Delta and the Bannermen: Part One

Delta and the Bannermen arrived wearing its sci fi influences very heavily. Back to the Future and V.

The Doctor and Mel win a trip to Disneyland in 1959 with the intergalactic Nostalgia Tours.

Only the bus hits a satellite and land in a holiday camp in South Wales.

There is further danger as one of the passengers is Delta the ChimeronQueen who is escaping the evil Gavrok (Don Henderson) who is pursuing her with his army, the Bannermen.

The story gained notoriety because of the role of Ken Dodd as the Tollmaster and some shoddy special effects.

It also includes singer and actor Stubby Kaye who was in the UK to make Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

For McCoy's first season this is an improvement. There is a scene where a stuntman falls from a cliff in a quarry. The newborn alien hatching was well done. However producer John Nathan Turner struggles with the execution of the other parts of the stories mainly due to the budget.

Director Chris Clough does well with the atmosphere. The use of the 1950s pop music works well in the camp scenes. There are some decent action scenes at the beginning. Don Henderson takes the who thing deadly serious.

The Doctor and Mel head to a 1950's Welsh holiday camp with a group of slightly unusual aliens.

I'll say it at the conclusion of Part one, this is a contender for the worst Doctor Who story of all time, it is even worse then Time and The Rani. It looks very cheap, the effects are poor, it is cringe worthy from start to finish. I can't believe they allowed this script past the development stage. The Chimeron are awful, words simply fail me.

The concept is decent, but the execution is abysmal, I genuinely cannot find anything positive to say. I think the acting is over the top, Belinda Mayne is decent as Delta I guess. It just feels amateur and cheap, compare this to Ghostlight and Fenric.

I loved Ken Dodd as a stand up, fun and whimsical, but he was possibly the worst choice for Dr Who, his casting was the worst in the show's history, so badly judged. A desperate attempt to fill the show with names as opposed to talent, but by this point the show was a laughing stock, with an ever diminishing audience.

Horrible 2/10

I already realize that 80s shows/movies tend to have a lot of bad acting but this story... woof.

Starting with the horrible title sequence... apparently it cost $20,000 to produce at the time. They were ripped off.

This story... the pacing is weird. It's like they were trying to get in a lot of action in a short amount of time.

The two actors playing Americans... what atrocious accents.

The cast... if the acting were any cheesier, it would actually be funny.

The music during the action scenes (specifically, the Doctor and Ray driving around trying to find Billy and Delta)... I was half expecting to see a small car stop and a bunch of clowns climb out it was that circus-like.

The Bannermen... can they be any more ridiculous?

This whole story is wrong on so many levels. Not sure what someone was smoking when they wrote and produced this nonsense.

Review of all 3 parts:

Oh dear! This is the worst story in the worst (by FAR) season of Doctor Who ever and is therefore, for me, clearly the lowest point the series has ever reached. The whole of this season is badly written, cheaply produced, badly directed etc. It is the only season of the show across its over 55 year history (at time of writing) that I think it was genuinely bad and not at the level of average TV shows let alone average Doctor Who. Season 22 and 23 had been my least favourite seasons and I disliked the characterisation given to the 6th Doctor. The 7th Doctor is much more likable and in keeping with the Doctor's usual characteristics but sadly the material and the whole production was so bad that Season 24 even made the Colin Baker era look great by comparison! Thankfully Season 25 was to be a big step forward back to respectability and Season 26 would be really excellent so Sylvester McCoy was deservedly not left with this very disappointing standard to represent his whole era. Very sadly I think it was this season which spelled the end for the show's original run. The damage done to the show's reputation at this time are I think what lead to its cancellation.

This story gets a fair amount of criticism but many feel other stories are even worse. I think this is because some people see this as a case of 'so bad its good' bit of 'camp fun'. I strongly disagree with that attitude. Yes we want fun and humour in Doctor Who but we should be laughing with intentional comedy not laughing AT how bad it is. It is possible for the show to have some camp fun but this story is not fun or funny, it is boring and embarrassing.

The production values are as bad as it gets. The costumes are cheap and over the top, the make up is VERY amateurish, the 50s music is fine but is not used well and the other incidental music is awful, the special effects such as the satellite and so on are not good and the whole thing is totally cheap and cheesy.

There are comments I have heard before from critics about the guest appearance of comedian Ken Dodd in part 1 of this story as an example of its cheesy lack of quality. In fact, I think, Ken Dodd is one of the highlights of the story! He just basically plays a version of his usual comedy stage persona which should not be a highlight of a Doctor Who story but his role as Tollmaster is small, comedic and well performed within the limits of the material given. Welsh stalwarts Richard Davies (camp boss Burton) and Brian Hibbard (as a mercenary) also perform as well as they can in the circumstances and along with Sylvester MCCoy these efforts are pretty much the only things lifting this above a 1/10 total debacle. Bonnie Langford as Mel is sadly her usual mixture of pantomime style dialogue delivery and high pitched screaming and the rest of the cast are just plain poor. Stubby Kaye and Morgan Deare appear in totally pointless and illogical roles as Americans weirdly searching for the satellite in Wales before it is even brought to Earth. Deare is particularly awful in his role. The beekeeper just spouts supposed wisdom about bees and butterflies that is heavy handedly and stupidly supposed to coincidentally tell us about the aliens situation. Billy and Delta are badly woodenly acted and their instant romance and devotion is ludicrous. Sara Griffiths does her best as Ray but is amateur dramatics level. Don Henderson is a panto villain and all other parts are all of zero quality with the dire Bannermen and minor holiday camp staff members delivering embarrassing performances.

The script is awful with no intelligence, nothing interesting and nothing sensible being said and the plot is both dull and nonsensical. A scene where the Bannermen barge into a farmhouse barn and get covered in honey then stung by bees is possibly the worst scene ever in Doctor Who. How anyone can criticise any post 2005 episode as "the worst ever" while calling Delta and the Bannermen an OK bit of camp fun is on a different planet to me! This is the lowest of the low. Worst TV story of all time. 2/10.

Possibly one of the worst Who stories ever. A wafer thin plot, ham acting, pointless side characters and a truly awful soundtrack.

Nothing in this story works, the US 'agents' have no connection to the story at all. The 50s holiday camp seems a bizarre setting. The beekeeper character just seems to have wondered into the story for some reason. Ken Dodd dressed as a camp purple nazi has a crazy cameo.

An often criticism of JNTs tenure is the terrible scripts for these shows and this one is no exception. Normally theres a good idea executed poorly, but this story doesnt even have that.

McCoy as always does his best with the rubbish hes given and Langford proves yet again why she was never a good choice for a companion.

JNT at his very worst.