Planet of Fear

This feature previously appeared in Doctor Who Magazine issue 561, published 4 February 2021 (cover dated March 2021). It was commissioned to accompany an obituary for the writer Philip Martin, who died on 13 December 2020.

by Paul Scoones

In September 1983 Philip Martin was working on a book for the publishers A & C Black. It was called How to Write for TV and Martin planned to include in it his recent experience of writing for Doctor Who.

Just weeks earlier, he'd delivered a set of draft scripts for a story called Planet of Fear. Writing to producer John Nathan-Turner on 30 September, Martin observed that he now realised “first-hand the peculiar problems the Doctor Who phenomenon poses” adding that he hoped “to be able to pass on the fruits of my experience to other would-be writers through the medium of my book." Alas, the book never came out, denying us a detailed first-hand account of the challenges Martin faced when writing for Doctor Who.

While we don’t have that account, the complete draft scripts for Planet of Fear have survived and, alongside correspondence between Martin and the BBC, they provide an invaluable insight into the evolution of the story that ultimately became Vengeance on Varos (1985).

Most surviving Doctor Who scripts are later iterations prepared by the BBC - usually rehearsal or camera scripts - and follow a consistent format in which each scene starts at the top of a new page. Martin’s 92-page typescript from August 1983 is his own work. Each scene leads into the next without a page break and bears what are presumably Martin’s handwritten corrections.

This wasn’t the first version of the story. Martin had begun work on a four-part story titled Domain in 1982. According to BBC paperwork he delivered the first episode on 15 November 1982 and was then commissioned to write the rest, delivering them on 7 April 1983. Domain was initially planned for the 1984 series, and would have featured the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough.

Shortly after Martin delivered his scripts it was decided to hold them over for the following series, so Martin was asked to reformat the four-part story as two 45-minute episodes for the Sixth Doctor and Peri. The ‘converted scripts’ (in Martin’s words) were delivered on 11 August 1983. Martin later noted that the aim of this draft, retitled Planet of Fear, “was to maintain the pace and action of the 4 x 25 min episodes.” This the earliest known version of the story to have survived.

Colin Baker's casting as the new Doctor was still a closely guarded secret. It was unknown to Martin, who had little to go on when writing for the character. On this basis it seems reasonable to speculate that the part of the Doctor in the Planet of Fear scripts was largely unaltered from Domain, and therefore written for Peter Davison’s Doctor. The scripts refer to the companion throughout as "Perri", indicating that Martin hadn’t seen the name written down. (Peri’s introductory story, the similarly-titled Planet of Fire, was being scripted while Martin was working on his revisions.) Her role in the story is likely a condensed rewrite of the parts originally written for Tegan and Turlough.

Peri has little to do in the first episode. When the TARDIS lands on Varos the Doctor ventures out without her, and she's left behind while the Time Lord goes off with Jondar. To flesh out her role in later rewrites, some of the lines and actions originally written for the Varosian rebel Areta were reassigned to Peri. The Doctor’s companion is still inside the ship when the TARDIS is relocated to the Communications Centre, and the Varosians attempt to break into the box. Her involvement at this stage of the story is limited to observing the Doctor’s progress on the TARDIS scanner, which is trained on the Communications Centre’s array of monitor screens. 

Early in the second episode, Peri angrily storms out of the TARDIS to confront the Governor of Varos; not only has she witnessed the Doctor's apparent demise, she's also overheard the Governor’s orders to bury the TARDIS in a disused shaft if they're unable to cut it open. Lingering traces of a role originally written for Tegan can be detected in this sequence.

In the transmitted story, the Governor endures a bombardment of energy beams whenever he loses a public vote. In the Planet of Fear scripts the punishment is different. The walls of his office “rumble inwards”, threatening to crush him between them. “How much longer can I survive before the walls close completely upon me?” he speculates. The office is referred to as the Governor’s "domain" throughout the draft scripts, indicating that this was the likely meaning of the story’s original title.

The villainous Sil, Martin's most memorable creation for Doctor Who, has a surprisingly small role in Planet of Fear. Described in the script as multi-coloured and reptilian, he's limited, in the main, to conspiring with the Chief and encouraging him to act against the Governor. At the end of Vengeance on Varos Sil attempts to launch an invasion, but in Planet of Fear he has no role in the climax; his final appearance sees him goading the Chief and Quillam into hunting down the Doctor and the Governor.

At the end of Planet of Fear the deaths of the Chief and Quillam are remarkably sudden. Quillam’s memorable sadistic threats (“I want to hear them scream till I am deaf with pleasure.”) were all added in later rewrites; here, the pair meet their end with minimal dialogue when they run into the poison vines and are abruptly killed.

A friendship between Peri and the Governor is a casualty of subsequent script revisions. On screen the pair shake hands and say goodbye, but at conclusion of Planet of Fear, there’s a scene in which Peri leaves the Doctor refuelling the TARDIS to pay a visit to the Governor, wishing him “good luck and goodbye” and declining his invitation to stay on Varos.

Following the delivery of Planet of Fear, Martin had a long wait before receiving any feedback from the Doctor Who production office. Script editor Eric Saward finally responded nearly six months later, on 1 February 1984. Saward’s main concerns were the lack of scenes featuring Peri in the first episode and that the scripts were under-length, noting that a timed reading of the first part underran by 16 minutes. Martin met with Saward on 9 February to discuss the scripts and documented the changes required two days later.

Martin recorded in his notes that while he was happy to make these changes, they constututed a different brief to what he’d previously been given; they were, he pointed out, “a departure from the previous style of ‘predictable’ stories and ‘linear’ exposition of previous series so that meaningful complexity and more refined development of story and character can take place.” He was asked to read scripts and watch episodes featuring Colin Baker’s Doctor and Peri “with a view to incorporating their characteristics and foibles into the next draft”. Peri in particular needed to “be made more important and central to the development of the story," while Sil’s status was to be raised “to that of a major villain”, and the Governor rewritten as “a more rigid duty-bound public servant reflecting the officer tradition.”

The revised Planet of Fear scripts incorporating the requested changes were delivered on 13 March 1984. Saward wrote to Martin on 30 April, noting, "I think the rewrites work very well indeed and that you have brought to it a nice mix of subtlety, action and adventure." Saward was concerned, however, that the scripts were still too short and indicated to Martin that further work would be required.

Around this time Planet of Fear was renamed Vengeance on Varos to avoid confusion with the recent Planet of Fire (1984) and it was scheduled as the penultimate serial of the 1985 series - a slot ultimately occupied by Timelash. The scripts might have needed further work but were considered near enough to production-ready, because when the 1985 series’ second story (Space Whale) fell through shortly before pre-production in early May, Martin’s story was brought forward to fill the gap.

Martin delivered further rewrites during June and July. By this time, the rehearsal scripts had been printed so these revisions were supplemental or replacement pages. These late changes fleshed out Areta and Quillam’s roles and substantially expanded the poison vine sequence at the story’s conclusion.

Ironically - given earlier concerns over the scripts being too short - these additions contributed to the initial post-production edit significantly overrunning necessitating the removal of 16 minutes of material to get the story down to the correct running time.

Although the book in which he would have shared his experiences was never published, Martin was clearly undeterred by the lengthy delays and numerous rewrites. He continued to pitch ideas for further Doctor Who stories and even before Vengeance on Varos was transmitted, he was preparing a rematch for the Doctor and Sil.