43-477: The Armageddon Factor is the sixth and final serial of the 16th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who , which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 20 January to 24 February 1979. It was the last to feature Mary Tamm as Romana . The serial is set on the planets Atrios and Zeos, and another planet in between them. In the serial, a nuclear war between Atrios and Zeos
86-539: A difficult actor to work with. The BBC executives were able to negotiate a truce between Williams and Baker who both agreed to return for another season, but relations between the star and the producer remained tense. The model scenes featuring toy spaceships were shot on 27 October 1978 at the BBC Television Film Studios in Ealing . The scenes that featured the actors were shot between 5 November-5 December 1978 at
129-550: A nuclear holocaust. The computer Mentalis seems to have been based upon Kahn's hypothetical Doomsday Machine. The character of Drax was originally intended for the 1976 story The Hand of Fear and was envisioned as an eccentric scientist. The outgoing script editor Anthony Read rewrote the character of Drax to make him into a bumbling Cockney comic sidekick who was portrayed as the "lovable rogue" archetype commonly associated with British criminals. In British culture, there are broadly two archetypes associated with criminals, namely
172-739: A pawn of the Shadow as well. With Astra's help, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS back to the Planet of Evil. There, they are all separated. The Doctor encounters another Time Lord, Drax, whom he last met at the Gallifreyan Academy. Drax, who is under duress, was employed by The Shadow to build Mentalis, but he agrees to help the Doctor, and also frees K9. The Shadow reveals he is an agent of the Black Guardian , and demands
215-618: A self-destruct sequence set to destroy both Zeos and Atrios. The Doctor attempts to stop it, but it damages its central control after its perimeter defence is triggered. With a lack of options, the Doctor fashions an artificial stopgap Segment, and orders the Key to Time to shroud the Marshal's ship and Mentalis' systems in an imperfect deteriorating time loop. Meanwhile, K9 is abducted by the Shadow and fitted with another control device. The Doctor's group reunites with Astra, seemingly escaped but actually made
258-472: Is a pointless struggle that has caused the deaths of millions for nothing, which implies that Cold War is a struggle that endangers all life on earth for no good reason. The original script made the pacifistic message more clear as the nuclear war between the two planets was caused by misunderstandings in turn caused by a disastrous shift in the orbits of both Zeos and Atrios while the Shadow was more taking advantage of an existing conflict instead of causing it in
301-480: Is abducted during an attempt to transmaterialise/transmat (teleport) to Zeos, and meets with the true opponent, the "Shadow", ruling over a space station called the "Planet of Evil". However, as part of the Shadow's stratagem, he releases the Doctor, hoping he will misstep in his search for the Segment. The Doctor transmats to Zeos, genuinely this time, reuniting with Romana, an Atrion officer, and K9. They all find that Zeos
344-430: Is deserted, its inhabitants possibly already annihilated, save for the giant supercomputer Mentalis, which is controlling the outcome of the war. K9 is able to communicate with it, and Mentalis declares the war over. However, the Marshal seeks victory through his opponent's annihilation, and launches a single flagship offence to the planet. Mentalis detects the launch, and, unable to defend itself after surrendering, begins
387-482: Is losing a nuclear war with their neighbouring planet Zeos. Astra, on a tour to rally the injured troops within their safety bunker, is beguiled into seeking safety in a false shelter. Soon after, while searching for the Key to Time's final segment, the Fourth Doctor and Romana arrive, encountering Astra before she is suddenly abducted. After some initial false accusations from the leading bull-headed military Marshal,
430-448: Is nearing its end, but with Atrios losing. At the same time, the Shadow ( William Squire ), a henchman of the Black Guardian ( Valentine Dyall ), steals the time and space vessel the TARDIS , which contains the first five segments of the powerful Key to Time, and kidnaps Princess Astra of Atrios ( Lalla Ward ), who is the sixth and final segment. The planet Atrios, ruled by Princess Astra,
473-583: The White Guardian commissions the Doctor and K9, assisted by a new companion, the Time Lady Romana, to find the six segments of the Key to Time, a cosmic artefact resembling a perfect cube that maintains the equilibrium of the universe. Since it is too powerful for any single being to possess, it has been split into six different segments and scattered across space and time, disguised by the raw elemental power within them into any shape or size. However, since
