Season 35 - 1998-99

 

Season 35 was considered a new era for the show, the newest since 1994. Very few elements remained from the last season, the main one being Nick Berry and Gillian Kearney returning for their third season as The Doctor and Lillian and Colin Brake returning for his fifth and final season as Script Editor. Television producer Jonathan Paul Llewelyn took over the producer’s

chair from Stephen Garwood and Verity Lambert joined as Executive Producer and Showrunner. Lambert wanted to have creative freedom over the show, however he soon learnt this was not the case.

Gillian Kearney decided she’d like to leave expressing little desire to stay on for much longer, originally they were going to let the character of Lillian live but they eventually decided to kill her off.

This season’s format would change as there would no be 13 episodes with seven stories with a 45 minute runtime and the aspect ratio would change from the historic 4:3 ratio to a 16:9 widescreen, though for this season it would air in 14:9 but for DVDs and future seasons it would air in 16:9.

With 13 episodes to make many people thought the season may not be ready in time for the following year, but thankfully it was just about ready to air in time for 1998 with the first episode airing on 21st November 1998 and the last episode airing on 13th February 1999.

This season’s writer’s include Lance Parkin, Steve Lyons, Russell T Davies, Kate Orman, Craig Hinton, Steven Moffat and Colin Brake.

This season's stories included the return of the Great Intelligence, a kingdom in peril, One of the darkest Doctor Who stories, The Wirrn, Ice Warriors on Mars, Surviving by trying not to blink and Lillian’s demise.

The Intelligent Evil

By Lance Parkin

21st November - 28th November

This story would see the return of the Great Intelligence last seen in ‘The Web of Fear’, we would’ve seen the Doctor and Lillian investigate a village whose policemen and town officials

have been taken over by the intelligence and the Yeti are waiting for the invasion, in the end the Doctor defeats the Intelligence by destroying it’s main equipment.

The Kingdom of Droids

By Steve Lyons

5th December

This story would see the Doctor and Lillian land on Cadere, a colony world where Humans and Droids live together in a kingdom ruled by King Lovren. However the Droids turn on the Humans and start to take over, however the Doctor manages to stop them.

Damaged Goods

By Russell T Davies

12th - 26th December

The story would be set in 1987 in the Quadrant and would’ve seen the Doctor investigate a new drug named ‘smile’ which is being sold by a drug-dealer named the Capper who died years prior, it turns out that a Gallifreyan machine named N-Form was bonded with the Capper’s corpse and took on his identity, it was created for the war against the great vampires and is looking for a vampiric waveform and finds it in a young boy named Gabriel Tyler and his long lost twin brother

Steven that his mother gave away in 1977. The Mother of Gabriel and Steven, Winnie, sold one of her children to the Jerricho family as money was low, Gabriel had a low level glamour making people view him however they wished and he was also mildly telepathic as the twins were psychically linked and their separation damaged the connection which caused Gabriel to unknowingly drain energy from Steven. After ten years Eva Jerricho brought the sickly Steven to Winnie asking her to exchange

the damaged goods for a healthy son, the proximity of his twin caused Gabriel to drain the remaining energy from Steven which resulted in the activation of N-Form, it merges with Steven’s mother, Eva and Gabriel and goes on a massive killing spree however the Doctor is able to deactivate N-Form by causing Eva’s death which leaves Gabriel in a vegetated state.

Placebo Effect

By Gary Russell

2nd January

This story would see the Doctor and Lillian travelling to Micawber’s World in the year 3999, the setting for that year’s Intergalactic Olympics. The duo soon get involved in a plot concerning missing security guards underneath the stadium, they work with the head of security to investigate the disappearances and investigate a new performance enhancing drug the athletes are taking, they later discover the Wirrn to be responsible for the missing guards as they are

kidnapping them and turning them into Wirrn. They also discover the Wirrn to be responsible for the performance enhancing drug which is slowly turning the athletes into Wirrn and they plan to spread the drug throughout the universe, the story would’ve seen the Doctor trying to stop the Wirrn and try and make an antidote for the drug before the athletes are fully transformed into Wirrn and while he’s able to create the antidote some of the athletes may never recover.

GodEngine

By Craig Hinton

9th - 16th January

This story would’ve been the return of the Ice Warriors and would’ve set on Mars, we would’ve seen the Doctor try to stop the use of a device known as the GodEngine, a super-weapon created

by the Ice Warriors from remnants of Osiran technology left on Mars long ago. This story also shows the Doctor and Lillian trying to resolve a conflict between Human colonists and the Ice Warriors.

Blink

By Steven Moffat

23rd January

This story would be a Doctor/Companion lite story and would introduce the Weeping Angels, we

would focus on a woman named Sally Sparrow as she investigates the house with a man named Larry Nightingale, the story would have differences to the story to the one in real life with 1. The Cast and 2. All the stuff with the DVDs is replaced with VHS tapes, overall this story would go down as one of, if not, the best Ninth Doctor story.

The Prisoner

By Colin Brake

30th January - 13th February

This story would be set on Gallifrey, the story would see Romana contacting the Doctor as she thinks a member of the Prydonian chapter, Vansell, to be very devious and cunning and Romana fears that he’s plotting something. The Doctor decides to investigate and realises what he’s planning, he tries to tell Romana but she’s arrested by the CIA and Vansell tells the Panopticon to hail the new leader of Gallifrey as his face blurs and changes and it is revealed that Vansell is in fact Arkadian.

The Story then turns into a breakout story as the Doctor and Lillian try to break out Romana from prison, they do this but with the help of Leela and several members of the Chancellery Guard help get Romana out.

The Doctor then confronts Arkadian and we learn that Vansell was a trusted member of Romana’s government but when he visited Gallifrey’s prison he encountered Arkadian who forced him to regenerate into Arkadian and Arkadian killed him to give the illusion that he was dead as Arkadian took Vansell’s form as a disguise.

The Doctor and Arkadian soon fight and as the Doctor is about to be killed by Arkadian Lillian helps him and uses a Time Lord gun and shoots Lillian, the Doctor is shocked and seemingly knocks out Arkadian as he comforts Lillian as she dies in his arms. The Doctor becomes heartbroken and as Arkadian is about to grab the Time Lord gun the Doctor grabs it, Arkadian taunts the Doctor over Lillian’s death and in the end the Doctor snaps as he kills Arkadian.

The Doctor is horrified by what he’s done and he whilst Romana and Leela try to comfort him but he just goes back to the TARDIS, in the TARDIS the Doctor starts to punch the console and he starts to punch more and more as sparks begin to appear, he looks up and closes his eyes to hold back the tears as he sinks to his knees and screams in heartbreak and anger. 

That concludes Season 35 of Doctor Who, a huge critical and audience success, however it was sought with production difficulties, and many creative battles with the BBC, the next season is Season 36 of Doctor Who, until then thank you for watching and goodbye.

Thank You To:

Our Holy Leader Sylvester McCoy

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