Doctor Who - Documentary s12e05 Episode Script

(WHOOSHING) NICOLA BRYANT: One of the most popular villains are the Sontarans and I particularly love their look.
COLIN BAKER: They were a useful, all-purpose villain.
They were the shock troops.
They stomp around.
They were heavy.
They were recognisable.
ERIC SAWARD: They're practical, they work, they're scary, and they can be very dangerous.
This is Squadron Commander Gron reporting from the Terran biosphere.
As yet, there is no sign of the missing Field Major.
COLIN: Their kind of defining characteristic is they're warriors.
They're a warrior race.
Because that's what they did.
They fought.
The Sontarans are an ultra-militaristic race.
They were created by Bob Holmes, in a show called The Time Warrior, which I script-edited and had, you know, a lot to do with generally.
And they're cloned, I remember.
That was one of the things Bob put in, as you know.
They produced 1 0,000 cadets every hatching, or something like that.
There's an awful lot of them, though we tended only to see one or two, you know, up till Invasion Of Time, when they had at least to give a semblance of an army, as it were.
I said, ''We haven't done a history story for a long time.
'' So we decided to have a historical story with a strong science-fiction element.
And I came up with the idea of an alien who arrives in medieval England and starts screwing things up by giving the natives advanced technological weapons in return for help, say, in repairing his crashed spaceship.
So that was, kind of, the brief.
Bob got the job because he was one of our regular repertoire of writers.
And Bob was always one of our favourites, you know, he was always reliable, Bob.
I mean, he was an awkward bugger, who could be very difficult.
But he was a very good individual and a very funny writer very often.
ANTHONY READ: I met Bob Holmes around Television Centre, I suppose.
So I knew him slightly but not well.
But I didn't really know him until I was offered the job and asked to take over from him.
We got on very well.
I liked Bob enormously.
We're both ex-journalists to start with.
We had the fact also that he used to work about 200 yards from my home in Walsall.
He was a local reporter for I think it was the Daily Mail, it might have been the Express.
They had an office in Station Street, Walsall, and I lived in a pub literally just around the corner on the main street.
He reminded me very much of a stage director I had at Liverpool.
Someone who was very Not very verbose, but when he spoke you listened.
And he would stand quite apart sometimes from other people, or wherever he sat he always looked a bit apart.
Very benign, very helpful.
But always just thinking, puffing on his pipe, thinking and very quietly making a little A little note or some I mean And you could see the way everyone else sort of treated Robert.
How they spoke to him in a way that you thought, ''Well, he really knows what he's doing.
'' And he did.
I mean, I think Time Warrior is a lovely story.
Typically Bob, he said, ''I don't want to do it.
'' And I said, ''Now, come on, Bob, you know, it's a nice little four-parter.
'' And he said, ''Well, I don't know anything about history.
I don't like history.
'' So I said, ''Well, you know, go away ''and get A Child's History of Britain, or something and learn about it.
And I said, ''We don't You needn't be very precise.
'' I said, ''We want, ''medieval period, a baron, armour, knights, ''swords and lances, horseback, castles, ''you know, sieges of castles, all that, you see.
'' And, so, muttering and grumbling he eventually agreed to do it.
And came up, you know, with the Sontarans.
SLADEN: I knew Kevin very briefly, before Time Warrior.
He'd been at Glasgow Citizens with my husband and they'd worked together on some plays up there.
So we got together before.
We had a meal.
And I said, ''Oh, I don't know what I'm going to find.
''Oh, I've met Jon Pertwee once and he's very big.
'' Kevin said, ''Now listen'' I mean, you have to excuse my Australian accent, but I cannot talk and think of Kevin without thinking of his accent.
''Listen girl,'' he said.
''You watch me, you have fun, ''you just have fun.
You're going to be fine.
'' SLADEN: I just want to do this first short and get it over.
Anyway, I then watched Kevin's shot.
Sontaran command, do you read me? I am picking up strange interference.
The Sontarans were a satire on militarism.
Militarism and empire-building.
I mean, you remember when he first arrives, Linx puts up Gets out of his spaceship, puts up a flag and claims Earth in the name of the Sontaran empire.
