The Doctor Who 50-50: Part 31 - 1992

On Screen

The year began with some good news. Doctor Who was back on terrestrial TV! Admittedly it was repeats and it was on BBC 2 rather than BBC 1 but the mere presence of Doctor Who on TV again after two years of nothing was a reason to be cheerful.

And this wasn't just a one-off repeat, this was a full season of repeats with one story due to be shown for each Doctor. The season began with a specially made. clip show called by Resistance is Useless. This programme, which was crammed full of clips from throughout the series, was presented by The Anorak. The Anorak was just that - an talking anorak with a Birmingham accent. It was a little dig at the stereotypical, geeky fan.

The Anorak

After Resistance is Useless came the first of the repeats: William Hartnell in the first episode of 'The Time Meddler'. The story had never been repeated since it was first shown in 1965.

Over the next few weeks, more classic stories were repeated.  Following The Time Meddler came the Second Doctor's story 'The Mind Robber' and 'The Sea Devils' as the story chosen for the Third Doctor. The remaining stories for Doctor's Four to Seven were to be shown in 1993 but Third Doctor fans were able to enjoy a bonus repeat in November 1992 as The Daemons from 1971 got another showing.

The years had not been kind to The Daemons.  The original colour copies of four of its five episodes were missing from the BBC archives, replaced with inferior black and white prints.  However, by 1992, the wonders of modern technology meant that it could be re-colourised.  The re-colouring process was featured on an episode of BBC science programme Tomorrow's World and the story itself was repeated shortly after on BBC 2.

On Video

There were a number of video releases this year including a few that were a bit special...

The regular releases continued throughout the year with releases for   The Aztecs, The Claws of Axos, Robot, Logopolis, Castrovalva, Earthshock, Mawdryn Undead, The Caves of Androzani and The Twin Dilemma.  One unexpected addition to the release schedule was 'Tomb of the Cybermen'.  This story had been missing from the archives for many years, believed destroyed.  However a copy of it was found in a TV station in Hong Kong and returned to the BBC at the end of 1991.  It was rushed on to video in May 1992 so that fans could enjoy it as soon as possible.

Another special release was Shada.  You may recall that Shada was a story that was partially filmed back in 1979 but was ultimately abandoned due to a strike and never completed or broadcast.  Well, what had been filmed was finally released on video in 1992.  Obviously there were gaps in the story which were filled with newly-recorded narration from Tom Baker.

The 'Years' series of videos also continued with four releases: 'The Pertwee Years', 'The Tom Baker Years', 'Daleks: the Early Years' and 'Cybermen: the Early Years'.  The Pertwee, Dalek and Cybermen tapes had similar formats to the previous Hartnell and Troughton Years and included complete episodes from various stories.  The Tom Baker Years were different.  Here, Baker sat and watched clips from each of his television stories and then talked about each story.

Finally, there was another release in the Myth Makers series of interview tapes, this time focusing on Ace actress Sophie Aldred.  Sophie also appeared in 'More than a Messiah',  the second of the series of straight-to-video films starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant as the Stranger and Miss Brown.

On Audio


1992 proved to be a good year for fans of the black and white era of Doctor Who and of the Troughton era in particular.  Not only had 'Tomb of the Cybermen' been returned to the BBC archives and released on video, but two other 2nd Doctor stories were also released as soundtrack cassettes.

To explain: back in the 1960s, you usually had just one chance to enjoy a particular television programme. There were few repeats and, of course, no such thing as VHS or DVD.  So when an episode of, say, Doctor Who was shown there was a good chance that you'd never get to see it again.  However, a number of enterprising young fans realised that they could stick a microphone next to the TV and record the soundtrack of an episode on to tape.  That way, they could at least listen to their favourite Doctor Who stories over and over again.

The soundtracks of a good many Doctor Who episodes were recorded in this way, including all of those episodes that were missing from the archives.  In the early 90s, those same enterprising fans (now somewhat older) donated their recordings to the BBC, meaning that soundtracks of some of those missing stories could be released and enjoyed by fans.

The first two titles released were 'The Macra Terror' and 'Evil of the Daleks', both from Patrick Troughton's first season as the Doctor.  Because both stories had originally been intended for the visual medium of TV there were certain sequences in these recording that would make little sense to someone listening to them.  One episode of 'Evil of the Daleks', for example has a lengthy fight scene which doubtless looked great on screen but would be just random noise if listened to.  To get around this problem narrators provided specially recorded links to aid the listener by giving some background description.  The two narrators were Colin Baker for 'The Macra Terror' and Tom Baker for 'Evil...'.

Also released this year were a number of music titles.  Following on from the release of the 'Ghost Light' soundtrack in 1991, Mark Ayres music for Season 25's 'Greatest Show in the Galaxy' received the album treatment.  Also released were 'Earthshock' and 'The Five Doctors'. These were not, as you might expect from the titles, the soundtracks of those two particular stories.  These were the 'Doctor Who: The Music' albums from the early 80s repackaged and re-released with one or two new tracks that didn't appear on the original albums.



In Print
The New Adventures continued throughout 1992, the series starting to create its own unique identity, quite different from the television series that had spawned it.  Although this new, more adult version of Doctor Who didn't well with everyone, the series did have its fair share of fans who were keen where the books would take them.

