Attack of the Cybermen Vengeance on Varos Mark of the Rani The Two Doctors Timelash Revelation of the Daleks

BBC Season Twenty-Two

• A Schizo Review of Season 22 by Rob Matthews
• The Hollow Men by Jonathan Hili
• Quality... by Joe Ford
• Untrue Grit by Mike Morris
• Hardy Appetites and the Specter of Death... by Terrence Keenan

A Schizo Review of Season 22 by Rob Matthews 8/5/00

Whatever else might be said about this season, it's certainly one of the most colourful in the show's history. And I must admit that, as an unfussy eight year-old, I loved it; the jazzed-up opening titles, the glittering Timelash pyramid-thing, the primary-coloured infrastructure of Dastari's space station, the opulent-looking new Daleks, that big blue man with the giant shoulders and the squeaky voice in Timelash. At that age, I wasn't even particularly aware of the awfulness of the Doctor's coat, except as a colourful variation on Peter Davison's.

Change, my dear. Was the show, like the Doctor himself, simply more bloated and full of itself?

Well... It's main problem in my view was the half-heartedness of attempts to truly change. It seems to me that they did want to reinvent Doctor Who, but to do so in a way that wouldn't alienate the fans. Hence everything new arrived swaddled in a comfy blanket of Who history. Think of the Doctor in The Twin Dilemma (not quite season 22 but as near as dammit), swaggering around trying to act unpredictable, but all the time surrounded by the old familiar costumes of his predecessors. It came off like some desperate attempt to break with a twenty-one year past in about ten minutes. His instability felt contrived and unconvincing, and the extent to which the scripts continued to go on about it more than halfway into the season suggests that the production team didn't know exactly what they wanted to do with the character or with the show. We kept hearing lame reports from Peri about his 'offstage' actions - refering to her by the names of previous companions, wandering around the Tardis jettisoning 40% of its storage space and the like. Why? Well, because if he mentions old companions and wanders around the Tardis then he must still be the Doctor.

In fact, Baker was a very good Doctor. But that was thanks to his performance rather than the sketchy scripts. It's always been said that the intention was to return to William Hartnell's approach, to portray the Doc as someone mysterious and perhaps not entirely trustworthy. But the Doctor's character and background had been gradually developed over the many years of the series' development. It would have taken more than a couple of mood swings and murder attempts to really make us distrust him again. There was no genuine threat in the initial bout of overacting. A better approach would have been the more subtle one they took later on, with Sylvester McCoy; acting the buffoon like Troughton or Tom Baker, but revealing a sinister method in his madness that had not been present previously. The sixth Doctor tried too hard. He acted unstable and threatening, but didn't actually DO anything that suggested real danger in his personality. He was all bark and no bite.

And, as the season went on, he simply did not develop. Every single story seemed to open with he and Peri indulging in the same old tedious bickering. Why??? What was the point?

I've suggested that this particular season seems to be one in which radical change was intended, but very shoddily effected. Given that in some ways it merely followed the lead of the previous couple of seasons (a lot of theoretical mathematics, over-reliance on Timelord-based plot ideas, too much arguing in the console room, silly costumes for both the Doctor and his companions), what do I think was really new or different about season 22?

A change of template. In Davison's era, the major influences were serials like Logopolis and Earthshock. Most stories were variations upon these. They were pseudo-scientific but visceral. There was, if you will, a lot of story but no plot.

The template story for season 22 was Resurrection of the Daleks. Which also had a lot of story and no plot, but added some new tweaks to the formula -

