24 - Frontios

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Ron Jones

What's the score?
Paddy Kingsland returns to compose his final score for DW. His now-legendary electric guitar doesn't get a look in, which is a surprise and a bit of a shame, but there's plenty of exposure for that exotic, hip new sound that's all the rage: the pan pipes.

(The British band Incantation had scored a surprise hit two years earlier with "Cacharpaya", a South American-flavoured tune played on Andean folk instruments; pan pipe cover albums would be all over British record shop shelves in the '90s. Kingsland would appear to have had his finger on the pulse with this score.)

The overall feel of the score is a bit grim, a bit melancholy, which is a fair fit for the story's setting on the last human colony. As usual, Kingsland makes good use of motifs, with a few character sounds mixed in as well.

Musical notes

• The first of this story's many motifs is the set of three descending notes that stands for Captain Revere. It plays in the opening cue of Part One when Revere vanishes; it makes a strident return at the end of Part Three when Revere is revealed as the power source in the Tractators' excavating machine.
• The remaining representatives of authority on Frontios have a staccato theme in snare drum and horns. The snare drum seems particularly drawn to the militaristic figure of Brazen, but this motif is also heard when Plantagenet addresses the colonists in Part One and when the rebellious Retrogrades take control of the colony ship in Part Four.
• Most memorable of all is the pan pipe motif that first plays as the TARDIS arrives on Frontios. It seems to stand for the hope of the colonists - it attaches itself to the youthful Norna in the scenes in which she confides in Turlough in Part Two and is menaced by the Retrogrades at the start of Part Four, but it's also heard over the TARDIS' departure as well as its arrival. Other phrases on the pan pipes are variously heard over scenes of Tegan, Turlough, the Doctor and Norna, and even in the scene of Mr Range entering the tunnels in Part Three accompanied by Brazen and his snare drum. 
• Lurking behind the cues in Part One of Norna leading Tegan and Turlough to the supply room in search of an acid battery and of the three sneaking the battery out of the colony ship is a faint touch of church organ. It's a nice way of reinforcing the sanctity of the colony ship to the colonists, who guard it as if it were a shrine.
• The Tractators have a theme and a signature sound. Their theme is a pensive four-plus-four-note up-and-down affair, first heard in Part Three when Turlough's race memories come to the surface. It's played in various other scenes relating to the Tractators' activities, sometimes in plain synth (when Turlough starts to remember them, for instance), and sometimes in combination with their signature sound (such as when Tegan discovers parts of the TARDIS scattered across their underground tunnels).
• Their sound is something like a hammered dulcimer, although it could simply be some variety of bass guitar. (Given the Tractators' peculiar powers of control over gravity, your humble blogger is tempted to attempt a joke about "string theory". No? Please yourselves.) The first hints of this sound are heard during Captain Revere's disappearance and the meteoric bombardment, both later revealed to have been caused by the Tractators. There's a secondary motif, a stringy "da-dum dum dum da-dum", that emerges in Part Two when Brazen finds out about Mr Range's records of Deaths Unaccountable - all caused by the Tractators - and when the creatures finally make their appearance at the end of the episode.
• Also in the cue at the end of Part Two is an intriguing downward "beowww" noise. It pops up again twice in Part Four, when the enslaved Captain Revere is pronounced dead and when the Tractators capture Turlough. The significance of this sound remains a mystery to yours truly. Something to do with the Tractators' gravity effect? But then why doesn't it feature in the story's denouement?

Vox pop
The unusual choice of pan pipes really sets this score apart from those around it, and puts a new spring in Kingsland's musical step. If his scores for The Visitation and Mawdryn Undead were a little hum-ho, this one's a return to form.

And so Paddy Kingsland leaves the stage - among the first of the '80s DW composers, and now the first out. I've commented often enough on the repetitive tendencies of some of his scores, but perhaps I haven't said often enough just how lovely his compositions have been. Certainly none of his seven (and a bit!) scores are what I would call unpleasant, and the double bill of Logopolis and Castrovalva ranks among the pinnacles of electronic Who music. His accessible melodies have always been a great complement to the experimental stylings of other composers, and I've often detected - or believed I detected - a cheeky edge of wryness in his work. I mean it in the best possible way when I say that I think of his DW scores as "comfort music".