The first three books released in 1992 were a linked trilogy of novels.  Under the umbrella title of  'Cat's Cradle', the three books were linked by the fairly straightforward premise that the TARDIS has been invaded by something.  For the duration of the trilogy, a silver cat follows the Doctor and Ace around.  The cat is a projection created by the TARDIS and acts as a warning of the damage caused to the time machine.

This linking theme was a very loose one with only the first and third books ('Time's Crucible' and 'Witch Mark' respectively) really dealing with the issues of the ailing TARDIS.  The second book, 'Warhead', was written by the last script editor of the TV series, Andrew Cartmel.  It saw the Doctor and Ace tracking down a young couple with psychic powers named Vincent and Justine in a bleak looking early 21st Century. Vincent and Justine would also appear in later books, also written by Cartmel.

Something else that would reappear in later books was the Doctor's house in Kent. Revealed in a later novel that it was bought in the 1970s by the Third Doctor 'the house in Allen Road' as it was referred to makes its first prose appearance here and would feature several more times as a base of operations for the Doctor. Interestingly, I've discovered that, had the TV series continued into the 1990's, then the house would likely have appeared on screen.

Following the Cat's Cradle trilogy and with the TARDIS more or less restored to full health, came 'Nightshade', written by someone now very well known to modern TV viewers: Mark Gatiss.  'Nightshade takes the Doctor and Ace to the late 1960s and a small village that is under attack from an alien entity  The entity feeds on emotions and people's darkest memories are coming back to haunt them.  The Doctor and Ace find themselves teaming up with aging actor Edmund Trevithick, who once played a character on TV called Professor Nightshade (Gatiss' own version of Professor Quatermass) to stop this entity.

Paul Cornell returned with his second novel, 'Love and War', which hearlded a major change in the series.  The novel sees Ace leave the Doctor after he manipulates her one time too many, causing her new boyfriend, Jan to go to his death.  It also introduces the Doctor's new companion, Professor Bernice Summerfield, or Benny to her friends.  Benny is an archaeologist from the 26th Century who is particularly interested in the 20th Century.  She's smart, funny, likes a drink and thinks that she's able to handle the Doctor.  She only agrees to travel with him if he promises not to mess with her life the way that he has with Ace's.

Benny's debut was something of a big deal.  By this point, the New Adventures were more or less seen as the official continuation of the TV series so Benny was seen as the next 'official' Doctor Who companion.  She even got a two page article in the Doctor Who Magazine to introduce her.  She was very popular with the fans at the time and her debut novel is widely considered to be one of the best of the New Adventures range.

Sadly, a lot of the good feeling evaporated with the next book, and the final novel of the year: Transit.  Transit was written by Ben Aaronovitch who had previously the highly regarded 'Remembrance of the Daleks' and less well regarded 'Battlefield' for TV.  He'd also novelised 'Remembrance' for the Target range which proved very popular.  People were expecting big things from this book and were left disappointed.  Some simply didn't like the story, which featured a futuristic train network spanning the solar system being invaded, but most took exception to the bad language, explicit sex and extreme violence.  The New Adventures had always boasted of stretching the boundaries of Doctor Who but many felt that this book took things too far.  It's significant that the books were toned down somewhat after this.

One point in Transit's favour is that it introduced a new recurring character: Kadiatu Lethbridge Stewart.  She's a genetically engineered soldier from the early 22nd Century who is distantly related to the one and only Brigadier Lethibrdige Stewart.  As Bernice is incapacitated for much of this novel, Kadiatu acts as the Doctor's temporary companion.  She will appear again in future novels.  

Alongside the novels there were a number of non-fiction books also released in 1992.  On the paperback front there was 'The Universal Databank', the third book from Jean-Marc L'officier and The Fourth Doctor Handbook by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker.  The Universal Databank was an A to Z of everything in Doctor Who although, unlike previous A to Z efforts, it did actually manage to get through the whole alphabet.

The Fourth Doctor Handbook was the first of a series of such books that covered each of the seven Doctors.  The series is widely regarded as being one of the most detailed and scholarly overviews of the TV series and its been reprinted at least twice to my knowledge.  This particular volume examined the genesis of the Fourth Doctor, examined the actor who played him, looked in detail at each of the Fourth Doctor's TV stories and also examined what went on behind the scenes.



From those same authors this year came a large hardback book titled simply: The Sixties.  The first of three books, The Sixties perhaps not surprisingly took a look at Doctor Who during the 1960s.  It was an indepth look at the making of the series during that decade as well as the two Peter Cushing films and the Dalek stageplay, Curse of the Daleks. One other major selling point was the huge amount of photographs included, many of which had never been published before.

The other major hardback release in 1992 was The Monsters written by Adrian Rigelsford.  The book detailed the background of several of Doctor Who's most popular monster races, excluding the Daleks and Cybermen who already had their own books.  These histories are described in a series of fictional accounts that take the form of UNIT reports, ancient legends or books supposedly written by characters from the TV series.  As with The Sixties, the illustrations are a major selling point of this book with many of the illustrations provided by Andrew Skilleter who was one of the major Doctor Who artists during the 80s and 90s.

1992 also saw the return of The Scripts books. Four books had previously been released in the late 80s but nothing more had been released for a couple of years.  Now two of those original books, The Tribe of Gum and Tomb of the Cybermen were re-released alongside two new books: The Daemons and The Masters of Luxor. This last book was especially interesting as it was the script of a story that was never actually made.  The Masters of Luxor, had it been made, would likely have occupied the slot that was taken by the very first Dalek story.  These scripts showed fans what we might have had instead of the Daleks.

