Doctor Who (20 page)

Jonathan Powell was head of Series and Serials at the time and called it an understandable decision since the BBC wasn't really supporting the show any longer, and the writing and direction were suffering from a “lack of inspiration.” Colin Baker for his part feared that people would point to his performance as the Doctor as the cause for cancellation. “‘We want to do new things, and the only way we can do that is by canceling some of the old things,'” Colin Baker said to
Fantasy Empire
of Grade's decision. “That was his [Grade's] logic.”

JNT leaked the news of the cancellation to the press. Although Grade also ended a few other programs, it was
Doctor Who
that got the country's attention. Thousands of letters of protest poured in from British viewers, then even more when American and Australian fans got wind of the news.
Several newspapers reported on the shocking announcement, while political cartoons depicted Daleks storming into the BBC One offices to exterminate Michael Grade. Several fans even threatened to protest outside the House of Commons armed with Daleks.

According to Powell, a meeting ensued at which he was told that there had to be new
Doctor Who
episodes. Grade announced that the show wasn't canceled but merely suspended for eighteen months. Then he went on vacation. In later interviews, Grade continued to speak of how silly the show was, intimating that the thousands of protest letters were written by just three desperate fans. Jonathan Powell admitted later that they had considered replacing JNT but they simply couldn't find anyone to take on the job of producer.

During this hiatus, Nicola Bryant and Colin Baker recorded a
Doctor Who
radio play called
Slipback,
providing a new adventure for fans while they waited to see whether the show would return. The Sixth Doctor still appeared in the comic strips of
Doctor Who Magazine,
where he and Peri were joined by the strange character Frobisher, a member of a race of shape-shifters called Whifferdills. Frobisher initially appeared as a self-styled, street-smart detective with a featureless cartoony face and glasses. He later adopted the form of a penguin that became less realistic and more cartoonish as time went on.

Perhaps the strangest result of the year and a half suspension was the release of a song called “Doctor in Distress,” written and performed by Ian Levine and Fiachra Trench, who had collaborated on the theme song for
K-9 and Company.
Since Grade had said that he'd dismissed
Doctor Who
to save money, the pop song was meant to raise enough funds to overcome that problem. After the song's production was announced, rumors circulated that Elton John—a known
Doctor Who
fan—would be involved. The rumors proved false. A group of twenty-five performers assembled, along with Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Nicholas Courtney, and Anthony Ainley. The now legendary film composer Hans Zimmer played the music. Unfortunately, the single lacked in quality, and many stations, including BBC Radio, didn't broadcast it. Considered a failure, what proceeds it did raise went to cancer research.

But while “Doctor in Distress” didn't change matters, the ongoing and ever-increasing protests from fans evidently wore down Michael Grade. He
agreed to let
Doctor Who
return in late 1986 but with fourteen episodes each twenty-five minutes in length, making it the shortest season in the program's history to date. The production office was told to relaunch the show's style completely. The next season would determine whether
Doctor Who
continued.

Some Time Later

“Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal.”

—The Sixth Doctor, from “The Mysterious Planet” (1986)

 

Eric Saward met with Robert Holmes, and the two decided that the new fourteen-episode season would involve one long sub-plot: three adventures of four episodes each, framed by another story that came into focus for the final two episodes. Saward and Holmes took inspiration from
A Christmas Carol,
setting up a tale in which the Doctor would confront his past, his present, and his future. As the program itself was on trial, the same would hold true for the Doctor.

The season, called “Trial of a Time Lord,” features the Sixth Doctor possibly years after we'd last seen him. The hero has been spirited away by the Time Lords from his most recent adventure with Peri, his memory of what he was doing now clouded. A man called the Valeyard accuses the Doctor of acts unbecoming a Time Lord, and will show three examples to prove it.

Two of these adventures feature an older and more mature Peri. The Sixth Doctor acts much more nicely toward her, and the two interact like trusted friends. The program had fast-forwarded the Sixth Doctor's development to show the hero he was meant to become. Nicola Bryant not surprisingly had decided that this would be her last season and requested of Nathan-Turner that, whatever Peri's fate, it should be dramatic and not an abrupt goodbye. JNT told writer Philip Martin to kill Peri in the second main story of the season. When asked for more detail, JNT said he didn't care how it happened, just as long as she died.

