547 State of Decay: Part Four

EPISODE: State of Decay: Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 547
STORY NUMBER: 113
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 13 December 1980
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Peter Moffatt
SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 5.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The E-Space Trilogy (Full Circle / State of Decay / Warrior's Gate)

"The girl is a Time Lord. One of the ancient enemies of the Great One. She is to be held for sacrifice at the time of Arising!"

Aukon restrains Zargo & Camilla from drinking Adric & Romana's blood. The Doctor persuades the rebels to help him and with K-9 they storm the castle. As the three who rule prepare to sacrifice Romana, The Doctor launches one of the castle's scoutships which falls back to the ground, piercing the great vampire through the heart and killing it. Zargo, Camilla & Aukon, freed from their master's powers, age rapidly and crumble away into dust. The Doctor leaves the rebels and tells the stowaway Adric he's taking him home to Starliner.

Not a bad episode at all!

Lots of the Vampires hamming it up....

AUKON: We stand on the very threshold of our triumph. I have communed with the mind of the Great One and he is ready. Thanks to the blood and souls we have fed to him for so long, his body is healed of wounds, regenerated and whole once more.
ZARGO: And he will arise tonight?
AUKON: It is certain. When all is prepared we will go to the resting place and summon him.
CAMILLA: When he wakes, he will be hungry.
ZARGO: Ivo and his faithful villagers will be able to perform one last service for their masters.
CAMILLA: And when they are consumed
AUKON: We shall leave this miserable space trap for the real universe. Rich, fat worlds teeming with life. We shall suck their life blood until they are empty husks, and pass on to more worlds, and yet still more.
CAMILLA: Countless inhabited planets all waiting to feed our hunger.
ZARGO: I have served a thousand years for this.
AUKON: At midnight, our servitude will end and our glory begin. But the proper rituals must be carried out, or the Great One will be displeased. Zargo, Camilla, you will initiate the boy, after I have sacrificed the girl.

Lots of Tom being Tom....

DOCTOR: Lack of weapons. No experience. Odds almost insurmountable. But! He who outlives this day and comes safe home shall stand a-tiptoe when this day is named and rouse him at the name of E-space!
DOCTOR: Well, that's the problem. There's got to be an answer.
KALMAR: What?
DOCTOR: That's the question.
VEROS: We must join forces with Ivo and attack the Tower. Tarak was right!
DOCTOR: Yes, yes.
KALMAR: Where is Tarak now? We dare not attack the Tower until we are ready.
DOCTOR: You've got to be ready. You people have had a thousand years to rid yourselves of this evil and now all you've got are three hours.
KALMAR: Do you really expect us to believe that some great creature sleeps beneath the Tower and is about to awake and destroy us?
DOCTOR: Where do you think Zargo and his friends got their powers?
KALMAR: I don't know.
DOCTOR: No, and that's the very devil of it. If I had any instruments with me, I could show you.
KALMAR: The scanner.
DOCTOR: Scanner. Scanner?
KALMAR: The console you got working for us. I discovered another facility.
DOCTOR: Range?
KALMAR: It should reach the Tower.
DOCTOR: Right, Now, Kalmar, you'll see I'm telling you the truth. Gather round, gentlemen. Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. It'll take a moment or two for the picture to steady. There we are. Oh, it seems to scan right through the spectrum.
KALMAR: There's the Tower.
DOCTOR: Yes. The spectrum's a bit weak at the moment. Infra-red. Picking up sleeping life forms. Now we're going into x-ray. Watch the area below the Tower.
DOCTOR: Oh.

VEROS: What is it?
DOCTOR: The heartbeat of the Great Vampire.

But how can we slay the monster?

KALMAR: You said your people killed thousands of them.
DOCTOR: Yes, but that was after a long and bloody war, and they had bow ships that fire mighty bolts of steel and pierced each vampire's heart.
IVO: Maybe there's another way to kill them?
KALMAR: Well
DOCTOR: Their cardiovascular system's incredibly efficient. They can just seal over minor wounds. Yes, there's a very practical reason for the traditional wooden stake.
IVO: If we sharpened a tree trunk
DOCTOR: No, I doubt if even that would be big enough, and anyway, how could we propel it? Mighty bolt of steel.
IVO: A catapult?
DOCTOR: Of course. Of course! An arrow of steel, and I've been looking at it all this time.

