Serial 6A: Black Orchid Working Title: The Beast. Starring: Peter Davison (The Fifth Doctor), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa, Ann Talbot), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka).

Plot

The Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan find themselves in 1925 England, where through a case of mistaken identity they become involved in a charity cricket match at Cranleigh Halt. There, Nyssa discovers that Charles Cranleigh's fiancee, Ann Talbot, is her exact double. The Cranleighs harbour a dark family secret, however: a hideous monster hidden in a secret wing of their house. Fixated on Ann, it breaks out during a costume ball and attempts to kidnap her... but takes Nyssa by mistake.

Production

After helming Meglos for Season Eighteen, television veteran Terence Dudley had decided to retire from directing, but wanted to continue scriptwriting. He submitted two ideas to the Doctor Who production office toward the end of 1980. One, Days Of Wrath was quickly taken up by outgoing script editor Christopher Bidmead, and would eventually become Four To Doomsday. However, Bidmead was less keen on Dudley's other proposal, a murder-mystery entitled The Beast featuring no science-fiction elements whatsoever. Although he did not reject the concept outright, Bidmead elected not to develop it further at that time.

As Season Nineteen began to come together through early 1981, however, it was soon decided that two episodes of the year's allocation of twenty-eight would instead be used to make the fifty-minute spin-off K-9 And Company. Because producer John Nathan-Turner disliked six-part stories, it was decided that the season would instead consist of six four-parters and one two-parter -- the shortest serial since The Sontaran Experiment in 1974. Nathan-Turner liked The Beast much more than Bidmead (who by this time had left Doctor Who) and felt it would be ideal for this slot. He also wanted each of the three companions to enjoy one "showcase" serial, and therefore appreciated the fact that The Beast highlighted Nyssa. Dudley was formally commissioned on February 9th, although Nathan-Turner did request a change of title; the story thus became Black Orchid. This would be the first "historical" Doctor Who serial since The Highlanders in 1967.

Nathan-Turner had originally considered directing Black Orchid himself, this being a producer's privilege previously employed by Barry Letts during the early Seventies. However, as work on the season and on K-9 And Company began to prey on Nathan-Turner's time, this idea was eventually abandoned. Instead, John Black -- who had just completed Four To Doomsday -- was considered, but Black would also be involved with K-9 And Company, which would go into production not long after Black Orchid. As a result, given the brief nature of the serial, Nathan-Turner decided to give the job to rookie director Ron Jones who, like Nathan-Turner, had until recently worked in the capacity of production unit manager. Black Orchid would be Jones' first directorial assignment.

Location work on Serial 6A began on October 5th. The principal locales were the areas around Quainton in Oxfordshire, and Buckhurst Park in East Sussex, the estate of Lord De La Warr which had only just been used for the making of Castrovalva a month earlier. This time around, Buckhurst Park doubled as the Cranleigh's manor, called Dalton Hall in the scripts. Sarah Sutton played both Nyssa and Ann Talbot, and whenever possible Jones planned his camerawork so that both would not be needed in shot. This was not always possible, however, and so to keep time-consuming split-screen filming to a minimum, another actress, Vanessa Paine, was hired. Paine would double for Nyssa or Ann as appropriate, always being shot in such a way as to mask her features; Sutton, for her part, did not feel Paine resembled her particularly closely.

Studio work covered just two days, beginning on Tuesday, October 20th. Unfortunately, the second day was hit by yet another BBC industrial dispute, this time between the electricians and the lighting crew. Two hours' work was lost, forcing Jones to work very quickly to finish all the necessary material. Nathan-Turner gave Jones permission for an hour's overrun, but even then two scenes in Ann's bedroom, in which she is watched covertly by George, had to be dropped. The unresolved labour grievance also meant that only standard studio lighting could be used, instead of tailoring the lighting to suit each individual set.

Details

Original Transmission Details

Episode	Date	Time	Duration	Viewers	Audience App.
1	1st March 1982	6.57pm	24'56"	9.9m (57th)
2	2nd March 1982	7.04pm	24'41"	10.1m (55th)

Principal Crew

Producer	John Nathan-Turner
Script Editor	Eric Saward
Writer	Terence Dudley
Director	Ron Jones
Designer	Tony Burrough
Costume	Rosalind Ebbutt
Incidental Music	Roger Limb

Principal Guest Cast: Michael Cochrane (Lord Cranleigh), Brian Hawksley (Brewster), Ahmed Khalil (Latoni), Gareth Milne (George Cranleigh), Barbara Murray (Lady Cranleigh), Ivor Salter (Sergeant Markham), Andrew Tourell (Constable Cummings), Moray Watson (Sir Robert Muir).

Novelisation: Black Orchid by Terence Dudley (book 113), September 1986; cover by Tony Masero.

Video Release: The Visitation/Black Orchid, episodic format, July 1994; two tapes; PAL (BBC Video cat.# 5349) and NTSC (Warners cat.# E1322) formats; cover by Pete Wallbank.

Rankings: 74th (66.68%, Doctor Who Dynamic Rankings website, 22nd June 1999); 62nd (70.98%, DWM 1997 Annual Survey).

Sources

• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fifth Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker (1995), Virgin Publishing, ISBN 0 426 20458 9.
• Doctor Who: The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1996), Virgin Publishing, ISBN 1 85227 680 0.
• Doctor Who Magazine #298, 13th December 2000, Archive: Black Orchid by Andrew Pixley, Marvel Comics UK Ltd.
• In-Vision #59, August 1995, Production edited by Anthony Brown, Cybermark Services.

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