No Sky in Space (serial)


*The following article is written from an Out of Universe perspective.*

No Sky in Space was the first story of Season 39 of Doctor Who. It was written and directed by Nicholas Meyer ^[1] and featured Richard E. Grant as the Doctor and Anna Hope as Sandra Armstrong.

It's notable for introducing the characters of Sandra Armstrong, Fen Do'nel and Billard as well as introducing both the Bellonsion and Poplne races into the show.

Synopsis

“For the interest of development, the human race have been selected to lead the project into hyper-spacial travel. I CALL FAVOURITISM! I cannot believe that the human race was selected for the project when the Bellonsions were the perfect candidates. I should have been out there on the new frontiers exploring hyper-spacial travel not the humans. It seems I will remain on a rust bucket of a space station on the edge of the galaxy. TERMINATE LOG ENTRY – Commander Sandra Armstrong, 12th November 3445.”

A strange blue box appears out of nowhere in the Space Station Exotract 42’s Hospital. All the instruments read that it doesn’t exist. They don’t acknowledge it’s presence. Soon enough an expert known as ‘The Doctor’ starts to help out. Meanwhile, a secret ploy to keep the Bellonsions out of power is taking place as well as corruption at the highest levels of the Bellonsions’ worst enemy, the Poplne. The truth must be uncovered before hyper-spacial ships reach the launchpad.

Plot

Part 1

To be added.

Part 2

To be added.

Part 3

To be added.

Cast

The Doctor - Richard E. Grant
Commander Sandra Armstrong - Anna Hope
Fen Do'nel - Tucker Smallwood
Sub-Commander Arkque - Jillian Bach
Lieutenant Commander Jaszal - Donnelly Rhodes
Lieutenant Pensgah - Susan Bullah
Duo Famsar - Alexander Balie
Duo Deathtrick - Alan Dale
Admiral Samuels - Barry Sonya
Father Billard - William Bleach
Western Dracon - Harold Vela
Voice of Computer - Elisabeth Sladen

Crew

Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber
Executive Producer - David Renwick

Writer and Director - Nicholas Meyer
- Story by Nicholas Meyer and Russell T Davies
Producer - Bill Shapter
Script Editor - Russell T Davies

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

Development

Development on the Story-line for, what would become, "No Sky in Space" originated from Nicholas Meyer, who was acting as the defacto Script Editor from the time of Steven Moffat's departure until Russell T Davies' appointment.
David Renwick wanted the story to be very different, and incoming Script Editor, Russell T Davies agreed with him. The companion was to be a young office cleaner who encounters Autons while alone in a large building at night. The would-be companion was to have met the Doctor and his first word to her would have been ‘Run!’.
However, Nicholas Meyer managed to persuade Renwick to change it so the new companion wasn't the stock contemporary girl companion and wanted to do something different. Meyer suggested that since they had a companion from the past, in the form of Sammy, and from the present, in the form of Lou, the next companion should be from the future.
Meyer was inspired by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the especially the character of Major Kira. He suggested that the new companion could riff on her. This was when it was first suggested, by Meyer, that she could be an alien. Davies later decided to change this to half-human for the opportunity to further explore the character's backstory.
It was in fact Davies who created the new companion's race, the Bellonsions. Speaking in 2012: "I wanted to do a new race that we've never seen before. That way we can find all sorts of things about them and develop them from the ground up. The Bellonsions originated from the general idea of the Bajorans from Star Trek but they were purposely a lot more self-sustaining and independent. We decided to make the Bellonsions a member of the Galactic Federation to create a link to humanity and let us see humanity as perhaps the enemy."
Meyer and Davies both worked on developing the character for months right up to the deadline date for the first scripts needing to be commissioned. As the companion was not yet fully realised, in proposed Story-lines from other writers, Davies asked them to use Lou Madison as the companion. This led to a rumour, spread by the Sun, that Lou would return, somehow, as the companion in the upcoming season.
In mid-2001, the character outline of Sandra Armstrong was approved by David Renwick.
Due to Davies and Meyer first working on developing the companion, the Story-line for the first story had not yet been written, when in fact, all of the scripts for the story should have been completed. Therefore No Sky in Space was the fourth story of the season to be finalised and shot.
The decision to set the first episode on an old Space-Station was taken by Meyer, which further increased parallels to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as he wanted to heighten the isolation Sandra was feeling and her long for change.
Meyer decided that the Bellonsions needed a direct antagonistic race to face off against and created the Poplne. He specified that they should be an all CGI monster and should be very thin and bony. As a result of this Meyer also created the double act of Duo Famsar and Duo Deathtrick, the main Poplne throughout the show. Speaking about them in 2012, Meyer commented: "The Poplne are supposed to be in a grey area. They aren't terrible but they're not completely good either, almost like humanity. Duo Famsar and Duo Deathtrick sum that up, they can both be extremely menacing and downright evil at times, but they can also be witty and light-hearted but never in view of their enemy. They never make that mistake."
It was Davies who suggested involving the Church story-line first hinted at by his predecessor Steven Moffat. Davies and Meyer created the character of Father Billard to further develop the Church and to create conflict Sandra as Billard was heavily biased against the Bellonsions.
The decision was made by Meyer to centre the story around Sandra's struggle to involve the Bellonsions in the development of Hyper-Spacial travel which would make them a much bigger power in the Galactic Federation. Meyer commented: "This gave us a cause to rally around that we supported Sandra in and we could easily understand her motivations."
The story, intentionally, is a lot more focused on Sandra than the Doctor and it's all shown from Sandra's point of view. There is never a scene which shows the Doctor on his own, he is always with another character. Furthermore, it's almost treated like this is the pilot for an "Exotract 42" show which just happens to feature the Doctor as another character.
Fen Do'nel was created by Meyer, to be a loyal first-officer to Sandra but also have a personality and spirit of his own. Meyer, never intended for Do'nel to become a recurring character on Doctor Who and a main on Panopticon and Rebel Zero, when writing No Sky in Space.
The addition of Lieutenant Commander Jaszal was a late one, suggested by Davies. He commented: "Jaszal was our sort of false-hero, if you like. While it's obvious that Sandra will be our new companion, it seems quite certain that Jaszal may join the Doctor and Sandra in the TARDIS, in perhaps a similar vein as Harry in Robot. However, of course, it's revealed that he is in fact a Poplne spy, which should make the audience think twice before trusting and liking a character."
As a result of this, it wasn't until the final draft that Sandra left with the Doctor against her will. Originally, the Doctor offered her the opportunity to see the universe, but because Jaszal set the base to self destruct, Meyer decided to have the Doctor have to kidnap Sandra to get her to safety, to save her life. Meyer commented: "It was a controversial move but a necessary one as it shows how devoted Sandra is to her people and how devoted the Doctor is to trying to save people, by any means necessary. It also created an interesting dynamic between the Doctor and Sandra in subsequent stories."

