From what I've heard this is incorrect!

I hadn't heard that JNT was offered Bergerac until very recently. in fact, i think I may only have read it on this board!

JNT was the last drama producer employed by the BBC. If he had chosen to leave DW, there would have been nothing more for him to have moved on to, so he'd have been out of a job. That was my understanding, anyhow. The BBC was farming out its drama production to independent companies, and there was very little left made in-house.

Did Bergerac change producer in 1986/87?



I would love there to be a proper dissection of what really happened. So many factors happening onscreen and off, in the BBC at large, in the TV industry, and in the changing attitudes of the audience. DW's time had come, alas.

He sure did become a scapegoat.



DW was on a slippery slope from Trial onwards. Nothing could have saved it. The same as recently happened to The Bill (and happened to Brookside a few years back): once the execs lose confidence in the show, the start making changes to its structure, then start shifting it around the schedule. Eventually, the wider audience loses patience, leaving just a core audience behind.

Once that process has begun, there's no stopping it. The Bill fans were saying the show was the best it had been for ages, in its last six months or so. Too late, by then. I hadn't been watching for years. The same goes for DW: a lot of fans were saying it was superb in its last couple of years, but the audience had long since given up.

I think it is on one of the DVD documentaries. He didnt seem very impressed and rolled his eyes at the memory. He said the first thing he would have done is move it from Jersey..

Good to see the mans televisual judgement is as awful as ever. Bergerac would have eventually been made to wear a garish suit and the programme would have been covered in tinsel.

I first read about the "Bergerac" offer in an interview with Andrew Cartmel - I can't remember where, though!

I can't say about JNT, but it's easy to see where Dr Who went wrong.

The original sustained success was based on:

1. Good strong themes (usually science based, not always).

2. Good crafted writing, same standard as other tv drama.


The turning point was Invasion of Time:

1. No theme, just a McGuffin (Gallifrey taken over).

2. Long rambling pointless story going nowhere.

3. The TIme Lords get trashed, supposedly for comic effect (which fails). What had been a "shadowy scientific priesthood" ("any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic", Arthur C Clarke) is suddenly portrayed as bickering idiots who don't understand their own legacy technology (inherited from Rassilon). Thus, pretty much destroying the entire basis of Dr Who.

4. Tom Baker starts hamming it up. Behaving eccentrically, delivering lines straight to camera, eveything is suddenly a joke ..........

There was a brief recovery, with Logopolis and Castrovalva, but then the rot set in, Most of Peter Davidson was "unremarkable". Colin Baker intended a "darker" Dr - pity he didn't tell the writers - and the McCoy era was largely an anti-Thatcherite rant.

No wonder it failed.

It's on the Survival dvd.

Yeah - but they socked it to Thatch! Within just a few short days of Happiness Patrol airing she was gone (about 730 days). Not long after the '96 movie broadcast there was a socialist landslide, of course. Eric Roberts played a thinly disguised John Major ("The discomfort to be suffered by this planet will be not inconsiderable. Oh yes.") and then it was curtains for him too.

Is it the general consensus that nobody really noticed the anti-thatch stuff at the time? It would be surprising if a scifi drama didn't touch upon any of the themes of the 80's. eg commercialism and leadership by a conviction politician.

I wasn't watching the show regularly at the time so don't know how much it came across as preachy lefties hectoring people.

Didn't notice it too much more myself, was more busy being horrified by silly carnivourous Grannies, Stupid girl gangs, Patrol people with bright pink hair, weird clowns and Bertie Bassett......

I never saw much of the JNT era., I switched off to the show a bit back then. Can anyone tell me what they think his finest hour was (i.e. best period, few stories) and I'll go take a look this weekend...

I know this is a tough call by the way, because everyones taste in stories varies so much, but I'll go with the most commonly mentioned of whatever response I get... Ta

Logopolis, Earthshock or Peter Davison's final story - what was it called?

