminately, including crushing Andor to death. Tomas uses the disruptor gun built by the Doctor to expose the true appearance of the invisible beings: they are ferocious, angry depictions of the Doctor’s own face as shown in the picture.

Leela and the Doctor notice a figure in a space suit in the “mouth” entrance and follow it through a projection of a wall. Beyond this barrier is a rocket, which the Doctor recalls as belonging to the Mordee Expedition, his memory of events earlier in his regeneration now returning. Xoanon has detected the Doctor nearby, and when he reaches the ship the god-creature is both ecstatic that "We are here” while also manically pledging that "We must destroy us."

The Doctor and Leela now meet three representatives of the Tesh, who serve and worship Xoanon. They are human too, but technologically advanced and possessing telepathic abilities. The Doctor deduces both Sevateem and Tesh are descendants of the same crew from the Mordee Expedition, with the Tesh (or technicians) involved in the same deadly eugenics exercise as the Sevateem (or survey team).

The invisible creatures that attacked the Sevateem are also part of the same deranged scheme: Xoanon is a highly sophisticated computer, designed to think independently. The Doctor had once repaired Xoanon but forgot to wipe his personality print from the data core, leaving the computer with a split personality. The Doctor and Leela are soon imprisoned but evade their captors and find the remote communications device used to communicate with Neeva. The Doctor, speaking as Xoanon, instructs Neeva to tell Calib, who is now tribal leader, to lead the Sevateem survivors through the mouth of the carved face in the mountain. Calib accepts this instruction and leads them into the safety of the mouth, where the invisible beings can no longer threaten the tribe.

With Leela keeping guard and holding the Tesh at bay with a disruptor gun, the Doctor ventures into the computer room of the ship to confront Xoanon. He blames himself for creating the maddened split personality of the computer and now attempts to persuade it to shut down. When Xoanon refuses it channels a vicious mental assault at the Doctor, causing him to collapse. As the Doctor writhes on the floor, Xoanon booms: "Who am I?"

Leela rescues the Doctor from the mental assault, and as he recovers he warns her of Xoanon’s power. Moments later they realise the computer has electrified the walls to try to kill them, and the Tesh become more purposeful in tracking them down within the spaceship. The Tesh also come under attack from Calib, Tomas and the survivors of the Sevateem, who now reach the spaceship too. This diverts the Tesh while the Doctor and Leela return to the computer room, where Xoanon briefly takes control of Leela’s mind. Most of the Sevateem come under the telepathic control of the computer too.

The Tesh and Sevateem soon converge on the computer room too and interrupt the Doctor as he tries to repair Xoanon, realising the computer has now triggered the countdown to an atomic explosion. Elsewhere in the ship Neeva is alone but crazed, his faith in Xoanon shattered. The shaman uses the disruptor gun against one of the images of Xoanon/the Doctor projected through a wall. The ensuing blast kills Neeva but also interrupts Xoanon’s control of its subjects, allowing the Doctor to resume and complete his repairs. Xoanon’s circuits explode, knocking the Doctor out.

Two days later the Doctor wakes up to find himself aboard the spaceship in the care of Leela. She explains Xoanon has been quiet and he interprets this as success for his extraction experiment. They visit the computer room and find Xoanon’s identity and sanity restored. The computer confirms it was running a eugenics experiment and thanks the Doctor for his repair work. The Doctor then contacts the survivors of the Tesh and Sevateem and tells them Xoanon is now cured and able to support their new society. He then heads off to the TARDIS followed by Leela. She insists she join him on his travels, and when he refuses she jumps into the TARDIS with him and starts the dematerialisation process.

[edit] Continuity

• The story does not explicitly explain when the Fourth Doctor repaired the Starfall Seven's computer. The novelisation suggests that the earlier visit to the planet of the Sevateem took place during the story Robot, in the moment when Sarah sees him begin to leave in the TARDIS but calls for him to stay.

[edit] Production

• Working titles for this story included The Day God Went Mad.

[edit] Cast notes

• The actors credited as Xoanon do not appear onscreen; only their voices were used.
• Features guest appearances by Pamela Salem (voice only) and Leslie Schofield.
• Lloyd McGuire later played Generalleutnant Tendexter in the audio play The Architects of History.

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in January 1978.

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Face of Evil
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	25
Writer	Terrance Dicks
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Jeff Cummins
ISBN	0-426-20006-3
Release date	19 January 1978
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

[edit] DVD & VHS release

• This story was released on VHS in May 1999
• The story was released on DVD on 5 March 2012^[4]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Face of Evil at BBC Online
• The Face of Evil at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Face of Evil at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Fan reviews

• The Face of Evil reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Face of Evil reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Target novelisation

• Doctor Who and the Face of Evil reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Doctor Who and the Face of Evil

[hide]

Doctor Who

As Suplied by Forbidden Planet.com

To Win A signed copy of Shada

simply anser this question

name another doctor Who story by douglas adams.

send your name address and answer to tin-dog@hotmail.co.uk

marked shada comp

Blake's 7 CD Box Set 1
(Duration: 180' approx)

CAST:

Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Anthony Howell (Nyrron)

SYNOPSIS:
Three enhanced audiobooks performed by the stars of the classic BBC television series. These stories are set during Series 1.

The Turing Test by Simon Guerrier
Starring Paul Darrow as Avon and Michael Keating as Vila
After evading an attack by Cassini pirates, the Liberator heads to the rogue moon of Quentil, where Avon and Vila infiltrate a top secret Federation science facility.

Vila assumes the guise of Doctor Yarding Gill, an expert in digital memory. And Avon is his 'creation' - a super-advanced android that could pass for human. In fact, he does...

Can they maintain the ruse for long enough to complete their mission? And will the Cassini pirates catch up with them?

Solitary by Nigel Fairs
Starring Michael Keating as Vila and Anthony Howell as Nyrron
Vila is in solitary confinement. His friends have abandoned him; his only contact with the world outside is Nyrron, a scientist from the planet Auron.

Amnesiac and confused, Vila attempts to piece together recent events... A mission to Dulcimer 4. An important meeting. And a visit to the jungle world of Terrulis Major.

In the depths of the foliage, the truth is waiting. And it's more terrifying than Vila could possibly have imagined...

Counterfeit by Peter Anghelides
Starring Gareth Thomas as Blake and Paul Darrow as Avon
The Bovee Mining Facility: a Federaqtion slave camp worked by disgraced scientists.

The planet shouldn't be of interest but is it: Avon's investigations reveal that it's rich in Illusium, a mineral that can change from one substance to another. With it, the Federation could be invulnerable...

Blake teleports down to Bovee, but gets more than he bargained for. There's another visitor to the facility - and his presence changes the whole game...
AUTHORS:     Simon Guerrier, Nigel Fairs and Peter Anghelides     DIRECTOR:
    Lisa Bowerman
SOUND DESIGN:
    Alistair Lock     MUSIC:
    Alistair Lock
COVER ART:
    Anthony Lamb
    NUMBER OF DISCS:
    3
RECORDED DATE:
    23 September 2011     RELEASE DATE:
    28 February 2012
PRODUCTION CODE:
    BFPB7BOX001     ISBN:     978-1-84435-624-9

   
   
   

CHRONOLOGICAL PLACEMENT:

These stories are set between Project Avalon and Breakdown.

A Heartfelt thank you for listening as we enter out seventh year together!

Choices.

by

Michael M Gilroy-Sinclair

It's nineteen eighty three and I am late.

I’m perched on the edge of a sofa, dressed in what I can only describe as a paramilitary uniform. I have a green beret on my head, a golden cap badge and the insignia on my arm says that I am second in command of my sub group. My heart rate is up and I am full of guilt.

Except that’s only part of the truth.  I am eleven years old and I am watching Doctor Who, The Doctor is talking to a pirate queen and I am transfixed.

Both of these are true, I am dressed to go to the scouts and I am, as I have said quite late.

I was never athletic and yet I run. I run in the way you can when you are eleven. The wind holds its breath and lets you past. Traffic slows down to let you cross roads. You can bend space/time when you are eleven.  One day the The Wachowskis have nothing on this.

Across the field and down the cinder path, down Exeter road and onwards to the hut containing others of my kind.

The green wooden hut belongs in a Just William story and it is home to the 8^th Tynemouth Scout group. I had been a cub and with an arm full of merit badges and a neckerchief which was always was worn with pride.

I burst in with an entry worthy of Sodeed, all eyes turn to me. A room full of punctual automatons all lined up for inspection.

I took my spot at the end of the line and waited. I knew that I would receive... 'a chat' one of the first 'have a quiet words with' id receive in a lifetime of 'having quiet words with'.

I did not have to wait for long.

Immediately after inspection I was taken to one side by as huge man, An ambulance driver by day and Scout leader by night. I remember his moustache bristling in a way I'd only heard about in Terrance Dicks novelizations.

He looked me square in the face and asked a simple question. He said it as a statement of fact, a management technique used by many.

“You have to work out what’s more important. Doctor Who or...” any words after that were lost to me.

I stayed the session and let my mind fill with Robots and Terileptils.

I never returned.

I knew that my heart belonged in the blue box and no amount of church parades and camping could ever change that.

It is also important to note that drama club was on a night when my Beloved TARDIS was not on television and there were also girls there!

Ken Deep spearheaded a podcast recording at Gallifrey One's Network 23 featuring:

Ken from Podshock
Steven from Radio Free Skaro
Daisy from Sonic Toolbox
Chip from Two-Minute Time Lord
Tom from Geek Planet

It's an interesting discussion about the convention and about Doctor Who in general

reprinted from wikipedia with thanks and repect

The Robots of Death is the fifth serial of the 14th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 29 January to 19 February 1977.

Plot

On a distant planet, a huge sandminer vehicle, Storm Mine 4, is slowly scraping the surface of a vast, barren desert in search of precious minerals. The sandminer is manned by nine humans and numerous robots - black 'Dums' that cannot speak, pale green 'Vocs', and a silver 'Super Voc' which controls all the 'Dums' and 'Vocs'. The robots conduct a routine scan of the area and locate a large sandstorm, which the humans decide to pursue, as the storm will bring heavier minerals to the surface. One of the humans, a meteorologist called Chub, goes to collect an instrument package to place into his weather balloon to study the storm. However, he is later found strangled.

At about this time, the TARDIS materialises in one of the scoops. After the Doctor and Leela emerge from the TARDIS, it is removed by a large mechanical arm as it is blocking the scoop. Later, the Doctor and Leela are brought out of the scoop by two robots and locked in a room. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, and goes in search of the TARDIS, while Leela finds Chub's body being taken away by some robots.

The human crew suspects the two time travellers of murdering Chub, and tensions increase when it is found that they have left the room in which they were locked. By the time they are both recaptured, the Doctor has found a second dead man (Kerril), and Leela has found both a third dead man (Cass) and a 'Dum' robot which can secretly speak. Commander Uvanov orders them to be locked up in the robot storage bay, on suspicion of killing all three humans.

One of the humans, Poul, believes the Doctor and Leela to be innocent, so he frees them and shows them where Chub was murdered. There, the Doctor convinces Poul that a robot may have killed the mineralogist. While this is happening, a woman named Zilda is murdered, and Poul - sent to the room to investigate Zilda's accusations of murder against Commander Uvanov over a tannoy system - finds the Commander standing over Zilda's body and has him confined to his quarters for murdering Zilda.

