Resurrection is a poor script. Eric Sward says that. The Dalek Supreme behaves irrationally to suit the plot (in the book Saward has Lytton muse on that).
Last Classic Who Story you watched
- Thread starter Pindar
- Start date
In 1985 Douglas Adams gave a talk to Imperial's Wellsoc (promoting Meaning of Liff). He said something like "When I heard they were cancelling Who to save money, I pointed out that it earned more than it cost. They said 'It doesn't work that way due to internal accountancy'. When I suggested they save money by firing the internal accountants they hung up on me."
In hindsight, it was a matter of internal accountancy. Drama department had spent a lot on launching EastEnders and building its sets, so had to cancel other stuff to balance. Not just Who, but Bergerac and other series like Tenko which ended after three seasons when the producers wanted to do four.
Grade wasn't the real problem. He accepted advice from his subordinates (Jonathan Powell) and as a showman defended it in public.
It was likely used during the Zone's initial construction, then deactivated. Once Borusa found the control chamber, he was able to re-enable it. Not unlike having a remote starter for your vehicle.
True, it was to be canceled but fan outcry had its status changed to "hiatus". The show came back, but with reduced episode count, lighten the tone, get rid of Colin Baker, air it opposite the most popular program in the UK at the time, and let it quietly disappear. I'm still amazed season 25 was greenlit, but apparently Michael Grade had left the BBC by then.
Yep, Grade left the BBC to run Channel Four in 87/88. Jonathan Powell took over from him, and wasn't up to the job (unfortunately, we both went to UEA).
Long time since I saw it, but I think the transmat could only be used once someone had got into the Tomb and turned off the barriers.
Not quite, the BBC just didn't renew it for another season. JNT was still a staff producer (one of the last remaining ones at the BBC) with no show to make. He saw that as the ultimate humiliation. He worked with BBC Video for a couple more years before leaving in 1992.
But he was back one last time to produce Dimensions in Time for Children in Need in 1993.
and other than appearing in a single ep of shine on harvey moon that broadcast in 1985 that was pretty much their television acting career.
though eventually it had a tv movie that wrapped things up.
Yep. It's 40 years ago so memories are a bit hazy, but if it had run four four seasons I think season three would have ended with the Japanese surrender, with season four being about readjusting to freedom, culminating in what became Reunion.
No. JNT left the show and it ended. That's why it went on hiatus. Not the other way around. In fact, he had been told that if he left, it would end, which kept him around longer than he planned. He was the last staff producer.
Happy to defer if I'm mistaken, but I don't think I am.
JNT and Andrew Cartmel were working on stories for the 1990 season, McCoy and Aldred were contracted too. Peter Cregeen cancelled the show, and JNT was left on gardening leave with no show to produce.
The background to this is that the BBC were moving towards contracting out drama production, and didn't want to continue to make Doctor Who in-house. Jonathan Powell had met with Philip Segal in August 1989 about a independent production of Doctor Who, and an outline deal was agreed, which is why any tentative plans for Season 27 were put on ice.
It is true that JNT wanted to move on earlier, but Jonathan Powell held him in contempt and didn't want to give him another show, so he was "persuaded to stay" on the basis that his only other option was to resign from the BBC. Which was not something he could consider from a financial point of view.
If he "left" as you say, where did he move on to? He was made redundant by the BBC in August 1990, which was around a year after production on Season 26 ceased.
I would really recommend Richard Marson's biography.
Last edited:
"Our people mastered transmat technology when the universe was half its present size"
Whilst recent stories (largely EU) have seen fit to introduce Type Impressive-Sounding Number TARDISes to really make the Doctor's ship seem horribly outdated, the original series always went - if not explicitly, then implied - with the concept that the Time Lords were technologically stagnant after millions of years at the top - the Doctor never has trouble with Time Lord tech despite centuries offworld, whilst a human in the same situation would struggle - to put it mildly - to manage even after a fraction of that time.
If anything, the tech of Rassilon's era seems MORE advanced than current Time Lord society in many ways. Why nick the Hand of Omega if tech development had resulted in far more powerful and easily carried devices? And if the answer is "well, it didn't have the modern safeguards against Davros using it, and I wanted to trick him into doing so!" then you'd query why anyone would keep a LIVE superweapon around, even if obsolete, in a museum?
You've got some of the right pieces there but not connected in quite the right way. But
According to the book, their mother was having an affair because she couldn't stand them, and their father was drinking for similar reasons. The book is very much cod-Douglas Adams (Hugo Lang wants to be a hero: not the sort who gets killed, but the type that writes books and goes on chat shows).