To answer both questions, The Caves Of Androzani, voted top story in last year's DWM poll, so I'd say it was from that point of view and from personal preference. Logopolis is my fave story from a nostalgic POV but Androzani had everything going for it, everything came together. Top writer, best performance by Davison, great direction by Graeme Harper. Great incidental music. Great villains in Sharaz Jek and Morgus.

Maybe the Magma Beast was a bit of a let down but as the rest of the story was so great, we can overlook that!!!

Quite simply, it was never as good as this before COA and it was never as good again afterwards in the Classic Series.

While I appreciate your opinion, in mine this is just codswallop!!

The Invasion of Time, the turning point in Doctor Who, no way..yes it's rubbish but that is mainly because of scripts falling through and lack of time to cobble anything decent together, it wasn't planned to be rubbish!

Doctor Who has never been about the timelords, it;s about the Doctor, it took 6 years into the show til they even got a mention!! Every time they have appeared (inc The Deadly Assassin which aired long before this did) they have been reinvented to a certain degree to suit the storyline, even in the afore mentioned Deadly Assassin they had no idea about what Rassillon may or may not have left them with the eye of harmony and the sash and rod etc, so to criticise this later story for this isn't on really!

Long Rambling Plots going nowhere, please refer to The Chase or The Dalek Masterplan as an early example of this...it's not new either, at least this one is only 6 episodes long!

I'm not sure what you watched prior to the Invasion of Time, but I suspect your take on Doctor Who is slightly off, this was only the Time Lords/Gallifrey's what, 5th appearance in around 15 years of the programme, hardly key to the core of the show was it?

I disagree with every other word you've ever written about the JNT era, but I agree totally with this.

Of course, I don't think you know what 'beyond reproach' actually means...

Crap. Revelation of the Daleks? Ghost Light? Fenric? These were some of the best Doctor Who ever written.


It had 'outlved its time in the eighties', but he 'hastened its demise'...at the very end of the decade in which you assert that it had 'outlived its time' anyway...


Was it? Blimey, no wonder it was cancelled a mere eleven years later!

That was a 5am, brain freeze moment, I should have used one of these maybe.

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For me they are not some of the best Doctor Who ever, far far from it. In just those episodes you have named three of the most overrated episodes I could possibly think off. 'Fenric' being the worst am dram I have ever seen in Who.

If the rest of the McCoy series hadn't been as terrible then those three episodes would be distinctly average. Its like seeing a penny in a dog turd and thinking it must be a pound.

I'm quite partial to some of Revelation, I think it's one of Colin's better performances and hints at what could have been given a chance to do it his way and some half decent material and once again Graeme Harper directs well and stands out a mile as a much more interesting and inventive director at the time than most others on the show.

Fenric I used to love, but it has dated badly in places even when compared to some stories made 10 or 20 years before it! I still enjoy it though. Sylv was never really a strong enough actor at the time to pull off the darker side of things, and I still cringe in places when watching him try to be threatening

Like most producers time on the show, some clunkers and some good stories and a whole lot of average stuff in the middle, if he had stayed for 3 years probably would be seen as a good middle of the road producer of the show, alas he way outstayed his shelflife and came to dominate the show and symbolise what some folks thought was going wrong with it, which is probably partially true.

I've never had a problem with Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy in the role of The Doctor just the scripts/direction they had to work with. Those episodes just did not work for me, if they worked for others and others enjoyed them that's great. You wont find me saying they are wrong to like it.


I agree that all eras of Who have the clunkers but for me both the C.Baker and McCoy eras never ventured into the excellent or even above average episodes at all, that's just my opinion. The episodes that are said to be 'classics' just are not for me. Again this is nothing to do with the actors playing The Doctor, both at times showed flashes of brilliance and what they could have done with the character if only the production team were as creative to take the show to the next level that it, imho, needed to go to in order to survive vastly changing tastes in TV, instead it, for me, took a massive step back.

