37 - Terror of the Vervoids (The Trial of a Time Lord, Parts Nine to Twelve)

Composer: Malcolm Clarke
Director: Chris Clough

What's the score?
Here, then, is the Radiophonic Workshop's last stand. Malcolm Clarke is the last Workshop member to compose incidental music for DW on TV, although Dick Mills will continue to provide special sound for the rest of the classic series. The Terror of the Vervoids score isn't a radical departure from his previous work on DW - the cliffhanger cues are more restrained, and there's more of a tendency overall towards tunefulness with the most discordant moments reserved for the monsters, but it's recognisably Clarke.

Musical notes

• Clarke can generally be relied upon to deliver the appropriate signature sound for a monster, provided the monster is sufficiently distinctive. Presented with bipedal vegetables, he produces a sound that can best be described as "planty". It's a sort of strained, high-pitched, fibrous sound, like someone wincing through a grass reed, with some woody ticks and pocks added for emphasis. It isn't heard until Part Two, after the Vervoids have emerged from their pods, but it's heard over most of their scenes thereafter. A couple of frailer clicks and knocks punctuate the dying gasps of the Vervoids in the penultimate cue of Part Four.
• Other signature sounds include: ethereal washes for scenes of the Hyperion III floating through space; bassoon meanderings and persistent knocking sounds for anyone creeping around where they shouldn't be; and high fluting phrases for Mel, who gets plenty to do in this story and gets plenty of music to go with it. Clarke doesn't continue here his earlier use (in The Twin Dilemma and Attack of the Cybermen) of the harpsichord for the Doctor, who gets mid-range reed instrument sounds if he gets anything.
• In general, the music is saved for scenes of the Doctor's adventure on the Hyperion III, with very little spared for the courtroom scenes. The only notable courtroom cues, apart from the very last cue of Part Four, are the high, anxious phrases that play in Parts One and Three when the Doctor complains that the recorded evidence has been tampered with but is forced to withdraw the accusation. 
• The cue that plays when an anonymous infiltrator aboard the Hyperion III sends the Doctor a distress signal in Part One is a repeated series of rising notes in a rather plasticky mid-range synth voice. When we hear this cue again in the next scene, as the signal is picked up inside the TARDIS, it's muted, as though the incidental music is being diegetically relayed through the TARDIS console's speakers. Readers may recall that Clarke did something very similar in Part One of Earthshock; we might also call to mind Peter Howell's "inside the room, outside the room" game in Part Three of Planet of Fire.
• Clarke makes a bold guess at the sound of the aerobics music of the future - he seems to have taken his inspiration from the tinny tunes of the Japanese video games of the mid-80s. By an extraordinary coincidence, whichever of Mel or the Doctor was responsible for acquiring the horrible piece the Doctor exercises to inside the TARDIS in Part One seems to have shopped at the same place as whoever stocked the Hyperion III's gym.

Vox pop
This isn't a bad score, nor is it a stand-out - it's simply OK. Malcolm Clarke gives a fair account of himself, but this isn't the triumphant high note the BBC Radiophonic Workshop might have gone out on. It isn't even the magnificent return to form we might have expected from Clarke after the partial upswing of his Attack of the Cybermen score. It's ordinary, but for me the problem isn't so much its ordinariness as the absence of anything really fresh. The Workshop has provided incidental music for DW for six years at this point - leaving aside the question of relative costs, it would be reasonable for viewers (and the producer) to expect the show's musical repertoire to move with the times. (Notwithstanding Dudley Simpson's near-residency prior to 1980, or the approach taken with DW's incidental music since 2005...) Penned in by the shiny new work of freelance composers, this score only feels more dated.
On which petulant note, this blog says farewell to Malcolm Clarke. Some fans criticise his early DW scores for being too challenging to the casual TV viewer, but for me that's their strength - they've got something to say about the story they're attached to, they want to be heard, and they won't take no for an answer. He was at his best when indulging his experimental tastes, and I think he's best remembered that way.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release does not include the isolated score for this story; the photo gallery features nearly six minutes of Clarke's music.

