The Tenth Doctor: You named a unit of measurement after yourself? Malcom: Well, it didn't do Mr. Watt any harm. Furthermore, 100 Malcoms equal a Bernard. The Tenth Doctor: Who's that, your dad? Malcom: Don't be ridiculous, that's Quatermass. The Tenth Doctor: Right.
- The Planet of the Dead
Few things are as quintessentially British sci-fi as Doctor Who. Unless of course, you are talking about Quatermass.
First a bit of background.
Prof. Benard Quatermass is a brilliant scientist and part of the (fictional) British Experimental Rocket Group. In his work he is constantly dealing with all sorts of alien threats. Sound familiar? The Quatermass stories have a solid sci-fi bend to them but are not afraid to do a little bit of horror, as in Quatermass and the Pit.
The Doctor Who Connections
Lots really. I mentioned in my review of Quatermass and the Pit that finding an ancient skeleton older than humanity has been covered by Who in Image of the Fendahl and in horror by The Creeping Flesh. But that is just a story. The connections run deeper.
The whole Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) was designed to have a solid Quatermass feel to it; brilliant scientist fighting off alien threats with the aid (to his annoyance) of the military and some secret organization. Are we talking about The British Rocket Group or U.N.I.T. here?
In the 1988 series "Remembrance of the Daleks," which takes place in 1963, military, scientific advisor Alison Williams remarks to her colleague Dr. Rachel Jensen, "I wish Bernard was here." Rachel replies, "British Rocket Group's got its own problems." Even the episode "Hide" set in 1974 featured a very Quatermass-like character in the form of Professor Alec Palmer, who was supposed to be Benard Quatermass but they could not get the rights cleared.
"The Planet of the Dead" has an energy reading in Benards which is 100 Malcoms. Named in honor of Quatermass.
In "The Christmas Invasion," David Tennant's first turn as the Doctor, a British Rocket Group logo can be seen in the command center of Guinevere 1. This one is especially interesting because of the very recent (2005) "The Quatermass Experiment," which featured David Tennant playing a Doctor. Not the Doctor, but he did get the roll in Doctor Who while working on this show.
In addition to David Tennant this show featured Mark Gatiss, a regular Doctor Who actor and writer. Gatiss also wrote a Doctor Who novel "Nightshade" about a serial that exists in the Doctor Who universe that is not quite Doctor Who and not quite Quatermass.
Some fans have even suggested that the reason Ace calls her Doctor, "Professor" all the time is because of her familiarity with Quatermass.
I'd love to see a full-on crossover with Doctor Who and Quatermass. Set it in the late 1950s or early 1960s. That would be a lot of fun.
If nothing else, then it would make for a good Doctor Who RPG adventure!
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
"Support for this PBS station comes from Viewers like you."
- The Unofficial Start of Every Doctor Who episode in my youth.
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man. Doctor Who fans today have it easy. We have DVDs, Blu-Rays, BBC America, BritBox, Pluto (more on that) and untold ways to watch our favorite episodes of Doctor Who.
In the 80s this was not the case. Back in the 1980s we had ONE choice to watch Doctor Who and that was our local PBS station. If your station didn't carry it, well you had to hope you had a friend who did have access and access to a VCR to record them.
I grew up on Channel 9. As a little kid I watched Sesame Street and the Electric Company. As I got older I watched Cosmos with Carl Sagan and 3-2-1 Contact. I tried to watch Upstairs, Downstairs and Masterpiece Theater. I knew they were good, but I never caught them often enough to know what was going on. But I, Claudius, was amazing. I was primed to accept that anything on this channel was quality.
So when I was introduced to Doctor Who in the early 80s (1983) I was ready to accept it as the best thing ever on TV. It was A.) British and B.) on PBS. So of course it was great. Sadly it was not on till 10:30 pm on a Sunday night and I had school and a morning paper route to do on Monday morning. I got into a lot of trouble trying to watch it.
Another issue for me? I only had an old Black & White TV, so my first experiences with Doctor (namely the Key to Time series) were all in Black & White! I didn't get my first color TV until I, and this is no kidding, traded my 18 ft long Doctor Who scarf for one.
I think there is a sort of rite of passage with older Doctor Who fans. We all can readily identify which PBS stations we watched them on. KETC always took the individual parts and showed them as one complete story. Other stations showed 1 or 2 parts a night. This was the case for WTTW in Chicago. I did not get that station then, but now it is my local station.
The whole "Viewers Like you" thing hit me hard too. I felt like I was watching Doctor Who but not a real fan since I didn't help PBS out. So one year I finally asked my parents to send in support. I paid them back and got this sweet TARDIS key chain that I still have to this day.
