Doctor Who/Recap/S15/E04 The Sun Makers: Difference between revisions

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Cordo: Praise the company!
Mandrel: Stuff the company!

Doctor Who goes all political with this thinly-disguised allegory on the evils of income tax. The TARDIS arrives on the planet Pluto, which in the future has six suns, a breathable atmosphere and a thriving industrial base. "The Company" controls the entire planet and exploits the workers mercilessly, paying peanuts and taxing everything.

The Doctor and Leela contact the resistance, led by Mandrel, and learn that the workforce are being kept calm by a gas piped into the atmosphere. While The Company has a human representative in Gatherer Hade, it is in fact run by alien Usurians, noted for keeping planets in economic servitude.

The Doctor succeeds in switching off the calming gas and the workers rise up against The Company and kill the hated Gatherer Hade, while the Doctor does some computer jiggery-pokery to bankrupt it. The Usurian "Collector" is powerless to stop The Company going bust and reverts to his natural form - a harmless fungus.

Tropes

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: the undercity.
Author Tract: Writer Robert Holmes based this story on some of the troubles he was having with England's revenue office.^[1] Some of the floors are numbered based on tax forms.
Badass Boast: Leela gets several, but most memorably when the Others threaten to kill her.

Leela: Before I die I'll see this rathole ankle deep in blood. That is a promised thing.

Book Ends
Bowdlerisation: An odd example: Terrance Dicks's novelisation has the citizens immediately feeling guilty and regretful after Hade is thrown off the roof, presumably out of a retrospective feeling that a family show shouldn't really condone the casual murder of civil servants, even evil ones.
Camera Spoofing
Cold-Blooded Torture
Conveyor Belt O' Doom: For conveying Leela into the Sauna of Death
Corrupt Corporate Executive
Crowning Moment of Funny: This episode contains a plethora of sarcasm, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes... and satire.
- When Leela and The Doctor bicker over why both of them ran when told "The Gatherer was coming!"

The Doctor (coming to grips): Perhaps everyone runs from the taxman.

- Gatherer Hade's malapropisms alone put this episode atop the Funniest Who Episodes list.
Curiosity Is a Crapshoot
Disney Villain Death: Gatherer Hade is ultimately thrown over a railing to his death.
Driven to Suicide
Earth-That-Was: The Company rescued humanity from a dying Earth, moving them first to Mars and thence to Pluto.
Elaborate Underground Base: The serial was filmed in the real-life deep air raid shelters of London.
Emotion Bomb: Used by the evil tax-gathering government to control the human populace. The Doctor inverts the technology to make people angry instead.
Evil Cripple: The Collector would appear to be one, since he's confined to a wheelchair-like device throughout the story. It's actually a device that emits radiation to keep him in his human form.
Fate Worse Than Death: The Correction Center. Followed by death.
Hypnotic Eyes: The Doctor. It works a little too well.
I Fight for the Strongest Side: Marn's Heel Face Turn at the end of the serial.
Incredibly Lame Pun: The Doctor spoofs Karl Marx when he tells the workers they have nothing to lose but their claims.
Least Is First
Loan Shark: tax arrears are dealt with like this
Loves the Sound of Screaming: the Collector anticipating Leela's painful execution.

The Collector: This is the moment when I get a real sense of job satisfaction!

Meaningful Name: The Usurians are usurers.
Mega Corp
Mister Big
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Hade(s)
Nice Hat: Gatherer Hade wears one.
Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap: Gatherer Hade boasts a desk of real wood - most people only learn about trees in school - and members of the resistance are extremely impressed by Leela's skins.
Plant Aliens: The Usurians turn out to be a species of poisonous fungus.
La Résistance
Retroactive Recognition: Goudry is played by Michael Keating, better known for his later role as Vila Restal of Blake's 7.
The Revolution Will Not Be Villified: Initially subverted - the 'resistance' are depicted as brutal, self-interested and venal criminals out for themselves rather than any higher purpose until the Doctor effectively takes over.
Sauna of Death: Leela is captured and sentenced to death by "steaming."
Shout-Out: Leela's attempted execution contains visual references to Metropolis (the pod she's confined in, and the control panels). The opening shots of Cordo are a copy of the opening shots of Winston Smith in the famous 1950s BBC version of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Smart People Play Chess: The Doctor plays chess with K-9. He's losing.
Spell My Name with a "The"
Stealth Insult: Gatherer Hade has an ostentatious manner of addressing The Collector (your Immensity, your Hugeness, your Supernal Eminence, etc), but as their relationship breaks down under the strain of events the honorifics become somewhat insulting, as in: "I fear the situation is worsening, your Grossness!"
Villainous Breakdown: The Collector, upon realizing the revolution has finally caught up with him, is reduced to a babbling wreck as he slowly (and literally) goes down the drain.
Visual Pun: when Leela is captured the Collector orders her status to be set as "pending". When we next see her she's hung on a wall.
Why Didn't You Just Say So?: After Leela attempts for several minutes to pull the Doctor's attention away from a riveting chess game:

Leela: Doctor, can I speak now?
The Doctor: What? All right, if you must. What is it?
Leela: Well, the column has stopped moving.
The Doctor: So?
Leela: It is not important?
The Doctor: WHAT?! We might have gone right through the time spiral, why didn't you tell me?
Leela: I tried to, but you wouldn't let me.
The Doctor: You didn't!
Leela: I did!