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.

11 - The Visitation

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Moffatt

What's the score?
Paddy Kingsland's other contribution to this season, after (or before?) Castrovalva. The DVD release of this story offers an amusing difference of opinion between composer and director. In interview with Mark Ayres, Kingsland says that Peter Moffatt was his favourite director because of the clear instructions and positive response he gave; meanwhile, on the commentary track (just as the end credits for Part Two are rolling), Moffatt announces his dislike of the "turgid" score for this story, on the grounds that its synthesized sound isn't a suitable match for the historical setting.
In an effort to match the historical setting that apparently didn't satisfy Peter Moffatt, Kingsland employs harpsichord, drum and recorder sounds. The harpsichord, together with the generally sombre tone, has the side effect of making parts of this score sound quite similar to his score for Logopolis.

Musical notes

• The cliffhanger to Part One (and its reprise in Part Two) could almost be a quote from Part Four of Logopolis - the cue that plays as the Doctor's companions find themselves cornered by the Terileptil android sounds remarkably like the cue that played as the Doctor began to fall off the Pharos telescope.
• And it's not just Logopolis breaking through in this score. The bubbling sound from Full Circle makes several repeat appearances here, generally in scenes that take place below the manor house - of the Terileptil experimenting in the control room, for example, or of any activity in the cell. The significance of this sound to these scenes is a mystery to your humble blogger.
• A prominent feature of this score is Kingsland's use of the drum in dramatic/confrontational scenes, typically in 4-beat or 5-beat phrases. Notable examples of the Fight Scene Knock can be heard during the showdown between the Squire's family and the Terileptils at the start of Part One, the woodland rumble between the TARDIS crew and the villagers in Part One, the confrontation between the villagers and the Doctor and Richard Mace in Part Three, and the big fight against the Terileptils in Part Four.
• There's another prominent theme in this score, a kind of earnest pavane, but it's not obvious whether it's supposed to stand for a particular character or group of characters. It seems to adhere to Richard Mace, but it's significantly absent from his introductory scene. It plays in several scenes that feature the mind-controlled villagers, but not consistently. It may simply be a mood piece, included for historical flavour.
• With the period setting in mind, Kingsland holds the electric guitar firmly in check, but it finally kicks in during the ruckus towards the end of Part Four.
• This week's "oo-wee-oo" moment is reserved for the very end of the final episode, as the TARDIS fades away to reveal the "Pudding Lane" street sign and the fact that the Doctor's just started the Great Fire of London. It seems to carry the force of a comic fanfare - d'oh, you've done it again, Doctor! Part Four of Earthshock will feature a similar musical moment.

Vox pop
Peter Moffatt may have overstated it somewhat, but I think it'd be fair to say that this is below average fare from Paddy Kingsland. The repeated knocking sounds are interesting, the underground bubbling sounds bewildering, the period theme pleasant if a little wearing, but mostly this score seems to meander along until Kingsland picks up the pace (and his electric guitar!) in the final minutes of Part Four. It's a comfortable fit for the story, but in isolation it's not a knockout.

Availability

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

8 - Castrovalva

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Fiona Cumming

What's the score?
Owing to a late substitution of scripts, Castrovalva went into production nearly four months after The Visitation, the other story in this season scored by Paddy Kingsland. It's not clear to me which of the two stories Kingsland actually scored first: a 2010 interview for the Adventures in Time, Space and Music podcast suggests that he did them in broadcast order, while a 2003 interview for the DVD release of The Visitation suggests (more by implication than by anything Kingsland himself says) that he did them in production order.
Whatever the case, of the two, Castrovalva's score feels like more of a step forward. Although Kingsland's recognisable style provides some continuity here with Logopolis, The Visitation has more in common musically with Logopolis (and with other Kingsland scores) than Castrovalva does.

