 This story is renowned for giving an explanation (in the world of Doctor Who at least) for the Great Fire of London.
This story was written by new-comer Eric Saward. During the creation of Season Eighteen, Producer John Nathan-Turner and, then, Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead had been eager to recruit new writers to the programme. Eric Saward, a radio playwright and author of short stories, was one such writer recommended to Christopher H. Bidmead. Eric Saward had principally written thrillers such as Small Monet for the audio medium, but had never worked in television before.
It has been reported that this story was inspired by the work of a former girlfriend of Eric Saward’s, who had been studying the architecture which arose in the wake of the Great Fire of London in September 1666. That disaster had followed close on the heels of another catastrophe in the same area, namely the 1665-1666 outbreak of what is generally believed to have been bubonic plague. Eric Saward’s girlfriend had observed that the black rats which carried the plague became virtually extinct within months of the Great Fire, and Eric Saward thought that this would provide an effective science-fiction ‘hook’ for a story about social conditions in mediaeval England.
Eric Saward also viewed this story as an opportunity to reuse the character of Richard Mace which he had created for several radio plays, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, during the mid-Seventies. Originally an eccentric actor and detective living in Victorian London, Richard Mace had previously featured in three plays - The Assassin (1974), Pegasus (1975) and The Nemesis Machine (1976). For "The Visitation" Eric Saward re-imagined Richard Mace as a thespian put out of work by the paranoia generated by the plague.
At first Eric Saward’s storyline did not find favour with John Nathan-Turner who was concerned that it was too similar to the 1977 Fourth Doctor story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". He also felt that it was exactly the kind of whimsical Doctor Who story that he was ardently trying to dispense with.
Several changes had to be made to Eric Saward’s original vision of this story. With Tom Baker having left the show, at the end of Season Eighteen, Eric Saward had to account for the presence of an as-yet-unknown Fifth Doctor. Furthermore, the line-up of companions had expanded to include Adric and Tegan Jovanka, and at that time John Nathan-Turner was also contemplating making Nyssa a regular character. Unlike the previous story, "Kinda", Eric Saward was able to make the necessary amendments to his storyline to incorporate all these recent changes to the regular cast.
In writing this story, Eric Saward hewed to the broad strokes of recorded history concerning the Great Fire of London. Most notably, he made use of the well-established origins of the fire to a bakery owned by Thomas Farriner (or Farynor) on Pudding Lane, beginning shortly after midnight on 2nd September 1666.
Eric Saward would become the next Script Editor. After Christopher H. Bidmead left the show, at the conclusion of Season Eighteen, Antony Root became his replacement but unknown at the time to Eric Saward, Antony Root’s appointment was only for three months and then he was given a permanent job script-editing Juliet Bravo Therefore at the time John Nathan-Turner was looking for another interim script editor, and Antony Root suggested Eric Saward, who had impressed him during the development of this story. Eric Saward’s first story as Script Editor was "Kinda". But the first story broadcast that he was credited as Script Editor was "Castrovalva" - the story that opened Season Nineteen but which was recorded fourth. Eric Saward continued in the role as Script Editor through to Season Twenty Three.
"The Visitation" was directed by Peter Moffatt, whose last work had been on the 1980 Fourth Doctor story "State of Decay".
Ironically during the early part of location work the cast and crew found themselves filming below the flight path of nearby Heathrow Airport, and the noise of approaching aircraft regularly disrupted recording. However, an air traffic controller’s strike put an end to these disturbances, and Peter Moffatt and his team were able to make up for the time they had previously lost.
Once work on this story was completed there was then an almost two-month hiatus before work on Season Nineteen resumed. This was scheduled to enable Peter Davison to record the second season of his sitcom Sink or Swim, and marked the first time that such a lengthy pause had ever occurred in the middle of a Doctor Who production block.
This story was intended to be broadcast later in Season Nineteen, but it was decided that it should be the second story into production, after "Four to Doomsday". Its position in the transmission order would however, remain the same.
The making of this story was covered in the book "Doctor Who: The Making of a Television Series" by Alan Road.
This story features a brief guest appearance by John Savident, playing the part of The Squire, some years prior to his achieving fame as one of the cast of Coronation Street.