Nowadays you can get Doctor Who nearly anywhere, but the closest experience to the old PBS stations is watching Doctor Who on PlutoTV.
There are "Doctor Who" channels that play the Classic Doctor episodes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I have been catching them as I can and it has been fantastic. If you are new Who fan it is worth checking out. Plus Pluto is 100% free! You can even watch it on any device.
Additionally, on Tubi, you can catch the old Doctor Who Dalek movies.
Something I never expected to happen back in the 1980s, sometime after 10:30 pm on a Sunday night when I was supposed to be asleep.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
The Doctor: This lot have still got one foot in the Dark Ages. If I tell them the truth they’ll panic and think it was witchcraft. Martha: Okay, what was it then? The Doctor: Witchcraft.
- The Doctor and Martha, The Shakespeare Code
Doctor Who is overtly a sci-fi series and a family show. So one would imagine that themes of the occult and horror would not pop up, but you would be wrong!
Doctor Who has a long-established tradition of "hiding behind the sofa" when the Daleks show up and with some of the scarier episodes. While there are plenty of scary episodes and plenty more that met with the disapproval of Mary Whitehouse, I want to focus on ones that had occult overtones as befitting my typical interests around here. I'll also look into that most quintessential of all British horror, Folk Horror.
This one has the dæmons returning to Earth, but they are not diabolic, but rather a race of giants that have "sufficiently advanced science" that looks like magic. Though it does have the Master posing as a Satanic Priest and using rituals to summon the dæmon Azal. There is even a white witch in this one.
The magic here is couched very much in the science of Doctor Who, it is just highly advanced.
This episode is very much a British Folk Horror tale. And there was that time where the 11th Doctor fought them off with the help of Buffy and her friends.
Here is another "Science disguised as Magic" the large standing stones are disguised blood drinking creatures and the alien of our tale is disguising herself as The Cailleach of Scottish and Irish myth.
Of note: This episode gave me the idea for Gog and Magog.
Another British Folk Horror episode this deals with a demon-like creature and old pagan rites. In some ways it reminded me a lot of The Dæmons. So much so that I was disappointed it wasn't more closely tied to it.
Ghosts in Cardiff. Or really, the Gelth caught in a time rift. In Universe, this was the reason that Charles Dickens wrote about ghosts in A Christmas Carol. In the real world this gave us some background for the Torchwood series.
Ah. Now this one was so good. I might have to add this as my one "TV Episode" per year to my Horror movie marathon in October. This one is more straight up horror than occult, but the appearance of the "Devil" at the end sends this one into occult territory.
The Beast of this episode does bring to mind the Dæmons of the Pertwee era. They might even be related to this creature as their former ruler. Maybe it was them that chained him up in the Pit.
Ah. This is not the first Doctor Who episode to feature witches or witch-like creatures, but it is a fun one. This Tenth Doctor romp features a subtly bisexual Shakespeare ("Fifty-seven academics just punched the air,") and former HEX actress Christina Cole as Lilith.
Again this episode implies that magic and "witchcraft" are just a different type of science. Maybe an older type.
Hide is a fantastic haunted house episode. Among other things, there is a monster, a psychic, a witch, and all sorts of strange goings on. Our psychic is played by the amazing Jessica Raine, who will have more involvement with Doctor Who and our monster...well it is a quintessential Doctor Who twist. The monster is just a poor alien trapped in time. The witch is a time traveler from the future trapped in every moment of time but stuck at this house. So in the words of The Doctor, "this isn't a ghost story, it's a love story."
Few things are as British occult as the witches of Pendle Hill. It is here in this episode the Doctor, now in the form of Jodie Whittaker, finds herself in the middle of.
Again, no witches or demons here, just aliens. In fact the Doctor says "A brilliant man once said, 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'" One of Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws.
While the Doctor will deal with various occult themes, the explanation will always be some sort of advanced science. It is a conceit of the show's universe and one that works well enough for me.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
The Doctor: I'm the Doctor, by the way, what's your name?
Rose Tyler Rose.
The Doctor: Nice to meet you, Rose, - run for yer life!
- The Ninth Doctor, "Rose"
Doctor Who premiered in November 1963 and ran until 1989. There was a TV movie that, while fun, was not great and went no where. Sadly we Doctor Who fans settled in to just enjoying the new novels and the audio dramas.
Then Russel T. Davis came on the scene and, in 2005 brought Doctor Who back!
At first, we did not know if this new series was a new series or tied to the original series. So many of us began to call this "New Who" or even "NuWho."
