21 - The Five Doctors

Composer: Peter Howell
Director: Peter Moffatt (1995 edition overseen by Paul Vanezis)

What's the score?
And so the gap between Seasons 20 and 21 is broken by the appearance of a special feature-length story to celebrate DW's 20th anniversary. With hindsight Peter Howell, responsible for the contemporary arrangement of the theme tune, seems an obvious choice to compose the incidental music.
Twelve years later, Howell was asked to compose for the story again! 1995 saw the release on VHS of a new special edition of The Five Doctors (and for the sake of convenience, let's hereafter refer to the 1983 version of the story as the Original Edition and the 1995 version as the Special Edition). Several scenes were extended, added in from the cutting room floor or moved around for aesthetic reasons, and this necessitated a rescore. Howell agreed to adapt the original musical cues as necessary and to provide new cues for some of the new scenes. (He also took the opportunity to retouch details such as Rassilon's harp - with the benefit of more advanced synthesizers, it sounds a lot more harp-like in the Special Edition than it did in the Original Edition.) So you're getting two scores for the price of one this week, you lucky readers.
Howell's score is somewhat sparser than the average for 90 minutes of DW - less than 30 minutes in total (around 35 minutes for the longer Special Edition). A typical four-part DW story made in the '80s, running to a little over 90 minutes, will contain between 45 and 60 minutes of music. But then this isn't a four-part story, it is in effect a one-parter, and 30 minutes of music might actually have seemed generous for a single piece of television at the time.

Musical notes

• In the Original Edition, the opening theme continues as if, uniquely during the period 1981-86, it's going to launch into the middle eight (the "mouse chorus" section); instead it diverts directly into the opening cue over a scene inside the TARDIS. In the Special Edition, this scene was replaced with some establishing shots of the Tower of Rassilon, and the musical transition was lost.
• In fact, as Special Edition producer Paul Vanezis notes, the opening theme presented a rather special problem, since Vanezis wanted stereo title music and the only stereo mix Howell had to hand was "the radio version" (presumably the version included on the Doctor Who - The Music album, which had recently been used on the 1993 radio play The Paradise of Death). Missing from this mix was the washing sound that had heralded the appearance of the DW logo on screen - presumably not considered necessary without the accompanying visuals, but required for The Five Doctors. For the Special Edition, Howell added in an extra specially thunderous logo sound. It sounds almost as if he's trying to outdo the sound he added to the theme tune for Colin Baker's run - but let's not get ahead of ourselves...
• The cue that introduces the tranquil Eye of Orion is broadly similar in both editions, but in the Original Edition it included what sounded remarkably like a cheeky lift from Dudley Simpson's Blake's 7 theme tune. (A crafty way of acknowledging Simpson's enormous contribution to DW in earlier years?) Someone must have mentioned it to Howell, because in the Special Edition the cue has been rewritten without it.
• A persistent ticking sound appears in cues that play over scenes in the Timescoop control room, and later when the assembled Doctors are resisting the villainous Borusa's attempt at mind control. Your humble blogger can't decide whether it's brilliant or a bit over-literal to represent the President of the Time Lords with the sound of clockwork. 
• One of the new cues in the Special Edition is a stately harp-based piece for the establishing interior shot of the Capitol. Given the importance of Rassilon's harp later in the story, the choice of the harp here is a canny one, a nice set-up for the eventual revelation. It should be pointed out, though, that this cue doesn't bear any resemblance to the actual tune the Doctor will later pluck out on the instrument in question. 
• The first multiple Doctor scene, when the First Doctor finds and enters the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS, is accompanied by a twanging sound reminiscent of the bass line from the original arrangement of the DW theme tune. It starts out fast and on a relatively high note (the Fifth Doctor out cold on the floor), then switches to a lower note and a slower speed (the First Doctor arrives on the scene); the notes don't match up, but it could be a reference to the difference in pitch and speed between the 1981 and 1963 arrangements of the theme tune. This isn't the only theme tune reference in the score - needless to say there's an "oo-wee-oo" or two to be found, with a prominent example early on when the Third Doctor thinks he's outrun the Timescoop.
• The cues used for the Cybermen vary depending on which Doctor is appearing in their scene. When the Second Doctor and the Brigadier run across one, we get a rasping, oscillating sound very much like something Brian Hodgson might have put together in the '60s. Elsewhere, when the Cybermen confront the Fifth Doctor, Howell employs a metallic march in clear tribute to Malcolm Clarke. The only cue that connects the Cybermen to the First Doctor is the stepped bass build-up that plays as they march into a death trap inside the Tower - is it too fanciful to look for echoes of Martin Slavin's "Space Adventure" in there? (There's no precedent for the Third Doctor, who never had a Cyberman story to call his own, so we default to the '80s style with him. It may be worth noting that Howell contributed electronic music to the only '70s Cyberman story, so I guess he gets the final say in the matter.)
• The cue that plays as the Second Doctor and the Brigadier find the cave entrance to the Tower has been changed for the Special Edition: it now includes a whistling reprise of the "Above, Between, Below" nursery rhyme the Doctor sang earlier when he was telling the Brigadier about the various ways to enter the Tower.
• Fans have long joked about the Master's musical staircase: after the First Doctor and Tegan have left the chessboard room and entered the main body of the Tower, the Master is seen sneaking down a staircase behind them, and the incidental music in the TV soundtrack appears to punctuate his steps. (This effect may not have been Howell's intention, but if it were, it would be in a long and noble tradition of musical staircases stretching back to Max Steiner's music for King Kong.) But if we're talking amusing collisions of visuals and music, I prefer President Borusa's harmonica: after Borusa has told the rest of the High Council that he wants to be left alone, he puts his hands together and huffs into them, and in the Special Edition this coincides nicely with a blast from Rassilon's horn.
• The Five Doctors famously ends with the original Delia Derbyshire arrangement of the theme tune, the pitch and speed altered to bring it into line with Howell's arrangement, which takes over around the transition into the "mouse chorus".
• Fun fact: Peter Howell has said in interview that the Horn of Rassilon was a treated library sample of the Queen Mary cruise liner's horn.

