Doctor Who 14x26

Directed by David Maloney

Christopher Benjamin as Jago • Trevor Baxter as Professor Litefoot • Deep Roy as Mr. Sin • Michael Spice as Weng-Chiang • Vincent Wong as Ho

The Doctor and Weng-Chiang have their final confrontation in the mysterious House of the Dragon -- watched by the evil duplicitous Mr. Sin.

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1. "'Beware the eye of the Dragon! ' In his final confrontation with Weng-Chiang the Doctor forgets the warning..." (Radio Times)

2. This episode was first shown on 2 April 1977, and drew the serial's lowest viewing figure, 9.3 million.

3. The script describes Weng-Chiang's face as

4. "a distorted jumble of features- eyes, nose, mouth- compressed gruesomely and set into a texture like fresh veal.

5. "It is a face from a Picasso nightmare."

6. Weng-Chiang is turned away from the camera as he scrabbles on the floor for his mask,

7. to conceal the fact that the actor is wearing it all the time.

8. The deformed face was cast in latex, sculpted on a model of actor Michael Spice's own face.

9. Most of the time, of course, he just wore the leather mask.

10. The mask was made in two pieces, and for camera rehearsals he preferred to leave the front section off.

11. Tom Baker and Michael Spice used to compete with one another during rehearsals

12. to see which of them could finish the Times and Guardian crosswords first.

13. The toy car is a Batmobile from the 1960s Batman television series.

14. The offer of a jelly baby was Tom Baker's spontaneous contribution: It's not in the script.

15. This sequence was written as the cliffhanger of Part 5:

16. A freeze-frame shot of Mr Sin striking was recorded, but not included in the final edit,

17. and the scene was moved so that Part 5 ended on the unmasking.

18. The talons of Weng-Chiang made life uncomfortable for Michael Spice.

19. The hand make-up had to be done afresh every studio day, and was a much more substantial job than his face.

20. The talons were specially made and were stuck on first thing in the morning; then his hands were covered in latex hair.

21. This made it difficult for the actor to pick up or manipulate props,

22. not to mention his knife and fork at lunchtime!

23. Among the horrified witnesses in the BBC canteen were the pop group Brotherhood of Man.

24. Then there was the little matter of using the lavatory...

25. The serial was not originally called 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang'.

26. The working title was 'The Talons of Greel',

27. but this had to be changed because we don't hear the name of Greel until this episode.

28. At one stage the production team flirted with calling the serial 'The Cabinet of Weng-Chiang',

29. but the grip of the talons was too strong:

30. The title became 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' while Robert Holmes was writing the last two episodes.

31. The BBC continuity announcers wouldn't have been best pleased with the title change, had they known of it:

32. When the serial was first shown, they struggled with the unfamiliar name,

33. giving versions ranging from "Wang-Cheng" to "Wen-Chang"!

34. A take of this scene was ruined by someone creeping around the studio during the recording.

35. They weren't looking where they were going, and knocked something over with a terrific crash!

36. Cuddly rat aside, 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' has exceptionally high production values for 1970s Doctor Who.

37. It was Philip Hinchcliffe's last serial after three years in the job, so everyone working on it was determined to go for broke:

38. There were none of the usual compromises between production standards and budget limitations.

39. The result was a headache for Chris D'Oyly John, the production unit manager who controlled the spending.

40. Eventually he left the production early, exhausted by the workload,

41. leaving it to his successor, John Nathan-Turner, to balance the books and claw back some of the overspend.

42. Another thing that attracted Robert Holmes to the period setting was the opportunity to create colourful characters

43. and to portray what he called "British Empire behaviour", seen here in Jago and Litefoot.

44. In the script, the Doctor asks for "Foo Yung with noodles".

45. Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe combined several of their preoccupations in the conception of Weng-Chiang.

46. Holmes was fascinated by the idea of cannibalism,

47. which he wrote into several subsequent Doctor Who serials, notably 'The Two Doctors' (1985).

48. For his part, Hinchcliffe was interested in the science fiction concept of a man trapped in a strange, hostile environment,

49. and liked stories dealing with how he coped with that environment.

50. The twist here is that he's a villain and the hostile world is London.

51. Holmes created him as a futuristic version of a Nazi war criminal.

52. Many senior Nazis disappeared at the end of the Second World War, just as Greel escaped into the past;

53. the possibility of their survival in retirement was still a subject of press interest in the mid-1970s.

54. Greel's nickname links him with Commandant Josef Kramer, known as "the Beast of Belsen",

55. who supervised the mass murder of inmates at Belsen concentration camp, and was executed by the British in 1946.

56. But the character has even closer similarities with Dr Josef Mengele (1911-1979),

57. the chief doctor at Auschwitz, who practised human vivisection on the inmates in the name of medical research.

