Slipback

After a particularly boozy evening, the Doctor wakes up in the TARDIS with a voice in his head calling to him. He and Peri follow the voice to a ship in deep space where crewmen go missing and all that is left of them are their boots, the ship's computer is developing a split personality, and the captain is turning his body into a breeding ground for a terrible disease which he will unleash on his crew for not obeying his will.

The whole thing sounds like a Douglas Adams story at first glance, doesn't it? Slipback was actually written by Eric Saward for broadcast on Radio4 in 1986, so even after the hiatus of the televised series was announced there was still new Doctor Who to be had. The show was broadcast in six episodes of ten minutes each, with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant in their regular roles as the Doctor and Peri, and it was indeed good fun to listen to. Doctor Who is not often played for laughs, and this is not exactly a roaring comedy, but it is a humourous tale made a bit more palatable for a children's audience while still being entertaining for older listeners. One only need listen to the ditzy and obviously blonde voice of the ship's computer - well, one of the voices anyways - to get either a smirk on their face or an eye roll. And Valentine Dyall, the Black Guardian himself, is fantastic as Slarn, the vindictive ship's capatian bent on getting his way or infecting the crew with a deadly disease.

Nothing is perfect, though, and there's a plot issue that is a bit of a sticking point; there is reference made to the Big Bang in this one, and it's cause, which is yet another version from what has been theorized in Castrovalva and Terminus - and neither of those agree either. Is this just an author's refusal to work within established "history" of the show, or some deeper thread about a greater scale of uncertainty surrounding the event itself, with theory after theory being postulated and none being exactly right? I just wish it could be sorted out, like Atlantis.

The ability of the series to be easily adapted to a radio format would prove to be instrumental in the show's survival in the future; there had already been the LP version of The Pescatons with Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen but this was different, and its success would be remembered years later when Big Finish would begin their own licensed range of plays to bridge the gaps between seasons and expand on the tenure of the eighth Doctor between his appearance in 1996 and the arrival of the ninth Doctor when the series returned to TV in 2005.

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