Doctor Who 18x14

Directed by Peter Moffatt

Matthew Waterhouse as Adric • Arthur Hewlett as Kalmar • Clinton Greyn as Ivo • Rhoda Lewis as Marta • Thane Bettany as Tarak

The Doctor and Romana are escorted to the tower to meet the royal leaders, hoping they can find answers to why this society evolves backwards. The Doctor recognizes the tower as an old Earth spaceship, and further finds that the old fuel tanks, far from empty, are full - but with blood. Meanwhile, Councilor Aukon senses intelligence in Adric and selects him to be the their first "Chosen One."

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1. "What sinister future is promised Adric?

2. "What is draining the life of the planet?

3. "What is the secret of the Tower?" (Radio Times)

4. This episode was first shown on 29 November, 1980, and was seen by 5.3 million viewers.

5. During location filming, Tom Baker suggested that when the Doctor was bitten by a bat, his blood should be blue.

6. When producer John Nathan-Turner viewed the film rushes he disapproved of this, and requested that the scene be re-shot.

7. However, time ran out and the re-shoot could not be fitted in.

8. A close-up of the Doctor's blue blood was duly removed, but it can still be spotted (just) in this shot.

9. Tom Baker's whimsical idea flies in the face of the other occasions on which we've seen the Doctor bleed.

10. It's definitely red in 'The Deadly Assassin' and 'The Two Doctors', for example.

11. The script has the Doctor using his hat to fend off the swooping bats.

12. This was dropped when Tom Baker decided against wearing the hat.

13. The reprise ends with a different piece of bat footage from the shot that concluded Part One.

14. The script explains that the bats are now flying away, their attack over.

15. An effects shot of the Doctor and Romana gazing up at the Tower was abandoned.

16. Here the Doctor was to quote from Robert Browning's 1855 poem 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came'.

17. "Dauntless the slug-horn to his lips he set, and blew.

18. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came!"

19. Terrance Dicks was a fan of this poem.

20. Browning's image of the Dark Tower and the horn later helped inspire his 1983 script 'The Five Doctors'.

21. This scene was heavily rewritten between drafts, and was again reworked by actors and director.

22. The "rococo" line was added in rehearsal. It's an elaborately ornamental style of architecture popular in 18th-century Europe.

23. Director Peter Moffatt choreographed Zargo and Camilla in a series of stylised, symmetrical moves.

24. In the script Zargo says, "Forgive the delay. You've managed to amuse yourself, I see."

25. The introductions and Camilla's "We know everything here" were added in rehearsal.

26. The rest of the dialogue was reworked and re-ordered.

27. A cut line has Zargo saying, "You must not judge us by our peasants. They are ignorant and superstitious."

28. And Camilla says, "That is why it's such a pleasure to entertain visitors of culture and refinement."

29. In the script, both the Doctor and Romana accept some of the proffered food. Romana "takes a small piece of meat".

30. The Doctor "picks up a baby roast chicken and starts eating heartily".

31. Their hosts don't touch the food. Zargo "recoils noticeably" when the Doctor offers him the dish.

32. The Doctor's remark about Bull's Blood was another addition in rehearsal.

33. The original line was "A disarming little wine. Not unlike Venusian Tokay".

34. The appropriately-named Bull's Blood is a Hungarian red wine that had become popular in the 1970s.

35. The sequence of Romana cutting her finger was a late addition.

36. It pays homage to a traditional moment that appears in most versions of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

37. In the original 1897 novel, Dracula reacts exactly like Camilla when Jonathan Harker cuts himself shaving.

38. In the 1922 silent film adaptation Nosferatu, Count Orlok gets excited when Hutter cuts his thumb peeling an apple.

39. And in the 1931 film, Bela Lugosi's Dracula has a funny turn when Renfield cuts himself with a paper-clip.

40. Marta is played by Rhoda Lewis.

41. Since the early 1960s she'd been a regular fixture on British television.

42. Her credits range from Z Cars and Coronation Street to The Wednesday Play and Armchair Theatre.

43. But perhaps her greatest achievement came eight years after 'State of Decay'.

44. In 1988, together with her husband and son, she founded the world-famous Literary Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales.

45. Over the years the festival has played host to everyone from Norman Mailer to Stephen Fry, John Updike to Bill Clinton.