1. The 45-minute episodes. This was a better format for the show - more time to spend on the stories and ideas, without having to contrive so many cliffhangers. I don't know why they reverted to the 25-minute format for the remaining seasons. If Doctor Who were to be brought back now, I'm certain we'd see self-contained stories in hour-long episodes, with maybe the occasional two-parter. The episodic format is dated, and season 22 took a step in the right direction.
2. A renewed commitment to giving Doctor Who a credible sci-fi look. Resurrection had decent modelwork, good sets and convincing makeup for the victims of toxic gas. The human duplicates were a brilliant idea for the story. They showed how advanced Dalek technology was without straining the budget at all, and with no fear of looking unconvincing! In season 22, Sil - with his 'look, no legs!'-mobile - was the most convincing creature that had been seen in the show for years. The Borad's 'elephant man' makeup was surprisingly good. The Rani had some nicely disgusting creatures in tanks in her console room, and we were treated to some delightfully stomach-churning mutated humans in Revelation, as well as the brilliant glass Dalek. The Sontarans may have been less convincing than usual, but there was nothing in the season as laughable as the Tractators or that rubbish dragon from Caves of Androzani.
3. Violence. Resurrection killed people left, right and centre. It started with a massacre, ended with one, and snuffed out plenty of people on the way. Season 22, as we all know, pretty much followed the same pattern; crushed hands, kinky laser torture, human-to-bird transformation, cannibal chefs murdering old ladies, bits of Sontarans flying about, funeral directors being stabbed in the balsa wood by hypodermic needles, exploding hands... I'm not necessarily complaining about any of this. Frankly, it made the bad guys look like bad guys. Added to which, there was occasional poignancy (the death of Oscar in Two Doctors, Peri's "I killed him and he forgave me" in Revelation), and a real sense of stoicism and tragedy. What right do we have to complain when far worse things have happened in the real world? It wouldn't have done for future seasons to continue down this path, but at least season 22 was confident in its approach to the material. Seasons 23 and 24, after the cancellation threat, didn't seem to know what the hell they were doing most of the time.
4. Pathological insistence on remembering Who history while revising it. In Resurrection, we watched wibbly-wobbly clips of all the Doctors and companions as the Daleks drained his brain. A cloying thing to do in the first place, but then they went and forgot Leela! Davros, meanwhile, turned up almost exactly as we left him in Destiny - albeit with a mind-control gadget that he seemed to have invented while frozen. The Daleks are dying of a virus created by forgettable aliens from the same poor story. Season 22 - the cyber tombs return (in the form of large refrigerated cities), and the original cyber backstory comes back into play. We see the second Doctor and Jamie doing odd jobs for the Timelords and wonder how this fits in with the Doctor's relationship with Gallifrey as depicted in The War Games. Timelash is a sequel to a 3rd Doctor story that never even happened. Why? Because if you show a mural of Jon Pertwee, you prove that this is still the same show you used to watch in 1974. The Master returns from the dead in Mark of the Rani. But he's basically superfluous to the story, just like the Sontarans in Two Doctors and even the Daleks in Revelation. So while the show may appear to be wallowing in its own past, it is often using old familiar baddies merely as a kind of Doctor Who wallpaper. I guess if they'd have had more guts they'd have done the stories without these old villains and, indeed, have focused more on developing these stories than on tailoring them to fit in Sontarans and Daleks.

Possibly a more focused approach to the writing could have produced a series of excellent 45-minute stories. There's always been padding in Who, and I think increased concision would have revitalised the show, and truly reinvented it for a new era.

But is season 22 as it stands responsible for the downfall of Who? No. If the BBC hadn't arsed around so much during seasons 23 and 24, we could have gone directly from the tone of season 22 to that of late-in-the-game classics like Ghost Light and Curse of Fenric. The whole premise of season 23 was pointless (wasn't the 'trial of a Timelord' in The War Games far more effective?) and - with all that Valeyard/evil Doctor nonsense - really quite stupid. Season 24 could have rescued Doctor Who, but instead drove a big fat silly stake through its heart. It was mind-bogglingly terrible, and it needn't have been. Apart from that one moment of "I'll explain how I escaped certain death later" in Timelash, season 22 was never less than competent. After Revelation of the Daleks, Doctor Who simply stopped evolving and started panicking. The show lived and breathed from 1963 to 1986. What we witnessed after that were its inconsistent death throes. Living under the axe, it didn't have the space to breathe. The good stories came like moments of clarity in a fugue. The fact is that Doctor Who - no matter how cheap-looking it may have appeared compared to other sci fi - did cost a lot of money, and the BBC was no longer willing to spend that money. The show was destroyed not by any writer, producer or season, but by the success of talk shows and imported soaps. Why go to any creative effort when massive ratings can be garnered on the cheap? If season 22 had contained stories of the calibre of Deadly Assassin, Robots of Death or Inferno it would have made no difference. British TV is simply no longer willing to produce a show like Doctor Who. In a way watching Who was like reading a book - you had to imagine a lot of it for yourself. Audiences are no longer willing to use their imagination. That was probably why season 22 tried hard to make itself so flashy. It didn't work, of course. But it was nowhere near as bad as fans try to make out. Season 22 was, to my mind, the last real season of Doctor Who.

