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.

The Doctor Who 50-50: Part 27 - 1988

 

"Doctor who? Have you never wondered where he came from? Who he is?"

 - Lady Peinforte,Silver Nemesis

On Screen

Doctor Who had reached its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1988 which means that we've also reached the halfway point in this overview of the series's history. And how did they celebrate this milestone?  Not with a multi-Doctor get-together as many might have expected.  On TV at least, the production team took a different tack.  Whilst the third story of the season, 'Silver Nemesis' was promoted as the Silver Anniversary story (mostly because it has 'Silver' in the title and featured the Cybermen).  But, to many fans, it was the opening story of the 25th season, 'Remembrance of the Daleks',  that was the true Anniversary story as it took the Doctor and Ace back to where (and when) it all began. 

'Remembrance...' sees the Doctor and Ace arrive in London in 1963 so that the Doctor can pick up something that he left behind when he was last in this time.   When the Doctor was last in 1963 he left behind a powerful Time Lord device called the Hand of Omega.  In the wrong hands it can be used as a deadly weapon.  And it has seemingly taken the Doctor all this time to get round to coming back to 1963 to pick it up. 

This story sees the beginning of the idea of the Doctor as the master-manipulator, someone who always seems to have some grand master plan and isn't bothered about using those around him -  friend and foe - to achieve his ends. It's something that will appear in these last two seasons of the TV series several times, not to mention a lot of the spin-off media that appeared in the early 1990s.

 Here, the Doctor knows that the Daleks want the Hand of Omega and wants them to steal it because he's arrange for the Hand to destroy the Daleks once and for all.  However the Doctor's plan has a snag as there are two different groups of Daleks after the Hand, something that he hadn't planned for.  There are the grey Renegade Daleks (led by a Black Dalek) and the white and gold Imperial Daleks (led by a dome headed Emperor who looks similar to the Emperor from the Sixties Dalek comic strip that ran in TV 21).  

There's also a group of soldiers and scientists, headed by one Group Captain Gilmore - a sort of prototype UNIT commanded by a prototype Brigadier figure -  who are trying to protect London from both sets of Daleks.  In the end the Imperial Daleks steal the Hand of Omega and the Doctor tricks the Emperor - who turns out to be Davros in disguise - into using it to destroy the Daleks home planet of Skaro and their own spacecraft.The Renegade Daleks, on the other hand have been wiped out by the Imperials and the Doctor talks their leader into committing suicide.  All in all not a good day for the Daleks. 

This is a particularly good story for Ace in her first story as a full-on companion.  On the one hand we get to see her gung-ho aggressive side as she beats up a Dalek with a baseball bat.  On the other hand we also get to see the softer side of her character.  We discover her disgust of racism and see her cope with falling for someone who turns out to be a traitor.  Already Ace is turning out to be one of the most well-rounded characters yet created for the series.

'The Happiness Patrol' is the next story and again shows the Doctor's manipulative side as he engineers a revolution and brings a corrupt regime down all in one night.   

The corrupt regime in question is led by Helen A who controls the people of the planet Terra Alpha by forcing them to be happy.  Those that aren't happy are executed.  The Doctor brings together the dissatisfied populace of Terra Alpha (who call themselves as Killjoys) and the indigenous population of the planet (who have taken to living in fear beneath the planet's surface) and together they bring down Helen A and her 'Happiness Patrol'.  

This story is 'infamous' for two main reasons.  The first is Helen A who is portrayed by actress Sheila Hancock in what can only be seen as a pastiche of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  It caused some comment in the press at the time and was, unusually, brought up again a couple of years ago when the news programme 'Newsnight' ran a piece on the story and its 'anti-Thatcher agenda'.  

The other reason for this story's infamy is the appearance of Helen A's chief executioner, the Kandyman.  When he first appeared on screen it was obvious to all that he bore more than a passing resemblance to Bertie Bassett, the mascot for a popular brand of sweets.  It resulted in an angry letter to the BBC from the company, saying that their copyright had been infringed.  Of course this was not the case but one can't deny the resemblance:

We now come to 'Silver Nemesis', the story that was officially billed the as the Silver Anniversary.  The first episode was broadcast on the Anniversary date itself, 23rd November 1988.  Also, according to a caption on-screen, much of the story is set on that same date.  Which is all well and good except that it quickly becomes obvious that the whole story was filmed in mid-summer. 

Putting the silver into 'Silver Nemesis' is the Cybermen who are on Earth looking for validium, a Time Lord-created living metal that has crashed to Earth in the form of a statue.  Also after the statue, called Nemesis, are a group of Neo-Nazis and Lady Peinforte, who has time travelled from the year 1638 to reclaim the statue that used to belong to her.  

In a story not entirely dissimilar to 'Remembrance of the Daleks', the Doctor manipulates the three opposing groups into wiping each other out before using the power of the statue to destroy the Cybermen, seemingly once and for all.