46. One of the guests at the 2007 festival was Lalla Ward's husband, Professor Richard Dawkins.

47. He was preceded a year earlier by the renowned television writer Russell T. Davies.

48. This is the only scene to feature one of the Three Who Rule braving the daylight.

49. Perhaps this adds credence to the theory that the "selection" of Adric alters the direction of the original script.

50. In the 1977 version, with no Adric in the Tardis crew, Ivo's son Karl might have gone on to become the Chosen One.

51. So there'd be no need for a second selection scene.

52. When asked many years later, neither Terrance Dicks nor Christopher Bidmead could confirm this piece of guesswork.

53. But they both thought it sounded quite convincing.

54. Come to think of it, why is it daytime here?

55. The Doctor and Romana have only just been captured - at nightfall.

56. Perhaps it was just a long walk back to the Tower.

57. This exchange is a play on Alexander Pope's 1733 poem Essay on Man. The original line is "Whatever is, is right."

58. Socio-energetics was a fashionable area of scientific theory that interested Christopher Bidmead.

59. It concerns the relationship between social development and technological progress.

60. The lines about a "yawning chasm" and a "sociopathetic abscess" were added at a late stage.

61. So was the Doctor's line about "a state of decay", to match up with the story's new title.

62. The "ship of state" is a political metaphor proposed by Plato in The Republic, written around 360 BC.

63. The image has remained popular over the centuries and is evoked in many works of politics and literature.

64. The poets Horace (65-8 BC) And Longfellow (1807-1882) Both wrote poems called 'Ship of State'.

65. In 'State of Decay' the ship is both a metaphor and a literal truth.

66. It's thus one of the few Doctor Who titles that offers a double meaning: "State" means both "condition" and "nation".

67. The biggest revision to the rehearsal script came here.

68. In the original version, Habris doesn't enter. Instead, Zargo and Camilla lose patience with the Doctor's insinuations.

69. Camilla says, "You see! Nobody can be trusted. These fools must know everything."

70. And Zargo calls out, "Guards! Throw these two in the High Cell!"

71. The scene then cuts abruptly to the Doctor and Romana locked in a "small, empty, bronze-lined room".

72. Romana recites the names of the Hydrax officers, and the dialogue then continues much as it does on screen.

73. The Brothers Grimm were Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) who together pioneered the study of folklore.

74. They spent years compiling traditional fairy tales from their native Germany.

75. Their famous collection of over 200 stories was published in 1812-14 and was translated into many languages.

76. The book was responsible for popularising such tales as 'Rapunzel', 'Snow White' and 'Hansel and Gretel'.

77. The Brothers Grimm were also leading scholars in law, language and philology.

78. In 1852 they began the Deutsches Wörterbuch, the German equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary.

79. As the Doctor points out, Jacob also formulated Grimm's Law, about the mutation of consonants in European languages.

80. In the "cell" version of this scene, Romana tries out the consonant trick on Macmillan as well as Sharkey.

81. While she's doing that, the Doctor polishes a wall panel and uncovers a stencilled legend:

82. "Inspection Panel HH.03 Sector 7. Authorised removal only. Earth Federation Starship Hyperion".

83. To maintain continuity with the rip they sustain in 'Full Circle', Adric's trousers have a patch on the right knee.

84. Oddly, after 'State of Decay' the patch vanishes for good.

85. Perhaps Alzarian trousers heal as quickly as their owners do.

86. And while we're nit-picking...

87. Aukon's line about 20 generations is a little odd. Throughout the story, reference is repeatedly made to 1,000 years.

88. Even at a generous estimate of 25 years per generation, 20 generations add up to a mere 500 years.

89. But only a pedantic killjoy with a sociopathetic abscess would bother to point this out.

90. Camilla's name derives from the vampire protagonist of Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 novel Carmilla.

91. Her Sapphic tendencies were brought to the fore by Ingrid Pitt in the 1970 Hammer adaptation The Vampire Lovers.

92. This aspect is not dwelt on in 'State of Decay'.

93. Here, Camilla seems just as interested in Adric as she is in Romana.

94. The inspection shaft scenes were filmed on location in Acton, West London, on 2 May, 1980.

95. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward spent the afternoon climbing up and down a ventilation tower at a company called C. A. V. Lucas.

96. Visually, Doctor Who has always reflected the times in which it was made.

97. 1980 was the year in which the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons gripped the adolescent youth of Britain.

98. There was an accompanying surge in the popularity of the fantasy fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien and his many imitators.

99. So the quasi-medieval trappings of 'State of Decay', and in particular its Tolkienesque Tower, are remarkably timely.

100. 1980 was also the year that the cult of the New Romantics burst into the mainstream of British pop music.

101. The extravagant eye make-up in 'State of Decay' wouldn't look out of place in a 1980 video by Visage or David Bowie.

102. And then there are the beards.

103. Scholars have long noted that the season is the most intensively bearded in Doctor Who history.

104. Well over half of the season's male characters are bewhiskered. In 'The Leisure Hive', even the Doctor joins them.

105. But few stories can rival 'State of Decay' in the stubble stakes.

106. Zargo boasts arguably the most magnificent beard ever seen on television.

107. While Tarak's simply defies description.

108. C. A. V. Lucas donated the BBC's location fee to its Children's Christmas Party Fund.

109. The company, which has since closed down, made fuel injection pumps and other industrial machinery.

110. In the original script, this scene takes place in the High Cell where the Doctor was to have found the inspection hatch.

111. In this version, Camilla now refers to Zargo by his original name.

112. She says, "We have forgotten much - Captain Sharkey."

113. Zargo observes that the hatch "gives access to the maintenance tunnels. They could be anywhere in the ship!

114. "We must tell Aukon. He will find them."

115. Camilla replies, "Yes, O'Connor will find them."

116. A scripted exchange was cut from one of the earlier inspection shaft scenes.

117. Romana was to say, "So that's where the rebels' junk came from."

118. "The whole ship's been gutted," replies the Doctor. Hence Romana's line here.