The Hollow Men by Jonathan Hili 15/2/01

Whether he consciously intended it or not, John Nathan-Turner introduced a quality of production into Doctor Who that had not been seen before. This quality had nothing to do with flashy titles, better special effects or a famous guest cast - in fact it had nothing to do with actors or plots per se - but the underlying atmosphere (perhaps "feeling" is a better word) of the show.

This was an important stage in the programme's development and a real sense of doom, dread and decay was beginning to set in, a la the late 19th/early 20th century. Doctor Who was becoming more than a kid's show and more than light entertainment for adults; it was becoming an adult itself, sometimes manically paranoid; an entity very conscious of itself, its supporters and the harshness of reality.

Both script editors Chris Bidmead and Eric Saward played off this quality to different degrees, the former mixed it with hardcore science-fiction in stories like State of Decay and Logopolis, while Saward developed it further by deliberately injecting a sombre and dark adult undertone into the stories under his tenure. It emerged in force during Davison's portrayal of the Doctor, as companions died or left in very uncertain situations and the world became a lot more precarious, a haven for "violent souls", particularly in Season 21. And when Colin Baker took over, its crystallisation was complete. Stories were less like traditional Doctor Who and more like a piece of art by Munch or a Kafkaian nightmare. Plots as such became irrelevant as ideas and images: dark, violent, grotesque and adult, became the realisation of the show. "Shape without form, shade without colour; paralysed force, gesture without motion" - all these qualities predominated and critics arguing that the programme had evolved into a Flash Gordon or A-Team stereotype completely misinterpreted this overriding influence and the evolution that was going on.

A brief look at Season 22 will show what I mean. Before this season cannibalism and sexual perversity were never pertinent subjects in Doctor Who but now were central themes in at least three stories. Revelation of the Daleks was one of them, containing strong necrophiliac allusions, with "weirdo" characters like Jobel (incessantly calling Peri his "pretty"), the grotesque squire Bostock ("the odour of nature has charms of its own... Bostock may smell like rotting flesh but he is a good squire") and a drunkard doctor ("I'll know the name of each organ that pops out"). Images play a strong part in this story and the ones that easily come to mind: the Doctor being attacked by the mutant, the Dalek growing in its shell, Tasambeker plunging a hypodermic into Jobel's back (and as he dies his toupee falls to the ground) and Davros's hand being blown to kingdom come, are all violent, gruesome and disturbing in some way, appropriately accompanied by similar characters and dialogue. Furthermore the music is haunting and the setting is that of a morbidly artistic necropolis. The Two Doctors also dealt with cannibalism, perhaps less sensitively, and contained the sexual perverse undertones of Revelation through the mannerisms and dress of characters like Shockeye (the name 'Shock'eye indicates the anticipated affect the character would have on viewers). Again images are important: I always remember Chessene lustfully smearing blood on her face or the gluttonous remarks of the Second Doctor and Shockeye as they hurry to the restaurant, and death scenes, like those of the Sontarans and Oscar, are vivid and horrific, although the latter is also poignant. Vengeance on Varos dealt with torture, punishment and oppression on a very realistic level (again with cannibals!), and hideous mutations (Peri and Areta and Guilliam's face); moreover an alien (Sil) whose features and voice made him unsettlingly realistic. (Incidentally, Saward's story Slipback which featured on radio during the hiatus also carries some of these trademarks.)

