Category: Classic Season 20

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Arc of Infinity

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Nyssa’s visit to a tranquil region of space known as the Arc of Infinity is cut short by a strange phenomenon – some kind of entity penetrates the TARDIS and tries to merge with the Doctor’s body. The attempt is short-lived, and the Doctor escapes harm, but apparently the incident has been noticed – the Time Lords are recalling him to Gallifrey. With Nyssa in tow, the Doctor returns home only to discover that his biodata extract has been accessed by an unknown party – information that could be used to allow someone to take over his physical form. Fearing the ramifications of a Time Lord being taken over by an alien entity, the High Council – now led by the regenerated Borusa as Lord President – votes to have the Doctor executed. But a second attempt at a merge interrupts the execution, and the Time Lords find out that it’s no alien entity at work, but one of their own.

Season 20 Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough)

Order the DVDwritten by Johnny Byrne
directed by Ron Jones
music by Roger Limb

Guest Cast: Leonard Sachs (President Borusa), Michael Gough (Hedin), Ian Collier (Omega), Colin Baker (Maxil), Paul Jerricho (Castellan), Neil Daglish (Damon), Elspet Gray (Thalia), Max Harvey (Zorac), Andrew Boxer (Robin Stuart), Alastair Cumming (Colin Frazer), John D. Collins (Talor), Maya Woolfe (Hostel receptionist), Malcolm Harvey (The Ergon), Guy Groen (Second receptionist)

Broadcast from January 3 through 11, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Snakedance

Doctor WhoHaving rejoined the TARDIS crew after their adventure with Omega in Amsterdam, Tegan begins experiencing recurring nightmares. The Doctor spots an even more pressing problem: someone has reset the TARDIS’ coordinates, and it can only have been Tegan. The time travelers arrive on the planet Manussa…the homeworld of the evil Mara influence which possessed Tegan on Deva Loka. In this point in Manussa’s history, the Mara has become a mere legend of an evil vanquished, and the cause for an annual celebration. But the Mara, now once again in control of Tegan’s body, intends to possess the minds of every Manussan during the height of the festivities – unless the Doctor can find a way to stop it.

Order the DVDwritten by Christopher Bailey
directed by Fiona Cumming
music by Peter Howell

Guest Cast: John Carson (Ambril), Colette O’ Neil (Tahna), Preston Lockwood (Dojjen), Martin Clunes (Lon), Brian Miller (Dugdale), Hilary Sesta (Fortune Teller), George Ballantine (Hawker), Jonathon Morris (Chela), Barry Smith (Puppeteer)

Broadcast from January 17 through 25, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Mawdryn Undead

Doctor WhoA schoolboy named Turlough cons a classmate into “borrowing” a vintage roadster belonging to one of the teachers at his private school, naturally getting into an accident moments later. During a near-death experience, Turlough is forced into a deadly pact by the Black Guardian: Turlough’s new mission is to kill a Time Lord known as the Doctor at any cost. Soon afterward, the Doctor lands the TARDIS on a seemingly derelict spacecraft orbiting Earth in both space and time, only to find that somehow, someone on board is still maintaining the vessel. The Doctor soon becomes a pawn in alien renegades’ plot to end their pitiful immortality, and discovers that his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, now a math teacher at Turlough’s school, is a pawn. It also soon becomes evident that Turlough is no ordinary schoolboy.

Order the DVDwritten by Peter Grimwade
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Valentine Dyall (Black Guardian), David Collings (Mawdryn), Angus MacKay (Headmaster), Stephen Garlick (Ibbotson), Roger Hammond (Dr. Runciman), Sheila Gill (Matron), Peter Walmsley (First mutant), Brian Darnley (Second mutant), Lucy Baker (Child Nyssa), Sian Pattenden (Child Tegan)

Broadcast from February 1 through 9, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Terminus

Doctor WhoAt the Black Guardian’s bidding, Turlough interferes with the TARDIS internal systems enough to cause a critical failure: parts of the timeship’s interior are now surrounded by a deadly haze, and those sections could be open to the time vortex at any moment. Nyssa’s room is engulfed, and the Doctor performs an emergency merge with the nearest spacecraft in space-time to allow her to escape onto the other ship. When he stabilizes the TARDIS and then goes to retrieve Nyssa, however, the Doctor learns that he inadvertently sent his friend onto a plague-carriers’ ship – and Nyssa, now infected, can never leave, nor does that transport’s small crew seem even remotely inclined to help any of the people contaminated with Lazar’s Disease.