Vox pop
Peter Howell has been getting experimental lately, but this of all stories demands a conventional score with one eye on the past, and Howell duly obliges. There's still opportunity enough for him to flex his musical muscles, and the result is a score that can hardly fail to please. And like the best birthday presents, it can be enjoyed time and again after the celebratory event itself.

Availability

• The BBC DVD special edition includes the full isolated scores for both versions of the story.
• Doctor Who - The Music II included a suite of music from this story.

20 - The King's Demons

Composer: Jonathan Gibbs (with lute compositions in Part One by Peter Howell)
Director: Tony Virgo

What's the score?
There's a tangled story behind this score, but the DVD production subtitles are there to talk us through it. Peter Howell was initially assigned to work on The King's Demons, and he began by writing the pieces to be played on set - or rather, to be recorded beforehand by lutenist Jakob Lindberg, and then mimed to by the actors. These included the music played in the opening scene of Part One by a minstrel (actually Lindberg himself - he isn't exactly credited for his cameo, but he does get a crew credit alongside Fight Arranger John Waller), and the King's song performed by the false King John.
Howell then had to back out of scoring The King's Demons in order to focus on other commitments, and the assignment was handed on to BBC Radiophonic Workshop newcomer Jonathan Gibbs. Gibbs thus ended up composing all the incidental music for the story, but he did take some inspiration from Howell's song, and Lindberg was brought back into the studio to provide some more lute sounds. A drummer, Tim Barry, was also called in to perform on the soundtrack - this time next year the Radiophonic Workshop will have a synthesizer that can do snare drum rolls, but at this point they have to employ a session musician.

Musical notes

• As noted, the lute music that opens Part One is not part of the incidental music (and thus not included in the isolated score on the DVD). The first incidental cue in the story plays over the start of the joust scene, and comes across as an ostentatious piece of scene-setting. Synthesized recorders, shawms and horns are added to the lute and drums - look how gosh-darned medieval we are, the music seems to say. In fact the feel of the composition is more Renaissance than 13th century, and the snare drum is anachronistic, but there's an air of heritage park historical re-enactment about the story, so it's not as out of place as it might be. And given the later revelation of the King and his champion as fakes, we might even argue that this subtle wrongness in the music is entirely appropriate.
• The King's song is also not part of the incidental score, having been played during the filming of the banquet scene in Part One, with the false King John singing and "playing" along. (Perhaps I should have put "singing" in inverted commas as well...) Gibbs doesn't make use of the lute composition that opened Part One in his score, but he does use the King's song as a motif in the immediate next cue as Sir Gilles threatens Sir Geoffrey Lacy. There's also a tinny high-pitched reprise at the moment that Kamelion is revealed in Part Two (one for the dogs and small children there).
• The use of synthesizers notwithstanding, Gibbs stays in character until the end of Part One, when the revelation of the Master thoroughly breaks the medieval atmosphere. All-out electronic sounds and weird oscillations burst free in this cue. The scenes in Part Two that feature Kamelion in his robotic form also feature some notably "alien" musical cues, in contrast with the conventional melodies that precede them.
• The downbeat cue that plays as the Master reappears in the castle dungeon in Part Two sounds mysteriously like part of the Oompa-Loompa song from the Gene Wilder film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Vox pop
A promising DW debut for Jonathan Gibbs. The story allows him to play with historical and futuristic musical forms side by side, and he proves to be comfortable with both. A solid and pleasant score to round off the season.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• Doctor Who - The Music II included a suite of music from this story.

