By Roy Mathur, on 2025-04-27, at 00:00:01 to 00:43:10 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Welcome to season 23. The entire season is a single story arc spread over three serials: The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids, and The Ultimate Foe. I had thought to tape one epically long session taking in the whole arc, but I remember tackling each part of the similar Key to Time quest as a separate story. That makes more sense, given the different cast and crews involved in each serial and the very loose frame story.
Doctor Who's supposed cancellation, post-Revelation of the Daleks (pod 574) season 22 finale, was retracted by the BBC after protests. Season 23 originally consisted of an entirely different set of scripts, later cancelled due to budget constraints. These stories were: The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil, Mission to Magnus, Yellow Fever and How to Cure It, In the Hollows of Time, and The Children of January. Some were later adapted by Big Finish as audio dramas and/or Target novelizations.
The title most appealing to me, The Nightmare Fair novel by the original scriptwriter, Graham Williams, unfortunately costs between 20 and 50 quid, leaving little recourse except eBook piracy. Maybe one day I can cast the scalpers into the anti-matter universe where Omega will enjoy tormenting them for eternity. Don't even get me started on B and M eBayers... Given the cliffhanger at the end of Revelation, when the Doctor says he will take Peri somewhere fun, it also makes more sense that The Nightmare Fair is set in Blackpool.
Notable Cast: Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker, Peri Brown: Nicola Bryant, The Valeyard: Michael Jayston in Zulu Dawn, Sabalom Glitz: Tony Selby also Glitz in The Ultimate Foe, Dragonfire, Queen Katryca: Joan Sims a Carry On regular, The Inquisitor: Lynda Bellingham had minor role in Blake's 7, Helen in All Creatures Great and Small
Director: Nicholas Mallett production unit manager on Blake's 7, directed DW's Paradise Towers, Curse of Fenric.
Writer: Robert Holmes ex-soldier, copper, and court reporter, prolific Doctor Who writer
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush, Queen Elizabeth Country Park and Butser Ancient Farm Project, Hampshire in 1986
Broadcast: Story 143a, season 23, serial 1, following Revelation of the Daleks (pod 574), 4 x c. 25 min, 6--27 Sep 1986 (after a 5 month hiatus)
Media: Target novelization by Terrence Dicks in 1987, VHS 1993, DVD 2008, 2013, Blu-ray 2019, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
The UK no. 1 single was Boris Gardiner's I Want to Wake Up with You, which I have no memory of.
The Tardis materialises aboard a Time Lord court floating in space and the Doctor is prosecuted by the Valyard (learned court prosecutor) for meddling in time. The first evidence, his adventure on Ravolox is presented.
Arriving on dismal Ravolox, unique for being, "destroyed by a solar fireball", the Doctor and a very reluctant Peri investigate. The ruins of Marble Arch Tube Station reveal Ravalox is future Earth. The Doctor expores, while Peri waits.
Criminals, Sabalom Glitz and Dibber. spy on them, thinking them competition for their upcoming theft. As well as the Doctor, "a bunch of backward savages have turned a Magnum Mark Seven light converter into a totem pole" that they need to destroy as it is the guardian robot's power source.
Peri is captured and imprisoned with Glitz and Dibber by Queen Katryca's primitive surface tribe. They escape and Dibber blows up the black light generator.
The Doctor is also captured by underground dwelling humans, almost stoned, then brought to their ruler, a robot they call the Immortal. Drathro the robot sets him to work on repairs to the black light power system. The Doctor escapes by electrocuting Drathro, meets Peri and the criminals and is captured by the tribe. The tribe attack Drathro, but are slaughtered. The Doctor fails to convince Drathro that the malfunctioning power system risks a chain reaction that could destroy the universe. Glitz makes a deal, but double-crosses and destroys Drathro, along with the loot box unfortunately. Luckily, pieces of the black light converter aerial are made of very valuable "pure silictone."
The Doctor manages to reduce the power system explosion to the underground. The survivors barely escape to join the remaining surface tribe.
Stymied by the Doctor's fairly airtight defence that he, "can literally claim to have saved the entire universe", the Valyard promises, "The most damning is still to come. And when I have finished, this court will demand your life."
The Time Lords version of Star Trek's Prime Directive originates in Underworld (pod 394) after the Doctor revealed their previous well-intentioned meddling had caused extinction.
Dodging the underground's dangerous internal machinery is also reminiscent of similar oft-ridiculed situations in science fiction.
With Peri's hopeful expectation of fun, after the event of Revelation, they arrive on grey, dismal, ruined Ravalox. She's bored, then she's captured and almost married of to several men by the Queen. Poor Peri.
The Marble Arch ("Marb Station") scene and the underground dwellers who retain some tech, but have largely forgotten past knowledge. They have a few books left, like, "Mo By Dick by Herman Melville. It tells of a great white water god". Together with the primitive surface tribe, the set up reminds me of Planet of the Apes, particularly Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I thought the shock discovery of Ravalox being earth was effective, but a bit old hat in science fiction by that time.
Comedy villain, Sabalom Glitz, becomes a fan favourite and will reappear on screen, novels, and audio. He has some great lines like, "Come here, you ignorant, maggot ridden peasant. Somehow I always feel foolish saying this. Take me to your leader." We've had some interesting bad guys; Orsini the honourable assassin of Revelation and now the delightfully crooked Glitz. Larger-than-life Glitz is again the only character I can remeber of my first viewing.
The Steyr assault rifle from Revelation looks a lot like Glitz's weapon.
Glitz reuses the Brigadier's line from The Daemons (pod 250), "Five rounds rapid..."
As fans, we know the shock reveal to come, but initially, the Valyvard has an irritating holier-than-thou antagonistic attitude only moderated by Lynda Bellinghams's Time Lord judge, the Inquisitor. I enjoyed how the Doctor mocks him, calling him the Boatyard, Graveyard, Farmyard, and Scrapyard.
The Doctor also mocks the robot's assistants, calling them Handbag and Handrail.
The lumbering robot was ridiculous and unconvincing---more Marvin with horns than The Black Hole's Maximilian---but I read in Howe, walker, and Stammer's Handbook that Michael Grade had advised JNT to make the show funnier. That can't have been intentional, could it?
All in all, comfort food for my soul on revisit, but forgettable for Glitz and Broken Tooth.
According to Howe, walker, and Stammer's Handbook: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who, Doctor Who was to be "rested" at the end of season 22 on BBC 1 Controller Michael Grade's instruction due to production expense. Cancellation was never apparently the plan, though the BBC used the furore to drum up interest in the show. Does that sound familiar to fans of New Who?
Butser Ancient Farm Project is an experimental Iron Age farm. Their educational programme for schools sounds awfully familiar. I may I may have visited on a school trip in the 70s. I remember delighting in daubing my face in blue woad like an ancient Celt tribesman.
The tribesman Broken Tooth became one of the nicknames of my cat, who had a noticeably broken fang.