 "The Leisure Hive" is the first story of the Fourth Doctor’s final season.
This is the first story produced by John Nathan-Turner – who had been the shows’ Production Unit Manager since the 1977 story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang".
Barry Letts, the long-time Doctor Who producer during the 1970’s, stepped in as Executive Producer as BBC executives were concerned about John Nathan-Turner’s inexperience.
John Leeson returned as the voice of K9, having been persuaded by John Nathan-Turner to reprise the role for this season. Though K9 only appears at the start of the first episode in an opening sequence filmed at Brighton Beach. In this sequence K9 is incapacitated when he enters the sea to retrieve a beech ball – so demonstrating that he is not immune to the effects of salt water.
Lalla Ward previously appeared with both Adrienne Corri (who played the part of Mena) and Laurence Payne (who played the part of Morix) in the 1972 Hammer Horror film "Vampire Circus". Laurence Payne had previously played Johnny Ringo in the 1966 First Doctor story "The Gunfighters" and later played the part of Dastari in the 1985 story "The Two Doctors".
This story features a guest appearance by David Haig (who played the part of Pangol).
Ian Talbot (who played the part of Klout) is, unusually, credited on screen even though he is a non-speaking character.
Being the first Doctor Who story which John Nathan-Turner produced he was keen to move away from what he considered the excessive silliness of recent stories. Furthermore he wanted to increase the show’s production values, because he felt that they were poor when compared with glossy American science-fiction series. Among the changes Nathan-Turner instituted was the scaling back of K9’s appearances (hence the reason why K9 is out of commission for most of this story), eventually writing the character out in "Warriors' Gate".
John Nathan-Turner also felt that the Doctor Who characters would be more marketable if they wore the same clothes in each story, like a uniform. This would also save money on new costumes for each story. And so for the first time, the Fourth Doctor would appear in the same costume for every story in a season - abandoning his famous multi-coloured scarf in favour of a burgundy and purple one. The Doctor also sported a new burgundy overcoat, as part of his new colour co-ordinated clothing. Also, the question mark motif made its first appearance here as a regular element of The Doctor’s wardrobe for his next three incarnations. However, Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Barry Letts and Christopher H. Bidmead all protested John Nathan-Turner’s decision to add question-marks to the Fourth Doctor’s shirts, arguing that it was gimmicky. Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor, would later protest his question-mark adorned jumper in similar terms, but the question-mark motif would remain until the end of the original run of the show in 1989.
This story sees brand-new opening and closing title sequences, complete with the ‘80s-styled ‘neon tube’ logo, designed by the Sid Sutton, who worked in the BBC’s Graphics Department. John Nathan-Turner felt that there was a lot of money to be made by marketing the programme correctly and that it was time to overhaul several aspects of the show. The ‘time tunnel’ version of the opening title sequences had been used, with minor changes, since the 1973 Third Doctor story "The Time Warrior". It was felt that the Doctor Who titles had been disorienting and claustrophobic, so Sid Sutton decided that he would instead introduce a starscape-style animation. This updated title sequence though is most associated with the Fifth Doctor’s era.
The new opening and closing title sequences are also accompanied by a new Peter Howell-arranged version of Ron Grainer’s theme music. This was not a new idea, but the previous attempt in 1972 had ended with the rearranged tune being rejected at the last minute.
After some experimentation, John Nathan-Turner also decided to use electronic compositions by the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop as incidental music - something which had not been attempted on Doctor Who since the early Seventies. In recent years, Dudley Simpson had been writing the score for virtually every story, which he then recorded with the help of a small number of musicians. This therefore ended Dudley Simpson’s fifteen-year association with the show.
This story sees the debut of a new TARDIS exterior prop, this time made of fibreglass rather than of wood and, with its stacked roof arrangement, somewhat truer to the design of a genuine police box than the previous version (first seen in the 1976 story "The Masque of Mandragora"). This prop would be used right until the end of the original show’s production in 1989.
In keeping with his desire to bring new directors onto Doctor Who, John Nathan-Turner secured the services of Lovett Bickford. A former production assistant Lovett Bickford had worked with Nathan-Turner on The Pallisers. Hhe had also been an assistant floor manager on Doctor Who in the mid-Sixties, working on the 1966 First Doctor story "The War Machines” and the 1967 Second Doctor story "The Moonbase". More recently, Lovett Bickford had served as a director on programmes such as Angels and The History of Mr Polly (which had been produced by Barry Letts).
Lovett Bickford was eager to record this story in the style of a feature film, including unusual camera angles, single-camera takes and the use of a handheld camera.
This story also features the first use in Doctor Who of the new digital Quantel image manipulation processing system. Among the effects created by the use of this system was a moving shot of the TARDIS materialising on Argolis. Thanks to Quantel, the TARDIS could now be seen materialising while the camera was moving. (whereas the ‘roll back and mix' technique by which the materialisation was achieved normally necessitated a completely static shot).
The second studio block was originally scheduled to only cover two days. However, so that he could experiment with the Quantel image processing equipment Lovett Bickford managed to obtain a third day. Unfortunately, Lovett Bickford’s avant garde approach caused the recording of this story to fall catastrophically behind schedule resulting in the second studio block having to be extended to a fourth day to ensure that all the necessary scenes would be captured.
Filming on the story therefore ran badly over budget and John Nathan-Turner himself was reprimanded by his BBC superiors for allowing the situation to get so desperately out of hand. As a result, Lovett Bickford, was never asked back to direct another story. His subsequent credits included The Olympian Way.
