Doctor Who (season 25)

Doctor Who (season 25)
Starring	Sylvester McCoy Sophie Aldred
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of stories	4
No. of episodes	14
Release
Original network	BBC One
Original release	5 October 1988 – 4 January 1989

The twenty-fifth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 5 October 1988 with the serial Remembrance of the Daleks, and ended with The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

Casting

Main cast

• Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor
• Sophie Aldred as Ace

Recurring stars

• Terry Molloy as Davros

Terry Molloy makes his final appearance as Davros, the Dalek creator (now acting as the Dalek Emperor) in Remembrance of the Daleks.

Guest Stars

John Leeson who previously regularly voiced the robot companion K9 from 1977-1978 and 1980-1981, appears as one of the Dalek voices in Remembrance of the Daleks.

David Banks makes his final of four appearances in the series in Silver Nemesis as a Cyber-leader.

Serials

This season was moved to Wednesday.

Season 25 saw the start of a move to explore the Doctor's past; script editor Andrew Cartmel had felt that as more of the character's own history, together with the history of the Time Lords, had been revealed, some of the mystery about the Doctor had been lost. As a consequence he, together with writers Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt, began developing the seeds of a new backstory, which would be hinted at throughout the season, that suggested the Doctor to be more powerful than most people were aware of.^[1] This concept eventually came to be known as the "Cartmel Masterplan".

Story	Serial	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	UK viewers (millions) [2]	AI [2]
148	1	Remembrance of the Daleks	Andrew Morgan	Ben Aaronovitch	5 October 1988 12 October 1988 19 October 1988 26 October 1988	7H	5.5 5.8 5.1 5.0	68 69 70 72
The Doctor and Ace travel to London 1963, meeting Countermeasures, a team aimed at resolving threats, two rival fractions of Daleks after a powerful Time-Lord device known as the Hand of Omega, Davros, who wants to use the hand and a strange little girl from Coal Hill School.
149	2	The Happiness Patrol	Chris Clough	Graeme Curry	2 November 1988 9 November 1988 16 November 1988	7L	5.3 4.6 5.3	67 65 65
On the planet, Terra Alpha, where happiness is compulsory and sadness is against the law, the Kandyman, under the supervision of Helena A, makes a stream of molten Candy that kills those who dare to disobey it.
150	3	Silver Nemesis	Chris Clough	Kevin Clarke	23 November 1988 30 November 1988 7 December 1988[3]	7K	6.1 5.2 5.2	71 70 70
The Doctor and Ace come across three rivals: the Cybermen, a 17th Century sorceress and a group of Nazis who are all hunting for a statue hidden in an asteroid which recently crash landed in Windsor wildlife park.
151	4	The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	Alan Wareing	Stephen Wyatt	14 December 1988 21 December 1988 28 December 1988 4 January 1989	7J	5.0 5.3 4.8 6.6	68 66 69 64
Trapped on the Planet Segonax, The Doctor's at the mercy of the entertainment-hungry Gods of Ragnarok who work in the dark at the Psychic Circus.

Broadcast

The entire season was broadcast from 5 October 1988 to 4 January 1989. Season twenty-five was originally supposed to have been broadcast in production order, with The Greatest Show in the Galaxy second. However, the expected start of the season on 7 September was delayed to 5 October because of BBC coverage of the Seoul Summer Olympics. Nathan-Turner still wanted to lead off the year with Remembrance of the Daleks and have episode one of the twenty-fifth anniversary story, Silver Nemesis, broadcast on 23 November – the actual date of Doctor Who's 25th anniversary. This left only three weeks in between the two serials. Consequently, the original season finale, The Happiness Patrol, was exchanged with The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

DVD Release

All serials of season 25 were released individually in between 2001 and 2012.

Serial name	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
Remembrance of the Daleks	4 × 25 min.	26 February 2001	13 May 2002	2 April 2002
Remembrance of the Daleks – Special Edition Available individually or in The Complete Davros Collection box set in Regions 2 and 4. Only available individually in Region 1.	4 × 25 min.	26 November 2007 20 July 2009[notes 1]	6 February 2008 1 October 2009[notes 1]	2 March 2010
The Happiness Patrol Paired with Dragonfire as part of the Ace Adventures box set.	3 × 25 min.	7 May 2012[5]	7 June 2012[6]	8 May 2012
Silver Nemesis Only available as part of the Cybermen box set in Regions 2 and 4. Only available individually in Region 1.	3 × 25 min.	9 August 2010	7 October 2010	2 November 2010
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	4 × 25 min.	30 July 2012[5][7]	16 August 2012[8]	14 August 2012[9]

1. The Region 2 and 4 releases of the Special Edition of Remembrance of the Daleks was originally only available as part of The Complete Davros Collection box set, but was later re-released on its own.

In print

Serial name	Novelisation title	Author	First published
Remembrance of the Daleks	Remembrance of the Daleks	Ben Aaronovitch	1990
The Happiness Patrol	The Happiness Patrol	Graeme Curry	1990
Silver Nemesis	Silver Nemesis	Kevin Clarke	1989
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	Stephen Wyatt	1989

References

1. Cartmel, Andrew (2005). Script Doctor: The Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986–89. London: Reynolds & Hearn. pp. 134–135. ISBN 1-903111-89-7.
2. "Ratings Guide". Doctor Who News. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
3. Parts Two and Three of Silver Nemesis were first broadcast in New Zealand on 25 November 1988 as part of a compilation broadcast before their UK transmission.^[4]
4. Sullivan, Shannon (7 August 2007). "Silver Nemesis". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
5. DWM433
6. "Buy Doctor Who: Ace Adventures on DVD-Video from EzyDVD.com.au".
7. "Twitter / Classic Doctor Who: GREATEST SHOW is currently". Twitter.
8. "Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy". Ezydvd.com.au. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
9. "Doctor Who DVD news: Update about Spearhead From Space: Special Edition and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy". TVShowsOnDVD.com. Retrieved 2012-07-19.