Finally, the Doctor Who Magazine continued the old Annual tradition by releasing their second Yearbook, containing articles, comic strips and short stories.


In Comics

At the end of 1991, Doctor Who Magazine published the first part of a comic strip titled Evening's Empire.  For one reason or another the rest of the strip was delayed and reprints were presented in its place. By April the story had been scrapped entirely and DWM moved on to 'The Grief' - a three part story that saw the Doctor and Ace encountering more space marines being menaced by alien monsters long since thought dead.

From here on, the strip tied in closely to the New Adventures novels.  As mentioned above, the New Adventures were seen to be the official continuation of the TV series so it made sense for the comic strip to join in too.The Grief made reference to the Timewyrm novels and saw Ace starting to doubt whether the Doctor cares about her any more, something that comes to a head in the novel, Love and War. 

The next strip, Ravens tied in with the novels even more closely.  It's set during the second Cat's Cradle novel, Warhead, and written by Andrew Cartmel who also wrote the novel.  This story sees the Doctor enlist the aid of a Japanese warrior from the past called the Raven to help save a kidnapped woman and her daughter from a street gang in the 21st Century.  It's a rather unusual take on the Doctor who basically uses the Raven as a hired sword to kill the gang.  It was somewhat criticised at the time.

The next two stories were 1 parters and saw the return of popular artist John Ridgeway, who had previously illustrated all of the Sixth Doctor comic strips.  The first of these,  Memorial, is the story of the Doctor helping to save the last remnants of dying race while also helping an old man deal with the loss of his brother during World War II. 

Cat Litter was Ace's last appearance in the comic strip for the time being as Benny Summerfield had just made her New Adventures debut. This strip set up Ace's departure as it saw the TARDIS  randomly deleting rooms including, ultimately, Ace's own bedroom. Her room has been replaced by someone else's and the Doctor wonders if the TARDIS is preparing for the future...

The year came to an end with the first two parts of Pureblood, the debut strip for Benny and the long-awaited return to the comic strip of the Sontarans.

The Doctor Who 50-50: Part 30 - 1991

On Screen
There was thing of interest on TV this year.  Lime Grove Studios, in which many a Sixties episode of Doctor Who had been recorded, was closed down in 1991.  To commemorate it's passing BBC 2 decided to dedicate a whole day to classic programmes made in the studios.  So many classic programmes were re-shown that day: Bill & Ben, Z Cars even Quatermass.  And amongst all this was something never shown on TV before: the original pilot episode of Doctor Who.

The Doctor and Susan in the pilot episode

Those who had already bought 'The Hartnell Years' on video (see below) would have already seen a version of the Pilot but seeing it on TV was still something special.  The Pilot more or less follows the plot of the first episode that was shown on 23rd November 1963 but there are a few differences.  Susan is more quirky and 'alien', the Doctor is a lot less likable and, due to a technical error, the TARDIS doors refuse to close and bang about in the background for much of the second half of the episode.  Due to various reasons, not least technical issues, the episode was re-made but it was interesting to see what kind of series we could have ended up with.

On Video

Just as the novelisations had come to a natural end so the VHS releases start to speed up.  There were no less than ten video's released this year.  The stories released were: The Krotons, The Curse of Fenric - Special Edition with deleted scenes reinstated into the story, Planet of the Spiders, City of Death,The Three Doctors, The Masque of Mandragora, The Deadly Assassin and finally The Sontaran Experiment and Genesis of the Daleks that were released together in a double pack.

In addition there were two special releases from the BBC: The Hartnell Years and The Troughton Years.  These videos were presented by Sylvester McCoy and Jon Pertwee respectively and their chief purpose was to showcase some of the surviving episodes from the black and white era of Doctor Who.  It was obviously felt that, with so many black and white episodes missing from the archives, these compilations were the best way of releasing some of the remaining episodes on VHS.  'The Hartnell Years' contained the original Pilot episode, the third episode of 'The Crusade' (at the time its sole surviving episode) and the fourth episode of 'The Celestial Toymaker'.  'The Troughton Years', meanwhile contained episode 2 of 'The Abominable Snowmen', episode 3 of 'Enemy of the World' and episode 2 of 'The Space Pirates'.  In all cases these were the only surviving episodes of those particular stories.

Meanwhile, with the lack of new Doctor Who on TV, independent film and video makers were stepping in to try and fill the void.  One such person was Bill Baggs whose BBV company released  'Summoned by Shadows'.  This Doctor Who-ish short film starred Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, who had played the Sixth Doctor and Peri.  Here, Colin played a mysterious traveller with no name (although the credits refer to him as 'The Stranger' while Nicola plays his companion/assistant Miss Brown.  It all sounds quite familiar and with good reason as the film was intended as an homage to the series.  The film proved popular so, not surprisingly a sequel was soon in the works.

Finally a number of non-fiction videos were released this year.  'The Panopticon tapes' (of which there were five) were released by the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.  These tapes contained highlights form a number of conventions organised by the group, not least of which was the huge Paniopticon events that ran regularly throughout the Eighties and Nineties. Also released was 'Just Who on Earth is Tom Baker?' which, as its title suggests, provided an insight into the somewhat bizarre life of Tom Baker.