In the second adventure of “The Trial of a Time Lord” (officially titled “Mindwarp” later), Peri is chosen to be the host body for a malicious entity.
The Doctor and his new ally, King Yrcanos (played by Brian Blessed), head to the lab where she is being held, hoping to rescue her. Before they can reach it, though, the Time Lords spirit the Doctor away to his trial and freeze Yrcanos in time, waiting to see if this dangerous mental transfer device works. Peri is fully possessed, her mind erased to make way for its new inhabitant. To ensure this technology is never used again, the Time Lords release Yrcanos, who flies into a rage, killing Peri while also destroying the machines.

Nicola Bryant quite liked the story. It was a dramatic and unique end for a companion. The next story in the trial (later officially titled “Terror of the Vervoids”) depicts a future adventure with a companion whom the Doctor hadn't met yet: Melanie Bush, a computer programmer from Pease Pottage, West Sussex, at the turn of the twenty-first century.

According to Eric Saward, John Nathan-Turner told him one morning: “I was driving home last night . . . and I thought we need a redheaded companion.” On this reasoning, JNT immediately suggested Bonnie Langford, a child star and ballet dancer who had performed in the 1974 Broadway revival of
Gypsy
with Angela Lansbury and had made regular appearances on the children's program
Junior Showtime
. Langford was known for being able to deliver a powerful scream, which some say was a factor in casting her since JNT wanted the companion to deliver such a cry when confronted by monsters. Langford played Mel as an effervescent, optimistic, but not naive young woman. Along with a photographic memory and a fine grasp of technology, Mel had an abiding concern with health and fitness, forcing the Sixth Doctor onto an exercise bike and insisting he drink more carrot juice.

Langford immediately came under criticism. Some didn't want such a well-known television personality cast as the companion. Others felt that Mel was too perky to work well with the occasionally gruff and sarcastic Sixth Doctor. But others enjoyed the relationship between the two, and Colin Baker has said that any criticism about Mel is really about certain scenes with her rather than Bonnie Langford herself.

But Langford wasn't the only one being criticized. Fans expressed their discontent with the new season, not seeing enough improvement since before the hiatus. An increasing number believed that John Nathan-Turner
was the problem. Eric Saward credited some of the season's failings to several writers, some having dropped out or written scripts deemed unacceptable. Jonathan Powell very openly found the season's initial story by Robert Holmes uninteresting.

Rather than showcasing an exciting new direction for the show, the shortened twenty-third season was floundering.

Altered Endings

Another problem concerned Robert Holmes. After writing the opening four-part adventure of the season (unofficially titled “The Mysterious Planet”), he was supposed to write the final framework story with Saward but fell terribly ill. Having grown close to Holmes, Saward worked on the last part with him.

Holmes, Saward, and JNT had agreed at the start that the season finale would reveal the Master as the hidden villain. Referencing “The Final Problem” in which Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty seemingly die by falling over the Riechenbach Falls together, this story would end with the Master and the Doctor locked in battle as they fell through a time vent, their final fate unknown. Either the time vent transports them elsewhere, or (in the event the BBC didn't renew
Doctor Who
) it marks their mutual end.

Although too ill to stay with the production, Holmes agreed to finish the script for the finale. He wrote the penultimate episode and outlined the final one before being admitted to the hospital. He died days later.

Deeply upset, Saward went to work finishing the script. He became angry when Nathan-Turner suggested changes, believing that they should leave the story alone out of respect for Holmes and because they had agreed to this course at the beginning of the season. He finally did concede on one point, though—that the Valeyard rather than the Master be the main villain and fall through the time vent with the Doctor.