He steps out of this silver golf ball with his hand on his hip and he says, ''I am a Sontar-an.
'' And the director, I saw him looking at the script, puff pipe, and he went up to Kevin and he said, ''Actually Kevin,'' he said, ''I think it's 'Son-taran.
''' He said, ''Listen, I come from theplace, I should know.
'' And from after that, it was Sontar-an.
It was brilliant.
When Kevin didn't have the costume on, he very much knew how it was like, you know, to move, as he had on filming.
And it was quite balletic in a way and he was only a little fellow, you know, Kevin.
Perfectly formed but very little.
And he would be very aware what his limitations would be.
So he'd say, ''Well, I can't actually do that.
I can only do this much.
''I can only raise my arm that much.
'' And it was very hot in that costume, as well.
It was, you know, a lot of padding.
I don't know, I think he had trouble hearing as well, when you've got this big head on.
A Terran female.
I can't remember precisely how Bob described the Sontarans in the script but it would have been minimal.
Because, as an experienced writer, he knows that the designer is going to, you know, design the monster.
One of the great moments in that show is when Linx eventually lifts off his helmet.
I mean, I think those were wonderful heads, the Sontaran heads.
I loved the heads.
SLADEN: What was so good about it was, as I was on Who for longer, you realise that the danger points with a mask of any sorts are the mouth and the eyes.
And obviously, because I was doing this now, I was looking at it again and it's beautifully, beautifully formed again.
You cannot You cannot really It doesn't hit you in the face.
It does look like this thing is growing out of this body.
And very cleverly Kevin did this thing.
He said, ''I'm going to use my tongue.
'' And he used his tongue through the mouth which is actually quite, quite scary.
It's very Greek, actually.
I think the Greeks used to do that through the helmet.
You know, it does look a bit gross.
which is a typical Sontaran technique, you know I'm picking up transmissions from some sort of human delegation.
I shall attempt to assess the level of threat they pose to our plans.
Many years later, as part of the Target novelisation programme, which, you know, I had a great deal to do with, they wanted to novelise The Time Warrior.
And the setup then was that I was a kind of unofficial editor.
I would either find someone to do the book or do it myself.
And gradually people dropped out and I ended up doing nearly all of them.
But, originally, I asked Bob if he wanted to do it and he said he'd have a go.
So they commissioned him to do the book.
And time went by and nothing appeared.
So eventually, the publishers got very worried and called me up and said, you know, ''This book hasn't arrived.
Will you talk to Bob for us?'' So I rang up Bob and he said, ''Oh, well, I've been very busy, you know, ''and I've got this job.
'' And he said, ''Anyway, I don't really ''like writing prose, you know, it's much too difficult.
''It's like digging trenches, ''he said.
''I'll get on with it.
I will do it.
'' And a few days later, two pages arrived in the post saying, ''Finish it''.
With a little note on it saying, ''You finish it.
'' And those two pages are in fact the prologue of the book.
And in that You know, there's lots of excellent background and character just in those two pages.
What is this? ''The Sontaran rarely smiles, except at the death throes of an enemy.
'' Field Report.
From Field Marshal Hol Mes to Terran Cedicks.
Bob was always excellent at creating, you know, a background, a back story for his characters.
But he would never discuss it with you or we wouldn't work it out together.
He'd just drop it in.
So in The Time Warrior, the Doctor says something about, ''So you're still going on with your endless war with the Rutans?'' The perpetual war between the Sontarans and the Rutans has spread to this tiny planet, has it? Emergency landing.
I was on a reconnaissance mission when I was attacked by a squadron of Rutan fighters.
You have encountered my race before, Doctor? Unfortunately.
You get a few lines of dialogue which gives you this historical context, you see.
You know, the Earth is only a pawn in a vast intergalactic war.
And he had this way of just Wouldn't explain it, you see.
I mean, he had this wonderful way of just dropping it into the story and letting you work it out for yourself.
(STYRE GROWLING) We were asked to do a kind of very, very rushed two-episode Doctor Who, which was unprecedented.
And, very kindly, they came to Dave Martin and I to write a two-parter.
They said, ''It's going to be all on location.