It's time to take Chekov's Gun down off the wall where Uncle Terrance hung it in episodes 2 & 3!

DOCTOR: Three scoutships, three chances. Now, which one first? This one.

DOCTOR: Come on. Dead as a dinosaur. The circuits must be corroded. Have to try one of the others.

DOCTOR: Come on..... One to go.

DOCTOR: Come on. Come on! What happened to all that Earth craftsmanship, eh? Just because you've been laid up for a thousand years. A scintilla of power left in the energy cells, a few drops of fuel. Oh, lovely Earth craftsmanship. That should do it. Short trip, quick flip. Time to be going, Doctor.

AUKON: The ship!
ZARGO: What's happening?
AUKON: No!
DOCTOR: Romana! Right, time for me to tell you what happened.
ROMANA: You sent the scout ship on a little trip.
DOCTOR: Right. Yes.
AUKON: He rises! See, the Great One rises!
AUKON: He comes! The Great One comes!
DOCTOR: Don't worry, don't worry. Have you ever heard the expression what goes up must come down?
ADRIC: No.
DOCTOR: I wish I hadn't.

The big problem here is the Scout Ship model sequence: you watch it turning round and you hold your head in your hands and weep.

It's a shame because the effects in general have been very very good this story.

They have saved one of the best effects for last: after the scoutship has killed the Great Vampire, his servants age rapidly and crumble to dust!

This was the first story filmed featuring Matthew Waterhouse as new companion Adric. He actually has very little to do in it and his most major scenes are in this episode which seem to imply he's thrown in his lot with the Vampires:

ADRIC: So the vampires in the stories are just pale imitations of the real thing?
ROMANA: If the Doctor's suspicions are right.
ADRIC: Oh yes, the Doctor. Is he coming back from the Tardis?
ROMANA: Well, we were supposed to join him there after we'd rescued you.
ADRIC: Only you didn't, did you.
ROMANA: Didn't what?
ADRIC: Rescue me. Tarak got killed, you got caught, and the Doctor's safely out of it. He can clear off in the Tardis whenever he likes.
ROMANA: How dare you, Adric!
ADRIC: It looks as if this is one time the goodies don't win after all. Still, I'm all right, aren't I.
ROMANA: Oh yes, you are all right. You haven't done so much better yourself. You stow away in our Tardis, you expect us to
ADRIC: Now look! I've been offered a partnership. Power and eternal life, they said.
ROMANA: They are vampires, Adric. Do you want to become one of them?
ADRIC: You said yourself, you're on the menu. If it's a choice between that and joining the diners, I mean, there's no sense in two of us getting the chop.
ROMANA: When the Doctor gets back from the Tardis, he is going to need your help.
ADRIC: Why am I being kept prisoner like this? She's the sacrifice, not me. I'm supposed to be a Chosen One. I'm sorry, Time Lady. One of my family's died for your lot already. I reckon one's enough.
ROMANA: Adric, do you know what happens to vampires when they die?
ADRIC: But they don't die, do they, Aukon.
AUKON: Release him, and prepare him for the ceremony. Prepare the sacrifice also. It is time.

Later a brief, easily missed, line to Romana makes you think he's putting it on:

ADRIC: Listen, I've got a plan. Can you hear me?

I've not spotted this before and indeed later stories where Adric sides with the wrong people reinforced my original view!

There's some more Guards who only appear in this week's episode:

Richard Sheekey had been a a PC & Audience Member/Stagehand/Doorman (Fred) in Talons of Weng Chiang, a Guard in the Armagedon Factor, and a Double for Scaroth (Mask) in City of Death. He returns as a Double for The Brigadier in Mawdryn Undead In Blake's 7's he was a Prisoner in Cygnus Alpha & Federation Trooper in The Harvest of Kairos. In Doomwatch he was a Man in Flight Into Yesterday.

