"Revelation" Revisited!

I was quite taken with the above photo when I saw it on the "Doctor Who" restoration team's website. It occured to me that, at the time it was taken, three of the four people pictured had worked, in one capacity or another, with both Daleks and Cybermen! One of them had worked only with the Daleks. Almost a year later, it's with great optimism I mention that that fact has just changed. All four have now worked with both. Let me explain...

The picture was taken when the four of them were recording a commentary for last year's DVD release of "Revelation of the Daleks" called "Revelation Exhumed". It reunited them twenty years on from the original recording, "Revelation of the Daleks" being the only "Doctor Who" title with 1985 at the end of the closing credits.

On the left is actor Terry Molloy, best known to radio listeners as Mike Tucker in Radio 4's farming soap "The Archers". To "Doctor Who" fans, he's best known for his portrayal of Dalek creator Davros and the only actor to have played the role more than once! He inherited the part from Michael Wisher's original characterisation in 1975's "Genesis of the Daleks" and David Gooderson's 1979 interpretation in "Destiny of the Daleks". Terry has put on the mask of Davros on no less than three occasions during the Eighties, firstly in "Resurrection" ('84), then in "Revelation" ('85), and finally in "Remembrance of the Daleks" ('88). To keep his reappearance in the latter a surprise, the Emperor Dalek was credited to Roy Tromelly (anag.)! In 1985, he also played a character called Russell in "Attack of the Cybermen"...

Sitting next to Terry is writer and script editor Eric Saward. He was responsible, in his capacity as author, for returning the Cybermen to our screens in 1982, in a story called "Earthshock", after an absence of seven years. As well as writing "The Visitation", for the same season, he also wrote "Attack of the Cybermen" three years later, in 1985, despite the credit going to Paula Moore, his girlfriend at the time! That year also saw him write two stories for a season as he was also responsible for "Revelation of the Daleks". It was a sequel to his previous year's "Resurrection of the Daleks".

Next to Eric is actress Nicola Bryant. She played companion Perpugilliam 'Peri' Brown from 1984 to 1986. She joined the TARDIS crew as the fifth Doctor's era was coming to an end in "Planet of Fire" and stayed until partway through sixth Doctor epic "The Trial of a Time Lord". Since "Doctor Who", she has appeared in "Blackadder's Christmas Carol" (1988) as Millicent, children's serial "The Biz" (1994) as dance instructor Martine alongside Geoffrey Bayldon and had guest roles in medical dramas "Casualty" and "Doctors", both in 2000. During her time in "Doctor Who", however, she battled the programme's two most popular villains in "Attack of the Cybermen" and "Revelation of the Daleks".

On the right of the picture is "Star Cops" (1987) director Graeme Harper. He directed Nicola Bryant in both of his "Doctor Who" stories of the Eighties, "The Caves of Androzani" and "Revelation of the Daleks" but was the only one in the photograph to have never worked with the Cybermen... until now! He has just completed the filming of four episodes to feature them, for the second season of the new series, most likely beginning its run on 15 April. As the new episodes are almost twice the length of the regular length of classic episodes, this is quite some feat, and must have taken quite some organising, putting them on a par, in that respect, with the Douglas Camfield-directed eight-part Sixties' Cybermen story "The Invasion"!

Where Eric Saward brought the Cybermen back in "Earthshock" twenty-four years ago, Graeme Harper, beginning with "The Rise of the Cybermen", is doing the same eighteen years since their last proper appearance in the 1988 story "Silver Nemesis". The Cybermen's revival falls on the monsters from Mondas's fortieth anniversary, having first appeared in the 1966 final William Hartnell story "The Tenth Planet". The beauty of the "Revelation Exhumed" photo, and this accompanying story of connections, is that it firmly links classic "Doctor Who" (1963-89) to the new series (2005-?)!

Psycho Sci-fi!

This Saturday, on ITV4 at 7pm, there is an opportunity to see what is, in my opinion, the finest episode of perhaps the most consistently excellent SF series ever made... the series is Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's "UFO" and the episode... "The Psychobombs". Originally shown twelfth, on 30 December 1970, in a run of twenty-six, the story pits the operatives of SHADO against three human agents of the aliens, bent on destroying first a SHADO tracking station then a Skydiver submarine and finally SHADO HQ itself unless they cease operations immediately!

The episode boasts an excellent guest cast in the roles of "The Psychobombs". Deborah Grant plays Linda Simmonds, pictured with series regular Michael Billington as Colonel Paul Foster. He is sent to investigate her after she strangles a policeman with superhuman strength given to her by the UFO which has landed in England. She is perhaps best known to television viewers as the former wife of Eighties cop "Bergerac".

David Collings plays Daniel Clark, the man who, under alien influence, attacks Commander Straker (Ed Bishop) in his car and presents him with the written ultimatum. David is well known to "Doctor Who" fans for three guest appearances, as Vorus in "Revenge of the Cybermen", Poul in "The Robots of Death" and Mawdryn in "Mawdryn Undead". He also guested as Deva in "Blake", the last-ever episode of "Blakes 7" due out on DVD shortly. He is familiar to fans of "Sapphire and Steel" as Silver in eight episodes of that series.

The remaining human bomb, Clem Mason, is played by Mike Pratt, best known to viewers as Jeff Randall in cult late-Sixties paranormal comedy drama "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", currently also reshowing on ITV4, on Mondays at 7pm. Watch out for Christopher Timothy in this episode of "UFO", as the navigator of Skydiver 3, who can currently be seen in "Doctors", weekday afternoons on BBC ONE, but is best known as James Herriot opposite fifth Doctor Peter Davison and Robert Hardy in "All Creatures Great and Small"!