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#1732851197034516-608: The "hard man" and the "lovable rogue". The original ending written by Baker and Martin called for the Doctor to break up the Key to Time, and Adams changed the ending with the confrontation with the Black Guardian to provide a more dramatic climax. Adams provided the title of The Armageddon Factor as a title appropriate for a story about nuclear war and MAD. Cyril Luckham who played the White Guardian in The Ribos Operation
559-726: The BBC Television Centre Studio 3 in White City . The romantic relationship between Lalla Ward and Baker that was to end with their marriage in 1980 began during the production of The Armageddon Factor . Mary Tamm had become unhappy with playing Romana as she argued that her character did not do very much except being captured and decided to leave Dr. Who , and, according to one source, announced her decision shortly after completion of The Armageddon Factor despite Williams wanting Tamm to stay on for another season. In her own version of events, Tamm said she had already decided by
602-438: The Black Guardian. In some stories, the segment in its disguised form is an integral part of the story, whereas in others, the segment is merely an incidental object. Tom Baker continued his role as The Fourth Doctor , and saw the introduction of Romana played by Mary Tamm . This season was the only one to feature Tamm as the first incarnation of Romana, as Tamm left the programme after only one season because she felt that
645-404: The Doctor agrees to help his increasingly weak efforts against Zeos. The Doctor and Romana discover that there is another factor in the war, when Romana notices a control device attached to the Marshal's neck, the Doctor deduces there is another planetary object between Atrios and Zeos, and a skull-shaped receiver is found behind a mirror that the Marshal seemingly uses to meditate with. The Doctor
688-515: The Doctor says upon seeing the computer Mentalis "that's the way these military minds work", which he labels "the Armageddon factor". The underground base on Atrios was based upon the underground Central Government War Headquarters in Corsham , Wiltshire that had been built in the late 1950s as the location for the British government to operate from if London was destroyed by a Soviet nuclear strike in
731-547: The Doctor with no idea of where they are headed, and the Guardian being unable to follow. The script for The Armageddon Factor was commissioned to the experienced writing team of Bob Baker and Dave Martin by the producer Graham Williams who wanted writers whom he could trust to write the season finale on time. The first draft of the script that became The Armageddon Factor was submitted to Williams on 19 December 1977. The mutually destructive nuclear war between Zeos and Atrios
774-402: The Doctor. However, the Doctor sees through the figure's charade and orders the segments of the Key to Time to once again become scattered across all of time and space, bar the sixth, which he reinstates as Princess Astra. Afterward, the Doctor decides to install a device called a randomiser into the TARDIS' navigation system for a period of time to make his following voyages unpredictable to evade
817-469: The Key to Time, and requests that it be sent to him. However, the Doctor, catching onto the Guardian's blatant disregard for Astra's sacrifice, realises that it is actually the Black Guardian in disguise, and orders the Key to re-disperse, restoring Astra to life. Enraged, the Black Guardian threatens to kill him. In an attempt to evade him, the Doctor fits a randomiser into the TARDIS guidance system, sending it to an unknown location in time and space, leaving
860-410: The Key to Time, threatening to torture Romana. The Doctor leads a servant of the Shadow, known as a Mute, to his TARDIS and opens the door, but Drax misinterprets the Doctor's plan, and shrinks the Doctor and himself, using a dimensional stabiliser from Drax's own TARDIS. The Mute returns to the Shadow with the Key, and Romana realises why the Shadow needs it: Astra herself is the final segment, and from
903-409: The Key's power, she transforms in front of everyone. The Doctor and Drax smuggle themselves into the Shadow's lair inside of K9, who pretends to be under the Shadow's control. Drax again uses the stabiliser to normalise themselves. In the confusion, The Doctor snatches the partially-assembled Key and the final segment, and escapes with Romana, Drax, and K9 into the TARDIS . They return to Zeos, and, with
