no. 12
BAKER'S half-DOZEN
Our guide to six of the Fourth Doctor's defining episodes.
ALSO: THE DOCTOR WHO EXPERIENCE SNEAK PEAK
DWV is a fan made publication by Stephen Henderson and is no way connected to BBC. Doctor Who, The Doctor Who logo, TARDIS, Dalek (Terry Nation), K-9(Bob Baker and Dave Martin) and Cybermen (Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis) are all registered trademarks of the BBC. All photography remains the property of the original owner, generally this is BBC. Text Š Stephen Henderson. DWV is published on issuu.com on a non-regular basis.
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VORTEX
insideThis issue 4. Baker's Half Dozen 7. It Never Happened 12. The Worst Special Effects Ever 14. NEWS: The Doctor Who Experience 17. Caption Competition/People We Suspect are Doctor Who Fans 18. Mary Tamm, RIP
BAKER'S half-DOZEN
Our guide to six of the Fourth Doctor's defining episodes.
The ark in space This story is Tom Baker's second episode as the Fourth Doctor, and was the first Baker episode I ever saw. It remains one of my favourites to this day. The plot line moves at F1 speeds and the sets seem totally realistic and vast. The defining moment, which has gone down as one of Baker's best moments as the Doctor is the scene in which Sarah-Jane gets stuck in the ventilation shaft – which in a break from DW tradition is triangle. In order to give Sarah, who has all but given up just inches from the finishing line, the will power to carry on he is mean to her. We know and love Sarah by this point but we don't really know the new Doctor yet – and here he is being MEAN to OUR Sarah. After being told she's “let the team down”, she struggles through to the end of the shaft where she is met by a trademark Tom Baker grin. Now we know that this is THE Doctor and he would never be mean to Sarah, unless it was for her own good. This episode has it all, blaster shoot-outs, people mutating into big giant bugs (albeit with bubble wrap) and of this because Harry Sullivan messed with the control.
The brain of morbius Doctor Who does Frankenstein's monster. Morbius was a Time Lord criminal who has been resurrected by mad scientist Solon – but it requires a brain, and only the brain of a Time Lord will do. This story gets properly scary at times and everything is completely believable. The mind contest is one particular high point in which for a second we think the Doctor has died as he collapse to the floor. Good all rounder, although those funny Baker moments are lacking in this outing.
The hand of fear Doctor Who does Frankenstein's monster. Morbius was a Time Lord criminal who has been resurrected by mad scientist Solon – but it requires a brain, and only the brain of a Time Lord will do. This story gets properly scary at times and everything is completely believable. The mind contest is one particular high point in which for a second we think the Doctor has died as he collapse to the floor. Good all rounder, although those funny Baker moments are lacking in this outing.
The invisible enemy As a concept this story shouldn't work. The Doctor gets some sort of infection from an electric bolt coming out of the TARDIS comms system. So in order to kill it he clones and shrinks himself and Leela and wanders around in his own mind. But bizarrely this is an action packed story – which introduces us to K9 for the first time. The model work and sets of the Doctor's brain is impressive and through miniature model work makes the whole place seem vast. The sets of the lab is also very slick and well made. This is not by far the greatest episode but is a good simple sci-fi story.
The android invasion This story begins in the setting of a creepy deserted village which sets off the tone of the whole story. It's non-stop creep out stuff from start to finish. However when you know the title is “The Android Invasion” it becomes obvious why these people are acting strangely. It's because Sarah Jane is an android and not the real Sarah that she's attacking the Doctor. The moment when her face falls off to reveal the animatronics below is well realised but is not the shock it is because of the titles ruining any surprise.
Genesis of the daleks I love this story. It is the absolute Dalek story and sets out absolutely everything the Daleks stand for. This is the story which shows us Davros creating his Dalek machines on Skaro. The Doctor is sent by the Time Lords to stop that happening in the first place. This gives the Doctor a moral and genocidal dilemma – which comes about when the Doctor is given the chance to kill the Daleks “by touching these two strands of wire together”. He can't as he goes through that whole questioning of “what if I unleash something worse than the Daleks”. This story also shows us the first appearance of the Dalek's death ray a greeny-blue ray of enery that destroys a person and turns them all negatively coloured. This story also begins the long tradition of Davros being killed by his own creations and Daleks questioning their own validity. The Daleks remain supreme setting the wheels in motion for them to conquer the universe... unless the Doctor can stop them.
