The Sun Makers (TV story)
Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives in the future on the planet Pluto where there are now six suns, a breathable atmosphere and a large industrial community. The Company controls the planet and exploits the workers, pays them a pittance and then taxes them on everything imaginable. The Doctor and Leela join forces with an underground band of rebels led by a man named Mandrel.
They learn that the head of the Company's operations on Pluto, represented by the human official Gatherer Hade, is an Usurian known as the Collector. The Usurians enslave planets through economic means and then fleece the inhabitants with exorbitant taxes. The Company keeps the citizens in line by diffusing a calming gas, PCM, through the air conditioning system.
The Doctor manages to stop this, and the workers then rise up against the Company and hurl Gatherer Hade to his death from the roof of a tall building. The Doctor meanwhile gains access to the Company computer and programs it to apply a two per cent growth tax. The Collector, unable to cope with the loss of his profits, reverts to his natural form - a type of poisonous fungus - and is rendered harmless.
Plot
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor - Tom Baker
- Leela - Louise Jameson
- Voice of K-9 - John Leeson
- Hade - Richard Leech
- Marn - Jonina Scott
- Cordo - Roy Macready
- Mandrel - William Simons
- Goudry - Michael Keating
- Veet - Adrienne Burgess
- Nurse - Carole Hopkin
- The Collector - Henry Woolf
- Bisham - David Rowlands
- Synge - Derek Crewe
- Commander - Colin McCormack
- Guard - Tom Kelly
Crew
- Assistant Floor Manager - Linda Graeme
- Costumes - Christine Rawlins
- Designer - Tony Snoaden
- Film Cameraman - John Tiley
- Film Editor - Tariq Anwar
- Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
- Make-Up - Janis Gould
- Producer - Graham Williams
- Production Assistant - Leon Arnold
- Production Unit Manager - John Nathan-Turner
- Script Editor - Anthony Read
- Special Sounds - Paddy Kingsland
- Studio Lighting - Derek Slee
- Studio Sound - Michael McCarthy
- Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
- Title Music - Ron Grainer
- Visual Effects - Peter Day
- Visual Effects - Peter Logan
References
- Droge of Gabrielides once offered a star system for the Doctor's head.
- The Usurians have a file on Gallifrey.
- Usarians are listed in Professor Thripsted's Flora and Fauna of the Universe as "parasitic fungi".
- Three types of gas are mentioned: Dianane, a deadly poison (to which Usurians are immune), Balarium, a muscle neutraliser, which also effects speech, and Pentocyleinicmethylhydrane (PCM), an anxiety inducing agent.
Story Notes
- Michael Keating (here playing Goudry) would later be cast as Vila in Blake's 7 based partially on this performance.
- Most of the corridors were named after UK tax forms, as the story was intended as a satire of contemporary British taxes.
- This story marks the last appearance of Leela's darker outfit. For the next two serials - her last - she would continue to wear the lighter (and more revealing) one.
Ratings
- Part 1 - 8.5 million viewers
- Part 2 - 9.5 million viewers
- Part 3 - 8.9 million viewers
- Part 4 - 8.4 million viewers
Myths
to be added
Filming Locations
- WD and HO Wills Tobacco Factory (now known as Imperial Park), Hartcliffe Way, Hartcliffe, Bristol
- Camden Town Deep Tube Shelters, Stanmore Place, Camden Town, London
- BBC Television Centre (TC3 and TC6), Shepherd's Bush, London
Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
- When the Gatherer is to be thrown off the roof by an angry mob it's quite obvious that it is a dummy.
- A car park insignia is visible on the roof top.
- How will the liberated humans prevent the artificial suns from burning-out now that the Usurian controlling them has been dispatched? The Doctor could have shown them how before leaving. It's also possible the Usurian was lying, to make the people believe they needed him.
Continuity
- Professor Thripsted's works also appear in NA: Christmas on a Rational Planet, Lungbarrow, EDA: Alien Bodies, Placebo Effect, Unnatural History, and Interference - Book Two.
- The Collector ends his first conversation with the Gatherer with 'this interview is terminated'. Max Capricorn, a character not unlike the Collector ends a conversation with the Doctor with the same phrase in Voyage of the Damned.
Video Releases
Released as Doctor Who: The Sun Makers.
Released:
Novelisation
- Main article: Doctor Who and the Sunmakers
Novelised as Doctor Who and the Sunmakers by Terrance Dicks in 1982.