'' And they said, ''Well, let's take somebody we've already got, ''like, let's make it a Sontaran.
'' Bob Holmes proceeded to tell us the entire history of the Sontaran race.
And after about 10 minutes we said, ''Too much information, Bob, too much information.
'' He even went down to the sexual habits, you know, and how Sontarans are born through a hole in the neck.
And sex takes place through a hole in the neck.
I said, ''No, no, no, no more, Bob, please don't tell us any more.
'' The idea was that we made Linx had been a sort of reconnaissance mission.
And now our Sontaran, called Styre, was in fact, you know, the spearhead of some sort of invasion to make sure that this was the right kind of planet that they wanted to take over.
It was much more difficult for Kevin this time because he had had His heart problem had exacerbated.
And we were filming very high up, on Dartmoor.
STUART FELL: The costume's quite heavy as well and the boots were They were like ski boots.
And on Dartmoor, with lots of rocks and I was doubling Kevin Lindsay.
He was an Australian, and he had a bit of a A bit of a heart problem.
And there was quite a lot of action in that particular adventure, so they took me along to do the doubling for the difficult bits and the fight.
It was so uncomfortable for He desperately wanted to do it.
But he couldn't come down at all.
A tray would have to go up with his meal on in the break.
He was up there for the day.
We'd say, ''Oh, you know, we'll stay with'' ''No, no'', he said.
''I'm fine, I'm fine.
''I'll, I'll sit up here and'' You know, it wasn't always good weather.
And we'd go Went back one time after lunch and Kevin was sitting there with his tray, and he couldn't take his head off, you see, he had to leave it on.
He said it was better to leave it on, anyway.
And we said, ''How are you, Kevin?'' ''Well,'' he said, ''I'm fine,'' he said, ''but a lady with her dog got a hell of a shock around the corner.
'' BOB: We knew it was going to be all on location.
That was a tremendous boon to doing the story.
At least, we didn't have to have the kind of confinement that normally Doctor Who has on a four-parter, a usual four-parter.
So we could spread it out a bit.
You know, knowing it was We had locations that were outside of, you know, corridors that we could use.
And so, you know, it was good fun to write.
Well, might as well have a recce while we're here.
Coming, old thing? Coming, Sarah? Enjoy yourselves.
(ELECTRONIC BUZZING) Trafalgar Square should be that way.
I had a hankering for this lovely idea that the Earth had had its wars and now had become a kind of buried, archaeological, interesting planet.
And that, you know, that when they say things like, ''Oh, we're just going through Trafalgar Square,'' or whatever it was they said.
But, you know, we did actually write in the script that we'd like to have Nelson sticking out but they couldn't afford that.
I think to meet an alien that you've known from another storyline You, as a female, are far more interesting.
I think that gives you far more ammunition as to how you react to it because, you know, it's like a flashback.
Something happens, you know, in real life, all these memories, all this baggage comes back about where it was, what it was, what happened then, what, you know, could have happened.
So, you know, you bring all that into the moment of seeing this evil person again, evil character again.
Linx! And there was a lovely moment, because I was inherited by Philip.
I was already Sarah Jane when he came along to be producer of Doctor Who from Barry Letts.
And there was a really lovely moment.
We were out filming and the moment that Sarah realises it is a Sontaran and Philip ran all the way up from the OB van to tell me.
That moment He was like a child who'd been watching the show.
He said, ''I got I got hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
'' And it was so good and you realised it was him.
And I thought, ''How lovely.
'' You know, there's such enthusiasm for You know, you see that side of it as well as all the technicalities.
You were destroyed in the 13th century.
You were blown to smithereens.
STYRE: You may have seen one of us.
SARAH: But you're identical.
-The same ugly -Identical, yes, the same, no.
I am Styre.
Field Major Styre, as you will address me, of the Sontaran G-3 Military Assessment Survey.
We chose the name Styre because it Yes, obviously, it sounded a bit sort of, like a sort of Gestapo man that we were doing, you know, sort of really have absolutely no pity whatsoever, and just interested in finding out things by the most obscene way possible.
By, you know, by torture, by that sort of method.
So it seemed appropriate at the time.
