Delta and the Bannermen

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150 - Delta and the Bannermen
Doctor	Sylvester McCoy (Seventh Doctor)
Writer	Malcolm Kohll
Director	Chris Clough
Script editor	Andrew Cartmel
Producer	John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s)	None
Production code	7F
Series	Season 24
Length	3 episodes, 25 mins each
Transmission date	November 2–November 16, 1987
Preceded by	Paradise Towers
Followed by	Dragonfire

Delta and the Bannermen is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from November 2 to November 16, 1987. It was the 150th story of series.

1 Synopsis
2 Plot
3 Cast
- 3.1 Cast notes
4 Continuity
5 Production
6 Outside references
7 In print
8 Video release
9 References
10 External links
- 10.1 Reviews
- 10.2 Target novelisation

[edit] Synopsis

A group of extra-terrestrial tourists, including the Doctor and Mel along with Delta, the last of the Chimeron race, set out to visit Disneyland in 1959, but become stranded in a Welsh holiday camp. Delta is fleeing for her life, with the evil Bannermen in hot pursuit.

[edit] Plot

The Seventh Doctor and Mel visit the Shangri-La holiday camp

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

On an alien planet the genocide of the Chimeron by the merciless Bannermen led by Gavrok is almost complete. The last survivor, Chimeron Queen Delta, escapes by the skin of her teeth clutching her egg, the future for her species. She makes it to a space tollport where the Navarinos, a race of shape changing tourist aliens, are planning a visit to the planet Earth in 1959 in a spaceship disguised as an old holiday bus. She stows aboard, as does Mel, while the Doctor follows them in the TARDIS. The Doctor and Mel have won the trip as a prize for arriving in the Navarino spaceport at the right time to be declared the ten billionth customers. No sooner has the tourist vehicle blasted away than the Bannermen turn up, ruthlessly hunting down the fugitive, and they kill the Tollmaster when he refuses to co-operate.

The holiday vehicle from Nostalgia Tours meets an unfortunate collision with an American space satellite and is diverted off track, landing at a holiday camp in South Wales rather than Disneyland. However, the basic but cheerful Shangri-La holiday camp is happy to accommodate the visitors led by the ebullient Burton, who assures the travellers of a warm welcome while they wait for the driver, Murray, to repair their innocuous seeming transport. Mel gets close to Delta and uncovers the truth of her situation, including the hatching of the egg into a bright green baby that starts to grow at a startling rate. The Chimeron Queen supports this development with the equivalent of royal jelly given to bees.

Delta tries to take her mind off the situation and goes to the Shangri-La dance, instantly capturing the heart of Billy, the camp’s mechanic – and making an enemy of the smitten Rachel (or Ray), who loves Billy herself. Ray confides her situation in the Doctor, and they both stumble across a bounty hunter making contact with the Bannermen to tell them of the Chimeron’s whereabouts. It is only a matter of time before Gavrok and his troops arrive. Delta and Billy head off on a romantic countryside ramble the following morning, but the Doctor wastes no time in persuading Burton to evacuate the camp, helping Murray repair the ship, and then heading off to find the young lovers while there is still time. Once they are found, everyone returns to the camp but the situation has become dire. The Bannermen have destroyed the Navarino bus with all its official passengers inside, taking Mel as a hostage as Gavrok tries to work out how to capture the Chimeron. The Doctor’s early attempts to intercede are futile, but he does rescue Burton and Mel from the Bannermen.

The Doctor’s party regroups to consider its options, in the process defeating two Bannermen who are holding prisoner two ageing American agents, Hawk and Weismuller, who were tracking the missing satellite. They also make contact with the mysterious bee keeper Goronwy, who hides them for a while and then turns his bees on an advanced party of Bannermen. Goronwy implies to Billy that royal jelly has mystical powers, provoking the mechanic to consume some in the hope of metamorphosing into a Chimeron.