In keeping with Castrovalva's restful reputation, this score is quite relaxed and soothing - it's the calm after Logopolis' storm. Even the big dramatic moments are comparatively laid-back. Soft, simple synth tones and uncomplicated flute sounds are the order of the day. The electric guitar takes charge in moments of excitement; in between, it bides its time with quiet slides. Even the structure of the score is relaxed, with lengthy cues and long gaps between them. This is a marked contrast with what Peter Grimwade asked Kingsland to provide for Logopolis, and also with the other DW stories directed by Fiona Cumming.

Musical notes

• Before the opening credits roll, there's a cut-down reprise of the regeneration scene from Part Four of Logopolis. Kingsland modifies his cue from that scene to take account of the re-editing; he also peps up the regeneration itself and drops the "oo-wee-oo" from the end.
• The Master has a signature sound in Part One, a sort of bad-tempered electric outburst that plays over shots of his TARDIS hovering over the Pharos complex and of the interior of his TARDIS. The rhythm of the cue, but not the bad-tempered sound, is used again when the Master is unmasked in Part Four.
• The discovery of the Doctor's new cricketing clothes is greeted with a noble, pastoral march that one imagines the MCC would be proud to make use of.
• This week's "oo-wee-oo" moment arrives in Part Two, while Nyssa is trying to help the Doctor by unscrewing the Zero Room doors. It plays just as one of the doors falls across the Doctor and briefly brings him back to his senses.
• Our first sight of the Dwellings of Simplicity on Castrovalva in Part Two is greeted with a plain, gentle piping tune. This theme recurs during the rest of the story, with increasingly twisted variations as the topography of the Dwellings falls in on itself; the plain theme is heard once more at the end of Part Four as the Doctor returns to his own dwelling, the TARDIS.
• Shots of the Portreeve's tapestry are accompanied by a twinkly theme that's a subtle variation on part of the Dwellings theme.
• Although the guitar theme that plays while the Doctor and his friends try to escape from Castrovalva in Parts Three and Four has its merits, my favourite part of this score is the cue that's heard during the procession with the Zero Cabinet to the Portreeve's house in Part Four. It's probably a little excessive for the scene, but it does have a very nice quiet bass echo as the Doctor drags Shardovan off to one side.

Vox pop
The long, well developed cues make this a more coherent listening experience than most DW scores, and restful though it may be, it's not without incident. Lighter and more upbeat, it's a fine counterpart to Logopolis' gloomy score; importantly, it also offers plenty of support to the visuals of the story. On any given day I'd have to flip a coin to say whether this or Logopolis is my favourite Paddy Kingsland score.

Availability

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

7 - Logopolis

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Grimwade

What's the score?
Paddy Kingsland plays out the Fourth Doctor in a story written by script editor Christopher H Bidmead; Kingsland would end up scoring all three of Bidmead's DW stories. The electric guitar is all over this one, alongside harpsichord and solemn synth tones. It's a sombre score for a sombre story.

