Perpetual Outsider: An Unofficial, Unauthorised Fan Guide To Doctor Who: Vol 3 1982-1996

By John Bensalhia

Volume Three of John Bensalhia's guide to the popular television series Doctor Who, charting the Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann eras. Includes story reviews, brief overviews of books, video and DVD releases, plus recording and transmission dates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Bensalhia
• Release date: Dec 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301600403

John Bensalhia

John Bensalhia is a freelance writer who has contributed to a wide range of publications and websites including Shadowlocked, Port Strategy, Business Franchise, Making Money, Sports Insight, Italy Magazine, Builders Merchants Journal, Food Magazine and Den Of Geek. John's complete Doctor Who reviews for Shadowlocked have been compiled for inclusion in his book Perpetual Outsider: An Unofficial, Unauthorised Fan Guide To Doctor Who.

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PERPETUAL OUTSIDER – AN UNOFFICIAL, UNAUTHORISED FAN GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO: Vol 3 1982-1996

Published by John Bensalhia at Smashwords. Copyright 2012 John Bensalhia

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This product is not authorised by the BBC. Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC.

I would like to thank the following people – Martin Anderson (for giving me the opportunity to write the Doctor Who reviews in the first place for the Shadowlocked website); Luke Connolly, Richard Cosgrove, Jennifer Thomson, Gabriel Ruzin, Caleb Leland and all the other writers at Shadowlocked who have provided support and encouragement; plus all the readers who took the time to say nice things on the comments page about my reviews.

Much love and hugs to my family – my mum and dad Jo and Joe; my sister, brother in law and niece, Emma, Paul and Iris; my mum, dad and brother in-law, Jane, Ken and David; my Grandma, June; my aunts and uncles, Tony, Hilary, Helen and Ted; and my cousin, Mary. To Antoni Olswzeski, my late granddad, you will never be forgotten.

And of course lots of love, hugs and kisses to my lovely wife Alison, who provided support and encouragement throughout putting the reviews and the book together – and for being my eternal rock.

CONTENTS

SEASON NINETEEN

Youthful vulnerability, a blown-up bowlcut and a bouncy castle snake

SEASON TWENTY and THE FIVE DOCTORS

Old faces, shifty companions and the comedy genius of Leeeeeeeeeee John

SEASON TWENTY ONE

A good man lost in a sea of nastiness, a bad man lost in roaring flames and a shouty man lost in a hideous outfit

SEASON TWENTY TWO

Violence ahoy, squabbling si and Doctor Who adios?

SEASON TWENTY THREE

Trials for The Doctor, trials for Peri and trials for the viewers

SEASON TWENTY FOUR

A new Doctor, a new beginning and the same old Rani

SEASON TWENTY FIVE

A Who renaissance, Cowell-style inspirations and Pine-ing for more of that jazz

SEASON TWENTY SIX and THE TV MOVIE

Closed doors, uncertain futures and the ubiquity of Jeremy Spake

INTRODUCTION

I can remember my first ever experience of Doctor Who. It was on 3rd September 1977, the day that the 15th season began with Horror Of Fang Rock. Around 6pm-ish, two psychedelic parallel strips gave way to a groovy time tunnel and a blue box travelling forward, which in turn gave way to the inside of a hoover and then a sombre looking curly headed man. It was only as a diamond shaped logo hurtled down a trippy time vortex that I realised that the sequence was accompanied by one of the scariest things that I’d ever heard in my short life. So much so, that the next week when I turned three, I was so worried that the TV would somehow switch itself on that my face was crumpled into a worried frown. My mum still has the photographic evidence of my three-year-old bowl-headed self looking very anxious in front of a birthday cake.

That could have been it for me and Doctor Who – if it wasn’t for the chance glance at City Of Death two years later. Having avoided the title music, I was hooked by this gripping, funny and weird programme that dared to combine Mona Lisas, one-eyed spaghetti heads and bumbling detectives. From then on, Doctor Who became a weekly ritual, and in the early 1980s, school days never seemed quite as bad, given that the show was transmitting in the evenings.

