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BBC Delta and the Bannermen |
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| Episodes | 3 |  |
| Story No# | 150 | |
| Production Code | 7F | |
| Season | 24 | |
| Dates | Nov. 2, 1987 - Nov. 16, 1987 |
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With Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford.
Written by Malcolm Kohll. Script-edited by Andrew Cartmel. Directed by Chris Clough. Produced by John Nathan-Turner. |
| Synopsis: The queen of a dying race is pursued to 1950's Earth by an army of cutthroats. |
The Doctor Dances... Awkwardly by Daniel Saunders 5/6/07
It's not very fashionable to admit this, but I really like Delta and the Bannermen. It's easy to point out the flaws. There are little niggling things (Sylvester McCoy can be seen wearing his glasses in some shots while on the bike, which is bad direction). Plot holes abound. (What is the toll port? Why don't the Bannermen kill Weismuller and Hawk? Why do Goronwy's windows shatter when the Chimeron princess screams, but not those in the holiday camp? What happens to the Bannermen after the end of the story?) There are bigger problems too. There are some terrible performances, with the Billy-Delta love plot ruined by the failure of the actors to put any conviction into it. Too much "comedy" fails because of poor writing, or because the acting or direction overemphasise it (by contrast, there's a tiny gag about the Doctor trying to bite into an apple, but never quite succeeding, which works because no one draws attention to it). It also contains one of my pet hates in Doctor Who: "the future" and "outer space" are seen as all being a single, uniform environment, where everyone knows about everything and everyone else. Keillor knows of the Doctor and recognises Delta before he hears from Gavrok; the Doctor knows of the Chimeron, the Bannermen, and Nostalgia Tours, and has the necessary parts to fix the "bus". Time travel is taken for granted too, which is at odds with the rest of the series.
Despite all these flaws, the core of the story works. The story seems fresh, even watched out of context all these years later. At this stage in the series' history, there hadn't been a proper twentieth century Earth story for a couple of years. But Malcolm Kohll doesn't use that alone to set itself apart from its recent predecessors. He uses the series' cliches in order to subvert them. I complained earlier about the fact that in "the future/outer space" everyone knows the Doctor, the Bannermen, the Chimeron and time travel, but Delta and the Bannermen makes good use of that. By taking the outer space cliches for granted, the world of holiday camps, bee-keeping, Rock 'n' Roll and people falling in love is made to seem alien, strange and alluring. It's the reverse of the UNIT/Russell T Davies method of using the present day, give or take a few decades, as the benchmark of normality to make the alien seem shocking. Here, it's the mundane that's shocking.
Delta and the Bannermen is fundamentally a character story. It features a bunch of characters who don't even belong in the same genre as each other: the rebel without a cause; the love-sick teenage girl; the comedy spies; the alien princess; the holiday camp manager out of Dad's Army via Hi-de-Hi!; and Goronwy, who doesn't really fit any genre, but with his instinctive understanding and ability to commune with nature, is a wise man of folklore, almost Merlin (especially as he's Welsh). The story takes these eccentrics and misfits and shows them coming together to oppose the aggression and hatred of the Bannermen.
The Bannermen are the perfect foils for these heroes. The brutal conformism of the Bannermen makes the diversity of the heroes more obvious. This relationship between the two groups of characters is why the slow pace of the first episode works. We know from the opening sequence that the Bannermen are evil and ruthless. Spending time setting up the jolly atmosphere at Shangri-La actually builds the tension as we wait for the Bannermen to arrive and attack.
This is a particularly good story for the Doctor. For once, he saves the day not because of his superior technological or scientific knowledge, but because he coordinates the different members of the group to use their unique skills when necessary. Moreover, we see the Doctor as he should be: knowledgeable about technical matters, yet out of his depth with emotions. His line about love never having been known for its rationality adds mystery and emotion to the character in a much more powerful way than conscious attempts to do that over the following seasons down to the present. McCoy delivers the line in a way that suggests a troubled past, yet it isn't dwelt on at the expense of the rest of the story. At the same time, it also suggests a completely untroubled past, implying the Doctor just can't understand why humans have to cause so much confusion - and spoil his plans - by falling in love. This discomfort is also seen reflected in his inability to comfort Ray. In fact, he has a generally unworldly air here, reflected in his awkward dancing, his instant rapport with the hermit-like Goronwy, and his quirky behaviour; for example, listening to an apple.
