The Sun Makers (TV story)

The Sun Makers was the fourth story of Season 15 of Doctor Who. It was written by Robert Holmes to reflect his hatred of the Inland Revenue's taxation.

Synopsis
The TARDIS, along with the Fourth Doctor, Leela and K9 Mark I, arrives on Pluto in the far future. They discover that the planet has a breathable atmosphere and enjoys the heat from six suns. The humans who live there are taxed and exploited heavily. When Leela is captured, the Doctor must save her and stop the Company, before it is too late...

Part one
Cordo visits Gatherer Hade, having saved up the money to pay for the Golden Death his father received. However, he finds the fee has been increased to 117 talmars, an amount he is unable to pay. Hade tells him he will have to increase his workload despite already working 23 hours a day.

The Doctor is playing chess with K9 while Leela moves the robot's pieces for him. They land on Pluto and the Doctor exits with Leela, telling K9 to stay put. He is amazed to find that the planet has a breathable atmosphere and huge cities. They spot Cordo preparing to jump from the roof and the Doctor distracts him long enough for Leela to pull him away from the edge.

In his office, Hade is informed by Marn of an illegal airspace invasion and landing. Overjoyed that this will incur heavy fines upon the perpetrator, Hade heads out with Marn to catch the criminals. On the roof, Cordo tells the Doctor and Leela about the taxes all citizens are subject to. Hearing the warning that Hade is coming, the three escape down a ladder.

Hade finds the Doctor's TARDIS and tells Marn the tale of Kandor, an Executive Grade from Megropolis Four who stole millions from the Company.

Meanwhile, Cordo announces he is headed for the undercity, a place where he has heard tax evaders and outlaws dwell. Leela and the Doctor opt to accompany him. As they walk, Cordo tells the Doctor that the planet has six suns and the latter judges them to be in-station fusion satellites. Soon they found themselves surrounded by a band of humans and Leela pulls her knife. However, the Doctor warns her not to take any aggressive action.

On a screen, Hade and Marn watch as K9 heads out of the TARDIS and ponder as to what he is. The Doctor and Leela are taken deeper into the undercity. Cordo tells Mandrel of his failure to meet Hade's demands and requests to join his group. Mandrel tells him he must earn his keep through theft from the upper levels as well as killing. After Leela inadvertently demonstrates her skills with a knife, Mandrel notes that both she and the Doctor may be of use. Hade and Marn are still watching K9 as he makes his way through the city.

The Doctor is instructed by Mandrel to take a Consumcard to the Consum Bank on subway 37 with Cordo acting as his guide. Madrel warns him that he must return before his candle burns to a set level, or Leela will be killed.

Exiting the undercity, K9 meets up with the Doctor. Hade asks Marn to move the tracker onto the Doctor, taking him to be an Ajack, a miner from Megropolis Three and his intended disguise. However, the tracker is keyed onto K9 and unable to follow. Hade deduces that the Doctor must be orchestrating arms smuggling and he decides to go to the palace to warn the Collector.

At the bank, the Doctor inserts the Consumcard and the process seems to have worked. Suddenly, the cubicle he is in shuts and begins to fill with gas.

Part Two
Cordo moves to escape and watches as a stretcher party take the Doctor away. In the rebel hideout, Veet asks Mandrel to kill Leela swiftly, as she wants her leathers for her herself undamaged. In his office, the Controller is visited by Hade who reports that he believes dissident Ajacks are plotting to overthrow the Company through armed rebellion. The Doctor wakes up in a straight jacket and a man, also in a straight jacker, warns him not to try and speak as the balerium gas effects the throat. The man, namely Bisham, tells the Doctor that he is in the Induction Therapy Section of the Correction Centre and has been for about an hour.

In the undercity hideout, the candle burns to the set level and Mandrel orders his men to seize Leela. She outmanoeuvres the first aggressor and warns the others that the next one will die. Realising his men will not face her, Mandrel rises to the challenge himself. As they start to fight Cordo returns and informs them of the Doctor's capture.

