36 - Mindwarp (The Trial of a Time Lord, Parts Five to Eight)

Composer: Richard Hartley
Director: Ron Jones

What's the score?
It was originally intended that the incidental music duties for Season 23 should be split half-and-half between freelancers - represented exclusively by Dominic Glynn - and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Most accounts suggest that Malcolm Clarke was supposed to score Mindwarp and Liz Parker would have taken on Terror of the Vervoids; however, in the event, Parker was assigned elsewhere and Clarke was given Terror of the Vervoids. One version of events has it that the Radiophonic Workshop's various commissions had to be reassigned because of Jonathan Gibbs' sudden departure, but this seems unlikely as - according to Ray White, a Senior Engineer at the Workshop who worked closely with him - Gibbs didn't leave until November 1986, by which time Mindwarp had been transmitted. About Time vol 6 by Tat Wood states that Richard Hartley had been commissioned to score Mindwarp "well in advance", so it's possible that the reshuffle was simply down to the producer changing his mind. Suggestions that special sound creator Dick Mills was briefly proposed for the job are sometimes included in the "Gibbs departure" story, but may be entirely apocryphal.
This is the only DW story Richard Hartley worked on. He enjoyed a busy career composing for TV programmes at this time, and has gone on to greater success since, so presumably he simply wasn't asked or didn't feel the need to compose for DW again. Sadly, the isolated score for this story is missing, presumed lost: neither the BBC nor (to his knowledge) the composer kept a copy of the tapes. Consequently, the only way to hear Hartley's music is to watch the story as transmitted. (Sound clips used below have been taken from the soundtrack of the broadcast episodes.)

Musical notes

• A large part of this score - a very large part, in fact - is built on a five-note phrase in high synth strings first heard in Part Five when the planet Thoros Beta is displayed on the courtroom screen. It's heavily repeated and occasionally expanded on as a general musical background for scenes and to cover transitions.
• The other highly prominent feature of the score is the fanfare, again executed in synth strings, first heard when the Doctor and Peri watch the Mentors' procession through the cave tunnels in Part Five. It plays again with slight variations at several points during the story, not all of them obviously ceremonial. It's heard when two guards are seen carrying the Raak's corpse out of Crozier's lab in Part Five; when Sil is carried into the lab, surprising the Doctor and Peri; when Matrona Kani's serving women are seen processing to the Commerce Room in Part Six; when the delegate from Posikar is shown into the Commerce Room in Part Eight; and when the Doctor pretends to escort Yrcanos under guard into the detention centre.
• High bips are heard in the scenes in Parts Seven and Eight of Crozier operating on Kiv, and of Kiv waking up in Peri's body. Much is made in earlier episodes of the deadline Kiv has placed Crozier under, and these bips are suggestive of the seconds ticking away. Hospital dramas down the years have used a similar device to raise tension in operation scenes, and we shouldn't rule out the possibility that Hartley is appealing to this pop cultural association as well. 
• Other notable cues are hard to come by. There's a promising one in Part Five, a rapid beat under high strumming sounds as the Doctor and Peri venture into a cave in search of tidal energy machinery, just before they're attacked by the Raak. There are several sitar flourishes during the scene in Part Six in which Peri, disguised as a serving woman, enters the Commerce Room and is unmasked - this just sounds like "Generic Eastern" foolery in a scene in which the female cast members are regrettably dressed in "Generic Eastern" costume. Hartley provides a convincing romantic cue in Part Eight when Peri and Yrcanos have a bonding moment in the prison cell, playing delicate synth notes over a light drone and plucking occasionally at his guitar, but it's easily lost amid the gentle washing synths elsewhere in the story.

Vox pop
And that really is the problem with this score - Hartley just doesn't jump in and shout often enough, taking too much of a back seat too much of the time. Even dramatic moments like the end of Part Five or the escape through the processing zone in Part Six are underplayed to the point of being thrown away.

This is one of those very rare scores that I've actually become less fond of on repeated listening. It's pleasant enough - I certainly remembered it with fondness from that first encounter in 1986 - but there's so little to it, with only the repeated fanfare and five-note flourish elements standing out in an otherwise vague synth wash. This isn't to impune the talent or professionalism of Richard Hartley, but I get the sense that this really was just one more bit of work to him at a time when he had plenty to work on. It's not bad, it's just not especially remarkable.

Availability

• Nil.