CELEBRATING FORTY YEARS OF SEASON TWENTY (CODA): 'THE RETURN'

Dark days as Davros and the Daleks return. Art by Andrew Skilleter.

Caught in a Time Corridor trap shortly after their departure from 12th Century England, the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough * arrive in modern-day 1983 London's atmospheric, still to be renovated Shad Thames area, where they meet an alien humanoid named Stein, seemingly on the run from a mystery enemy that has killed his friends, and an Army Bomb Disposal squad at work within a sealed off and seemingly abandoned warehouse, examining objects that are revealed as being alien in origin. 

How our trio may have looked in the TARDIS before being hi-jacked off course. In the original The Return, however, there had been no plans to refurbish the TARDIS console room set/main prop, which would ultimately happen with The Five Doctors onwards.

Soon enough, a shocked and surprised Doctor and his friends are attacked by a materialising Dalek and discover that the Time Lord's ultimate Skaroan enemies, despite major historical defeats that have turned them into a weakened power, have now freed their legendary creator Davros from his future time space station imprisonment (having exterminated most of its crew in the process, bar a few on the run senior officers), and plan to use the still insane scientist to re-establish their powerbase. An additional part of their plan, to deliver the ultimate revenge on both the Doctor and the Time Lords for past misdeeds through the use of all-too-clever human duplicates.

The mysterious Time Corridor would originally have deposited our heroes in Shad Thames/Butler's Wharf, London in 1983.

But Davros has other plans on his mind beyond helping his creations, namely their destruction via the remnants of a Movellan plague virus, and a quest to start his race from genetically engineered scratch, with the help of re-conditioned human soldiers belonging to the Daleks' hired mercenary and attack strategist, Commander Lytton.

Unable to finally kill Davros after a bitter verbal confrontation, who, on the brink of his own death, may have escaped in a specially prepared life pod, the Doctor returns to London and unleashes the hideous and brutally swift in action Movellan virus against Dalek fractions now at war in the warehouse of London, 1983, an event which has seen the adaptable Lytton escape the slaughter alongside two of his Police uniform disguised comrades. As the Dalek ship and human space prison station explode thanks to the ultimate sacrifice of the conditioned duplicate Stein, a violence weary TARDIS crew (especially Tegan, truly shaken up by the story's concluding human and Dalek body count) plan to contact the Earth governments about Dalek duplicate infiltration, before ultimately departing... **  ***

The Daleks arrive in 1980's Who.

* Amidst the continuing strikes actions occurring mid-1982, we can assume Kamelion's companion debut in prior adventure The King's Demons was instantly forgotten about by The Return, as the production team were soon finalizing the character's eventual demise for the following season.

* We can also assume the original cliff-hanger ending from The King's Demons, written by Dudley under specific instruction from Script Editor Eric Saward, and directly leading into the cancelled The Return, was the one later used for the ending of Frontios, which itself led directly into Resurrection of the Daleks. 

** The high body count didn't persuade Tegan/Janet Fielding to leave the series with the originally planned Twentieth Anniversary season closer, and she was already to be a part of the TARDIS line-up for the in-preparation The Five Doctors. Instead, the idea of the bloodshed idea being the reason for her departure would ultimately be the focal point for the character when The Return became Resurrection of the Daleks mid-way through Season Twenty-One, requiring some partial but not overly significant re-writing by its script editor author, Eric Saward.

*** With The King's Demons and Enlightenment (in that order) urgently replacing The Return in its original filming slots for the new year of 1983, we can assume that the lead-in of the Eye of Orion, the location for the then upcoming The Five Doctors, was added by Script Editor Eric Saward to The King's Demons conclusion, when that story ultimately inherited the mantle of unintended season finale, and was likely not part of the planned end to what would have been The Return.

OTHER NOTES OF INTEREST

Fan created title for the lost season finale. Warhead is believed to be a title created solely by producer John Nathan-Turner to stop Who fan BBC employees from gaining info on the Daleks' surprise return for the 20th Anniversary.

Also known as Return of the Daleks and Resurrection, The Return was to have been the epic closing story to the Twentieth Anniversary, and a four-parter to have featured the surprise return of both Davros and the Daleks after nearly five years away from TV screens. Conceived in late 1981, The Return was written by Eric Saward, and was to have been directed by the excellent and highly talented director Peter Grimwade, who had won acclaim for his onscreen work in bringing back another old enemy so successfully, and in such a surprising way to audiences, with the Cybermen, in the all-time classic Earthshock for Peter Davison's first season.

Had The Return not have been cancelled as the Anniversary finale, there is no doubt that Grimwade's enthusiastic and filmic direction would have ended things on a great high, and made Davison's overall second year in the role much better appreciated by both the lead actor and the fan base, before the eventual The Five Doctors to come later in November 1983.

Michael Wisher as the original Davros, last seen in 1975.

With directors needing to be assigned on projects at least a month or two in advance for pre-production and eventual studio filming, we can assume that Grimwade had seen the Saward scripts that were in shape by October/November 1982 and had begun early casting ideas for the adventure (and working with the originally assigned designer, Malcolm Thornton). Sadly, no information has so far been revealed as to who may have been approached as primary guest stars for the story before its ultimate cancellation by late November 1983 other than that the esteemed actor who originally played Davros in his first story, Genesis of the Daleks, back in March 1975 - Michael Wisher - was to have returned for the originally planned but ultimately cancelled filming dates. With Davros having such a key part in the story, we know that Wisher's performance would surely have been an exciting and memorable one, most likely less histrionic than replacement Terry Molloy's eventual and popular 1983 performance interpretation turned out to be, and likely more subtly chilling too, especially with the character's eventual first encounter with Peter Davison's Doctor had it have happened. 

