DOCTOR WHO:  THE SUN MAKERS

commentary by Judy Harris

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#21:  THE SUN MAKERS (4 Parts)
ORIGINALLY AIRED: 11/26/77 to 12/17/77
WRITTEN BY:  Robert Holmes	
DIRECTED BY:  Pennant Roberts
PRODUCER:  Graham Williams	
SCRIPT EDITOR:  None Credited
	

This is Louise Jameson's favorite story (her second favorite is THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG, both by Robert Holmes).

Although this was not Holmes' last script for the show, he ceased being script editor around this time, and no script editor is listed in the end credits for this story. Holmes first wrote for the show with the Troughton story THE KROTONS and also contributed THE SPACE PIRATES. When John Pertwee took over the role, Holmes wrote TERROR OF THE AUTONS, which introduced both Jo Grant and the Master. Other Pertwee stories include THE CARNIVAL OF MONSTERS and THE TIME WARRIOR, which introduced Sarah Jane Smith. After THE SUN MAKERS, he wrote THE RIBOS OPERATION and THE POWER OF KROLL for Tom Baker; THE CAVES OF ANDROZANI for Peter Davison; and THE TWO DOCTORS and the first part of THE TRAIL OF A TIME LORD for Colin Baker. Holmes died in May of 1986. His contribution to the show, particularly during Tom Baker's era, is incalculable.

THE SUN MAKERS is a satire on corporate bureaucracy in general and on the British taxation system in particular. Some of the corridors mentioned in the dialogue even correspond to British tax form numbers.  On the DVD commentary, Jameson suggests it also includes digs at the BBC, where Holmes had labored for some years.

Although there has always been an element of Lewis Carroll zaniness running through the Tom Baker shows, it seems more overt in this story, with Gatherer Hade standing in for the Caterpillar, in his purple and black striped jersey, cape and high domed hat, not to mention his over elaborate speech patterns and obsequious behavior to the Collector.

The Collector is a combination of the Queen of Hearts ("Off with his head!") and the Dormouse, with his cringing posture and pawlike hands. With his bald head, squinty eyes and tufted eyebrows, he also resembles Dudley Moore putting on a funny singsong accent.

At the same time, the show seems a modern reworking of METROPOLIS, with only the elite allowed to enjoy the light of the suns, while the people, dehumanized by drab uniforms and terms such as "work units," slave below with no amenities.

In Megropolis One, the first and oldest city on Pluto, Citizen Cordo, a D-grade foundry worker, paces anxiously in a corridor. A head appears in a slot in the wall, and a voice tells him his father, an E-grade work unit, "ceased at 1:10."

Cordo goes to the offices of Gatherer Hade to pay the death taxes. He had selected the Golden Death with full mercy attendance, and owes 117 talmars. Cordo protests he was told the price was 80, but the Gatherer says the Collector recently raised death taxes 17%.

The Collector thoughtfully readds the figures for Cordo:

Cordo has only 86; he has no way to pay the 31 talmars outstanding. He has been working double shifts to earn the money and has only 3 hours sleep time as it is. The Gatherer suggests he take Q capsules to help him do without sleep, but there's a high medical tax on them, so Cordo would only get further in debt.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor plays chess with K9, with Leela making K9's moves for him. The Doctor is in check with mate in 6 moves. Leela tries to interrupt the Doctor's argument with K9 to tell him the time column has stopped moving, but he won't listen to her. When she eventually gets his attention, he blames the problem on the new paint (an oblique reference to this control room being redecorated recently, mentioned in passing in THE INVISIBLE ENEMY). He says, "We might have gone right through the time spiral--why didn't you tell me?" He decides to materialize and take a reading.

They materialize on Pluto, which K9 tells Leela is the ninth planet in the solar system, until the discovery of Cassius, believed to be the outermost. There are buildings and breathable air, which strikes the Doctor as odd.

The Doctor wants to leave the TARDIS without K9, so he spells WALK to Leela, but K9 understands and Leela doesn't. The Doctor tells K9 to stay in the TARDIS because "Pluto's no place for a..."

They exit onto a roof of a building that's 1000 meters high. Exteriors were shot in Bristol. The Doctor takes a telescope out of his pocket and admires the engineering achievement of the surrounding buildings. Leela spots Cordo about to jump off the roof. The Doctor offers Cordo a jelly baby and eats one himself (it is really a Licorice Allsort; Tom Baker must have been getting tired of jelly babies by this time). Leela sneaks up behind Cordo and pushes him back onto the roof; the Doctor makes a quick set of introductions.

In the Gatherer's office, Hade's assistant, Marn, notifies him of an air space violation in District 4 and an illegal landing in Block 40--the TARDIS has been detected.