Finally, we come to 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy', the final story of this anniversary season.  The Doctor and Ace travel to the planet Segonax to visit the famous Psychic Circus and take part in their talent show.  Naturally, things are not what they seem.  The Circus is now under the control of the Gods of Ragnarok, a trio of powerful beings who need to be entertained constantly and kill when they don't get what they want.  The Doctor puts on the one-man show of his life to keep the Gods distracted while Ace searches for the means to destroy them. 

This story was very nearly not made at all.  As filming began at the BBC studios in Elstree, asbestos was discovered in the building and the studios were closed while it was removed.  Producer John Nathan Turner came up with a solution that enabled filming to continue.  As the story was set in a circus he simply switched filming from a studio to a genuine circus tent that was erected in the car park of Elstree studios.  Had it been another story that had been hit by this crisis it's possible that we'd have been looking at a shortened season and an incomplete story.

On Video

There were three classic stories released on video this year: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Zygons and Talons of Weng-Chiang. The latter two stories were the first to be released with a PG rating in the UK. This was something that caused some controversy at the time and actually delayed the release of both videos for a time.Indeed, both were released in Australia some six months before they came out in the UK.

Another video release that had been delayed was an independent production called 'War-Time'. This was a straight to video short film produced by Reeltime, the same company that produced the Myth Makers interview videos.  

'War-Time' focuses on Sargent Benton who, if you recall appeared regularly alongside Jon Pertwee in the 1970s. Benton was apparently the only regular Doctor Who character not copyrighted to the BBC which made him the ideal subject for an unofficial production like this one. This is a ghost story that sees Benton being haunted by figures from his past, most notably his father.

Benton returns in War Time

Also released this year was another in the Myth Makers interview series. This time the focus was on writer and director Peter Grimwade.

On Audio

To celebrate the Anniversary, the BBC released the 25th Anniversary Album.  However, if you were expecting music from throughout the history of the series you would have been disappointed.  With the exception of each of the four different versions of the theme tune, all of the music came Keff McCulloch, the main composer of seasons 24 and 25.  There's some good music on there, even taking into account how very 80s some of it sounds, but it does seem as if an opportunity was missed to showcase 25 years of music. 

However, the big news as far as Who related music was concerned was the release of novelty single, 'Doctorin' the TARDIS' by a group calling themselves The Timelords, although they achieved rather more success as The KLF. 

That said. 'Doctorin' the TARDIS was hugely successful in the summer of 1988 and made it to Number 1 in the charts for a couple of weeks.  The video below is the official video made for the song.  Presumably, in order avoid any copyright issues, there is nothing in the video relating to Doctor Who at all, other than a pair of lawsuit-avoiding, poorly rendered Daleks. The police car, incidentally, was called Ford Timelord.  

In Print

The Novelisations continued throughout the year and saw both the introduction of the new logo on the cover and the first Seventh Doctor novelisations. Appropriately enough that first book was the novelisation of his first TV story, 'Time and the Rani'. His second story, 'Paradise Towers' , was also novelised this year.

The other stories novelised in 1988 included, once again, a number of First Doctor stories.  The stories in question were 'The Rescue' (the last book to be written by Ian Marter before his untimely death), 'The Time Meddlar', 'The Edge of Destruction' and 'The Smugglers'. There were also a pair of Second Doctor stories novelised: The Underwater Menace and 'The Wheel in Space'. Finally there were no less than four Sixth Doctor novelisations released this year: 'Vengeance on Varos' and three quarters of the Trial of a Time Lord - 'The Mysterious Planet', 'Terror of the Vervoids' and 'The Ultimate Foe'.

Titan Books (a newcomer in the world of Doctor Who) published the first in a series of Script Books.  As the name suggests, the Script Books published the full scripts for a number of classic Doctor Who stories. The scripts were also accompanied by notes on the making of each story.  The first story to be given this treatment was, appropriately enough, the very first story: 'An Unearthly Child' although the book used one of the story's alternative titles: 'The Tribe of Gum'.

DWM cartoonists were back with  a sequel to the previous year's 'Doctor Who Fun Book'.  Titled 'It's Bigger on the Inside!' the book was more of the same - lots of funny Doctor Who comics strips and ilustrations.  Well worth getting hold of if you can find it.

On the non-fiction front there were three books of note.  Peter Haining was back with final (for now) coffee table book about the series.  Tying with the anniversary, it was appropriately titled '25 Glorious Years'.  Meanwhile both the Daleks and the Cybermen each got their own books.  