As far as other potential casting for The Return, Grimwade and producer John Nathan-Turner would clearly have worked together on early lists for availability and agent inquiries. Even though the story would be cancelled by 25th November, 1982, it's not impossible to think that some of their desired first and second choices may have made their way into the eventual Resurrection of the Daleks by the time Nathan-Turner worked with new director Matthew Robinson, that would be filmed by Autumn 1983. Maurice Colbourne, in particular, may have been on the early casting lists to play the mercenary Lytton, having been acclaimed for his role in the Philip Martin created series, Gangsters. The same too with Del Henney, being a popular actor in both BBC and ITV projects shot in studio and on film.

The Daleks of The Return/Resurrection of the Daleks, as previewed in a November 1983 edition of Blue Peter.

The Daleks for this story, in both iterations, were to have been reconstituted and spruced up from numerous in storage casings that had been used in the series dating back to the sixties - three working Daleks, a dummy version for background use, and a later built dummy used for explosive detonation during location filming. The Daleks were spruced up, repaired and repainted as best as possible under orders from John Nathan-Turner, who had listened to prior complaints about their tatty state within their last on screen appearance in 1979. The bottom half-shell casing to be operated by Davros (that had been in Doctor Who exhibition use on and off since 1975 onwards) would likely have been the same one used for The Return, if spruced up with new switches and lights, as it would ultimately be for Resurrection.

Presumably the new black and white visual appearance of the Supreme Dalek for The Return had been pre-planned by the VFX department, and held over for the eventual Resurrection, especially as in-house visual effects pioneer Peter Wragg had been prior assigned to both versions of the story. Presumably, stalwart Dalek inhibiters John Scott Martin and Cy Town, having been prior booked to play Daleks in The Return, were also carried over into the eventual Resurrection, with Martin in between the scheduling changes going on to play a lone Dalek for the March 1983 filmed The Five Doctors. Long-time Dalek voice artist Roy Skelton was not available to provide for Resurrection but no doubt had been booked for The Return, and a short time after that's cancellation was voicing the lone Dalek for The Five Doctors.

With his prior success on Earthshock alongside director Grimwade, it was clear that Nathan-Turner was keen to secure designer Malcolm Thornton's winning services again for The Return. But with the cancellation and move into Season Twenty-One, another seasoned designer, John Anderson, would replace Thornton. I think it safe to say that the dark and decayed interiors of the prison ship had they have been designed by Thornton may have looked similar to what was seen with Anderson's later work, with both creative talents likely making the most of new scenery and props that had come to to BBC from the original Alien movie of 1979, some of which had been prior used in Terminus. The London Docklands warehouse studio interior would also presumably have been similar in visual execution. The futuristic Dalek ship interior, however, would surely have been markedly different between the two versions. 

Incidental music for the story was to have been assigned to Malcolm Clarke, after his prior success with Peter Grimwade on Earthshock (for sure, the score that Clarke did for Season Twenty's Enlightenment in January 1982 was likely in the original composing/recording slot assigned to the by then cancelled The Return). Clarke would ultimately do the memorable score for Resurrection of the Daleks when it went into Season Twenty-One, which would have likely kept potentially similar incidental themes with anything that he might have conceived/planned for The Return.

Costume designer Jan Wright was the original first choice to work on The Return, and later replaced by Janet Tharby for Resurrection. I think the costume design differences between the two would have been notable, especially relating to the human Dalek troopers and human space station officers, though stock costumes would surely have been used across both versions for the futuristic human victims seen massacred in Docklands at the eerie and unexpected beginning of each story. 

Of the regular cast's costume for The Return, we can assume that Janet Fielding (for cost saving reasons) kept the colourful mini dress costume she wore for The King's Demons, and which was also later seen in Season Twenty-One opener, Warriors of the Deep. Tegan would, of course, have a new costume for Resurrection, which had debuted previously with the story's lead-in tale, Frontios.

Make-up designer Jean Sherwood was to have handled The Return's ambitious, often grisly requirements but was replaced by the equally efficient Eileen Mair for the eventual Resurrection. How different or similar the Davros mask (newly designed by BBC Visual Effects Designer Peter Wragg and sculpted by his team mate Stan Mitchell) would have been for Wisher in The Return in comparison to the original one created by John Friedlander for Genesis of the Daleks would have been interesting to see, as Terry Molloy's interpretation for Resurrection ultimately needed a brand new mask being constructed as the original mask used in 1975 (prior moulded for the returning original actor), having deteriorated and needing refurbishment/repair by 1979 (when adapted for David Gooderson), ultimately proved too small for Molloy to wear.

With regards to the overall costume and production design for The Return, it's clear that the story would not have been a cheapie, and would have been allocated the best budget funding available to it by producer John Nathan-Turner, who wanted to end the anniversary season on a successful and notable high. Had it not have been cancelled by November, 1982, monies would surely have been saved for it from the prior studio bound stories Terminus and Enlightenment, whilst The King's Demons had further shaved some costs with its historical setting (and featuring few special effects), using stock scenery and period costumes in-house.

The original November 1982 planned shooting dates for The Return, before its cancellation to save the strike-hit The Kings' Demons and Enlightenment (plus a prior needed re-mount for Terminus), were 4-5th January, 1983 for location filming, with studio recording at BBC TV Centre from 16-18th January, and 30th January- 1st February, 1983. 

 

With thanks and reference to Andrew Pixley and Doctor Who Magazine for selected information.