The sandminer's engines begin to run out of control, threatening the vehicle with destruction. It is found that Borg, the human responsible for controlling power to the motors, has been viciously strangled, and the controls have been sabotaged. The Doctor saves the miner by cutting off the power to the motors, while a man named Dask repairs the damaged controls so that the miner can continue on its way.

The Doctor goes to see the 'Dum' robot that Leela claimed could speak, D84. The robot reveals that it and Poul are undercover agents for the mining company, who were placed on board the miner as a precaution to threats of a robot revolution by a scientist called Taren Capel, who was raised by robots. D84 itself is unique in the fact that it can function autonomously from Super Voc SV7's commands, and appears to possess a high level of logical reasoning. The Doctor and D84 search the miner for proof that Taren Capel is on board, and find a secret workshop where the robots' programming has been changed to enable them to kill humans. The Doctor arranges for all the remaining humans to go to the command deck.

Dask shuts down all of the robots whose programming has not been changed, leaving just the killer robots and D84 operational. Dask is later revealed to be the mad scientist Taren Capel, intent on 'releasing [his] 'brothers' (the robots) from bondage to human dross' and 'programming them with an ambition to rule the world'. Taren Capel orders his modified robots to destroy the remaining humans and the Doctor and Leela. Leela shows the Doctor a damaged robot in the storage bay with its hand covered in blood - which the Doctor reasons is Borg's, guessing that Borg sabotaged the engine controls in a suicidal attempt to destroy the miner and all the killer robots on board. The Doctor dismantles the damaged robot and creates a final deactivator - a device that will destroy any still functioning robots at close range. The Doctor hides Leela in Taren's workshop with a canister of helium gas, telling her to release it slowly when Taren comes in. The Doctor hopes that this will change Taren's voice, so his robots - unable to recognise him - won't obey his orders.

Taren arrives and damages D84, but the robot is able to activate the Doctor's device to destroy a killer robot, knowingly sacrificing itself in the process. Leela releases the helium gas, causing Taren's voice to become high-pitched and squeaky, and Taren is killed by SV7 when it fails to identify his voice. The Doctor then destroys SV7 with a laser probe.

The robot threat over, and a rescue ship coming to collect the surviving humans, the Doctor and Leela return to the TARDIS and leave the sandminer.

[edit] Continuity

• This story reveals the Doctor's immunity to the vocal-altering effects of helium. It is not clear why though.
• The BBC Books spin-off novel Corpse Marker by Chris Boucher is a sequel to this serial, as is Robophobia, a Seventh Doctor audio play by Nicholas Briggs. There's also the independently produced Kaldor City audio plays, not featuring the Doctor.
• This serial marks the final appearance of the wood-panelled secondary TARDIS console room. The audio story Empathy Games gives a possible explanation for its loss.

[edit] Production

• Early titles for the script included "Planet of the Robots" and "The Storm-mine Murders".
• The ship main cabin set was originally used in the 4th Doctor story Planet of Evil.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cast notes

• Russell Hunter was allegedly cast against the intention of the script, which implied that Commander Uvanov should be a physically imposing man, much in the mould of an eighteenth century sailing master.
• David Collings, who plays Poul, previously appeared as Vorus in Revenge of the Cybermen and would later appear as Mawdryn in Mawdryn Undead as well as an alternative incarnation of the Doctor in the Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who Unbound audio drama Full Fathom Five.
• Pamela Salem, who plays Toos, had provided voice work in the preceding story The Face of Evil and would later appear as Professor Rachel Jensen in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• David Bailie went on to play the Celestial Toymaker in the audio plays The Nightmare Fair and Solitaire.

[edit] Outside references

• The murder plotline owes a great deal to Agatha Christie; notably Ten Little Indians and The Mousetrap.
• The treatment of robots in this serial has many intentional nods to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
• The villain of the story is named Taren Capel, which is a reference to Karel Čapek,^[4] who is credited with first coining the word "robot". Uvanov's name is a reference to Isaac Asimov,^{[citation needed]} while Poul is a reference to the science fiction writer Poul Anderson.^[4]
• The script several times refers to Robophobia (the irrational fear of robots) as 'Grimwade's Syndrome', an inside joke reference to Peter Grimwade, a production assistant who directed some of the filmed scenes in the episode. Grimwade had frequently lamented that he was always working on material involving robots.

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in May 1979. This novelisation was the shortest and notable for featuring the character of Cass attending a meeting after being murdered in the previous chapter.

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Robots of Death
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	53
Writer	Terrance Dicks
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	John Geary
ISBN	0-426-20061-6
Release date	24 May 1979
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

[edit] VHS and DVD releases

• This story was released on VHS in omnibus format in April 1986 and in episodic format in February 1995.
• It was released on DVD on 13 November 2000.
• A special edition of the DVD, with new bonus features, is to be released in the uk on 13 February 2012 in the third of the ongoing Revisitations DVD box sets.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Robots of Death at BBC Online
• The Robots of Death at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Robots of Death at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Essay on The Robots of Death (contains plot detail)

Fan reviews

• The Robots of Death reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Robots of Death reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Target novelisation

• Doctor Who and the Robots of Death reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Doctor Who and the Robots of Death

Reprinted from wikipedia with thanks and respect

The Three Doctors is the first serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast in four weekly parts from 30 December 1972 to 20 January 1973. The serial opened the tenth anniversary year of the series.

Synopsis

The home planet of the Time Lords is under siege, by an unknown force that by all accounts should not even exist. The only person who can help them is the Doctor, but even he will need assistance – from his previous selves.

[edit] Plot

A superluminal signal is sent to Earth, carrying with it an unusual energy blob that seems intent on capturing the Third Doctor. In the meantime, the homeworld of the Time Lords is under siege, with all the power sustaining it being drained through a black hole. Trapped and desperate, the Time Lords do the unthinkable and break the First Law of Time, allowing the Doctor to aid himself by summoning his two previous incarnations from the past.

Unfortunately, the First Doctor is trapped in a time eddy, unable to fully materialize, and can only communicate via viewscreen, but the Second Doctor joins the Third in investigating the origins of the creature and the black hole, while UNIT headquarters faces an attack by the gel-like alien creatures.

The First Doctor deduces the black hole is a bridge between universes, and the other two Doctors allow the TARDIS to be swallowed up by the energy creature, which transports them, Dr Tyler, Jo Grant, Sergeant Benton and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart into an antimatter universe created by the legendary Time Lord Omega. Omega was a solar engineer who created the supernova that powers Time Lord civilization, but was considered killed in the explosion. In actuality, he had been transported to the antimatter universe, where his will and thought turned the formless matter into physicality. Trapped, due to the fact that his will is the only thing maintaining reality, he vowed revenge on the Time Lords who left him stranded.

It is clear that the exile has made Omega quite insane. Along with his revenge, he has summoned the Doctors here to take over the mental maintenance of the antimatter universe so he can escape. However, the Doctors discover that years of exposure to the corrosive effects of the black hole's singularity have destroyed Omega's physical body – he is trapped forever. Driven over the edge by this discovery, Omega now demands that the Doctors share his exile.

The Doctors escape briefly, and offer Omega a proposition. They will give him his freedom if they send the others back to the positive matter universe. Omega agrees, and when that is done, the Doctors offer Omega a force field generator containing the Second Doctor's recorder, which had fallen in it prior to the transport through the black hole. Omega knocks the generator over in a rage and the unconverted positive matter recorder falls out of the force field. When the recorder comes into contact with the antimatter universe, it annihilates everything in a flash, returning the Doctors in the TARDIS to the positive matter universe. The Third Doctor explains that death was the only freedom anyone could offer Omega.

With the power now restored to the Time Lords, they are able to send the First and Second Doctors back to their respective time periods. As a reward, the Time Lords give the Third Doctor a new dematerialization circuit for the TARDIS and restore his knowledge of how to travel through space and time.

[edit] Continuity

• Omega would return in the Fifth Doctor serial, Arc of Infinity (1983), the Big Finish Productions audio play Omega, the novel The Infinity Doctors and the gamebook Search for the Doctor.
• The Chancellor is portrayed by Clyde Pollitt who had also played one of the Time Lords who tried and exiled the Second Doctor. Barry Letts states in the DVD commentary that this was intentional as he meant for this to be the same character. Similarly, Graham Leaman reappears as a Time Lord having been seen in the role in Colony in Space, discussing the Master's activities and their use of the exiled Doctor as an agent.
• The Brigadier refers to the Yeti (The Web of Fear), the Cybermen (The Invasion) and the Autons (Spearhead from Space).
• The Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Empire of Glass states that the First Doctor is taken out of time between the stories The Time Meddler and Galaxy 4 but immediately before the novel.

[edit] Production

• Working titles for this story included The Black Hole.
• The script was originally supposed to feature all three Doctors equally, but William Hartnell was too ill to be able to play the full role as envisioned. He was, therefore, reduced to a pre-recorded cameo role, appearing only on the TARDIS's scanner and the space-time viewer of the Time Lords. It would be the last time he played the Doctor and his last acting role before his death in 1975. Hartnell's scenes were filmed at BBC's Ealing Studios and not in a garage or a garden shed as fan myth would have it. The serial's promotional photo shoot was the only time the three actors were shown together.
• The production team also planned for Frazer Hines to reprise his role of Jamie McCrimmon alongside the Second Doctor; however, Hines was not available, due to his work on the soap opera Emmerdale Farm. Much of the role originally intended for Jamie was reassigned to Sergeant Benton.

[edit] Outside references

Jo references The Beatles' song "I Am the Walrus".^[4]

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in November 1975.

The novelisation provides a rationale for Omega's realm to be a quarry: over the millennia, Omega has become weary of the mental effort required to generate a verdant landscape and now makes do with rock and soil. The Second Doctor is referred to throughout as Doctor Two. In the book, Mr Ollis is renamed Mr Hollis.

Doctor Who book
The Three Doctors
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	64
Writer	Terrance Dicks
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
ISBN	0-426-11578-3
Release date	20 November 1975
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

[edit] Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases

• The serial was repeated on BBC2 in November 1981, daily (Monday-Thursday) (23 November 1981 to 26 November 1981) at 5.40pm as part of "The Five Faces of Doctor Who".
• This story was released twice on VHS, first in August 1991 and thereafter remastered and re-released in 2002 as part of the W H Smith's The Time Lord Collection boxed set.
• This story was released on DVD in the UK in November 2003 as part of the Doctor Who 40th Anniversary Celebration releases, representing the Jon Pertwee years. Some copies came in a box set housing a limited edition Corgi model of "Bessie", the Third Doctor's vintage roadster.
• A special edition of the DVD, with new bonus features, is to be released in the uk on 13 February 2012 in the third of the ongoing Revisitations DVD box sets.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Third Doctor

• The Three Doctors at BBC Online
• The Three Doctors at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Three Doctors at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Reviews

• The Three Doctors reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Three Doctors reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Target novelisation

• The Three Doctors (novelisation) reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — The Three Doctors

The Foe from the Future
The Grange is haunted, so they say. This stately home in the depths of Devon has been the site of many an apparition. And now people are turning up dead. The ghosts are wild in the forest. But the Doctor doesn’t believe in ghosts.

The TARDIS follows a twist in the vortex to the village of Staffham in 1977 and discovers something is very wrong with time. But spectral highwaymen and cavaliers are the least of the Doctor’s worries.

For the Grange is owned by the sinister Jalnik, and Jalnik has a scheme two thousand years in the making. Only the Doctor and Leela stand between him and the destruction of history itself. It’s the biggest adventure of their lives – but do they have the time?

