A Fix with Sontarans (TV story)
A Fix with Sontarans was the name of non-canonical mini-episode specially written for the BBC's children's programme Jim'll Fix It, featuring the Sixth Doctor. It was broadcast on 23 February 1985.
Plot
The Doctor is working the controls in the TARDIS. He accidentally transports his former companion Tegan Jovanka on board. She is less than happy about this, but reluctantly agrees to help him. He reveals that two Sontarans are on board. They have a powerful vitrox bomb with which they intend to blow up the ship.
The Doctor then accidentally teleports into the console room a human boy, Gareth Jenkins, who happens to be dressed in an outfit similar to his own. Gareth agrees to help in any way he can. He helps The Doctor set a trap for the Sontarans. The two aliens break into the console room. The leader introduces himself as Group Marshall Nathan and demands that the Doctor introduce his group. Upon hearing Gareth's name, Nathan reveals that in 2001 their invasion of Earth would be foiled by a brave rebel called Gareth Jenkins. If they kill him now, their future success is assured. However, Gareth springs their trap and kills the two villains.
Jimmy Savile's face appears on the scanner screen, a sight which Tegan and the Doctor describe as "monstrous" and "revolting", respectively. The Doctor nevertheless activates the TARDIS' inner doors and allows the horrendous creature entry into the control room.
Out-of-character epilogue
Upon Savile's entry, he and the cast break character. The sketch abruptly morphs from a Doctor Who television story in which Savile portrays a monster identical to himself; to an instalment of Jim'll Fix It on the TARDIS set, with host Jimmy Saville welcoming guests Gareth Jenkins, Colin Baker and Janet Fielding to his programme.
Baker presents Jenkins with his Jim'll Fix It medal and, as an added treat, the prop "BBC meson gun" the Sontarans had used. (TV: A Fix with Sontarans)
Cast
- The Doctor - Colin Baker
- Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
- Gareth Jenkins - Himself
- Group Marshall Nathan - Clinton Greyn
- Turner ("2nd Sontaran") -Tim Raynham
- Jimmy Savile - Himself
Story notes
- The format of Jim'll Fix It involved viewers asking requests of the host, Jimmy Savile. Gareth Jenkins had his own Sixth Doctor costume made for him by his grandmother, and asked to meet Colin Baker and tour the TARDIS set. The producers of the two programmes expanded on the idea and wrote the mini-episode around him.
- Despite rumours to the contrary, the young Gareth Jenkins in this broadcast is not the same Gareth Jenkins who worked as a composer, audio engineer and actor for Big Finish in the 2000s.
- "A Fix with Sontarans" was broadcast during the run of The Two Doctors and is featured as an extra on the DVD release of that story.
- Unlike most mini-episodes in the BBC Wales era, A Fix with Sontarans features the complete opening titles sequence and theme song. The sequence differed, however, from the normal series episodes prior to the 1996 telefilm, in that the star's name was billed in text: "Starring Colin Baker" ... "With Gareth Jenkins". Neither Janet Fielding nor Jimmy Savile was listed. Until 1996, only writers received billing in the opening titles of full-length episodes.
- Group Marshal Nathan and his subordinate, unnamed on-screen but referred to as "Turner" in the script, were a sly reference to the then-current Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner.
- Janet Fielding was asked to participate in the sketch when it was discovered that Nicola Bryant was out of the country on holiday and unavailable to fill her role as the Doctor's then-current assistant, Peri Brown. She wore the flight attendant uniform she had on in Logopolis during most of Season 19, though since leaving the series her hair had grown much longer and she had bleached it blonde.
- This skit is not considered part of the canon. Attempts are occasionally made to fit it into continuity. Peri's absence is not explained. When Tegan arrives (wearing a flight attendant's uniform similar to the one she wore in the series, even though sometime between Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity she lost her job at the airline), the Doctor explains he has regenerated; since Tegan witnessed this before, she is not surprised. She is also shown to be somewhat familiar with TARDIS controls, in keeping with her character in her earlier appearances. In retrospect, it is possible to place this story at any of these points:
- In the post-Trial of a Time Lord era, as the Doctor would have travelled alone after that story (in between meeting Melanie Bush at his trial, and taking on her slightly younger self as a companion).
- While Peri was asleep in her quarters (as in the case of Amy Pond and Rory Williams when three incarnations of their daughter River Song visited the Eleventh Doctor in First Night & Last Night, and in the case of Rory throughout Good Night and most of Bad Night as well).
- While Peri was awake but busy elsewhere in the TARDIS (as was the case when Leela was in the swimming pool at the start of The Invasion of Time).
- While Peri was temporarily away during her companionship (as was the case when Donna Noble was at a spa in Midnight; when Rose Tyler was at an ABBA concert in Attack of the Graske; and when Amy & Rory were honeymooning during A Christmas Carol, settling into married life between Time and The Impossible Astronaut, posing as fugitives to investigate the Silence between The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, spending the summer in Leadworth between A Good Man Goes to war and Let's Kill Hitler, pretending to mourn the Doctor's death for twenty months between The Wedding of River Song and the end of The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, and then all of their myriad sojourns back in "real life" between the travelling with the Doctor until The Angels Take Manhattan .
- Note also that K9 Mark II was nowhere to be seen during Mona Lisa's Revenge; and Kamelion was absent from all of the episodes between The King's Demons and Planet of Fire. Long before either of those robotic companions, the flesh-and-blood characters would go missing – the early years, the Doctor or a companion would occasionally be written out of an episode in the middle of a serial, in order for that actor to take a week's holiday from the gruelling non-stop schedule.
- Jenkins explains that his skill with the TARDIS console comes from having watched the Doctor operate the TARDIS on telly, but he makes no mention of the series, the actors, the BBC, inter alia. (TV: A Fix with Sontarans) Consequently, he might well have been referring to a time-space visualiser which was called a "time television" by Barbara Wright (who coincidently watched Jimmy Savile on such a device). (TV: The Chase part 1 "The Executioners") Thus, Jenkins could have conceivably watched anything the Doctor did during the Earth's relative past. (i.e. from the Big Bang circa 13.75 billion BCE (TV: Castrovalva) through the Fifth Doctor's 1984 parting with Tegan at Butler's Wharf. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
