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

Mild-mannered Citizen Cordo, a low-ranking employee of The Company, is relieved to learn that his long-suffering father has died, but when he appears before Gatherer Hade to pay the death taxes, he is appalled to learn that the rates have increased. As he is only a D-grade laborer already working double-shifts, after interest penalties he'll never earn enough to pay the debt on top of his already substantial tax burden. The Gatherer is unsympathetic to Cordo's plight.

The TARDIS lands on the top of a thousand-story building in a vast urban complex on planet Pluto. The Doctor and Leela are enjoying the view when they spot a distraught Cordo preparing to plummet to his death. They pull him away from the ledge, and he pours out his financial sorrows to them. An alarm rings out - it is illegal for workers of his grade to view direct sunlight. The three flee.

Cordo has heard rumors of a network of tax-renegades, known as The Others, lurking in the depths of the city, and they soon stumble into their midst. Their reception, however, is less than friendly. The renegades, led by Mandrel, take Leela hostage to blackmail the Doctor into withdrawing 1000 Talmars from a Company ATM with a forged ConSum card. The Doctor is taken into custody, but is soon brought before a suspiciously apologetic Gatherer, presented with the 1000 Talmars, and released. He returns to the dumbfounded renegades, but he knows that the apology was a lie and that his movements are being tracked so that the renegade's hideout can be found. This finally motivates the renegades, up to now content with petty thieving, into fighting for their lives and overthrowing the Company. The Doctor summons K9 from the TARDIS to assist.

The Doctor realizes that the sweet smell in the air is actually a tranquilizing gas called PCM to keep the citizens docile. The renegades reach the PCM refinery and shut it down. They then overtake the communication center and broadcast a false report that the revolution is already underway, hoping to inspire the citizens to actually revolt. Once the tranquilizing gas begins to wear off, the revolution gains momentum. The Gatherer is captured and thrown off the roof, while his assistant Marn opts to join the rebels (albeit at gunpoint).

The Doctor reaches the office of the Collector, a bald-headed green-hued Usurian in a wheelchair, who is the CEO of the Pluto branch of the Company. Thousands of years earlier, the Company took over the Earth, which by then had fallen into economic decline - exhausted resources and starving populace - and relocated them to Mars, financing the enterprise through a program of oppressive taxation. Once Mars was exhausted, the Company relocated them to Pluto, incurring great expense to maintain the six artificial mini-suns that orbit the planet. Pluto's resources are nearing exhaustion as well, and the Company is planning to 'close' the Pluto branch, abandoning the citizens to their deaths. However, news of the Revolution and the resulting financial fallout - plus a 2% growth tax that the Doctor had programmed into his computer, causes the Collector so much emotional stress that he reverts to his natural form, a small bit of green slime, and he is easily bottled up. The liberated citizens plan to return to Earth, which by now has renewed itself.

Cast

Crew

References

Books

Usarians are listed in Professor Thripsted's Flora and Fauna of the Universe as "parasitic fungi".

The Doctor

Droge of Gabrielides once offered a star system for the Doctor's head.

Elements

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 (which also purpourtedly eliminates air-borne infection).

Races and species

The Usurians have a file on Gallifrey.

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.
Some textures of the walls are enlarged photographs of a die of an AMD microprocessor. The trademark of AMD is large visible.

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

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

At the start of Episode 2, the shadows of the extras playing the security guards are visible awaiting their cue to enter.
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.
A microphone enters the screen for a few seconds in upper left corner at minute 18 of the 3rd episode.
Near to the end of part three after K-9 has exited the steamer, the Doctor praises K-9 with his scarf rolled out and lengthend down his body yet less than a second after when he is given a communicator it is roled up over his shoulders.

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.