At Shangri-La Gavrok has booby-trapped the outside of the TARDIS in an attempt to kill the Doctor. However, he reckons without the ingenuity of his enemies. Billy rigs up the Shangri-La sound system to amplify the perfectly pitched scream of the Chimeron child Princess – a sound which is excrutiatingly painful to Bannermen. Gavrok becomes so stunned he falls into the beam of the booby-trap and is incinerated, while the other Bannermen are so traumatised that they are easily rounded up. Delta and Billy leave together with the child and the prisoners, heading for an intergalactic war crimes tribunal. All is well and the next bus of holiday makers – this time human – arrive at Shangri-La as the Doctor and Mel slip away.

[edit] Cast

The Doctor — Sylvester McCoy
Melanie — Bonnie Langford
Gavrok — Don Henderson
Delta — Belinda Mayne
Burton — Richard Davies
Weismuller — Stubby Kaye
Hawk — Morgan Deare
Billy — David Kinder
Vinny — Martyn Geraint
Ray — Sara Griffiths
Goronwy — Hugh Lloyd
Tollmaster — Ken Dodd
Keillor — Brian Hibbard
Murray — Johnny Dennis
Adlon — Leslie Meadows
Bollit — Anita Graham
Callon — Clive Condon
Arrex — Richard Mitchley
Chima — Tim Scott
Young Chimeron — Jessica McGough, Amy Osborn
Chimeron Princess — Laura Collins, Carley Joseph
The Lorells — Robin Aspland, Keff McCulloch, Justin Myers, Ralph Samins
Vocalists — Tracey Wilson, Jodie Wilson

[edit] Cast notes

Features guest appearance by Ken Dodd, Don Henderson, Hugh Lloyd, Richard Davies, and American stage and screen actor Stubby Kaye. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.

[edit] Continuity

The Seventh Doctor's question mark handle umbrella makes its first appearance in this story.
Sylvester McCoy can be seen wearing his glasses in certain long shots of him riding a motorcycle (consequently, the only time the Seventh Doctor is seen wearing spectacles).
Keillor, the alien bounty hunter is never referred to by name in dialogue. His name is only revealed in the credits.

[edit] Production

Working titles for this story included The Flight of the Chimeron^[1].
The scenes at the Shangri-La holiday camp were shot on location at the Butlins Holiday camp on Barry Island, Wales. The holiday camp is no longer there, but the island was used again, this time as a stand-in for a bomb site in 1941 London, in the 2005 series episodes The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances.^[2]
The character of Ray was originally created as a new companion for the Doctor as Bonnie Langford had announced she would be leaving the series at the end of the season. The serial, with the working title, The Flight Of The Chimeron, was originally scheduled to end the season. However, as the serial neared production, Langford had not yet decided whether she would leave at the end of Season 24 or during Season 25; that, plus the rescheduling of Delta and the Bannermen to earlier in the season and the decision by script editor Andrew Cartmel to create another replacement companion named Alf (later renamed 'Ace'), led to the idea of Ray being a companion being abandoned^[1].
This was the first three-part story since Planet of Giants (1964).

[edit] Outside references

The title of this story is a reference to the British band Echo and the Bunnymen. The story title makes a single substitution using the phonetic alphabet and a slight change in the final word of the title.
Weismuller states that he used to be an Eagle Scout; the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts Of America organisation.
The motorbike ridden by Billy in this story is a Vincent, made by British manufacturer Vincent Motorcycles.
The guitar the Doctor is seen hugging at the end of the story is a Fender Stratocaster, although the model is not one available at the time the story was set.
The soundtrack of this serial contained a higher-than-usual number of recognizable pop songs, although due to licensing costs all were re-recorded by "The Lovells", a fictional group created by the show's incidental music composer Keff McCullough. The songs featured in the serial were: "Rock Around the Clock", "Singing the Blues", "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?", "Mr. Sandman", "Goodnight, Sweetheart", "That'll Be the Day", "Only You", "Lollipop", "Who's Sorry Now?", and "Happy Days Are Here Again".