Order the DVDwritten by Stephen Gallagher
directed by Mary Ridge
music by Roger Limb

Guest Cast: Valentine Dyall (Black Guardian), Liza Goddard (Kari), Dominic Guard (Olvir), Rachel Weaver (Inga), Martin Muncaster (Tannoy voice), Martin Potter (Eirak), Andrew Burt (Valgard), Tim Munro (Sigurd), Peter Benson (Bor), R.J. Bell (The Garm)

Broadcast from February 15 through 23, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Enlightenment

Doctor WhoThe Doctor receives a very vague warning of danger from the White Guardian, but Turlough’s interference – passed off as worrying that the TARDIS console would be damaged by the White Guardian’s energy requirements – leaves the Doctor with only a shred of the information he needs. The TARDIS arrives on a vintage sailing ship, whose crew is not at all perturbed by the Doctor’s arrival, and whose officers are beings who live outside of time itself. The Doctor discovers that he is now taking part in a yacht race through the blackness of space, and the Eternals care nothing for the human sailors they’ve abducted. At the finish line lies the promise of everlasting enlightenment – or, if Turlough continues to fall under the sway of the Black Guardian, death for the Doctor.

Order the DVDwritten by Barbara Clegg
directed by Fiona Cumming
music by Malcolm Clarke

Guest Cast: Valentine Dyall (Black Guardian), Cyril Luckham (White Guardian), Keith Barron (Striker), Lynda Baron (Wrack), Christopher Brown (Marriner), Tony Caunter (Jackson), Clive Kneller (Collier), James McClure (First Officer), Leee John (Mansell), John Cannon (Helmsman), Byron Sotiris (Critas)

Notes: As a vocalist, guest star Lynda Baron had already been associated with Doctor Who, singing the background song heard throughout the William Hartnell story The Gunfighters.

Broadcast from March 1 through 9, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

The King’s Demons – Part 1

Doctor WhoThe arrival of the TARDIS coincides with a dangerous digression in Earth’s history: King John is holding court at the keep of Sir Ranulf, insulting his host and demanding financial tribute toward the continuance of the Crusades. Ranulf’s son, Hugh, challenges the King’s champion, Sir Gilles, in a fight for his father’s honor, but before blood is drawn, the TARDIS materializes, and the Doctor is surprised by how unfazed King John is by its appearance…one of many clues leading the Doctor to believe that this isn’t the real King John. According to history, King John should be in London right now, where many of his loyal subjects will shortly present him with the Magna Carta – a document to secure not only their own rights, but which will shape democracy in Britain for centuries to come. When the Doctor draws an armed challenge from Sir Gilles, he manages to emerge victorious…but finds himself facing one of his mortal foes, who has no business being in England in 1215.

Order the DVDwritten by Terence Dudley
directed by Tony Virgo
music by Jonathan Gibbs & Peter Howell

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Anthony Ainley (The Master/Sir Gilles Estram), Frank Windsor (Ranulf), Gerald Flood (King John/voice of Kamelion), Isla Blair (Isabella), Christopher Villiers (Hugh), Michael J. Jackson (Sir Geoffrey), Peter Burroughs (Jester)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

The King’s Demons – Part 2

Doctor WhoWith the unmasking of the Master – posing as King John’s knight “champion” – the Doctor is now more certain than ever that an impostor is trying to prevent King John from singing the Magna Carta. The time travelers discover that his majesty is not all that he appears – King John has been replaced by an intelligent, shapeshifting android called Kamelion. But at the moment, Kamelion is merely a puppet, and his strings are held by the Master, who escaped from Xeriphas (bringing Kamelion, a Xeriphan invention, with him) and now hopes to unravel the entire history of western civilization.

Order the DVDwritten by Terence Dudley
directed by Tony Virgo
music by Jonathan Gibbs & Peter Howell

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Frank Windsor (Ranulf), Gerald Flood (King John/voice of Kamelion), Isla Blair (Isabella), Christopher Villiers (Hugh), Michael J. Jackson (Sir Geoffrey), Peter Burroughs (Jester)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

The Five Doctors

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Tegan and Turlough find themselves in no immediate danger for once, until the Doctor suffers from repeated, severe pain, claiming that his past is being altered in a way that could endanger him in the present. Somewhere on Gallifrey, long-abandoned machinery from the earliest days of the Time Lords is reactivated and its powers are brought to bear on each of the Doctor’s first four incarnations, snatching each of them from their own timeline and depositing them in Gallifrey’s infamous Death Zone, where the tomb of Time Lord founding father Rassilon stands. The fourth Doctor is trapped in the time vortex and never makes it to Gallifrey. As the various personae of the Doctor join forces, along with many companions, they find themselves fighting a variety of old adversaries – and one new antagonist – for the future of Gallifrey itself.

Order the DVDwritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Peter Howell

Guest Cast: Richard Hurndall (The First Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Second Doctor), Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), John Leeson (voice of K9), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Philip Latham (Lord President Borusa), Dinah Sheridan (Chancellor Flavia), Paul Jerricho (Castellan), Richard Mathews (Rassilon), David Savile (Colonel Crichton), Ray Float (Sergeant), Roy Skelton (Dalek voice), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Stephen Meredith (Technician), David Banks (CyberLeader), Mark Hardy (Cyber Lieutenant), William Kenton (Cyber Scout), Stuart Blake (Commander)

Appearing in footage from The Dalek Invasion Of Earth: William Hartnell (The First Doctor)

Appearing in footage from Shada: Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana)

Broadcast November 23, 1983 (US) / November 25, 1983 (UK)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green