 "Vengeance on Varos" is the second story of Season Twenty Two and introduced the alien Sil (from Thoros-Beta) to the show.
This story was written by Philip Martin - his first Doctor Who story. Philip Martin had originally been an actor, including a role in the feature film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. In the late Sixties, he turned his hand to writing, with material including episodes of Z Cars and the series Gangsters. After watching the show with his seven year-old daughter, who was a fan of the show, Philip Martin was inspired to submit ideas to the programme’s production office. This resulted, in 1982, to a commission to write a scene breakdown for a storyline entitled "Domain". It had been planned that this story would form a part of Season Twenty and, when this did not pan out, Season Twenty One. This meant that Philip Martin had to frequently adjust his scripts to account for the changing regular cast, his story having started out as an adventure for the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan Jovanka.
After being renamed to "Planet of Fear" it became clear that this story would be held over until Season Twenty Two. Because of the change in the show’s format, Philip Martin needed to reformat his scripts, changing them from four 25 minute episodes to two 45 minute episodes. He also had to change it to being a Sixth Doctor story with just Peri as the companion. This story was also renamed again to "Vengeance on Varos" when it was realised that the title "Planet of Fear" was very similar to the 1984 Fifth Doctor story "Planet of Fire".
Further rewrites were requested from the writer in early 1984, when Eric Saward and Producer John Nathan-Turner decided that Philip Martin did not have an acceptable grasp on the characters of the Sixth Doctor and Peri.
It was not until another story "Song of the Space Whale" was cancelled that "Vengeance on Varos" became the second story of Season Twenty Two. "Song of the Space Whale", by comics writer by Patrick Mills, had first been offered to the production office in 1980. But due to continued problems with another long-developing set of scripts "Song of the Space Whale" was abandoned (although it was not officially rejected until July 1985).
The director originally planned to helm the second story of Season Twenty Two was Michael Owen Morris, who had worked on "The Awakening" a year earlier. However, when the decision was made to drop "Song of the Space Whale", Michael Owen Morris moved on to an episode of Tenko. His replacement, to direct "Vengeance on Varos", was Ron Jones, who had recently directed last season’s Fifth Doctor story "Frontios".
Ron Jones’ biggest casting requirement was an actor to play the diminutive Sil. Philip Martin had originally envisioned the character as floating in a tank of water, but it was realised that this would be too difficult to and so the scripts were revised to having Sil instead sitting on a platform above his water tank. Nonetheless, a performer of unusual proportions would be needed for the role, and so Ron Jones auditioned several dwarves and midgets. Ultimately, he settled on Nabil Shaban, an actor who had suffered from the brittle bone disease osteogenesis imperfecta all his life and had badly underdeveloped legs as a result.
Also amongst the guest cast list is Jason Connery, the son of James Bond star and famed actor Sean Connery, playing the part of Jondar.
Well known actor Martin Jarvis makes his third Doctor Who appearance as the Governor of Varos - previously he had played the part of Hilio, in the 1965 First Doctor story "The Web Planet", and the part of Butler, in the 1974 Third Doctor story "Invasion of the Dinosaurs".
Stephen Yardley (who played the part of Arak) previously played the part of Sevrin in the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "Genesis of the Daleks".
Owen Teale (who played the part of Maldak) later appeared as Evan Sherman in the 2006 Torchwood story "Countrycide".
This story was entirely a studio-based story, requiring two three-day studio sessions.
The script dates this story to the latter half of the 23rd century, although this is not confirmed on screen.
From the opening sequence of The Doctor and Peri in the TARDIS it appears that a short period of time has elapsed since the previous story "Attack of the Cybermen", during which The Doctor has set about some TARDIS repairs. Peri lists a number of problems The Doctor has caused since they left Telos. These include: three electrical fires, a total blackout, a near collision with a storm of asteroids, The Doctor getting lost twice in the TARDIS corridors, wiping the memory of the flight computer, and the jettisoning of three quarters of the storage hold (after this and the events in the 1982 Fifth Doctor story "Castrovalva" one wonders how much of the TARDIS is left?). In this amusing sequence Peri also accuses The Doctor of burning her ‘cold dinner’.
The TARDIS’ latest fault occurs when the transitional elements stop generating ‘orbital energy’, leaving the TARDIS midway between Cetes and Scalpor.
The Doctor says Zeiton-7 is needed to repair the transpower system. In an attempt to help The Doctor repair the TARDIS, Peri finds a huge Type 40 TARDIS manual in a workshop. She suggests that the fault with the time machine might be the comparator (see "Planet of Fire").
