The Visitation (TV Story)

**The Visitation** was the fourth serial of Season 19 of Doctor Who. It was written by Eric Saward, directed by Peter Moffatt, and starred Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lesley Dunlop as Silvia Bolton

## Synopsis

The Doctor and Silvia travel back to the 17th century. The time travellers find a space capsule has crash-landed nearby and that its alien occupants, three Terileptil prison escapees, intend to wipe out all indigenous life on Earth by releasing rats infected with an enhanced strain of the great plague.

The creatures are also using a sophisticated android to strike terror into the local villagers. Aided by itinerant thespian Richard Mace, the Doctor tries to unravel the evil plot.

## Cast

* Doctor Who - Tom Baker
* Silvia Bolton - Lesley Dunlop
* Richard Mace – Michael Robbins
* Android - Peter Van Dissel
* The Squire – John Savident
* Charles – Anthony Calf
* Ralph – John Baker
* Elizabeth - Valerie Fyfer
* Villager - Richard Hampton
* Miller - James Charlton
* Terileptil - Michael Melia
* Poacher - Neil West
* Headman - Eric Dodson

## Crew

* Assistant Floor Manager - Alison Symington
* Costumes - Odile Dicks-Mireaux
* Designer - Ken Starkey
* Film Cameraman - Peter Chapman
* Film Editor - Ken Bilton
* Film Sound - Stan Nightingale
* Incidental Music - Paddy Kingsland
* Make-Up - Carolyn Perry
* Production Assistant - Julia Randall
* Production Associate - Angela Smith
* Production Manager - Roselyn Parker
* Script Editor - David Fisher
* Senior Cameraman - Alec Wheal
* Special Sounds - Dick Mills
* Studio Lighting - Henry Barber
* Studio Sound - Alan Machin
* Technical Manager - Derek Martin
* Theme arrangement - Dudley Simpson
* Title Music - Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
* Video Effects - Dave Jervis
* Videotape Editor - Rod Waldron
* Vision Mixer - Carol Johnson
* Visual Effects Designer - Peter Wragg
* Writer - Eric Saward

## References

### Food and drink

* Ralph brings the Squire a drink of posset.

### Species

* The Terileptils are very intelligent semi-reptilian creatures who have a heightened appreciation of aesthetics and warfare.
* These Terileptils have escaped from the Tinclavic mines on Raaga, where they have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
* Terileptils cannot last long without breathing soliton gas; the substance is volatile when mixed with oxygen, it also smells a bit like sulphur.

### London

* The explosion of the Terileptil leader's weapon is the cause of the 1666 Great Fire of London beginning in Pudding Lane.

### TARDIS

* The TARDIS's lateral balance cones are "playing up" (probably "temperamental solenoids").
* Silvia drops her TARDIS homing device in a fight.
* When the Doctor is searching for the Terileptils' London base, the scanner shows a "brown and white" 17th century print of London's streets.

### Technology

* The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is destroyed and replaced.
* The Doctor finds the Terileptils' escape pod half buried.
* Silvia can pilot the Doctor's TARDIS on her own.
* The Terileptils construct an energy barrier to hide their workshop from the rest of the house.
* The Terileptils' control bracelets are made of polygrite; the substance and the power packs are found in many parts of the universe. Their usual form of lighting - Vintaric crystals - is also common.
* The Terileptils have developed advanced androids.

## Story notes

* The working titles for this story were *The Invasion of the Plague Men* and *Plague Rats*.
* This is the only story credited to Eric Saward that didn't feature a recurring villain, apart from a mention to the Cybermen
* The opening sequence in the TARDIS follows on directly from *The First Cybermen*. Since *The Visitation* was filmed before *The First Cybermen*, Tom Baker and Lesley Dunlop had to act out their characters' responses to the events of *The First Cybermen* based solely on the script.
* *Radio Times* credits John Savident (The Squire) as "Squire John", and Michael Melia (Terileptil) as "Terileptil Leader".
* The Terileptil masks, produced by freelance firm Imagineering, marks the first use of animatronics in the series.
* Eric Saward attributes the name 'Terileptil' to the words "territorial reptiles" in *Doctor Who: The Making of a Television Series*.
* One part of the Terileptil's laboratory re-uses a Hymetusite crystal from *The Horns of Nimon*.
* Director Peter Moffatt strongly disliked Paddy Kingsland's incidental music for this serial, saying it was replete with "turgid chords". (DCOM: *The Visitation*) However, Kingsland called Moffatt his "favourite director to work with". (DOC: *Scoring The Visitation*)
* Eric Saward disliked Michael Robbins' performance as Richard Mace, largely because he kept changing his lines. Robbins, for his part, is said to have hated working on this story.
* The Terileptils, and the pioneering animatronic masks used to bring them to life, were intended to return.
* The story was inspired by the work of a former girlfriend of Saward's, who had been studying the architecture which arose in the wake of the Great Fire of London. She observed that the black rats which carried the plague became virtually extinct within months of the Great Fire, and Saward thought that this would provide an effective science-fiction “hook” for a story about social conditions in mediaeval England.
* Ian Bannen, Brian Blessed, John Carson, Ronald Fraser, Donald Houston, William Lucas, Glyn Owen and Donald Pleasence were considered for Richard Mace.
* Filming at Black Park took place on a Heathrow Airport flight path and the noise of approaching aircraft regularly disrupted recording. An air traffic controller's strike put an end to these disturbances.

