Delta and the Bannermen is the third serial of the 24th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from 2 November to 16 November 1987.
On an alien planet the genocide of the Chimeron by the merciless Bannermen led by Gavrok is almost complete. The last survivor, Chimeron Queen Delta, escapes clutching her egg, the future of her species. She reaches a space tollport where the Navarinos, a race of shape changing tourist aliens, are planning a visit to the planet Earth in 1959 in a spaceship disguised as an old holiday bus. She stows aboard, meeting Mel, while the Doctor follows in the TARDIS. The Doctor and Mel won the trip as a prize for arriving in the Navarino spaceport in time to be declared the ten billionth customers. As the tourist vehicle departs, the Bannermen arrive to hunt down the fugitive, and they kill the tollmaster.[2][3][4]
The holiday vehicle from Nostalgia Tours collides with an Earth satellite and is diverted off track, landing at a holiday camp in South Wales rather than Disneyland.[4][5][6] They reach the Shangri-La holiday camp, led by camp director Burton, played by Richard Davies.[7] Delta's egg hatches into a bright green baby that starts to grow at a startling rate.[8][7] The Chimeron Queen supports this development with the equivalent of royal jelly given to bees.[5]
Delta captures the heart of Billy, the camp's mechanic, to the chagrin of Ray, who loves Billy herself.[3][7] Ray confides her situation to the Doctor, and they stumble across a bounty hunter making contact with the Bannermen to tell them of the Chimeron's whereabouts.[3][9] Gavrok and his troops soon arrive. Delta and Billy head off for a picnic while the Doctor busies himself coordinating things back at the camp.[7] Meanwhile, the Bannermen have destroyed the Navarino bus with all its passengers.[3][10]
Two American CIA agents, Hawk and Weismuller, appear on the scene, tracking the missing satellite.[9][11] Gavrok booby-traps the TARDIS in an attempt to kill the Doctor. A battle ensues with Gavrok and his Bannermen against the Doctor and his crew: Ray & Billy, Goronwy, Mr. Burton and the two CIA agents. The Bannermen are foiled by honey, Goronwy's bees and finally by the amplified scream of the Chimeron child Princess – a sound which is painful to Bannermen.[3][10]
Goronwy explains to Billy the purpose of royal jelly in the lifecycle of the honeybee, provoking the mechanic to consume Delta's equivalent that she has been feeding her daughter, in the hope of metamorphosing into a Chimeron.[4][6]
As Gavrok and the Bannermen attack Shangri-La, the amplified scream of the Chimeron princess traumatises the attackers, including Gavrok, who becomes so stunned that he falls into the booby-trap he placed on the TARDIS and is killed.[3][10] Delta and Billy leave together with the child, the two agents watch on with surprise and Goronwy winks knowingly as the Doctor and Mel slip away.[2][10]
Continuity
Sylvester McCoy can be seen wearing his glasses in certain long shots of him riding a motorcycle.[2][9]
This was the first three-part story since Planet of Giants (1964), not counting the 3 x 45 minute episodes of The Two Doctors which had been broadcast two years previously, and the first intended to be this length. Working titles for this story included The Flight of the Chimeron.[13] The eventual title is a reference to the British band Echo & the Bunnymen.[2]
The character Ray was originally created as a new companion for the Doctor as Bonnie Langford had announced she would be leaving the series at the end of the season.[14] The serial, with the working title, The Flight Of The Chimeron, was originally scheduled to end the season. However, as the serial neared production, Langford had not decided whether she would leave at the end of Season 24 or during Season 25. That fact plus the rescheduling of Delta and the Bannermen to earlier in the season and the decision by script editor Andrew Cartmel to create another replacement companion named Alf (later renamed 'Ace'), led to the abandonment of the idea of Ray as a new companion.[13][14]
Filming and post-production
The scenes at the Shangri-La holiday camp were shot on location at the Butlins holiday camp on Barry Island, Wales.[2] The holiday camp is no longer there, but the island was used again, this time as a stand-in for a bomb site in 1941 London, in the 2005 series episodes "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances".[15]
Simon Brew of Den of Geek thought the story was "fun nonsense."[5] Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping enjoyed the serial, describing it as "confident, slick, and hugely enjoyable from beginning to end". They praised Bonnie Langford's performance, found Ken Dodd to be "OK" but thought Don Henderson played it too straight.[2][19]
David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker found the serial to be even more whimsical than the preceding story but more successful, "all in all, a highly enjoyable romp."[2]Radio Times' Mark Baxton declared: "It’s mad as cheese and about as scary as an episode of Play Away. It doesn’t feel like Doctor Who for a second. But just once in a while the show can afford to go mad."[20]
In 2015, Steven Moffat endorsed the fan theory that Goronwy is a future incarnation of the Doctor, and said that the idea fit well with the Doctor's line about retiring to become a beekeeper in "The Name of the Doctor".[2][21]
Delta and the Bannermen was released on VHS in March 2001 in the UK[23][24] and June 2002 in North America, but music clearance issues prevented the release of the serial in Australia.[25] A DVD edition was released in the UK on 22 June 2009.[17] This serial was also released as part of the Doctor Who DVD Files in issue 62 on 18 May 2011.[26]
