By Roy Mathur, on 2025-12-22, at 23:33:23 to 00:37:44 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
I was hoping the revisit would end this year, but we still have the remainder of Season 25 (The Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy), Season 26 (Battlefield, Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric, Survival), the TV movie, a re-revisit of Amicus's Dr. Who and the Daleks and revisit of Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. before we can host the wrap party.
The delays are all my fault, due to a general malaise of the humours, melancholia, migraines, a recent OS upgrade, the sheer activity associated with Christmas and... Fyor! Prepare the fainting couch!
Notable Cast: Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy, Companion: Ace: Sophie Aldred, Emperor Dalek/Davros: Terry Molloy; Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, Ratcliffe: George Sewell; Colonel Freeman in UFO, various hard men, John (cafe guy): Joseph Marcell; born Saint Lucia from Peckham (where I got my Hamster, Hammy), RSC, Brit TV, Headmaster: Michael Sheard; prev. dep. head Bronson in Grange Hill
Director: Andrew Morgan; Blake's 7, Time and the Rani
Writer: Ben Aaronovitch, a whippersnapper 25-year-old fanboy, who previously submitted scripts to equally whippersnapperish, but encouraging script editor, Andrew Cartmel, who finally hired him (why have the Beeb pulled the ladder up behind them for us creative fans nowadays?)
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush, and various locations in London, 1988
Broadcast: Story 148, serial 1, season 25, following Dragonfire (597), 4 x 25 min, 5--26 Oct 1988
Media: Target novelization by Ben Aaronovitch 1990, VHS 1993, 2001, DVD 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009, twice in 2010, 2013, Blu-ray 2024, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
The UK no. 1 single was U2's Desire.
Open on Kennedy, then King speaking, and out in space a spaceship lurks.
In 1963 Shoreditch the Doctor and Ace run into Counter-Intrusion Measures, led by Group Captain Gilmore, tracking a weird signal. It originates from a Dalek transmat in Coal Hill School.
Another signal indicated opposing Imperial Daleks and cybernetically enhanced Renegade Daleks seeking the Hand of Omega to control time, recently hidden by the First Doctor in a coffin. Matters are complicated by human turn-coats and slaves, like a fascistic business man, Ratcliffe, a girl used as a CPU, a headmaster, and CIM sergeant Smith. Ratcliffe finds the Hand in the cemetery, but Imperial Daleks capture it from the Renegades and eventually kill the Renegades with a heavily armed Special Weapons Dalek. Ratcliffe is killed by the girl shooting blue lightning from her hands.
Davros, the Dalek Emperor on the Imperial Dalek mothership in orbit, gloats and goaded by the Doctor, activates the Hand, which flies off and sends Skaro's sun supernova, destroying Skaro. Davros escapes just as the Hand feedback destroys his mothership. Then the Hand heads back to Gallifrey.
Smith, holding Ace, is also killed by the girl and the Renegade's Supreme Dalek self-destructs. The Doctor and Ace leave quietly at Smith's funeral. Ace asks the Doctor, "We did good, didn't we?" He replies mysteriously, "Perhaps. Time will tell. It always does."
The new opening credits are inoffensive, though cheap looking. The dapper Doctor remains dapper. Also, as someone with rather noticeable OCD (when I'm not masking), McCoy's hard-rolled over-pronunciation of R's forgiven, as perhaps the actor suffers from the same condition? I'm not asking Sylvester McCoy. Ace continues to be a dynamic and companion, nicely complimenting the eccentric time traveller.
The central plot is a Dalek McGuffin hunt for the hand of Omega device, a stellar manipulator that powered the ancient Time Lords' time mastery technology. Ah, Omega, my favourite DW supervillain, you are redeemed, post-RTD's Reality War obscenity.
Poor Ace, first a filthy interlude with dirty old Glitz (expanded uni), now fascist Smith. A Dalek has the temerity to exterminate her ghetto blaster, but she get her licks in, smashing it with her baseball bat, takes another out with a bazooka, and smashes through a big window. Earlier in the story, she also gives Doc Nitro-9 to blow up Daleks, "...Ace, give me some of that Nitro Nine that you're not carrying." Yahoo, ASBO Ace!
The Doctor also smashes the transmat up with Ace's bat. He is also again very Harold Lloyd/Buster Keaton in his clownish athleticism, but also proves himself sneaky too in a grand deception.
When, the Doctor says, "The Hand of Omega is a mythical name for Omega's remote stellar manipulator, a device used to customise stars with. And didn't we have trouble with the prototype." Ace asks, "We?" Look furtive, he replies, "They." From Howe, Walker, and Stammer's Handbook: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who, "...there were suggestions that, contrary to previous indications, the Doctor might somehow have been a contemporary of Rassilon and Omega..." (p.722)
I liked the Imperial Dalek shuttle. It reminded me of a Space: 1999 Eagle, but better. Green light emitted from it's nozzles and glyphs made it look very alien. I liked the practical effects, especially Ace's full body roll through the school lab's big window. I liked the new look Daleks: Imperial gold on white, Emperor/Davros same with a white globe head, Special Weapons same with heavy armour and one extra-large gunstick (no manipulator arm as this thing is a tank), Renegade black on grey, Supreme Leader silver on black. (I had to look up the collectors' models to check).
Minor points: Group Captain Gilmore's team of scientists and soldiers (well, cannon fodder) are not UNIT, but Counter-Intrusion Measures. The girl CPU has Sith powers, shooting deadly blue lightning from her hands in exactly the same way as Palpatine in Return of the Jedi.
My one criticism is that the story was too fast paced. I lost track of allies, enemies and, depite the clear differentiation of Dalek-types, I confused the two Dalek factions.
The snake has eaten it's tail in this delightful fanservice and retcon lore-dump, as might be written by a 25-year old fan. It takes us right back to the begining with An Unearthly Child's I.M. Foreman's scrapyard, 76 Totter's Lane and Coal Hill School, Shoreditch, and explaining what the First Doctor was doing there in 1963. He even throws us nerds an entirely unnecessary, but appreciated in-universe reference to Quatermass that I missed until reading the script. The start to Season 25 is action-packed, Ace shines as a proper smash, bang, wallop, kablooey action hero, and that devious devilish Doctor plays his cards close to his chest until the end. Deserves an unofficial re-re-watch. Bravo!
Coal Hill School, Shoreditch is Macbeth Centre for Adult Education in Hammersmith, an ex-school called Waterloo Street School. Its separate girls and boys entrances reminded me of my own infants school. This is not the same location An Unearthly Child (BBC Lime Grove Studios, Lime Grove, Shepherd's Bush).