The NICOLA BRYANT Years 1984-86

Most of my favourite “Doctor Who” companions hail from the 1960s. Carole Ann Ford was the original, back in 1963. She played Susan Foreman, the Doctor’s granddaughter, over the first ten stories. In her final story, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, the Doctor told her she was in need of a good smacked bottom. Perhaps that’s why she left! Anneke Wills personified dolly bird Polly, who saw Hartnell regenerate into Troughton. Poor old Pat didn’t know what hit him when she wore a t-shirt to rehearsals with the slogan “Bring back Bill” emblazoned across her chest!! When Anneke left the series to marry “The Celestial Toymaker” Michael Gough, whom some of you may know better as Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred, her immediate successor was Deborah Watling. As Victoria Waterfield, she was adopted by the Doctor when her father was exterminated in “The Evil of the Daleks”. She left for a spot of rumpy-pumpy with David Essex in “That’ll Be the Day”!!! And, last but not least, the diminutive Wendy Padbury played squeaky-voiced computer boffin Zoë. Between takes, Padders took the occasional nap until, one day, Doctor Pat and Jamie-actor Frazer Hines decided to undo her skirt, in a church, with disastrous consequences when she woke and stood up to greet the incumbent vicar!!!!

I say “most of my favourites” because the exception to the rule is Nicola Bryant. Peri Brown joined the TARDIS crew, two decades later, in the mid-1980s. And what an entrance! Many fans assume she spent her entire time on “Doctor Who” in a bikini because of the first episode of her debut adventure, “Planet of Fire”. However, it is true that she spent some of her time in tightly fitting leotards and hot pants! In “Attack of the Cybermen” she sports a nice little bright-pink number until the Cybermen come over all caring and suggest she change into something a little warmer, more suitable for the cold climes of the tombs on Telos. Luckily, Nabil Shaban’s Sil wasn’t as thoughtful on Varos! Here Peri dons a super little bright-blue outfit for the entire serial. A couple of stories later, while opposing Laurence Payne’s Dastari’s illegal time-travel experiments, she’s back in skimpy shorts shaping up to the Sontarans in “The Two Doctors”, the excuse for her attire, this time, being that it was filmed in Seville, Spain… where it’s hot! But, hey, I didn’t mind!! I pretty much thought Peri looked perfect during the tail end of season twenty-one and for the whole of season twenty-two!!! Following the hiatus, Peri’s appearance changed for the first two stories of “The Trial of a Time Lord”. Gone was the cute bob, maybe inspired by Jenny Agutter’s hairstyle in “Logan’s Run”, to be replaced by a longer permed cut and more sensible clothes. Michael Grade had ruined everything!!!!

Almost a quarter-of-a-century after Nicola’s departure from “Doctor Who”, I’m happy to report that all is not lost! As of today, Monday, 14th June, 2010, Miss Bryant’s three-year portrayal of Peri is now available complete, to drool over as-and-when you choose, on DVD. With the release of “Planet of Fire”, partly filmed in Lanzarote… where it’s even hotter, all her adventures are, at last, available on disc. Coupled with a Special Edition of the story, on a separate disc, featuring an augmented soundtrack, “Planet of Fire” forms part of the boxed set “Kamelion Tales” and is complemented by the earlier two-part Peter Davison adventure “The King’s Demons”. At the RRP of £29.99, or even with a moderate discount, it’s fairly expensive for what is essentially six twenty-five minute episodes of “Doctor Who” but this is a special case. Well, it’s probably made of card and plastic, like all the others, but you know what I mean! Go on, be a devil, pretend you’re Mark Strickson’s Turlough, for the day, and go rescue Peri from drowning in the ocean in her pretty salmon-pink bikini!

(And, I didn’t even mention Nicola Bryant’s two best “Doctor Who” stories, “The Caves of Androzani” and “Revelation of the Daleks”!)

Telly Visions: Wendy Padbury

Deborah Watling’s successor in “Doctor Who” was the diminutive, but equally lovely, Wendy Padbury. Wendy became something of an icon for me in my formative years. Not only did she have a regular part to play in the adventures of the second Doctor but also with the team on children’s drama series “Freewheelers”. She joined “Doctor Who”, as Zoë Heriot, during another encounter with the Cybermen, in “The Wheel in Space”, and was returned to her own time and place, after forty-eight episodes, at the end of the epic ten-part story “The War Games”. It is during her final episodes on the series, the end of the Sixth Season, that we discover the Doctor’s race is known as Time Lords. I suspect this came out of desperation on the part of writers Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke having had problems securing enough scripts for the programme’s final days in black and white and having to hurriedly write new instalments themselves! Ms Padbury’s bottom gained great notoriety at the beginning of her third story on the show, “The Mind Robber”, when, at the end of episode one, the TARDIS explodes and she and fellow companion Jamie are left clinging to its console as it slowly spins round, becoming engulfed in swirling mist. I hasten to add she was wearing a close-fitting lamé catsuit with said derrière pointing directly at the camera! No wonder I was enamoured!!