29 - Attack of the Cybermen

Composer: Malcolm Clarke
Director: Matthew Robinson

What's the score?
Malcolm Clarke returns and, for the last time, musical continuity is maintained across seasons. As it's a Cyberman story and Clarke scored the last one of those - and as Clarke scored the previous story Matthew Robinson directed - he's an obvious choice here. Unsurprisingly, the music he composed for Earthshock provides the model for some of this score, but there's plenty of new material thrown into the mix.

Musical notes

• As in The Twin Dilemma, the harpsichord represents the Doctor. Here we get a sort of bad-tempered clock chime alternating with jollier moments at the start of Part One - the Doctor's still having mood swings, but he's properly himself this time.
• One prominent recurring theme in this story is the one that introduces the bank heist gang - reintroduces, in the case of Lytton. Variations of it play in scenes featuring Lytton and/or members of his gang in the sewers and on Telos - there's a mournful version over his final appearance in Cyber Control. It's a strangely jaunty piece, intended perhaps to reinforce the idea that most of the gang are cheeky London wideboys caught out of their depth. (It starts to grate on my nerves pretty quickly, mind you.)
• The cue for Halley's Comet - stately horns over sparkly synths - that plays in both episodes is based on Clarke's own composition for the 1981 BBC programme The Comet Is Coming! This hour-long documentary featured inserts scripted by Nigel Calder that starred Tim Brooke-Taylor as Halley's ghost and Leo McKern as the Voice of the Comet. You couldn't make it up. The original four minute composition is included in the double CD release BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective. 
• This is a score full of references - in this sense, it's well suited to a story so obsessed with in-series continuity. Besides the Comet cue, we have: the cue for the clone policemen reprised from Resurrection of the Daleks (which may or may not be based on a TV show theme tune); an obvious homage to the Steptoe & Son theme as the setting of IM Foreman's junk yard is introduced; and a phrase from JS Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor which the Doctor plays diegetically on the TARDIS in its temporary new form as a church organ, and which is continued in the incidental music as the Doctor and Peri explore the junk yard. Tat Wood, in About Time vol 6, suggests that Lytton's heist theme is intended as some sort of musical reference to Gangsters, another well-known BBC series to feature actor Maurice Colbourne. However, your humble blogger has watched all of Gangsters (so you don't have to) and can't hear any real musical resemblance. 
• Although Clarke makes extensive reference to his own score for Earthshock, he doesn't just quote cues but develops them as well. The famous March of the Cybermen is reprised liberally throughout the story, in its original form and with variations - there's a kind of "ultimate smackdown" version in Part Two when we get our first sight of the Cyber Tombs on Telos. It's also worth noting the six-note "time travel" motif that appeared in Earthshock when the freighter was slipping back in time, which is reprised here when the Cybermen force the Doctor to take them to their future base on Telos in the TARDIS.
• The delicate Cryons, liable to evaporate entirely if they get too warm, are represented by appropriately ethereal sounds throughout Part Two. Most of their cues consist of "wooo" sounds in down-up-down-up stepping sequences, with icy sparkling ornamentation. There are a couple of particularly lovely examples in the scenes of Flast preparing to sacrifice herself in order to blow up Cyber Control.
• This season of DW, and Attack of the Cybermen in particular, came in for heavy criticism of its violent content - could the incidental music have contributed to the critics' perception of the series? Clarke is certainly prone to lashing out musically whenever he sees a cliffhanger coming, and when the Doctor dispatches a Cyberman in this story, that too is accompanied by a particularly cacophonous cry of alarm from Clarke. The incidental music goes into a full-on killitkillitkillit! frenzy when the Doctor is cornered by the Cyber Controller and guns him down in Part Two - might this scene seem less shocking with different music?