In the new version, the Master would actually be an uneasy ally, refusing to kill the Doctor when the High Council orders him to do so. The Master also reveals the truth behind the trial: It's all part of an elaborate scheme by the Valeyard, who is in fact the Thirteenth Doctor, corrupted
by events yet to come and motivated by a desperate need to live past his final incarnation by somehow stealing life from his young self. The Valeyard had blackmailed the High Council into arranging the trial and helping this scheme by materializing his TARDIS around a time vent in the Matrix, which will inevitably unleash chaos across all reality if left open. Now revealed, the Valeyard opens the time vent, but the Doctor then grabs him and pushes them both through the crack in space and time. The Master shuts the vent, ending the threat but possibly trapping the Doctor and the Valeyard in eternal combat in limbo.

The ending satisfied Saward, but JNT later decided that ending on a cliffhanger was a bad idea. It didn't, in his mind, resolve the trial and the BBC could use the possibility of the hero's death as final justification to end
Doctor Who
. He also didn't care for the Valeyard being the Doctor's future self. After more arguments, Saward left the program and threatened legal action if his script for the final episode was plagiarized in any way.

This meant that John Nathan-Turner had to have a new script written from scratch. He gave the task to Pip and Jane Baker (no relation to Tom or Colin), who had written Mel's introduction adventure. Now, the finale (unofficially titled “The Ultimate Foe”) indicated that the Valeyard was a physical manifestation of the Doctor's dark desires and impulses, created in the hero's future during his regeneration into his thirteenth self. The Valeyard has traveled back into the Sixth Doctor's life and arranged this trial in order to steal his remaining regenerations and become more powerful. The villain seemingly meets his end, but then viewers see that he has replaced the Keeper of the Matrix.

Nathan-Turner decided that it had been a mistake to kill Peri, so in “The Ultimate Foe” the Doctor learns that the Valeyard had faked the images of her death. Peri survived the adventure, despite the Doctor's absence, and now serves as a warrior queen alongside Yrcanos. Happy that his friend is enjoying a new life, the Doctor resumes his adventures. This abrupt shuffle took Nicola Bryant aback; she didn't believe such a sudden romance would be Peri's fate.

The Verdict

“I shall beat it into submission. With my charm.”

—The Sixth Doctor, from “Attack of the Cybermen” (1985)

 

Before the season ended, Michael Grade had decided to renew the program for another year, but he still believed the show needed a very different atmosphere. He consulted Sydney Newman.

Newman suggested several ideas on the condition that he produce
Doctor Who
again. Among them was that the Doctor become more akin to Patrick Troughton, a cosmic hobo who is wise but also innocent and scatterbrained. He also believed it would be interesting if, after twenty-two years of running from his people, the Doctor had a firm reason to return to his home planet but couldn't because the TARDIS would now be unpredictable again. He suggested sibling companions, a homesick twelve-year-old girl and her reckless brother of eighteen. Newman also proposed that after a few adventures with the children, just as they were getting used to him, the Doctor regenerate into a woman.

Grade wasn't sure about these suggestions. Jonathan Powell met with Newman and decided that his ideas for a relaunch would cost more than the BBC wanted to spend, particularly when there was a growing feeling that the show wasn't wanted. Grade informed Nathan-Turner that
Doctor Who
would return for another year but that Colin Baker would not, saying the Sixth Doctor had been on long enough in his estimation and hadn't brought in the ratings they'd wanted. Grade also considered that Baker had fulfilled his contract of three years—even if one of those years hadn't involved production of a show. JNT then expressed a desire to leave the program himself, having produced it for six seasons now. He was told he could, but he still had to break the bad news to Colin Baker.

As Colin Baker shared in
The Story of Doctor Who,
“I had a phone call from John Nathan-Turner, by that time a good friend, saying, ‘I've got bad news and good news. . . . Well, the program is coming back next year.' What's the bad news? ‘Well, Michael Grade just said we have to find a new Doctor.'” Colin Baker considered it a “body blow.” In an interview with
Radio Wammo
in 2011, Colin Baker remarked, “Do you remember
Monty
Python's Flying Circus
? Do you remember that large foot that comes out the sky and stomps people? Well, when you say, ‘I'd like to beat Tom Baker's record,' boy, you climb to the mountain top for the foot to arrive and stomp on you. That was ill judged and a little naive.”