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Serial 6Q: Planet Of Fire
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| Plot |
| Production |
Grimwade agreed, but when his opportunity finally arose, it came with a number of stipulations. All three series stars -- Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson and Peter Davison -- would be leaving Doctor Who over the course of the year's fourth, fifth and sixth adventures. In February 1983, Saward and Nathan-Turner had created a new character to replace Tegan and Turlough, deciding to revert back to the less-crowded one-companion arrangement which had prevailed through much of the Seventies. Inspired in part by the successful US soap operas Dynasty and Dallas, their new creation was a young woman from a wealthy American family who meets the Doctor while studying botany. Her name would be Perpugilliam ("Peri" for short), an old English name of the type favoured by some in the American upper class during the Sixties, which Nathan-Turner had found in a book.
Nathan-Turner and Saward had not planned on introducing Peri in the same serial in which one of the other characters exited the programme, but it soon became clear that they would have no choice. As a result, story five -- the slot allocated to Grimwade -- would have to mark both Peri's debut and Turlough's departure. (Grimwade, ironically, had also scribed Turlough's first adventure, Mawdryn Undead.) Furthermore, Nathan-Turner wanted to deal with the matter of the unsuccessful robot companion Kamelion before the end of the Davison era. Kamelion had joined the TARDIS crew in The King's Demons the year before and then gone essentially unused: not only did the contraption suffer frequent mechanical difficulties, but his programmer had died in a boating accident. Finally, Anthony Ainley was under contract to appear as the Master in at least one story for Season Twenty-One. Because the Master had already been involved in the regeneration from the Fourth Doctor to the Fifth, Nathan-Turner did not want to repeat the same trick again, and so the schedule dictated that the Master would have to appear in Grimwade' serial. As Anthony Ainley's contract was due to expire, Grimwade would also have to write out the Master in a manner which could at least seem permanent.
As if all that wasn't enough, Nathan-Turner had been casting about for another international location at which a Doctor Who story could be filmed, having had success in Amsterdam the previous year for Arc Of Infinity. During the aforementioned strike, director Fiona Cumming had gone on vacation to the Spanish isle of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands while waiting for her own Doctor Who serial, Enlightenment, to have its studio sessions rescheduled. Cumming sent Nathan-Turner a postcard from Lanzarote, and this inspired the producer to investigate whether it could feasibly be used as a site for Doctor Who. When this did indeed prove to be the case, Grimwade was asked to incorporate this locale into his plot as well.
Despite all these many demands, Grimwade managed to combine them into a storyline, first called Planet Of Fear and then Planet Of Fire. Grimwade drew on some of the ideas he had formulated for Turlough's background when writing Mawdryn Undead the year before; the new story offered him a chance to finally give the character a first name, specifically "Vizlor". Planet Of Fire was commissioned on April 20th, and Grimwade was supplied a few photos of Lanzarote to help him write the location material. Aware that the robotic Kamelion prop would be a disaster on the rocky landscape, Grimwade wrote his scripts so that Kamelion would always be in a human (or, at least, half-human) form for the location footage; these he denoted K-Howard and K-Master (Kamelion masquerading as Howard Foster or the Master) and M-Kamelion-H (for when he appeared as a silver, robotic version of Howard). Grimwade also gained permission from Saward to allude to the Doctor and the Master being brothers in the Master's final line as he is consumed by the numismaton flames, scripted as "Doctor, could you do this to your own..." This would ultimately be excised in post-production, however.
Grimwade's original intent was to set his Earthbound action on a Greek island, Aeschyllos. He carried out considerable research about ancient Greece before being informed that, as part of the production office's deal with the Lanzarote Tourist Board, this material would have to actually be set on Lanzarote, rendering Grimwade's research essentially useless. Saward was unhappy with Grimwade's original characterisation of Peri, which he felt was too wishy-washy, especially in comparison to the newly-departed Tegan. Saward also wanted to tone down Grimwade's theme of religious fanaticism, and soon their relationship also began to suffer. The final straw for Grimwade came when the relatively young Dallas Adams was cast as Howard, whom he had envisioned as a much older man. Grimwade departed Planet Of Fire, agreeing to let Saward make whatever other modifications were necessary.