It is revealed that Sil (a Galatron negotiator) is from the planet Thoros Beta and is on Varos in an attempt to exploit the ongoing political vacuum caused by the succession of Governors who are appointed and eventually killed. Galatron’s chief rivals are Amorb.
It is revealed that Varos is a former prison planet for the criminally insane, ostensibly ruled by the descendants of the officers. Despite the poverty of the populace, it has been politically stable for over 200 years. Varos though is owned or policed by a body known as Comtech.
It has been revealed that the ‘marsh minnows’, that were eaten by Sil, were actually peaches dyed green.
The characters of Arak and Etta were late additions and were initially conceived as silent observers, merely observing and commenting on the proceedings as a Greek chorus. Their dialogue was added into the script by Script Editor Eric Saward. All the scenes including Arak and Etta are completely detached from the story and the two are never encountered by the main characters. Their scenes act as a satire on televised violence.
This whole story is an allegory about violence on television. Public torture and execution as entertainment go back as far the Romans. The idea of television and manipulation of the media to control the masses has been used in many works of dystopian science fiction.
Ironically, during the original broadcast, this story, along with the previous story "Attack of the Cybermen" drew criticism for being too violent and both have been used by critics who complained the show had become too dark and violent.
The scene in which two the Varos guards fall into a vat of acid echoes the 1970 film Scream and Scream Again which stars Peter Cushing. This sequence had to be filmed several times, and although Ron Jones was satisfied with the final result, he was aware that it had been taped in such a way as to make it appear that The Doctor was directly responsible for the men’s demise. In fact, Philip Martin had scripted this as an essentially comedic routine and was dismayed by the manner in which it was portrayed onscreen. This sentiment was compounded by the fact that most of the cuts to the finished story, due to time constraints, consisted of the more humorous material, making this story into a far bleaker story than he had intended.
This particular scene resulted in controversy as it looks as if The Doctor pushed them into the acid bath. However, The Doctor does not actually push the guards into the acid. One falls in by accident and then pulls the other in. The fact that The Doctor does not react with horror, but instead tosses off a quip, unfortunately, exacerbates the controversy.
This story contains a number of errors. Namely: How can the TARDIS so suddenly run out of something so vital?; The cuffs lock around the Governor’s wrists at different moments in the first two votes that we see; Why are the cannibals wearing nappies?
During the first recording of the noose execution scene, part of the set collapsed under the weight of the actors. Fortunately, this did not happen when Colin Baker and Jason Connery actually had their necks in the nooses (although it has been revealed that for safety reasons the nooses were not actually tied up).
Residual effects of her experiences on Varos cause Peri to once again assume birdlike features in Virgin Book’s The Missing Adventures novel "State of Change" that was written by Christopher Bulis.
The character of Sil was originally to have returned in a story, written by Philip Martin, called "Mission to Magnus" that was planed for the original Season Twenty Three. When the season was postponed and all the planned stories scrapped, Sil’s return instead occurred in the 1986 story "Mindwarp" - part of The Trial of a Time Lord season - which is set on his home planet of Thoros Beta. Philip Martin later novelised "Mission to Magnus", which was published in 1990. In 2009, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Nabil Shaban returned for the Big Finish Productions audio adaptation of "Mission to Magnus".
Virgin Books’ The Missing Adventures novel "Time of Your Life", written by Steve Lyons, the 1988 Seventh Doctor story "The Happiness Patrol" and the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways" all have themes and motifs very similar to those used in this story.
Despite being produced as two 45-minute episodes this story, when sold to other countries such as Australia and America, the episodes were re-edited into four 25-minute episodes.
The Target novelisation of this story, published in January 1988, was originally due two years before it was released, but was held up due to delays in the delivery of the manuscript by Philip Martin, rights issues and for other various reasons. When it did appear, it kept its original number of 106. In addition, although Target had launched a new cover design format for the books with the previous release, "Time and The Rani", reflecting the show’s logo of the Seventh Doctor’s era, "Vengeance on Varos" was published with the earlier book cover format using the neon-tube logo of the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras.
In 1995 an abridged version of the novel was read by Colin Baker for the BBC Radio Collection as a single 90-minute cassette. It was produced by Chris Wallis as a Watershed Production for BBC Worldwide Publishing (the umbrella label for all BBC products by the end of the 1990’s). This audio book was not released until late 1997.
The DVD of this story, released in October 2001, originally had a slightly different cover which included Peri. This was a BBC Worldwide mockup rather than the intended final version of the cover.
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The Firsts:
The first appearance in the show of Sil played by Nabil Shaban.
The first Doctor Who story to be written by Philip Martin.
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(Position = 72 out of 159)
(Position = 124 out of 200)
(Position = 135 out of 241)