It never happened... During Doctor Who's near 50-year history there have been a number of storyline that were seriously considered before having to be junked for various reasons. Dr Who meets Scratchman This proposed movie dreamt up by Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan) and Tom Baker would see the TARDIS trio meet Daleks, Scratchman/Harry Scratch aka The Devil, robots known as Cybors, scarecrows made from bones, the Greek god Pan. The finale of the film was to have taken place on a giant pinball table, with the Doctor, Harry and Sarah dodging balls as well as battling Daleks on the board. The project fell through thanks to a lack of funding. Dr Who vs. mechons A third Peter Cushing movie based on the TV serial “The Chase” was abandoned after the second movie in the series underperformed at the box-office. A fake trailer can be seen on YouTube which was originally mistaken for genuine “lost” movie footage, claiming that the movie was completed but lost in a fire and this trailer was found in a church. Stephen fry story Stephen Fry was asked to write an episode for series 2. Fry attended the first read through of the series as his story was still under serious consideration. Due to budget constraints it was moved to series 3 with Fear Her taking it's place. However Fry did not have enough free time to replace Rose with Martha. Fry said, "They asked me to do [it] and I tried, but I just ran out of time, and so I wrote a pathetic letter of "I'm sorry I can't do this" to Davies." Century house Written by Tom MacRae for Series 3. The Doctor would appear on a live broadcast of Most Haunted, investigating a house haunted by the "Red Widow", with Martha Jones watching at home as a framing device. The episode did not fit into the production schedule, and was reworked such that the show was watched by Donna Noble and her mother Sylvia. Due to dissatisfaction with the premise, and to avoid two comedic episodes in the same series, the episode was dropped and replaced with Midnight. The Suicide Exhibition Mark Gattis' script saw a Nazi task force assaults the Natural History Museum in London and the discovery of a hidden chamber in the basement. Untitled story by paul abbott With Jack Harkness having joined the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, Rose feels left out. But when they land in Pompeii in 79 AD, Jack discovers that Rose's life has been manipulated by the Doctor in an experiment to create the perfect companion. This was replaced with “Boom Town.”
It never happened... The red fort Commissioned in September 1963, Terry Nation had intended for his second seven-part serial to be set during the British Raj in India), but the story was ultimately abandoned as the Daleks became a success, and demand for further adventures grew.
The son of doctor who An idea submitted by William Hartnell would see the Doctor meet his long lost son.
The big store Written by David Ellis & Malcolm Hulke, this story was submitted on November 15, 1966 and would involve faceless aliens infiltrating department stores as display mannequins. Faceless aliens returned in The Faceless Ones, while mannequins idea would be remade as Autons.
The Laird of McCrimmon Returning Jamie to Castle McCrimmon would see his body taken over by “The Great Intelligence” and later stay behind as the new Laird.
“backwards” Peter Ling was due to write an untitled story in which time runs backwards.
The Prison in Space On a female-dominated planet, Jamie and the Doctor are imprisoned and Zoe is set to start a sexual revolution and be brainwashed. This was to be a comedy story in which Jamie and the Doctor feature in drag and end with the Doctor deprogramming Zoe by smacking her bottom. Dick Sharples refused to perform endless rewrites required, the serial was dropped.
The Spare-Part People Written by Jon Pertwee & Reed de Rouen this story would see the Doctor pose as a Cambridge don to investigate a series of disappearances. He is later kidnapped and taken to a civilization under Antarctica.
The final game Planned to be the Third Doctor's final story was to be The Final Game by Robert Sloman and Barry Letts. The story was to end with the Master dying in a manner which suggested that he was trying to save the Doctor's life. The actor who played the Master, Roger Delgado, was killed in a car accident in Turkey forcing the scrapping of the story. The story was replaced by Planet of the Spiders.
The sea of fear Brian Hayles submitted this storyline involving the Doctor and Sarah becoming caught up in an experiment to determine the true ancestors of humankind.
The Angarath Eric Pringle's story themselves to sentient rocks.
saw
people
sacrificing
The Doomsday Contract The Doctor appears in court when a corporation tries to buy Earth in order to obtain a matter-transmutation device.