The episode may have modern resonances in the light of suicide bombings but was produced in perhaps more innocent times. It is stylishly made with some great explosion sequences but "UFO" was an attempt to populate a science fiction drama with real people with real emotions. "The Psychobombs" is one of two episodes that does not begin with the regular opening title sequence and the terrific Barry Gray theme tune.

Enterprising New Role!

Patrick Stewart returns to our television screens on Thursday 19 January at 9pm in a new ITV1 drama series called "Eleventh Hour". The production consists of four, weekly, ninety-minute thrillers played out against the world of contemporary science. He plays Professor Ian Hood, emeritus Professor of Physics now serving as Special Advisor to the government's Joint Sciences Committee. At his side is Rachel Young, his Special Branch bodyguard played by Ashley Jensen.

Hood's a roving troubleshooter. His remit is to seek out or respond to any human crisis arising out of, or offering a threat to, current scientific endeavour. Hood and Rachel are perpetually on the road, living in hotels and out of suitcases, travelling from one challenge to another in an unassuming hand-me-down official pool car.

Patrick Stewart has never really had a primetime show on British television as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was sidelined into a weekday teatime slot on BBC TWO. I've sometimes wondered what the ratings would've been like had it been transmitted early Saturday evenings on BBC ONE in the slot allocated to "The New Adventures of Superman". Patrick was already a highly regarded character actor, in films such as "Lady Jane", "Excalibur" and "Lifeforce", before getting the "Star Trek" job and that success has continued post "Trek" with the "X-Men" trilogy.

Ashley Jensen is perhaps best known to British audiences for roles in "May to December" and, more recently, acting alongside Ricky Gervais in "Extras". Interestingly, Patrick Stewart guest starred in an episode of "Extras".

"Eleventh Hour" was devised by Stephen Gallagher whose credits include "Bugs", "Chimera" and "Oktober". He also wrote the scripts for the "Doctor Who" stories "Warriors' Gate" and "Terminus". Gallagher has taken inspiration from "Quatermass" in the creation of the Professor and Emma Peel of "The Avengers" when writing the character of Rachel. The show sounds a little like early Seventies science fiction series "Doomwatch". So, all things considered, the prospects look good for a cracking new science fiction series!

Getting the better of Bond!

I have grown to love the James Bond Films. When I started exploring fantasy television and films in a more academic fashion, I decided to look into this series and began by simply sorting out in my mind which set pieces belong to which film et cetera, instead of seeing them as a homogeneous mass!

Most people prefer Sean Connery's portrayal of James Bond but my favourite actor in the role is the underrated Roger Moore who went straight from playing Lord Brett Sinclair, in the ITC television series "The Persuaders!", onto the set of "Live and Let Die", the first of his seven consecutive appearances as the secret agent.

Receiving its third terrestrial screening tonight on ITV1 is the twentieth and most recent entry in the James Bond adventure series, "Die Another Day". This has turned out to be Pierce Brosnan's fourth and final outing as James Bond, 007, with Daniel Craig having recently been named as his successor. My personal favourite of the Brosnan quartet, it features Halle Berry recreating original Bond girl Ursula Andress's unforgettable first appearance from 1962's "Dr. No", forty years on, rising bikini-clad from the surf.

Out of this World!

The New Year brings a new season of drama and, for fans of cult television, two shows begin next week. Saturday sees the return of the supernatural series "Sea of Souls" for a third season. It stars excellent Scottish actor Bill Paterson as Doctor Douglas Monaghan with former "Monarch of the Glen" actress Dawn Steele (pictured) and Iain Robertson as his associates Justine McManus and Craig Stevenson. This year, instead of three two-part stories where each pair of episodes ran on consecutive evenings over three weeks, the season consists of six single-episode tales to be broadcast one a week.

On the BBC's website, Bill Paterson, explaining the success of "Sea of Souls", says, "People are fascinated with the paranormal and issues of reality. We are living in a non religious age but people are still trying to find extra terrestrial reasons for why things happen. Formal religion is the greatest psychic superstition of all and in the absence of that people often look for alternatives about lives continuing and messages coming from beyond the grave."

The second episode of the new series of "Sea of Souls" was shot in an old disused ironworks at night which Dawn Steele found horrible and spooky. She says, "When you're filming the kinds of scenes where the subject matter is quite disturbing and you're somewhere as vast and eerie as that, you can't help but get a shiver down your spine. There were a few times at the ironworks when I felt really spooked out, you know weird noises and tricks of the light - I was like: 'I want my mum - now!' "

The other show of interest, from the makers of "Spooks" and "Hustle", concerns a time-travelling cop who is transported back from the present day to 1973. "Life On Mars" stars John Simm as Sam Tyler (interesting surname!) who has to come to terms with an unfamiliar environment and an archaic CID unit. His new boss, DCI Gene Hunt, is played by Philip Glenister who sounds like a hard-nosed cop of the Regan variety. Sensitivity comes in the shape of WPC Annie Cartright, an educated and open minded woman played by Liz White.

The title "Life On Mars" comes from my favourite song by David Bowie, which can be found on his 1971 album "Hunky Dory". The eight-part series promises plenty of action and humour and, also like Seventies' cop show "The Sweeney", the cars play an important part! It also sounds as though there's a touch of "Crime Traveller" about this new series. I'm looking forward to watching both "Life On Mars" and "Sea of Souls".