Meanwhile, through May and June, auditions were held for the role of Peri, using the character's first scene from Grimwade's script as a test piece. Nicola Bryant, a novice actress and talented musician who had just finished drama school, survived four rounds to win the part. Although British by birth, Bryant was married at the time to Broadway singer Scott Kennedy, and so held dual citizenship; she had also had some exposure to American accents as a result. One hurdle to overcome was the fact that Bryant did not yet have her Equity card. She therefore performed considerable cabaret work over the summer to gain admission into the actors' union. Bryant was introduced to the press on July 5th, at which time her dual citizenship was played up strongly (and her marital status similarly downplayed).
The obvious choice to direct Serial 6Q was Fiona Cumming, and on October 13th, she and her cast and crew flew to Lanzarote, marking Doctor Who's third trip abroad. Filming actually began the next day, and wrapped up on the 19th. The production then moved back to London for the studio work, which consisted of a two-day session from Wednesday, October 26th and a three-day block beginning a fortnight later on November 9th. Rejoining the series at this point was Gerald Flood as the voice of Kamelion. Despite the fact that the robot was exiting Doctor Who, Flood would return to record a single line for the subsequent serial, The Caves Of Androzani, to accompany Kamelion's hallucinatory appearance during the Doctor's regeneration. Flood continued to work on stage and on television until his death from a heart attack on April 12th, 1989.
Mark Strickson also left Doctor Who at this point, although he too would return briefly for The Caves Of Androzani. In 1988, Strickson moved with his wife to Australia, where he put his acting career on hold in order to complete a zoology degree. Since returning to the UK in 1995, Strickson has concentrated on making wildlife documentaries. Strickson has also reprised his role as Turlough for Big Finish Productions' line of Doctor Who audio plays.
Serial 6Q was Cumming's last directorial assignment on Doctor Who, although she was scheduled to helm The Ultimate Evil for the original version of Season Twenty-Three. Cumming has continued to direct, and has worked again with Nathan-Turner via Teynham Productions.
Finally, Planet Of Fire marked Peter Grimwade's last contribution to the programme, although he did submit another script idea, titled League Of The Tancreds, to the production office in August 1984; this was rejected because it was felt the storyline would prove too costly. In the late Eighties, Grimwade focussed on making industrial videos, although he also wrote a 1986 episode of the childrens series Dramarama entitled The Comeuppance Of Captain Katt, which served as a thinly-veiled allusion to the internal politics of the Doctor Who production office. Grimwade succumbed to cancer on May 15th, 1990.
| Details |
| Episode | Date | Time | Duration | Viewers | Audience App. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23rd February 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'26" | 7.4m (71st) | |
| 2 | 24th February 1984 | 6.42pm | 24'20" | 6.1m (102nd) | |
| 3 | 1st March 1984 | 6.41pm | 23'57" | 7.4m (67th) | |
| 4 | 2nd March 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'44" | 7.0m (74th) |
| Producer | John Nathan-Turner |
| Script Editor | Eric Saward |
| Writer | Peter Grimwade |
| Director | Fiona Cumming |
| Designer | Malcolm Thornton |
| Costume | John Peacock |
| Incidental Music | Peter Howell |
Principal Guest Cast: Dallas Adams (Professor Howard Foster), Anthony Ainley (The Master), James Bate (Amyand), Jonathan Caplan (Roskal), Edward Highmore (Malkon), Barbara Shelley (Sorasta), Peter Wyngarde (Timanov).
Novelisation: Planet Of Fire by Peter Grimwade (book 93), October 1984; cover by Andrew Skilleter.
Video Release: Planet Of Fire, episodic format, September 1998; PAL (BBC Video cat.# 6567) and NTSC (Warners cat.# E1021) formats available; photomontage cover.
Rankings: 79th (65.60%, Doctor Who Dynamic Rankings website, 22nd June 1999); 78th (68.08%, DWM 1997 Annual Survey).
| Sources |
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