Ian Sheridan was a Patient in the Armageddon Factor and a Guard in City of Death. In Blake's 7's he was a Kairos Guard / Labourer in The Harvest of Kairos and a Federation Trooper / Rebel in Rumours of Death.

Michael Brydon had been a Tourist in the Louvre in City of Death and a Ceremonial Deon Guard in Meglos. In Blake's 7's he was a Kairos Guard / Labourer in The Harvest of Kairos and Guard in City at the Edge of the World.

Barney Lawrence had been seen as a Marshmen in Full Circle, but this appearance was filmed before that, He returns as a Foster in The Keeper of Traken, a Kinda Hostage in Kinda, the Male Android Silhouette in Earthshock, Air Steward Dave Culshaw in Timeflight, Tanha’s Bodyguard in Snakedance, a member of Striker's crew in Enlightenment, a Marine Guard in Warriors of the Deep, and a Trooper in Resurrection of the Daleks. He was in Blake's 7 as a Federation Trooper in Time Squad & Bounty, a Guard in Traitor and Zukan's Technician in Warlord.

It's also a penultimate Doctor Who appearance, as a guard, for Alan Chuntz. Chuntz was previously a UNIT Soldier in The Invasion, Technician Harvey & a Security Guard in The Seeds of Death, one of Collinson’s Men & a UNIT Soldier in the Ambassadors of Death, a Technician, UNIT solider and RSF Soldier in Inferno, during which he was injured when Jon Pertwee ran him over in Bessie, an Auton in Terror of the Autons, a Prisoner in Mind of Evil a Sea Devil & Sailor in The Sea Devils, Omega's Champion in The Three Doctors, a Security Guard in The Green Death, a Guard in Planet of Spiders, a soldier in Genesis of the Daleks, a Vogan in Revenge of the Cybermen, the Doctor's stunt double in Planet of Evil, the Chauffeur in Seeds of Doom, a Horda Pit Guard in Face of Evil and a Coolie in Talons of Weng-Chiang. He returns as a Masked Villager in The Visitation.

He also did stunt work on the Sean Connery James Bond film You Only Live Twice and on The Italian Job.

Over the years I've struggled a bit with State of Decay. My first encounter with it was as an audio cassette of Terrance Dicks' 1982 novel which was read by Tom Baker. I got a copy of it as a youngster and was very disappointed that it wasn't the audio of the story, which I hadn't seen when it was broadcast thanks to watching Buck Rogers in the 25th Century on ITV, and that it didn't have the Doctor Who theme on it. I suspect this biased me against the story for some time..... Watching it twice for blogs, it's easily the most improved Tom Baker story over my expectations. It's quite interesting watching it as it's effectively a Holmes era script but done in the 1980s. You sit there at times thinking "What would be different if it was filmed three years earlier and with Leela instead of K-9 & Romana"?

The E-Space Trilogy, containing Full Circle, State of Decay & Warriors' Gate, was released on video in 1997 and on DVD on 26th January 2009.

Doctor Who Season 18, including State of Decay, was released on Blu-Ray on 18th March 2019.

Following this episode's broadcast we get 2 weeks without Doctor Who over the Christmas period with the show returning on 3rd January 1981.

546 State of Decay: Part Three

EPISODE: State of Decay: Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 546
STORY NUMBER: 113
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 06 December 1980
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Peter Moffatt
SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 4.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The E-Space Trilogy (Full Circle / State of Decay / Warrior's Gate)

"At the time of Arising, we servants will swarm. You could be one of us!"

Aukon offers to share their power with the Doctor, but he refuses. Aukon learns they are Time Lords and has the Doctor & Romana imprisoned to use as sacrifices when their master awakes. While in the cell the Doctor recalls a Time Lord Vampire legend and Romana recommends that he should look it up on the record of Rassilon contained in his Tardis. They are rescued by Tarak, a former Tower guard who now is with the rebels, and he & Romana stay at the tower to seek Adric. The Doctor returns to the Tardis and learns of how Rassilon fought the Time Lords ancient foes the Great Vampires with "Bow Ships", wiping them out but when the bodies were counted one was missing. The Doctor realises that the Vampire must be on the planet, buried beneath the tower. Romana & Tarak find Adric in Zargo & Camilla's crypt, but Tarak is killed when the vampires awake and they advance on Romana & Adric to feed on them.....