Cordo tells the Doctor and Leela the Company charges 50% compound interest on unpaid taxes. He earns only 3 talmars a shift and can never hope to get out of debt. Leela doesn't understand and asks the Doctor if taxes are like making sacrifices to tribal gods. The Doctor tells her yes, "but paying taxes is more painful."

An alarm goes off and Cordo runs, followed by Leela and, after a beat, the Doctor. It's a fine of 5 talmars to be found in the light of the suns. They take an elevator to a lower level. The Doctor and Leela aren't sure why they ran. "Perhaps everyone runs from the tax man," Leela suggests. Cordo nods.

He has decided to join the outlaws and tax criminals who live in the undercity. The Doctor and Leela offer to accompany him. As they descend, Cordo is very nervous; he doesn't know what dark is. Pluto never has night. "That's impossible," Leela says. "Not if the sidereal and axial rotation periods are the same, or if there's more than one sun," the Doctor replies. Cordo tells them there are 6 suns--one for each megropolis. The Doctor supposes the suns must be "in-station fusion satellites; Galileo would have been impressed."

The outlaws discover them and take them to their leader, Mandrel, a violent type. He informs Cordo if he wants to join them, he'll have to go to the upper levels and steal and kill. Portions of the undercity were shot at the Strand tube station of the London underground system and beneath Camden.

Hade has discovered the TARDIS and suspects a conspiracy to smuggle contraband goods or weapons. He puts a scanner on the TARDIS. K9 gets tired of waiting and leaves to find the Doctor. The scanner tracks him to subway CT1, where K9 can go no lower and waits at a hatch.

Mandrel thinks the Doctor looks like an Ajack. He gives the Doctor a stolen consum card made out for 1000 talmars. It was stolen from an Ajack, a miner who lives in Megropolis Three. Mandrel marks a spot on a lit candle. If the Doctor is not back by then, Leela will die. Cordo leads the Doctor out, and they run into K9.

Cordo takes the Doctor to the Consum Bank on subway 37. It's a glassed-in cash machine. The Doctor puts the card in the reader, and the outer door slams down, trapping him inside. The cubicle fills with Balarium gas and the Doctor passes out. A team of uniformed Megro guards takes the Doctor away on a gurney.

In the Company Palace, the Collector peers nearsightedly at a column of figures. He's in a wheeled chair and wears a pinstriped suit with a handkerchief in his breast pocket. Almost his entire desk is full of buttons, resembling an oversized computer keyboard.

Hade visits the Collector to tell him his conspiracy theory. Although the Collector runs a purely fiscal operation, and the Gatherer is responsible for civil administration, the Gatherer persuades the Collector to spare a half a division of his Inner Retinue to investigate the undercity. The Collector suggests the daily dosage of PCM be increased 3% by volume.

The Doctor wakes up in the Induction Therapy section of the Correction Center, located under the Palace. Next to him is Bisham. Both of them are trussed up in straight jackets and lying on beds which have mechanical apparatus in the headboards. The Doctor is temporarily unable to speak because of the gas, but Bisham tells him what's going on. They're both there to have areas of their brains sensitized and their neural pathways cleared so when they arrive in Physical the pain will be intensified a thousand times.

In the undercity, Leela's time is up. She fights with Mandrel, as Cordo dashes in to say something went wrong at the Consum Bank.

The Doctor hops off the bed and inspects the machinery, using his mouth to move some components around. Bisham says he is an executive grade at the Chemical Plant in charge of PCM production. He's been arrested by the Megro guards because he took some tablets set aside for the Gatherer.

Bisham tells the Doctor PCM stands for pento-cyleinic-methyl-hydrane, which is an anxiety-inducing agent, although Bisham has been told it eliminates airborne infections. It's spread through the atmosphere via a high pressure system. It's volatilized through vapor towers and fed into the air conditioning. Volatilized means passed off as vapor.

Leela can't talk any of Mandrel's group--Goudry or Veet or any of the others--into helping her rescue the Doctor from the Correction Center. Cordo volunteers to show her the way and Leela tells him he's the bravest man present.

A Megro guard enters the Correction Center and hooks up Bisham's head and the Doctor's to mechanical contraptions. "Don't leave it in too long; it goes frizzy," the Doctor says. He tries to warn the guard not to use the equipment, but the guard ignores him and gets zapped.

Marn tells Hade the Megro guards have taken the Doctor to Correction because he was caught with a stolen consum card. He's the only lead to the conspiracy, so Hade orders his release.

Leela sees K9 in the corridor and introduces him to Cordo as a friend. They go off to rescue the Doctor.

Two Megro guards try to fix the equipment the Doctor tampered with. The Doctor offers them jelly babies from his coat pocket but is ignored. Marn enters and releases the Doctor. As a guard takes off the straight jacket, the Doctor says, "I like a jacket with a lot of pockets, don't you?" The Doctor leaves his bag of jelly babies with Bisham.