This was David Fisher’s final Doctor Who story. He later wrote episodes of Hammer House of Horror and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense. He also collaborated with former Doctor Who Script Editor Anthony Read on a number of non-fiction books.
Unfortunately, Tom Baker was unwell during the beginning of the recording of this story.
David Fisher conceived the Foamasi as being a race of organised criminals. It was written, by David Fisher, as a satire of the decline of tourism in the United Kingdom in the 1970’s. Its roots include The Godfather and the Mafia as well as Greek myth. It was also influenced by the Blake’s 7 story "Children of Auron".
The Doctor and Romana try to see the opening of the Brighton Pavilion but he gets both the century and season wrong. The Doctor grumpily states that this is the second time he has missed this destination. The first time was when he was travelling with Leela in the 1977 story "Horror of Fang Rock".
The Doctor undergoes ‘treatment’ in Hardin's rejuvenator. Romana hopes it will take 10 years off him, but it instead ages him around 500 years. The Doctor was prematurely aged by the Time Destructor in the 1965/66 First Doctor story "The Daleks' Master Plan" and would be again by The Master in the 2007 Tenth Doctor story "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords".
This is not the only time a story is resolved by de-aging The Doctor’s antagonist, as happens to Pangol. In the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "Boom Town", the Slitheen Margaret Blaine is regressed back into an egg by The Doctor’s TARDIS.
Cellular regeneration (or ‘de-aging’) is also performed by Professor Lazarus in the 2007 Tenth Doctor story "The Lazarus Experiment".
Romana mentions over-riding the randomiser (that was introduced in the 1979 story "The Armageddon Factor"), which is eventually left on Argolis. However, even the Randomiser is removed from the TARDIS in this story, The Black Guardian does not catch up with The Doctor until he is in his fifth incarnation in the 1983 story "Mawdryn Undead".
The Doctor again is heard stating that Gallifrey is ‘an obscure planet in the constellation of Kasterborous’ (see the 1975 story "Pyramids of Mars").
In the scene where The Doctor is apparently dismembered in the Tachyon Recreation Generator, the various parts of his body were played by David Rolfe, Roy Seeley and Derek Chafer as well as by Tom Baker.
Argolis is the first of the leisure planets and it is revealed that in 2250 Argolis was all but destroyed by 2000 nuclear warheads (in 20 minutes) during a war with the reptilian Foamasi. The Argolin survivors, made sterile by the radiation, invented the science of Tachyonics and so built The Leisure Hive with its Experiential Grid offering ‘variable environments’.
The location concept of an enclosed leisure palace on a deadly and lifeless planet was used again in the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "Midnight". Like in this story planet Midnight’s environment is also uninhabitable because of extreme radiation.
Brock predicts bankruptcy for Argolis, citing the counter-attraction of planets like Limus 4 and Avidos (which are said to have ‘non-gravity swimming pools’, speed learning and robotic gladiatorial games).
There are ‘lodges’ of Formasi of which the West Lodge is one such group.
The Fomasi reappear in the BBC Books’ The Eighth Doctor Stories novel "Placebo Effect" that was written by Gary Russell.
This story includes the following errors: The wires pulling K9 along the beach are visible in episode one; The Doctor and Romana are able to comment on Hardin’s experiment, despite having missed the hologram of it; Why is everyone taken in by the phoney Brock’s sudden acceptance of a seat on the board, and why is he so interested in Hardin’s experiments as a possible source of revenue when his interest is in the running-down of the Hive so that his group (the West Lodge) can buy it?
Beginning with this story and continuing for the next several seasons, until the Twentieth Anniversary special "The Five Doctors", each story would be linked in some way, either through some reference, or by directly leading from one storyline to the next.
Unfortunately, despite Nathan-Turner’s efforts to revamp the show, it fared badly against ITV’s debut of the glossy American import, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Fewer than six million viewers watched this story - the smallest such figure since the 1966 First Doctor story "The Smugglers" the first story in Season Four. To make matters worse the audience figures declined over the course of this story so that by the third episode, the programme had fallen out of the Top 100 programmes for the week for the first time since its very first story, the 1963 First Doctor story "An Unearthly Child". Although no one could know it at the time, it was an early sign of the tumult that awaited Doctor Who throughout the Eighties...
A novelisation of this story, written by David Fisher, was published by Target Books in July 1982. This novelisation retains many elements of the original script that was intended as a spoof on the Mafia. The original name of Argolis is given as ‘Xbrrrm’.
The alien costume used for the Foamasi were later reused in the 1981 BBC adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the leader of the G’Gugvuntt.
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The Firsts:
The first story of Season Eighteen.
The first story to feature K9 voiced by John Leeson (since "The Armageddon Factor").
John Nathan-Turner's first involvement in the show as Producer.
Christopher H. Bidmead's first involvement in the show as Script Editor.
The first Doctor Who story to be directed by Lovett Bickford.
Barry Letts' first involvement in the show as Executive Producer.
Angela Smith's first involvement in the show as Production Unit Manager.
The first Doctor Who story to feature the ‘80s-styled ‘neon tube’ logo designed by the Sid Sutton.
The first Doctor Who story to feature Peter Howell's version of Ron Grainer’s theme music.
The first use of a TARDIS exterior prop made of fibreglass rather than wood.
The first use in Doctor Who of the digital Quantel image manipulation processing system.
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(Position = 80 out of 159)
(Position = 149 out of 200)
(Position = 174 out of 241)