Ah, being experimented on, it was cold and it was wet nappy time.
I was sitting on Dartmoor.
It was raining.
I'd been sat there for ages.
We obviously had read about, sort of, concentration camp-type experiments and we obviously used those as a kind of basis for again, this sort of, very, very warlike race, the Sontarans.
And this is the way we felt that they would go about things.
(SARAH SCREAMING) (SQUISHING) SLADEN: Normally, they would do any special effects, they would really do them in the studio.
It was safer.
And I suppose less time-consuming, not having the elements to deal with.
And I was I had to have this extra padding on my bum because And there was something underneath me.
So it was so soggy, it was so cold.
And then you've got these oilskins on that make it sweaty and horrible as well.
(EXCLAIMS IN DISGUST) It was just very uncomfortable.
Oh, Sarah.
Very touching.
You unspeakable abomination.
I heard it snap.
I heard something snap.
I was sitting there, and by that time I think Sarah had passed out, so I was trying to have a look at what was going on.
And I thought, ''No, I better keep my eyes closed.
'' And I heard this snap.
Well, crack.
And I thought, ''Ooh.
'' And I thought, ''Well, no one said, 'Cut.
''' So I just, you know And I think it went on for a little while and then it stopped and then, you know, everyone realised Tom was in trouble.
FELL: He was just rushing around.
He was very keen to make a big impression and he did and broke his collarbone.
So Terry Walsh, who was a stunt arranger on a particular programme, he did look very much like Tom Baker at that time, and they asked him if he would stand in for Tom.
Which is again very unusual for BBC, because they don't have huge budgets, they don't bring stand-ins or lighting stand-ins for the actors.
The actors usually have to do it themselves.
So, Terry, he did it all for him and if you watch it very carefully, you will see that it's a very energetic Doctor Who in that particular adventure.
SLADEN: What was so useful about Tom's scarf? I mean, Tom had to come back, he'd have to have it supported and his scarf did that for his arm.
I mean, you just had to keep it very, very still.
So, Terry I mean, there's some shots you do not know where it is Terry.
It's very good.
And now, your turn.
Well done, Harry.
They were little tough guys.
Looked a bit like knights and warriors and they had great weapons, and you just played yourself, really.
And the terrain you were working in, that dictated the way that you would move.
You'd move the best you can, really.
I challenge you, Styre.
Single combat.
Or are you afraid? All right, come to your death! It was quite a tricky fight and there was a lot of running over rocks and leaping from one rock to another and throwing oneself about.
So it got very hot and if the sun was hot, it was baking your head.
And you had these whacking great big boots on to slip on.
And not very good visibility out of the eyes, either.
As a stunt performer, I would be in my ordinary clothes and when I was required, Kevin would take his bits off and I'd put them back on again and vice versa.
We had our eyes blacked up, so when we had the actual potato head taken off, we'd look like a couple of pandas.
BOB: We felt it needed this, sort of, extra element in it.
It was a robot we were thinking up for another story that we were going to do, we were going to put up to Doctor Who in a future one.
And we thought, well, that would work in this one as well.
And the final version of it, which was used on Dartmoor, which was very difficult to use because it was uneven terrain, wasn't quite like the one that we'd imagined.
(BEEPING) We wanted that robot to actually hover and fly around in the hover.
But, of course, that was not possible.
You could do it in the studio with chroma key, but you couldn't do it out on location 'cause you had to have wheels and then you had to have tracks, or not tracks, and then you had to find a piece of flat ground.
I'm afraid our hearts sank when we saw it first time.
But there again, the designers had problems with the terrain and that sort of thing.
And obviously with This was a fairly low-budget show, I would think.
And so, you know, you accept it.
(WHEEZING) (EXPLOSION) We did it in breakneck time and the story works and it was good fun, you know.
And it scared the kids, as usual, and that was a prerequisite, especially for Bob Holmes.
And, yeah, we're very proud of it, really.
(RADIO CRACKLING) Well, when you've seen one Rutan, you've seen them all.
Where is this coming from? Could the Rutans have got here before us? From time to time, I always used to think usually when they were in trouble, they would ask me to write another Doctor Who script.