Perhaps the most striking indication that Doctor Who was growing up and feeling increasingly disillusioned by its own maturation was the Doctor's attack on Peri in The Twin Dilemma. Strangling Peri, in what Antony Howe took to symbolise a "rape-murder" attempt, betrayed the adult direction which the show had taken but the Doctor's subsequent comments: "Regenerate, yet unregenerate...I am a living peril to the universe!" reflect the simultaneous fear that accompanied this bold direction, like setting off to explore a new world only to suddenly find oneself frightened in an alien environment. In fact there is plenty of evidence that shows that the Doctor was just as much shocked as the viewers by what he saw: his outrage to the Punishment Dome on Varos, his eschatological soliloquy in The Two Doctors and Revelation of the Daleks, and the look on his face as he stood behind Peri when the mutant died in the latter story, just to name a few.

Thus the first story and following season of the Sixth Doctor's era deliberately shocked fans and viewers alike. But why? I think it was neither the horror content nor the violence nor in fact the Doctor himself that disturbed people the most but how adult Doctor Who had really become. Yes, this quality had emerged during Tom Baker's last season but to a large extent it had not been acknowledged by characters so was disregarded by viewers. In Resurrection of the Daleks, it was Tegan's reaction to the slaughtered Daleks ("That was horrible") and her leaving the Doctor because "it's stopped being fun" (paralleling the future concerns of many viewers) that served as the prelude to Season 22, during which audiences witnessed the Doctor himself face this horrific reality. The Sixth Doctor, with his garish outfit and boisterous voice, was shocked by the truth but did not hide it from the viewers and instead shoved it straight down their throats, making them uncomfortable and frightened. (But blaming Colin's Doctor for being a hooligan is both wrong and unfair. The universe had suddenly become more adult, dangerous and violent, and he merely adopted a nature that could swim in this murky water. The fact that the Doctor still fought against oppression and injustice proves that he was not a different character altogether, and he would have said, like the Fifth Doctor, "You think I wanted it this way?") People wanted the programme to remain a child, naive and innocent, and naturally the shock was massive, particularly for the casual viewer who tuned into the series after a year or two's absence. It was like finding your teenage daughter in bed with a man after coming home from work! The transition had been subtle over a period of years but it had occurred. Where had the child gone?

In this sense the horror of Seasons 21 and 22 was very different in context from any stories of the past, specifically those during the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, which also caused an uproar. The difference was that the horror was now more down-to-earth since themes like violence, alcoholism and sexual perversion confront society every day, as opposed to those of dictators trying to take over the earth or apocalyptic good versus evil stories evidenced in Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars, The Deadly Assassin and other serials. Furthermore images, like being killed with a steel blade or a hypodermic, were realistic and could adversely affect young viewers.

However not all the stories of Season 22 were of this ilk, and violence, though it predominated was not always adult (in the same way as cartoon violence is often childish). Attack of the Cybermen is a good example of this story, because it is violent but generally handled in a very light-hearted vein, except on rare occasions, for instance, Lytton's hands being juiced like an orange. These traditional Doctor Who stories - Time and the Rani and Timelash were the others - served as a contrast and highlighted the change in direction. Interestingly it was these stories that were arguably the least successful of the season.

When Tom Baker said, "It's the end" he was absolutely right - gone were the pre-pubescent days of Doctor Who, in a way the magic had gone too, as scientific disillusionment, decay and doom ran rife. Perhaps these elements are best left out of Doctor Who, perhaps not. I've always thought that the true genius of Doctor Who was that it tackled every concept and genre courageously and did not talk down to children, as Eric Saward commented, "When you show violence, you should show that it hurts". Season 22 did that, and more. Had the BBC not put Doctor Who on hiatus I am certain the next season, with stories by Martin, Bidmead, Holmes and probably even Saward, would have continued down this road. But the hiatus did come and (as Rob Matthews pointed out) the production team began to panic and tried to completely revolutionise the show, deliberately ignoring their own philosophy for it. Therefore the serious adult direction of the series was replaced by its absolute opposite: silly childishness, which we can see at times during the Trial and especially in the very artificial Season 24. And when the series became darker again in McCoy's twilight, these adult ideas were left out and replaced by a naive darkness, a darkness in which viewers felt comfortable. And partly because of this, when Doctor Who did finally "end" it was, in the words of T.S. Elliot, "not with a bang but with a whimper".