Co-written by Dalek creator Terry Nation and American Doctor Who fan and author, John Peel, 'The Official Doctor Who and the Daleks' book provided details about the making of each of the Dalek stories produced (with the exception of the most recent, 'Remembrance of the Daleks').  It also included a detailed Dalek chronology and details of the pilot episode for a proposed Dalek TV series that Terry Nation had hoped to make in the Sixties. This book was only ever published in the United States for some reason although imported copies could be found elsewhere.

'Cybermen' was written by David Banks, the man who had played the Cyberleader in every Cybermen story produced in the 1980s.  From the amount of detail in this book it's very obvious that the Cyberleader was more than just another acting job for Mr Banks.  

The book was divided into four sections.  The first section discussed the background and inspiration behind the creation of the Cybermen while the third and fourth sections looked at the Cybermen's various appearance both on TV and elsewhere.  It's the second section of the book that is most interesting though as it's a fictional account of the Cybermen's history.  It attempts to put the Cybermen's various TV appearances into a logical timeline and, amongst other things, explain why the Cybermen look and act so differently in their TV appearances.  All in all, more depth and detail is given to the Cybermen in this book than was ever seen in the TV series.

In Comics

The Seventh Doctor's first full year in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip saw his travelling alone for the most part. There was no Mel, no Ace and (after the end of A Cold Day in Hell) no Frobisher either. If you recall, the Doctor did leave at the end of that story with Olla the Heat Vampire.  However she was never destined to be a long-term companion. In the very next story, 'Redemption', we discover that Olla had been the willing consort of an evil War-Lord and run out on him, taking all his money. The Doctor has to reluctantly hand her over to the War-Lord who has come looking for justice.

And so the Doctor travels on alone. The next story, titled 'Crossroads of Time', on paper is a fairly straightforward tale of the Doctor meeting a robotic bounty hunter.  At the time, though, the story had a far greater significance which is worth explaining.

Back in the late 1980s the Doctor Who Magazine was published by the UK branch of the mighty Marvel Comics. Those in charge of Marvel UK were expanding their range of titles and wanted to create a 'shared universe' for their various titles.  The key to achieving this was Death's Head, the robot bounty hunter that the Doctor meets in 'Crossroads of Time'.

Death's Head picks up the Doctor

Originally created for Marvel UK's highly popular Transformers comic, Death's Head's adventures were used to link several of the titles that Marvel UK published, including Doctor Who.  After jumping into
a time portal in Transformers, Death's Head then bumps into the Doctor, as seen in 'Crossroads of Time'. The Doctor, after shrinking Death's Head down to human size, then sends him through time again to Earth in the far future which happens to be the setting for a new Marvel comic series called 'Dragon's Claws'. After a guest appearance in that title Death's Head then spun off into his own comic book series - more on which when we get to 1989.

So there you are: Doctor Who played a small but significant role in British comic history. Ultimately it all came to nothing when Marvel UK imploded a few years later but it's nice that Doctor Who was able be a part of it while it lasted. And it won't be the last time we see the Doctor interact with other comic book characters either.

The comic strip seemed to be going through a bit of a rough patch in 1988. Whereas, in previous years, readers had said that the comic strip was superior to the TV series now the reverse seemed to be true. There was no longer a regular writer or artist on the strip so there was no real sense of continuity between the various stories. A number of stories in the 1988-89 period were also very short, 8-page, one part stories which seemed to disappoint those readers who were used to longer, more epic adventures.

Following 'Crossroads in Time' came 'Claws of the Klathi', probably the most traditional Doctor Who strip published that year.  Set in 1851, it showed the Doctor tackling a group of aliens stranded on Earth who want to use the centrepiece of the Great  Exhibition to return home.

Following this there were a couple of short strips: 'Keepsake' and 'Culture Shock' and then came the 25th Anniversary strip: 'Planet of the Dead'. This two part story saw the Doctor land on an apparently deserted planet only to find it populated by a number of his old companions: Adric, Sara Kingdom, Katarina, Peri and Frobisher all put in appearances. However all is not as it seems as his 'companions' are really shape shifting aliens wanting to eat him.

Just as all seems lost the Doctor is rescued by his previous selves but they too are shape shifting aliens and the Doctor is able to trick them into letting him escape.

Although it's a fairly simplistic story, it's notable for being able to do what the TV series could never do at the time - bring all the Doctors together at the same time, even if on this occasion they turned out not to be the real deal.  It's also a great debut for new artist to the strip Lee Sullivan.  Sullivan - who would make many contributions to the strip - was an ideal choice to illustrate this strip as he does an excellent job of capturing the likenesses of all the main characters.

The year came to an end with a 2-part story: 'The Echoes of the Mogor'.  Here the Doctor investigates apparently ghostly goings-on a planetary survey base in the future.  This story sees the debut of the Foreign Hazard Duty (FHD) team.  These investigators are a sort of futuristic UNIT group, with the Doctor ending up in a familiar role of scientific adviser.  The FHD would appear on several other occasions over the next few years.