Not only did we get a wonderful series that had all the charm of the old series, but we would also learn that this Doctor was the Ninth Doctor and he was the only survivor of the Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks.
The original series ran 26 years and had seven total Doctors. Eight if you count the movie. The new series has run for 14 seasons (though almost 18 years) and has had six doctors, or eight, or nine depending on how you count it.
The new series of Doctor Who has done so much to bring in new fans to the show and make it a world-wide phenomena. While the Tenth and Fourteenth (both David Tennant) and the Eleventh (Matt Smith) did much to make the show popular we really have to thank Christopher Eccleston for bringing the character back to life.
Eccleston's Doctor was a Doctor consumed with guilt and sadness. He was fresh off the Time War (tune in for that on "W" day), and you feel that Rose was his first companion in a very, very long time. This Doctor had seen everything he loved burn and to make it all worse, he knew he was the one that caused it all. This new reality; the Time War, Gallifrey destroyed, and the Doctor alone, made for a great way to bring in both new and old fans. It was, well to quote the Ninth Doctor, "Fantastic!"
This was the Doctor that got my wife and kids hooked on the show and made us a Who-loving family.
While Eccleston had his own reasons for leaving (and I won't debate his choice here) it did do one very, very perfect thing. It gave new viewers a complete Doctor Who experience in one whole season.
His regeneration at the end of his first and only season gave the new fans something we old fans always had. That fear and anticipation about who this new doctor was going to be.
My wife was SO upset with this. And as you can expect David Tennant's Tenth Doctor went on to become her favorite.
New Who has been fantastic to me as an old-school Doctor Who fan.
If you want more details on the new series of Doctor Who, pop on over to fellow A to Z blogger, Elena Square Eyes, and see what she is doing. She is also doing the A to Z of Doctor Who but focusing on the newer stories.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Tenth Doctor: [amazed at meeting his former self] Yes you are! You are the Doctor!
Fifth Doctor: Yes I am... I'm the Doctor.
Tenth Doctor: Oh good for you, Doctor! Good for brilliant old you!
Fifth Doctor: Is there something wrong with you?
- The Tenth and Fifth Doctors, Time Crash
Another Sunday Special on the A to Z. Today, I want to cover some other multi-Doctor stories, this time with just Two Doctors.
The Two Doctors
The first one that comes to mind is appropriately titled, The Two Doctors. This was set during the Colin Baker years (originally airing Feb/March 1985) and features the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton). Troughton has always wanted to come back to Doctor Who, but not as the Doctor, but as an alien. He thought it would be fun to play something under so much makeup that no one would know it was him. This was during the John Nathan-Turner years, and JTN wanted to bring back all sorts of old friends and enemies. So it really is no surprise that the Second Doctor and Jaime were brought back.
While the episode itself was not supposed to celebrate anything, like the Three and Five Doctors did, it was the 100th book put out by Doctor Who novel publisher Target. So that is nice. Also, I felt this episode marked a turning point for Colin Baker's Doctor. He became less brash after this moving towards that kinder Doctor he always wanted to play.
Trial of a Time Lord
In the modern Doctor Who era we are used to big surprises, especially when they come to the Doctor (see below), but in the classic series this was something new and unexpected. In a story that would fir in in with New Who well we have The Trial of a Time Lord. Again with Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Anothony Aniley as the Master (and doing things that will have an effect on Jodie Whittaker's Doctor and Sacha Dhawan's Master) and another figure, the Valeyard played by Michael Jayston. We learn he is an incarnation of the Doctor between his "12th and last regeneration." So evil that the Master joins up with the Doctor to defeat him. We don't see him after this year-long series but he is mentioned a few more times.
Time Crash
This one was a short that appeared on the Season 4 DVD (or maybe Season 3) DVD sets. It was right before the Christmas Special "Voyage of the Damned" and featured the Tenth and Fifth Doctors.
Ok this one is so meta. First off, David Tennant grew up with the Fifth Doctor as his favorite Doctor. Earlier that year David had just met Georgia Moffett and they would get married in 2011. Georgia Moffett is Peter Davidson's (the Fifth Doctor) daughter. Georgia in fact played"Jenny" the Doctor's Daughter in a previous episode called, "The Doctor's Daughter."
Confused? Not surprising. When asked at a convention "what was the strangest thing a fan had ever given him" Peter Davidson replied "Grandchildren."
The episode is fun and pure fluff to be honest, but fun fluff.