Quality... by Joe Ford 25/3/02

I'm going to stop the buck of season twenty two haters right here and admit I find it the best season of Doctor Who since Season Fourteen. All the seasons in between had inherent flaws that I could not ignore (Sixteen had a piss poor ending, Seventeen was too campy, Eighteen was solid but had to much reliance on heavy science, Nineteen to Twenty One all had Davison….need I say more?), Season Twenty-Two I feel had all the elements that made Doctor Who great. Let me explain why…

1. Production values.
   Can you think of anything more gorgeous than the glass Dalek in Revelation of the Daleks or The Rani's TARDIS in Mark of the Rani? This year looked wonderful, the special effects were excellent and simple, they never seemed to try and achieve anything they could make (except Timelash but that is the one weak spot in an otherwise strong season). The sets were exceptional (Vengeance on Varos had a perfect claustrophobic feel) and the music was brill (Mark of the Rani and The Two Doctors are two of favourite scores). So visually the season was a triumph especially…
2. Location filming.
   I find the OB work this year sumptous. When has it ever been this diverse? From the gritty back streets of Attack of the Cybermen to the bleak wintery feel of Mark of the Rani to the lush verdant Spain in The Two Doctors and finally the atmospheric wintry look of Revelation of the Daleks. Wasn't it just lovely? The look of the episodes were enhanced considerably by the wonderful location work. I have now visited Seville and it was every bit as magical.
3. The dialogue.
   Sharper this year than many preceeding it. "You shoot a police officer and you'll get thirty years"-"Handfull of heartbeats to a Time Lord!", "Since we left Telos you've cause three electrical fires…"speech, "An inspiration of geniuses!", "Shepherds Pie, a shepherd can't we walk quicker!", "No arm in trying!"…and so many more but then with Saward, Holmes, Philip Martin on board are we surprised? Character dialogue was better as well…Jobel, Stratton and Bates, Sil, Shockeye were all considerably memorable because of their terrific dialogue.
4. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant.
   Oh come on they were ace together! Less irritating than Doc/Tegan, better acted than Doc/Adric, more developed than Doc/Nyssa, less vomit inducing than Doc/Mel…personally I loved theiur bitch fights because it meant I enjoyed it twice as much when they let down their barriers and showed how much they actually cared. God I would have given up on Doctor after Twin Dillemma if it wasn't for this electric team who were the only things worth watching. They were never less than entertaining (I love their wandering in the first half of Attack of the Cybermen, their fishing holiday, even their pointless rows in Timelash). I feel Baker and Bryant have a nice chemistry…and I can't think of a more chilling and compassionate Doctor/companion scene than when the "I killed him and he forgave me" bit from Revelation. It was all paid of handsomely in Trial of a Time Lord when they have a gentler relationship.
5. The 45 minute format.
   A successful format, I feel. Vengeance on Varos and Revelation of the Daleks would not have been the classics they clearly are without the longer episodes. It certainly left more time for pace and tension to be racked up with a melodramatic "No Peri!" like in The Twin Dilemma!
6. Consistency.
   Don't shoot me yet. Attack of the Cybermen is decent action story, Vengeance on Varos is a superior intelligent affair, The Mark of the Rani is a plaeaant historical, The Two Doctors is such fun and Revelation of the Daleks is a character classic. You see what I mean (I removed the awful Timelash which is the only exception and I think it was just a nasty dream anyway!)…compare it to the up'n'down nature of the Davison era (I can only think of two stories next to each other that were consistently good: Black Orchid and Earthshock). Each story this year has enough to merit a better than average which is good in my book.
7. Guest stars.
   Paul Darrow at least makes Timelash a enjoyably campy joke but the others are littered with great actors. Maurice Colbourne, John Stratton, Martin Jarvis, Clive Swift, Elanor Bron, Jaqueline Pearce…superb actors who relish their chance to become a part of the myth. Finally JNT's guest star policy was paying off (c'mon did Rula Lenska, Polly James and Neyrs Hughes really impress you?).
8. Diveristy.
   Feel I've already covered this in consisteny ironically enough. Go back and watch and relish how different Doctor Who can be!
9. The violence.
   Oh you bunch of sissys! This was no more violent than the Hinchcliffe years and to be honest why not? Shockeye eating the rat was great, the countless deaths at the hands of the Doctor…oh come on it wasn't that bad! And why shouldn't he? "Because he should use his wit and ingenuity to get of situations"….well I say boo hiss to that! Kill! Kill! Kill! The universe is a big ugly nasty place and when cannibals are chasing you with carving knives and people are trying to shove you into acid baths would you adopt the kill or be killed attitude. Colin Baker had real attitude and I love him.