After leaving “Doctor Who”, Wendy Padbury found employment as co-presenter on a BBC game show, alongside Paul McCartney’s brother Mike McGear, in a short-lived series called “Score with the Scaffold”. The Scaffold were a well-known pop trio of the day, with a humorous slant, who themselves scored great success with hits “Thank U Very Much” and “Lily the Pink”. Wendy returned to acting in the brilliant and controversial British horror film, dealing with witchcraft and superstitions, “Blood on Satan’s Claw”. Appearing as Cathy Vespers, she is ritualistically raped. The actress renewed her acquaintance with the small screen in the fondly remembered, by me at least, Southern Television series “Freewheelers” as Sue Craig. Then in its fifth series, “Freewheelers” can probably best be described as a sort of junior James Bond, being action-adventure orientated. Like “Doctor Who”, a series usually comprised several serials, each episode closing with a cliff-hanger. It had a jaunty opening theme tune but ended with a different part of the same composition, creating a more sombre mood. The credibility of the show declined in its final days but I loved it and used to rush home from school to catch it, in an era before the introduction of domestic video recorders! Towards the end of her career, Wendy played Rosemary Roberts in the ITV soap opera “Emmerdale Farm”, to give it its original title, where she was reunited with Frazer Hines, her co-star from the good old days of “Doctor Who”!!

Warden’s Watch: Fury from the Deep

As a companion piece to “Telly Visions”, I’ve determined to introduce another new recurring feature, to this blog, in order to give it a fresh sense of identity in the absence of regular new “Doctor Who” reviews. The general idea of “Warden’s Watch” is to take a closer look at one of the productions in which the selected “Telly Visions” actress featured. This doesn’t, necessarily, mean analysing whole series (perish the thought!) but attempting to discern what makes a single episode, or serial within a series, stand out from the crowd. In the interests of variation, I may choose to consider a piece under the “Warden’s Watch” banner, initially, then follow through, subsequently, with an overview of a particular cast member’s career. Equally, each of the new strands may simply stand alone. It’s not set in stone like the rock creatures in “The Fires of Pompeii” otherwise any possible creativity, in the writing department, goes straight out the window! I may even still review a new “Doctor Who” episode as part of this series. Next Saturday’s “Planet of the Ood” looks a little more promising than its two predecessors, in the latest run, now that the British Board of Film Classification has indicated it’s not as suitable for youngsters by giving it a 12 rating! On the other hand, don’t hold your breath!! So, without further ado, to business…

What is it that makes “Fury from the Deep” my all-time favourite “Doctor Who” story? I haven’t watched this six-part serial since I was nine years old, and am unlikely ever to see it again, having been wiped from the BBC’s archive, so the answer is simple… my memory of it being the scariest set of episodes. It boasts three genuinely frightening cliff-hangers, one of which is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever experienced in a television drama to this day. At the end of episode three, Maggie Harris and Robson, both infected by the weed creature, meet on the beach. The former tells the latter she will obey his instructions. Then, she turns and walks straight out into the sea, eventually becoming completely submerged beneath the waves… Can you imagine the effect that had on someone my age in 1968? It is a haunting image, make no mistake. And, talk about creative! You need a warped imagination to invent something as unusual and truly weird as that!! Thinking about it now, I’m surprised it made it to broadcast at 5.15 in the afternoon of Saturday, 30th March. Episode one’s ending was a stunner, too. Victoria (Deborah Watling), trapped in a store room at the base, screams as foam pours in through an open grille and advances toward her. Within the foam are fronds of animated seaweed… And, it occurs to me that it’s exactly forty years, to the day, since the transmission of episode five which concludes with the Doctor and Jamie entering the central area of the control rig to find themselves confronted by the terrifying sight of Robson standing in the middle of a mass of weed and foam. “Come in Doctor,” he whispers. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Fury from the Deep” is the only television “Doctor Who” story to be written by script editor, and former actor, Victor Pemberton. He based it on his own radio play “The Slide”, about mind-controlling mud with a heartbeat! Yeah, I know it may sound silly but if done properly, with the skill to suspend one’s disbelief, it can scare the heebie-jeebies out of anyone!! “Fury” features a Robert Holmes-style double act in the shape of a couple of characters called Oak and Quill. The scene of these two weed-infected technicians attacking Maggie Harris in the comfort of her own home is one of the most terrifying in the show’s history. On the downside, I wasn’t too sure about the travellers returning to the TARDIS to conduct experiments, mid-serial, considering the ship was parked on the surface of the ocean, making it more than a little inaccessible. Second Doctor Patrick Troughton didn’t want to go up in a helicopter either! However, the story was more than successfully directed by another former actor, and ex-school teacher, Hugh David. Formerly David Hughes, it was his second and last time on the show. He had previously worked on “The Highlanders” in the same capacity. I later discovered he taught my father maths at grammar school! His wife, Wendy Williams, played Vira in the Tom Baker serial “The Ark in Space”. And, she was the English teacher at the same establishment!! It was the first story to feature the sonic screwdriver which, now, is a mixed blessing but, then, functioned exactly as described. And, it was the last story to feature Debbie Watling as Victoria Waterfield. The end of the final episode features a touching and emotional farewell without being overbearing. As the image of Victoria waving goodbye recedes on the TARDIS scanner screen, the Doctor reminds his forlorn companion, “I was fond of her too, you know, Jamie.”