On Audio

There were a couple of music CDs from TV series composer Mark Ayres.  The first was a CD of the music from The Curse of Fenric.  The second, while not specifically a Doctor Who CD, did contain some Who related music.  This was 'Myths and Other Legends' and, for the most part consisted of music that Ayres composed for the Myth Makers series of interview videos.

Also worthy of mention is that 'The Pescatons', the Tom Baker audio story first released in the mid-70s, was re-released this year. Almost certainly this was in order to tie-in with the publication of the novelisation of this story.


In Print

In the world of Doctor Who books it was the end of one era and the beginning of another.  After almost 20 years, and with almost all TV stories published, the Target novelisations came to an end.  The final two books were the Seventh Doctor story 'Battlefield' and the 70s audio adventure 'The Pescatons'.  Although there would be further novelisations in years to come (indeed 'City of Death is due for 2014), these would be the last under the Target name

Happily, though, fans were not deprived of Doctor Who fiction for long. Virgin Publishing had purchased Target's parent company W H Allen and they decided to publish their own original novels featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace.  This new series was called The New Adventures and was intended as the official continuation of Doctor Who albeit in print rather than on TV. The books were also aimed at an older audience than either the TV series or the novelisations and intended to tell "stories too broad and too deep for the small screen."

The first four novels in the series were published in 1991 and were linked by a new enemy for the Doctor - the Timewyrm. The first book is called, appropriately enough, Timewyrm: Genesys and sees the Doctor and Ace encountering an alien posing as a goddess in ancient Mesopotamia. In attempting to stop the alien the Doctor inadvertently gives her some of the powers of the TARDIS and ends up creating the Timewyrm.

The next three books in the series see the Doctor and Ace hunting the Timewyrm through time and space. In Timewyrm: Exodus they travel to alternative timeline where the Nazis wons World War Two, then they travel to the far future in Timewyrm: Apocalypse. Finally, in Timewyrm: Revelation, the debut novel for one Paul Cornell, the Doctor takes a trip into his own mind for a final showdown with the creature.

In other book news, 1991 also saw the publication of 'Time Lord', a new attempt at a role playing game from Virgin Publishing. This book was a new attempt to create a Doctor Who roleplaying after the somewhat unsuccessful attempt in the mid 1980s. Sadly this attempt didn't fare much better.  Also published this years was 'The Gallifrey Chronicles' -  a coffee table book that looked at the history of the Time Lords and Gallifrey - and 'The Terrestrial Index' by Jean-Marc L'Officier.  This was the follow-up to the re-printed 'Programme Guide' and contained details on all of the comic strips and short stories published to date, other spin-off merchandise as well as a fictional history of the planet Earth as seen in the TV series.

Finally, after an absence of some years, the Annual was back.  It was called a Yearbook rather than an annual and was published by the same people behind the Doctor Who Magazine so at least readers could be confident that the book would be factually accurate.  Just like the Annuals of old, the content of the Yearbook was primarily made up of short stories and comic strips with some factual articles thrown in. 

In Comics

By 1991, Doctor Who Magazine was publishing 13 issues a year rather than 12 which, of course meant 13 comic strips as well.  The year kicked off with The Mark of Mandragora.  Continuing on from the two prelude strips published at the end of 1990, this story saw the entity called the Mandragora Helix using the TARDIS to return to Earth.  Once on Earth, the Helix creates a new drug that transforms innocent night club goers into its slaves.  The Doctor and Ace, assisted by UNIT under the command of a new character called Muriel Frost, have to stop it from taking over the world.

Following this somewhat epic adventure comes the culmination to a long running storyline.  'Party Animals' finally sees the Doctor arriving at the birthday party of his friend Bonjaxx.  Amongst the guests is Beep the Meep, Death's Head and a supposed future version of the Doctor. 

In 'The Chameleon Factor' the TARDIS is somewhat out of sorts following recent events.  As part of its recuperation it creates a new look for the console room that stays with the comic strip for good few years.

The two other main strips this year were 'The Good Soldier' which featured the Cybermen invading 1950s America and 'A Glitch in Time' which saw the Doctor and Ace investigating a temporal paradox in Earth's pre-history.

Issue 180 of Doctor Who Magazine saw the beginning of a new strip called Evening's Empire.  It promised to be something quite special with some quite impressive artwork and the return of UNIT and Muriel Frost.  But that first part was all that readers got to see for some time.  In issue 181 we were told that the strip was delayed and a re-print took its place.  The final issue of the year (issue 182) saw another apology and another reprint.  This situation would continue into 1992 and, in the end 'Evening's Empire' was never published in the Magazine.  That's not to say that it was never published at all.  But readers did have quite a wait...


Marvel also published two 'Specials' this year.  The first was released in the Summer and was, primarily a guide to the locations used for filming Doctor Who.  It also included a comic strip pitting the Doctor and Ace against a sand monster on the beach.  The second was a UNIT-themed Winter Special.  As well as articles and fiction focussed on UNIT there was a comic strip, 'The Man in the Ion Mask' featuring the Third Doctor, the Master and UNIT.  This was the first time that the Magazine had published a new comic strip featuring an old Doctor.  It wouldn't be the last.

The Doctor Who 50-50: Part 29 - 1990

"Hold on to your seat because you've got a new challenge to meet!"
  - The Doctor, Search Out Science

In 1990 Doctor Who entered a period called by many fans the 'Wilderness Years' due to the lack of new Doctor Who on television.  And while it's true that between 1990 and 2005 there was little new Who on TV, there was still plenty going on elsewhere as we'll see...