Twice Upon a Time
Jumping past the 50th Anniversary special for now. We get to our next double Doctor story. This one features the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he is trying to decide if he should regenerate or not, and he meets up with his former self, the First Doctor, now being played by the amazing David Bradley, going through a similar existential crisis.
Before I say too much about this episode (it is wonderful) I need to say something about David Bradley here. WOW. He is so great as the First Doctor (he has played him since and even played William Hartnell). Yes, yes, this script makes him seem older and more cantankerous than he really was, but it was done to show the differences between 1 and 12 more.
Technically this episode is not a Two Doctor story but rather a Three Doctor one since at the end the Twelfth Doctor does decide to regenerate into the Thirteenth Doctor in the form of Jodie Whittaker.
Fugitive of the Judoon
Now here is an episode that totally surprised everyone. The "Fugitive" in this episode is not The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) but instead a completely unknown and never before seen incarnation from before the First Doctor. This Doctor, called the Fugitive Doctor (play AMAZINGLY by Jo Martin), had her memories wiped via a Chameleon Arch by the Time Lords.
Look, I'll be honest. I LOVED Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. I just felt some of the scripts were weak. But Jo Martin? Damn. She lit up and took over every scene she was in.
My head cannon is this. We know the First Doctor took a TARDIS that was "a museum piece," according to River Song. We know that he was going to steal one, but Clara, in her Impossible Girl incarnation, directed him to a different one. That TARDIS, old with a broken Chameleon Circuit was brand new when The Fugitive Doctor used it (it looks new in the above clip). It was her TARDIS then and when the Time Lords wiped her memories and made her into the "First Doctor" that TARDIS sat there and waited until the Doctor decided to run again. Like the First Doctor she even calls it her "ship."
I want more Jo Martin and her Doctor. I want to know what her actions were to give us the Doctor we know today.
The War Doctor in The Name of the Doctor
Ah. There is so much to unpack here. This one will need its own post.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Chantho : Chan-Professor, please! The Professor : THAT IS NOT MY NAME! "The Professor" was an invention. So perfect a disguise that I forgot who I am. Chantho : Chan-Then who are you-tho? The Master : I am... the Master.
- Professor Yana/The Master, Utopia
The Master. Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes. Lex Luthor to the Doctor's Superman. He is possibly the deadliest enemy the Doctor has ever known, next to the Daleks, and they began as friends. Not just friends but old, good friends.
Like the Doctor, the Master is a Time Lord. Like the Doctor he is a renegade. We know from various sources they were both good friends and were shown the Untempered Schism together. The Doctor ran, the Master went mad. They went to the academy together, along with another brilliant Time Lord, The Rani.
Also, like the Doctor, the Master has been played by many actors. The role was originated by Roger Delgado in the Pertwee (3rd Doctor) years and was introduced in the serial "Seeds of Death" which also gave us Jo Grant. At first they Doctor and the Master knew each other but did not act like they had a history. Delgado died in car crash a few years later and it was one of the reasons Jon Pertwee left the show, they two were very good friends. Next we had a couple of actors play a "decayed" version of the Master, having gone through all of his regenerations and was now in regeneration crisis.
We next see him at the end of the Tom Baker (4th Doctor) years. He steals the body of a Trakenite named Tremas (more on that) and is played with over-the-top gusto by Anothny Ainely. Now a LOT of people didn't like Ainely's portrayal of the Master compared to the more suave and sophisticated evil of Delgado. And I waiver back and forth a lot myself.
We last see the Master in the old series in the serial "Survival" with the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Though we know he escapes that doomed world.
Ace : Last time I saw you, you were half cat. The Master : A man's allowed to experiment.
- The Power of the Doctor (2022)
He is the major antagonist of the US Fox/BBC-produced Doctor Who movie with Paul McGann as the Doctor. Here is played with gleeful scenery chewing by Eric Roberts as only Eric Roberts can. Making this the only time a Time Lord was played by an American actor. Eric Roberts real-life wife Eliza (who should be familiar to anyone that frequents this site) appears as his wife in this movie as well. In this the remains of the Master find a way to possess poor paramedic Bruce (Roberts) and use him as he did Tremas. He is seemingly destroyed here as well...but I am sure you know what is next.
Just like "Bad Wolf" was an Easter Egg for the first season of the new Doctor Who, and "Torchwood" was for the second season, "Mister Saxon" was for the third season. We heard a lot about Mr. Saxon, but the payoff was not until the end.
