Season 28 - 1991

 

After Season 27 aired with the departures of four major cast and crew members, the BBC were optimistic that the show could hit it’s stride and become popular again, however in order to do that the next season would be put to the test otherwise the BBC would lock the TARDIS and throw away the key for good.

Ian Fraser was recommended by John Nathan-Turner to Michael Wearing who later chose Fraser despite him being unsure, due to Fraser not knowing the writers too well he asked former Script Editor Andrew Cartmel to pick his successor, Cartmel eventually picked Ben Aaronovitch who wrote Battlefield, Remembrance of the Daleks and Earth Aid. Fraser and Aaronovitch started to plan out their era and they both decided it would be a lot more darker then Nathan-Turner’s era.

This season would also be the first for the new Doctor played by Richard Griffiths who was the top choice for the BBC to play the Doctor, however there were other options in case he declined including Ian Richardson, David McCallum and the second choice for Eight: William Gaunt.

After Fraser cast Griffiths, he originally wanted the Doctor to go back to a grandfatherly figure. However Ben Aaronovitch painted the Doctor as a dark and manipulative figure who did not clearly know right from wrong; Fraser loved the idea and went with it as he thought there could be an arc resolved at some point in Griffiths’ era and he could lose his dark ways. Originally, both Aaronovitch and Griffiths wanted the Doctor to wear a morning suit, with a blue trench coat topped off with a red silk scarf, beetle badge and a navy blue dotted bowtie. However Fraser eventually decided he should wear a Demob suit with a patterned cravat, to which Griffiths agreed with.

This season was also significant as it rounded off the fan named ‘Cartmel Masterplan’, an arc that started in Season 25 by exploring the Doctor’s past and backstory after it was hinted in Remembrance of the Daleks when the Seventh Doctor claimed that he is "far more than just another Time Lord." It would conclude in the last story, where it is revealed that the Doctor was previously known as the Other and founded Time Lord society with Omega and Rassilon.

The season would be made up of four stories of 14 episodes, Ben Aaronovitch would write the first story: A post regeneration story and an apocalyptic story but focusing on the Daleks. Edward Young would write a story about murder in an old house, Production Designer Mike Tucker and his writing partner Robert Perry would write a World War 2 story involving the Cybermen and Marc Platt would write the final story of the season, whilst also rounding of ‘The Cartmel Masterplan’.

This season would feature a brand new title sequence and theme tune, the new titles would consist of an explosion forming into a nebula as the TARDIS flies into the vortex, we then see Griffiths’ face morph and soon fades out as we see an explosion of bright light and the logo against a starry background as the episode and writers name appear under the Doctor who logo. The new theme would be composed by Mark Ayres and consisted elements of the Delia Derbyshire and Peter Howell themes.

A new logo was also introduced, this logo was made to resemble the 1970 Jon Pertwee logo whilst also standing on it’s own feet. Originally Fraser wanted a logo that was ‘out there’ in terms of design resembling something like the diamond logo, but when Fraser saw this design he immediately accepted and when it was announced as the Doctor Who logo many fans were pleased and thought it was a much better logo than the 1987 logo, which was disliked by the fans, media and merchandising companies.

Fraser and Aaronovitch then had a meeting with the BBC and they told Fraser and Aaronovitch that if the show didn’t improve by the end of the season, the show would be cancelled which meant that Season 28 was a real test to prove the show wasn’t dying and it could continue.

Survival of The Daleks

By Ben Aaronovitch

Aired: 4th - 18th September

This story would be the post regeneration story for the Eighth Doctor.

The story would see the Doctor would be experiencing the effects of post regenerative stress, we would then see a weak Doctor and Kate finding UNIT fighting the Daleks, later in the story  we find out these are some of the Dalek refugees from Skaro after it was destroyed.

We see Davros and the Daleks trying to take over the Earth by kidnapping humans and making them into Dalek mutants, when the Doctor finds out about this he’s disgusted and he, Kate and UNIT destroy the base and kill the Daleks and before the ship explodes Davros asks the Doctor to save but the Doctor coldly stares at him before escaping and the ship explodes. At the end of the story, the Doctor checks with Kate to make sure she’s ok with his new incarnation and they leave in the TARDIS.

Night Thoughts

By Edward Young

Aired: 25th September - 16th October

The Doctor and Kate arrive in a forest at night during a rainstorm, they are offered shelter by a group of academics in a mansion. During the night and day they witness a series of deaths among the academics, the Doctor soon discovers that the academics are experimenting with time and creating a device called ‘The Bartholomew Transactor’ so they can send a message to their past selves about mis-diagnosing a deceased girl named Edith O’Neill. However the interference with the timeline causes Edith to transform

into a zombie-like state of limbo and the Doctor soon realises that the mis-diagnosis had never been genuine and that the whole series of events were part of an experiment by the leader of the academics: Major Dickens. Intending to correct the academics’ mistake, the Doctor travels back in time to undo the damage but finds himself unable to kill Edith and allows the zombie Edith to come into being. Returning to the present, the Doctor finds that the academics are now all dead and theorising that the zombie Edith was responsible for the deaths keeping herself alive through her own use of the transactor, the Doctor and Kate leave in the TARDIS.

Illegal Alien

By Mike Tucker & Robert Perry

Aired: 23rd October - 6th November

This story would be set in World War Two and would see the return of the cybermen who would also be

re-designed for this story.

The Doctor and Kate work with a man named Cody McBride, an american private investigator who saw a metallic sphere crash down in London and he finds that it’s just being passed off as new German technology, the Doctor and Kate later find out that a man named George Limb is providing Cyber-Technology to the British and German forces as he believes it will speed up the process of Human Technology.

Eventually the Doctor defeats the Cybermen when he uses the command unit to seize control of the

Cybermen and sets them against Limb and his Nazi allies and they all turn on Limb who escapes in the Cybermen’s time capsule, but the cybermen’s control unit explodes blowing up the Cyber factory and the Doctor assumes Limb to have been shredded through time and space and the Doctor and Kate leave in the TARDIS, unaware that McBride has found hundreds of Cyberman cocoons underneath London.

Lungbarrow

By Marc Platt

Aired: 13th November - 4th December

This story would be a Gallifrey story and would feature the return of Romana, Leela, Andred,

K-9 Mark I and II, Rodan and Ferain.

The story would feature the Doctor returning to Gallifrey where he’s accused for murdering one of his cousins. In order to save himself, the Doctor must uncover dark secrets hidden in his ancestral home, the House of Lungbarrow and it turns out the murderer was one of the Doctor’s cousins named Glospin, the story would’ve revered a lot around Gallifrey and it’s history and we discover that TimeLords are not born but created via looms due to an ancient curse set upon Gallfrey. The story also revealed the Doctor’s backstory and reveals that he is a reincarnation of ‘The Other’, one of the founding members of TimeLord society along with Rassilon and Omega. In the end Glospin is killed, and the House of Lungbarrow collapses over a cliff. This story was written in mind as the final Doctor Who story as the crew didn’t think they would get another year, however due to the success of this season the show was commissioned for future seasons.

And that concludes Season 28 of Doctor Who, this season was fairly popular and set up the new era of the show quite well. Fans found the new Doctor interesting and they found that the Doctor and Kate’s chemistry this season worked really well, the next season will be Season 29 so until then thank you for watching and goodbye.

Thank You To:

Our Holy Leader Sylvester McCoy

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