Vox pop
If any story demands that Malcolm Clarke repeat himself, it's this one, so I can't really hold this score up as further evidence of staleness after his previous two. In fact, Clarke's work here is surprisingly fresh considering how reference-heavy it is. Season 22 is one of the most musically diverse seasons of DW - five different composers across six stories - and for my money, musically one of the best seasons, and this score gets it off to a good start.

Availability

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

28 - The Twin Dilemma

Composer: Malcolm Clarke
Director: Peter Moffatt

What's the score?
For the first and only time, Malcolm Clarke provides two scores in the same year. This one, like the one for Resurrection of the Daleks, is largely atmospheric and full of growling bass sounds. However, there are no grandiose moments of the sort that brightened up Clarke's previous scores, and dramatic moments are largely reserved for the cliffhangers and scenes in which the Doctor has a funny turn and attacks someone. This is a small, intimate score.

Musical notes

• Let's first take note of the theme tune, which has been tweaked, as has the title sequence. In response to the new showier reveal of the DW logo, Peter Howell has replaced his original faint washing sound with a noise that I like to call "the thunder ripple". This brasher logo sound is of a piece with the more colourful title sequence and the boisterous new Doctor. The thunder ripple will remain in place throughout the next season, following which we'll have a whole new theme arrangement to listen to.
• The backbone of The Twin Dilemma's incidental score is provided by a childlike waltzing motif that is repeated liberally throughout the story. It plays over the introductory scenes of the Sylvest twins in Part One and becomes an all-purpose theme for them, but a harpsichord version of it can also be heard as the Doctor attempts to rewire the transmat on Titan III at the end of Part Two. We might think of it as the "maths genius" theme.
• As noted, then, the harpsichord represents the Doctor in this story. It's jaunty when he's in a good mood - there's a pronounced flourish when he delightedly produces The Coat from the TARDIS wardrobe. It steps hesitantly when he's preparing to stroll out onto the surface of Titan III. It startles when he's surprised by an armed guard in Part Two. When the Doctor bursts into a fit of anger, the harpsichord is replaced with more straightforward roars and clangour - we might take this as an attempt by Clarke to reassure us that this isn't the "real" Doctor we're seeing. Clarke alternates between the two musical voices to underscore the Doctor's mood swings in the TARDIS scenes in Part One. 
• The other synth voice to listen out for is the sad, reedy sound of the oboe, representing the sad, reedy figure of Azmael. It's most notable in Part Two when he gets some of his most contemplative scenes, and during his final scenes in Part Four. 
• We get a couple of "oo-wee-oo" moments in this story, to reassure us again that we're still watching DW. The first one, high and fluting over a pom-pom-pom bassline, is heard as we finally see the Doctor dressed in his eye-searing new costume; there's also one rendered in double bass at the end of Part Four over the line "I am the Doctor, whether you like it... or not!"
• In a surprising moment of musical continuity, when the Doctor briefly addresses Peri as "Tegan" in Part Two, Clarke reprises Tegan's departure cue from Resurrection of the Daleks. Finally, she gets a theme - after she's left the show! This is the last time in DW's original run that a companion will be referenced across stories with a specific musical theme.
• Sinister low-end growlings accompany scenes of Mestor, his palace on Jaconda, and indeed most of the rest of the story.

Vox pop
Back when we dealt with Time-Flight, I pondered whether a bad story could drag a good composer down. In fact there are several examples in DW of composers rising above poor visual material to provide solid incidental scores, but Malcolm Clarke really does seem to be struggling with The Twin Dilemma. In fairness to him, what is there for him to work with? Giant slugs? Annoying precocious twins? He's a concept composer - witness the watery burbling of The Sea Devils, the metallic clangour of Earthshock, the maritime whimsy of Enlightenment - and here he's given a story without a concept to latch on to. It's tempting to suggest that the grumbling sounds that pervade The Twin Dilemma reflect his mood at the time. But this score feels like a very half-hearted job; between this and the tried-and-tested character of the Resurrection of the Daleks score, it feels as if Clarke is running out of steam.