The 10th Doctor, Martha and Jack Harkness end up at the very end of the Universe, 100 trillion years in the future. The stars have all burned out and the last of the humans are living on a dark planet ("Malcassairo") with hopes of finding the last surviving home for humanity, Utopia. Hoping to get them all there is Professor Yana, a strange and sort of bumbling scientist (of the type the British do so well) played by Derek Jacobi (THE Derek Jacobi). Yet not all as it appears. The Professor carries a watch, like what the Doctor had used when he was disguised as a human for a while. Opening the watch (a Chameleon Arch) returns his memories and Yana is revealed to be the newest incarnation of the Master. Sadly we only get a few moments of Jacobi playing the Master before he is killed and then he surprisingly regenerates! To the new Master played by John Simms. Who, if anything, is more akin to the Joker than Lex Luthor.
We learn that Mister Saxon is really the Master in the form of John Simms who came back to Earth in the Doctor's stolen TARDIS six months prior. John Simms gives us some of the best performances as the Master up to that point. Yes, even better than Delgado and Jacobi. We learn a lot more history about the Master here from the 10th Doctor. The Master is killed, again, and this time to spite the Doctor he refuses to regenerate. Of course, he has a backup plan.
We next see the Master when Rassilon (from the Five Doctors) comes out of Death/Retirement to win the Time War (more on that) tries to pull Gallifrey out of the War and into orbit near Earth. The Master sacrifices himself to save the Doctor and Earth (crazy right?).
No Master at all for the 11th Doctor. But when we get the 12th Doctor a new character keeps poping up in his wake, someone called "Missy" and refers to the 12th Doctor as her "boyfriend."
Missy is played by the absolutely delightful Michelle Gomez.
"Please try to keep up. Short for Mistress. Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?"
- Missy/The Master, Death in Heaven
Missy seemed more like she was trying to impress the Doctor rather than defeat him. Indeed it seemed like maybe the old friendship they had would rekindle and Missy could be something new. That is until she ran into the John Simms (now with a goatee) version of herself. The old master re-corrupts the new Master/Missy, but they still ended up killing each other.
Finally, we have the most recent Master during the time of the 13th Doctor, played again with over-the-top glees by Sacha Dhawan. This Master is back to being evil. Very, very evil. This Master seemingly dies in the same episode that he, once again, kills the Doctor.
Honestly, I could go on and on here about the Master, they are just as colorful and interesting as the Doctor. A couple of things though. While both the Doctor and the Master have hypnotic and psionic powers, the Master's seems to be much greater. The Delgado Master would routinely hypnotize people and the Simms Master even took the power to take over the Earth using a series of interlinked satellites.
Another thing about the Master is his seeming compulsion to use anagrams or alternates of his own name. The Delgado Master was often known as Mr. Masters or Magister. Even Tremas of Traken (who the Master could have been grooming to be his new body) is an anagram of Master. Speaking of anagrams, "Mister Saxon" is an anagram of "Master no. six" to indicate John Simms as the sixth person to play the Master at that time. Even Professor Yana came as a warning from the Face of Boe to the Doctor of "You Are Not Alone."
Will we see a new Master now after the Doctor has regenerated? Oh yes, just like the Daleks and the Cybermen the Master keeps coming back for more.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
"Empty threats, Rutan. Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you."
Leela to a Rutan, Horror of Fang Rock
I mentioned that the role of the Companions in Doctor Who was largely one of screaming, getting captured, and going, "what Doctor?" every so often.
That is not true for Leela.
If Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor was my first Doctor, then Leela was my first Companion. And what an impression she made! She was from a savage tribe descended from human space travelers that crash-landed on her planet. Her tribe, The Seevtem, aka "Survey Team," had reverted back to savagery and superstition. Leela herself when first meet her is on trail for disobeying the will of her elders. So she was head strong, and intelligent from the very start. And actress Louise Jamison played the character with undisguised gusto. Louise Jamison rather famously talked about getting scripts and seeing "Leela screams" with her crossing it out and writing in "No she does not!"
Leela didn't scream, at least not typically, and she usually ran into danger than from it. She had a knife and a bag full of Janis thorns that would paralyze and then kill. Unlike other companions before (and since really), Leela had a body count. Though in her mind, the world, and then the universe was a savage kill-or-be-killed place.
She was unlearned but obviously very bright and she picked up on concepts the doctor threw at her quickly, although sometimes in her own way.
For reasons unknown the production team made Jamison wear these red contact to turn her normally blue eyes brown.
She hated them and they were uncomfortable. So in the episodes of "Horror of Fang Rock" and exploding Rutan spaceship blinds her temporarily (and in typical Leela fashion she asks the Doctor to kill her because she is no use to him) and her eyes heal and turn blue. A bit I used, somewhat unconsciously, for my witch Larina.