And Bob asked me to write another script for Tom.
And, ''Well, I've always wanted a story on a lighthouse'', he said.
And I said, ''I don't know anything about lighthouses.
'' And Bob said, ''Go away and buy a boy's book of lighthouses and find out'', you see.
Which reminded me of what had happened over Bob and medieval history.
And I always used to say that Fang Rock was Bob's revenge, you see.
I dragged him kicking and screaming into the Middle Ages and he dragged me kicking and screaming onto a lighthouse.
-What was it like? -I could not see clearly.
It shone like a fungus in the forest.
Luminous.
Do you think you could show me the spot? Yes.
Yes, I think so.
That was my brief, you know, story set on a lighthouse.
Okay, you're in the sea, you've got people enclosed so they can't get away, which is always a good thing.
And obviously, the menace or the monster is going to come out of the sea.
Which sort of suggested a fishy sort of thing or And then I thought, maybe a jellyfish sort of thing.
'Cause jellyfish are very nasty and scary, you see.
So I started off, really, with a sort of giant jellyfish.
No more than that.
And it wasn't till quite some way in the writing of the scripts that it occurred to me it might be fun to make it a Rutan.
Because since the Sontarans were very military and, like, very defined, you know, very sort of squared off defined definite thing, it would be nice to have their enemy as something that was blobby and amorphous and indeed a shape shifter, you see, which the Rutans are.
They can take on, they can take on any form.
And so I, rather as Bob used to do, I just threw in that it was a Rutan, you see.
And the Doctor makes a few references to ''your endless war with the Sontarans.
'' And that was really just a bit of fun.
Got it! You're at last losing that interminable war with the Sontarans.
-That is a lie! -Is it? You used to control the whole of the Mutter's Spiral once.
Now the Sontarans have driven you to the far fringes of the galaxy.
The glorious Rutan army is making a series of strategic withdrawals to selected strongpoints.
DICKS: Bob was quite happy at my putting a Rutan into Fang Rock, you know.
Because in a way it was a sort of homage to The Time Warrior and it makes a nice piece of continuity, you see, and links things together, which is always fun to do.
I knew about the Sontarans, of course, from seeing previous shows.
They were, as far as I was concerned, just one of a whole range of monsters who'd been around for a while.
I thought they were interesting and they were useful.
(DOCTOR WHO THEME) Well, David Agnew is me and Graham Williams.
In those days you, we were You know, you made things by the seat of your pants, you know, because there was no six-month gap between stuff.
It was finish the script and make it.
And so if we were up against it for time, the script went down, then there was a problem.
We had an enormous problem because this was a six-parter to end the series.
And, really, there was no time to do anything.
So the only way of really making it work was to go off and do it myself.
By the end, because Graham had actually made a pretty hefty contribution to the thing and the editing and did a lot of rewriting on it, we decided it would be best to share the credit.
We will do battle on your own ground, Doctor.
We needed a monster.
We didn't have time to build a new one.
There wasn't time to create and design and make a new monster.
The Sontarans were there.
They were in the props store.
They updated it a bit.
But basically, you know, we already had the stuff They were an existing monster.
We didn't have to create something from scratch.
There just wasn't time to do anything else.
They had an air of threat and menace about them.
And because they were this semi-humanoid form, I always felt, in fact, that the threat and the danger and the nastiness was actually stronger than some of the more mechanical monsters.
One of the, one of the bits of fun, of course, was in casting the Sontarans, was having Derek Deadman, who was a regular stunt guy and small-part actor and did walk-on bits.
Derek was a smashing guy.
The great thing about the Sontarans I mean, basically, to be a bit cruel to Derek, you know, he didn't really need that much makeup in fact, because he was I have other duties.
The Sontarans, they were the same type of person as Derek Deadman, who's a short, tough-looking guy underneath that head.
And Derek was a bit of a character.
He was a great guy.
But not the prettiest human being on the planet.
But a great guy.
And a lovely actor, in fact, although he was generally only used for very small things.
But he was smashing as a Sontaran.
He had this lovely, slightly Cockney cocky thing.
Because, let's face it, the Sontarans, if you think about it, they're all Grant Mitchell.
