Doctor Who 14x11

Directed by David Maloney

Bernard Horsfall as Chancellor Goth • George Pravda as Castellan Spandrell • Peter Pratt as The Master • Erik Chitty as Co-Ordinator Engin • Peter Mayock as Solis

The Doctor has entered the computation Matrix to prove his innocence. But his opponent is prepared for him and the two engage in a mental duel to the death.

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1. This episode was broadcast on 13th November, 1976 at 6.05 p.m.

2. The Radio Times listing read: "'You were a fool to enter my domain! '

3. "The odds are all against the Doctor in his desperate battle for survival with a faceless enemy."

4. This episode is one of the most controversial in Doctor Who's history.

5. Doctor Who was always aimed at a family audience, rather than being a children's programme.

6. But the violent content of this episode upset a right-wing pressure group, self-styled the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA).

7. Leaving the controversy to one side for now, this was an innovative episode, technically.

8. Outdoor, dialogue-free film sequences make up about 80% of its running time.

9. This unusually high quota of outdoor filming made the most of the summer weather.

10. It was also a cost-effective way to use the programme's film allocation budget.

11. The autumn and winter recording schedules would be used for more studio-bound stories.

12. As the script puts it, "the landscape shimmers, splits into horizontal lines

13. "and then reassembles into a vista of condensers and geometric solid state circuitry."

14. This episode was filmed between 26th and 30th June, 1976.

15. This bird is taken from stock footage, however.

16. The script reads: "Doggedly the Doctor struggles up... he clambers down rocks to sand. He is thirsty.

17. "He hears the sound of trickling water. He scrapes away some sand to reveal a clown's face in a mirror."

18. Bernard Horsfall plays the clown.

19. This scene of the biplane attack is reminiscent of a famous sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959).

20. The Hitchcock movie, starring Cary Grant, evokes a similar paranoid feel to this episode.

21. This plane is a 1949 Stampe SV4C. This model was designed as a training aircraft.

22. The aircraft, G-AWXZ, is something of a movie star in its own right.

23. It's appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) And The Mummy (1999).

24. Biplane footage was filmed at Redhill aerodrome, with close-up work done on the ground.

25. The gunshots were supervised by Dave Goody, the BBC armourer we saw as the soldier earlier on.

26. The gun was supplied by Bapty's, an armoury company.

27. They supplied weapons for other Doctor Who stories, including 'The Invasion' (1968).

28. The script: "Bullets cut up the earth, furrowing towards the Doctor as he dives headlong into the gully.

29. "The plane blasts overhead as the Doctor rolls in a cloud of dust."

30. The masked pilot (but not his laugh) Was played by Chris Jesson.

31. The scripted description of the Doctor's injury is more graphic than the filmed version.

32. "His left leg is dangling awkwardly. Blood is soaking darkly through the cloth of his trousers."

33. The location work was filmed out of sequence.

34. The Doctor's increasingly ragged appearance made continuity a challenge.

35. This "fight or flight response" was first described by the American physiologist Walter Cannon in 1914.

36. It's triggered by danger and mediated by the hormone adrenaline.

37. This increases the heart rate, raises blood pressure, and diverts blood supply preferentially to the muscles.

38. At the age of sixteen, Robert Holmes joined the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and fought in Burma.

39. He reportedly lied about his age to get into the army.

40. It's possible that this experience of tropical warfare inspired the scenes in the second half of this episode.

41. Holmes specifically refers to the swamp trees as "mangroves", a tropical species found in Burma.

42. The Hunter is described by Holmes as "a lean, sinister figure,

43. "his face invisible beneath a jungle hat and camouflage net

44. "The Hunter carries a telescopic rifle and all the lethal accoutrements of the combat specialist."

45. The giant spider is another of Len Hutton's models.

46. The script seems to offer it as a visual metaphor for the Doctor's entrapment.

47. The spider's appearance is immediately followed by a description of the Hunter "crawling forward".

48. The Doctor's search for water was filmed in the middle of a real drought.

49. Rainfall recorded at Kew between October 1975 and August 1976 was 43% of the long-term average.

50. Temperatures topped 32 degrees centigrade in southern England.

51. The Hunter's haversack contains "spare magazines, night-sights, a hand-grenade

52. "plastic explosive, detonators, K-rations..."