Leela is the prototype companion that would later give us Ace and the modern companions but in particular River Song.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Rose Tyler: [referring to K-9] Why does it look so... disco? The Doctor: Oi! Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge!
- Doctor Who, School Reunion
Most of the Doctor's companions have been human, most of whom are from Earth. But two stand out as not only non-human but non-living robots. I am talking about K9 and Kamelion.
K9 was a robot dog (get it, K9?) from the year 5,000 during the Tom Baker years. Invented by Prof. Marius who lived on a space station and wanted to bring his real dog but couldn't.
K9 went on to join the Doctor and Leela, who he referred to as "Master" and "Mistress." He stayed behind on Gallifrey with Leela. When the Doctor left he introduced his new version K9-Mk2 who traveled with him and both Romanas. He stayed behind in E-Space with Romana and that was the last time we saw him. For a while.
K9, this time Mk-3 was given to Sarah Jane Smith as a present and for the start of his own spin-off show K9 and Company. But that only lasted one episode. We would not see him, or Sarah Jane again until the 10th Doctor episode, School Reunion. The Doctor rebuilt him to give us K9 Mk-4.
K9 would appear again, briefly in the Sarah Jane Smith spin-off and in his own Australian version, "K9" with a different look. We only got such brief glimpses of him because the character is still owned by its creators, Bob Baker and Dave Martin. So to use him, the BBC has to pay Baker and Martin.
K9 though was extremely popular and I can remember my younger brother desperately wanting to build one (he is an engineer now, so I suppose he could) and I know others that loved that "little tin dog" as well.
On the other end of the popularity spectrum is Kamelion. Originally a tool of the Master to disrupt the signing of the Magna Carta in "The King's Demons." He was a robot that could appear as anyone commanded.
Let's be honest here. The episode he stared in was a bit weak. Even the Doctor admitted that the plan was small time by the Master's standards. And Kamelion, well he was really kind of lame. The prop used was not built for the show, but was found by then producer John Nathan-Turner as a K9 replacement. Plus it was a prop and not an actor in a suit, so it was always breaking down.
Kamlion seems to have been cursed from the start. The man who designed it's software, Mike Power, had been killed in a boating accident around the time the show was aired and no one knew how to operate it properly. Terence Dudley (1988) and Peter Grimwade (1983), who scripted the robot companion's appearances, left the show or died while the show was running. His voice, Gerald Flood, died in 1984. And the last actor to play him as a human also died.
The companion/prop was so hated in fact that Peter Davison has said that any sign of regret shown by him/the Doctor during Kamelion's (the prop's) "death" scene was pure acting. He was happy it was gone.
I remember the fans at the time also rather hated it. I guess they all can't be winners.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Of all the secondary characters (not companions), one of the standout successes has been the ongoing adventures of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot. Jago & Litfoot were first introduced to us in the wonderful Tom Baker-era story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" in 1977. The pair, a somewhat shady theatre manager and a semi-retired academic went on to solve mysterious crimes and mysteries in Victorian London courtesy of various audio dramas from Big Finish Audio.
They were popular in their time but grew increasingly popular with the airing of the Tom Baker Doctor on PBS.
The audio dramas have also been big hits for Big Finish, with 17 completed dramas. Each one features the original actors, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, resuming their roles. Some even feature other Doctor Who companions such as Leela (4th Doctor) and Strax (11th Doctor). They are even sometimes guests on their contemporaries' Madam Vastra & Jenny (11th Doctor) audio dramas.
Of course, I love the Victorian-era. So I liked "Talons" from the word go. Yes, there is some unfortunate "Yellowface" going on in the episode, something the cast and production team (who are still alive) regret and have mentioned many times. But the story is good, and the characters from this tale are wonderful.
If Jago and Litefoot have been given new life in these audio dramas, then their Victorian-era contemporaries Vastra & Jenny (and Strax) have been given continued life in the Cubicle 7 Doctor Who RPG.
In both mediums (audio and RPGs) there are some cross-overs. But for me I love the RPG structure the best for further adventures (though the audio dramas are very, very close!)
The best thing about Jago & Litefoot is the implication that once the Doctor enters someone's life, they are forever changed and want to do more to improve their world. This has been an explicit detail in the newer series.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Something a little different again since I will talk about a single serial of Doctor Who. This time it is 1970's "Inferno." It is the second serial (from the seventh season) to feature Jon Pertwee as the Doctor in exile on Earth. The Time Lords have crippled his TARDIS and removed all knowledge of how to Time Travel from his mind. He is stuck on Earth and not taking it well, so he tinkers with the TARDIS all the time with mostly disastrous results.