On Screen

For the first time in over a quarter of a century there was no new Doctor Who on television. The closest we got was an episode of a schools science programme called Search Out Science.  This particular episode was called Search Out Space and featured Ace and K9 along with an alien called Cedric taking part in a quiz about space, with the Seventh Doctor asking the questions. With the characters being played by the regular actors and the being programme being aired on 21 November, perhaps this could be classed as the 27th anniversary story.

Doctor Who also moved away from the BBC in 1990.  A new network of satellite channels was starting up called British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). Doctor Who became a regular fixture on the main entertainment channel, Galaxy, with the series being repeated from the beginning. One weekend in September saw the channel host a Doctor Who weekend, with the focus on the first ten years of the series. One of the hosts of the weekend was the most recent producer, John Nathan Turner.

Sadly, BSB didn't last long and it was sold to Sky TV.  But for a brief while it was the place to go to for fans who were starved of new Doctor Who and needed something to sate their appetites.

On Video

As well as repeats on satellite TV, there were also plenty of videos to buy.

For fans of the first two Doctors this was a bumper year for videos. An Unearthly Child, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the Web Planet, The Dominators, The Mind Robber and the War Games were all released this year.  In addition, Fourth Doctor story 'The Brain of Morbius was re-released.  This story had been hacked to pieces when it was first released on video.  Now it was fully restored to its original state.  Finally, 'The Five Doctors was also re-released.  There had apparently been some small edits on the original release of this video as well and, as with 'Morbius', all edits were restored.

Reeltime also continued their seemingly ongoing quest to interview everyone involved with Doctor Who by releasing three further Myth Maker tapes.  This time the subjects were the First Romana, Mary Tamm, Cyberleader actor David Banks and the last Producer of the series, John Nathan Turner.

On Audio

Beyond the 'Variations on a Theme' album being released on the relatively new format of CD, the audio releases this year dominated by David Banks.  You will recall that, in 1989 he released two tapes of readings from his 'Cybermen' book.  In 1990 he released two more.  These 'ArcHive' tapes were titled 'The Cyber Nomads' and 'The Ultimate Cybermen' respectively.

In addition to these, Banks also released two interview tapes.  Again, in 1989, he has released an interview that he'd recorded with Colin Baker. Well, in 1990 he interviewed two other Doctors.  Sylvester McCoy was interviewed in 'Who's the Real McCoy?' while Banks talks with Jon Pertwee in 'Pertwee in Person'.

Finally, one slightly unusual audio release came free with the December 1990 issue of the Doctor Who Magazine.  Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer had re-appeared in the pages of the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip in late 1989.  His return had obviously sparked a mini-resurgence of interest in the character, as you'll see further down this post.  One of the results of this sudden popularity was the recording of a theme tune for the character by a group called The Slaves of Kane.  The record, in flexi-disc format was given away with the magazine.  Sadly, I've never heard it so I can't vouch for its quality.

In Print

The Target novelisations were beginning to wind down by 1990, not surprising given that nearly all stories had been novelised and that the TV series was no longer on air.  Perhaps also not surprisingly most of the novelisations released this year were Seventh Doctor stories.

The Happiness Patrol, Ghost Light, Remembrance of the Daleks, Survival and the Curse of Fenric were all released this year to great acclaim.  Unlike the majority of the novelisations, these books were not just straight adaptions of the TV scripts into prose form.  These three books read more like novels in their own right, greatly expanding upon what was seen on TV.  For instance there are several passages in the 'Remembrance of the Daleks' novelisation that take us inside the mind of the Special Weapons Dalek.

Perhaps fittingly the man who had written some of the earliest novelisations and had written more than anyone else also wrote some of the last.  Yes, Terrance Dicks was back with novelisations of two early stories 'Planet of Giants' for the First Doctor and 'The Space Pirates' for the Second Doctor.

Target also released the third, and ultimately final, of the Missing Stories for the Sixth Doctor.  This story was called Mission to Magnus written by Phillip Martin.  Had it ever been made for TV we'd have seen the green slug-like Sil teaming up with the Ice Warriors to take on the Sixth Doctor and Peri.

Beyond this, there wasn't much else in the way of new Doctor Who books, although Target did begin reprinting some of the earlier Doctor Who novelisations with brand new cover designs. We did see the belated release of the third part of the Encyclopedia of the Worlds of Doctor Who.  The book covered the letters L to R but, unfortunately, poor sales meant that we never did get to see letter S to Z.

Finally, Abslom Daak (yes, him again) was given the graphic novel treatment by Marvel UK.  There was no new comic strip material in the book, although there was a short story.  This book reprinted all of his previous comic strip appearances from DWM.

In Comics

In 1990 the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip was the only source of new stories. That being said, the year began with 'Hunger from the Ends of Time' which was a story that had previously been printed in 'The Incredible Hulk Presents' the previous year. The story saw the Doctor travel to the library world of Catalog where the planet's collection of books was scattered throughout time in order to save on space. The story also reintroduces the futuristic UNIT type organisation, the Foreign Hazard Duty (FHD) group that first appeared the previous year 'Echoes of the Mogor'.

