Doctor Who (21 page)

Former
Doctor Who
production manager Gary Downie later suggested that Grade had personally targeted Baker because the controller was close friends with Liza Goddard, who had bitterly divorced Baker some time before and then married rock musician Alvin Stardust in 1986. In 2004, Downie told
Doctor Who Magazine,
“Michael Grade was determined. He did not want Colin working for the BBC.”

Adding to the defeat, Eric Saward gave an interview in which he spoke critically against John Nathan-Turner as producer and Colin Baker as the Doctor, saying he didn't think the latter's performance was good and never believed the actor was appropriate for the role. Years later, in the documentary
Trials and Tribulations,
Saward maintained this position: “He lacks that quality that I think the part demands. Troughton had it. Tom Baker certainly had it in bucket loads. Peter didn't really have it, but Peter was a good actor, and he brought a certain something to the part. Colin is a fair character actor but not really a leading man, not for something as big as that.”

The BBC asked Colin Baker to do a four-part story opening the next season, at the end of which his Doctor would regenerate. He refused. Afterward, Jonathan Powell told him that his refusal to return was inconvenient for the BBC. Baker countered that it was inconvenient for his acting career to be put on hold for months because he still had contractual obligations to
Doctor Who.
He remained firm in his decision and didn't appear in the regeneration scene.

When the next season started, viewers saw the TARDIS, mid-flight, suddenly shot down and forced to crash land. The Sixth Doctor and Mel lie on the floor, unconscious. The Rani enters and the Doctor is glowing, suddenly becoming a new man.

To cover for Colin Baker's absence, the production team had Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy put on the Sixth Doctor's costume and a blond wig. McCoy has joked that, because of this, he is the only actor officially to play two Doctors. Many fans wondered what exactly caused this regeneration.
Had something happened just before the TARDIS was shot down, some unknown adventure?

Later tie-in media explained that the Doctor smashed his head into the console during the crash, prompting the change. The Sixth Doctor's fate was expanded in the novel
Spiral Scratch,
published in 2005, when the past Doctor novels were ending to make way for the modern day program's tie-in books. Gary Russell wrote that the Sixth Doctor saved the multiverse in his final adventure, but this drained his body of chronal energies. When the Rani forces his ship to crash, the impact is too great for the greatly weakened Doctor, and the regeneration begins.

Before he goes, the Sixth Doctor comforts his companion in a scene that finally gave the incarnation a chance to bid farewell to fans. He says, “Don't cry, Mel. It was my time. Well, maybe not, but it was my time to give. To donate. I've had a good innings, you know, seen and done a lot. Can't complain this time. Don't feel cheated.”

Another Chance

Though soured by events surrounding his departure, Colin Baker remained positive about the actual experience of being the Doctor. In 1989, when Jon Pertwee had health issues, Baker resumed the role of the Doctor for the stage production
Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure
(the script slightly altered to better fit his incarnation). He also wrote
Doctor Who
stories and
comic strips, and provided dialogue for the 1997 video game
Destiny of the Doctors.

Sylvester McCoy, Peter Davison, and Colin Baker take a break from recording “Sirens of Time” (1999)

Photograph courtesy of Big Finish Productions

Colin Baker began recording new audio dramas with Big Finish Productions in 1999. Taking place sometime after his trial, the Sixth Doctor's first solo adventure,
The Marian Conspiracy,
introduces a new companion, a middle-aged history teacher named Dr. Evelyn Smythe, played by Maggie Stables. With sharp stories, new enemies, and fine performances, the Sixth Doctor audio dramas quickly became a success, and they continue to this day. The Sixth Doctor has risen in popularity with fans who've now heard what kind of hero he could have been, given the proper stories and the chance to grow.

It was just a matter of time.

16

High Camp and Time's Champion

“Doctor, are you sure you're well?”

“Of course. Fit as a trombone.”