Outside the Correction Center, Leela finds it strange she feels fear. K9 tells her there's a chemical inhibitor in the air.

In the Gatherer's office, Hade gives the Doctor his thousand talmars and apologizes. "To err is computer," he says. Marn offers the Doctor a raspberry leaf--which he identifies by its Latin name, Rubus Idaeus. The Doctor offers Hade a candy, saying "Humbug," (which has the dual meaning of a peppermint-flavored boiled candy and also an imposter).

K9 stuns the Corrections Center guard. Leela takes the guard's gun, which looks something like a vacuum cleaner. Just as Bisham is about to get zapped, Leela bursts in and shoots the guard. Leela and Cordo free Bisham, who tells them the Doctor's been taken away.

The guard K9 stunned wakes up and raises the alarm. When Leela, Cordo and Bisham emerge from the Correction Center and find the guard gone, it's Cordo who says "We must be daring," and suggests taking corridor P45 on the return route. Although he starts out as a very timid and meek character, Cordo blooms throughout the story and from the point where Leela praises him, he becomes a new person.

The guards have blocked the subway, so Cordo leads Leela, Bisham and K9 back to a level interchange. More guards on a vehicle come up behind them. Leela tells K9 to hide. K9 stuns the guards, and asks Leela if this is satisfactory. "Yes, K9," Leela says sarcastically, taking up the fallen guns, "What do you want, a biscuit?"

They take the Megro guards' vehicle and plan to crash through the barrier blocking the corridor. Leela gets in the driver's seat, saying "Forward!," but the car goes backward. Bisham takes over the driving, while Leela mans the gun. As they head through the barrier, Leela is hit by gunfire and falls off the car. Cordo, Bisham and K9 get away.

The Doctor returns to the undercity with the thousand talmars. Mandrel accuses him of being a spy for the Gatherer. Mandrel's gang roughs up the Doctor and threatens him with red hot irons. Bisham and Cordo arrive and rescue the Doctor.

Leela is taken to the Correction Center, but instead of getting Correction, the Collector orders her medicare maximized.

The Doctor tries to convince Mandrel and his people to rebel. The first step is to stop the PCM, whose critical temperature is 205 centigrade. Mandrel was a B-grade in Main Control and knows the PCM distribution was centrally controlled from there. There are only two work units on duty, so with the guns stolen from the Megro guards, they could take it over.

Mandrel asks his men, "What have we got to lose?" "Only your claims," the Doctor says, noting, "I have a gift for the apt phrase."

The Doctor's first step is to blind the scanner system, which is sensitized on him. Mandrel and the others don't even know what the scanners are; they were told they were sun-feeds, but the Doctor tells them they're "oculoid electronic monitors." Cordo brings two of them to the Doctor.

Leela is brought to the Collector in a straight jacket. She tells him the Doctor is a Time Lord, and they came to the planet by accident. The Collector has her placed under Pending, which quite literally means she hangs from the wall by the straps of the straight jacket. He checks his computer to find the Time Lords listed as "oligarchic rulers of the planet Gallifrey." An oligarchy is government by a few.

In the undercity, the Doctor, wearing a jeweler's loupe, works on the scanners. No one can tell him much about the company. He keeps Bisham, Mandrel and Cordo with him and sends the others to scatter through the city to alert the citizens to rebel. Cordo puts the rewired scanners back. The Doctor walks back and forth between them, fixing a static loop.

The Collector sends for Hade and asks why the Doctor was released from Correction. Hade says the Doctor is the Ajack conspirator sent to foment rebellion (ironically, by this time, it's true). The Collector tells Hade there is no rebellion; the Doctor is an alien with a long history of violence and economic subversion.

The Collector puts out a 5,000 talmar reward for the Doctor, which the Gatherer must fund from his personal purse. Leela is to be publicly executed by steaming in the Exchange Hall, with an admission charge of 5 talmars, during the first workshift, with a 2-hour public holiday declared (without pay).

Marn picks up the Doctor's image on a scanner at service subway 27 district 4. Hade plans to arrest him himself to save the cost of the reward.

In Main Control, as Synge watches the bulletin screen display the Doctor's photo and details of the reward for his capture, the Doctor steps up behind him. He's insulted at the size of the reward: "The Droge of Gabrielides offered a whole star system for my head once!" he says.

Cordo, Bisham and Mandrel pull guns and demand Synge and Hakit join the revolution, which they do. Mandrel shuts down the vapor towers.

Hade reaches the subway expecting to see the Doctor, but he's not there, although the scanners are still registering him.

The bulletin screen announces Leela's execution. The site is directly beneath Main Control. The Doctor wants to cut the water supply to the pumps--just long enough to get Leela out.