For me, Colin's best performances are it Trial of a Timelord. A far more likable and engaging 6th Doctor - let down, sadly, by a rather dull run of stories.

I have recently sat through Curse of Fenric again to see how I feel about it 20 odd years later (it was during there stories that I gave up watching). I must say, all it did was reinforce my view of how poor the writing, acting and editing were by this stage.

The bits I think do work are some of the fantastic underwater shooting with the Doctor (etc) reading out the translation of the viking inscriptions, it is full of nice touches but just doesn't quite all work together at times.

I fully agree, JNT should have left (at the latest) at the end of Davison's last season. How you can go from the sublime Caves to the riduculous The Twin Diwema is beyond me still...

Exactly, that is one of the points I am trying to make. For a producer to take the artistic view to ignore the direction and style Harper brought to 'Caves' in order to churn out 'The Twin Dilemna' and the flat production values (and I don't mean in term of budget) of subsequent stories is rather head scratching.

I fully understand that Who thrives on diversity in styles and not everything should look like 'Caves' but take the recent series 'Vincent' and then the final two Parter, two completely different approaches in style, writing and direction but and it a big BUT the talent is there behind the camera in terms directors, sets, editing, costumes, lighting to pull those two contrasts off. Again regardless of budget, was it Peter Davison on one of his commentaries that said something like 'turn the lights down' ?
So that flat look was creeping in before C.Baker and McCoy, again it kind of reinforces your 'Caves' 'Dilemma' comparison.

Ghost Light, off the top of my head, managed it in terms of production and direction but that's about it, the rest were as flat as a pancake, uninspired, limp and lifeless almost on the verge of fan videos imo.

Yea, this is how I felt at the time. I agree with all of the above...

I have seen the JNT episodes mentioned. Logopolis was entertaining but a bit baffling at times. Eartshock was only really notable for the Adric storyline... and Caves of A was the most overrated story ever for me... It were a right yawn and at the time I didn't even bother after ep. 2

Oh well, wouldn't do if we were all the same eh....

Sheila Hancock's very Thatcherite delivery was very clear to see at the time. She has a line "Families are very important for people's happiness", which has exactly the right inflection, and ties in so well witht he Tory family values idea that was being promoted at the time of Section 28. Also, the story features lots strikes. The Happiness Patrol was clearly seen as a political comment, just as stories back in the 70s had their political content (environmental issues, etc).



Funny you should mention those things, Davey: they're some of the highpoints for me! The cannibal lesbian grannies are hilarious. The girl gangs are a change from any other group of "young hotheraded rebels" the show has ever featured. The Happiness Patrol is one of my absolute favourites of the 80s. The clowns are scary. Bertie Bassett is hilarious. All good stuff.



My recommendations would be season 21 (Warriors of the Deep and The Twin Dilemma are a bit rubbish, but the rest are great: The Awakening and Frontios not on DVD yet. Resurrection of the Daleks is all mouth and trousers but very watchable. Planet of Fire is a favourite of mine. caves of Androzani is the best of the best), or 25/26 (some great stuff and some okay stuff: Fenric, Ghostlight and Remembrance are all on DVD and are all essential).

Possibly in exactly the same way that you can go from the sci-fi murder mystery of The Rescue to the comedy of The Romans, to give one example. Doctor Who frequently goes off in different directions (or used to, when it had the guts).

Agreed: the series was always very uneven.

The last story in each series often ended up being rushed through without enough money to do it justice. There's often a "big spectacular" followed by a "cheapie".

The issue with Caves/Dilemma is that Caves is so absolutely outstanding in just about every area ... and Dilemma isn't. It might be the biggest change in quality from one story to the next, emphasised by the change of Doctor in between. It wouldn't be noticed so much if the same Doctor appeared in both.

I must admit, it was an odd decision to put the new Doctor's first story at the end of a season, particularly since the first story is never a good place to judge a new Doctor from, usually.