Then that hook snowballed – I borrowed the books from the local library, bought the books from bookshops, bought the magazines, and then the videos and the DVDs. What’s great about Doctor Who is the variety – so many different genres, adventures, monsters, characters – even the minor things such as the costumes and the music vary greatly from story to story. It’s also a programme that relies more on imagination rather than flashy visual effects and gimmicks – even with a bigger budget these days, the show’s core values of good triumphing over evil are still very much present and correct.

In 2009, I approached a website called Den Of Geek to casually enquire if it would be possible to carry on reviewing the remaining 50 episodes of Blake’s 7 – Martin Anderson, the chap who I contacted, agreed (even though I initially got his name wrong), and to my amazement, I actually completed the task. When Martin announced that he was setting up a new website in late 2009, I then considered whether it was do-able doing the same thing with Doctor Who. Review every story from beginning to end – at that time, to be honest; I couldn’t actually see myself completing the project. Either I would lose interest or either readers would get bored of my writing and they’d draft someone else in to do the job – that’s how I imagined the scenario panning out. But even more amazingly, I found myself completing the task again, and more amazingly still, the feedback from readers was actually quite good. Incidentally, check out the website, Shadowlocked, for lots of other cool articles on every sci-fi, fantasy, cartoon and comedy programme and film under the sun.

So the fruits of my labours have been compiled by me into this volume chronicling the Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann years. In addition to the reviews, I have also included dates for recording and transmission, plus notes on the many books, videos and DVDs of each story.

I hope you enjoy the book – in the meantime, welcome to the wonderful world of Doctor Who!

John Bensalhia

SEASON NINETEEN

Youthful vulnerability, a blown-up bowlcut and a bouncy castle snake

CASTROVALVA

TRANSMISSION DATES

First broadcast: 4th - 12th January 1982 (BBC1)

RECORDING DATES

Location Filming: 1st - 4th September 1981

Studio Recording: 15th September - 1st October 1981

NOVELISATION

Christopher H Bidmead adapted his scripts for publication in March 1983. The early Davison stories tended to have photo montages on the front rather than specially illustrated covers, and Castrovalva is no exception.

VHS RELEASE

Logically released at the same time as stablemate Logopolis in March 1992 – the sound quality is better on this one.

DVD RELEASE

The tail end of the New Beginnings box which was released in January 2007. Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton swill coffee along with Christopher H Bidmead and Fiona Cumming for a comparatively genteel commentary – yes, even with notes on Nyssa's strip teasing and what Matthew Waterhouse really got up to on that last day of filming.

As we'll hear, despite the constant references to how his episodes are very much of their time compared to Lord Rusty's, Davison is undoubtedly the commentary king – approaching the stories in an informative but not-too-serious fashion. Many of his commentaries are as enjoyable, if not more so sometimes, than the stories themselves.

There are also lots of other mini-docs, rather than a big making of on Castrovalva. Fiona Cumming discusses direction techniques, there's a pointed interlude on how crowded the TARDIS got, while Peter Davison briefly discusses his time as The Doctor. Blue Peter and Swap Shop fans, you will also be delighted – there are two clips of Davison guesting on both of these shows. By the look of the giggly Swap Shop clip, he's had too much coffee.

And big praise for the full-length Davison-era theme music from Peter Howell, bringing back happy memories of the single that I got for my ninth birthday.

REVIEW

Climbing Kilimanjaro. Getting a cat to speak English. Finding any merit in hideous squealathon Glee. All impossible, and all rank alongside having to follow Tom Baker as The Doctor.

To accomplish this daunting task was Peter Davison, a familiar actor whose career spans over 30 years and several roles. Familiar to many people who watch At Home With The Braithwaites, Campion or All Creatures Great And Small, Davison was a brave choice for the role back in 1981. For one thing, at the time, he was only 29 when announced as the new TARDIS incumbent, which - until Matt Smith - was the youngest age for an actor to play The Doctor. Davison was also the most familiar face to take on the role - at the time, he was well known from sitcoms such as Holding The Fort and Sink Or Swim (featuring Robert 'Salateen' Glenister), and also as Tristan Farnon, the vet from All Creatures Great And Small - in a sense, this arguably acted as a curse, since some viewers had preconceived ideas about how Davison would approach the part.