K9 volunteers to go in and blast a valve, because the atmospheric pressure would flatten the Doctor. He's successful. Mandrel gives the Doctor a two-way communicator. The Doctor has only two minutes to rescue Leela; and asks Mandrel not to call him. He crawls through a vent in the wall to get to the condensation chamber.

Leela is loaded into the steamer, as the Gatherer, the Collector, Marn and several paying customers gather nearby to enjoy her execution.

The Doctor's two minutes are running out; he gets to Leela but Mandrel calls him on the communicator to warn him the exchange is going to blow up any second. The Doctor smashes the communicator, but it's too late. The Collector has heard everything because the steamer is wired for duodecaphonic sound.

The Doctor and Leela make it back to Main Control. The Doctor learns the public video is controlled from the Collector's Palace, so he and Leela decide to head there to broadcast a false report of the rebellion's success.

Megro guards arrive at Main Control and are captured. The Doctor leaves K9 to help defend Main Control. The PCM is mostly out of the air and the rebellion has started in the corridors below; the work units are refusing to work.

Leela wants to kill the guard at the Palace, but the Doctor prevents her. He hypnotizes him just by talking, inadvertently hypnotizing Leela as well. He plants the suggestion the guard will sleep standing up until the Doctor tells him to wake up. The Doctor notices Leela is sleeping, so he puts his hands over the guard's ears and tells Leela to wake up. Leela asks how he put the guard to sleep. "It's just a knack," the Doctor says, "You've either got it or you haven't."

The Doctor tries to impress Leela with his comprehension of the Collector's machinery. "Suppose he wants to broadcast some pleasing bit of news, like the imposition of a double vision tax on people with more than one eye," the Doctor says, pointing at a component, "Well, then he feeds it into here." Leela corrects him: "No, he fed it into here."

Hade reports to the Collector the Megro guards are outnumbered by the rabble. The Collector decides to return to the Palace surrounded by his Inner Retinue.

The Doctor, again wearing a jeweler's loupe, rewires the Collector's computer. Leela finds the company vault. The Doctor opens it with his sonic screwdriver. He and Leela try to enter at the same time and get stuck in the doorway. Leela goes in first and is knocked unconscious by a boobytrap.

The Doctor puts out the false video report of a successful revolution. Marn is captured and joins the rebels. Hade is thrown off the roof by Veet and some others. Cordo, Bisham and Mandrel join up with the others, leaving Synge in charge of Main Control with K9 guarding the corridor.

The Collector returns to the Palace. The Doctor tells him he's going to close the Company down. To gain time, the Collector shows the Doctor a Company prospectus, revealing the Company's head office is Usurius. The Doctor is familiar with the species. "The Usurians are listed in Professor Thripsted's FLORA AND FAUNA OF THE UNIVERSE under poisonous fungi," he says.

The Usurians got control of humanity by making a deal to move Earth's population to Mars; and getting back their money in taxes. When the resources of Mars were exhausted, the people were shifted to Pluto. When Pluto's resources are gone, the Usurians will pull out, leaving the humans to die when the six suns run down. The Doctor calls the Collector a "bloodsucking leech" and tells him commercial imperialism is as bad as military conquest.

When the Collector says the revolution will be quelled, the Doctor tells him to "wake up," forgetting the hypnotized guard, who comes out of his trance.

The Collector decides to use Contingency Plan A, which is the release of Dianane throughout the sprinklers of the city. This is a deadly poison which will kill everyone in 10 seconds, except the Collector--Usurians don't breathe air.

Leela comes to and throws her knife at the awakened guard. She smashes the Collector's hand away from the Dianane switch.

He retreats to his computer console, but it shows a negative surplus in production; the Company is bankrupt. Unable to accept such stunning financial reverses, the Collector shrinks to a minute green blob and falls through a hole in his chair. "He's gone back to his natural form," the Doctor says; "He was only held in that state by particle radiation. That's why he never left that machine." The Doctor gives Cordo a plug for the chair and says in their true form, Usurians "look like sea kale with eyes."

On the roof, Leela takes K9 back to the TARDIS. The Doctor promises to pop back to visit when the people have resettled on Earth. He assures Mandrel "Three hundred million of you can't go wrong."

In the TARDIS, Leela asks the Doctor why the Collector gave in so easily. He tells her, "I fed a 2% growth tax into the computer, index linked--blew the economy and he couldn't take it."

K9 wants to finish the chess game. The Doctor switches the TARDIS on, throwing the chess board and everything else to the floor. Rather insincerely, the Doctor apologizes to K9.

Like Tom Baker, Michael Keating, who plays Goudry, was a member of the National Theatre. He's better known as Vila on BLAKE'S 7, a British science fiction series created by Terry Nation.

Tom Kelly, who plays a Guard, played a Guard in the Tom Baker story THE FACE OF EVIL and plays a Vardan in the future Tom Baker story THE INVASION OF TIME.