↑ Due to having been simultaneously paid by the BBC as a salaried worker in his role as script editor, and as a freelancer for the scripts he was credited writer on

[1] Due to having been simultaneously paid by the BBC as a salaried worker in his role as script editor, and as a freelancer for the scripts he was credited writer on

[1]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{work}}
 [[File:gathererhade_1924.jpg|frame]]
-{{quote| '''Cordo''': ''Praise the company!''<br />
+{{quote|'''Cordo''': ''Praise the company!''
 '''Mandrel''': ''Stuff the company!'' }}
-''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' goes all political with this thinly-disguised allegory on the evils of income tax. The TARDIS arrives on the planet Pluto, which in the future has six suns, a breathable atmosphere and a thriving industrial base. "The Company" controls the entire planet and exploits the workers mercilessly, paying peanuts and taxing everything.
+''[[Doctor Who]]'' goes all political with this thinly-disguised allegory on the evils of income tax. The TARDIS arrives on the planet Pluto, which in the future has six suns, a breathable atmosphere and a thriving industrial base. "The Company" controls the entire planet and exploits the workers mercilessly, paying peanuts and taxing everything.
 The Doctor and Leela contact the resistance, led by Mandrel, and learn that the workforce are being kept calm by a gas piped into the atmosphere. While The Company has a human representative in Gatherer Hade, it is in fact run by alien Usurians, noted for keeping planets in economic servitude.
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 The Doctor succeeds in switching off the calming gas and the workers rise up against The Company and kill the hated Gatherer Hade, while the Doctor does some computer jiggery-pokery to bankrupt it. The Usurian "Collector" is powerless to stop The Company going bust and reverts to his natural form - a harmless fungus.
-=== Tropes ===
+== Tropes ==
 * [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]: the undercity.
-* [[Author Tract]]: Writer Robert Holmes based this story on some of the troubles he was having with England's revenue office<ref>Due to having been simultaneously paid by the BBC as a salaried worker in his role as script editor, and as a freelancer for the scripts he was credited writer on</ref>. Some of the floors are numbered based on tax forms.
+* [[Author Tract]]: Writer Robert Holmes based this story on some of the troubles he was having with England's revenue office.<ref>Due to having been simultaneously paid by the BBC as a salaried worker in his role as script editor, and as a freelancer for the scripts he was credited writer on</ref> Some of the floors are numbered based on tax forms.
 * [[Badass Boast]]: Leela gets several, but most memorably when the Others threaten to kill her.
-{{quote| '''Leela:''' Before I die I'll see this rathole ankle deep in blood. That is a promised thing.}}
+{{quote|'''Leela:''' Before I die I'll see this rathole ankle deep in blood. That is a promised thing.}}
 * [[Book Ends]]
-* [[Bowdlerise|Bowdlerisation]]: An odd example: [[Terrance Dicks (Creator)|Terrance Dicks]]'s [[Doctor Who Novelisations (Literature)|novelisation]] has the citizens immediately feeling guilty and regretful after Hade is thrown off the roof, presumably out of a retrospective feeling that a family show shouldn't really condone the casual murder of civil servants, even evil ones.
+* [[Bowdlerise|Bowdlerisation]]: An odd example: [[Terrance Dicks]]'s [[Doctor Who Novelisations|novelisation]] has the citizens immediately feeling guilty and regretful after Hade is thrown off the roof, presumably out of a retrospective feeling that a family show shouldn't really condone the casual murder of civil servants, even evil ones.
 * [[Camera Spoofing]]
 * [[Cold-Blooded Torture]]
@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 * [[Crowning Moment of Funny]]: This episode contains a plethora of sarcasm, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes... and satire.
 ** When Leela and The Doctor bicker over why both of them ran when told "The Gatherer was coming!"
-{{quote| '''The Doctor''' (coming to grips): Perhaps everyone runs from the taxman.}}
+{{quote|'''The Doctor''' (coming to grips): Perhaps everyone runs from the taxman.}}
 ** Gatherer Hade's malapropisms alone put this episode atop the Funniest ''Who'' Episodes list.
 * [[Curiosity Is a Crapshoot]]
 * [[Disney Villain Death]]: Gatherer Hade is ultimately thrown over a railing to his death.
 * [[Driven to Suicide]]
-* [[Earth That Was]]: The Company rescued humanity from a dying Earth, moving them first to Mars and thence to Pluto.
+* [[Earth-That-Was]]: The Company rescued humanity from a dying Earth, moving them first to Mars and thence to Pluto.