And if all that wasn't enough, it has perhaps my favourite Doctor Who line ever: "You are not the Happy Hearts Holiday Club from Bolton, but instead are spacemen in fear of an attack from some other spacemen?"
A Review by Brian May 27/4/08
At first I hated Delta and the Bannermen, but it's grown on me. Twenty years on, I appreciate the story a lot more, as both it and my own tastes have matured. Perhaps the best description for it would be "brave". Experimental is another that comes to mind, but it lacks the obliqueness or dark bizarreness such a word warrants. But it's certainly Doctor Who at its most different and atypical, and that's always a good thing.
I suppose the rudest shock upon first viewing was the all-pervading jokiness in part one. The Tollmaster, the Doctor and Mel winning a competition, the appearance of the Navarinos... it's all very pantomime. Even if it's a light relief antidote to the unpleasantness of the years immediately preceding this, it's hard to ignore a lingering sense of flippancy. Doctor Who should never take itself too seriously, but is this going too far in not doing so?
Tacky is the next word. The Tollmaster is tacky, so too the Navarinos and above all the holiday camp. Not coming from the UK this institution isn't ingrained in my childhood memories or national psyche, but after some research (and having lived there from 2001-2003 when Butlins were still advertising in tabloids), I have enough knowledge of them to be able to make an educated opinion. And that opinion is that they're...well, tacky! Also as I'm not British, Ken Dodd is not a household name, and it's obviously the intention that UK audiences would have recognised him immediately. Perhaps that's why I detested everything about his performance until I learned who he was. Now I can't hold this against him; Ken Dodd is playing Ken Dodd, so he's doing a more than capable job. Bonnie Langford, whose history is synonymous with pantomime, is very good as Mel. They're one of Doctor Who's most derided actor/companion identities, but the script plays up to Langford's strengths as a light entertainment performer. Okay, so Mel has tacky tastes, but at least she gets to be competently written for once. (A pity it has to include one of her regular screams!)
But come the dance, I'm mellowing out and enjoying myself. It's nice seeing the TARDIS crew letting their hair down. As was the case in Black Orchid it's fun to watch, especially so for Sylvester McCoy's performance as the Doctor, the first that's truly his own. The final two episodes revert to being a Doctor Who adventure proper, but there are problems arising beyond those of tackiness. The script is very wanting. Who are the Bannermen? Why do they want to destroy the Chimerons? Are they mercenaries? Are they from a neighbouring warring planet? Although Delta's background is not elaborated upon, the script clearly places her in the right, which just makes Gavrok and his minions nothing more than generic, black-suited space thugs - in spite of Don Henderson's excellent performance and the well-designed, Samurai-inspired Bannermen uniforms.
There's an extremely juvenile moment when the Bannermen are covered in honey and swarmed by bees. It's a scene straight out of one of those god-awful kids' programmes when incompetent adult villains are outwitted by smarmy, obnoxious children. The opening sequence is horribly edited and the genuinely alien-looking Chimeron baby is replaced by an unimaginative child-in-a-white-romper-suit-and-green-face-paint effort. Thankfully, the direction is good (the end of part two is great), and Keff McCulloch's music is highly memorable, especially the "Here's to the Future" song.
Now, the acting. Most of it is very good. Alongside McCoy, Langford and Henderson, the bulk of the cast do their best. Richard Davies as Burton is my favourite, stealing the show as an ordinary man thrust into the extraordinary and seizing the opportunity with gusto. But, unfortunately, there are also some dreadful excuses for acting: Belinda Mayne is so dull as Delta it's difficult to care for her situation, so too Billy (David Kinder). Their romantic scenes are so bad you'd think it was some dreadful teen soap. Morgan Deare is another name to add to the awful American accents hall of shame, especially as he's matched up with an authentic one from Stubby Kaye. But worst of all is Sara Griffiths as Ray, from her shrill, horrendous attempt at a Welsh accent to her wooden delivery and expressions (look at the cliffhanger to part one for an example of the latter). It's shocking to think she was actually considered as a companion!
But, nevertheless, in Delta and the Bannermen something different is being attempted, despite the varying results. I like it, with reservations. 7/10