The Valley of Death
A century after his Great-Grandfather Cornelius vanished in the Amazon rainforest, Edward Perkins is journeying to the depths of the jungle to find out what became of his ancestor’s lost expedition. Intrigued by what appears to be a description of a crashed spacecraft in the diaries of that first voyage, the Doctor and Leela join him on his quest. But when their plane runs into trouble and ends up crash landing, everyone gets more than they bargained for.

The jungle is filled with giant creatures and angry tribesmen, all ready to attack. But in the famed lost city of the Maygor tribe, something far, far worse is lurking. Something with an offer to make to mankind. Who are the Lurons and can they be trusted? Will the Doctor defeat the plans of the malevolent Godrin or will he become just another victim of the legendary Valley of Death?

Starring Tom Baker and Louise Jameson

(Duration: 300' approx)

CAST:

Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela)
The Foe from the Future: Paul Freeman (Jalnik), Louise Brealey (Charlotte), Blake Ritson (Instructor Shibac), Mark Goldthorp (Constable Burrows), Philip Pope (Father Harpin), Jaimi Barbakoff (Supreme Councillor Geflo), Dan Starkey (Historiographer Osin), Camilla Power (Councillor Kostal)
The Valley of Death: Nigel Carrington (Emissary Godrin/Dr Summersby/Announcer), Delia Lindsay (Overlord Saldor/Newsreader), Jane Slavin (Valerie Carlton), Anthony Howell (Edward Perkins), David Killick (Professor Cornelius Perkins), Richard Bremmer (General Hemmings/Valcon/Taxi Driver)

Reprinted from Wikipedia with thaks

The Tomb of the Cybermen is the first serial of fifth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that originally aired in four weekly parts from 2 September to 23 September 1967 and is the earliest serial starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor to exist in its entirety. It stars Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling as companions Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield and features recurring villains the Cybermen, as well as the introduction of the Cyberman Controller and the Cybermats.

On the planet Telos, an archeological expedition uncovers a hidden entrance in a mountain. The TARDIS lands nearby, and the expedition is joined by the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria. Parry, the expedition's leader, explains that they are here to find the remains of the Cybermen, who apparently died out five centuries before. The expedition is funded by Kaftan, who is accompanied by her giant manservant Toberman and her colleague Klieg.

A man is electrocuted opening the doors, but the party manages to enter the chamber. They find a control panel and a large, sealed hatch. The Doctor is able to open two hidden doors in the walls, but the hatch remains sealed. Parry and Klieg continue to try and open it as Toberman slips out.

The remaining members of the expedition begin to explore. Victoria and Kaftan come across a chamber with a sarcophagus-like wall inset facing a projection device that was apparently used to revitalise the Cybermen. Victoria curiously climbs inside. Kaftan secretly seals Victoria in the sarcophagus and tries to activate the projector pointing at the sarcophagus but the Doctor, thinking Victoria had only accidentally locked herself in, frees her.

Meanwhile, Haydon and Jamie have been experimenting with a control panel in another room; a Cyberman slides into view and a gun fires, killing Haydon.

The Doctor points out that Haydon was shot in the back. Throwing the switches again, the Cyberman -in reality an empty shell - is destroyed by the gun which emerges from a hidden panel, showing that the room is actually a testing range.

Outside, Toberman reports to Kaftan that "It is done." Captain Hopper, the expedition's pilot, returns and angrily reveals that someone has sabotaged the rocket ship — they cannot leave the planet until repairs are made.

The hatch is finally opened. Leaving Kaftan and Victoria behind, the men descend through the hatch. They find a vast chamber beneath, with a multistorey structure containing cells of frozen Cybermen.

Back in the control room, Kaftan drugs Victoria and reseals the hatch. Inside it, Klieg activates more controls in the tomb and the ice begins to melt. When Viner tries to stop him, Klieg shoots him dead and holds the rest at bay as the Cybermen return to life. Klieg reveals that he and Kaftan belong to the Brotherhood of Logicians, who possess great intelligence but no physical power. He is certain the Cybermen will be grateful for their revival and will ally themselves with him.

Victoria awakes and confronts Kaftan, who threatens to shoot her if she tries opening the hatch. A small mechanical cybermat revives and attacks Kaftan, rendering her unconscious. Victoria grabs Kaftan's pistol and shoots the cybermat. Not knowing which lever opens the hatch, she leaves to find Hopper.

Down in the tombs, the Cybermen free their leader, the Cyberman Controller, from his cell. When Klieg steps forward to take the credit for reviving them, the Cybercontroller grabs and crushes his hand, declaring, "You belong to us; You shall be like us."

The Doctor realises that the tombs were an elaborate trap: the Cybermen were waiting for beings intelligent enough to decipher the controls to free them. The expedition will be converted into Cybermen in preparation for a new invasion of Earth.

In the control room, Capt. Hopper and Callum have figured out how to open the hatch. Hopper descends into the tombs, and uses smoke grenades to distract the Cybermen while the humans make their escape - all but Toberman, who has his arms cybernetically converted.

Klieg and Kaftan are moved into the testing range to keep them out of mischief while the others decide on their next course of action. Klieg extricates the weapon from the wall, an X-ray laser he calls a cybergun, to coerce the Cybermen to do their bidding. Meanwhile, the others fend off an attack by cybermats.

Klieg and Kaftan step out, and Klieg fires the laser in the direction of the Doctor.

Klieg misses, wounding Callum. He opens the hatch, and calls for the Cyberman Controller. The Controller climbs up, accompanied by Toberman, who has been partially cyberconverted and is under Cyberman control. The Controller moves slowly, as his energy is running low — most of the Cybermen have been ordered back to their tombs to conserve power. Klieg says he will allow the Controller to be revitalised if the Cybermen help him conquer the Earth. It agrees. The Doctor helps the Controller into the sarcophagus in an attempt to trap it there, but the revitalised Controller is too strong and breaks free. Toberman knocks Klieg unconscious. The Controller picks up Klieg's cybergun and kills Kaftan when she tries to block its return to the tombs.

The death of Kaftan and the urging of the Doctor shake Toberman out of his controlled state. He struggles with the Controller and hurls it into a control panel, apparently killing it. The Doctor, wanting to make sure the Cybermen are no longer a threat, goes back down into the tombs with Toberman. Klieg regains consciousness and sneaks down with the cybergun and revives the Cybermen once again. Klieg expects to control them now that the Controller is dead, but a revived Cyberman throttles Klieg from behind and kills him. Toberman fights and kills this Cyberman by tearing open its breathing apparatus, while the Doctor and Jamie refreeze the others in their cells.

Hopper's crew have repaired the ship, and the Doctor rewires the controls to the station so they can't be used. He then sets up a circuit to electrify the doors again along with the control panels. The Controller, still alive, lurches forward. Everyone tries to shut the outer doors, but the Controller is too strong. Toberman comes forward, pushes the others aside and uses his bare hands to shut the doors. He succeeds, completing the circuit, and both he and the Controller are electrocuted.

The Doctor and his companions say good-bye to the expedition members and return to the TARDIS. No one notices a lone cybermat, moving along the ground toward Toberman's body.

[edit] Continuity

• The iconography of this serial, in particular the image of Cybermen breaking through plastic sheeting to escape their tombs, has had an influence on nearly all subsequent Cyberman stories. Likewise, the idea of Cybermen being kept in cold storage has since been a continuing theme.
• The Doctor returns to Telos in the Sixth Doctor serial Attack of the Cybermen, where he also encounters the Cryons, the original inhabitants of the planet.^[1]
• The story contains a rare reference to the Doctor's family. When Victoria doubts he can remember his family because of "being so ancient", the Doctor says that he can when he really wants to and "the rest of the time they sleep in my mind" because he has "so much else to think about, to remember".
• The Doctor mentions here that he is about 450 years old.
• Eleventh Doctor actor Matt Smith has stated that it was watching this serial that inspired his own costume as the Doctor.^[2]

[edit] Production

[edit] Writing

• The working titles for this story were The Ice Tombs of Telos and The Cybermen Planet.^[6]
• Peter Bryant, who had previously been assistant to Gerry Davis and been newly promoted to script editor on the preceding story, was allowed to produce this serial in order to prove that he could take over from Innes Lloyd as producer later on in the season. Bryant's own assistant, Victor Pemberton acted as script editor on this serial, but left the series after production of the serial was finished, deciding that he didn't want to be a script editor. When Bryant's eventual promotion to producer came, Derrick Sherwin would become script editor.
• Toberman was originally intended to be deaf, hence his lack of significant speech; his hearing aid would foreshadow his transformation into a Cyberman.^[6]

[edit] Recording

• The cybermats were controlled by various means - some by wires, some by wind-up clockwork, some by radio control, and some by simply being shoved into the shot.^[7] The scene of the Cybermen breaking out of their tombs was filmed entirely in one take.^[8]

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Gerry Davis, was published by Target Books in 1978, entitled Doctor Who and The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	66
Writer	Gerry Davis
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Jeff Cummins
ISBN	0-426-11076-5
Release date	18 May 1978
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

[edit] VHS, DVD and CD releases

• When the BBC's film archive was first properly audited in 1978, this serial was one of many believed missing (although it is absent in earlier 1976 listings). This story was prepared for release in early 1991 on cassette as part of the "Missing Stories" collection, with narration by Jon Pertwee. Then in late 1991, film telerecordings of all four episodes were returned to the BBC from the Hong Kong-based ATV television company. In May 1992, the serial was released on VHS, to much fan excitement and with a special introduction from director Morris Barry. The VHS release topped the sales charts throughout the country. This was the only original Doctor Who episode from the original era to top the UK charts.^{[citation needed]}
• With the recovery of the film prints, the planned soundtrack release was delayed until 1993, when contractual obligations forced its release. See List of Doctor Who audio releases.

UK DVD front cover

• In the UK the DVD was released 13 January 2002.
• A special edition of the DVD, with new bonus features, is to be released in the uk on 13 February 2012 in the third of the ongoing Revisitations DVD box sets.
• Following the 1993 cassette release, on 1 May 2006 the soundtrack was released on a 2-CD set with linking narration by and a bonus interview with Frazer Hines. This was the first existing story to be released on audio in the same format as the missing story range.

[edit] Music release

Music from The Tomb of the Cybermen
Soundtrack album
Released	1997
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	22:40
Label	Via Satellite Records
Doctor Who soundtrack chronology
Doctor Who: 30 Years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1993) Music from the Tomb of the Cybermen Doctor Who: Original Soundtrack Recording (1997)

Stock music and sound effects from this story was released on a "mini-album" by Via Satellite in 1997. It is composed of 2 versions of the Doctor Who theme music, sound effects from Doctor Who: 30 Years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and stock music used in the story. It was planned to be the first in a series of mini-albums, with The Faceless Ones and Inside the Spaceship being mooted as future albums. Neither were produced.^[9][10]

[edit] Track listing

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Andrew Beech (Producer), Peter Finklestone (Editor) (January 22). Tombwatch (Documentary; Special feature on The Tomb of the Cyberman DVD release). London, England: BBC Video. Retrieved 2008-01-12.
• Howe, David J & Walker, Stephen James (23). The Television Companion: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to DOCTOR WHO (2nd ed. ed.). Surrey, UK: Telos Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 1-903889-51-0.
• The Tomb of the Cybermen. Writers Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis, Director Morris Barry, Producer Peter Bryant. Doctor Who. BBC. BBC1, London. 2 September 1967–23 September 1967.