 * [[Elaborate Underground Base]]: The serial was filmed in the real-life deep air raid shelters of London.
 * [[Emotion Bomb]]: Used by the evil tax-gathering government to control the human populace. The Doctor inverts the technology to make people angry instead.
 * [[Evil Cripple]]: The Collector would appear to be one, since he's confined to a wheelchair-like device throughout the story. It's actually a device that emits radiation to keep him in his human form.
 * [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: The Correction Center. Followed by death.
 * [[Hypnotic Eyes]]: The Doctor. It works a little too well.
-* [[I Fight for The Strongest Side]]: Marn's [[Heel Face Turn]] at the end of the serial.
+* [[I Fight for the Strongest Side]]: Marn's [[Heel Face Turn]] at the end of the serial.
 * [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: The Doctor spoofs Karl Marx when he tells the workers they have nothing to lose but their claims.
 * [[Least Is First]]
 * [[Loan Shark]]: tax arrears are dealt with like this
 * [[Loves the Sound of Screaming]]: the Collector anticipating Leela's painful execution.
-{{quote| '''The Collector''': This is the moment when I get a real sense of ''job satisfaction''!}}
+{{quote|'''The Collector''': This is the moment when I get a real sense of ''job satisfaction''!}}
 * [[Meaningful Name]]: The Usurians are usurers.
 * [[Mega Corp]]
@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 * [[Plant Aliens]]: The Usurians turn out to be a species of poisonous fungus.
 * [[La Résistance]]
-* [[Retroactive Recognition]]: Goudry is played by Michael Keating, better known for his later role as Vila Restal of ''[[Blake's Seven (TV)|Blake's 7.]]''
+* [[Retroactive Recognition]]: Goudry is played by Michael Keating, better known for his later role as Vila Restal of ''[[Blake's 7]].''
 * [[The Revolution Will Not Be Villified]]: Initially subverted - the 'resistance' are depicted as brutal, self-interested and venal criminals out for themselves rather than any higher purpose until the Doctor effectively takes over.
 * [[Sauna of Death]]: Leela is captured and sentenced to death by "steaming."
-* [[Shout Out]]: Leela's attempted execution contains visual references to ''[[Metropolis]]'' (the pod she's confined in, and the control panels). The opening shots of Cordo are a copy of the opening shots of Winston Smith in the famous 1950s BBC version of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''.
+* [[Shout-Out]]: Leela's attempted execution contains visual references to ''[[Metropolis]]'' (the pod she's confined in, and the control panels). The opening shots of Cordo are a copy of the opening shots of Winston Smith in the famous 1950s BBC version of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''.
 * [[Smart People Play Chess]]: The Doctor plays chess with K-9. He's losing.
-* [[Spell My Name With a "The"]]
+* [[Spell My Name with a "The"]]
 * [[Stealth Insult]]: Gatherer Hade has an ostentatious manner of addressing The Collector (your Immensity, your Hugeness, your Supernal Eminence, etc), but as their relationship breaks down under the strain of events the honorifics become somewhat insulting, as in: "I fear the situation is worsening, your Grossness!"
 * [[Villainous Breakdown]]: The Collector, upon realizing the revolution has finally caught up with him, is reduced to a babbling wreck as he slowly (and literally) goes down the drain.
 * [[Visual Pun]]: when Leela is captured the Collector orders her status to be set as "pending". When we next see her she's hung on a wall.
 * [[Why Didn't You Just Say So?]]: After Leela attempts for several minutes to pull the Doctor's attention away from a riveting chess game:
-{{quote| '''Leela:''' Doctor, can I speak now?<br />
+{{quote|'''Leela:''' Doctor, can I speak now?
-'''The Doctor:''' What? All right, if you must. What is it?<br />
+'''The Doctor:''' What? All right, if you must. What is it?
-'''Leela:''' Well, the column has stopped moving.<br />
+'''Leela:''' Well, the column has stopped moving.
-'''The Doctor:''' So?<br />
+'''The Doctor:''' So?
-'''Leela:''' It is not important?<br />
+'''Leela:''' It is not important?
-'''The Doctor:''' WHAT?! We might have gone right through the time spiral, why didn't you tell me?<br />
+'''The Doctor:''' WHAT?! We might have gone right through the time spiral, why didn't you tell me?
-'''Leela:''' I tried to, but you wouldn't let me.<br />
+'''Leela:''' I tried to, but you wouldn't let me.
-'''The Doctor:''' You didn't!<br />
+'''The Doctor:''' You didn't!
 '''Leela:''' I ''did!'' }}
 {{reflist}}
-[[Category:Doctor Who (TV)/Recap]]
-[[Category:Doctor Who S 15 E 4 The Sun Makers]]
 [[Category:Recap]]
+[[Category:Doctor Who]]
+[[Category:Doctor Who/Recap]]