58. He escaped to South America after the war, and was still alive when the serial was first broadcast.

59. The allusion was even clearer in the script as the Doctor pointedly refers to Greel's "experimental camps".

60. He also calls Greel's time "the blackest period in human history",

61. and uses more adjectives to express his contempt: Degenerate, squalid, sub-human.

62. He becomes so passionately engaged in his argument with Greel that he takes less care

63. to hold the key precariously on a point of balance, with the threat that it might fall,

64. which is why Greel can take the risk of having Mr Sin shoot him down.

65. In rehearsal, Tom Baker suggested that the Doctor should reply, "No it's just my imagination," before losing consciousness.

66. This had to be reshot because the sight of the shaking curtains made somebody laugh.

67. The pulsing cabinet was wired up by effects assistant Andy Lazell.

68. The script refers to the interior workings of the cabinet as "the quantum panels".

69. It was Robert Holmes who first established that the Doctor has two hearts, seven years earlier in 'Spearhead from Space' (1970).

70. At this time the Doctor was characterised as having a fondness for obscure quotations.

71. Here he quotes the opening lines of the comic monologue 'The Green Eye of the Yellow God' (1911).

72. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) Was not the author.

73. Nor was the music hall comic Harry Champion (1866-1942),

74. who was best known for cockney songs like 'Any Old Iron' and 'Boiled Beef and Carrots'.

75. No, the author was in fact J. Milton Hayes (1884-1940).

76. According to the script, the soup is "more Mickey Finn than shark's fin".

77. On the first take, Tom Baker inadvertently lifted the extra's skirt as he set her down, revealing her underwear.

78. Apologising afterwards, he complimented her on her "lovely legs".

79. In the first draft, the Doctor explains what he's doing, and Jago offers him a stick of greasepaint to coat the linen.

80. The year before, Doctor Who had been attacked for supposedly showing child viewers how to make a Molotov cocktail.

81. In fact, the serial 'The Seeds of Doom' (1976) Gave no precise instructions on the point,

82. and this time round it was likewise considered prudent not to go into detail about how to make a gas bomb.

83. Louise Jameson bruised her shin doing this.

84. Keep your eye on her knife in the next shot.

85. Ho fails to knock it out of Leela's hand, so Louise has to throw it away herself!

86. In a line cut from the finished version of the serial, the Doctor remarks,

87. "Leela puts too much faith in simple physical violence."

88. At a very early stage, Robert Holmes suggested that the villain might be the Master,

89. who had been reintroduced, in mutilated form, three serials earlier in 'The Deadly Assassin'.

90. But Philip Hinchcliffe wanted an original creation instead - hence Magnus Greel.

91. Production wrapped on 10 February 1977, just over a fortnight before the first episode was broadcast.

92. The regular cast then had a seven-week break before starting rehearsals for 'The Invisible Enemy' on 1 April.

93. In the interim, Louise Jameson had a date with Noel Edmonds on Swap Shop. ;

94. her appearance on the show took place on 12 February, a fortnight after her illness forced her to cancel.

95. The six episodes were edited during a three-week period from 12 February and 1 March.

96. Dudley Simpson recorded the incidental music in six sessions from 21 February to 28 March.

97. So this episode's music was only taped on the Monday before it was shown.

98. In the script, the Doctor asks for "matches". The Victorian term "lucifers" was substituted in rehearsal.

99. In the script, the bomb has no fuse: The Doctor lights the whole matchbox and throws it at the gas bag as the door opens.

100. Now watch the resourceful Tom Baker cope with recalcitrant props:

101. The first match snaps, and the next one out of the box is missing its head.

102. Success!

103. In the studio, the three actors were asked to cover their ears,

104. but Tom Baker wouldn't: "I'm an alien," he insisted.

105. This is the second take: The coolies weren't doing enough writhing in agony the first time round.

106. The script asked for more coolies here: Two already dead, the rest rolling about screaming as they visibly burn to death.

107. Melodramatic serial titles were part of Doctor Who's house style in the mid-1970s.

108. Philip Hinchcliffe felt they grabbed the audience's attention and were part of the series' tradition.

109. According to the script, the hatchet severs the power cable that feeds "the duo-pole catalytic splitter".

110. If you had been watching the original 1977 transmission of this episode, the next thing you'd have seen after the closing credits

111. was, coincidentally, a darkened Victorian street with bills posted on the wall.

112. It turned out to be a trailer for the BBC's "Sunday classics" dramatisation of Nicholas Nickleby, to be shown the following evening.

113. The word "magnanimous" was Tom Baker's contribution: The script just has "generous".

114. The table they're hiding behind is rigged with flash charges, which caused problems during the recording.

115. On the underside there are six small charges and one large one fitted in pre-cut cavities.

116. David Maloney was given an advance demonstration of the pyrotechnics in the visual effects workshop.

117. Effects designer Michealjohn Harris carefully wired up the charges the night before the studio recording.

118. The wire supplied the electrical charge used to activate the explosions: See if you can spot it next time you see the table.