19 - Enlightenment

Composer: Malcolm Clarke
Director: Fiona Cumming

What's the score?
Malcolm Clarke, the (re)discovery of 1982, is brought back this season to round off the "Black Guardian trilogy". There's a nautical theme to the story, which informs several of Clarke's cues. The soundscape in general is high-pitched and sparkly, tentative and mysterious much of the time, but tending towards the theatrical in dramatic moments in the final episode.

Musical notes

• Clarke doesn't continue the use of the Black Guardian theme, although like Limb, he does incorporate the “Turlough's crystal” sound effect into his score. Poor old Blacky is reduced to a grumpy descending three-note phrase that sounds strangely reminiscent of the Cybermen's theme from Earthshock. The White Guardian, meanwhile, gets a theme of his own to mark his long-awaited appearance. It's a high-pitched phrase, seven notes long, over a repeated lower-pitched four-note phrase. (Does the four-note phrase remind anyone else of the Flying Pickets cover of "Only You"?) The seven-note phrase is liberally repeated during the story whenever something Guardian-ish happens, in various forms - timid and jangling when the White Guardian is attempting to make contact with the Doctor at the start, more subdued at quiet moments in the middle, grandiose when the Guardians' pavilion is revealed in Part Four.
• Billowing, rolling sounds are used to reinforce the maritime atmosphere when the TARDIS first materialises in the hold of the 'Shadow'. More maritime flavour is provided by the jolly hornpipe-like march that represents the human deck hands. Later, when we go up on deck and see the stars, Clarke employs an ethereal choral sound that seems to suggest a combination of awe and terror.
• Several boatswain's (or bosun's) pipes are incorporated into the soundtrack (apparently one plays a pipe on the call, rather than a call on the pipe, although your humble civilian blogger welcomes corrections). The shrill whistle of the boatswain's call has been used for hundreds of years to communicate orders at sea on military ships; I've no idea whether it would have been used on a racing vessel like the 'Shadow'. The little research I've carried out suggests that - horror of horrors - the pipes heard in Enlightenment aren't entirely authentic. They should probably all be preceded by a call to attention and end with an abrupt high note, for a start.
  
  • The low-high-low pipe that announces Captain Striker's entry to dinner is the “Pipe the Side” or “Pipe Aboard” (played at twice the speed it should be). It's generally used to announce the arrival of officers or royalty on board the ship, or as a show of respect for passing vessels or those being buried at sea. Serving aperitifs probably isn't a standard occasion for its use. Then again, given the nature of the Eternals - and none of the deck hands have seen him at this point - this could literally be the moment at which Striker arrives on board. A sarcastic version of this pipe is played when the piratical Captain Wrack makes her first appearance.
  • The pip-pip-pip-warble that calls the sailors onto the deck during the race past Venus is probably meant to be some kind of “all hands on deck” or “action stations” pipe, but it doesn't bear any resemblance to any relevant pipes that I've been able to find online. Still, it sounds convincingly urgent.
  • The pipe that sounds after the ship has rounded Venus actually does start with (a close approximation of) an attention call. We then get a downward trill and a sustained high note. This isn't the “Carry On” or the “Secure Quarters”; at a push, it might be taken for the “Pipe Down”, which is usually played to announce lights out or other moments of quiet nautical reflection.
• The music heard during the party scenes on board Captain Wrack's ship is a pre-existing piece by Clarke called "The Milonga". "The Milonga" is included in the double CD release BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective - it was originally composed as the closing theme for a BBC Radio 3 programme about Jorge Luis Borges in 1979. Clarke must have been fond of the piece - thinly disguised versions of it feature on three of the five albums of Radiophonic Workshop material licensed out by BBC Enterprises to the Cavendish Music Library in 1994.
• We get a sad little burst of the DW theme tune in Part Four when Tegan thinks the Doctor's been thrown overboard.

Vox pop
Another fine score from Clarke. It doesn't have the same impact as his previous incidental scores for DW, but the more gentle tone of much of the music here shows another side to his work that suits this contemplative story.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• This is the first story to be represented by a suite of music on the Radiophonic Workshop's follow-up album, Doctor Who - The Music II.

18 - Terminus

Composer: Roger Limb
Director: Mary Ridge

What's the score?
The last of Roger Limb's "early period" scores - after this, he takes a bit of a break from DW, returning at the end of the next season with The Caves of Androzani. There's not a lot of difference between this one and Limb's score for Arc of Infinity.