That was fab. Top marks to Emrys James for opening the show with a truly impressive piece of barking mad villainship!

DOCTOR: Well, I'm glad to catch someone at home. Are we in time for a guided tour?
AUKON: You're a fool to mock, Doctor. There is power here such as you have never dreamed of. Can you not feel it?
DOCTOR: No.
AUKON: Power, Doctor! It is the only reality. Why fight it when you could share it?
DOCTOR: Me?
AUKON: When I sent my winged messengers to hunt you down, I sensed the power of your mind. We seek such minds for our great purpose.
DOCTOR: What purpose?
AUKON: At the time of Arising, we servants will swarm. You could be one of us.
DOCTOR: I could? Well, you know, I've never been a great one for swarming. It's awfully kind of you to offer, but where were you thinking of swarming to?
AUKON: Out of this universe and back to our own.
ROMANA: You know the way out of E-space?
AUKON: That is the secret of him who brought us here.
DOCTOR: Ah ha! So there was a guided tour.
AUKON: We were summoned, the whole ship, to be his servants.
DOCTOR: Was that when you were just plain Science Officer O'Connor?
AUKON: What?
ROMANA: He was O'Connor?
DOCTOR: Yes. Those officers aren't the descendants of the originals, they are the originals.
AUKON: He has given us unending life. He summoned us here speaking to the others through my mind. We fed and nourished him until now he is ready to arise.
ROMANA: Suppose we pretended to cooperate till we get the data on E-space?
DOCTOR: Yes. No. Too dangerous.
AUKON: Consider well, Doctor. Won't you join us, like your other companion?
DOCTOR: Who's he talking about?
ROMANA: Can't even count on this planet.
AUKON: The boy will be the first of the Chosen Ones.
ROMANA: Boy? What boy?
AUKON: He came here looking for you. The name he used was Adric.
ROMANA: Adric?
DOCTOR: Adric?
AUKON: You will all serve the Great One, Doctor, one way or another. If you do not join us, you will feed him with your blood.
DOCTOR: No. There is a third choice.
AUKON: What is that?
DOCTOR: I can destroy the Great One. Off you go, Romana!
AUKON: Stop, Doctor! By the power that is mine, I command you.
DOCTOR: I will not serve. I will not serve.
AUKON: Come, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Cover your eyes, Romana. That might be all right for half-starved peasantry, Aukon, but it doesn't scare Time Lords.
AUKON: Time Lords! The ancient enemies!
ZARGO: Always so anxious to leave, Doctor?
CAMILLA: Now is the time of our feast.
ZARGO: We shall drain the blood from your bodies slowly.
CAMILLA: Drop by drop.
AUKON: Silence! I hear you, O great One. Your ever faithful servant Aukon awaits your command. Yea, O Great One. Preparations are complete. Sacrifice will be made. At the time of your Arising, you shall drink the blood of Time Lords! You have been chosen. You have both been chosen!

They could have done anything after that and I'd have still been happy!

However the comments about the Time Lords being the ancient enemy send the Doctor down a train of thought while they're banged up in the cell...