They behave in the same way.
They stomp around, they're ex-SAS, you know.
All that stuff, you know.
Thick necks and shaven heads.
And that's it, you know, they're EastEnders, really.
But make sure they are fully armed.
Otherwise I will negate you.
Now go! I have been on quite a few Doctor Whos, and they used to find me quite useful.
And they asked me if I would play this Sontaran, which is a lieutenant of the main character.
It was inside a swimming pool.
That was shot in Hammersmith.
And I remember trying to jump over some deckchairs and things by the edge of the swimming pool and the boots were a bit on the heavy side, and me falling over them.
It's all in the film.
I don't think it was written in the script but they were always very, very keen for a stuntman to put in the odd fall.
And try and liven up the scene a bit.
It would be a bit boring if you just walked around the sun-loungers while you're chasing after somebody.
So we did, we leapt over as much as we could and if we fell over it, we fell over it and got on with it.
SAWARD: Long before I worked on the show, I was living with somebody who had two children and I used to watch Doctor Who on Saturday afternoon with them.
And suddenly, a Sontaran trundled onto screen.
I was quite impressed.
I thought they worked quite well.
They look good.
They look menacing.
They look alien.
And the suits are functional.
Visually, they're an interesting shape.
If you've got to be human in shape in order to have a human being inside you to operate it, they're a good creation, they work.
You know, those big heads that go straight into the necks.
SAWARD: John Nathan-Turner, the producer, came in and said, ''I want to do a two-Doctor story.
'' Patrick Troughton and Colin Baker.
And I said, ''Fine, if this is what you want.
'' And he said, ''And I also want to set it abroad.
'' ''Yes'', I said.
''Fine, where?'' And he said, ''New Orleans''.
And I said, ''It's a long way away, John.
We've only got a small budget.
'' He said, ''No, I want to do it abroad.
It'll bring a freshness to the show.
'' And I felt, well, you know, why, really? Just why? It then became apparent that New Orleans was completely out of the question.
It was just too far away.
And there were quite strict union rules about who you could take and who you couldn't take and crewing and so on.
So we finished up in Spain.
For what reason I do not know because the story didn't need it, didn't deserve it.
And so when I approached Bob Holmes and said, ''Would you like to write this three-parter, big? ''I want someone who's experienced and could handle that sort of length.
'' He said, ''Yes.
'' And I said, ''But we have a problem.
'' ''We have We want the Sontarans.
'' Then he said, ''Oh, all right.
'' And I said, ''Some of it's going to be set in Spain.
'' The poor blokes filming in Spain, in Seville, inside those costumes which were like Well, it's the sort of costume you'd want to wear if you were walking around in the Antarctic or the Arctic but not anywhere else.
And they were just I'm surprised they managed to stay upright.
They could They were nearly hospitalised, I think, as a result of being in a Sontaran costume in temperatures of 110 degrees.
-Orders.
-Yes, sir.
Return to the craft and contact Sontaran High Command.
BRYANT: I don't think I would've wanted to have been playing a Sontaran in Seville.
It was bad enough that I was dressed in this, sort of, BacoFoil thing which made me feel like a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
But they had latex and metallic costume on top of this frame.
(EXCLAIMS) They I think they were losing absolutely two or three pounds a day and then having to put it back on in fluid, in lunchtime and dinner.
And I think it was extraordinarily hard for them.
I don't think they werenecessarily the most suitable villains to have taken to Spain with us.
But the thing that was particularly interesting in the Sontarans that we had was that they were always established as these big, sort of, warriors.
And Tim wrote to John Nathan-Turner, and asked to be a Sontaran because he had heard how I'd got my job, having done nothing else before.
And I'd done these auditions, so He'd read this in the newspaper, wrote to John Nathan-Turner and said, ''Please give me a job.
'' And John duly gave him the job of playing a Sontaran.
And then he realised, of course, afterwards, really, that he was a little bit short for a Sontaran.
So the two Sontarans we had were quite different in stature.
And I thought that was rather amusing, really.
