Interlude - The Break of Dawn

It's very easy, with the power of hindsight, to draw lines. Doctor Who lost its innocence after "The Horns of Nimon" (thank god, eh? Kidding!). It all went pear-shaped after "Revelation of the Daleks". JNT should have left after "Caves of Androzani". The latter viewpoint is one I've been guilty of airing on many an occasion, and indeed I still wish he had. For his sake, as much as ours. Yet, on reflection, I'm astounded at how pointlessly presumptuous and high-handed I'm being by even bothering to make the mark. Of course we can see that now! But history now lies peacefully, the dust settled upon it. We have eternity to pick it apart and decide the roads it should have turned down. They didn't. They were making it up as they went along.

So we won't blame JNT for not leaving after "Caves of Androzani", indeed we only have my stupid fan revision-obsession to speculate that things would have been any better. Who's to say that Grade really wasn't smelling the show's blood back then and plotting its downfall? We know with our common sense that we probably inflicted the post-hiatus troubles on ourselves through the hysterical fan reaction to it, but the world doesn't always revolve by the power of common sense. Don't forget it was JNT that stirred up that very hornets nest, spreading the story round the nation's tabloids to, as ever, maximise publicity and support for Doctor Who. Rather than being responsible for gaining the series' fans a catastrophic reputation within the BBC, as our evidence seems to be indicating, what about if JNT once more saved Who, buying us four years that Grade would have quietly swept away otherwise? If a new producer had come in, would he have had to clout and media savvy to see us through that difficult time? Unlikely. And I wanted JNT to leave after "Caves"? What was I thinking?

Well, I was thinking of a fresh start for one thing. Doctor Who always seems to have thrived on change, and like one of those big wobbly men (no, not Terrance Dicks), whenever it was punched hard it would always seem to stabilise in a short time. Which was why it was frustrating when people kept on punching it down after about 1984, until eventually it didn't get back up again. I'd still love to know how Colin could have thrived on some fresh creative ideas. It doesn't help poor JNT that the decisions he made about the genesis of the Sixth Doctor were so abysmal; has anyone in the show's history made such a huge mistake as deciding to make him unlikable and with a deliberately atrocious costume? It was almost as if he were delirious on his success to date, so high on Anniversary jubilation that he dared even his worst decisions not to be successes.

I once asked JNT at a convention if he thought that making the Sixth Doctor era too similar to its predecessors was a mistake. The poor man didn't know what I was talking about, there was a chasm of silence across the convention hall, and a quick-talking compere hurriedly translated my question into something more sensible. I've privately thought through what I was trying to say that day, many times. I always reach the conclusion that I was actually asking him, in a very round-the-houses way, if he thought it was a mistake that HE DIDN'T LEAVE after "Caves". Because the fact that he didn't leant the two era's a stagnating consistency that prevented Colin's era from ever spreading his wings and gaining a true identity.

Perhaps, like JNT, this is nonsense to you. A new companion, an evolving house-style and a front-man utterly at odds with his predecessor may mark Colin's era out as being as different to Peter's as Jon's was to Tom's. But not to me. The Sixth Doctor era will always seem like a more extreme, darker version of Season 21 in my mind, a continuation rather than a change. Naturally, with the same producer at the helm, many of the production personnel used during the Sixth Doctor era had been employed on Peter Davison stories; the policies are the same - a mix of expensive exotic location and cost-cutting studio adventures, with old enemies returning as headlines. Even the titles are a jazzed up version of what went before.

If you look at any other change of Doctor, within a year the show is so different from how it was under the old lead-actor that it's clearly the outpouring of completely fresh creative juices; sometimes, it's hard to believe that it's still the same show. But "Revelation of the Daleks", although far superior, is in every way the same persons work as "Resurrection" two years before. A different Doctor, the same show. Perhaps we should blame the curtailing of Colin's second season mid-production, but then there's precious little evidence that they were trying to take the show in a new direction with the abandoned Season 23. The Ice Warriors, the Rani and the Autons were all coming back, and there was an expensive jaunt to Singapore planned (a move that would undoubtedly have left "The Ultimate Evil" to be made on a shoestring). As with Season 22, any of these stories may have slotted right into Peter Davison's last year.

Pity poor Colin, then, and pity the producer who might have bowed out with one of his best stories. Think how JNT's reputation would be if he had thrown in his Hawaiian shirt and famous 'point' after the usual three or four seasons. In short, he had everything to lose in not handing Colin over to a completely new team. We would have possibly gained an era with as much unique identity as can be seen over the Season 17/18 divide. This is not how things happened, and to speculate on what might have been IS a pretty pointless exercise. But I like to think that the troubles ahead were as much the fault as those steering the boat as layable at the door of whoever up there at the BBC didn't think it best to insist on a totally new crew. Sometimes it's best to go out at the top of your game.