The Sun Makers (TV story)
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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.
Cliffhangers
- A panel slams shut, trapping the Doctor inside the ATM capsule. As a klaxon blares, the capsule fills with tranquilizing gas, and the Doctor sinks unconscious to the floor.
- Security guards close in on Leela, Cordo, and Bisham
- The Doctor is running out of time to save Leela from being steamed alive in the condensation chamber.
- The Doctor 'accidentally' causes the TARDIS to lurch, spilling the pieces of the chessgame he is about to lose to K9.
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 (which also purpourtedly eliminates air-bourne infection).
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.
- 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.
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.