53. The jungle and swamp sequences were filmed in Gatton Park gardens in Surrey.

54. They were shot on days 3 to 5 of location filming.

55. Gatton Park has a long history, having at one point been tended by the legendary "Capability" Brown.

56. During World War II, it was requisitioned by the army from its owners, a family of mustard tycoons.

57. After the war, it was left untended and became overgrown.

58. The script for this section has various last-minute changes that add tension.

59. This low shot of the Hunter pacing across the jungle floor is a late addition.

60. Terry Walsh usually doubled for Tom Baker in stunt scenes.

61. However, his resemblance to Bernard Horsfall meant that in this episode he played Goth.

62. Stuntman Eddie Powell, meanwhile, doubled for Tom Baker.

63. The hypnotised guard, Solis, is played by Peter Mayock.

64. Minus uniform, and plus fez and beard, he had played Ibrahim Namin in 'Pyramids of Mars' (1975).

65. Don't worry - no fish were harmed in the filming of this sequence.

66. They are another Len Hutton creation.

67. In the script, the Doctor comes closer to being poisoned:

68. "He flings himself down... dipping his hands eagerly into the water, cupping it towards his mouth.

69. "The scooping action causes a little current. A small dead fish drifts out... white belly upwards.

70. "The Doctor looks at it, the water almost to his mouth."

71. Realistic blood was rarely seen in 1970s Doctor Who.

72. Robert Holmes told the Daily Express that the programme featured "fantasy deaths".

73. He added that this meant "No blood, no petrol bombs".

74. Ironically, the NVALA's complaints about Doctor Who focused on the violence in this story.

75. Another source of grievance was the petrol bomb scene in 'The Seeds of Doom', earlier in 1976.

76. Holmes was keen, however, to point out that Doctor Who was not a children's programme.

77. He stated that he wouldn't let children under ten watch it.

78. Tom Baker told BBC radio's Woman's Hour that the horror was mitigated by the "domestic context" of Doctor Who.

79. "Children like to be terrorised," he added

80. Philip Hinchcliffe defended the violent scenes in this episode by stressing the fantasy setting.

81. He pointed out that the Doctor was actually fighting a battle of minds.

82. Whilst this is true, there is certainly a contrast in this episode

83. between the early surreal scenes and the grim fight to the death of the closing minutes.

84. David Maloney's realist style in Genesis of the Daleks (1975) Had already caused controversy.

85. Later in his career, he would take a break from fiction in favour of documentary films,

86. notably Art of Darkness (1987), relating British cultural heritage to the slave trade.

87. The Doctor's use of a poison dart reflects this episode's theme of the hunter and the hunted.

88. Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest use of poison was by hunters.

89. Hunters would coat their weapons with toxins to kill their prey.

90. In the script, The Hunter walks "with a stiff, lop-sided movement".

91. This is due to "the knife wound in his thigh".

92. Presumably, the scene in which the Hunter receives a knife wound was cut from the final draft.

93. In the script, the thorn's "band of virulent green" betrays the presence of poison.

94. Studio work for this episode was carried out during the second block of recording.

95. This took place on 1 st and 2nd September, 1976.

96. Studio 8 at BBC TV Centre was used.

97. The final fight scenes between Goth and the Doctor took up virtually all of day four of the location shoot.

98. The sequence was completed on the fifth and final day, 30th July, 1976.

99. The action that ends this scene changed between script and screen.

100. Spandrell originally shot Solis at the controls, rather than pulling him away.

101. "His hand blurs like a Hollywood cowboy's as his staser comes from its holster.

102. "He shoots past the startled Engin. Solis, his hand on the plug, is flung back by the staser blast."

103. Marsh gas is methane, produced by plants decomposing in water.

104. This flammable gas is colourless and has a sweet, oily odour.

105. "The Hunter pushes on into the swamp, the rifle ready, eyes searching the undergrowth ahead..."

106. Originally, the Hunter was to give "a crazy laugh" as he spoke.

107. The marsh fire effect was supervised by effects designer Peter Day.

108. A ring of gas pipes was used to create a circle of fire.

109. The final minutes of this episode proved the most controversial.

110. The NVALA's complaint focused on the "drowning" cliffhanger.

111. It was alleged that the scene had given a five-year-old boy the idea of mimicking Goth's behaviour.

112. BBC Director General Sir Charles Curran investigated and replied personally.

113. He conceded that it may have been appropriate to cut out "a few more frames" of the action.

114. The episode was repeated in August, 1977.

115. For the repeat, the last few seconds of the episode were cut.

116. The footage was erased from the BBC's master tape of the programme.

117. It has been restored from an off-air recording for this DVD edition.

118. This episode attracted 13 million viewers, the highest figure yet for Doctor Who.

119. You could have seen Tom Baker again later that evening on BBC Two.

120. He appeared in a TV movie adaptation of Henry James's The Author of Beltraffio.