[edit] External links

• The Tomb of the Cybermen at BBC Online
• The Tomb of the Cybermen at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Tomb of the Cybermen at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Doctor Who Locations - The Tomb of the Cybermen

[edit] Reviews

• The Tomb of the Cybermen reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Tomb of the Cybermen reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

[edit] Target novelisation

• The Tomb of the Cybermen reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen

Destination Nerva

Destination: Nerva is an audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio drama was produced by Big Finish Productions. As with all Doctor Who spin-off media, its relationship to the televised serials is open to interpretation.

Tom Baker played the Fourth Doctor from 1974 to 1981. Although Big Finish Productions has been producing audio dramas with all the other living, Classic Series Doctors since 1999, Tom Baker had declined to participate. Baker finally reprised the role in a series of audio dramas for the BBC in 2009, starting with Hornets' Nest. Destination Nerva is the first in a series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions.

[edit] Plot

Having wrapped up their adventure with Jago and Litefoot in Victorian London, the Doctor and Leela are alerted to an interstellar distress signal emanating from an English manor house, in the nearby year of 1895. From there, they chase an alien spaceship a millennium into the future, to the newly constructed Space Dock Nerva, orbiting Jupiter.

[edit] Cast

• The Doctor - Tom Baker
• Leela - Louise Jameson
• Dr Alison Foster - Raquel Cassidy
• McMullan/Pilot - Sam Graham
• Laura Craske - Tilly Gaunt
• Giles Moreau/Jenkins - Tim Bentinck
• Jim Hooley/Drelleran 1/Security Guard - Kim Wall
• Lord Jack/Drudgers/Drelleran 2 - Tim Treloar

[edit] Continuity

• This story begins by picking up from the closing scene of the 1977 television story, The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The final lines spoken in that story are repeated here.
• The Fourth Doctor was previously on-board Nerva in the 1975 television story The Ark in Space. That was several thousand years into the future, when "Space Station Nerva" was converted to house the cryogenically frozen survivors of the human race, as they orbited an inhospitable Earth. The Doctor returned to "Nerva Beacon", thousands of years earlier, in Revenge of the Cybermen, when it orbited a moon of Jupiter. In Destination: Nerva, "Space Dock Nerva" has only just been built.

[edit] Notes

• Raquel Cassidy was in the 2011 Doctor Who television story The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People.

[edit] External links

• Destination Nerva

[edit] References

• Big Finish News Page
• Doctor Who News Page

007 – The Sensorites
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor meets the Sensorites
Cast
Doctor William Hartnell (First Doctor)
Companions Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman) Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright) William Russell (Ian Chesterton)
Others Stephen Dartnell — John Ilona Rodgers — Carol Lorne Cossette — Maitland John Bailey — Commander Martyn Huntley — First Human Giles Phibbs — Second Human Ken Tyllsen — First Sensorite/First Scientist Joe Greig — Second Sensorite/Second Scientist/Warrior Peter Glaze — Third Sensorite/City Administrator Arthur Newall — Fourth Sensorite Eric Francis — First Elder Bartlett Mullins — Second Elder Anthony Rogers, Gerry Martin — Sensorites
Production
Writer	Peter R. Newman
Director	Mervyn Pinfield (episodes 1-4) Frank Cox (episodes 5,6)
Script editor	David Whitaker
Producer	Verity Lambert Mervyn Pinfield (associate producer)
Executive producer(s)	None
Production code	G
Series	Season 1
Length	6 episodes, 25 minutes each
Date started	20 June 1964
Date ended	1 August 1964
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Aztecs The Reign of Terror

The Sensorites is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from June 20 to August 1, 1964. The story is notable for its demonstration of Susan's telepathy and references to the Doctor and her home planet.

[edit] Plot

The TARDIS travellers land on a moving spaceship and find the crew apparently dead. However, one of the crew members, Captain Maitland, regains consciousness and Ian Chesterton fully revives him and another woman, Carol Richmond. These two tell the travellers that they are on an exploration mission from Earth and are orbiting Sense-Sphere. However, its inhabitants, the Sensorites, refuse to let them leave the orbit. The Sensorites visit and stop the travellers from leaving, while sending them on a collision course, which the Doctor diverts. The travellers then meet John (whose mind has been broken by the Sensorites) and find out that he is Carol's fiancé.

Returning to plague the crew, the Sensorites freeze Carol and Maitland once more. The Doctor breaks Maitland's mental conditioning, but cannot help John. Susan's telepathic mind is flooded with the many voices of the Sensorites who remain scared of the humans and are trying to communicate with her. Meanwhile, The Doctor works out that the Sensorites attacked the human craft because John, a mineralogist, had discovered a vast supply of molybdenum on Sense-Sphere. Susan reports that the Sensorites want to make contact with travellers, asking the crew to go aboard Sense-sphere and reveal that a previous Earth expedition caused them great misery. The Doctor refuses but Susan, under duress, agrees and begins to leave the ship.

The Doctor deduces that the Sensorites need plenty of light, so Ian reduces the lighting on the ship, rendering the Sensorites helpless and rescuing Susan. The Doctor then asks the Sensorites to return his lock and is invited to go to Sense-Sphere to speak with the leader. Susan, Ian, Carol and John join him while Barbara and Maitland stay behind. John is promised that his condition will be reversed. On their journey to Sense-Sphere, the party learn that the previous visitors from Earth exploited Sense-Sphere for its wealth, then argued. Half of them stole the spacecraft, which exploded on take-off.

The Sensorite Council is divided over the issue of inviting the party to Sense-Sphere: some of the councillors plot to kill them on arrival, but some believe that the humans can help with the disease that is currently killing many Sensorites. Their first plot is foiled by the other Sensorites, but they continue to plot in secret. The humans are not told of the first plot, and John and Carol are cured. In the main conference room, Ian starts coughing violently and collapses. Suffering from the disease that has blighted the Sensorites, he is told that he will soon die.

It turns out that he was actually poisoned by drinking water from the general aqueduct. The Doctor finds the problematic aqueduct and starts work with the Sensorite scientists. The plotting Sensorites capture and then impersonate a Sensorite leader, the Second Elder and steal the new cure, before it is given to Ian, but a new one is made easily and Ian is cured.

Meanwhile, investigating the aqueduct, the Doctor finds strange noises and darkness. He finds and removes deadly nightshade (the cause of the poisoning), but on going back, meets an unseen monster. Susan and Ian find him unconscious with a ripped coat, but otherwise unharmed. On being recovered, he tells of his suspicion that some Sensorites are plotting to kill them. The plotting Sensorites kill the Second Elder and one of them replaces him in his position.

John tells the others that he knows the lead plotter, but he is now too powerful, so The Doctor and Ian go down to the aqueduct to find the poisoners. Their weapons and map were tampered with and are useless.

Elsewhere, a mysterious assailant abducts Carol and forces her to write saying she has left for the ship. Neither Susan, John or Barbara believe this so they go to investigate and find her imprisoned. Susan, John and Barbara overpower the guard and release Carol. On finding out about the tampered tools, they go into the aqueduct to rescue the Doctor and Ian. The leader discovers the plotters a little while later.

Ian and the Doctor discover that the monsters were actually the survivors of the previous Earth mission, and they had been poisoning the Sensorites. Their deranged Commander leads them to the surface, where they are arrested by the Sensorites. The Doctor and his party return to the city, pleading clemency for the poisoners. The leader of the Sensorites agrees and sends them back with Maitland, John and Carol to Earth, for treatment for madness.

[edit] Continuity

• Susan's description of her home planet as having a burnt orange sky and silver leaved trees is echoed by a similar description of the planet by the Tenth Doctor to Martha Jones in "Gridlock". It also bears similarities to the description given to Grace in the 1996 telemovie.
• In the Doctor Who Confidential episode, You've Got the Look (released to accompany "The Impossible Planet"), Russell T Davies said that he wanted the Ood to resemble the Sensorites, and that he likes to think they come from a planet near the Sense Sphere. This was later confirmed in the Tenth Doctor episode "Planet of the Ood", in which the Doctor visits the Ood's homeworld (the Ood-Sphere) and mentions that he once visited the Sense-Sphere in the same system.
• Susan's experiences here carry over into the Big Finish Productions audio story Transit of Venus. It takes place directly after this story, despite the fact that the ending of The Sensorites seems to lead directly into The Reign of Terror. However, this inconsistency is explained in the audio play.
• One of the creatures in the episode Kidnap attacks the Doctor, and he states later that it attacked him under his heart - suggesting that he has only one heart. The Doctor's having two hearts did not appear in the series until much later.

[edit] Susan's telepathy

• This episode is known for Susan's use of telepathy. The earlier conception of Susan's character spun her as a less ordinary girl who had unusual abilities, of which Susan's ability in this story may been seen as one of the few remnants. At the end of the story, Susan loses her telepathy because according to the Sensorites, the Sense Sphere "has an extraordinary number of ultra-high frequencies, so I won't be able to go on using thought transference." However, the Doctor says that she has a gift and "when we get home to our own place, I think we should try to perfect it."
• The spin-off media have more explicitly clarified that Time Lords have limited telepathic abilities.

[edit] Production

• Jacqueline Hill does not appear in episodes 4 and 5, though she was still credited on-screen.
• Designer Raymond Cusick used almost all curves in his sets for the Sense Sphere, feeling that this would give a more alien look.

[edit] Cast notes

• Arthur Newall also appeared as a Sensorite in this story, not a Dalek as is commonly believed.
• Stephen Dartnell appears as John. He had previously appeared as Yartek in The Keys of Marinus.
• John Bailey, who plays the Commander, returned to the series to play Edward Waterfield in The Evil of the Daleks and Sezom in The Horns of Nimon.

[edit] Broadcast and reception

The third episode was postponed by one week following the overrun of sports programme Grandstand.

[edit] In print

The serial was novelised for Target Books by Nigel Robinson in February 1987 as Doctor Who: The Sensorites.

Doctor Who book
The Sensorites
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	118
Writer	Nigel Robinson
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Nick Spender
ISBN	0-491-03455-5
Release date	February 1987 (Hardback) 16 July 1987 (Paperback)
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

[edit] VHS, CD and DVD releases

• A restored and VidFIREd version of this story was released on VHS in November 2002.
• In July 2008, the original soundtrack was released on CD in the UK, with linking narration provided by William Russell.
• The story is scheduled to be released on DVD in the UK on 23 January 2012 ^[4]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Sensorites at BBC Online
• The Sensorites at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Sensorites at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Sensorites on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki

[edit] Reviews

• The Sensorites reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Sensorites reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

[edit] Target novelisation

• On Target — The Sensorites

[hide]

Series Doctor Who DVDs Country United Kingdom Release date 16 January 2012 No. of discs 1 Rating Uk dvd rating 12.png Original RRP £13.27 Subtitles English Region 2 PAL Aspect ratio 16:9 Running time 60 mins approx Cover blurb It's Christmas Eve, 1938, when Madge Arwell comes to the aid of an injured Spaceman Angel as she cycles home. He promises to repay her kindness - all she has to do is make a wish. Three years later, a devastated Madge escapes war-torn London with her two children for a dilapidated house in Dorset. She is crippled with grief at the news her husband has been lost over the channel, but determined to give Lily and Cyril the best Christmas ever. The Arwells are surprised to be greeted by a madcap caretaker whose mysterious Christmas gift leads them into a magical wintry world. Here, Madge will learn how to be braver than she ever thought possible. And that wishes can come true... Special features Users who have this • The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe Prequel • The Best of The Doctor • The Best of The Companions • The Best of the Monsters

Reprinted from Wiki with thanks and respect

A UNIT soldier walks, as if in a trance, through the woods, his right arm twitching spasmodically. Nearby, the TARDIS materialises, and the Doctor and Sarah step out. The Doctor explains that the coordinates were set for Sarah's time but the linear coordinates were off, so they could be miles from London. In any case, Sarah is glad to be back on Earth. The Doctor detects an odd reading of energy or radiation nearby.