—The Rani and the Seventh Doctor, from “Time and the Rani” (1987)

 

While Colin Baker was being forced off the show, JNT resented being forced to stay. First BBC executives told him that he could produce another program, but then they couldn't find another person to take the reins, so he had to remain. JNT had to make up for lost time since he hadn't put any effort into commissioning stories or finding a new script editor, thinking he was leaving.

Pip and Jane Baker came back to pen the opening story, featuring the Rani since actor Kate O'Mara had recently returned to England after appearing as a regular in
Dynasty.
They wrote the adventure, originally called “Strange Matter,” to serve as Colin Baker's finale, since JNT had told them that the actor would change his mind and return to give his Doctor a send-off. The script ends with the Sixth Doctor destroying the Rani's lair, only to be caught in the explosion. Mel then finds the newly regenerated Seventh Doctor lying in the rubble.

JNT then brought in new script editor Andrew Cartmel, who wanted to do a very different
Doctor Who.
Influenced by critically acclaimed writer Alan Moore's recent work on comics such as
Swamp Thing, Watchmen,
and
V for Vendetta,
Cartmel wanted to deconstruct the Doctor's nature and adventures. He requested changes to “Strange Matter,” which was retitled “Time and the Rani.” And of course, with Colin Baker still refusing to return, this meant the story needed to be rewritten for a Doctor yet to be cast.

Enter: McCoy

Sylvester McCoy was born Percy Kent-Smith in Dunoon, Scotland, to an Irish mother. His father, an Englishman, had died during World War II before the child's birth. Kent-Smith initially studied to become a priest, but then worked in the insurance industry before taking a job at the box office of The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, North London. He performed comedy on stage there, his most popular act being the portrayal of a stuntman named Sylveste McCoy. A reviewer didn't realize it was a scripted comedy and referred to Kent-Smith as if he were the character. Thus it became his stage name, eventually evolving into Sylvester McCoy.

When Colin Baker left, McCoy was playing the Pied Piper at the National Theatre. After years of comedy, portraying a dangerous hero appealed to him. He also liked the prospect of having Bonnie Langford as his companion, having worked with her a few years before in
The Pirates of Penzance
at Theatre Royal Drury Lane (along with Tim Curry).

Sylvester McCoy's agent called Nathan-Turner and then, according to McCoy, the producer received another call minutes later from children's program producer Clive Droig, who also recommended him for the role. “It was just kismet,” McCoy said in an interview for this book at Gallifrey One 2013. “John figured, ‘Well, he's playing the Pied Piper right now. I may as well go see if he can act.' Thank goodness he did!”

Seeing McCoy's performance as the Pied Piper, JNT believed him the right man for the job and informed his superiors. But after two years of low ratings, his casting was questioned for the first time. Jonathan Powell suggested he formally audition other potentials just to be sure.

Sylvester McCoy did screen tests for the role, along with Irish actor Dermot Crowley (
Return of the Jedi, Father Ted, Luther
) and the mustachioed David Fielder (
Superman III, Inspector Morse, The Bill
). JNT engineered the auditions deliberately for these other two actors because, while he regarded them as good, he didn't think either right for the role. This way, he could show Powell video-taped proof that McCoy was the strongest choice. For the tests, Janet Fielding read opposite the three men.

JNT told McCoy he wanted to return to a Troughton-style Doctor. Despite initially wanting to go darker, the actor conceded and took inspiration from
Charlie Chaplin. Since the Sixth Doctor had often quoted philosophers and writers, Nathan-Turner decided the Seventh would mix up clichés: “A poor workman blames his fools,” and “Time and tide melts the snowman.” Pip and Jane Baker disliked this wackiness, saying it was forced. That JNT insisted on including a bit in which the Seventh Doctor played the spoons took them aback even further.

As McCoy tells it, “We were out to dinner, and I was playing the spoons as a gag. John says, ‘That's great. We need to include that in
Doctor Who.
' I thought he was joking!” He later agreed that the campy comedy went too far in his debut story. “I can see that stuff as a mistake now, even though we were having fun on set. People wanted to know what the new Doctor was like, and they wanted to see him fight evil.”