The next story was called 'Train-Flight' and featured a special guest appearance by Sarah Jane Smith.  By this point in time Sarah had long-since established herself as the most popular companion in the series' history.  So it's no real surprise that she should be reunited with the Doctor, albeit in comic strip form.  We'd have to wait another sixteen years for her to appear again on television. 

Speaking of her televised return, that episode 'School Reunion' does seem to contradict 'Time-Flight' somewhat as Sarah seems fair less angry and bitter at the Doctor for abandoning her in the comic strip then she does in 'School Reunion'.  Plus, of course, in 'School Reunion' both the Doctor and Sarah claim not to have met up since she left the Fourth Doctor in 'The Hand of Fear'.  Still, stories contradicting each other is hardly a new thing in Doctor Who and it doesn't take away from the fact that it's nice to see Sarah and the Seventh Doctor teaming up here.

Following 'Train-Flight' was 'Doctor Conkerer', a strip that was originally intended for 'The Incredible Hulk Presents', had it not been cancelled.  It featured the Doctor playing conkers against a group of Viking invaders in medieval Britain.  Then there was another one issue break for the comic strip as it was replaced with a text story called 'Teenage Kicks', written by Paul Cornell and featuring Ace alongside the Doctor.

The comic strip was back in the next issue with 'Fellow Travellers'.  This three-part story was written by the most recent script editor on the TV series, Andrew Cartmel and was also Ace's debut in the comic strip.  The story sees the Doctor and Ace dealing with a pair of creatures called 'Hitchers' that  possess people and animals with high levels of rage and hatred.

Following this story came two shorter than usual strips which were preludes to the next big story: 'The Mark of Mandragora'.  You may recall that the Fourth Doctor story 'The Masque of Mandragora' introduced the Mandragora Helix, an evil sentient form of energy that tried to take over the Earth.  'The Mark of Mandragora' was to be a sequel to that story.  The first of the preludes to this story features a guest appearance by the Brigadier, while the second sees the Doctor and Ace discovering that part of the Mandragora Helix is inside the TARDIS, years after the Doctor thought he had originally defeated it.  The story proper started in the final issue of 1990 but ran on well into 1991 so I'll look at it in more detail then.

 

   

The Doctor Who 50-50: Part 28 - 1989

"Can this world do no better than you as its champion?"
"Probably.  I just do the best I can"
 - The Destroyer and Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Battlefield

 On Screen

And so we reach the final season of Doctor Who which begins with the return of an old friend.  'Battlefield', written by Ben Aaronovitch who had also written the opening story of the previous season, reunites the Doctor with his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, retired head of UNIT.

UNIT itself is also back in action for the first time since the mid-seventies. This new look UNIT, which is now capable of taking down anything from Cybermen to werewolves, also has a new leader, Brigadier Winifred Bambera.

Lethbridge Stewart is called out of retirement to assist UNIT and the Doctor against figures from Arthurian legend who have travelled 'sideways in time' from another dimension where those legends are true.

Chief villain is Morgaine, half-sister of King Arthur and wielder of great magical powers.  She and her son, Mordred have travelled to 'our' Earth to find Excalibur which is buried at the bottom of a lake in an ancient spacecraft.

Whilst 'Battlefield' was criticised at the time for, amongst other things, some very dodgy acting one cannot fault its ambition.  Despite its small budget it's a fast-paced adventure with a lot of action and explosions, exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a UNIT story.

In terms of characters, there's a real effort being made in both the previous season and this one to make the Doctor mysterious again.  Here we discover that, in his future, the Doctor may just possibly become the Merlin of Arthurian legend.  It's all left open to speculation but this unseen future Doctor leave his Seventh incarnation a note that basically explains the plot.  Of course this possible future for the Doctor has never been referred to again on TV so time will tell whether he really will become Merlin at some point.

And then there's the Brigadier. Originally this was to be Lethbridge Stewart's swansong and he was to have been killed off.  However, wisely as it turned out, Producer John Nathan Turner changed his mind.  Nevertheless it is the Brigadier that saves the day as he faces off alone against the demonic blue-skinned Destroyer that Morgaine has let loose on Earth.  This would be the Brigadier's final appearance, in the TV series at least, and this story feels like a fitting finale.

After the action-packed season opener that was 'Battlefield' things settle down a bit with the next story, 'Ghost Light'.  Although shown second in the season this was actually the last Doctor Who story to be made in the programme's original 26 year run.

This story is also the first in what is a trilogy of stories focusing on the character of Ace.  Here, the Doctor takes Ace back to her home of Perivale, albeit a hundred years early.  The setting a large Victorian house called Gabriel Chase inhabited by a bizarre assortment of character headed up by one Josiah Samuel Smith who is not all he appears to be.

 
The story was quite heavily criticised at the time for being too complex to follow which is fair assessment at least until the final episode which literally throws some Light on events.  Light is an angelic looking being who has been hibernating in a crashed stone spaceship beneath the house.  He had been travelling through space cataloguing species on different planets and crash landed on Earth millions of years earlier.  Josiah Smith is one of Light's catalogue of creatures who has got loose and evolved himself into a Victorian gentleman who wants to take over the British Empire.  Light, on the other hand, now wants to destroy the Earth and the Doctor has to stop both of them.

There, it's as simple as that.  I think.