The Eyes of Nemesis Written by Brian Hayles, this story would involve the Doctor and Sarah in a chase between the hunter Torr and his quarry Lakdem. Towards the end of the adventure it is revealed that Torr works for the Celestial Toymaker.
Fires of the Starmind Written by Marc Platt, this story dealt with a sentient star using the Time Lord libraries as a means of invading Gallifrey. A sentient star appears in the Tennant story “42”.
The Menday Fault A nuclear submarine goes into the Fault of Menday and discovers an subterranean civilisation.The 'sun' for this world is dying and the underground dwellers, Suranians led by Zorr, are planning to invade the surface world.
The Tearing of the Veil
The brain dead
Written by Alan Drury, this four-part story was set in the Victorian era and the entire action would take place in and around a vicarage. The vicar had recently died and fake spiritualists were exploiting his widow. The first episode would open with a seance during which the TARDIS would arrive.
Written by Brian Hayles, this story involved an Ice Warrior plan to invade the Earth using a 'Z' beam which freezes things it strikes to absolute zero. When used on humans it turns them into zombie-like slaves. Script editor Dicks rejected the storyline, but the inclusion of the Ice Warriors inspired the development of The Curse of Peladon.
Written by Dennis Spooner, this story based on a planet where drugs in the food and water are used to control the populace. Punishment would be meted out by temporary withdrawal from the drugs which would cause people to see monsters all around them.
The Nightmare Planet
Pyramids of Mars
Genesis of the cybermen
Lewis Griefer's version of the story saw museum keepers being chased out of the British Museum by a mummy. It would turn out that a group was scaring people away in order to gain access to a sarcophagus which would contain wild rice from thousands of years ago. The group wanted to use the rice to seed Mars and make a fortune. When Griefer fell ill and couldn't finish the script, turned it into the version we know now.
In the same way that Genesis of the Daleks did, this would explore the back story of the Cybermen. The premise of this was partly reused in “Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”.
The Dreamers of Phados Written by Chris Boucher, it was based on a premise in which people and machines are controlled by a computer that malfunctions. It was to be set on a space ship which has been home to several generations of a civilization.
Killers of the Dark David Weir's script, a six-part story was planned as the final story of Series 15 and was commissioned on July 18, 1977. Weir's script had elements drawn from Asian cultures, and included a race of cat-people native to Gallifrey. Scenes included a gladiatorial duel in a stadium filled with cat-people. Script editor Anthony Read and director Gerald Blake, upon reading the finished script, determined that the story would be impossible to shoot on Doctor Who's budget and the story was abandoned mid-August 1977. When asked about Weir's story at a fan convention years later, Williams could not recall its title and made up the name The Killer Cats of Geng Singh, by which title the story became widely known in fan circles.
Untitled retirement story Written by Douglas Adams, this story would involve the Doctor going into retirement but being constantly called upon to solve various problems.
Into the Comet James Follett wrote a story based in a civilisation inside a comet.
untitled In Red Dwarf: Back to Earth style this story written by John Brosnan would have involved the Doctor arriving at the BBC Television Centre and meeting Tom Baker. The two would then pair up to combat a threat.
Song of the Space Whale Originally pitched by Pat Mills and his writing partner John Wagner in 1980 as a Fourth Doctor adventure. This story was much like “The Beast Below” in which a civilisation living in the belly of a massive whale.
The six doctors Written by Robert Holmes, this story was planned as the 20th anniversary special. The 90 minute single-part story was commissioned on August 2, 1982 and would involve the various Doctors and companions drawn to the planet Maladoom where they are trapped by the Master who is working for the Cybermen. The Cybermen want to isolate the genetic material that permits Time Lords to time travel freely so that they can incorporate that information into their own biology. It would also feature a robot 1st Doctor. Holmes made little headway with the script and withdrew from the project on October 13, 1982. Holmes would later use part of the storyline in The Two Doctors and The Six Doctors was replaced by Terrance Dick's The Five Doctors.
Warmongers This episode would finally show us the war of the Sontarans and Rutans in England during the 1940s Blitz but was not considered.
The First Sontarans Set aboard the Mary Celeste, this story was turned down due to the Sontarans featuring in “The Two Doctors”.