Originally, the Bakers wrote the Seventh Doctor as existing already. But Nathan-Turner thought this a mistake, leading to the hastily added regeneration scene. In later interviews, Andrew Cartmel admitted that he shouldn't have interfered with the story and should have seen it as a learning experience before delving into his job. “Time and the Rani” aired in September 1987, nine months after Colin Baker's final adventure. It wasn't well received.

The rest of the Seventh Doctor's first season proved just as short as Colin Baker's final year, with four stories divided across fourteen episodes that continued to present a lighthearted, clownish hero. Verity Lambert counted herself among those who criticized these adventures, saying, “I'd watch it and think,
Nobody's really believing what they're doing here. They just think it's all rather funny and they're rather smart and clever.
”

Some also criticized Mel for doing little more than asking plot questions and screaming in fear. On this point, McCoy said, “Bonnie is a fine actress and a professional. She had a magnificent scream, and JNT wanted to use that, and she was doing her job. . . . I loved working with her, but she wasn't always given the best chance to shine in those early stories. Nor was my Doctor, really. I was becoming too clownish.”

The creative team dropped Mel at the end of the season in a story called “Dragonfire.” The same story introduced a space station waitress named Dorothy, aka Ace. Played by Sophie Aldred, Ace was a teenager from the late twentieth century who had been caught in a time storm,
catapulting her into the future (echoing Dorothy Gale from
The Wizard of Oz
). She was assertive, sassy, and made a hobby of creating homemade explosives called Nitro-9.

Aldred quickly developed a natural chemistry with McCoy, and Ace formed an interesting contrast to Mel. By the end of the adventure, JNT and Cartmel decided that Ace would be the Doctor's next companion. “We were keen to move on not from Bonnie so much as the character she was portraying,” Cartmel said. “We wanted to bring on a character who was much tougher, much more street level, much more streetwise.”

“There was no resentment about the decision for Mel to leave,” McCoy said of this casting change, in an interview for this book. “Now I'd have a companion who was my own and didn't know any Doctor before me. I did object to how she left, though. Originally, it was even more abrupt, and I said there should be more of a goodbye between us. John didn't want an emotional goodbye. He said, ‘She's only been with you for a few adventures.' I said, ‘But she's actually been with the Doctor much longer. Colin and I are the same character!' . . . They listened. . . . We used a bit I liked from my audition scene. I was already thinking by then that I wanted to explore how strangely the Doctor must view the universe with the senses of a Time Lord.”

 

MEL:
“I'm going now.”

THE DOCTOR:
“Yes, that's right, you're going. You've been gone for ages. You're already gone. You're still here. You've just arrived. I haven't even met you yet. It all depends on who you are and how you look at it.”

 

Along with Mel's departure and Ace's introduction, “Dragonfire” remains famous for two considerations: First, a villain's face melts off in one scene, prompting an outcry and many letters; and second, it featured perhaps the most loathed cliffhanger for a
Doctor Who
episode. At the end of the first episode, writer Ian Briggs (no relation to Nicholas) has the Doctor walking alongside a path on the side of an ice cliff that abruptly comes to an end. He decides to climb the steep cliff, slipping and barely catching himself. With the sudden risk of a fatal fall, it was a literal cliffhanger.

Cartmel and the cast thought the script's events clear and effective. But in director Chris Clough's hands, the scene came off quite differently. As shot, the Doctor is walking on a path with a railing alongside a cliff. He looks over the railing and sees a sheer drop down. Then,
for no reason,
he climbs over the railing and hangs from it, exacerbating the situation by holding on via his umbrella rather than simply climbing back up. At this point, the episode ends.

As the twenty-fourth year closed, a different atmosphere for
Doctor Who
was on the way.