The Doctor and Sarah meet a group of four men in white suits and opaque helmets. When the Doctor asks them for directions, they start shooting at them with their index fingers. The Doctor and Sarah duck and run, with the four in pursuit. Sarah slips down a hillside and clings to a cliff ledge. The Doctor helps her up; at that point, they see the soldier, jerkily making his way towards the cliff's edge. The Doctor shouts at him to stop, but he pays no heed, running right over the cliff and falling to his death.

The Doctor searches the body, finding a wallet full of shiny, freshly minted coins, all dated the same year. They also spot a casket-shaped pod nearby, which the Doctor finds familiar. Before he can identify it further, shots ring out: the white-suited men have found them again. They run once more through the countryside, avoiding their pursuers and reaching a village, which Sarah recognises as Devesham, which lies about a mile from a Space Defence Station.

The village, however, is deathly quiet, and seems unpopulated. The Doctor decides to try the local pub, the Fleur-de-Lys, but it is also empty, and the Doctor finds the same freshly minted coins in the register. Sarah then spots the white suits coming down the street, accompanied by the "dead" soldier. A Ford Transit pick-up truck arrives, carrying what seem to be villagers, all in a trance-like state. They are helped off the vehicle by the white suits, and distribute themselves around the village. Mr Morgan, the landlord of the pub, enters it along with several other people while Sarah and the Doctor hide in the store room. The villagers take their seats silently, waiting motionless until the clock strikes eight, when they suddenly come to life, acting normally.

The Doctor intends to get to the Space Defence Station and contact UNIT. He leaves, telling Sarah to meet him at the TARDIS if anything goes wrong. However, the "dead" soldier finds her in the store room and questions her. Morgan suggests that Sarah might be part of "the test". But when Sarah asks what test, he tells Sarah that she should go.

Outside, Sarah hides behind the lorry, observing one of the white suits turn around. Behind the opaque visor is nothing but a slab of plastic and electronics. Sarah runs for the woods, reaching the TARDIS. She spots a similar pod just next to the time machine and goes to examine it, leaving the TARDIS key in the lock. Suddenly, the TARDIS dematerialises without her, and as Sarah is still trying to understand why, a hand reaches out from the pod. Startled, Sarah sees a man lying inside, but when she goes closer, he grabs her around the throat. She breaks free and runs.

At the Defence Station, the Doctor asks a soldier on guard where the command officer is, but the soldier just stares ahead, unresponsive. Also inside the building, Senior Defence Astronaut Guy Crayford is addressed by a disembodied voice. The voice, named Styggron, tells him that there is a random "unit" within the complex and orders him to check.

The Doctor enters an office marked with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's name, but it is empty. Crayford enters, and points a gun on him. The Doctor introduces himself as UNIT's scientific advisor. Crayford has heard of him, but as the Brigadier is in Geneva, and Colonel Faraday is in command, there is no one to confirm the Doctor's identity; he could be an impostor. Before Crayford can have the Doctor taken to detention, the Doctor flips the desk over and runs. However, despite making it outside, he is recaptured. Sarah sees this and sneaks into the building, going to the Doctor's cell and unlocks the door, unaware that from behind a wall a stony alien face is observing them.

Styggron contacts Crayford again, complaining about a second random unit. Crayford identifies this random units as the Doctor and Sarah. At that moment, the alarm sounds indicating the Doctor's escape. Crayford sends his UNIT soldiers to stop them. Hiding in a storage cupboard, the Doctor tells Sarah about Crayford. She replies that it is impossible: Crayford was in deep space while testing the XK-5 Space Raider when it vanished, presumed destroyed. The Doctor and Sarah venture out to find Sergeant Benton standing in the reception area, who points a pistol at them. Styggron wants the Doctor captured alive. When Crawford cancels the kill order, Benton becomes dizzy, giving the Doctor and Sarah a chance to run away. Crayford orders Harry Sullivan to cordon off the perimeter road.

The two decide to return to the village and warn London, while being pursued by tracker dogs. Sarah twists her ankle while running through the woods and this slows her down. The Doctor hides Sarah in a tree, taking her scarf to draw the dogs away. He then hides in a stream, the dogs losing his trail. Unfortunately, when the soldiers turn back, they spot Sarah, and capture her. Styggron tells Crayford to locate, but not seize the Doctor. He has other plans for him.

Meanwhile, in an alien-looking room, Sarah is strapped down to a table. Harry tells her it is no use to struggle, and under Styggron's order, commences the scan. In the village, the Doctor finds the telephones are not working. He meets Morgan, who tells him the lines are down after a gale. Styggron speaks to another of his kind, Chedaki, who feels that the time for experiments are over, but Styggron insists that they must confirm their techniques are flawless if they are to conquer worlds other than Earth. Styggron contacts Crayford and tells him to commence the final test.

In the pub, the Doctor finds more oddities: an unused dart board, plastic horse brass on the wall and a tear-off calendar with only one date on every page - Friday 6 July. The telephone rings, and the call is for the Doctor. It is Sarah, who tells the Doctor she was captured but managed to escape. She asks the Doctor to meet her by the Village shop and to be careful of the robots. He hangs up the call, then finds that the telephone has stopped working again. The Doctor meets Sarah, who explains how she escaped. The Doctor remarks on the providence of her finding the only telephone in the village that worked, and believes they are being tested to find out how smart they are.

He decides to take Sarah to the TARDIS and use the radio there. However, the TARDIS is gone. The Doctor is puzzled: the ship is not programmed to auto-operate, unless... he asks Sarah for her TARDIS key, and when she claims she has lost it, the Doctor tells her she never had it. When Sarah put the key in the lock, she released the TARDIS's pause control and it continued its journey to Earth. This is not Earth, this is not a real forest, and she is not the real Sarah. Moreover, the real Sarah wasn't wearing a scarf, which the Doctor took off to draw the dogs away. The Doctor grabs the duplicate by the shoulders and demands to know where Sarah is. The duplicate pulls free, but falls to the ground, her face popping open and revealing the electronics underneath.

The android Sarah rises to its feet and starts to fire its pistol at the Doctor's retreating form. Chedaki tells Styggron that it was a foolish experiment. The Doctor could undo their plans. Styggron dismisses this; both the village and the Doctor will be destroyed by a matter dissolving bomb. The real Sarah is being kept alive so Styggron can test the virus he intends to use to cleanse the Earth of human life. All the while, Sarah is feigning unconsciousness and listening. When the coast is clear, she gets up and sneaks away.

The Doctor watches the pick-up drive into the village and evacuate the androids to the Kraal base. The Doctor is grabbed from behind by Styggron, who gets two white suits to tie him up while the Kraal places the bomb at the Doctor's feet. Luckily, Sarah too has made it back to the village, and uses the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to cut his bonds. With seconds to spare, they run into the base and shut the door, as the village dissolves into a wasteland.

However, the two are surrounded by androids, who escort them to a cell. The Doctor tells Sarah that he should have realised — the radiation levels he picked up when they landed were those of Oseidon, the Kraal planet. The levels are increasing and the planet will soon be uninhabitable, which is why the Kraals are invading Earth. The duplicated village and their androids were a training ground.

Crayford enters the cell and tells the Doctor that it is all for the best. Soon, the Kraals will send his ship back by space-time warp so he can make a normal landing. He has recently established radio contact with Earth, and fed them a story of how his ship was trapped in an orbit around Jupiter and he survived by rationing his supplies and recycling his water. The world's attention focused on his landing, the space shells containing the androids will be taken for meteorites, who will emerge and pave the way for the main invasion fleet. He is helping the Kraals because while Earth left him for dead, they rescued his ship and reconstructed his body. The Kraals only want to survive, and have also promised him no humans will be harmed as long as they obey.

Styggron gets "Harry" to place a drop of the virus in a jug of water to be taken to the cell. Meanwhile, although the sonic screwdriver is useless on the door, the Doctor has managed to remove a floor plate, intending to use the wiring below to electrocute their android guard. "Harry" enters with the water, and also to take the Doctor away. Before he goes, he tells Sarah not to waste the water and mentioned it is very good electrolyte.

The Doctor is strapped down to the Kraal analysis table which will copy all his knowledge and experience. Despite what Styggron has told Crayford, he reveals that does intend genocide. Earth's resources are too limited to be wasted on an "inferior species". The virus, distributed by androids, will wipe the Earth clean in three weeks, then burn itself out. Styggron will then signal the invasion fleet. Styggron leaves the machine to do its work, and when it finishes, the stimulation will make the Doctor's head explode.

Sarah rigs the wiring beneath the cell floor, then sets a small fire to lure the android guard in. He steps in the puddle of water, and is electrocuted when Sarah applies the power cable. She makes her way to the Doctor and turns off the scan. She helps the disorientated Time Lord out of the base, heading for Crayford's rocket before it takes off. The rocket is launched, and the G-forces start to crush them.

Sarah blacks out, but is awakened by the Doctor. He tells her that was nothing; there is a more dangerous ride ahead. Before the rocket lands, the pods will be ejected, and the Doctor and Sarah will ride two of them to Earth to warn the real Defence Station, although he cannot guarantee they will survive the trip down. As they talk, neither notices a nearby pod open slightly to reveal an android Doctor. On Earth, Matthews at the Defence Station's scanner room picks up Crayford's rocket. Grierson, the man in charge, informs Colonel Faraday. Meanwhile, having found the TARDIS in the woods near Devesham, Benton and Harry have been searching for the Doctor and Sarah, but to no avail. Benton is worried, as he has never known the Doctor to leave the TARDIS key in its lock.

Faraday welcomes Crayford home on the radio, but the signal is broken up by the "meteor shower" of pods which, unusually, slow down as they enter the atmosphere. Some of the pods land in a nearby field, and one opens up to reveal the Doctor. However, he is unable to find Sarah. Sarah, having landed elsewhere, finds the TARDIS in the woods. As she looks around, the Doctor taps her on the shoulder. However, this Doctor is an android, and behind it a pod opens to disgorge another Sarah replica. The real Sarah runs for it. The XK-5 re-establishes contact and comes in for a landing. Harry and Faraday head for the rocket, not knowing that Styggron is there with Crayford.

The real Doctor enters the Station, and recognises the "dead" soldier. Showing him a pass, the Doctor tells the soldier that if he sees the Doctor again today he is to report it to him immediately. The Doctor goes to the scanner room, leaving the soldier puzzled. When Benton tells him where Harry and Faraday are, the Doctor contacts them on the radio and urges them not to enter the rocket. He will meet them at the lift.

While the Doctor gives Grierson some instructions for modifying the radar dish, an android Matthews has incapacitated Benton and introduced an android replacement. Grierson says that if the Doctor points the dishes down here, it will jam every piece of electronic equipment for miles. Faraday returns to the scanner room, demanding an explanation. The Doctor tells them about the Kraal invasion. However, the Doctor is too late: Harry and Faraday have been replaced, and the android Doctor is pointing a gun at him. He slams the door in the android's face and leaps through a window. Outside, he meets Sarah. The Doctor tells Sarah their only chance is to stop the androids before they take over the complex, and runs back towards the scanner room, bluffing his way past "Benton" by posing as his duplicate. Sarah climbs up the rocket towards the real Harry and Styggron.

