 This story completes "The Black Guardian Trilogy" of stories and contains the return of The White Guardian as well as The Black Guardian.
"The Black Guardian Trilogy" is the third "trilogy" during John Nathan-Turner’s time as producer - the first two being the E-Space adventures in Season Eighteen and the Season Eighteen to Season Nineteen bridge of The Master stories.
As with every story, during Season Twenty, "Enlightenment" also featured an enemy from The Doctor’s past. For this trilogy (begun in, "Mawdryn Undead", and continued in the previous story, "Terminus"), the enemy was The Black Guardian, who last faced the Fourth Doctor at the conclusion of The Key to Time saga in the 1979 story "The Armageddon Factor".
In "Mawdryn Undead" The Black Guardian enlisted the help of stranded alien Vislor Turlough to wage vengeance on The Doctor for his earlier crime of sabotaging his plans to obtain The Key to Time. In "Terminus" The Black Guardian persuaded Turlough to sabotage the TARDIS forcing Nyssa to board a spaceship transporting sufferers of a deadly disease to "Terminus". This story concludes with The Doctor and Tegan Jovanka finally discovering that Turlough has been working for The Black Guardian.
This story was written by Barbara Clegg - a veteran scriptwriter for BBC Radio. Her television experience was limited when she was originally invited to submit ideas for Doctor Who back in 1981.
Script Editor Eric Saward subsequently decided to use Barbara Clegg’s adventure (which had the working title "The Enlighteners") as the concluding part of "The Black Guardian Trilogy", which saw the return of The Black Guardian and the introduction of new companion Turlough. This meant that Eric Saward had to carry out a number of revisions to Barbara Clegg’s original scripts, including the insertion of The Black Guardian and The White Guardian in place of her Enlighteners. Eric Saward also wrapped up the ongoing Turlough subplot. Originally it had been thought that the character might not continue beyond this story. However, it was decided that he should be retained as a regular companion. Due to these changes and now that there were no longer any Enlighteners as such, Eric Saward decided to rename this story to "Enlightenment".
The director assigned to this story was Fiona Cumming, who had just completed work on "Snakedance".
This is the only televised Doctor Who story to date to have been both written and directed by women, Barbara Clegg and Fiona Cumming respectively.
Production got under way with the recording of film inserts during November 1982. However the studio sessions which had been booked for the end of November and the beginning of December had to be cancelled due to an electricians’ strike.
This strike had already resulted in the loss of a full studio day for the preceding story, "Terminus". With the BBC more concerned with getting their Christmas programming ready for the holidays, the following story "Enlightenment" lost all of its booked studio sessions.
It appeared for some time that the whole second half of Season Twenty - "Enlightenment", "The King's Demons", and Eric Saward’s own Dalek adventure (variously called "The Return" or "Warhead") - would also have to be shelved. However, with the resolution of the strike, during the middle of December, it finally became possible to place "Enlightenment" back on the recording schedule. Ultimately, it was decided to start recording this story in January, in the slots originally intended for Eric Saward’s story, which would now be held back until Season Twenty One.
This delay meant that cast members Keith Barron and Leee John replaced originally-cast actors Peter Sallis and David Rhule, respectively, due to them being unavailable for the alternative recording sessions.
Valentine Dyall made his final appearance as The Black Guardian, and was joined by Cyril Luckham as The White Guardian, the role he originated in the 1979 Fourth Doctor story "The Ribos Operation". This story marked the final Doctor Who appearance for both actors, although Valentine Dyall did play Slarn in the BBC Radio 4 story "Slipback", made shortly before his death in 1985. Cyril Luckham passed away in February 1989.
Dolore Whiteman (who had played Tegan’s Aunt Vanessa in the 1981 Fourth Doctor story "Logopolis") did a special photocall to provide the photograph seen in Tegan’s cabin.
Guest star Lynda Baron, who played Captain Wrack, first appeared in Doctor Who in the 1966 First Doctor story "The Gunfighters", for which she recorded the song "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon".