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#1732851197034946-577: The Shadow. On the other hand, DVD Talk 's Justin Felix gave the serial four out of five stars, saying that it "packs more of a wallop than the previous two stories" and had everything typical of Doctor Who . Felix also called it Mary Tamm's best performance. The American critic Keith Booker wrote that The Armageddon Factor was notably confused in its message as the serial has a strong anti-militarist message with its portrayal of nuclear war that has killed everyone on Zeos and killed nearly everyone on Atrios while at
989-589: The actors to play the Doctor , but in the supporting cast as well. The Doctor is usually accompanied in his travels by one to three companions (sometimes called assistants). These characters provide a surrogate with whom the audience can identify, and further the story by asking questions and getting into trouble, (similar to Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.) The Doctor regularly gains new companions and loses old ones; sometimes they return home, or find new causes on worlds they have visited. A few of
1032-528: The character had reverted to the traditional assistant role and could not be developed further. The second incarnation, played by Lalla Ward (who also appeared in this season as Princess Astra), began her run in the first serial of the next season ( Destiny of the Daleks ). Douglas Adams took over as script editor from Anthony Read for The Armageddon Factor . Season 16 consists of one long story arc encompassing six separate, linked stories. The Key to Time
1075-458: The companions have died during the course of the series. Many characters have appeared in multiple stories; some of which can also dubiously be considered companions, having travelled on the TARDIS, but not as a main character. The Doctor Who comics, novels and audio dramas have created companions, villains and supporting characters of their own. Some of these originated in one medium and later appeared in another. The lists below indicate where
1118-488: The confusing ending, which suggests that the White Guardian who sent the Doctor on his quest to find the Key to Time in The Ribos Operation had been the Black Guardian in disguise all the long and that the Doctor "negated" the whole point of his quest by promptly breaking up the Key to Time once he had assembled it. A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks , was published by Target Books in June 1980. Along with
1161-399: The event of World War Three. The original script called for both Zeos and Atrios to be populated with the villain known as the Shadow manipulating both sides while the character that became Princess Astra was the scientist Reina who been kidnapped by the Shadow years before. During the course of rewrites, the character of Renia was renamed Astra, was made a princess instead of a scientist, and
1204-432: The false Key segment and the time loop both expired, narrowly deactivate Mentalis' self-destruct, but the Doctor also realises that the Marshal is still en route. He quickly erects a shield around Zeos with the TARDIS, to deflect the Marshal's missiles towards the Planet of Evil, destroying it and killing the Shadow. The White Guardian appears on the TARDIS scanner screen to congratulate the Doctor on finding and assembling
1247-524: The final version. The villainous character of the crazed militarist, the Marshal of Atrios, with his endless calls for victory no matter what the cost in human life, was based upon Winston Churchill . The story seems to imply that the sort of leadership provided by Churchill in World War Two was inappropriate for the Cold War given the threat of MAD. The Armageddon Factor has a strong critique of militarism as
1290-508: The first sign of any nuclear attack from another nation or if there was an attempt to disarm it. The Doomsday Machine that Kahn had described inspired the Doomsday Machine depicted in the popular 1964 film Dr. Strangelove . The success of Dr. Strangelove led to a number of films such as the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project that featured computers threatening to plunge the world into
1333-399: The forces balancing the universe are so upset, the White Guardian needs to recover the segments of the Key to stop the universe so that he can restore the balance. The White Guardian also warns the Doctor of the Black Guardian , who also wishes to obtain the Key to Time for his own purposes. In the final episode, the Black Guardian, disguised as the White Guardian, attempts to take the Key from
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1376-400: The loose ends and leaves the over-arching plot strangely unresolved". They praised the Shadow but felt that the other characters were one-dimensional, and called the ending a "cop-out". In 2011, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times stated that the serial "hugely disappoints, yet it's not an unmitigated disaster". He criticised the characterisation and much of the plot, but praised the direction and