Back in the Correction Centre, the Doctor hops around the room and begins inspecting the walls. He questions Bisham who tells him he was arrested for becoming curious about other products outside his section. He was formerly an Executive Grade but found some pills for use by Gatherers and other Company staff. Inquisitive, he took them and felt like he was truly alive for the first time. Bisham then kept on taking them and eventually the change was noticed and Megro Guards arrested him in his sleep. His job was manufacturing PentoCyleinicMethyldrane, or PCM.

Meanwhile, Hade and the Collector discuss how to deal with the supposed uprising. Hade proposes more staff should be employed to search the undercity and claims a 5% increase in Protection tax would offset the cost. The Collector pledges half of his Inner Retinue guard to assist Hade. In the undercity, Leela tries to convince the rebels to free the Doctor. Mandrel warns her that the Correction Centre is under the palace itself. Only Cordo offers to come with Leela.

A man enters the Doctor's cell and fits a helmet-like device to both him and Bisham. As the man moves to activate the devices, the controls electrocute him and explode, having been tampered with by the Doctor. Leela and Cordo find K9 and she invites the robot along with them. Marn enters the Correction Centre as workers are repairing the controls. She orders the Doctor to be released, telling him Hade wants to talk with him. As he walks out, he leaves a bag of Jelly babies beside Bisham.

As they traverse the tunnels, Leela begins to feel fear and queries this. K9 tells her that their is a chemical inhibitor in the air, causing her to feel fear as it effects the nervous system and debilitates the will. The Doctor arrives in Hade's office and Marn hands over the 1000 talmars to the Doctor per the value of his Consumcard. Hade tells the Doctor he is forgiven, all part of his and Marn's plot to give the Doctor - or more precisely, his supposed rebellion - a sense of security. After a chat, the Doctor departs, telling Hade that he will be exploring Megropolis One for a bit. K9 blasts open the door to the Doctor's cell in the Correction Centre and Leela shoots the worker within. They free Bisham who tells them Marn took the Doctor. They all leave together.

As the Doctor moves into the undercity, the tracker placed by Hade can no longer track him. Unfazed, Hade tells Marn his plan to force the rebels into the open with the Inner Retinue guard and then pick them off. He calls the manoeuvre, Morton's Fork. A guard K9 stunned outside the Correction Centre wakes and sounds the emergency.

The Doctor returns Mandrel his money but this makes the group suspect and Madrel takes him to be a spy. Leela, Cordo and Bisham find there way blocked by a barricade, turning they see a armed vehicle speeding towards them and Cordo tells them it's not good, they've been seen.

Cast

 * The Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Leela - Louise Jameson
 * Voice of K9 - John Leeson
 * Hade - Richard Leech
 * Marn - Jonina Scott
 * Cordo - Roy Macready
 * Mandrel - William Simons
 * Goudry - Michael Keating
 * Veet - Adrienne Burgess
 * Nurse - Carole Hopkin
 * The Collector - Henry Woolf
 * Bisham - David Rowlands
 * Synge - Derek Crewe
 * Commander - Colin McCormack
 * Guard - Tom Kelly

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Linda Graeme
 * Costumes - Christine Rawlins
 * Designer - Tony Snoaden
 * Film Cameraman - John Tiley
 * Film Editor - Tariq Anwar
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Make-Up - Janis Gould
 * Producer - Graham Williams
 * Production Assistant - Leon Arnold
 * Production Unit Manager - John Nathan-Turner
 * Script Editor - Anthony Read
 * Special Sounds - Paddy Kingsland
 * Studio Lighting - Derek Slee
 * Studio Sound - Michael McCarthy
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Peter Day
 * Visual Effects - Peter Logan

Ranks

 * Gather, D-Grade, Ajack Wurg, Keek are ranks and classifications on Pluto. The later two are abundant in Megropolis Three.

Books

 * Usarians are listed in Professor Thripsted's Flora and Fauna of the Universe as "parasitic fungi".

Individuals

 * Gatherer Pile works in Megropolis Three.
 * One of Hade's predecessors was called Morton. Hade names a tactical manoeuvre Morton's Fork, in honour of him.

The Doctor

 * Droge of Gabrielides once offered a star system for the Doctor's head.

Elements

 * Three types of gas are mentioned:
 * Dianane, a deadly poison (to which Usurians are immune)
 * Balarium, a muscle neutraliser, which also effects speech
 * Pentocyleinicmethylhydrane (PCM), an anxiety inducing agent (which also purpourtedly eliminates air-borne infection).