Pre-Production

Actress, Caroline Quentin, was cast by David Renwick in the role of Sandra Armstrong and formally contracted for one season with the option of the second. Several months after her casting (but before it was announced to the public), it was discovered, at her screen test, that she was struggling with the Bellonsion prosthetics. Renwick made the reluctant decision to recast Sandra, much like what had happened with April Walker in 1973, and as such Quentin was also paid her full wage for Season 39, despite not committing a single frame to screen.
Over the next week, casting director, Andy Pryor, saw around 25 women for the role of Sandra Armstrong, and found, very quickly, a suitable actress for the part. With only a few weeks to go until filming, Anna Hope was cast and formally contracted for the role of Sandra. She was officially contracted for one season with the option of a second.
The sets for Exotract 42, were some of the biggest and most expensive sets ever created for a single story of Doctor Who and therefore went hugely over budget. Bill Shapter, jiggled costs around to compensate for this, partly resulting in a such low budget for the penultimate story of the season, as he knew that the first story had to set a scale for the series and Exotract 42 was such an important location that had to be just right.

Production

To be added.

Post-Production

The Poplne CGI models were created and animated by visual effects company, The Mill, who had worked on the CGI for Doctor Who since Season 37 in 2000.

Reaction

Part One received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 8.27m viewers. It ranked at 13th over the week.
Part Two received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 8.04m viewers. It ranked at 19th over the week.
Part Three received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 8.12m viewers. It ranked at 17th over the week.

Story Notes

This is the first story to feature Commander Sandra Armstrong as well as the first to feature the Bellonsions and Poplne.
This is the first story to be produced by Bill Shapter and script edited by Russell T Davies.
This is the first story for Murray Gold as music composer.

Continuity

The Doctor would next encounter the Bellonsions in his Eleventh incarnation, during his time as Lord President, where they along with the Poplne and many other races, would form the Gallifreyan Union, and again during his Twelfth incarnation where they were on the verge of extinction.
A clip from the story featured during the Eleventh Doctor's title sequence featuring the Doctor in a meeting with the Bellonsions.

Home Video Releases

To be added.

Footnotes

↑ While Nicholas Meyer wrote the screenplay for this episode, Russell T Davies wrote the story-line with him, and they both received a 'Story by' credit in the closing titles.

[1] While Nicholas Meyer wrote the screenplay for this episode, Russell T Davies wrote the story-line with him, and they both received a 'Story by' credit in the closing titles.

[1]