The TARDIS lands in a small English village in 2003, where the population are living in fear from a malevolent alien force. With the help of UNIT and his new friend Alison, the Doctor discovers that a race called Shalka are residing underground, preparing to strip away the Earth's ozone layer and embark on a full-scale invasion of the planet.

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Scream of

the Shalka

13TH NOVEMBER 2003 - 18TH DECEMBER 2003

(6 15-MINUTE EPISODES)

“Wrong time and space” is the epitaph inscribed on Scream of the Shalka’s cyberspace tomb. This DVD release’s should perhaps read, “right one”.

It’s been almost a decade since Cosgrove Hall’s six-part webcast was overshadowed by the announcement of Doctor Who’s long-awaited return to Saturday night television, and thus almost instantly relegated to non-canonical status, but in the intervening years the landscapes of both the series and the world have changed. Internet streaming is no longer something to be cautious of, but is in fact within a whisker of becoming the default platform for any media; Doctor Who animations have become, if not common, then at least known; and even Richard E Grant, the Scream of the Shalka Doctor, has played a character in the TV series who threw himself into the deceased Doctor’s biodata, allowing fandom to concoct limitless theories that pull his ninth Doctor’s tangential timeline a little closer to the television series’ incarnations’ primary one. And so as we wait to find out whether John Hurt is really going to add fuel to fire with a fourth ninth Doctor on 23rd November, there’s never been a more opportune window to reassess the merits of the second ninth, or if you prefer, “nth” Doctor.

My first thoughts on this release weren’t favourable ones, though. The first thing that struck me was that the release is standard-definition, which obviously offers the viewer resolution far greater than the original webcast, but still feels like a bit of a half-measure when the original artwork is sure to still exist, perhaps enabling 2 | entertain to have put out an HD rendering on Blu-ray. The second was that the DVD’s artwork is plastered with references to Shalka being the “first official, fully animated Doctor Who story!”, implying that the likes of Real Time and Shada either weren’t “official” (whatever that means) or weren’t fully animated. This, I feel, is a little dismissive. Though far from fluid, both were far more than mere series of static stills.

However, beyond these initial gripes, there is little else to complain about. Shalka has transferred well to the disc’s native 576i MPEG-2 format, stretching to every corner of my widescreen TV and holding its own against the precession of SD CBeebies cartoons more commonly displayed on there. The sound is similarly crisp and clean; it’s actually a more appreciable improvement than the picture quality. Best of all though, you never have to sit through any buffering - the only real wait that you have to suffer here is through the usual pre-menu BBC / 2 | entertain idents that affect every DVD or Blu-ray.

Above: Carry on Screaming for the series' return, or learn to stop worrying and love the webcast?

The disc’s special features are even more fascinating than the feature presentation. Carry on Screaming takes a no-holds-barred look at the development of the story, from Paul Cornell’s initial pitch through his honeymoon rewrites and all the way up to the disastrous press launch that went so spectacularly wrong that Russell T Davies would later use it as a example of how not to plug Who. Along the way, plans for future four-part follow-ups, the first of which was to have been written by The Dalek Factor’s Simon Clark, are discussed, as are moves to cast Robbie Williams as the Time Lord. I know, it sounds preposterous, but then so did casting Billie “Because We Want To” Piper as his reboot companion. What comes out of the documentary more than anything though is that Shalka’s makers were very much of the mind that “this was it for Doctor Who”; that they were taking the franchise forward in the only way that was left, only for “the best worst news imaginable” to render it redundant before it had even been webcast.

Just as engrossing, albeit for broader, more technological reasons, is Interweb of Fear, which effectively tells the potted history of the BBC’s online presence and the central part played in it by Doctor Who. TARDIS-Cams, photonovels, unforgiving forums and the cult website’s pioneering “print ’em out” e-books are discussed in the same breath as the BBC’s online reporting on 9/11 and the invention of the iPlayer (and, indeed, the eighty-three presentations made to the BBC by its creator before they bought it). The lawyer in me was fascinated by the online rights issues raised by the webcasting of Death Comes to Time, the ensuing agreements for which set the precedent for the media streaming that we all enjoy today. The techy in me got nostalgic about 8kbps sound and 28k dial-up modems that’d usurp your landline. The deviant loved that James Goss says a rude word (now the DVD range is home to “tosser” and “bollocking” - I’m keeping score).

Above: Interweb of Fear explores the history of the BBC’s online presence and the part played in it by Who

In addition to these two featurettes, we’re treated to an eight-minute 2003 ‘making of’ piece, The Screaming Sessions, which is full of painted smiles and actors who look terrifyingly like their cartoon counterparts. The episodes’ commentary serves as counterpoint to this feature’s positive projections, with each of the Toby Hadoke-moderated contributors - writer Paul Cornell and director Wilson Milam amongst them - talking quite frankly about the pressures and pitfalls of the production. Cornell discusses Russell T Davies’ publicly-expressed opinion that Grant dialled in his performance, while Milam literally dials in his commentary from the USA. Cornell confesses to the actual breaking and entering required to deliver the first drafts of his script; Milam recalls how an enthusiastic young fan named David Tennant broke into the production in a role created exclusively for him: ‘Second Warehouseman’.