DOCTOR: There was once an old hermit from the mountains of south Gallifrey.
ROMANA: Did he lead a very sheltered life?
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, he did. He used to tell me ghost stories. I like a ghost story. Do you want to hear one?
ROMANA: No.
DOCTOR: It's about a race of giant vampires.
ROMANA: Vampires?
DOCTOR: Mmm. They came out of nowhere, and swarmed and swarmed
ROMANA: What did they do, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Swarmed. That was the word he used.
ROMANA: Oh.
DOCTOR: They swarmed all over the universe. And they were so strong that one single vampire could suck the life out of an entire planet.
ROMANA: One single vampire could suck the life out of an entire planet?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Rubbish.
DOCTOR: Well, he wasn't a scientist. There are other ways of looking at life, you know. Anyway, according to the story, we Time Lords hunted them down across the universe in a war so long and so bloody that we were sickened of violence forever.
ROMANA: So they were all destroyed?
DOCTOR: One of them escaped, I think.
ROMANA: And?
DOCTOR: Just vanished into thin air. Poof.
ROMANA: Like the Hydrax into E-space. When was all this supposed to have happened?
DOCTOR: Hmm? When was all what supposed to have happened?
ROMANA: The legend.
DOCTOR: Oh, that. Oh, in the misty dawn of history, when even Rassilon was young.
ROMANA: I once worked in the Bureau of Ancient Records, for a time.
DOCTOR: So?
ROMANA: Oh, nothing. It's just that I once came across a reference to something called the Record of Rassilon in one of the old data books.
DOCTOR: And?
ROMANA: And it was an emergency instruction. A copy of the book was to be installed in certain time vehicles.
DOCTOR: What time vehicles?
ROMANA: Oh, I don't know. I forget.
DOCTOR: What time vehicles?
ROMANA: Type Forty, I think.
DOCTOR: Psst. The Tardis is a Type Forty.
ROMANA: Is it?

After their escape he is able to return to the Tardis to check his theory:

DOCTOR: Well?
K9: Nothing.
DOCTOR: Well?
K9: Nothing.
DOCTOR: Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?
K9: Nothing, master. There is mention of the Record of Rassilon.
DOCTOR: Have you tried Rassilon, Record of?
K9: Access attempted under all permutations.
DOCTOR: Vampires.
K9: Information on vampires totally absent from Tardis databanks.

DOCTOR: Okay, try your folklore section.
K9: My folklore section contains vampire lore from seventeen inhabited planets. I will begin with Earth, the legend of Count Dracula.
DOCTOR: No, thank you. Not Dracula. Emergency instructions.
K9: There are eighteen thousand three hundred and forty eight emergency instructions. I will now list them in code order. One
DOCTOR: No, no, no, thank you. No, thank you.
K9: There is a magnetic card system on this vehicle, master.
DOCTOR: Well, why didn't you say? Of course!

DOCTOR: Oh, good. The Record of Rassilon.
DOCTOR: Got it! Vampire army. Phew, listen to this, K9. So powerful were the bodies of these great creatures, and so fiercely did they cling to life, that they were impossible to kill, save by the use of bow ships. Bow ships? What are bow ships?
K9: Bow ships, unknown.
DOCTOR: Never mind. Yet slain they all were, and to the last one, by the Lords of Time. The Lords of Time destroying them utterly. Well, that's good news. However, when the bodies were counted... I knew it. Just like the legend said. When the bodies were counted, the King Vampire, mightiest and most malevolent of all, had vanished, even to his shadow, from time and space. Until now.
K9: Continue, master.
DOCTOR: Hence it is the directive of Rassilon that any Time Lord who comes upon this enemy of our people and of all living things, shall use all his efforts to destroy him, even at the cost of his own life.
K9: Query. How may this creature be destroyed?
DOCTOR: What? That's a good question. Let's see what it says about battle.
DOCTOR: Cattle, rattle, battle.
DOCTOR: Got it. Energy weapons were useless because the monsters absorbed and transmuted the energy using it to become stronger. Therefore Rassilon ordered the construction of bow ships. Ah. Swift vessels that fired a mighty bold of steel that transfixed the monsters through the heart. For only if his heart be utterly destroyed will a vampire die.
K9: Query.
DOCTOR: What? What is it?
K9: Is this data of practical value, master?
DOCTOR: Well, it might come in useful, if we can only lay our hands on a mighty bolt of steel.

As we'll see, Uncle Terrance has already prepared us for this one by hanging Chekov's Gun on the wall in part 2!

William Lindsay plays Zargo. You can see him in the Blake's 7 episode Animals as The Captain.

Rachel Davies plays Camilla. New director Peter Moffatt had previously used her on the All Creatures Great and Small episode Bulldog Breed where she played Mary Metcalfe but she can also be seen in The Sweeney episode One of Your Own as Tina Adams and The Professionals as Deborah in Hijack.

Emrys James plays the chancellor Aukon. He's got a CV as long as your arm and obviously impressed writer Terrance Dicks and executive producer Barry Letts as they reuse him on their production of Dombey and Son where he plays Captain Cuttle.