Next is 'The Curse of Fenric' which sees the Doctor and Ace travel to an army base in 1942 and face the Haemavores, vampire creatures from the far future that have been brought back in time by a being called Fenric.  Fenric is a force of 'pure evil', according to the Doctor, that was once imprisoned by the Doctor in an ancient flask. Fenric has now escaped his prison and wants, amongst other things, revenge on the Doctor.

This is a big story for the character of Ace, not least because unknowingly she meets both her grandmother and the baby who would later become the mother that she hates.  It's also revealed that it was Fenric who caused Ace to shot across time and space to meet the Doctor in her debut story, 'Dragonfire', which would in turn lead to the Doctor arriving at this point in time to meet Fenric.  It's doubtful that this little story arc was in anybodys head when Ace first appeared two years earlier but the production team have certainly done a good job in weaving various elements of the last two season together to give the impression that it was all pre-planned.

Ace also has another doomed romance with a soldier.  This time it's with Russian Captain Sorin who has come to the army base to steal a top secret encryption machine.  He ends up siding with the Doctor and Ace but, unfortunately, it turns that he's as much a pawn of Fenric as most of the other characters in the story.  Towards the end of the story Fenric takes over the body of Captain Sorin in order to have his final confrontation with the Doctor. 

The Doctor and Ace are also ably assisted by Nicholas Parsons as the Reverand Wainwright, a priest who has lost his faith thanks to the War.  As well as being a very likable character, Wainwright is also there to emphasise the power of faith as a weapon against the Haemavores.  Things come to a head when Ace uses her faith in the Doctor to hold back the Haemavore leader whilst the Doctor is in facing off against Fenric.  This is unfortunate as the Doctor had earlier persuaded the Haemavore to turn on Fenric which Ace was unknowingly preventing it from doing.

The only solution is for the Doctor to destroy Ace's faith in him by unleashing some truly vicious and hurtful insults about her.  Damage done, the Haemavore is able to turn on Fenric and finish him off once and for all.     

And so we come to 'Survival', not just the final story of the season but, for some years, the final ever Doctor Who story on TV. Of course, at the time it was made no one knew that this was going to be the final story which is actually a good time.  There's no sense that this is a series that is winding down or coming to an end.  Instead it's just the Doctor and Ace doing what they do best, getting into adventures and fighting monsters.

The Doctor takes Ace back to Perivale for the second time this season, except this time its Perivale in the 1980s rather than the 1880s.  Ace is finally home but she finds that all her friends have gone with no explanation.  Investigating, the duo find that residents of Perivale have been abducted and taken to the remote planet of the Cheetah People.  And the person behind these kidnappings?  None other than the Master.

As seems to be typical for the Master, he's got himself into trouble and is using others to get him out of it.  He's somehow become trapped on the Cheetah's world and cannot escape it.  He's also becoming a Cheetah person himself which is a curse of the planet.  The only way for anyone to escape the planet is to wait for someone else to become a Cheetah and then use their powers of teleportation (which all the Cheetah's have) to escape.

Ace begins to transform and is therefore able to use her new abilities to rescue herself, the Doctor and her friends from Perivale.  But the Master escapes too and this leads to a confrontation between him and the Doctor, first on the streets of Perivale and then back on the planet of the Cheetah People.  The last we see of the Master is him helpless on the planet of the Cheetah People as it's about to explode.  As we will see in the future, clearly escapes this fate but it's never explained how.     

As for the Doctor and Ace: they go walking off into the sunset together, looking for new adventures.  Shortly before the final episode was broadcast (just 2 weeks in fact), John Nathan Turner decided to change the end of the episode as it seemed likely that this was to be the final ever episode of Doctor Who.  To that end a new speech was written for the Doctor at the climax of the episode.  Sylvester McCoy recorded it and it was dubbed over the visuals that had been shot some months earlier.  The end result was one of the most famous speeches in the history of the series.  Although slightly melancholy it also has a positive note to it.  The series might be over but the Doctor and Ace still have work to do.

On Video

1989 saw three stories released on video by the BBC.  Fourth Doctor story The Ark in Space, Third Doctor tale The Time Warrior and the First Doctor's first encounter with the Daleks were all released this year.  'The Daleks' wasn't just the first William Hartnell story to be released on video, it was also the first to be released completely uncut. Previous releases had been edited into 'mini-movies, for want of a better term, with the beginning and end title sequences removed. This story was the first to leave all the episodes intact with nothing edited out. Due to its length this story was also the first to be released on two tapes.

Reeltime also released a number of new interview tapes in the Myth Makers series. The impressive selection this year included Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Richard Franklin (aka Captain Mike Yates) and a special release all about the Doctor Who Magazine.

On Stage

For only the second time in its life Doctor Who found itself treading the boards.  Touring the country throughout the summer of 1989, Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure, written by the ever-reliable Terrance Dicks, was a lavish stage show which starred Jon Pertwee as the Doctor initially before Colin Baker took over the role for the latter stages of the tour.Also, for one performance only, David Banks - who played a mercenary in the play and had been the Cyberleader on TV - took over as the Doctor when Jon Pertwee was ill.

Jon Pertwee

Colin Baker

David Banks

The show included Daleks, Cybermen, an impressive light show and even a couple of musical numbers so it's perhaps not surprising that it did well at the box office.  There were apparently plans to take it abroad at one point but, in the end that didn't happen. 


