Delta and the Bannermen
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Template:Doctorwhobox Delta and the Bannermen is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from November 2 to November 16, 1987.
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Synopsis
A group of extra-terrestrial tourists, including the Doctor and Mel along with Delta, the last of the Chimeron race, set out to visit Disneyland in 1959, but become stranded in a Welsh holiday camp. Delta is fleeing for her life, with the evil Bannermen in hot pursuit.
Plot
Image:Delta and the Bannermen.jpg
On an alien planet the genocide of the Chimeron by the merciless Bannermen led by Gavrok is almost complete. The last survivor, Chimeron Queen Delta, escapes by the skin of her teeth clutching her egg, the future for her species. She makes it to a space tollport where the Navarinos, a race of shape changing tourist aliens, are planning a visit to the planet Earth in 1959 in a spaceship disguised as an old holiday bus. She stows aboard as do the Seventh Doctor and Mel Bush, who have won the trip as a prize for arriving in the Navarino spaceport at the right time to be declared the ten billionth customers. No sooner has the tourist vehicle blasted away than the Bannermen turn up, ruthlessly hunting down the fugitive, and they kill the Tollmaster when he refuses to co-operate.
The holiday vehicle from Nostalgia Tours meets an unfortunate collision with an American space satellite and is diverted off track, landing at a holiday camp in South Wales rather than Disneyland. However, the basic but cheerful Shangri-La holiday camp is happy to accommodate the visitors led by the ebullient Burton, who assures the travellers of a warm welcome while they wait for the driver, Murray, to repair their innocuous seeming transport. Mel gets close to Delta and uncovers the truth of her situation, including the hatching of the egg into a bright green baby that starts to grow at a startling rate. The Chimeron Queen supports this development with the equivalent of royal jelly given to bees.
Delta tries to take her mind off the situation and goes to the Shangri-La dance, instantly capturing the heart of Billy, the camp’s mechanic – and making an enemy of the smitten Rachel (or Ray), who loves Billy herself. Ray confides her situation in the Doctor, and they both stumble across a bounty hunter making contact with the Bannermen to tell them of the Chimeron’s whereabouts. It is now only a matter of time before Gavrok and his troops arrive. Delta and Billy head off on a romantic countryside ramble the following morning, but the Doctor wastes no time in persuading Burton to evacuate the camp, helping Murray repair the ship, and then heading off to find the young lovers while there is still time. Once they are found, everyone returns to the camp but the situation has become dire. The Bannermen have destroyed the Navarino bus with all its official passengers inside, taking Mel as a hostage as Gavrok tries to work out how to capture the Chimeron. The Doctor’s early attempts to intercede are futile, but he does rescue Burton and Mel from the Bannermen.
The Doctor’s party now regroups to consider its options, in the process defeating two Bannermen who are holding prisoner two ageing American agents, Hawk and Weismuller, who were tracking the missing satellite. They also make contact with the mysterious bee keeper Goronwy, who hides them for a while and then turns his bees on an advanced party of Bannermen. Goronwy also implies to Billy that royal jelly has mystical powers, provoking the mechanic to consume some in the hope of metamorphosing into a Chimeron.
At Shangri-La Gavrok has booby-trapped the outside of the TARDIS in an attempt to kill the Doctor. However, he reckons without the ingenuity of his enemies. Billy rigs up the Shangri-La sound system to amplify the perfectly pitched scream of the Chimeron child Princess – a sound which is excrutiatingly painful to Bannermen. Gavrok is so stunned he falls into the beam of the booby-trap and is incinerated, while the other Bannermen are so traumatised they can be easily rounded up. Delta and Billy leave together with the child and the prisoners, heading for an intergalactic war crimes tribunal. All is well and the next bus of holiday makers – this time human – arrive at Shangri-La as the Doctor and Mel slip away.
Cast
- The Doctor — Sylvester McCoy
- Mel Bush — Bonnie Langford
- Gavrok — Don Henderson
- Delta — Belinda Mayne
- Burton — Richard Davies
- Weismuller — Stubby Kaye
- Hawk — Morgan Deare
- Billy — David Kinder
- Vinny — Martyn Geraint
- Ray — Sara Griffiths
- Goronwy — Hugh Lloyd
- Tollmaster — Ken Dodd
- Keillor — Brian Hibbard
- Murray — Johnny Dennis
- Adlon — Leslie Meadows
- Bollit — Anita Graham
- Callon — Clive Condon
- Arrex — Richard Mitchley
- Chima — Tim Scott
- Young Chimeron — Jessica McGough, Amy Osborn
- Chimeron Princess — Laura Collins, Carley Joseph
- The Lorells — Robin Aspland, Keff McCulloch, Justin Myers, Ralph Samins
- Vocalists — Tracey Wilson, Jodie Wilson
Notes
- Working titles for this story included The Flight of the Chimeron.
- The scenes at the Shangri-La holiday camp were shot on location at the Butlins Holiday camp on Barry Island, Wales. The holiday camp is no longer there, but the island was used again, this time as a stand-in for a bomb site in 1941 London, in the 2005 series episodes The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances.
- Features guest appearance by Ken Dodd, Don Henderson, Hugh Lloyd, Richard Davies, and Hollywood stage and screen actor Stubby Kaye. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.
- The Seventh Doctor's question mark handle umbrella makes its first appearance in this story.
- The motorbike ridden by Billy in this story is a Vincent, made by British manufacturer Vincent Motorcycles.
- Sylvester McCoy can be seen wearing his glasses in certain long shots of him riding a motorcycle (consequently, the only time the Seventh Doctor is seen wearing spectacles).
- The guitar the Doctor is seen hugging at the end of the story is a Fender Stratocaster, although the model is not one available at the time the story was set.
- Keillor, the alien bounty hunter is never referred to by name in dialogue. His name is only revealed in the credits.
- The soundtrack of this serial contained a higher-than-usual number of recognizable pop songs, although due to licensing costs all were re-recorded by "The Lovells", a fictional group created by the show's incidental music composer Keff McCullough. The songs featured in the serial were: "Rock Around the Clock", "Singing the Blues", "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?", "Mr. Sandman", "Goodnight, Sweetheart", "That'll Be the Day", "Only You", "Lollipop", "Who's Sorry Now?", and "Happy Days Are Here Again".
- A novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm Kohll, was published by Target Books in January 1989.