Delta and the Bannermen Part Three

The one where the Doctor defeats the Bannermen using honey and an amp...

Charmless Billy is so determined to spend the rest of his life with Delta and her green daughter that he hits upon the idea of turning himself half-Chimeron by consuming the baby food. He steals some of the syringes from Delta's handbag and secretly starts sucking the alien green goo into his mouth, hoping it will make him more compatible when he comes to breed with Delta.

Billy's obsession with having a family with the insipid Delta is totally unconvincing, partly because it comes out of nowhere, and partly because neither David Kinder or Belinda Mayne have the slightest chemistry together. I don't know what's so terrible about Billy's life as a handsome motorcycling mechanic in rock 'n' roll Wales, but he seems desperate to escape it, to the point of dabbling with unknown alien foodstuffs. His aim is to help save the Chimeron race by breeding with Delta, but it's too late for that. Surely Billy can't turn 100% Chimeron, so the best that can happen is that he and Delta produce a child that is only part-Chimeron. The purity of the Chimeron race is long gone (with the death of Chima in part 1).

Delta and the Bannermen Part Two

The one where the Bannermen finally arrive...

Outside of the objective critique of this review blog, Delta and the Bannermen is in my top ten - perhaps even top five - favourite Doctor Who stories of all time. To some, perhaps even many, that is anathema, incomprehensible, abhorrent. And I see that, I get that absolutely, because it's not one of the finest slices of Doctor Who ever. It's camp and silly and a tiny bit amateurish, but what's wrong with that once in a while? Classic Doctor Who was never going to win any BAFTAs*, it was just there to entertain and amuse, and isn't that what Delta and the Bannermen does?

I think something as light-hearted and camp as Delta and the Bannermen works better contextually, following years of the grim, continuity-laden muddle Eric Saward drummed up. Sure, if you're going to dip into Delta and the Bannermen straight after watching Inferno, Genesis of the Daleks and The Caves of Androzani, of course it's going to pale in comparison, but I maintain that within context, it's a breath of welcome fresh air. And I'll die on that hill.

Delta and the Bannermen Part One

The one where the Doctor wins a holiday to Disneyland in 1959...

The story gets off to an explosive, action-packed start with a battle in a quarry on an alien planet, where a beautiful princess and her froggy friend are fighting a bunch of black-clad baddies called Bannermen. The episode really does start full-throttle, with a mad dash across a rocky landscape as the princess decides to steal her enemy Gavrok's ship. Sadly, her faithful green friend Chima is shot by Gavrok, but he manages to shoot back at his assailant before he dies proper, allowing his princess to escape.

The model work and special effects in this episode are really impressive, whether it's the Bannerman ship taking off, the moon in the alien sky, the US satellite in orbit, or the TARDIS rescuing the Nostalgia Trips space bus. It might not stand up to today's CGI wizardry, but for the BBC in 1987, it's pretty good (the effects came on in leaps and bounds in the show's final four years).