In the end, the Fifth Doctor is an interesting one - he certainly keeps up the tradition of being as different as possible from the previous incarnation. Whereas the Fourth Doctor was supremely confident, carefree and alien, the Fifth is sensitive, unassuming and lacking in confidence. This has led to many jibes about how the Fifth is no more than the Wet Vet In Space. It's a tricky thing, this. On the one hand, it's an interesting change of tack to take, making The Doctor fallible. The Fifth Doctor never quite seems to win the day - events frequently spiral out of his control, as his reckless and naïve nature sometimes get the better of him. This makes for one of the most satisfying Doctor arcs in the series - the good man who's gradually ground down by an evil universe. This concept especially manifests itself in the latter part of Davison's run in Season 21, where he constantly ends up fighting a losing battle against the good of the galaxy.

On the other side of the coin, you can't help but wish that The Doctor would just grow a pair. For most of Castrovalva, the Fifth Doctor's either sitting around wailing, trundling about in a cut-price Davros wheelchair or staggering around a fake city with the look of a small boy who's been told to go to his room without his tea. This is meant to emphasise the extreme trauma that The Doctor's going through after falling umpteen feet from a radio telescope, but at times it becomes a bit wearing to see him either incapacitated or whining all the time. It's not just exclusive to Castrovalva either. Stories such as Arc Of Infinity and Snakedance also portray the Fifth Doctor as a bit of a lightweight who can't be taken too seriously.

Another problem hampering the Fifth Doctor is his comparative lack of humour. Peter Davison himself has said that he would have liked to play The Doctor with a bit more humour, but again the new regime is putting obstacles in his way. By and large, the new Doctor doesn't really get the chance to show his sense of humour, apart from in one or two acidic barbs at his annoying companions. A couple of stories near the end of his run do redress the balance, notably Frontios and The Caves Of Androzani. It's just a shame that this side of the Fifth incarnation doesn't manifest itself earlier.

Despite that though, Peter Davison is never less than excellent, bringing a chirpy enthusiasm to The Doctor and a new lease of energy. That's one of the main characteristics of the Fifth, all that mad running around, as if he's competing in an outer space Olympic Games tournament. Davison also successfully embodies the concept of an old man trapped in a young man's body. The Fifth Doctor is frequently prone to angry, sharp outbursts when things aren't quite going his way, and this is a neat reminder of the First Doctor's crabby temper. Davison pulls this off very well, and altogether, he overcomes the limitations thrown at him by a sometimes less than clued-up production team - including a seriously bad mullet (more on this in the future).

It wasn't just the new Doctor that was the big change implemented by the production team. No, for the first time, Doctor Who was whisked out of its comfy Saturday teatime slot and plonked in the dreaded Monday and Tuesday slots - a great move for kids like me who had hated school and now had the prospect of Who to look forward to in the evenings. The ploy worked though, as it managed to bolster the ratings after the under-performing Season 18 stories, which must have been a huge relief. Whether or not Castrovalva was the best choice of story to launch the Fifth Doctor though needs a bit more thought.

So the poor old Doctor's suffering severe regeneration trauma - he's turning into a one-man Les Dennis and Dustin Gee act by impersonating past incarnations while unravelling his beloved scarf in the corridors of the TARDIS. And for reasons only known to himself, he decides to take on the look of an Edwardian cricketer. Reactions have varied to the new costume, but it does sum up the naïve innocence of the Fifth Doctor well.

The problem is though is that there's no flexibility in the costume - in the past, the Third and Fourth Doctors always tended to vary their outfits. The Fifth Doctor only alters his costume through necessity (eg: through heat or getting chucked into a swimming pool), and so either he's got a secret stash of identical costumes, a secret long-lasting supply of strong anti-perspirant, or he goes through time and space with worse BO than a tramp in high summer.