On Audio

One of my favourite audio releases came out in 1989.  Variations on a Theme was an EP record which, as its title implied, included four different versions of the Doctor Who theme.  The four themes were composed by the three men who had composed the music for the last three years of the series - Keff McCulloch, Dominic Glynn and Mark Ayres.  All four themes are very different and really try to do something different with the familiar tune.  My personal favourite is Keff McCulloch's jaunty Latin Mix although the whole album  is worth hunting down if you can find it.


Meanwhile, former Cyberleader turned author David Banks appeared in not one but three audio releases.  The ArcHive Tapes were based on his 'Cybermen' book that had been published the previous year.  Banks adapted and narrated this series of four tapes, the first two of which were released in 1989.

Banks was also one half of 'The Ultimate Interview', a 60 minute tape which saw Banks and Colin Baker interviewing each other whilst they were both on tour performing 'The Ultimate Adventure'. 

In Print

By 1989 the majority of the TV stories had been novelised and, with the TV series coming to an end, the editors at Target books were looking for ways to extend the range. One idea was to novelise scripts of stories that never made it to screen, in particular those stories that had originally been intended for Colin Baker's second season in 1986 before Michael Grade intervened and they dropped in favour of 'Trial of a Time Lord'.

The first two of these were published in 1989.  'The Nightmare Fair' was written by Graham Williams, who you may recall was the Producer of Doctor Who in the late Seventies. The story, had it been made, would have been set in Blackpool Pleasure Beach and featured the return of the Celestial Toymaker, not seen since 1966. The second book, 'The Ultimate Evil', was written by well-known science fiction author Wally K Daly and saw the Doctor going up against an alien arms dealer.

In terms of the other novelisations released in 1989, the majority were either First or Seventh Doctor books. For the First Doctor we were given 'The War Machines', 'The Chase' and 'The Daleks Masterplan'.  On TV 'Masterplan' was twelve episodes long (thirteen including the prologue episode, 'Mission to the Unknown'). As a result the novelisation was split over two books.

Seventh Doctor fans were treated to novelisations of 'Delta and the Bannermen', 'Dragonfire', 'Silver Nemesis' and 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.' Finally there was a pair of Sixth Doctor novelisations published, 'Attack of the Cybermen' and 'Mindwarp' - part of 'The Trial of a Time Lord'.


Beyond the novelisations there was little else new in the way of books. The series of script books that had begun in 1988 continued with 'The Daleks', 'Tomb of the Cybermen' and 'The Talons of Weng Chiang' all being released as scripts.

We also the had the much anticipated second volume of the Doctor Who Encyclopedia, covering the letters E to K.  Finally, Jean-Marc Lofficier's Doctor Who Programme Guide, previously published in 1981, was updated and republished, now covering everything up to the end of 1989.

In Comics

In the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, much of the year was taken up with the Doctor trying and failing to get to the planet Maruthea in order to attend the birthday party of his never before mentioned friend Bonjaxx.

The Doctor's first stop on his way to Maruthea is a planet that is experiencing flooding of Biblical proportions in the 2-part story 'Time and Tide'.  The Doctor aids the sole surviving member of the planet's race and their unborn child to build a raft and ride out the flood.

Following this comes 'Follow That TARDIS!'  another of the Doctor's occasional crossovers with other comic book characters.  This time he meets the Sleeze Brothers (basically a sci-fi version of the Blues Brothers).  The Sleeze Brothers were about to debut in their own comic book so this was an attempt to attract some new readers.

The story sees the Brothers and the Doctor chasing the Meddling Monk through time and space, travelling to various different periods in Earth's history and causing havoc along the way.  This strip was pure comedy and, according to some, is more like a spoof of Doctor Who than anything else.

The next story was a little more serious. 'Invaders from Gantac' saw the Doctor travel to Earth in the year 1992 to find that it has been invaded by aliens from the planet Gantac.  The Doctor teams up with a homeless man called Leapy and it's Leapy's fleas that save the day and defeat the invaders. Well I did say it was only a little more serious.

'Invaders from Gantac' concluded in issue 150 of DWM. The following issue saw the comic strip replaced with a text story titled 'The Infinity Season'. This was the first of only a handful of times where the comic strip did not appear at all in the magazine.

The next comic strip story saw the long awaited meeting of the Doctor and a popular character from the early days of the magazine - Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer. Although he had appeared in the back up strip of the magazine back in the early 80s, Daak had never met the Doctor until now.  Here the two of them team up to take on the Daleks who are building a Death Star type battle station called the Death Wheel.  Sadly their partnership proves to be short lived as Daak sacrifices himself to destroy the Wheel.

The final story of the year was a one-part tale titled 'Stairway to Heaven' that was co-written by Paul Cornell who was destined to write some of the most original and popular Doctor Who fiction in the years to come.

Finally I have to mention 'The Incredible Hulk Presents' which was a short-lived children's comic that ran for 12 weeks at the end of 1989.  The comic included several comic strips such as The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and of course Doctor Who.  Because 'The Incredible Hulk Presents' was aimed at a younger age group than the Doctor Who Magazine, the Doctor Who strips were simpler and shorter than those in the Magazine.  That being said, one of the stories - a 2-parter called 'Hunger from the Ends of Time' - was reprinted in the Doctor Who Magazine in 1990.  One other story, 'Doctor Conkerer' was intended for issue 13 of 'The Incredible Hulk Presents' but when the comic was cancelled with issue 12, the strip instead made its debut in the Magazine.