Musical notes

• Tegan doesn't have a theme. There are a couple of strong contenders - the flighty cue that plays twice in Part One with Aunt Vanessa, the brittle music-box piece that plays twice in Part Two while Tegan explores the TARDIS - but none are taken up by any of the Radiophonic Workshop composers during the three years of Tegan's tenure as a regular character. Incidentally, this week's first "oo-wee-oo" moment comes at the end of the repeated cue in Part One, when we cut back from Tegan to the TARDIS. Our second "oo-wee-oo" comes later in Part One, when the Doctor first sees the Watcher.
• There's a little reprise from Full Circle when the Doctor stumbles across Romana's old room. It's the cue that played while Romana was sulking about being called back to Gallifrey, just before the TARDIS fell into E-Space.
• There's a peculiar bit of action music in Part Two when Adric falls over a bicycle in order to help the Doctor escape from a couple of police officers. It's got the same "wakka-wakka" guitar sound that you might hear on gritty cop shows like The Sweeney or The Professionals - Kingsland seems to be inviting us to laugh at these not-so-gritty cops.
• There's a theme for Logopolis that plays several times, with slight variations, throughout Parts Two and Three. It's a sombre, monastic piece, which makes it a good fit for the sombre, monastic Logopolitans. It's anticipated a couple of times in Part One when Logopolis is mentioned in conversation. A snare drum creeps in at the start of Part Three as the Logopolitans struggle with the effects of the Master's sabotage. The last variant plays near the end of Part Three with an unsettling key change in the middle, as Logopolis begins to die.
• Much of Part Four is taken up with a funky harpsichord/bass/woodwind chase theme, as various parties try to make their way across the grounds of the Pharos Project without being caught by the security guards. Like the escape theme in Part Two, it's got a bit of that cop show feel to it.
• In the moments before the Doctor's fall from the Pharos radio telescope, Kingsland builds up the tension in an ascending series of chords; there's what might best be described as an anguished cry over the fall itself. (Or perhaps it's that seagull from Bergerac again?)
• The final cue deserves a close listen. It follows the camera down with a descending scale of quiet chimes, landing on a low pulsing sound. The montage of former companions is accompanied by a pensive flute melody, followed by a brief pause for the Doctor's last line; there's then a more confident rising phrase in pipe and woodwind sounds as the Doctor regenerates. Naturally, there's one last "oo-wee-oo" to finish with. It's a gentle farewell to the Fourth Doctor and an optimistic welcome to the Fifth. In fact, it's the most sensitive musical send-off any Doctor has had, in your humble blogger's opinion. We won't hear its like again in a regeneration story - from here on out, the Doctors will be sent off in a blaze of sound and fury, to match the explosive visuals of future regenerations.

Vox pop
This score, and in particular the closing few minutes, is a thing of beauty. The one objection I might raise is that the chase music in Part Four gets awfully repetitive - an issue that will itself be repeated in subsequent Paddy Kingsland scores. But this really is a fine send-off for Tom Baker, and the icing on the cake is that Kingsland will be around to smooth the way for Peter Davison's first story too.

Availability

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

4 - State of Decay

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Moffatt

What's the score?
The first story in production order to be scored by Paddy Kingsland, although not his first transmitted work for DW. Once again he uses woodwind sounds, lyricism and repeated motifs. The woodwind sounds are pitched lower this time, more like the oboe or bassoon than Full Circle's flute.

Musical notes

• Remember the "TARDIS flying through space" cue from Full Circle? There's a very similar cue in Part One over the very similar shot of the TARDIS flying through E-Space. A side-by-side comparison illustrates nicely the different timbre and texture of the two scores.
• There's a bit of a Hitchhiker's Guide moment in Part One when the Doctor accesses the Hydrax's databanks. I'm prepared to guess that this is one computer sound effect that Kingsland provided himself.
• The end of Part One features the sound that I like to call the "singing owl". It's that theremin-like sound that's routinely used in film and TV as shorthand for "spooky". The owl sings while the Doctor and Romana fight their way through the woods pursued by a swarm of vampire bats. However, it doesn't feature in the reprise in Part Two...
• It's not uncommon for DW composers to rework their music from the end of one episode at the start of the next, either to extend cues to bridge gaps in the soundtrack or in response to re-edited visuals. This kind of recap switcheroo tends to happen at the start of the final episode of a story, when a strong musical entrance is needed. Here, Kingsland performs pretty much the same composition in Part Two that he used in Part One, but he changes the sound palette: the singing owl is gone, replaced with rumbling bass tones. The owl sings again at the end of Part Three when Zargo shows off his vampire strength by hurling a man across a room.
• My favourite cue from this story is the sombre theme from Part Three that plays as the Doctor returns to the TARDIS to check his records on vampires. It's heroic in a grim, determined sort of way, which I feel gives us a plausible impression of the Doctor's state of mind at this point.
• The latter half of Part Four is dominated by one simple musical phrase, repeated in descending tones. It plays at some length over the shots of the vampires aging and crumbling to dust. The repetition of a motif in the latter part of a story is something I associate with Kingsland's scores, and although on this occasion it's not exactly overpowering, it's indicative of stronger examples to come.

