| DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN by Malcolm Kohll |
| Story 149 Synopsis: The Bannermen are winning their war against the Chimerons. Delta, last of the Chimerons, hijacks a spaceship and scoots off, with an egg. Gavrok, Bannermen leader, pursues. The TARDIS, meanwhile, arrives at a Space Port running a Toll system, where they win a prize holiday, to Disneyland 1959. Mel jumps at the chance, but the Doctor decides to follow in the TARDIS. Just before take-off, Delta arrives in her spaceship, and boards the holidaymaker's ship, disguised as a coach. En route, the spaceship hits an experimental American satellite, and crashes at Shangri-La, a holiday camp in Wales. The holidaying aliens get to stay at Shangri-La. Delta has been sighted by a mercenary who tells Gavrok where to find her. Gavrok then kills the mercenary. Delta comes clean about her being pursued to Mel and Billy, local mechanic. They are sympathetic. The coach needs a special crystal, but coach driver Murray accidentally breaks it. The Doctor starts to make a new one. Anyway, the Bannermen arrive, and act nasty. The Doctor finds out that they are coming, and gets all the holidaying aliens onto the coach. The Shangri-La staff are sent away too, except for Major Burton, Camp host. The Bannermen destroy the coach, and take Mel and Burton hostage. Delta's egg has hatched into a young female Chimeron. As she grows, Billy becomes fonder of Delta. With the help of local beekeeper, Goronwy, Billy's girlfriend, Ray, and two American agents , Hawk and Weismuller, who are looking for the satellite, the Doctor creates a trap for the Bannermen at Shangri-La. Gavrok is destroyed in a trap of his own making. Delta, Billy and the young Chimeron set off in the Bannermen spaceship. The Doctor reunites the Americans with their satellite. |
| Review:- Yip, hold on to your hats, the ride's about to start. Delta doesn't really ask much, and it repays by simply being a joy to watch. So many times, it would simply be too silly to complain. Just watch, and relax. I find myself struggling to put into words how much I enjoy this. Let's see what others have to say. The Discontinuity Guide was pretty positive, so who am I to argue. DWM's recent video review was typically, X isn't crap, Y is, which gets more pathetic the more you notice it. All the main actors and actresses are on full throttle, and the believability is second-to-none. The sudden and rather unexpected demise of the Navarino coach party near the end of part 2 is a genuine surprise, of a sort that many other writers or production teams just wouldn't dare. (naughty, slap on the wrists there for hypocrisy). Alright, the central plot is a bit thin. The Bannermen want Delta dead, and take an awfully long time to do it, allowing the Doctor time to think of a plan to kill them. I will admit, I was ready to sing this show's praises to the skies. It doesn't beg to be loved, but it happens anyway. Famously, JNT nearly made this the close of Season 24, rather than Dragonfire. Ray could have been the new companion rather than Ace. I'm tempted to say that with hindsight, I wish this had happened. Ray is a likeable woman, albeit a bit simple. Perhaps Burton could have gone along too. Now that would have been worth seeing, surely. Might have kept the show running longer too... But Delta isn't as innocent as it seems. It's easy to think that the Cartmel Revolution kicked in with Dragonfire, but there are too many parts of this story where plot points are clearly given out as if everyone knows. This isn't pantomime, not by a long chalk. There are sections where characters have information for no better reason than contrivance. For instance, the Doctor's knowledge of the Chimerons is never accounted for, and therefore he must have been planning the whole masquerade. That may be said to be Cartmelism, but what it actually is, is shorthanding the script to compensate for the lack of time. The D Guide speculates that Goronwy may be a Time Lord. Yeah, yeah, go back to sleep, lads. The Completely Useless Encyclopaedia, on the other hand, points out that Billy gets to live the ultimate "Fifties SciFi" dream, going off with a sexy female alien for "breeding purposes". Yes, thanks a lot, Malcolm, a touch worth including for some of the audience. Ken Dodd is a legend of British entertainment, and was kind enough to mention in a recent DWM interview that he associated Dr Who with what might be said to be "proper" sci-fi authors, namely Asimov and Wyndham. That's nice. At the end of the day, I think that the secret ingredient that makes this story so much of joy is the sunshine. Almost all the Earth scenes are glorious, and this is one more reason why I like this story so very much. |
| Disclaimer: I've seen the video. |