One of the qualities which makes the Sontaran both strong and yet vulnerable is the fact that they are very rigid of codes of behaviour and honour and You know, if you challenge a Sontaran to a toenail-clipping competition, because that's in his code of conduct, he'll have to do it, for instance.
Whereas a Dalek would just destroy you.
He doesn't care about toenails or anything else for that matter.
If you can tune in to the right behaviour code of a Sontaran, he will have to respond to you on that basis.
Which is a weakness or a strength, depending on how you look at it, that the Doctor can exploit.
I just love their voices.
I thought it was like the Daleks and the Cybermen.
I think it's one of those keys that they developed a great sound for the Sontarans.
And I think that's probably as important as the look.
Excellent! I shall now execute your comrade.
Wait! Now that's why you Sontarans have no allies.
You can't be trusted.
We have no need of allies! Sontaran might is invincible! (SONTARAN GROANING) Run! SAWARD: If it were up to Bob and myself, we wouldn't have had Sontarans, we wouldn't have gone to Spain, we would have gone and looked at something a little bit more original, and not hampered ourselves with a Spanish location.
Because when you go to a foreign country, you feel obliged to film outside as much as possible, to justify being there.
And that's not the way you write good stories.
Part of the Jacqueline Pearce character and the Laurence Payne character How is this possible? How can these humans know so much about the Sontarans? I would have made them much more upfront.
Much, much tougher initially.
I know they start by attacking the space station but it's not really effectively handled.
Making them Rather than just standing around barking, they were sort of like a little bunch of Nazi corporals, shouting about and being vicious and whatever.
They weren't actually generating anything in the story.
They weren't moving it forward.
''I must get back to my battle fleet.
'' That's all he kept saying.
''I must get'' And take your mate with you.
Look what you've done to my door! Silence! Now, that's not fair.
You've ruined my beautiful door! COLIN: Gareth Jenkins wrote to Jim'll Fix It and said he wanted to meet the Doctor.
Well, Jim'll Fix It decided that he'll do more than meet the Doctor, he'll be in a scene with the Doctor.
SAWARD: I wrote it with him in mind.
I wanted him to have the starring role as such.
I knew he couldn't act, so I had to include him as much as possible.
Hence the repetition of the dialogue when he says something, the boy says something.
But we had the Sontarans in that, of course.
Boiling in the studio.
The same It was the same two who I'd done the Sontaran story in Seville with.
And they reprised their role with some humour for the Gareth Jenkins episode.
They made him a little costume which was a mirror of my costume.
He was a very good boy and learnt all his lines.
Sadly, I didn't have time to learn mine so I resorted to the time-honoured trick employed by the great, late Jon Pertwee of writing my lines in various places around the Tardis console.
Something I had never done before.
But there just wasn't the rehearsal time available.
Gareth Jenkins had more time.
So as in the real world of acting, that's not a contradiction in terms, you can blag your way through a script a bit.
Sadly, he had to repeat what I said.
So if I should have said, ''Press button red'', and he goes, ''Press button red.
'' If I got that wrong and said, ''Press button green'', he'd repeat the line he'd learnt, which was, ''Press button red.
'' So I had to get it right, unfortunately, which was a little trying.
Well done! SAWARD: It had little or no merit.
It made the boy happy, which was the intention and that was good.
But having recently watched it, it has no merit at all really.
Either the way it was shot, the way it was acted and certainly the way it was written.
Doctor, look at the screen! -It's monstrous! -DOCTOR: It's revolting! Jimmy Savile is much more frightening than the Sontarans.
Much more.
I will leave it at that.
Sontaran command.
This is Gron.
The knowledge of these humans is dangerous to our race.
And they appear to be in league with the Rutans.
We must invade and conquer this planet now! For a Sontaran the ultimate aim is to die a glorious death in battle.
That's as good as it gets if you're a Sontaran.
I mean, Bob made them real characters, you know.
(WHOOSHING) Bob, who, like most writers, you know, was fairly, kind of, radical and left-wingish.
Particularly it was a satire of gung-ho militarism.
You know, get out there and blow them up and all that kind of stuff.
Fairly relevant today, really, you know, in some aspects.
I think Bush will quite like them.
President Bush would quite like a squad of Sontarans.