Good thing then that The Doctor has two healing sources at his disposal. One is a Zero Room, a soothing, minimalist spa-type room which allows The Doctor the luxury of not having to construct a flat-pack bed from scratch. When this room inevitably gets jettisoned in a state of emergency, fortunately, Teabag and Nyssa find a substitute healing dwelling called Castrovalva, although there's predictably more to this than meets the eye - especially when The Master's about.

It's a brave move to start off the season - and indeed the reign of a new Doctor - in such muted fashion. The first two parts are largely confined to the TARDIS, with the terrible trio trying to make some sense of The Doctor's regeneration and trying to escape from the clutches of The Master, who's turned the TARDIS into a mobile death-trap by sending it to the biggest bang in history.

The problem is though is that because the new companions are so awful, the first two parts are the equivalent of trying to wade through treacle. And what do you know? Teabag's shouting her head off and moaning a lot (How can you be so calm? We're playing Russian Roulette with the TARDIS!).

Nyssa by contrast is reacting to the danger with all the emotion of a woman eating her packed lunch at work, although she does find time to inexplicably change clothes and lose her jewellery in Python-esque fashion along the way. Mercifully, Adric is kept in the background, with the sole task of getting enmeshed in The Master's web - although inevitably, he even makes a meal of this, with both dreadful acting and an unfortunate choice of stance. The scene in which Teabag and Nyssa first spot Adric on a random floating screen in Part One when he's sending a message from the Master's TARDIS is doubly painful for these reasons.

The Master's also a bit of a contradiction in terms. Having established himself as the Robbie Rotten of Doctor Who baddies in Logopolis, The Master cements this reputation in Castrovalva with even more screw-ups. What's worse is that he seems to know that every single one of his plans to destroy The Doctor once and for all is doomed. So after he's forced The Doctor to regenerate, he decides to capture Adric and turn the TARDIS into a deadly bomb. This of course succeeds with all the skill of a rhino doing synchronised swimming. So when that plan has gone belly-up, he implements a new plan which is to lure The Doctor to Castrovalva, which is of course, another trap. The revelation that Castrovalva is all a fiction and held together by Adric in The Master's web is actually a very good one - the problem though is that it's hard to take The Master seriously with so many of his plans falling down like skittles.

Anthony Ainley, though, is a revelation as the Portreeve, the elderly statesman of Castrovalva. Both the make-up and Ainley's subtle performance are so convincing that it's hard to spot the giveaway the first time. The role of the Portreeve allows Ainley to really show off his acting chops, which are otherwise wasted on The Master. Put it this way: the first shot we see of The Master in Castrovalva is a close-up of him going: Heh heh heh. And by the end of the story, he's decided to atone for his sins by turning into Frank Sinatra and singing My Waaaaaaaayyyyyy! Oh sorry, it's My Weeeeeeeeeeebbb!!! Right, gotcha.

At least things do pick up in Parts Three and Four with the arrival on Castrovalva. Christopher H Bidmead delivers a rather lyrical piece with some great lines (Not with my eyes but with my philosophy; One of us is deluded about geography!), and the fairy tale-style story (with of course, roots in hard science) is well matched by Fiona Cumming's ethereal direction. Cumming had already worked on the lyrical Blake's 7 story Sarcophagus, and she's well suited to this type of adventure, given that Snakedance and Enlightenment run along the same lines. The location filming at Harrison's Rocks in Sussex is very good, while the lush forest of Buckhurst Park makes for a suitable locale too.

Janet Budden's interiors also look fabulous and take their inspiration (like the story itself) from MC Escher's art. The idea of space folding in on itself is quite a claustrophobic one, and the end of Part Three (the best cliffhanger of the lot) shows this dizziness well with some cool fuzzy-felt picture editing. The costumes are also well designed by Odile Dicks-Mireaux, even if Michael Sheard is trying desperately not to look too effeminate in his pink liquorice allsort getup. Sheard again gives a fine performance - this time as Mergrave, and shows off his versatility as an actor, especially considering the amount of times he's appeared in Doctor Who. Frank Wylie gives a spirited performance as Ruther, while Derek Waring threatens to steal the show as the bookish Shardovan, a man who's evidently smarter than he looks. Must be the silly hat - of which there are many.