Availability

• The BBC DVD does not include the isolated score for this story, but does include a photo gallery featuring eight minutes of Malcolm Clarke's music.

25 - Resurrection of the Daleks

Composer: Malcolm Clarke
Director: Matthew Robinson

What's the score?
Originally scripted in four episodes, this story was retooled as two 50-minute episodes in order to make room for coverage of the Olympic Games. The director took the opportunity to move some scenes around to improve the narrative flow of the story. The four-parter and two-parter edits have both now been released on DVD. No significant changes were made to the incidental score in the re-edit, but because these two versions of the story exist, we have to be careful about which bit of the story we mean when we talk about "Part Two". This blog will treat the story as a four-parter (I had to check the extra cliffhanger reprises, you understand).
It's the Daleks' big comeback story - their first (barring the cameo in The Five Doctors) since John Nathan-Turner became the show's producer - and Malcolm Clarke is assigned to compose the music. He's already worked on one big monster comeback story, namely Earthshock, so perhaps he was considered the natural choice for this one. The Daleks are, of course, "bubbling lumps of hate"™, so growling and hissing sounds abound. Although there are motifs and notable cues to be found, the score generally tends towards the abstract.

Musical notes

• The first and probably most reprised cue in the score is the grim, off-key piece that accompanies the establishing shot of a warehouse in present-day London. This will become a theme for any kind of activity at the warehouse, sometimes played straight and sometimes adapted into other cues. There's a particularly twisted, sneering version early in Part Three as the bomb disposal team, who've all now been replaced with Dalek replicas, mill about the place.
• For a story about martial aliens, marches are the order of the day. The opening cue segues into a particularly riotous example as Commander Lytton and his clone policemen massacre the fugitives who've appeared from inside the warehouse. A far grungier, growlier march is used several times for action scenes that feature the Daleks or (less frequently) their shock troops - it hits a clangorous peak in Part One when the Daleks storm the space station in which Davros is being held prisoner.
• There are a couple of amusing cues for the character of Stein. A twinkly mecha-theme is heard whenever he fights to overcome his Dalek conditioning, as if he were some kind of robot. In Part Four, when he heroically hurls himself onto the space station's big self-destruct button, Clarke lets rip with a cheesy fanfare. 
• It's been a few stories since we had a good, solid "oo-wee-oo"; there's one here in Part Four when the Doctor finally returns from the space station to the warehouse. 
• The harmonica tune that plays over the parting scene of the clone policemen sounds as if it's a reference of some sort. It sounds structurally similar to the theme from Z-Cars, but it isn't quoting directly from it; your humble blogger suspects it could be a variation on the theme from Softly, Softly, a Z-Cars spin-off reported to have had a theme tune in a similar vein, but sadly I'm completely unable to find a recording of that online so can't check my hunch. Reader input on this point would be most welcome.
• Perhaps the highlight of the score is the sad, fluting tune that plays in Tegan's farewell scene at the end of Part Four. It's heard earlier in Part Four as well, when the TARDIS returns Tegan and Turlough to the warehouse in the Doctor's absence, so it's not so much a theme for Tegan at long last as a "without the Doctor" theme. (I'm pretty sure it's actually a variation on the massacre cue from Part One, but the resemblance isn't clear enough for me to press the point.)

Vox pop
Well, this is a solid score from Malcolm Clarke - perhaps not a great listen in isolation, but a fine fit for the TV episodes. But still... isn't it just a little bit similar to the work Clarke did for Earthshock? I've already mentioned the banging, clanging march of the Daleks, and the opening massacre cue has a certain... cybernetic quality to it as well. The cue that plays when Galloway is shot by a Dalek trooper in Part One could be dropped into any number of "lurking menace" scenes in Earthshock without the least difficulty, and the overall musical textures of the Earthbound scenes and those set on the space station/freighter are a close fit in both stories too. It's hardly unusual for composers on DW to fall back on familiar sounds over time, but it seems unusual for Clarke, whose scores up to this point have all had such distinct characters. I suppose it would be too much of a stretch for me to suggest an intentional musical comment on the increasing interchangeability of the Daleks and Cybermen as DW monsters...