I met John in the mid 1990s and worked with Andrew on Starburst for a year. Tomalak's version is more right.You've got some of the right pieces there but not connected in quite the right way. But
Last edited:
Hmmm. That's not what I've been told, including by Andrew. But it has been decades since these events happened. Someone is misremembering.
"The memory cheats", as someone once said!
Like I say I'm happy to be corrected, but all the documentary evidence seems to support my understanding.
Just think about it, why would JNT quit the show when he had nowhere else to go, and then sit around the empty Doctor Who production office for a year until he was made redundant? That doesn't make sense.
When Andrew was editing Starburst, we worked together. Later (as freelancing, so splitting my time) i walked in, found someone sitting at my desk, and was then waved to the editor's desk. Turned out Andrew had been sacked and i was acting editor (Gary Gillatt later came in).
"The Ark in Space"
The plot is a return to "base under siege", but you wouldn't know it thanks to the innovations and creativity. This plot, fairly thin, relies more on a build-up of threat and a visceral feel. Placing the humans in cryogenic sleep as otherwise readymade victims helps a lot.
The show has covered 30th century colonies in the past, so the solar flares of which Vira talks about must have happened in the future and Nerva base converted into a series of survival chambers.
I's a shame the survival chambers are translucent because (a) the occasional actor waiting for their scene (Vira?!) blinks while the camera is focused in that direction, or (b) the translucency is just enough to reveal that most of the creeds and colors the Doctor mentions don't exist. (At least, in that room we do see - there's clearly a corridor that hints at others, on those occasions the set designers remembered to put back in the mirror in the back to suggest more pallets in the background.) A shame indeed, even more so since Vira was supposed to be played by a black actress to help exemplify. A big shame as it would have helped the story so much more.
That same linked article also says how the actor playing Lazar was upset over one of his scenes being cut (by the producer, citing it was too morbid), and yet - given how Lazar and the other defrosted humans act - Lazar showing open emotion in a way antithetical to how humans behave as of their original century probably would have hampered the story's credibility at portraying future-humankind. This is exemplified by Vira talking of the Doctor and crew having a certain "romanticism" as if she were a scientist talking with bacteria in a petri dish, never mind Lazar's talking of regressives and other factors, so you have that as well..
Robert Holmes has a unique grasp on character dialogue, nuance and prose that has yet to be matched. His handling of the trio of heroes plus the awakened humans may be as compartmentalized as humanity itself was, but it's so well done. Right down to "Granovox Turbines" and a subtle in-joke with "Bennett Oscillator", a nod to director Rodney Bennett.
He must also like Star Trek since the freeze-dried humans are in different colors, which seem to have in-story continuity as to what color means which. Then again, we don't have too many waking up either.
That aside, and it takes some headcanon, the first Wirrn invader is just lucky enough to choose the lead technician's body to feast on after being electrified, which then allowed it to figure out how to turn off the correct systems (alarm clock, electric guards) without disengaging the power to the sleeper chambers... then again, there's one scene where the power is shut off (audible hum ceases) so one has to wonder how all the remaining humans are surviving without the machinery, but let's example this:
The Doctor keeps a cricket ball on him for reasons. He also apparently has brandy in the TARDIS in a cupboard somewhere, as if nothing else exists to get Sarah turned around after nearly being asphyxiated.
Much is said against the bubblewrap used as skin material for the Wirrn grub. It's generally not bad at all and only one scene reveals translucency to see the actor within (it's also in a CSO effect, albeit a good one). Even then, the low-tech origins would not have been seen on a standard low dot pitch CRT TV circa 1975 and the costume design surprisingly holds up. If anything, dying Vaseline green and smearing it onto the costume might have worked better, but that would look really gross too.
Pretty much a fresh new trendsetter that would be a possible influence for "Alien" and other movies/shows, even the Borg in a way as the Wirrn assimilate others by depositing eggs on or in their victims, which then take them over and right down to absorbing their knowledge to become more unstoppable, this one really is one of the show's all-time greats...
Even with the whiny nitpicks, the story is still an easy 10/10 for its verve and execution and philosophical themes alone, the character nuances make up for other aspects.
The plot is a return to "base under siege", but you wouldn't know it thanks to the innovations and creativity. This plot, fairly thin, relies more on a build-up of threat and a visceral feel. Placing the humans in cryogenic sleep as otherwise readymade victims helps a lot.
The show has covered 30th century colonies in the past, so the solar flares of which Vira talks about must have happened in the future and Nerva base converted into a series of survival chambers.