119. In the script, the Doctor remarks that the scout ship would fly "straight up and down probably!"

120. This obvious telegraphing of the denouement was cut.

121. There was more dialogue at the end of the scene. The Doctor says he wants, "evidence to prove me wrong."

122. "You want to be wrong?" asks Romana. "Yes," he replies. "Because if I'm right, there's nothing much we can do."

123. Tarak is played by Thane Bettany.

124. He's the father of Hollywood star Paul Bettany.

125. Young Paul celebrated his tenth birthday two days before his dad recorded this scene.

126. During the recording of these scenes, there was some tension between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.

127. When the director suggested that the Doctor should lift Romana down to the ground, Tom Baker declined.

128. Lalla Ward was appalled by the gruesome corpses prepared by the visual effects department.

129. She argued strongly with the director that they were too horrific to be seen in close-up.

130. And sure enough, the camera doesn't get any closer than this.

131. Graeme MacDonald, the BBC's Head of Series and Serials, had also expressed concern about this scene after reading the script.

132. But he was more worried about the blood than the bodies.

133. During editing, it became apparent that Part Two was under-running, and needed to be extended.

134. This is the original scripted ending of Part Two.

135. To balance out the running time, it was decided to include the next sequence at the end of this episode.

136. This scene was recorded in the second studio block, two weeks after the previous sequence.

137. Tensions had now evaporated and Tom Baker suggested that he should lift Lalla Ward down to the ground.

138. The joke was improvised in the studio.

139. The vampires of ancient folklore bear little resemblance to the popular image exploited by 'State of Decay'.

140. The folkloric vampire is a hairy, ruddy-faced creature just as partial to sheep and cows as to humans.

141. The pallid, elegant, aristocratic vampire with a taste for young ladies is largely a creation of the 19th century.

142. He made his first appeal to the popular imagination in a short story called The Vampyre, published in 1819.

143. It was written by John Polidori, sometime physician to Lord Byron.

144. Byron himself came up with the idea during the same ghost story session that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.

145. The Vampyre was a huge success, and a major influence on later examples of the genre.

146. Polidori's creation sired a literary tradition whose heirs include both Dracula and 'State of Decay'.

147. Some of the other vampire lore that we take for granted isn't as old as we might think.

148. Running water, wooden stakes and decapitation are ancient traditions.

149. But fangs and sunlight are relatively new.

150. The sprouting of fangs was an innovation of the 19th-century novelists.

151. And the idea that vampires are killed by sunlight doesn't appear until the 1922 silent film Nosferatu.

152. The pulsating floor of the Resting Place is another miniature, pre-filmed on the Visual Effects model stage.

153. A close-up of Aukon's eyes was inserted to add impact to the revised episode ending. It was actually shot for a scene in Part Three.

154. Also appearing in this episode were:

155. George Serghe, Mark Middler, John Sylvan (Rebels)

156. Alwyn Atkinson, Juliet Darnley (Peasants)

157. Dennis Hayward, Bob Marshall (Peasants)

158. Dennis Hewson, Michael Joseph (Peasants)

159. Leon Lawrence, Tom Gandl (Peasants)

160. Uncredited production contributors

161. Gordon Phillipson (Grams Operator)

162. Paul del Bravo (Vision Mixer, Block 1)

163. Lesley Rouvrey, Sula Loizoo (Make-up Assistants)

164. Now where are we? Right in the bowels of the ship.

165. Disused fuel tanks, I think.

166. - I can hear that sound again. - Yes.

167. - What are we looking for? - A way out.

168. Ah!

169. I doubt very much that the creature lives in the Tower,

170. but since the Tower feeds it, I imagine it lives close by.

171. Creature? What creature?

172. - We'll know that when we find it. - That's nice.

173. They've been completely drained.

174. Pipe lead...

175. I was wrong, Romana.

176. The fuel tanks aren't disused.

177. Only this isn't rocket fuel, it's blood.

178. - You all right? - No, I'm frightened.

179. Good, good. We'll soon be there.

180. - That's what frightens me. - Come on.

181. What is it? What is it?

182. - You jumped on my toe. - Oh, I'm so sorry.

183. What?

184. It's that sound again.

185. - That's not an engine. - No.

186. Sound of a giant heartbeat.

187. - Doctor? - Yes?

188. Look.

189. Do you know what that is?

190. A feeding system for something that lives on human blood.

191. Exactly.

192. - What is it? - Do you know, it just occurs to me.

193. There are vampire legends on almost every inhabited planet.

194. - Really? - Yes.

195. Creatures that stalk in the night and feast on the blood of the living.

196. Creatures that fear sunlight and running water and certain herbs.

197. Creatures that are so strong

198. they can only be killed by beheading

199. or a stake through the heart...

200. Or?

201. Please, say something.

202. Whatever it is, we want to find it, don't we?

203. - No. - Good. Come on, then.

204. Where are we, Doctor?

205. You are in the resting place.

206. Where? - The resting place.

207. Ah.

208. I am Aukon.

209. Welcome to my domain.