1419-455: The production, it was decided to eliminate the characters on Zeos which required fewer actors and make Zeos run by the computer Mentalis. In his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War , the American futurist Herman Kahn wrote of a hypothetical Doomsday Machine, which he described as a computer controlling a stockpile of hydrogen bombs powerful enough to destroy all life on Earth that would be set off at
1462-855: The rest of season sixteen, it was released on DVD in North America as part of the Key to Time box set in 2002, only available in Region 1. A remastered limited edition Key to Time box set was released in Region 2 in the United Kingdom on 24 September 2007. It contains more extras than the previously released US set. This remastered set was released in Region 1 on March 3, 2009. The Key to Time The sixteenth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who , known collectively as The Key to Time , began on 2 September 1978 with The Ribos Operation , and ended with The Armageddon Factor . The arc
1505-401: The same time portraying the universe as caught up in a Manichean struggle between evil vs. good, which undercut the pacifistic message. Booker noted that there was a contradiction between the serial's anti-war message along with its depiction of villains such as the Shadow who proudly self-identify as evil and who need to be resisted at all costs to allow good to prevail. Booker further criticized
1548-511: The serial an unfavourable review in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), describing it as "a dreary end-of-season Oh-my-God-the-money's-run-out 'spectacular'" without subtle acting. In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker wrote that The Armageddon Factor was "entertaining enough in itself, with some good direction by Michael Hayes and generally fine production values, but ultimately fails to tie up all
1591-523: The third or fourth story ( The Stones of Blood / The Androids of Tara ) that she would leave the programme, but Williams did not believe, even at the very end of the season, that she would really leave. In a 2007 interview, she stated that she was willing to shoot a regeneration sequence to allow a smooth transition between her tenure and that of her eventual successor ( Lalla Ward ), but was not invited to do so. Paul Cornell , Martin Day , and Keith Topping gave
1634-567: Was based upon and was a criticism of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Cold War always had threat of escalating into a Third World War which would ensure MAD ( Mutually Assured Destruction ) as nuclear strikes would destroy both sides at the same time. The story takes an anti-Cold War stance as it is suggested that the nuclear war between the two planets Atrios and Zeos
1677-422: Was broadcast from 2 September 1978 to 24 February 1979. All releases are for DVD The Ribos Operation The Pirate Planet The Stones of Blood The Androids of Tara The Power of Kroll The Armageddon Factor White Guardian Over the course of its many years on television, the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who has not only seen changes in
1720-449: Was expected to return for The Armageddon Factor to play the Black Guardian, but was unavailable, leading for Valentine Dyall to be cast instead. Dyall was cast as the Black Guardian because he was an actor associated with villainous roles in horror films and TV shows. Production started in October 1978 and was in turmoil as Tom Baker fought with Williams over the direction that the show
1763-425: Was given a more prominent role in the plot as compared to the original version. Douglas Adams , the incoming script editor, suggested the idea of making Astra into the sixth segment of the Key to Time as a way to raise the stakes for the audience, saying that having the shadow of the Shadow being the sixth segment as written in the original version of the script was not engaging enough for the audience. To save money on
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1806-414: Was going. Baker wanted veto power over the scripts, directors and casting for the other actors, demands that Williams rejected. Baker submitted his resignation during the production, but agreed to rescind his resignation after several meetings with BBC executives. Williams had wanted to fire Baker during the production of The Armageddon Factor , arguing that he played the Doctor for too long and he found him
1849-463: Was originally conceived by producer Graham Williams , who had proposed it as part of his application for the producer's job in 1976. The name refers to the powerful artefact, the segments of which are what the Fourth Doctor and his companions, Romana and K9 , search for during the season. Anthony Read continued in his role as script editor, from the previous season. Douglas Adams also became script editor alongside Read. A figure calling himself
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