The Master Planner

McCoy decided it was time to give the hero a darker, more mysterious nature. As he explained to me, “I spoke with Andrew Cartmel, and he and I were very much thinking the same thing. We'd said in ‘Time and the Rani' that the Doctor was . . . 953 years old. Over nine hundred years he's walked and so much of that time was spent fighting. He must have so many parts he doesn't reveal. He must understand things in ways we can't quite imagine. He must feel so disconnected at times, too. . . . My grandmother died after one hundred years and three months, and she was sad about all the people who'd gone before her. But in those last months, she'd realized she'd never had a drink, so she went about getting drunk and laughing until she simply went to bed one night, and that was that. I wanted to bring that weight to the role.”

Along with McCoy's new direction, Cartmel and JNT decided to involve more references and connections to
Doctor Who
stories of the past, which were now more readily available to the public thanks to VHS releases. The next season opened with “Remembrance of the Daleks” and even featured a return to I. M. Foreman's scrap yard at 76 Totter's Lane. Ace finds herself wandering through Coal Hill School and comes across Susan's abandoned copy of
The French Revolution
from “An Unearthly Child.” The adventure has the Doctor work alongside the British military—not UNIT but close—and reveals more of Time Lord history.

The Doctor had definitely changed. More introspective now, he lamented the risks of time travel even as he manipulated friends and enemies alike
into fulfilling a master plan. He spoke darkly of the human capacity for ignorance and violence. He orchestrated the destruction of an enemy planet and talked a Dalek into destroying itself. Because of this, in the novelization of “Remembrance of the Daleks,” the villains of Skaro label the Doctor Ka Faraq Gatri, which translates loosely to “bringer of darkness” and “destroyer of worlds.”

In later stories, the Seventh Doctor showed a more pragmatic attitude in the use of his mental abilities. Like the Master, he was not above using hypnosis to make his life easier. He even displayed the ability to cause mental pain by touching another's head. But along with this darkness came a mentor role. “It was important that Ace not just be a sidekick who asked the questions,” McCoy said to me. “I wanted [a partnership] more like Steed and Peel [from the TV show
The Avengers
] . . . she was growing into a hero who could have her own adventures. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could have a show like
Doctor Who
with a young lady as the hero in charge? She [Ace] was already more fully formed than other companions . . . . We even visited her home, which was never done before [with a
Doctor Who
companion]. . . . I thought science fiction needed another strong woman or five. It still does.”

McCoy also wanted to remodel the TARDIS interior to have a ­steampunk-style. The actor was a fan of Jules Verne's work and liked the idea of the ship's technology being as paradoxical as the Doctor himself. But the idea was deemed unnecessary and expensive.

Writer Kevin Clarke wanted to script a story for this season and was told that the only open slot was for the twenty-fifth anniversary story in November. Clarke agreed, saying he already had an excellent story in his pocket to celebrate the occasion. The creative team asked him to explain it the next morning. But Clarke had lied—and had no idea what to do when he arrived at the meeting. He bought time by saying that the anniversary story should address the question “Doctor
who
?” reminding the audience that twenty-five years later they still didn't know his name or true origins. Nathan-Turner called it a good start, but what was the answer?

“He's God,” Clarke said suddenly. He proposed that the Doctor was taking care of Earth because he had unleashed forces on it long ago that had escaped his control. The villain of the story would be Nemesis, the
Devil. JNT considered this and told Clarke to write the story but not to make direct reference to God or the Devil. He also insisted that the Cybermen appear since they were silver, and twenty-five years marks a silver anniversary.

The story went through a few rewrites and became “Silver Nemesis,” striking many as one of the show's stranger tales. The Doctor has imprisoned a statue of living metal named Nemesis into an asteroid that circled Earth, compelling dark events to happen every twenty-five years. A witch who knew the Doctor's secret past was after Nemesis, hoping to use its power to rule the world. Also seeking the living statue was a group of neo-Nazis and the Cybermen.

The story led to many questions from fans. Who was this witch, and how did she know the Doctor? If the hero knew the asteroid was causing trouble on Earth, why not simply stop its orbit at an earlier date or hide it somewhere else in the universe that wasn't inhabited?