In Inferno he manages to slip into a parallel universe with a Fascist Britain. In both universes there is an experiment to drill through the Earth's crust, but at the point they are doing will cause catastrophic problems. The fascist universe is slight ahead in time as the "prime" universe so the Doctor knows what needs to be done.
I liked this episode for a lot of reasons. First it played into my growing interest in the idea of the Multi-verse, something that I began to explore in the comic "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and later in books like "Job: A Comedy of Justice" and "The Coming of the Quantum Cats." It was something that at the time I was really ready to enjoy.
Secondly, and this is the big one, it was the Doctor Who episode that introduced me to other Doctors.
Growing up I watched Doctor Who on my local (St. Louis) PBS station KETC. Now KETC has a huge market, and they played the Tom Baker era almost exclusively. But they were not the only local PBS station. Just to the north of me was WILL out of Urbana IL and it was connected with the University of Illinois at Urbana. While I did not get that station on our cable package there were some in town that had access to it. Also there was a steady stream of VHS tapes coming down from Urbana to my hometown from people going to school there. Inferno was one such tape.
I remember watching it in, of all places, my High School's library. One of my friends had it and was watching in the "media room" which was supposed to be off limits to general students unless you worked there. I didn't. But I was fascinated by this episode and mostly by this "new to me" Doctor. I knew Pertwee came before Baker and that his Doctor was a different sort, but this episode was an eye-opener for me.
Recently, I had the chance to rewatch in prep for today's post. It is slower than I remember, but just as good. Though I do find it very odd that I am right now older than Pertwee was in this episode (he was 51).
I have made a habit since first watching this one to check out all the Pertwee/3rd Doctor episodes I can. I know there are a few I have never seen. I have not sought them out because I do enjoy the joy of stumbling upon them just like I did with Inferno.
Since moving to the Chicago area I have had the chance to talk to others who watched Doctor Who from the same time period and how their PBS stations differed from my local St. Louis one. It has been very interesting and I'll talk more about it on "P" day.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Back in 1966/67 a Doctor Who serial aired called "The Highlanders" and it featured the Second Doctor and introduced us to the soon-to-be companion Jamie McCrimmon, played by Frazer Hines during the Battle of Culloden.
Jaime quickly became a favorite among the fans. In the late sixties, he was often voted the #1 fan favorite, and this also included "the best legs on TV."
One of those fans was author Diana Gabaldon. Who took her love of this episode and crafted her own tale about the Scottish Highlands, the Battle of Culloden, and Time Travel. One of the stars of these novels (and later) series was a Highlander named Jamie Fraser.
Of course I am talking about the wildly successful "Outlander" novels and TV series.
I have never read the novels, but I have seen the series. It is quite fun really. The time-travel elements are only a plot device, as opposed to something central as in Doctor Who. Frazer Hines even made a guest appearance.
Outlander is not the only property inspired by Doctor Who, either directly or indirectly.
"DC's Legends of Tomorrow" (2016-2022) was part of the "Arrowverse" subset of DC Comics TV shows. It dealt with a group of misfit heroes, led by Rip Hunter, played by Arthur "Rory" Darvill (fresh off of Doctor Who). Now DC has always had time travel and Rip is an established character, but the Doctor Who elements here are turned way up.
Douglas Adams who was a script editor and writer for Doctor Who in the Tom Baker years gave us "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Not only was the book inspired by Adams, but Adams was also good friends with Lala "Romana II" Ward, and the Tenth Doctor even name-drops Adam's famous protagonist, Arthur Dent in "The Christmas Invasion."
One could argue that the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation are more or less Cybermen. Comics publisher IDW makes this even clearer with their Doctor Who / Star Trek Crossovers. It doesn't end there. For years fans speculated that Guinan, Whoopi Goldberg's character, was something akin to a Time Lord. Same with the Travellers, which now include Wesley Crusher, and the "Supervisors" Tallinn (Star Trek Picard), and Gary Seven (Star Trek The Original Series). Gary even has a sonic screwdriver-like device. So many in fact that this topic really deserves a post on it's own. Maybe I'll touch more on that later on. IDW Comics also featured an "Assignment: Earth" comic and the original episode, "Assignment: Earth" which introduces Gary Seven, began with the Enterprise slingshotting to Earth in the 1960.
Bill & Ted, in their movies travels in time and space use a phone booth. You could argue that Rufus, played by George Carlin, was pretty close to a Time Lord.