119. There it is on the left.

120. Effects shots like this were often left until the end of the studio recording session,

121. so there were only ten minutes to go when the table refused to collapse on cue.

122. The cast, told to stand back from a huge explosion, were more amused by the pathetic little blast than were the effects men.

123. Some bright spark had lacquered the table-top, which gummed up all the sections that were supposed to be blown apart,

124. so the effects men had to break up the prop by hand before the second take.

125. Jago's cowardice here was developed in rehearsal: In the script, he leaves it open which of them will "draw the blighter's fire",

126. and it is Leela who decides she'll be the one to fetch the gun.

127. Leela's erratic shooting was supposed to cut a lantern from its mooring, but the effects shot was never recorded.

128. A hand can be seen reaching through the curtain to overturn the pot.

129. The studio sessions for this serial were exceptionally fraught.

130. Recording overran on three days, by half-an-hour on 24 and 25 January and a full hour on 10 February.

131. The latter was primarily due to the misbehaving pyrotechnics,

132. and at the end of the day they didn't have every shot they needed for the final edit.

133. A notable omission was the dragon's eyes firing at Greel,

134. so the sequence had to be assembled in the editing room with reused close-ups and dubbed sound effects.

135. Two spent flash charges can be seen falling from the dragon's face in the next shot.

136. In the script, Greel's gun is a single-shot derringer, and is instrumental in his death.

137. It goes off as he struggles with the Doctor on the floor,

138. and he dies by "a bullet through his black heart".

139. Litefoot reaches to unmask Greel, but Leela doesn't fancy seeing his face again.

140. 'The Foe from the Future' was the serial's very first working title.

141. Leela was supposed to fall to the ground here, and her stunt double was on hand with boxes to break the fall.

142. And here's Mr Sin's stunt double.

143. Greel's time key was made by George Reed, working from a watercolour design painting by Michealjohn Harris.

144. He used polystyrene resin, which is translucent enough to allow the key to glow, but also very brittle.

145. Three keys were made in all,

146. just in case anything like this happened early!

147. The muffin man's cry was not heard in the studio: It was dubbed on in post-production.

148. This is the same wall seen when Jago and Litefoot were captured outside Greel's lair in Part 5.

149. The set was redressed to add the Palace Theatre poster.

150. The "warming the pot" line was Tom Baker's unscripted contribution.

151. The Tardis dematerialisation had to be reshot twice:

152. First because a stage hand accidentally moved the wall out of position as he wheeled the police box away on its castors,

153. then because they had trouble unplugging the cable to the Tardis light.

154. And on the first take of this bit, Christopher Benjamin said "Li San Cheng".

155. Also seen in this episode were

156. Debbie Cummings (Fair Girl)

157. Helen Simnett (Dark Girl)

158. Uncredited production contributors included

159. Christine Baker, Jennifer Hughes, Martha Livesley (Make-Up Assistants)

160. Production text commentary written by Martin Wiggins

161. - (TRILLING LASER) - I order you to... No, no, not me!

162. This is mutiny, Sin!

163. Is Bent Face dead?

164. - Why do you call him Bent Face? - Because it is. No, don't!

165. (DOCTOR) Cellular collapse.

166. In all my years as a pathologist, I've never seen anything like it!

167. (DOCTOR) Let's hope you never see anything like it again.

168. - Where was he from? Where did he go? - He was a foe from the future.

169. (DOCTOR) Look out, Leela!

170. - (JAGO) What's that? - It's his fuse, Henry.

171. What are you doing, Doctor?

172. I'm bringing the zigma experiment to an end.

173. - Listen. - Get your hot muffins!

174. - Hot muffins! - It's the muffin man.

175. Come on. I'll buy you some muffins.

176. And then, for example, I would say, "One lump or two, Miss Leela?"

177. To which you would reply, "One will suffice, thank you!"

178. - Do you follow? - Supposing I want two?

179. - No, no. One lump for ladies! - Then why do you ask me?

180. (DOCTOR) Come along!

181. Professor Litefoot has been explaining to me about tea.

182. - It's very complicated! - It's not complicated at all.

183. All you... I haven't time to stand here discussing tea.

184. - Goodbye, Litefoot. - Goodbye, Doctor!

185. - It's been such fun! Henry... - Goodbye!

186. (DOCTOR) Yes, the important thing is just warming the pot.

187. - What exactly IS that contraption? - His personal transport - look, "Police"!

188. - (WHOOSHING) - Extraordinary!

189. No doubt Scotland Yard provided it for him!

190. - I don't believe it! - I've said it before and I'll say it again -

191. our policemen are wonderful!

192. - But it's impossible! Quite impossible! - Good trick, eh?

193. Li H'sen Chang himself would have appreciated that!