The twenty-first season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 5 January 1984 with the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) serial Warriors of the Deep, and ended on 30 March 1984 with Colin Baker's first serial The Twin Dilemma. For the third time (the first being during Season 4 and second being Season 18), the entire TARDIS crew changed over the course of a single season. John Nathan-Turner produced the series, with Eric Saward script editing.

Casting

Main cast Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka Mark Strickson as Vislor Turlough Gerald Flood as Voice of Kamelion Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor

The Doctor Peter Davison makes his final regular appearance as the Doctor in The Caves of Androzani. Colin Baker makes his first full appearance as the Doctor in the final serial The Twin Dilemma.

Companions Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka) and Mark Strickson (Vislor Turlough) continue their roles as the Fifth Doctor's companions for their final season, Janet Fielding leaves in Resurrection of the Daleks and Mark Strickson departs in Planet of Fire. New companion Peri Brown played by Nicola Bryant makes her first appearance in Planet of Fire.

The shape-shifting Android Companion Kamelion, played by Gerald Flood, makes his second and final appearance in Planet of Fire, though the character itself – along with other Fifth Doctor companions who left by this story (Tegan, Nyssa, Adric, and Turlough) – all make illusionary cameos as the Doctor regenerates at the climax of The Caves of Androzani.

Recurring actors Anthony Ainley as The Master

Anthony Ainley returns in Planet of Fire as the Master, which was intended to be his final appearance. Ainley, like other departed fifth Doctor companions make illusionary cameos as the Doctor regenerates.

Guest stars Davros makes his first appearance since Destiny of the Daleks (1979) this time played by Terry Molloy.

Serials

Episodes were broadcast twice weekly on Thursday and Friday evenings, with Resurrection of the Daleks broadcast on two consecutive Wednesday nights.

Resurrection of the Daleks was planned as a standard four-parter. However, the BBC's coverage of the 1984 Winter Olympics meant that Doctor Who'''s normal timeslot was unavailable. Rather than delay broadcasting the story, the decision was taken to produce it as a pair of double length episodes and broadcast it in the unfamiliar Wednesday timeslot.The Caves of Androzani was the first time since Season 4's The Tenth Planet that the introduction of a new Doctor had taken place before the final serial of the season.

Production

During this season, the title card was slightly modified for the final serial The Twin Dilemma, and continued during Colin Baker's reign as the Sixth Doctor until the end of the season 23 14 episode epic The Trial of a Time Lord.

Scrapped stories After completing Snakedance, Saward asked Christopher Bailey to write another story. The initial outline for May Time was commissioned on 24 August 1982,. in which the Doctor and his companions arrive at the court of Byzantium. Full scripts were commissioned on 16 September 1982 with the title Man-watch, but were dropped from production. A second attempt at the story entitled Children of Seth was attempted as a Sixth Doctor story, and scripts were commissioned on 14 July 1983. This failed because Bailey did not devise a structure for Doctor Who new 45-minute-episode format or create a tangible villain for the Doctor to face. It was adapted as The Children of Seth by Marc Platt for Big Finish's The Lost Stories in December 2011..

Barbara Clegg pitched multiple stories, including The Elite, which would have featured a race of intelligent youths controlled by a lone Dalek, The Rogue TARDIS, which dealt with the Doctor searching for a missing Time Lord who has regenerated to merge with his TARDIS, and The Underworld, which would have seen the Doctor travel down the river Styx in ancient Greece.. Eric Pringle submitted a pitch titled The Darkness alongside The Awakening, with the pitch thought to have included the Daleks in it.Doctor Who Magazine #282 page 36 Robin Squire's Ghost Planet was scrapped, and is believed to have potentially incorporated the Sixth Doctor. Another script by Platt and J. Jeremy Bentham (Under the pseudonym Charles M. Stevens), Warmongers, was planned to include the Sontarans and Rutans during the Blitz, but ended up scrapped. Hex, by Peter Ling and Hazel Adair, was developed following plans from Nathan-Turner to create a sequel to 1960s soap opera Compact fell through and Nathan-Turner invited them to work on Doctor Who. After three months of development, Hex was scrapped..

Other story submissions included Circus of Destiny by Ben Steed, The House That Ur-Cjak Built by Andrew Stephenson, The Place Where All Times Meet by Colin Davis, Poison by Rod Beacham, and The SCI and The Zeldan by William Emms. A script by Stephen Gallagher, Nightmare County, was planned to feature a race known as the Vodyani who ran a reality simulator, with the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough needing to escape it; this was scrapped by Saward due to cost concerns.. It would later be adapted into an audio drama by Big Finish Productions.

Broadcast The entire season was broadcast from 5 January to 30 March 1984. Transmission moved to Thursdays and Fridays, except for Resurrection of the Daleks'' which was aired in two double-length episodes on Wednesdays due to the BBC's coverage of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Home media

VHS releases

DVD and Blu-ray releases

In print

References

Bibliography

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External links