Musical notes

• Limb picks up the Black Guardian theme from Paddy Kingsland's score for Mawdryn Undead. (It's Four Notes of Villainy - how could he possibly resist?) But more than this, he positively runs with it, trying out several new variations. There's a lovely mournful version at the end of Part Four after Turlough has received an unspecified horrible punishment from the Black Guardian. Curiously, Limb also takes the sound effect for the crystal the Black Guardian gave to Turlough - presumably created by Dick Mills for Mawdryn Undead - and incorporates it into his score.
• This being Nyssa's last story, it's not surprising that Limb reprises the character theme he composed for The Keeper of Traken - again, including a lovely melancholic version in Part Four. It's more surprising to hear Limb reprise Paddy Kingsland's theme for Adric in Part One, when his old room in the TARDIS becomes Turlough's new quarters. At a time when the show relied heavily on its own continuity, it's actually not all that common for the incidental composers to tap into the show's musical continuity in the way that Limb does here.
• Beyond that, it's very much business as usual for Limb. His familiar four-note phrases pop up throughout; there's even a theme - a theme! - for the Vanir. Valgard gets the gruffest and the most frequent variation of this theme.

Vox pop
So, the good news is that this is the last time I'm going to be rude about Roger Limb. The bad news is that I'm going to be rude about Roger Limb now.
What we have here is a step up from the Arc of Infinity score, at least. (I'd describe it as the "dead cat bounce" after Arc's pavement impact, except that the next time we encounter Limb the cat will miraculously rocket back into the air, so the analogy isn't going to stick.) The character moments are lovely, but they're gems scattered in the gravelly textures of Arc's synths and Limb's familiar meandering style. New ideas are wanting here - it's notable that the stand-out moments of the score have all been built on already existing cues.
But as I've pointed out before, we've come through a two-year period in which Roger Limb was called on to score at least every third story - he's been overused. The break between Terminus and The Caves of Androzani will do Limb (and us) a power of good.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.

17 - Mawdryn Undead

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Moffatt

What's the score?
This is the first of two scores Paddy Kingsland composed for DW after he left the Radiophonic Workshop and set up his own PK Studios. Despite this, I don't really think of him as the first of the freelance '80s composers - he isn't so much leading the charge of the new wave as doing a gig for his old employer while he establishes his freelance business.
The score for Mawdryn Undead is a fairly conventional affair, picked out in mid-range synths and Kingsland's trusty guitar.

Musical notes

• Turlough is introduced with a rather smug tune picked out in guitar and cheesy lounge synth. It leads into an outrageously jaunty piece of music in the early scene in Part One in which Turlough TWOCs the Brigadier's vintage car; it's heard again when Ibbotson visits him in the school sanatorium in Part One and when he returns there in Part Two. It's reprised in Part Four when the Brigadiers are dropped off in 1977 and in 1983, suggesting that it's a theme for Brendon Public School rather than a character theme. (Perhaps it's the school song, although that suggests the peculiar image of the choirmaster in a white tuxedo sat at a Bontempi organ.) It's a bit of a shame that this didn't become a recurring theme for the weaselly Turlough - instead he's overshadowed by...
• The Black Guardian's theme, a four-note minor key phrase repeated throughout this story and picked up in the next. It's generally played slowly and comes across as mysterious - although the Black Guardian isn't the most mysterious of villains, we might wonder at the motivation of Turlough as his agent.
• Scenes aboard Mawdryn's ship have a theme of their own, a descending pair of descending pairs of notes. The notes have something of a dreary sound to them; the theme itself is heavily repeated (with variations and embellishments), and the nested structure of the phrase amplifies that repetition. All of this plays up to the ship's portrayal as a sort of alien 'Flying Dutchman', doomed to drift on through eternity. Mawdryn himself is represented by a descending set of three notes.
• There's also a theme for the Brigadier - or rather, for both Brigadiers. It's varied throughout the story - sometimes it's little more than an alternation between two chords, sometimes it fills out to something more like a march, complete with snare drum ornamentation. The 1983 Brigadier gets rising chords; the 1977 Brigadier gets the inverse arrangement.
• The cue that plays over the 1983 Brigadier's flashback in Part Two is particularly lovely, and includes hints of the bass line and "oo-wee-oo" elements of the DW theme. There's another little "oo-wee-oo" in Part Four when the Doctor agrees to help Mawdryn and his fellow mutants, even though it means the loss of his own ability to regenerate.

Vox pop
As ordinary as this score is, it's nice to hear some straightforward melodic material after the heavy experimentation of Earthshock and Snakedance, not to mention the three least appealing Roger Limb scores. It is, however, extremely repetitive; the real issue may not be the frequency of repetition (well, not only that) so much as the simplicity of the motifs, which makes their repetition more obvious and more wearing. One might argue that it's appropriate for a story in which immortal characters talk about their endless suffering, but even so.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.