Despite The Master's best laid plans, The Doctor still manages to jog back to the TARDIS in one piece - full of vim and ready for a set of new adventures.

It's a disjointed first story - if only we'd spent more time in Castrovalva than in the TARDIS with Teabag and Nyssa, and if only the production team wasn’t so hell-bent on turning The Master into a cartoony villain.

Altogether though, Castrovalva is a decent enough début for the new Doctor, and looks forward to the future with optimism.

Ah, if only The Doctor knew...

FOUR TO DOOMSDAY

TRANSMISSION DATES

First broadcast: 18th - 26th January 1982 (BBC1)

RECORDING DATES

Studio Recording: 13th - 30th April 1981

NOVELISATION

The first chronological example of the pleasant open face from who else but Terrance Dicks. Published in April 1983.

VHS RELEASE

Wrong haircut on the front sleeve for the Four To Doomsday video, which was released in September 2001. There's no hint of a Davison mullet in this story.

DVD RELEASE

Released with right haircut seven years later on DVD sleeve. The TARDIS crew are present and correct, and don't get the opportunity to bitch so much about a Terence Dudley story (because John Black the director is also on board). Janet Fielding's inevitably moaning about having a rat stuck to the back of her head; there's much amusement at actress Annie Lambert's snorting laugh; and there are also sour memories of production manager Henry Foster, who was not the most diplomatic. Overall, another strong commentary, which finds the sometimes critical TARDIS crew enjoying the lavish sets and production values.

There's raw footage of Davison's first day at work (you can kind of see where the TARDIS crew are coming from with their less than glowing memories of PA Foster). As with other In Studio sessions, it sucks the joy from watching the finished article like a chocolate milkshake.

Talking of which, Davison gets the chance to make his very own chocolate milkshake on one of those quaint old 1980s talkshow programmes. Yum!

Alberto Frog allegedly wants his money back.

REVIEW

A giant frog with delusions of grandeur? Nope, you haven't stumbled upon an episode of Dangermouse in which our hero's arch enemy - and dead ringer for Ann Widdecombe - Baron Greenback is plotting revenge, but in fact an episode of Doctor Who called Four To Doomsday.

Sounds crazy? Well, you'd be right. But then only in the previous season, we had a talking cactus with designs on the world, so the term silly is neither here nor there. Even so, Four To Doomsday requires an awful lot of tolerance on the viewer's part when it comes to dramatic credibility.

Maybe the common link here is Terence Dudley, who, after directing 1980's Meglos, switched his hat to writing. It has to be said though that his contributions to Doctor Who can, at best, be described as unusual. Four To Doomsday gives the impression of a writer who hasn't seen Doctor Who much. The plot runs along fairly tried and tested lines - Doctor and rubbish companions land on a giant spaceship and meet a trio of talking frogs, two of whom manage to take on the appearance of two humans. The head frog hatches a dastardly plan to both wipe out humanity and then pilot his giant ship to the dawn of time, at which point he plans to imagine himself as God (Eh?). Doctor inevitably saves the day and leaves with rubbish companions in the TARDIS.

All standard fare, but what marks out this particular Doctor Who is that it's so simple. It's as if Terence Dudley is trying to over-compensate for the previous season's over-reliance on complex bafflegab and technical terminology. The problem is though that the balance has just gone the other way, with Doctor Who now apparently being geared towards a clutch of playgroup kiddies rather than the average intelligent audience with half a brain cell.

Admittedly, there are some interesting concepts floating around. The idea of a spaceship populated by all cultures and creeds is a nice one, and harks back to 1975's Ark In Space. We even get to see demonstrations of the different cultures in rather quaint pageant displays called Recreationals. So we have the Chinese Mandarins and their traditional dragon; the Ancient Greeks; Princess Villagra and her Mayan people doing a dance; and Kurkutji and his Australian Aboriginal routine. There's something rather Generation Game about these Recreationals - you almost expect Larry Grayson to saunter onto the spaceship with two sets of contestants to do a replica of each pageant. But actually this is one of the more successful elements of Four To Doomsday, in that it's quite different to feature this type of set-piece. It's also a commendable attempt to inject some multiculturalism into Doctor Who, and also to educate the kiddies about other cultures and traditions.