Tony Caunter, who played Jackson, previously played the part of Thatcher in the 1965 First Doctor story "The Crusade" and Morgan in the 1971 Third Doctor story "Colony in Space".
The incidental music used for Captain Wrack’s party was originally written by Malcolm Clarke for closing theme from BBC Radio 3’s Borges at 80 and can be found on the Radiophonic Workshop’s Soundhouse LP. The track is called "The Milonga".
Striker’s ship was unnamed in the original scripts, but a name had to be created for use on the crew’s jerseys, uniforms and life belts.
It is revealed that the Eternals look and behave like whatever their human subjects want them to. Enlightenment, which the Guardians have promised them, is the knowledge of everything in the universe, and thus ultimate power.
At the end of this story, The Doctor is seen swapping the stick of celery, he wears on his lapel, from the one he obtained in "Castrovalva" - he selects a new piece from the buffet at the party on Captain Wrack’s ship. Rather curiously, both celery stalks come from buffets which are essentially figments of other people's imagination (Castrovalva and the Shadow both being 'unreal') - although this may explain why the celery never goes off and why it doesn’t revive Peri in "The Caves of Androzani". Although The Doctor explains the latter point by saying that it is a feeble restorative for humans, rather than a powerful one as it is for Gallifreyans.
This story contains a number of errors. Namely: In the first episode when the ship experiences turbulence, the liquid in the glasses doesn’t; In some scenes in the third episode Turlough is wearing a wedding ring, which is absent for most of the story; As the First Mate, Marriner should have three stripes, not two.
Although the dialogue in which he gives the information is inaudible, the script (or lip-reading his initial message) makes it clear that The White Guardian’s mission is for The Doctor to stop Captain Wrack winning the race, which would have devastating consequences for the whole universe.
Strangely the cliffhangers and reprises between episodes Two and Three and Three and Four do not match: Episode two ends with Turlough climbing onto the railing and jumping off, with The Doctor shouting ‘NO!’. The next episode, however, begins with Turlough climbing onto the railing with The Doctor shouting ‘Don't be an idiot! Before Turlough jumps off. Then when Captain Wrack freezes Tegan at the end of episode three, her eyes are wide open, yet when she is unfrozen again at the beginning of episode four, her eyes are shut.
The story was found to be running short during rehearsals, so an additional one and a half minutes was written for the first episode and an additional two minutes for episode two.
An article by Russell T Davies in The Doctor Who Annual 2006 refers to the Eternals in connection with the Time War mentioned in Season Tewnty Seven (New Series 1). The article states that the Eternals were involved in a previous Time War with the Halldons, a powerful race first mentioned in "We are the Daleks", an article by Terry Nation from the Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special in 1973. Russell T Davies’ article also states that the Eternals watched the Great (and final) Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks, and ‘despaired of this reality, and fled their hallowed halls, never to be seen again’.
The Eternals are briefly mentioned in the Tenth Doctor stories "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" (2006) and "The Shakespeare Code" (2007), where they are said to have been the ones to banish the Carrionites from the universe at the dawn of time. They occasionally feature in the Virgin Books’ The New Adventures and the BBC Books’ The Past Doctors Stories novels, which also delve into their origins, particularly in "The Quantum Archangel" by Craig Hinton. They also appear in the Big Finish Productions Bernice Summerfield audio adventure "The Heart’s Desire" and the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "Uninvited Guest". Both Guardians also appear in the Big Finish Productions Fifth Doctor audio stories "The Destroyer of Delights" and "The Chaos Pool".
A novelisation of this story, written by Barbara Clegg, was published by Target Books in May 1984. It was the first novelisation of the Target Doctor Who range to be written by a woman.
This story was released on DVD in August 2009 as part of "The Black Guardian Trilogy" Box Set. This particular story was released as a two disc set. The second DVD was a Special Edition movie-length feature, with an introduction by director Fiona Cummings, new CGI, a 5.1 remix and 16:9 widescreen.
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The Firsts:
The first Doctor Who story to be written by Barbara Clegg.
The first Doctor Who story that has been both written and directed by women.
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(Position = 59 out of 159)
(Position = 72 out of 200)