Grierson finishes his modifications, but is shot in the shoulder by the android Doctor before he can turn on the power. The android is about to shoot the original when Crayford enters, saying that Styggron promised no killing. The "Doctor" calls him a fool, and tells him about the virus. Crayford cannot believe this, but the real Doctor tells him that his rocket was actually hijacked by the Kraal, and they did not reconstruct but merely brainwashed him. Realising the truth, Crayford rushes out, distracting the android long enough for the Doctor to make his move. In the struggle, the Doctor manages to activate the power to the radar, jamming all the androids in mid-step.

In the rocket, Sarah unties Harry and Faraday. Styggron enters, holding a ray gun on them, but Crayford appears and attacks him. The two grapple, and Styggron shoots Crayford. The Doctor makes his own entrance, punching the Kraal, who falls on the vial of virus, cracking it open. Styggron shoots the Doctor before he dies. Sarah is horrified, but the real Doctor shows up — he had programmed his duplicate to distract Styggron. As proof, the android disintegrates into its component parts.

Sarah and the Doctor make their way back to the TARDIS. Sarah says she is going to take a taxi home, but when the Doctor offers to take her home instead, she smiles, "How can I refuse?" The two enter the ship and it vanishes.

[edit] Continuity

• This story marks the last appearances of John Levene (Sergeant Benton) and Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan) in the series. The characters were mentioned (but did not appear) in Mawdryn Undead (1983). Harry was said to be working with NATO and doing something "hush-hush at Porton Down". Benton was said to have left the army and become a used car salesman.
• This story also marks the first appearance of The Doctor's grey coat, with its black elbow patches. This version of his costume would alternate with others for the next couple of seasons.

[edit] Production

• Working titles for this story included The Kraals, The Kraal Invasion, and The Enemy Within.
• Location filming for the Kraal-replicated village of Devesham took place in East Hagbourne, Oxfordshire, a few miles from Didcot.
• The story was influenced by the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and would be the last Terry Nation script for Doctor Who for four years until his final script for the series, Destiny of the Daleks (1979). This was the first script by Nation since The Keys of Marinus (1964) that did not feature the Daleks.
• Nicholas Courtney was unavailable to play Lethbridge-Stewart, so his character was re-written as Colonel Faraday.
• Kenneth Williams briefly mentioned viewing episode two of this story in his diaries, writing on 29 November 1975 "Dr Who gets more and more silly."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cast notes

• Ian Marter would continue his acting career and go on to write several Doctor Who novelisations, an original novel featuring Harry and an unused screenplay, Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, the last with Tom Baker. He died in 1986 from diabetes-related health complications.
• Milton Johns' had appeared as Benik in The Enemy of the World. His next appearance in Who would be as Castellan Kelner in The Invasion of Time.
• Only three Kraals are seen throughout the story. Styggron was played by Martin Friend. Marshal Chedaki, was played by Roy Skelton. The silent Kraal underling that appears in one scene was played by the series' long time stuntman Stuart Fell.

[edit] Outside reference

• Near the end of Part Three just after Sarah frees the Doctor from the machine, the Doctor tells her, "Listen! Once upon a time, there were three sisters, and they lived in the bottom of a treacle well! Their names are Olga, Masha, and Irina." This is a conflation of the dormouse's story in chapter seven of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Anton Chekhov's play, Three Sisters.

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in November 1978. The novelisation was later designated number 2 when Target opted to number the first seventy-three novelisations alphabetically; however no edition using the number was ever released.

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Android Invasion
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	(Assigned 2, but never used)
Writer	Terrance Dicks
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Roy Knipe
ISBN	0-426-20037-3
Release date	16 November 1978
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

DVD & VHS release

• This story was released on VHS in March 1995.
• The story has been announced for DVD release on 9 January 2012 alongside Invasion of the Dinosaurs, coupled as the "UNIT Files" box set. ^[4]

References

External links

• The Android Invasion at BBC Online
• The Android Invasion at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Android Invasion at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Reviews

• The Android Invasion reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Android Invasion reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Target novelisation

• Doctor Who and the Android Invasion reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Doctor Who and the Android Invasion

reprinted from wikipedia with respect and thanks

Synopsis

The Doctor and Sarah arrive in 1970s London to find that it has been evacuated, due to the mysterious appearance of dinosaurs. It turns out that the dinosaurs are being brought to London via a time machine in order to further a plan to revert London to a pre-technological level.

[edit] Plot

The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrive in a deserted London plagued by looters and lawlessness where UNIT is assisting with maintaining martial law. The regular army, headed by General Finch, has evacuated the entire city and issues a command that any looters in London will be shot on sight. The Doctor and Sarah are soon arrested on suspicion of being looters themselves but are identified from the photographs by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who is heading up the UNIT operation, and arranges that the pair are freed to help combat the monsters that have necessitated the evacuation of London. Dinosaurs have started appearing all over the city – but that is not all, as the Doctor comes across a medieval peasant from the days of King Richard, who disappears in a time eddy. It seems the dinosaurs have been present for several months, but nobody can account for their sudden appearance or the havoc they are causing. The British Government has been relocated to Harrogate during the crisis, and the army has taken charge to ensure an orderly evacuation and to try and maintain some sort of control in the city. The dinosaur appearances are various – pterodactyls, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex – but the creatures seem to vanish as mysteriously as they appear.

The Doctor ventures out around the city with a UNIT escort, hoping to learn more of the curious phenomenon, and they encounter a Stegosaurus moments before it disappears. He starts to suspect someone is deliberately bringing the dinosaurs to London – and in a hidden laboratory a pair of scientists, Butler and Professor Whitaker, are shown operating the Timescoop technology that is making the situation possible. They are being aided by Captain Mike Yates from UNIT, who is revealed to be recovering from a nervous breakdown caused by the events depicted in The Green Death. Mike feels the Doctor could help them achieve Operation Golden Age, but Whitaker is unconvinced, and tells Mike to sabotage the stun gun, which the Doctor is building for use on the dinosaurs. He does this, imperilling the Doctor when he encounters a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but the situation is saved and the creature is stunned and captured. Hours later, however, General Finch sets it free, evidently part of the conspiracy too.

Sarah Jane has meanwhile set off to gather her own evidence and meets with Sir Charles Grover, an ecologist MP who is acting as Minister with Special Responsibilities in London. She is drugged by him and when she wakes up is astounded to find herself on a vast spaceship. The crew include Mark, Adam and Ruth, all famed British minor celebrities who have adopted new aliases and lives. They tell her they en route for a New Earth where mankind can begin again, closer to nature. They left Earth three months earlier and the ship is one of a fleet that is carrying over two hundred people to a new life. Sarah is committed to the re-education programme to enable her to think like them.

The Doctor now focuses on more searches of London using his new vehicle, the Whomobile, as transport. Under Trafalgar Square tube station he finds the base used by Whitaker and Butler, but is scared away when they use a pterodactyl to defend their lair. When he returns with the Brigadier, the signs of occupation have been removed. Operation Golden Age is revealed to be a broad conspiracy containing Whitaker, Butler, Yates, Grover and Finch as its core co-ordinators. They have emptied London to enable it to revert to a more natural state, after which the people on the spaceships (in reality they are in vast bunkers and not in space at all) will be allowed out and enabled to repopulate a clean and free planet. Whitaker also works out how to reverse time, so that soon none of humanity apart from their own chosen specimens will ever have existed.

Finch tries to frame and discredit the Doctor, whom he knows will not support their plans, and the Doctor soon twigs that an over-zealous Yates is the UNIT mole. Sergeant Benton lets the Doctor escape, for which Finch threatens a court martial. The Doctor uses his freedom to track down more monsters, but when he is recaptured the Brigadier asserts his authority and takes the Doctor into UNIT custody rather than the regular army’s.

Sarah has meanwhile escaped from the fake spaceship having learnt its true nature, but is apprehended by Finch, who tracks her down and returns her to Whitaker’s custody. While she is away Mark works out that the ship is a fake too and exposes this to the other passengers, but he is not believed. When Sarah is returned to the ship she and Mark use the fake airlock to convince Ruth and the others of the depth of the deception

Shortly afterward Finch and Yates reveal their hands to the Doctor, Benton and the Brigadier, and reveal the nature of their plans. The Doctor and the Brigadier get away once more and head back to the base, evading dinosaurs en route, where they confront Grover and Whitaker. The duped environmentalists from the fake spaceship also appear, along with Sarah, and demand an explanation. In the ensuing fight Whitaker and Grover are transported back through the Timescoop to the Golden Age they sought to bring to modern Britain.

Back at UNIT HQ, the Brigadier confirms to the Doctor that the crisis is over, but there are still some human casualties to deal with. Finch will face a court martial while Yates is being offered the chance to resign and given extended sick leave. The Doctor reflects that people like Grover may have had good motivations in wanting to fight pollution and environmental degradation, but they took their schemes too far and endangered all mankind and its civilisation. He decides it is time for a holiday and offers to take Sarah Jane to the holiday planet of Florana.

[edit] Continuity

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)

• Sarah Jane Smith refers to her encounter with real dinosaurs in a conversation with Rose Tyler during the episode "School Reunion". The Seventh Doctor also mentions the events of this story to Ace in The Happiness Patrol.
• A clip on the website of The Sarah Jane Adventures refers to the events of this story as having been explained as mass hallucinations caused by a contaminated water supply.
• An alternative version of the events of this serial is mentioned in the Big Finish Doctor Who Unbound audio play Sympathy for the Devil.

[edit] Production

• Working titles for this story included Bridgehead from Space and Timescoop.
• The first episode has the story title contracted to Invasion in an attempt to conceal the central plot device. However this was undermined by the BBC listings magazine Radio Times who gave the full story title.
• In the original novelisation, no reference is made to the "Whomobile" and the Doctor uses a military motor bike with electronic scanning equipment attached to it.
• Malcolm Hulke protested against the use of the title Invasion of the Dinosaurs, preferring the original working title of Timescoop, and felt the contraction for the first episode was silly, especially because the Radio Times listing used the full title. In a response letter after transmission script editor Terrance Dicks pointed out that all the titles used for the project had originated in the Doctor Who production office. He agreed that the contraction to Invasion was a decision he now regretted but noted that "Radio Times are a law unto themselves".
• Locations used in London included: Westminster Bridge, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Haymarket, Covent Garden, Southall and Wimbledon Common

[edit] Missing Episodes & Archive

• All episodes of this story bar episode 1 exist on their original PAL colour master tapes, with the first episode only existing as a monochrome 16mm film print. There is a longstanding fan myth that the tape of episode 1 was erased by mistake, having been confused with an episode of the Patrick Troughton serial The Invasion. In reality, BBC Enterprises issued instructions to wipe all six episodes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs in August 1974, just six months after the story's transmission; for reasons unknown, however, only episode 1 was actually junked. As far as the BBC was concerned, the story had been wiped in its entirety; researchers for the 1976 documentary Whose Doctor Who found that none of the episodes was listed as existing in the BBC library.^[4]
• The surviving film recording of Episode 1 is the only telerecording of a Season 11 episode known to exist.
• A black-and-white film print exists of the film sequences from part one. This includes one scene of a scared scavenger stealing money from a dead milkman's satchel omitted from the transmitted version, this would have been part of the deserted London montage. The black-and-white prints were used as practice for the film editor to make cuts before they cut the colour negatives.
• Colour 35mm film sequences from Episode five also exist.
• Episode 3's first edit (also known in the BBC as a 71 edit) also exists, without sound effects or music on the soundtrack.

