1)This story was originally meant to be a four-parter, but when the preceding story, "The Dominators" was cut down to five episodes, an extra episode had to be added to this story. Thus, while episodes 2-5 were written by Peter Ling, Episode 1 was actually written by script editor Derrick Sherwin, who encouraged Ling to do something outisde of the usual "sci-fi monster-fighting" stuff.
2)Fraser Hines came down with chicken pox about an episode into this, which is why they came up with the business of having Hamish Wilson play him for a bit. Lucky for them it was the kind of story that lent itself to that sort of weirdness.
3)Much has been made of Zoe's catsuit, and the loving look that the camera takes at Wendy Padbury's bottom in Episode 1. The Baron is willing to go on the record as having no objection to either the catsuit or Wendy Padbury's bottom.
4)The White Robots were apparently left over form another show called Out of the Unknown.
5)Gulliver was played by Bernard Horsfall, who would later return to the series in "The War Games", "Planet of the Daleks" and "The Deadly Assassin".
6)Weird hearing a baddie in this called "The Master" several years early.
7)The Karkus was played by Christopher Robbie, who would later play the Cyberleader in "Revenge of the Cybermen". Wonder if Rob Liefeld was ever a Doctor Who fan... I gather Ling threw in the fight scene between the Karkus and Zoe to give the little kids watchign the fun of seeing someone not much bigger than they were beating up a super-hero.
8)Some fun quotes:
- "It's a forest of words."
- "Well, he can only speak the words that Dean Swift gave him to say."
- "We would've become fiction." Funny seeing fictional characters worrying about being turned into fictional characters.
- "Did you ever hear of the adventures of Captain Jack Harkaway?" I'm surprised our Russell never threw in aline saying that this character was based on Jack Harkness.
- "You can't blow up a ficitonal character, Zoe!"
9)Cliffhangers:
Episode 1: The TARDIS console vanishes into the mist!
Episode 2: The unicorn charges at Team TARDIS!
Episode 3: Zoe finds it hard to resist looking at the Medusa!
Episode 4: Jamie and Zoe are trapped in a giant book!
Episode 5: The TARDIS re-assembles!
Overall:
This was an OK story - I wouldn't want a steady diet of this sort of thing, but it was an acceptable change of pace.
[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]
Replies
"Much has been made of Zoe's catsuit, and the loving look that the camera takes at Wendy Padbury's bottom in Episode 1. The Baron is willing to go on the record as having no objection to either the catsuit or Wendy Padbury's bottom."
I think it's a toss-up for me, between Wendy Padbury & Katy Manning for "cutest WHO girl ever".
"Gulliver was played by Bernard Horsfall, who would later return to the series in "The War Games", "Planet of the Daleks" and "The Deadly Assassin"."
A lot of people (myself included) seem happy to think he played the SAME character in both "THE WAR GAMES" and "THE DEADLY ASSASSIN". (Which would make sense, he would then have been at both of The Doctor's trials, and know full well in advance about The Doctor's conviction and sentence.)
"Weird hearing a baddie in this called "The Master" several years early."
What gets even weirder is when you get to "THE WAR GAMES", and you have "The War Chief" who seems like he could actually have been an earlier incarnation of The Master (and at the same time, Philip Madoc as "The War Lord", who also seems like he would have been a good choice to play that role).
"The TARDIS console vanishes into the mist! The TARDIS re-assembles!"
The first time I saw this, I immediately figured the blank white landscape served as the inspiration for the one in "WARRIOR'S GATE". Later, I came to think the TARDIS breaking up and coming back together inspired a similar plot development in "FRONTIOS".