The twenty-second season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 5 January 1985 and ended on 30 March 1985. It opened with the serial Attack of the Cybermen and ended with the serial Revelation of the Daleks. The season returned to the traditional Saturday transmission for the first time since Season 18, but for the first and only time in the series' first run it featured 45-minute episodes in its entirety. During transmission, BBC1 controller Michael Grade announced an 18-month hiatus for the series, partly citing the violence depicted in the stories of the season. John Nathan-Turner produced the series with Eric Saward as script editor.
Development Several stories were considered for this season but ultimately scrapped. The first was Cat's Cradle, written by Marc Platt, which was deemed too ambitious for the show's budget and scrapped.. Writer Andrew Smith pitched a story called The First Sontarans, which would have involved the Mary Celeste as well as the origins of the Sontaran and Rutan conflict. This was rejected due to the Sontarans' planned appearance in The Two Doctors.. Other scrapped stories include The Guardians of Prophecy by Johnny Byrne, Leviathan by Brian Finch, The Macros by Ingrid Pitt and Tony Rudlin, and Volvok by Ian Marter..
Casting
Main cast Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon
Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant continue their roles as the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown.
Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines return to play the Second Doctor and his companion Jamie McCrimmon in The Two Doctors. Their previous on-screen appearance had been (briefly in the case of Hines) in "The Five Doctors" in 1983.
Recurring actors Anthony Ainley as The Master Kate O'Mara as The Rani Terry Molloy as Davros
Ainley returns in The Mark of the Rani as The Master, and O'Mara makes her first appearance as The Rani in The Mark of the Rani.
Terry Molloy returns to play Davros in Revelation of the Daleks and also played Russell in Attack of the Cybermen.
Guest stars Maurice Colbourne returned as Lytton from the story Resurrection of the Daleks in Attack of the Cybermen.
David Banks makes his third of four appearances as a Cyber-leader in Attack of the Cybermen.
Michael Kilgarriff reprises his role of the Cyber-Controller from The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967).
Serials
The series moved back to once-weekly Saturday broadcasts. All episodes were 45 minutes long, though 25-minute edits were produced for foreign markets. Although there were now only 13 episodes in the season, the total running time remained approximately the same as in previous seasons since the episodes were almost twice as long.
Supplemental episodes A specially written segment produced for the BBC children's programme Jim'll Fix It featuring Colin Baker in character as the Sixth Doctor. It was broadcast on 23 February 1985. It is not generally considered to be canonical by Doctor Who fans (although a book in the Big Finish Short Trips series features a sequel to it).
Broadcast The entire season was broadcast from 5 January to 30 March 1985. Season 22 was the first season of Doctor Who to have 45–minute episodes instead of 25–minute episodes, and was also the first season to be broadcast on Saturdays since season 18.
Home media
VHS releases
DVD and Blu-ray releases
In print
References
Bibliography
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External links