The opening sequence in the TARDIS follows on directly from "Kinda". Since "The Visitation" was filmed before "Kinda", the cast had to act out their characters’ responses to the events of this previous story based solely on the script. This scene has The Doctor admonishing Adric for trying to escape in the TSS, and Tegan talking to Nyssa about her recent possession by the Mara on Deva Loka.
The TARDIS’ lateral balance cones are ‘playing up (probably ‘temperamental solenoids’), foiling The Docto’'s attempt to get Tegan back to Heathrow in 1981.
The Terileptils are very intelligent semi-reptilian creatures who have a heightened appreciation of aesthetics and warfare. They have developed advanced androids. These Terileptils have escaped from the Tinclavic mines on Raaga (see the 1984 story "The Awakening"), where they had been sentenced to life imprisonment. Terileptils cannot last for long without breathing soliton gas: the substance is volatile when mixed with oxygen (it smells a bit like sulphur).
Eric Saward has attributed the name 'Terileptil' to the words ‘territorial reptiles’.
The Terileptils construct an energy barrier to hide their workshop from the rest of the house.
At one point Tegan assumes that the Terileptil’s interest in the TARDIS means that, like the Monarch (see "Four to Doomsday", he wants to ‘ride in it’.
Part of the Terileptil’s laboratory re-uses a Hymetusite crystal from the 1979/80 Fourth Doctor story "The Horns of Nimon".
The Terileptil masks incorporated remote-control animatronics where the mouth, lips and gills were all controlled remotely by a machine operator. This was the first time such technology had been used in Doctor Who; it was conceived by visual effects designer Peter Wragg and constructed by Richard Gregory of Imagineering.
When The Doctor is about to be beheaded he is heard to groan, ‘Oh no, not again’ - alluding to the events in "Four to Doomsday", in which he was nearly beheaded by Monarch’s androids.
Adric’s homing device (see the 1980 Fourth Doctor story "Full Circle") is dropped in the fight with the villagers. Reference is again made to Adric’s ability to recover from injuries quickly. He and Nyssa are also able to pilot the TARDIS on their own.
First seen in the 1968 Second Doctor story, "Fury From the Deep", The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver was destroyed by the Terileptil leader. This was on the direction of producer John Nathan-Turner, who felt that the tool was too easy a way of solving The Doctor’s problems, vetoing a scene at the end of the story where The Doctor would simply get a replacement from a room full of the devices in the TARDIS. The Doctor however, receives a new one (Romana’s) in the Virgin Books’ The New Adventures novel "Lungbarrow" written by Marc Platt. It was not seen in the show until its next appearance in the 1996 television movie "Doctor Who: The Movie". A new design introduced was introduced in the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "Rose".
The explosion of the Terileptil leader’s weapon is the cause of the Great Fire of London (which the Fourth Doctor alluded to being accused of starting in the 1975 story "Pyramids of Mars"). The Short Trips story "The Republican’s Story" (published in the Big Finish Productions book "Short Trips 8: Repercussions") attempts to explain this apparent contradiction.
This story contains a number of errors. Namely: It is obvious that the android is wearing poorly disguised cricket gloves; when Nyssa is attacked by the android, the room begins to shake before she switches on the machine; the Miller’s donkey seems to resent Richard Mace’s attention; when The Doctor is searching for the Terileptils’ London base, the scanner shows a 'brown and white' 17th Century print of London’s streets, rather than an image drawn up by the TARDIS’ sensors; when the doors open in the interior of the crashed ship, you can clearly see that the forest in which the craft is supposedly located is not there; when The Doctor decides that Nyssa should go to the TARDIS alone, while he and Richard Mace go to see the miller, she leaves back in the direction that they had walked into the clearing from.
The Terileptils are mentioned again in "The Awakening" and The Master destroys their home planet in Virgin Books’ The Missing Adventures novel "The Dark Path" written by David A. McIntee.
This story was repeated on BBC 1 in August 1983.
The 1982 Target novelisation of this story, written by Eric Saward, was titled "Doctor Who and the Visitation". It is the only Fifth Doctor novelisation to use "The Doctor Who and..." title format.
This story was released on DVD in January 2004, and used material from the 16mm film prints which still exist in the BBC Archives.
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The Firsts:
The first Doctor Who story to be written by Eric Saward.
The first, and only, Fifth Doctor story to have a "The Doctor Who and..." title format for its Target novelisation.
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(Position = 46 out of 159)
(Position = 77 out of 200)