Vox pop
Although this is another pleasant score from Paddy Kingsland, I can't help feeling that it's the Full Circle score's poor relation. It's less vibrant - Kingsland always sounds more alive when he's working at the treble end of the sonic spectrum. (Perhaps there's a comment to be made here about the aptness of a less lively score for a story about the undead.) His electric guitar is pretty notable by its absence too. It's a good score, but not one I'd consider essential.

Availability

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

3 - Full Circle

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Grimwade

What's the score?
Full Circle is the first story to be transmitted with an incidental score provided solely by Paddy Kingsland - State of Decay was produced earlier, but transmitted after this one. This, and his work on the following story, gives Kingsland the chief responsibility for designing the musical feel of E-Space, as well as musically introducing the new companion, Adric.
Kingsland's score is lyrical and makes strong use of repeated motifs. He tends to favour woodwind-like sound - particularly high, fluting sounds in this score - and prominent bass drum accents. His electric guitar also gets its first proper workout here.

Musical notes

• A jolly "riding into action" cue plays over the shot of the TARDIS flying through space at the start of Part One. Hold onto that cue, it'll come in handy next week. It turns up again in Part Three when the Doctor pilots the TARDIS back to the Outlers' cave to rescue a comatose Romana.
• Adric has a theme, except that it's not exactly his theme yet. It starts out more as a theme for the Outlers, and ends up standing for the Alzarians in general. Variants of it play throughout the story. It crops up again from time to time in future stories in reference specifically to Adric. Perhaps surprisingly, Kingsland won't use it to reintroduce Adric when he turns up in the next story.
• K9 has a theme too, and it's heavy on the guitar! It's actually a close cousin of the Alzarian theme. It plays in Parts One and Two over scenes of K9 following the Marshmen through the woods. Unlike Adric's theme, K9's theme doesn't reappear in later stories; but then K9's only in two more stories, and he doesn't get a lot to do in either.
• A repeated seven note phrase plays over scenes that relate to Mistfall or that feature revelations about the Alzarian life cycle. The end of Part One, as the Marshmen emerge from the water, is a notable example. The notes rise and fall cyclically within the phrase, and the phrase itself rises across repetitions, as if emphasising the upward climb of Alzarius' super-evolving lifeforms. "The Ascent of Marshman", we might call it.
• The other major theme is a sombre piece that represents the Deciders. There's a special extra-sepulchral version that plays when we first see the cathedral-like space of the Starliner's bridge, where the Deciders hold court.
• There's an ironic little fanfare when K9 is beheaded in Part Two. It's almost as if the composer were making fun of this solemn, dramatic moment - surely not?
• This week's quote from the DW theme tune comes in Part Three, after the Doctor has rescued Romana. We get an overt "oo-wee-oo" over the Doctor working the TARDIS controls, followed by a more subtle bass "oo-wee-oo" as we track through to Romana's room.
• There's an unexpectedly rockin' moment at the start of Part Four when the possessed Romana lets the Marshmen into the Starliner. When I hear this cue, it puts me in mind of the "Piltdown Man" section of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells - no particular musical similarity, just the combination of rock guitar and primitive hominids. Is it just me?

Vox pop
This is a charming score, eerie and lively in equal measure. The liberal use of the electric guitar adds a lot of fun to the mix, too. It works well with the TV episodes, and Kingsland's development of themes within the score makes it a great listen in its own right.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• The score was released on the Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Volume 4 CD in 2002, alongside the Kingsland/Howell score for Meglos. Volume 3 included some of Dick Mills' sound effects from the story.