Iain Rattray plays Habris, the Guard sent to select the villagers. He is in Inspector Morse Twilight of the Gods as the Fingerprint Lab Director.

Stuart Blake, playing the guard Zoldaz, is the Commander in director Peter Moffatt's The Five Doctors, and also Scibus in Warriors of the Deep. He was in The Sweeney as Doctor in Feet of Clay and the Flash Gordon film as an Azurian Man.

After an absence of two years this is a reappearance in Doctor Who for Stuart Fell, long term actor & stuntman, playing Roga. Fell had been a UNIT soldier & Auton in Terror of the Autons, UNIT staff member & a photographer in The Mind of Evil and a UNIT Soldier & Axon in The Claws of Axos before he got his first credited appearance as Alpha Centauri in The Curse of Peladon. He then appeared as a Guard, Sailor & Sea Devil in The Sea Devils and a Functionary in Carnival of Monsters, Alpha Centauri in The Monster, the Tramp in Planet of the Spiders part two, who the Doctor drives the hovercraft over, and a Guard later in the same story, a Wirrn Larvae & Wirrn in The Ark in Space, the double for Styre in The Sontaran Experiment, The Kraal in The Android Invasion part three, the Monster in The Brain of Morbius, Forking peasant / Guard / Acolyte in The Masque of Mandragora, a Policeman, Coolie & the Giant Rat in Talons of Weng Chiang, a Guard in The Sun Makers, a Sontaran in The Invasion of Time, and a Shrivenzale in the Ribos Operation. He'd go on to double for Decider Draith in Full Circle, which was shown before this story but filmed after, then plays a Castrovalvan Warrior in Castrovalva, a masked villager in The Visitation and a Cyberman in The Five Doctors. Fell also did stunts in Terror of the Autons, was fight arranger in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, more stunts in The Ribos Operation & Full Circle and served as fight arranger again in State of Decay.

In Blake's 7 he was Dortmunn in Mission to Destiny, a Subterron in Project Avalon, a Goth Warrior in The Keeper, a Sarran in Aftermath, a Labourer in The Harvest of Kairos, a Guard in City at the Edge of the World, a Federation Trooper in Rumours of Death, a Guard in Moloch, a Gunman in Death-Watch, a Link in Terminal & Rescue and a Hommik Warrior in Power plus he was the stunt coordinator for Project Avalon, The Keeper, Aftermath, Volcano, The Harvest of Kairos, City at the Edge of the World, Rumours of Death, Moloch, Death-Watch, Terminal, Rescue & Power. He plays a man in the Doomwatch episode Spectre at the Feast. He's in The Empire Strikes Back as a Snowtrooper and does stunts in Return of the Jedi. He also does stunt work on the Roger Moore James Bond films For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy & A View to a Kill. And so much more.

Also as Guards we have the following:

Brian Moorehead was an extra in Robot, a Guard in State of Decay, and returns as a Dinner Guest in Snakedance. He's in Blake's 7 as a Hooded Figure in Cygnus Alpha and a Federation Officer in Trial. He was previously in Quatermass II as the 1st Guard in The Mark and a Paratrooper in The Destroyer.

Reg Woods had been a Palace Guard in Androids of Tara, a Bearer in Creature fron the Pit, would have been a Krarg in Shada,then played a Pangol Body Part & Member of Pangol Army in The Leisure Hive He has his role as Policeman at Station cut from Black Orchid, and then returns as a Security Guard in Timeflight and a Member of Striker's Crew in Enlightenment. In Blake's 7 he's a Scavenger in Deliverance, a Rebel in Voice from the Past, a Menial in Ultraworld, a Space Rat in Stardrive and a Space Princess Guard / Passenger in Gold. He's also in The Professionals episode Black Out in what IMDB describes as "Bit Part" and the Fawlty Towers episode The Kipper and the Corpse as a Hotel Guest.

Fernand Monast is making his Doctor Who debut He returns in Black Orchid as a Dancer/Cricketer, a Colonist in Frontios and as the Space Station Professor shot dead by Sontarans in The Two Doctors.