90's us reboot (oh god!) In the planning that would eventually become the Paul McGann movie, John Leekley proposed a pilot and further episodes of a new series in which the half-human Doctor is seeking his father, Ulysses, through various time periods—contemporary Gallifrey, London during the Blitz, Ancient Egypt and Skaro (with a re-make of Genesis of the Daleks). One proposed story-line was to feature the Doctor and Blackbeard the pirate. Remakes of other classic stories such as The Talons of WengChiang,set in New York; The Celestial Toymaker, who was to have been under the control of the Master; Earthshock, featuring the "Cybs" (Leekley's more piratical version of the Cybermen);Tomb of the Cybs, a remake of The Tomb of the Cybermen in which the Cybs are awoken by the Master; A remake of The Dæmons, set in Salem, Massachusetts; A completed version of Shada, which would have introduced Romana and Professor Chronotis as Romana's uncle;The Cybs, a story set on Mars in which the Doctor escapes capture by hiding in a gold mine; The Sea Devils, set in a Louisiana oil rig; The Yeti, a remake of The Abominable Snowmen featuring the Dalai Lama and Sir Edmund Hillary; and Don't Shoot, I'm the Doctor, a more historically accurate remake of The Gunfighters.
NEW!
FROM THE MAKERS OF
A new unofficial magazine about
“The Big Bang Theory”
The Big Bang Theory © CBS
THE
WORST SPECIAL EFFECTS EVER
The Power of the Daleks
A room full of Daleks was required but there were only a few props available so to try and give the effect of a full room some painted Daleks were put at the back of the room, but it's quite obvious they're as flat as pancakes.
Rise of the cybermen
Not bad SFX but the lack of them mean that we can see the camera crew in the reflection in Gran's sunglasses.
The invasion of time
To give the impression of impending Sontarans the idea was to have some 'electric noises' and electric bolts to show they are coming. But instead we got, tinfoil.
The idiots lantern
The new series is not immune from dodgy SFX. This shot is very impressive but is let down by DT's foot which disappears when it goes over the edge of the green screen.
The ark in space
The green death
This guy is mutating into a Wirrin. But the pupae stage is very much like bubble wrap. Because it is.
When a model is really good and if shot from the right distance it looks life-size. This toy Bessie does not. For reference those maggots are real-life proper sized maggots.
robot
The green death
The Brigadier calls for a Tank to deal with the giant robot. What he gets, is an Airfix tank, really close up, which looks just like a real life tank. Not.
The model giant fly is seen flying on the film which is playing on the CSO layer, it fails to be realistic.
BREAKING NEWS!
THE DOCTOR WILL MEET DINOSAURS THIS SERIES MOFFAT: THE 5OTH ANNIVERSARY WILL BE BRILLIANT BARROWMAN: I'D LOVE TO COME BACK FOR 5OTH YEAR
The all new DW Experience arrives in Cardiff Bay this summer. The latest additions include all new exhibits among old friends (and enemies). These pictures have been released by the organisers.
The TARDIS themed entrance (left) and some exhibits arrive (right).
The Silence greet visitors (left) and the Slitheen on display (right).
Jumping with fright with a Dalek (left) and the disembodied Cyberman from “The Pandorica Opens� (right). The real 2005-2010 TARDIS set, unfortunately the barrier stops it being stolen from a museum again.
Above: A Silurian and a Cyberman greet visitors, a spooky setting of the Dalek (left) and below an Ariel view of a section of the exhbit shows two different TARDISes alongside all the Doctor's costumes.
CAPTION COMPETITION You can think up your own caption,
but to be honest I really don't care! (Sorry!)
The Doctor didn't appear at the opening ceremony. Now we just have to wait for those cracks in time to appear. The Doctor f**ks Heather Mills, keeps souvenir.
PEOPLE WE SUSPECT ARE DOCTOR
WHO FANS...#1
BANKSY No photoshop here, this real artwork by street artist Banksy bears a massive resemblance to Martha Jones. She's even dressed as a maid, as she was in “The Family of Blood”. Banksy was unable to comment, because nobody knows who he really is.
Mary Tamm RIP Mary Tamm, who played the first incarnation of Romana, has died after losing her long battle with cancer, as confirmed by her agent Barry Langford. Mary starred as the timelady alongside Tom Baker in Season 16's (1978–79) Key to Time story arc. Many people took to twitter to pay tribute to her:
Mary Tamm 1950-2012