Races and species

 * The Usurians have a file on Gallifrey.
 * Humans have abandoned Earth and according to dialogue have been reduced in number to a few hundred thousand. The Doctor leaves them to repopulate the planet.

Story notes

 * Michael Keating (here playing Goudry) would later be cast as Vila in Blake's 7 based partially on this performance.
 * Most of the corridors were named after UK tax forms, as the story was intended as a satire of contemporary British taxes.
 * This story marks the last appearance of Leela's darker outfit. For the next two serials - her last - she would continue to wear the lighter (and more revealing) one.
 * Some textures of the walls are enlarged photographs of a die of an AMD microprocessor. The logo of AMD is large and visible.
 * Unusually, Paddy Kingsland did the special sounds on this episode, who was also responsible for special sounds on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Hence, as Louise Jameson pointed out in the DVD commentary, there was some crossover of sounds. Most notably, the sound of the Doctor fiddling with the combination lock in part 4 is the same as the sound of the Guide being consulted in the original Hitchhiker's radio drama.
 * According to the Production Notes on the 2011 DVD release, the story originated from recent problems Robert Holmes was experiencing with UK tax authorities.
 * Also according to the Production Notes, the scene in which Leela is stunned when entering the large safe was originally to have been her death scene, but it was decided to have Tom Baker's Doctor shown grieving midway through a story would have been inappropriate both for the story and Baker's version of the character.
 * Once again according to the Production Notes, the joke involving the Doctor accidentally hypnotizing Leela was devised on the set by the two actors.

Ratings

 * Part 1 - 8.5 million viewers
 * Part 2 - 9.5 million viewers
 * Part 3 - 8.9 million viewers
 * Part 4 - 8.4 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming locations

 * WD and HO Wills Tobacco Factory (now known as Imperial Park), Hartcliffe Way, Hartcliffe, Bristol
 * Camden Town Deep Tube Shelters, Stanmore Place, Camden Town, London
 * BBC Television Centre (TC3 and TC6), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

 * At the start of Episode 2, the shadows of the extras playing the security guards are visible awaiting their cue to enter.
 * When the Gatherer is to be thrown off the roof by an angry mob it's quite obvious that it is a dummy.
 * A car park insignia is visible on the roof top.
 * A microphone enters the screen for a few seconds in upper left corner at minute 18 of the 3rd episode.
 * Near to the end of part three after K9 has exited the steamer, the Doctor praises K9 with his scarf rolled out and lengthened down his body yet less than a second after when he is given a communicator it is rolled up over his shoulders.
 * At one point Tom Baker fumbles with a pair of handcuffs he produces from a pocket, dropping them to the ground. Louise Jameson can be seen momentarily breaking character and smiling at this, but the scene continues without pause.

Continuity

 * Professor Thripsted's works also appear in NA: Christmas on a Rational Planet, Lungbarrow, EDA: Alien Bodies, Placebo Effect, Unnatural History, and Interference - Book Two.
 * The Collector ends his first conversation with the Gatherer with 'this interview is terminated'. Max Capricorn, a character not unlike the Collector ends a conversation with the Doctor with the same phrase in Voyage of the Damned.
 * Leela momentarily returns to her bloodthirsty ways, forcing the Doctor to admonish her as he'd done in her early appearances.

Timeline

 * This story takes place after DW: Image of the Fendahl
 * This story takes place before DW: Underworld

Video releases
Released as Doctor Who: The Sun Makers.

Released:


 * UK July 2001
 * US February 2002
 * Australia September 2001

DVD releases
Originally planned for release in a boxset with The Ambassadors of Death, The Sun Makers was released on DVD on its own in Region 2 (UK) on 1st August 2011, followed by North American (Region 1) release on 9th August. Extras include a trailer from 1977, a making of documentary (called Running from the Tax Men), another installment in the Doctor's Composer series focusing on Dudley Simpson, and a brief collection of bloopers.

Novelisation and its audiobook

 * Main article: Doctor Who and the Sunmakers

Novelised as Doctor Who and the Sunmakers by Terrance Dicks in 1982.