The shadow of the Doctor is long. Both in their universe and ours.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Last week I did a Sunday special on the 10th Anniversary show "The Three Doctors." This week I am covering the 20th Anniversary special, "The Five Doctors."
The Five Doctors got it's Global premier on November 23, 1983, exactly 20 years after the first episode appeared.
Like the previous anniversary special this one involved the Doctor getting caught up in the machinations of an evil and powerful Time Lord. This time though, the Doctor was pulled in, and in doing so he felt pieces of himself "breaking away like an iceberg."
Of course, there was a problem. Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor and still the actor with the longest tenure as the Doctor, did not want to return so soon after leaving the role. A choice he much later came to meet with some regret. So his incarnation was stuck in a "time eddy" which honestly worked out ok. They had some footage they had from a canceled show (Shada) and used that to fill in the blanks.
Sadly William Hartnell the original First Doctor had died in 1975 so Richard Hurndall was brought in to play the character. He sadly would die the year after this. I am not sure of the details, but I am wondering if the First Doctor would have been stuck. But the script, as these thing do, went through a lot of rewrites so who knows what could have been. Tom Baker did get a chance to come back later. William Hartnell is at least featured in a clip before the show begins. There is a nice story about how Bill Hartnell's wife Heather was invited to the set and she told the then current Doctor, Peter Davidson, how much he reminded her of Bill and how he would have loved to have seen him in this role.
So we get a lot of favorite companions back, a lot of favorite enemies, and more workings into the happenings on Gallifrey.
A couple of standouts. Susan, the Doctor's Grandaughter is back and she recognizes right away they are on Gallifrey. So meaning she is also a Time Lord and allows her early character to retroactively say the planet's name first. Fan favorite Sarah Jane is back, including her K-9 from "K-9 and Co." She interacts with the Third Doctor again. She tries to explain to him that she saw him regenerate into the Fourth Doctor and says "you became..." but he interrupts with "all teeth and curls?" Meaning Tom Baker. The lines were supposed to be Elizabeth Sladden's (Sarah Jane) but Jon Pertwee thought it was funnier coming from him. It was.
There are a lot of DVD versions of this out. I have the Special Edition which swaps out some of the 1983 special effects for "updated" ones that are nearly universally hated. I have not seen the 25th anniversary version (the 45th for Doctor Who) but I wonder if they are restored? I watched it recently on PlutoTV and it was the original 1983 broadcast version, so that was nice.
The story is a bit contrived, but no more so than any other Doctor Who story and it was a lot of fun really. Still one of my favorites.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
"Ah, you should have seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south, the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver. When they caught the light every morning, they lit the forest on fire."
- The Tenth Doctor, Gridlock
Next to the Earth, the planet that gets the most mention in Doctor Who lore, is his home world of Gallifrey.
It has been called many things during the run of Doctor Who, most just "The Home World" in the earliest episodes. Among other names, it is known as "Jewel" and "the Shining World of the Seven Systems." It wasn't even named Gallifrey until the time of the Third Doctor in the episode "The Time Warrior" (December 1973) so a full decade went by before we ever learned its proper name.
What do we know about the Doctor's home planet? Well, it s mostly orange in color. Has two suns. It is much larger than the Earth, but humans seem to be fine on it. Likely this is due to Time Lord science. We learn it is in the constellation of Kasterborous at galactic coordinates 10-0-11-0-0/0-2 from Galactic Zero Centre. It also seems to be part of our galaxy as opposed to a "galaxy far, far away."
Gallifreyians look human, and not all of them are Time Lords. The Time Lords appear to be an elite ruling class and the rest are just regular folk. I am fairly sure though all of them have the same two hearts and ability to regenerate.
Gallifrey is also special because it is the home of the Untempered Schism, a rip in the fabric of Time and Space that all Time Students of the Academy are taken too. Some Time Lords are driven mad by it, like the Doctor's arch rival The Master. Others, like the Doctor, see it and want to run.
In addition to this (and likely related to it in some way) is the Eye of Harmony, a stable black hole that is near Gallifrey and in the heart of every TARDIS. This is what gives the Time Lords mastery over time and space.
We see very little of Gallifrey in the series, even after 60 years. There is the Citadel, the primary city of the Time Lords, and Arcadia, Gallifrey's "Second City." So like a Time Lord Chicago, I am thinking.
And we know that in the Time War The Doctor (thought) he had burned all of Gallifrey to stop the war. Turns out he (and all his other selves) figured out how to tuck it away in a pocket Universe. Though the Master may have destroyed yet again. Hard to say about an ancient planet where the rules of time and space no longer apply.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