[edit] Cast notes

• John Bennett would later return to Doctor Who as Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
• Peter Miles has also appeared in Doctor Who in other roles in Doctor Who and the Silurians and Genesis of the Daleks.
• Martin Jarvis had earlier appeared as Hilio in The Web Planet and would later appear as the Governor of Varos in Vengeance on Varos.
• Carmen Silvera had previously appeared in The Celestial Toymaker.

[edit] Reception

After the episodes were broadcast, many children viewers of the show complained that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was actually an Allosaurus.^[5]

Doctor Who: The Television Companion (by Howe and Walker, BBC Publishing, 1998) quotes a contemporary review (from a fanzine) that describes the dinosaur special effects thus: "After escaping they [the Doctor and Sarah] came up against the first dinosaur and, oh dear, shades of Basil Brush! A glove puppet nervously skiing about London streets didn't exactly fill me with fright..."

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm Hulke, was published by Target Books in February 1976 as Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion. In 1993 it was reprinted with the title Doctor Who - Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The novelisation features a prologue about the dinosaurs and ends with the Doctor consulting the Book of Ezekiel to determine the final fate of the Golden Age time travellers. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Martin Jarvis was released on CD in November 2007 by BBC Audiobooks.

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	22
Writer	Malcolm Hulke
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
ISBN	0-426-10874-4
Release date	19 February 1976
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

[edit] VHS and DVD release

This was the final complete story to be released by BBC Worldwide on VHS, in 2003.

The story is to be released on DVD in the UK on 9 January 2012 alongside the 1975 Tom Baker story The Android Invasion, together forming the U.N.I.T Files box set.^[6] The DVD will feature a restored black-and-white version of Episode 1 as the default and also a 'best-endeavours' attempt at colour recovery of this episode as a branched-extra feature.^[7]

In contrast to other wiped colour episodes from the Pertwee era where the missing colour information had been inadvertently recorded on the surviving black and white film copies as a sequence of visual artifacts/dots or chroma dots, in the case of Episode 1 of this story this information was found to be incomplete, and only the red and green colour signal information was recoverable, requiring the missing blue signal information to be obtained via other means.

The new colour version of Episode 1 featured on the DVD thus employs approximated blue colour information, and although the outcome is not up to normal DVD quality, it gives an impression of what the episode would have looked like when originally broadcast.^[8]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Invasion of the Dinosaurs at BBC Online
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Fan reviews

• Invasion of the Dinosaurs reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Target novelisation

• Doctor Who and the Invasion of the Dinosaurs reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Doctor Who and the Invasion of the Dinosaurs

with thanks to the official bbc site

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
224 – "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe"
Doctor Who episode
Cast
Doctor

    Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)

Production
Writer     Steven Moffat
Director     Farren Blackburn[1]
Executive producer(s)    

    Steven Moffat
    Piers Wenger
    Caroline Skinner

[2]
Series     Specials (2011)
Length     60 min
Originally broadcast     25 December 2011[3]
Chronology
← Preceded by     Followed by →
"The Wedding of River Song"     Series 7

"The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, in which the Doctor visits Earth and an alien forest. The episode was shown in the United Kingdom on Christmas Day on BBC One,[4] BBC America in the United States[5] Space in Canada,[6] and on ABC1 in Australia.[7] It is the seventh Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005.

The episode features Claire Skinner, Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Alexander Armstrong. A sneak preview was aired on 18 November 2011 for Children in Need.[8]
Contents
 [hide]

    1 Plot
        1.1 Prequel
        1.2 Episode
        1.3 Continuity
    2 Production
        2.1 Cast notes
    3 References
    4 External links

[edit] Plot
[edit] Prequel

On 6 December, a prequel to the episode was released online.[9] The Doctor is seen on a spaceship holding a red button which, when he lets go, will cause the space ship to explode. While holding the button, he has phoned the TARDIS to speak to Amy Pond asking her to rescue him, although he does not have his co-ordinates. Amy cannot fly the TARDIS, and she is not on the TARDIS. The Doctor wishes Amy a Merry Christmas before letting go of the button, and the spaceship explodes.[10]
[edit] Episode

During the Christmas season of 1938, the Doctor finds himself on a damaged alien spacecraft in Earth's orbit. He escapes the exploding ship and the fall to Earth by rapidly donning an impact space suit, though in his haste, the helmet is put on backwards. On crashing to Earth, he is found by Madge Arwell, wife of Reg and mother of two children, Lily and Cyril. She helps the Doctor, stuck and unable to see while in the impact suit, to his TARDIS, and the Doctor promises to repay her for her kindness.

Three years later, during World War II, Reg is reported killed in action when the Lancaster Bomber he was piloting disappeared over the English Channel. Madge is told this via telegraph just before Christmas, but decides not to tell her children, hoping to keep their spirits up through the holiday. Madge and the children evacuate London to a relative's house in Dorset, where they are greeted by the Doctor, calling himself "the Caretaker"; Madge does not recognise him from their previous encounter.

The Doctor has prepared the house specially for the children and the holiday; though the children are pleased, Madge privately explains about Reg's death to the Doctor and insists he not overindulge the children. During the first night, Cyril is lured into opening a large glowing present under the Christmas tree, revealing a time portal to a snow-covered forest. The Doctor shortly discovers Cyril's absence and follows him with Lily; the two eventually track Cyril down to a strange lighthouse-like structure. Madge, finding her children missing, soon follows them into the forest, but is met by three miners in space suits from the planet Androzani Major.

At the lighthouse, Cyril is met by a humanoid creature made of wood; it places a simple band of metal around his head like a crown. Lily and the Doctor arrive, followed by another wood creature, but find that they have rejected Cyril as he is "weak", as is the Doctor. The Doctor concludes that the life forces of the trees in the forest are trying to escape through a living creature, the crown acting as an interface. Meanwhile, Madge, holding the miners at gunpoint, is taken back to their excavation walker and told that the forest of the planet they are on is scheduled to be melted by acid rain within minutes, killing anything within it. The miners are teleported away safely before the rain starts after helping Madge to locate where her children are.

Madge, using the little knowledge she knows of flying a plane from Reg, directs the walker to the lighthouse and safely reunites with her children as the acid rain starts. The wood creatures identify her as "strong", and the Doctor realises they consider her the "mothership", able to carry the life force safely. Donning the band, Madge absorbs the life force of the forest, allowing her to direct the top of the lighthouse as an escape pod away from the acid rain and into the time vortex. To get them home, the Doctor directs her to think of memories of home, allowing Madge to revisit her fond memories of Reg, shown on screens within the pod. She realises that she will have to recall the moment of Reg's death, but the Doctor forces her to continue to do so; Lily and Cyril come to learn the truth as they witness his last moments aboard the Lancaster bomber.

Soon, the escape pod safely leaves the time vortex, landing just outside the house in Dorset, and the life force of the forest have converted themselves to ethereal beings within the time vortex. The Doctor steps outside while Madge starts to explain Reg's death to Lily and Cyril, but he returns to interrupt her and to tell her to come outside. There stands Reg and his Lancaster; he had followed the bright light of the escape pod into the time vortex and came out safely along with the pod at Dorset. The family has a tearful reunion as the Doctor watches.

As Madge and her family turns to celebrate Christmas, the Doctor attempts to slip away, but Madge catches him, and as she sees the TARDIS realises that he is the man in the space suit from three years back. She insists on him staying for Christmas dinner, but when the Doctor reveals he has other friends out there that believe he is dead, Madge convinces him to go to see them at Christmas. The Doctor offers Madge his help if she ever needs it again.

Later, the Doctor arrives outside Amy and Rory's home, two years since he left them there. Amy pretends to be angry at him for leaving them the way he did, but explains that River Song told them about his faked death, and Rory reveals that they have been setting a place for him at their Christmas dinner table every year. Having remarked earlier in the episode how "humany-wumany" it is to cry because of happiness, the Doctor finds himself shedding a tear of happiness in reaction to Rory's remark, and grins in wonder, and then steps inside to join them for dinner.
[edit] Continuity

    The three tree harvesters are from Androzani Major in the year 5345, a planet already featured in the serial The Caves of Androzani.
    The Doctor also mentions the Forest of Cheem, which appeared in the Ninth Doctor episode The End of the World. He also mentioned that one of them fancied him, which was Jabe Ceth Ceth Jafe, who sacrificed her life for him.
    Amy Pond tells the Doctor that two years have passed since Lake Silencio ("The Impossible Astronaut"/"The Wedding of River Song").

[edit] Production
The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre's preserved Lancaster bomber Just Jane, used in the programme

The BBC announced in September 2011 that production had started for the special and filming was due to be complete by mid October 2011.[11] However, filming was disrupted on 30 September due to a 24-hour protest at BBC Wales because of compulsory redundancies.[12] The story is partly inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (from The Chronicles of Narnia) by C. S. Lewis.[13] C. S. Lewis died the day before the very first episode of classic Doctor Who aired. Filming of some scenes involving Alexander Armstrong took place in and around the Lancaster bomber 'Just Jane' at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre on 3 October 2011.[14] External footage of the lighthouse building took place in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.[15]
[edit] Cast notes

Alexander Armstrong previously appeared in Doctor Who episodes "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" as the voice of Mr Smith, an alien computer, his character from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Arabella Weir previously appeared as an alternate incarnation of the Third Doctor in the Doctor Who Unbound audio drama Exile.[16]

Claire Skinner is placed in the opening titles instead of Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, whose appearance in the episode was not reported before broadcast. Gillan and Darvill are, however, credited above Skinner in the episode's end credits.
[edit] References

    ^ Golder, Dave (21 September 2011). "UPDATE: Doctor Who Christmas Special Director Revealed". SFX. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
    ^ "Steven Moffat on the New Exec". BBC. 21 July 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
    ^ Seale, Jack (29 November 2011). "Christmas TV: scheduling confirmed for Doctor Who, Strictly and Downton". Radio Times. Immediate Media. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
    ^ "Doctor Who: Christmas Day at 7:00pm". BBC. 29 November 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
    ^ "Doctor Who Christmas Special" (Press release). BBC America. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
    ^ "Doctor Who: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe - December 25th at 9pm ET!". Space. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
    ^ http://www.abc.net.au/tv/doctorwho/christmas2011/
    ^ Golder, Dave (27 October 2011). "Doctor Who Christmas Special Clip During Children in Need". SFX. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
    ^ "Adventure Calendar 2011". BBC. 1 December 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
    ^ "The Prequel to The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe" (Video). BBC. 6 December 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
    ^ "Christmas Special: The Stars! The Story!". BBC. 20 September 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
    ^ Jeffery, Morgan (30 September 2011). "'Doctor Who' Christmas special filming disrupted by BBC Wales strike". Digital Spy. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
    ^ "Doctor Who Christmas special cast to include Bill Bailey and Claire Skinner". Metro. 21 September 2011. Retrieved 22 September 2011.
    ^ "Doctor Who Christmas Special role for Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre". Skegness Standard. Retrieved 30 November 2011.
    ^ who "Look what's landed for Dr Who Xmas special!". The Forester. 22 September 2011. Retrieved 26 December 2011.
    ^ "Doctor Who Unbound — Exile". Big Finish. Retrieved 25 October 2011.

