6.8: Slipback

In which the pictures, and writer, are better on the radio.

Broadcast: July-August 1985

Listened: January 2021

[A note, for the uninitiated: the first Doctor Who radio play was broadcast as part of a strand aimed at children called (euch) “Pirate Radio 4” and broadcast during the 1985 summer holidays. I first heard it, thanks to a school friend who had the tapes, c1991, when I had only seen about three television stories, and I still love it so there.]

Slipback, Episodes 1 & 2

“I’m rather partial to Earth women.” Oh god Eric not again.

Another doomed Bates. Another doomed Wilson come to that. [Writer Eric] Saward perhaps an influence on both himself and RTD.

The fact the Doctor is hungover and Grant asks the computer if she’s drunk tells us something about Saward’s state of mind in 1985, I feel. Valentine Dyall having a lot of fun threatening to make everyone ill as the captain. Jane Carr doing a marvellous job of the scenes in which she’s playing against herself.

The Doctor telling Peri a story he heard from an actor at a party, about how bad poetry can save you from monsters, is not so much Adams-esque as a direct lift. But writing the Doctor as a slightly more motivated Ford Prefect works surprisingly well.

Here’s a weird nerdy thing. When I was a kid and kept my own story table because of course I did, I put this *before* Revelation because The Nightmare Fair [the story expected to open the original season 23, which has since appeared as both a book and an audio] had to come straight after. What a pedantic loser I was while still missing an easier way of doing things.

Slipback, Episodes 3 & 4

“Malpractice!” The space cops are great and very Adams. So are Barton the helpful service droid and the depressed computer. She tries to warn Grant she’s schizoid, giving away the plot, but because he doesn’t care how she is the audience never realises what this means. It’s actually quite well done.

Have realised the captain is basically Trump, desperate to be loved, jealous of the younger, thinner Grant, willing to punish everyone when he has a tantrum.

I like that Grant’s crime is “art theft”, and that the Vipod Mor is just a census ship with a furious captain. Although how you do a census of an entire galaxy, containing billions of stars, I have no idea.

My only slight hmmm is how Peri survives her fall down the ducts. Did the computer nudge her that way when she knew Snatch was beneath it, or is it just weird luck? Anyway it doesn’t matter. I like this.

Slipback, Episodes 5 & 6

“You are a great disappointment, Doctor.” “Most people feel that way.” Bloody hell Saward.

There are so many ideas in this story, just casually chucked at you. We’ve already had the schizoid computer and the art theft and the psychosomatic illnesses and the galactic census... now the computer wants to be god, but in a literal, scientific way. Bit weird that, after the earlier clue, the ditzy version doesn’t realise the bad version is her, though.

The cliffhanger in which the Doctor is a bit upset to find lots of people are going to die, a bit more upset to find they include Peri, and then screams “NOOOOOOO!” when he finds out it’s him too feels like more of a character note than it was perhaps meant to be. The ending, in which a Time Lord tells the Doctor he’s an idiot and then he just leaves, letting the good computer blow up the ship taking everybody with it we assume, is a bit hmmm. The story does kind of just stop without any thought about what it’s saying.

Also Saward thinks the universe began as a solid block. Righto.

But nonetheless: the sixth Doctor actually works quite well here. The slightly hammy, fruity voice thing works better on radio, and you can’t see that coat. It’s a shame in a way that we didn’t get more audio Colin. I can see why people like his BFs.

Here’s a thing – this was the first sixth Doctor story I ever knew. I assumed for a while that Grant became a companion. But no, Saward just forgets he’s there at the end.

Actually, something else – after a couple of stories I really like I tend to start getting excited about Doctor Who. It happened after Orphan 55, because it followed Spyfall, and for all their problems they felt like a step change on the last season so I ended up accidentally reading a load of fanboy stuff on the internet and so on. I reckon after Revelation and Slipback I’d probably have been quite enthusiastic about the future of Who – “well, this season wasn’t great, but they’re getting there now”... except they’d announced the hiatus. So I wouldn’t have, I’d have been annoyed. When did Grade back down on cancellation? [Almost, it turns out, immediately: it was literally hours.]