Downtime

Years after leaving the Doctor, Victoria Waterfield is drawn back to the Det-Sen Monastary in Tibet where she encounters a dark presence from the past. In 1995 she becomes the vice-chancellor of New World Univeristy, set up using the money her father left behind. New World follows the Det-Sen principles of learning and meditation, but to achieve their goals they require a missing locus. Journalist Sarah Jane Smith is hired to investigate on behalf of New World but when her path of investigation points towards retired Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, she realizes that something more sinister is at work, something that could put the whole world at the mercy of the Great Intelligence. And without the Doctor, they are on their own.

Downtime has the interesting distinction of being the series' only "retcon" piece; retcon being short for retroactive continuity. Originally it was made as a video production by ReelTime pictures using characters that were not copyrighted to the BBC, but shortly after it was officially embraced as lore with a novelized and greatly expanded edition in the Virgin Missing Adventures range. The expanded version featured the second Doctor for a few pages, and the third towards the end, and K9 appeared with Sarah (he does not in the video but it is obvious that Sarah is communicating with him) as well as the inclusion of UNIT personnel Brigadier Chricton (who was a colonel in the opening minutes of The Five Doctors) and a colonel Bambera, who would feature in the seventh Doctor adventure Battlefield.

Having been posessed by the Intelligence twice already has made Victoria an easy target for its powers, so its hold over her is so firm that we're not really seeing "our" Victoria for the better part of the adventure. (I often wonder if Janet Fielding could be convinced to be Tegan again to look at her life after the Mara). Victoria and Sarah share a few scenes without actually realizing that they have the Doctor as a common link; that bond is reserved for Sarah's eventual reuniting with the Brigadier, who at this point is still teaching at Brendan school some years after the events depicted in Mawdryn Undead. There's also a new character to add to the mix: Kate Lehtbridge-Stewart, the Brigadier's daughter from his failed first marriage. Kate hasn't spoken to her father in years - so long that he doesn't know he has a grandson, but she becomes a target of harassment by the New World university student body - the Chillies (short for Children) - when they connect her to the Brigadier, and the Brigadier to the last locus that binds the Great Intelligence to Earth. Acting as the de-facto chorgeous of the piece is New World's resident DJ, played by John Leeson (original voice of K9), who broadcasts daily from the school until he realizes that his program is nothing more than propaganda. And in the last little bit of star casting is Jack Watling as Professor Travers once more, kept alive as a puppet of the Intelligence until it can escape its bonds.

And yes, there are Yeti again. Lots and lots of Yeti. Okay well in the video there are just three but in the book there are a lot more. They've been redesigned again, probably due to budgetary reasons, and are smaller than before, and for some reason their fur is auburn now, not grey. And that's not just because they're in colour at last.

As it was the first video in a while, of course Jay and I reconvened to watch it, with a supplemtary viewing of the surviving episodes of The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear to provide a refresher on the backstory. Our opinion? Not as scary as the 60's episodes, and slightly melodramatic. The parade of companions was fun, and the subtle references here and there to the Doctor were clever, even with the Brigadier believeing he was encountering a regenerated Doctor at one point. Some of the acting is pretty wooden and the production values although different from the actual BBC episodes in style were still a bit.... limp. Everything was done on location, and as a result the sound in some places is just awful.

To put it into a fan's perspective, by the time this came out we hadn't had any substantial new Doctor Who on television since 1989. True there was a Children In Need special in 1993, but it was far too quick to really mean anything (the review of that is coming, but we're still a ways off) and the FOX movie I have referenced before was still two years away. This was as close as we got to new Doctor Who on screen, and in its context it really is something quite special to see the companions left behind carrying on the Doctor's work for him and keeping Earth safe, and having that bond between them that only adventures in time and space can make. The Doctor touches lives and changes them, and also leaves something of himself behind when he goes; the sense of duty to protect and defend. Downtime may not be brilliant on its own, but as a part of something bigger, it's a brilliant piece of the tapestry that is Earth's future history (or at least at the time it was... years later anything 90s is very much the past). Even without the Doctor in the show it is firmly anchored to other adventures, including an upcoming novel called Millenial Rites.

So that's the break over. While Earth has been saved again, the Doctor and Evelyn have been busy doing the same thing, and running into an old enemy in the process...

NEXT EPISODE : JUBILEE