| Downtime | |||||
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VHS Release cover |
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| Production | |||||
| Writer | Marc Platt | ||||
| Director | Christopher Barry | ||||
| Producer | Keith Barnfather Ian Levine Paul Cuthbert-Brown Andrew Beech |
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| Length | 1 episode, 70 mins. | ||||
| Originally broadcast | 2 September 1995 (release date) | ||||
| Chronology | |||||
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Downtime is a direct-to-video spin-off of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was released direct-to-video and produced by the independent production company Reeltime Pictures. It is a sequel to the Second Doctor serials The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear.
Downtime stars Nicholas Courtney, Deborah Watling, Jack Watling and Elisabeth Sladen reprising their roles as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Victoria Waterfield, Professor Travers and Sarah Jane Smith, respectively.
Contents |
Many years after trying to take over the world, the Great Intelligence is back once more. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, now retired, and Sarah Jane Smith have to stop it, but this time without the Doctor's help. Victoria Waterfield and Professor Travers have also returned, but whose side are they really on?
Some while after Victoria had parted company with the Doctor on Earth in the 20th century (at the end of Fury from the Deep), she is lured back to the Detsen Monastery in Tibet (from The Abominable Snowmen) by a dream telling her she will be reunited with her late father there. Instead, she found that she had been contacted by the Great Intelligence, which still possessed the mind of Professor Travers (last seen in The Web of Fear).
Nearly fifteen years later, in the present day, Victoria is now the vice chancellor of New World University. New World is an institution that claims to offer spiritual guidance to distraught youth. In reality, however, New World is the centre of operations for the Intelligence's plan to conquer the Earth by infecting the global network of computers. Both the administration and students await the coming of a "new world" that will be heralded by the arrival of the chancellor, the Intelligence-possessed Travers.
Victoria's motives are well-meaning but misguided, having been manipulated with a promise of the "light of truth". The students themselves have been brainwashed through their computer courses and are slaves of the Intelligence. Outsiders refer to them as "chillys".
The Intelligence needs a final missing Locus to attain its goal. It believes it is in the possession of the Brigadier, but it is actually with his daughter Kate and grandson Gordon on their narrowboat.
New World attempts to gather information on the Brigadier by requesting an investigation by Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah lies about her knowledge of the Brigadier and later warns both him and UNIT. The Intelligence then arranges a meeting between the Brigadier and a corrupt UNIT captain named Cavendish.
Throughout the story the Brigadier is aided by a New World student named Daniel Hinton, a former student of his from the Brendon School. The Intelligence's conditioning failed on Hinton, though at times he is still under its influence and at one point becomes a Yeti. He can communicate with the Brigadier through the bardo or astral plane.
The university campus scenes of the video version were shot on location at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Then DWB (Dreamwatch Bulletin) editor Anthony Brown, who had attended UEA, suggested the location after another had fallen through, as the distinctive Ziggurat-shaped student residences Norfolk and Suffolk Terrace echoed pyramid motifs in the script and previous Yeti stories.
Production of some external scenes had to be rescheduled thanks to unseasonal spring snow storms — ironically, snow was conspicuously absent from the first Yeti story, The Abominable Snowmen.
The later Reeltime production Dæmos Rising followed up on some of the elements of this story.
Daniel Hinton is named after Craig Hinton, the Doctor Who fan and novelist.
| Downtime - Original Soundtrack Recording | |
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| Soundtrack album by Ian Levine, Nigel Stock, and Erwin Keiles | |
| Released | December 1995 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Label | Silva Screen |
Music from this video composed by Ian Levine, Nigel Stock, and Erwin Keiles was released on CD by Silva Screen Records in December 1995.[1]
| Doctor Who book | |
|---|---|
| Downtime | |
| Series | Virgin Missing Adventures |
| Release number | 18 |
| Featuring | Victoria Waterfield Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart Sarah Jane Smith |
| Writer | Marc Platt |
| Publisher | Virgin Books |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-426-20462-X |
| Set between | Fury from the Deep and Battlefield |
| Number of pages | 263 |
| Release date | January 1996 |
| Preceded by | 'Lords of the Storm' |
| Followed by | 'The Man in the Velvet Mask' |
In 1996 a novelisation of Downtime by Marc Platt was published by Virgin Publishing as part of their Missing Adventures line. It expands greatly on the original story and features many differences in plot. It is the only Missing Adventure not to centre on the Doctor, although the Second Doctor makes a cameo at the start of the novel, and the Third Doctor makes a cameo at the end. It is one of only two non-BBC, Doctor Who-related productions to be novelised. The other was Shakedown which was published as part of the Virgin New Adventures line of books.
The novelisation included an 8-page photo insert of behind-the-scenes images taken from the film production.
Other creator-authorised Doctor Who spin-offs include:
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