### Ratings

* Part one - 9.1 million viewers
* Part two - 9.3 million viewers
* Part three - 9.9 million viewers
* Part four - 10.1 million viewers

### Filming locations

* Black Park, Black Park Road, Fulmer, Buckinghamshire
* Tithe Barn, Hurley High Street, Hurley, Berkshire
* Ealing Television Film Studios (Stage 2), Ealing Green, Ealing
* BBC Television Centre (Studio 3), Shepherd's Bush, London

### Production errors

* When the doors open in the interior of the crashed ship, you can clearly see that the forest in which the craft is supposedly located is not there.
* When the Doctor decides that Silvia should go to the TARDIS alone, while he and Richard Mace go to see the miller, she leaves back in the direction from which they had entered the clearing.
* The Doctor pulls the bracelet off the leader of the village, but when it shows the leader again, he is still wearing the bracelet.
* When the Doctor takes the arrow out the escape pod wall and takes it over to the escape hatch, the camera loses focus and clearly refocuses while he primes the mechanism to blow open the hatch.
* When the android enters the TARDIS, its skull mask visibly detaches and hangs from the top of its head during the on-location portion of the scene.

## Continuity

* When the Doctor is about to be beheaded by the scytheman, he groans, "Not again." He is alluding to being sanctioned for beheading back in Renaissance Italy. (TV: *The Masque of Mandragora*)
* The Doctor previously indicated that he was wrongly accused of having started the Great Fire. (TV: *Pyramids of Mars*)
* The First Doctor was accidentally involved in the burning of Rome. (TV: *The Romans*)
* During the Doctor's first incarnation, the TARDIS had materialised in London, specifically outside the burning house of George Mortimer, shortly after the Great Fire began. The First Doctor rescued George, his wife Helen and their children Ida and Alan, and took them on a trip to the Andromeda Galaxy in the far future. It is possible that for a brief period after the First Doctor's arrival in 1666, that there were at least three separate incarnations of the Doctor co-existing in the same timeframe and in close proximity to one another. (PROSE: *Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space*)
* The characters discuss the events of TV: *The First Cybermen*.

## Home Video/Audio releases

### Video releases

This story was released as *Doctor Who: The Visitation/The Enemy Within* with *The Enemy Within* as part of a two tape set.

Released:

* UK July 1994

PAL - BBC Video BBCV5349

* Australia August 1994

PAL

* US June 1996

NTSC

### DVD releases

This story was released as *Doctor Who: The Visitation*.

Released:

* Region 2 - 19 January 2004

PAL - BBC DVD BBCDVD1329

* Region 4 - 8 April 2004
* Region 1 - 1 March 2005

NTSC - Warner Video E2157

Contents:

* Audio Commentary by actors Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Matthew Waterhouse, and director Peter Moffatt
* *Directing Who* - Interview with Peter Moffatt.
* *Writing a Final Visitation* - Writer Eric Saward talks about the origins of his first script for *Doctor Who*.
* *Scoring The Visitation* - Composer Paddy Kingsland discusses his score.
* *Film Trims* - Additional shots and dialogue that were cut before transmission.
* Music-only Option
* Photo Gallery
* Production Subtitles

* Easter Egg: Continuity announcements. To access this hidden feature, press left at "Play All" from the main menu.

Notes:

* Editing for the DVD release was completed by the Doctor Who Restoration Team.

The DVD was reissued as a Special Edition on 6 May 2013