Here are my ratings:
Attack of the Cybermen: 8/10
Vengeance on Varos: 9.5/10
Mark of the Rani: 8/10
The Two Doctors: 9/10
Timelash: bad dream
Revelation of the Daleks: 10/10
Overall: 8.5/10

Untrue Grit by Mike Morris 9/4/02

One of the great things about Doctor Who is that it very rarely produces something that's completely without merit. As a programme that can't rely on visuals it is - for SF - extremely intelligent and most stories have something to offer. Ditto the seasons. There hasn't been a season ever that's got nothing going for it.

Season 22 has a lot going for it. A lot. Not only that but it is such a change from what went before that it's easy to find an awful lot to admire. There's more real content in Season 22 than Season 20 or 11, for example. It's more thoughtful, more daring, more interesting.

I don't like it.

Editor's note: You can read the rest of this article in Time, Unincorporated, Volume 2, published by Mad Norwegian Press. For copyright reasons, we are unable to display the online version simultaneously.

Hardy Appetites and the Specter of Death... by Terrence Keenan 17/9/03

Intentional or not, there's actually a running theme through Season 22. Which I found a bit shocking upon returning to this much maligned season. Two of the stories feature it front and center, while the others have it in the background.

In fact the theme can be summed up through one character, Shockeye. He is the living embodiment of the Hitchcockian themes of hunger, consumption and death. He wants human flesh, consumes copious amounts of food -- without ever really sating his hunger, and kills indisciminately and frivolously (Poor Oscar Botcherby's demise).

Here are the relevant examples:

Attack of the Cybermen -- The Cybermen hunger for time travel to change history. They consume humans to create more Cybermen (an appetite which will never be sated) and are killed/driven to rogue condition by the Cryons, whom they wish to destroy for no rational reason.

Vengeance on Varos -- The Varosians consume video nasties like popcorn, and are more concerned with full bellies than bettering themselves. There are cannibals in the Punishment Dome. Governors are consumed to maintain the status quo. Sil hungers for power and control.

The Mark of the Rani -- The Rani needs the brain fluid that causes sleep to sate the denizens of Miamisia Goria. The Master craves power and consumes opportunistic moments (his forced collaboration of the Rani).

The Two Doctors -- Shockeye, as mentioned above. Chessene's hunger for knowledge and time travel capability. The Androgum-ized Second Doctor. The senseless death of the truck driver. Shockeye eats a rat and comments on the culinary potential.

Timelash -- The Borad's lust for Peri. Magellan's hunger for knowledge and power. (All right, it's a big reach).

Revelation of the Daleks -- Davros uses the system's desire for food as a front to create a new army of Daleks. Kara wants to kill Davros so she can control the food monopoly. Peri inadvertently sets off the attack by the mutant when she tosses a nut roll into a river. The cryogenic bodies who aren't turned into Daleks are converted to food. And in the end, the Doctor comes up with an alternative food supply to help the people of Nekros survive the destruction of Tranquil Repose.

One wonders if Eric Saward saw hints of it in one of the stories (The Two Doctors seems the obvious impetus) and added it the rest of the stories, including his own Revelation. Because it adds a thematic whole to a season that is far better known by fans for gaping plot holes, loads o' violence and continuity references. Coming on the heels of the remarkable Doctor-deconstruction theme of the previous season, I think it was intentional.

Does having a strong thematic link to stories mean the stories themselves are good?

Alas, no. Only Revelation of the Daleks is a great story. Vengeance on Varos, The Two Doctors, and Attack of the Cybermen are flawed, but watchable. The Mark of the Rani and Timelash are deeply flawed and highly unwatchable.

It's a shame, because if the stories had managed to match the strength of the themes, then maybe Season 22 would be honored, instead of reviled.