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.

13 - Earthshock

Composer: Malcolm Clarke
Director: Peter Grimwade

What's the score?
A decade after he last worked on DW, Malcolm Clarke returns to the show. His previous score, for 1972's The Sea Devils, was a wild experiment in sonic textures; his score for Earthshock retains some of that textural playfulness, with echoing sepulchral tones during scenes in the caves, cold electronic washes in the space freighter, and an assortment of mechanical system noises depicted in the incidental music. The Cybermen themselves are represented throughout by exaggerated footfalls, particularly when marching, and by the sound of metal girders being struck.
Rather than express himself at length, Clarke peppers the soundtrack with short cues - a common approach the previous year, an oddity in 1982, but very much a trademark of stories directed by Peter Grimwade. The average cue count per episode is nearly double that of any other story in this season.

Musical notes

• The Adric theme composed by Paddy Kingsland makes a couple of reappearances during this story. It first pops up in Part One as Adric talks about going home, in more or less its original form. A sadder version debuts in the middle of Part Four when the Doctor and Adric part company, and plays again at the end as a little requiem.
• In a change from our regular "oo-wee-oo", Clarke uses a more substantial quote from the theme tune in his score. It's first heard in Part One when the troopers spot the Doctor's alien pulse on their scanner. A different version plays in Part Two when the Cyberleader recognises the image of the TARDIS. (There's also a quick "oo-wee-oo" later in Part Two as the Doctor explores the freighter's cargo hold.) There's a partial quote in Part Four when the freighter travels back in time to collide with prehistoric Earth, which seems to serve much the same function as the theme quote at the end of The Visitation, as a wry acknowledgement of the Doctor's part in historical events.
• Over the discussion of dinosaur bones in Part One, Clarke plays a cheeky quote from the "Fossils" section of Saint-Saëns' "Carnival of the Animals". It's echoed a moment later when we see Adric watching the others talk about fossils on the TARDIS scanner - between this and the theme tune quotes in Parts One and Two, there's a bit of a motif in this story of us watching characters watching the Doctor on a screen, which Clarke seems to have picked up on.
• The star of the score is the Cybermen's marching theme. It features prominently in Parts Three and Four, building on elements laid out over earlier scenes of the Cyberleader in Parts One and Two. It's prefigured in scenes of the androids in Part One - the descending three-note phrase can be clearly heard in the cue that plays between Adric's scene in the TARDIS and the rockfall in the caves.
• The end credits of Part Four roll in silence, to mark the death of a major character. Producer John Nathan-Turner famously borrowed this gimmick from Coronation Street, which had sent off a popular character with silent credits in 1964 and repeated the trick several times since.

Vox pop
In one of the musically least remarkable seasons, Clarke's experimentalism comes as a breath of fresh air - there could hardly be a better time to welcome him back to DW. His use of metallic sounds for the Cybermen is inspired, and this together with his clinical use of sound in the freighter scenes and Dick Mills' heavy breathing sound effects really brings the monsters to life. The whole score is a fine demonstration of how the incidental music can be made to help tell the story. Listened to in isolation, it's unlikely to be to everyone's taste (although certainly to your humble blogger's), but it's a tailor-made fit for Earthshock.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• Three tracks represented this story on Doctor Who - The Music. "Subterranean Caves" was a collection of cues from Part One (of Scott's troopers entering the caves, a rockfall and the Cybermen's androids following the troopers) joined together by Dick Mills' sound effects. "Requiem" was a short cue from Part One that played after Scott's troopers were killed by androids. "March of the Cybermen" was a five-minute composite of several cues from the end of Part Three and the final cue from Part One.