I's a shame the survival chambers are translucent because (a) the occasional actor waiting for their scene (Vira?!) blinks while the camera is focused in that direction, or (b) the translucency is just enough to reveal that most of the creeds and colors the Doctor mentions don't exist. (At least, in that room we do see - there's clearly a corridor that hints at others, on those occasions the set designers remembered to put back in the mirror in the back to suggest more pallets in the background.) A shame indeed, even more so since Vira was supposed to be played by a black actress to help exemplify. A big shame as it would have helped the story so much more.
That same linked article also says how the actor playing Lazar was upset over one of his scenes being cut (by the producer, citing it was too morbid), and yet - given how Lazar and the other defrosted humans act - Lazar showing open emotion in a way antithetical to how humans behave as of their original century probably would have hampered the story's credibility at portraying future-humankind. This is exemplified by Vira talking of the Doctor and crew having a certain "romanticism" as if she were a scientist talking with bacteria in a petri dish, never mind Lazar's talking of regressives and other factors, so you have that as well..
Robert Holmes has a unique grasp on character dialogue, nuance and prose that has yet to be matched. His handling of the trio of heroes plus the awakened humans may be as compartmentalized as humanity itself was, but it's so well done. Right down to "Granovox Turbines" and a subtle in-joke with "Bennett Oscillator", a nod to director Rodney Bennett.
He must also like Star Trek since the freeze-dried humans are in different colors, which seem to have in-story continuity as to what color means which. Then again, we don't have too many waking up either.
That aside, and it takes some headcanon, the first Wirrn invader is just lucky enough to choose the lead technician's body to feast on after being electrified, which then allowed it to figure out how to turn off the correct systems (alarm clock, electric guards) without disengaging the power to the sleeper chambers... then again, there's one scene where the power is shut off (audible hum ceases) so one has to wonder how all the remaining humans are surviving without the machinery, but let's example this:
- Nerva was said to have been built around the 2900s, or 30th century (a guesstimate by the Doctor, also not quite confirmed in "Revenge of the Cybermen" as the Doctor cites an earlier period in time and with some different equipment in the beacon)
- At some point, solar flares were predicted so the beacon was converted and everyone became literal popsicle sticks to go along with their popsicle stick personalities
- The first Wirrn stops by by chance (don't ask how far away it came to Earth from the last planet it visited)
- Wirrn then gets zapped and cuts power to the autoguard systems, taking out the alarm clock system as well.
- Let's say the clock was set to 10,000 years since the prediction was 5,000 years before the Earth could be viable again. Or even set at 5,000 years at bare minimum, meaning around the year 8,100 (80th century).
- Doctor cites their systems must have been off for several thousand years, so they could be in the 160th century for all anyone knows.
- What is the real time gap between the first Wirrn coming in and the rest incubating, which doesn't manifest until a later scene in the story where we see a lot of Wirrn cocoons in the rear of the power room. Would this one Wirrn sit around for thousands of years doing nothing? Maybe I missed a scene, but there's otherwise a slight disconnect in the story.
- Wirrn then goes to deposit its eggs in an unlucky human redefining "getting lucky", and creating a plot problem since the Wirrn didn't know about how the station's innards and gizmos worked until after ingesting Dune, which took place after cutting the wires to the autoguard system
- Wirrn then hides in a cupboard and finally dies, hoping nobody with groovy sideburns would ever open the cabinet door
- Wirrn then gets zapped and cuts power to the autoguard systems, taking out the alarm clock system as well.
The Doctor keeps a cricket ball on him for reasons. He also apparently has brandy in the TARDIS in a cupboard somewhere, as if nothing else exists to get Sarah turned around after nearly being asphyxiated.
Much is said against the bubblewrap used as skin material for the Wirrn grub. It's generally not bad at all and only one scene reveals translucency to see the actor within (it's also in a CSO effect, albeit a good one). Even then, the low-tech origins would not have been seen on a standard low dot pitch CRT TV circa 1975 and the costume design surprisingly holds up. If anything, dying Vaseline green and smearing it onto the costume might have worked better, but that would look really gross too.
Pretty much a fresh new trendsetter that would be a possible influence for "Alien" and other movies/shows, even the Borg in a way as the Wirrn assimilate others by depositing eggs on or in their victims, which then take them over and right down to absorbing their knowledge to become more unstoppable, this one really is one of the show's all-time greats...
Even with the whiny nitpicks, the story is still an easy 10/10 for its verve and execution and philosophical themes alone, the character nuances make up for other aspects.
Similar threads