2 - Meglos

Composer: Paddy Kingsland (Part One), Peter Howell (Parts Two to Four)
Director: Terence Dudley

What's the score?
As Paddy Kingsland explains in the DVD commentary, Peter Howell was assigned this story to score but fell ill; Kingsland stepped in to score Part One while Howell recuperated, using notes that Howell had made in discussion with the director.
It would be wrong to say that we hear Kingsland giving an impression of Howell in Part One, or Howell of Kingsland in Part Two. Part One is unmistakably Kingsland's handiwork, elements of which recur in later episodes, either wholesale or modified to fit Howell's style. The music is bouncier than in the previous story, even jittery in places. But it doesn't take long for Howell's own voice to make itself heard - quite literally, in fact.

Musical notes

• In scenes that feature Deon ceremonies, the chanting of the Deons becomes a part of the incidental score thanks to the electronic magic of the vocoder. This device takes vocal input, processes the sound through a number of electronic channels and returns it as a buzzy, robotic sound that can be played on a keyboard. There's some irony here given the Deons' opposition to the science-fundamentalist Savants. In most cases the chanting is performed by Peter Howell himself, but for a couple of musical cues the studio dialogue provides the input. I think this might be the only time in DW's incidental musical history that the vocoder is used in this way - although Howell's arrangement of the theme tune also includes some vocoder elements, as can be seen in the "Synthesizing Starfields" extra on the Leisure Hive DVD.
• The vocoder was designed as a military tool for scrambling communications during World War Two, laid the groundwork for the technology that made mobile phone communications possible, and became the hot musical toy of the 1970s for artists like Kraftwerk and Wendy Carlos. How to Wreck a Nice Beach by Dave Tompkins offers plenty of further information about the vocoder for interested readers. Speaking of Wendy Carlos, the cue that introduces Lexa, the Deon high priestess, in Parts One and Two sounds rather like the opening theme from A Clockwork Orange. Or perhaps I should say, they both sound like the march from Purcell's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary". There's no obvious relevance to the funereal aspect of the piece, but it's possible the cue was intended to liken Lexa to Mary II, another capable and devout political leader.
• Meglos is represented by the rattling sound of the vibraslap. In scenes where he's impersonating the Doctor, the vibraslap plays a subtle part in the music, reflecting his subterfuge; when the cactus breaks through, the sound is louder and electronically enhanced to give it a more prickly quality. If you could hear a cactus shouting (other than when it's being played by Tom Baker), I imagine this is what it might sound like. Readers at home who own the Doctor Who - The Music album or any of its reissues can hear the enhanced noise right at the start of the "Meglos" track. Oh listen, there's a quote from the DW theme tune at the end of that cue.
• The "reset" sound for the chronic hysteresis in Parts One and Two is a peculiar "twinkle" that wouldn't sound out of place on the end of a pantomime fairy godmother's wand. Perhaps it was meant to point up the magical nature of this bit of pseudo-science? Again, an interesting choice for a science-vs-faith story.
• On the DVD commentary, Howell recalls a prank he played on producer John Nathan-Turner during a screening of Part Three. For the scene in which Meglos takes Caris by the hands and leads her off into the shadows of the bunker, Howell replaced the transmitted cue with the sound of a tango; Nathan-Turner didn't notice.
• Meglos' lighthouse/elevator/weapon thing gets its own signature sound once it's fired up in Part Four. It might best be described as "like that seagull noise at the start of the Bergerac theme".
• Famously, the closing theme music at the end of Part Four was played at a lower pitch than normal - closer to the Derbyshire arrangement's key of E minor - albeit at the correct speed, and to this day nobody knows why.

Vox pop
This score could easily have ended up sounding like a retread of the previous one - there are several cues in the latter half that would fit comfortably into the Leisure Hive score - but the use of the vocoder and the vibraslap keep it fresh. The inclusion of Paddy Kingsland's peppy style in the mix also helps. Perhaps the Radiophonic composers should have collaborated more often? Not one that I listen to regularly, but entertaining.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• The entire score was released on the Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Volume 4 CD in 2002, alongside Paddy Kingsland's score for Full Circle. A selection of Dick Mills' sound effects from both stories were included in Volume 3 the same year.
• Doctor Who - The Music included a single musical cue from Meglos, lasting about a minute and a half - it's the one from Part Two, when Meglos is hiding from the Tigellan guards inside the bunker.