Then there's the central character of Monarch, who's an expert lesson in not developing delusions of grandeur. Monarch is written and acted as a rather arrogant politician-style figure. Given that this was made in 1981, you could - if you were so inclined - draw parallels with Margaret Thatcher, who demonstrated a startling display of arrogance and power-mad ambition. Monarch takes these ambitions to ridiculously lofty heights though. The aforementioned Earth inhabitants are in fact androids. Originally, they were the genuine articles, but during the voyage, were converted into androids along the way. Monarch is in fact part what he calls Flesh Time as he displays very human tendencies of greed and arrogance - his two buddies Enlightenment and Persuasion are true androids, but Monarch's Flesh Time aspects prove to be his downfall.

Not only does his arrogance lead him to control his android subjects (which are easily converted to rebellion), he's also shrunk to the size of a pin as a result of his deadly poison which is intended to wipe out the human race. With such a tricky shopping list of obstacles, actor Stratford Johns is left with quite a task on his green mitts to make Monarch into a remotely believable character - incredibly, Johns manages to achieve this and then some. Johns goes against type by underplaying rather than hammily overplaying Monarch, and this is a smart move. The end result is a sly take on your average politician with delusions of grandeur - sometimes the fact that he's a giant frog seems almost incidental. Now that's a good performance.

Monarch also has the creepy ability to turn his frog buddies into perfect replicas of drawings that Teabag has provided. Apparently, Persuasion and Enlightenment are meant to be the height of fashion in 1981, although in truth they look like they've just escaped from some ropey end-of-the-pier act like Stutz Bear Cats or The Wall Street Crash. I quite like the performances from Annie Lambert and Paul Shelley though. Shelley had recently come good in a Blake's 7 episode called Countdown as the collander-headed Major Provine. Here, he's stuck with an OTT bouffant, but his plummy delivery is perfect for Persuasion: Decircuit. THAT! or my personal favourite, You may keep the pencil, both lines delivered with a complete lack of irony.

While the concepts are quite neat, it's the terrible dialogue that really drags the story down to the level of Play School In Space. The lines are written in this rather odd, stilted fashion, and they never feel real for one minute. Sometimes these daft lines are pushed to breaking point - look at Davison failing to keep a straight face while declaring I wouldn't dream of interfering with your Monopticons! And then there are the great info-dump speeches which contain wooden, artificial dialogue that might have passed muster in a copy of The Beano, but not in Doctor Who. The scene in which The Doctor and co are talking about Monarch's plans in their quarters is one such painful example.

It's evidently not an easy first story for Peter Davison. Although Castrovalva was his first official story, Four To Doomsday was the first one to be recorded in the season. Davison's performance isn't that bad, but it's blatantly obvious that he's finding his feet and occasionally trying that bit too hard. There are times when Davison seems to be attempting to bring out the eccentric side of The Doctor, but it doesn't quite come off. And why does he do that rather odd high-pitched squeal when he's attempting to sound authoritative? It sounds like his voice never broke. On the plus side, it is a perfectly acceptable first stab, and at least his Doctor is allowed to showcase his liking for cricket in the scene where he's attempting to reach the abandoned TARDIS in space. It's another example of the rather eccentric ideas at work in the story, but at least it utilises a facet of the new Doctor's character than leaving it at the back of the cupboard.

One problem with the new Doctor though is that he blatantly can't keep control of the new team of companions. Although given that this is Nyssa, Adric and Teabag that we're talking about here, that's no real surprise. This is one of the biggest problems of Four To Doomsday, and it's definitely the story that proves that this is the Companion Team From Hell. Nyssa, as usual, does relatively little apart from float about in the background like the Phantom Raphaelite of Non-Entities Past. Even when she's asked to look startled at the arrival of a mysterious stranger, Sarah Sutton duly obliges with the expression of a gormless goldfish.

In the meantime, it's left to Adric and Teabag to wrestle for the prize of Biggest Pain. Adric's certainly a contender, annoying the hell out of everyone and demonstrating never-seen levels