A secret meeting at the bbc... recorded for you...

the true future about doctor Who Confidential

info to follow

Doctor Who Confidential Still Canselled

Cast:
   
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith); Jeremy James (Josh Townsend); Sadie Miller (Natalie Redfern); Caroline Burns-Cook (Claudia Coster); Juliet Warner (Ellie Martin); Mark Donovan (DI Morrisson); Moray Treadwell (Will Butley); Steven Wickham (Mr. Sharpe); Jane McFarlane (Nurse Jepson); Robert Curbishley (Read); Wendy Albiston (Meg Hawkins); Toby Longworth (Wong Chu); Maggie Stables (Mrs Lythe)
Writer:
    Barry Letts    
Recorded:
    27 February 2002
Director:
    Gary Russell    
Released:
    8 August 2002
Music:
    Davy Darlington    
No. of Discs:
    1
Sound Design:
    Davy Darlington    
Duration
    73' 18"
Cover Art:     Lee Binding    
Production Code:
    SJ02
           
ISBN:
    1-903654-93-9
Synopsis
The body of an old man is found floating in the Thames ­ although the DNA of the corpse corresponds to an 18-year old friend of Josh and Ellie. Sarah Jane heads towards West Yorkshire in a bid to discover what killed the man, why someone is kidnapping homeless teenage boys and whether there is a link between that and the retreat of philanthropist Will Butley which hosts The Huang Ti Clinic. Sarah discovers that there is more to ancient Dark Sorcery than she may have otherwise believed.

Reprinted from Wiki Pedia with thanks and respect

Sarah Jane Smith: Comeback is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It stars Elisabeth Sladen reprising her role as Sarah Jane Smith.

[edit] Plot

Six months after the last part of her investigative television series for Planet 3 Broadcasting went out, Sarah Jane Smith is running scared. Meeting new friend Josh Townsend, she finds herself investigating mysterious events in the village of Cloots Coombe.

[edit] Cast

• Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
• Harris - Robin Bowerman
• Mr Venables - Alistair Lock
• Josh Townsend - Jeremy James
• Bank robber - Matthew Brenher
• Bank robber - David John
• Mr Hedges - Nicholas Briggs
• Natalie Redfern - Sadie Miller
• The Squire - David Jackson
• Rev. Gosforth - Peter Sowerbutts
• Ellie Martin - Juliet Warner
• Maude - Patricia Leventon

[edit] Trivia

• Another employee of Planet 3 Broadcasting is Francis Currie.
• Sadie Miller (Natalie Redfern) is the real life daughter of Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
• In the opening scene, Sarah Jane Smith refers to three characters who appeared in the 1981 spin-off special K-9 and Company: her aunt Lavinia Smith (who has very recently died), Brendan Richards (who is said to be in San Francisco) and Juno Baker.

[edit] External links

• Big Finish Productions - Sarah Jane Smith: Comeback
• Sarah Jane Smith: Comeback at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Autobiography

Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography was released posthumously on 7 November 2011 by Aurum Press Ltd.^[154] The BBC will be releasing an audio CD version of the book on 1 December 2011. ^[155]

You and Who is now available to pre-order
(with a provisional publishing date of December 12th 2011)
from the Hirst Books website:
http://www.hirstpublishing.com/You_and_Who_edited_by_JR_Southall/p384445_4969072.aspx

The legend Babelcolour gives a reading on his YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yefWXQNHdZ8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

It looks like there'll be an 'official launch' at the Hirst Books Christmas Event in Newbury, on Saturday 10th December, where I'll be signing copies of You and Who, hopefully alongside other, more respectable Hirst authors, such as Michael Troughton and John Leeson, potentially - but not Colin Baker, alas, who'll be appearing in panto in Mansfield that day! More news as and when.

“It's a wonderful idea, and I'll be sure to buy the book.”
Robert Shearman
(author The Chimes of Midnight, Dalek, Tiny Deaths, Love Songs For the Shy and Cynical)

You and Who is the definitive volume on what it means to be a Doctor Who fan.
The book has been written almost entirely by previously unpublished authors, from the ages of six to sixty, and comprises more than sixty-six essays on the subject of how and why it is that we have come to love Doctor Who.
Whether it be a tale of meeting the sixth Doctor, building up a huge library of VHS tapes, or discovering the programme through satellite channel repeats, there's a story in here that almost any fan will recognise as their own.
Beautifully written, filled with warmth and generosity, witty and delightful, You and Who is a book that no Doctor Who fan should be without.

Available 1 12 2011 from Hirst Publishing.
The proceeds will be donated to Children in Need.

- J.R. Southall

So, here is the contents page! I've arranged the order of the submissions into that which I think best serves the material (and the authors), and I've tried to ensure that no essays too similar sit right next to one another in the book - unless I've specifiaclly wanted them to do so (there were a couple of instances of this). Wow! If your name's on this list, this must be pretty exciting stuff...

5     Introduction
11     Spoilers! by Cameron Sinclair Harris
16     Dear Doctor, by Chris Orton
19     The Taking of Planet Wilf (Part One), by Andrew Philips
24     Teatime and an Open Mind, by Stuart Humphryes
28     The Complete History of Doctor Who (1963 – 1989), by Jonathon Lyttle
41     The “Matt Smith” Generation, by Abby Dorey
44     An Unearthly Show, by J.R. Southall
49     I Was a Teenage Time Lord, by Rob Irwin
54     Voted Most Quotable Show Ever, by Mike Morgan
56     I Am a Doctor Who Fan, by Mark Hevingham
61     Loving the Hated, by Matthew Kresal
65     A Fireplace and a Rug, by Will Brooks
68     The Life and Times of a Whovian, by Daniel J McLaughlin
72     The Third Era, by Julio Angel Ortiz
76     Still Seeking Susan, by Richard Kirby
79     Further Reading, by Stephen Candy
81     The Trip of a Lifetime, Indeed! by Larry Mullen
84     Good Old Tom-Boy! by Dez Skinn
87     The Doctor, Me and Everyone Else, by Adam Ray
90     After All, That’s How It All Started! by Andrew Clancy
97     “Don’t Worry, He’ll Just Regenerate!” by Daniel Peat
100     Getting a First Look Through Repeats, by Joseph Channon
102     Every Child Should See a Doctor, by Vince Stadon
106     Who On 2 (Or, How I Fell in Love With an Old, Dead Thing), by Nicholas Blake
116     The Unconventional Hero, by Rik Moran
120     Tears Before Bedtime, by Greg Dunn
123     Mission to the Unknown, by Andrew Curnow
127     All Thanks to Patrick... by Paul Butler
129     Police Public Call Box – Out of Order, by Robert Morrison
138     A Prescription for Nostalgia, by Kristan Johnson
147     Now Here’s a Funny Idea... by Nicholas Peat
150     Shaping a Childhood, by Amanda Evans
152     A Special Time, by Richard Angell
154     Loving Who, by Cindy A. Matthews
157     Doctor Who and My Ongoing Quest to Like All Things, by Tom Henry
161     Infinite Dimensions in Space and Time: When the TARDIS Landed in Mexico, by Fernanda Boils
164     Through the Wilderness, by Dave Workman
166     Why Doctor Who is Like Christmas! by Nicola J. Johnson
169     “Do You Want to Come With Me?” by Grant Webb
172     A Madman With a Box Opens My Box, by Michael Russell
176     The Day I Met the Doctor, by Simon Hart
179     Who, Where and When, by Alex Storer
184     Choices, by Michael M. Gilroy-Sinclair
186     An American on Gallifrey, by Nicholas A. Tosoni
190     That Battered Blue Box, by Lucy Horn
193     Growing Up With the Doctor, by Antony Cox
198     The Day the Music Died, by Tony Green
202     Time and Again, by John G. Wood
206     Stranger in Space, by Greg Walker
208     Doctor Who is Responsible for Everything! by Mikael William Barnard
214     Why I Like Doctor Who, by Andrew Bowman
215     What’s Wrong With It, by Eamon Jurdzis
218     Me and Who, by Ben Jones
223     1993 Was the Year of the Tin, by Lissa Levesque
229     A Death in the Family, by Brendan Jones
234     Just Vinegar, Please, by Emma Lucy Whitney
238     We Walk in Eternity, by Matthew Crossman
240     Take Home and Keep, by Michael Bellamy
243     The Daisyest Daisy, by Jef Hughes
246     Genesis of My Enlightenment, by Neil Thomas
252     “I Just Do the Best I Can,” by Andrew Orton
256     I Think I’m Rather More Expendable than You Are, by Christopher Bryant
260     Whose Time Is It Anyway?, by Paul Driscoll
262     The Taking of Planet Wilf (Part Two), by Andrew Philips
269     The Doctor’s An Alien – So Am I, by Steven Ray
270     It’s Got Daleks In It! by Andrew Tomlinson
274     I Love Doctor Who, by Elizabeth Tomlinson

Taken from http://www.nicolabryant.net

Nicolas own site

Nicola is probably best known to the public for her work in Television. Her first professional role was as the American companion Peri in Doctor Who opposite Peter Davison and Colin
Baker.

"I grew up in a small Surrey village just outside Guildford. My parents, Sheila and Denis had two daughters. I came along first and then three years later, my little sister Tracy arrived. Both sets of grandparents and many aunts and uncles all lived in the same village. It was a great way to grow up. It gave both my sister and I such freedom. Only once you reached your teens did the cosiness start to feel a little claustrophobic but that's all a part of growing up.

I started dance classes at the age of 3 and piano a year later. When friends visited we would spend the day choreographing little shows that we would perform that evening for our long suffering parents. All I knew was that I wanted to be a dancer. I wanted to be on stage.

I always wanted to go to ballet school and although at age 10 I auditioned and was accepted into several schools I couldn't go because I suffered so badly from asthma, which ran in the family. I was so upset by this that my mother got me involved in a local amateur dramatics company and I soon started to fall in love with acting. Once I had completed my formal education I auditioned for all the London drama schools eventually accepting a scholarship to the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

It was in my final year at Webber Douglas that a production of the American musical
"No, No, Nanette" was staged. We all had to audition for the parts and I got the role of Nanette, much to everyone's surprise, including my own.

Weeks later I had completed my diploma at Webber Douglas and I was out in the big wide world of professionals, searching for work. At that time of course there was the catch 22 situation that you needed to work to get your equity card but you couldn't get work without an equity card. To make matters worse there were very few jobs that would give you a card. Well, to cut a long story short, Terry Carney called me to audition for the part of "Peri" the new American companion in Doctor Who. I was incredibly lucky to get that chance and after 3 months of auditions in which the producer John Nathan-Turner saw literally hundreds of girls from the States and Canada, I finally got the part. It was a wonderful time, in which I made a lot of friends and worked with some amazing people.

I then spent nine months in the West End with Patrick McNee at the Savoy Theatre in the thriller "Killing Jessica" directed by Bryan Forbes. After a leading role in the West End and playing the companion in Doctor Who my career was well and truly launched.

Since then I’ve been lucky enough to have had a very varied career, travelling the world and working with some wonderfully talented people in various mediums; stage, television, audio and film.

This year I have made appearances in the soon to be released TV series 'Love in Hyde Park'; in the sit-com 'My Family'; and the controversial drama documentary on Princess Diana’s inquest, 'There are Dark Forces'.