Turning to Shalka itself, what its writer playfully describes as “The only Doctor Who story where the first drafts of which necessitated a criminal act” surely deserves a little leniency from the jury. Its enforced darkness, whilst more the product of technological considerations than artistic ones, nonetheless gives the serial a delectable gothic flavour; a feel only exacerbated by its bold, angular - some say “vampiric” - artwork. What I think stands out about it most today though are its remarkable flashes of prescience. The expanded role for the companion’s boyfriend; the new Doctor’s ill-defined “exile”, and the alienation that goes with it; even his burgeoning gung-ho eccentricity, which positively reeks of Matt Smith by the story’s end. The first episode’s mystery-man strolling into town without even a hint of regeneration smacks of Rose’s into-the-frying-pan intro; the final one’s emotive, cliffhanging finale would ultimately be recycled as World War Three’s. Throw into that the spirit of the spin-off novels and a surprising affinity for alcohol not seen since Jon Pertwee’s tenure (Three’s penchant for cheese and wine took the edge of the vino), and you have what Cornell now describes as the “John the Baptist version” of 21st century Who – an inspiring forerunner to Christopher Eccleston’s messianic second coming.

“I thought he was terrible. I thought he took the money and ran, to be honest. It was a lazy performance.

He was never on our list to play the Doctor.” – Russell T Davies in Doctor Who Magazine

Indeed, Grant’s portrayal has much in common with Eccleston’s, though the latter would prove much more endearing even in his hardest moments. There are shades of both Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker in Grant’s cold and assured portrayal, but as the story progresses we begin to catch glimpses of the exuberant, adventure-relishing Doctor that the revived series would ultimately expose, though admittedly these flourishes don’t always sit well with the frosty face seen in the animation. Grant’s dryness might fit the vampiric visage like a glove (“Why did you only invade one bit of Lancashire?” / “Our ambitions extend beyond that.” / “What, Nottinghamshire?”), but his more exaggerated moments (“Take me home, big boy. Yeeha!”) don’t seem to belong to a tall, angular alien who makes the shadows his home. As a result, it’s hard not to walk away from Shalka without harrowing scenes such as the Doctor’s welcome acceptance of his impending death repressing memories of those that expose the Time Lord’s more appealing side.

My feelings towards Grant’s co-stars are similarly mixed. Sophie Okenedo’s Alison really grates on me – she sounds just like David Walliams’ character Lou in Little Britain - and her deliberately-dull boyfriend, Joe, is certainly no Mickey Smith or Rory Williams (though he does steal the show when, possessed by the Shalka, he attacks the Doctor, only to be punched in the face by the astonishingly pugilistic Time Lord). Furthermore, as he’s proven since, Sir Derek Jacobi makes for the most malevolent of Masters, but here he’s required to play a Master of a very different breed. Scream of the Shalka has it that, given the choice between oblivion in the TARDIS’s belly, and eternity in an android body as the Doctor’s “dearest companion”, the rogue Time Lord opted for the latter. Jacobi expectedly acquits himself wonderfully, but to this day I don’t understand his Master’s role here. Shalka was meant to be appealing to a new audience; a new generation, yet it not only resurrects one of the classic series’ most famous antagonists in its very first outing, but casts him a good guy role without a heel-turn payoff and drenches him in the most torturous continuity that baffles the likes of me, never mind alone any newcomers. Intriguing, but ultimately insane.

As for the plot, Scream of the Shalka is far from being Cornell’s finest hour, but it is still teeming with wonderful ideas and moments. I like the small town localness of it; its strong green, ecological message; I even like the Shalka themselves, who are easily fascinating enough to earn themselves a proper outing on television at some point in the future. Perhaps most of all though, I like its ubiquitous nostalgia. The script doffs its hat to ancient adventures like Fury from the Deep while adopting the popular format of the third Doctor / UNIT era, with Major Kennet in the Lethbridge-Stewart role and the sergeant providing all the Bentonesque comic relief.

On the whole then, Scream of the Shalka is damned sight better than it is reputed to be, and I hope that this DVD release will make great strides towards changing the general consensus from “half-arsed at best” to something like “half-arsed, but worth a butchers.” If nothing else, it will serve as a testament to the love-driven labours of executive producer James Goss and writer Paul Cornell, who were prepared to do whatever it took to bring the show back in time for its fortieth birthday bash.

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design

and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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