Slipback
| Story Code: / Season "22" | UK Airdate: 25 Jul to 8 Aug 1985 | Doctor: Colin Baker |
| First airings by location | UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite | Previous Story / Next Story |
SLIPBACK was a 6-part serial broadcast over a three week period on BBC Radio 4 as part of its Thursday morning "Pirate Radio 4" magazine programme for children. Written by Eric Saward, and starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, it was made while the television series was on its enforced 18 month hiatus.
Parts 1 and 2 aired on Thursday, 25 July 1985 (at 10am and 11.45am respectively); parts 3 and 4 on 1 August 1985 (at 9.50am and 11.26am); and the final two episodes on 8 August 1985 (at 9.44 and 11.36am). Parts 1 to 5 were just over 10 minutes each, while the sixth and final instalment was slightly longer at 11 minutes.
 Parts 3-4. Back Pages at the Cuttings Archive |
The story was subsequently novelised by Saward and published by Target Books in 1986. The radio recording was later released as a double-cassette by BBC Audio in 1988 (this was paired with the abridged edition of Genesis of the Daleks that had been issued as an LP in 1979). In 2001, the two-story set was put out on CD under the BBC Radio Collection brand.
From 22 November 2003, BBC's Radio 7 repeated the serial for the first time as part of the broadcaster's week-long Doctor Who 40th Anniversary celebrations.
Foreign Transmissions
The radio serial had few broadcasts outside the UK. Only the following are known about, but there may well be others.
| BBC World Service | Jan 86 | Internationally |
| United States | Feb 86 | National Public Radio |
| New Zealand | Sep 97 | National Radio |
BBC WORLD SERVICE
From early 1986, the serial was broadcast on the BBC's World Service radio network. The BBCWS - which was primarily for news and current affairs - could be heard in certain parts of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North America, the Caribbean, Asia and Australasia, however drama content would likely have been only on the feeds going to countries where English was spoken.
Comprehensive listings for BBC World Service rarely appear in foreign newspapers - which tend to print only the schedules for local radio stations - so the full extent of which countries got Slipback is unknown. (Based on available information, we are fairly certain the serial did not play on BBCWS in Australia or New Zealand in the 1980s...)
ASIA
The serial did air in this region - listings for Slipback have been found in a Singapore newspaper. The broadcasts heard in Singapore could also be received in Malaysia. BBCWS was also available in Hong Kong, so it's likely it was also heard there.
The Singapore Straits Times for 12 January 1986 carried a small preview in its Radio Highlights of the Week section, although it states the serial was on Wednesdays, not also Mondays.
Part one of Slipback aired on Monday, 13 January 1986 in a 10 minute timeslot from 12.45pm to 12.55pm in the afternoon. The episode aired again on Wednesday, 15 January 1986 in the mid-evening slot of 7.15 to 7.25pm.
The serial continued to air those two weekdays in the same slots.
Coincidentally (?), a brief run of Tom Baker serials commenced on Malaysian TV from 6 February 1986, the same week that the advertised fourth instalment of the radio play aired - and a mix up at the newspaper Malay Mail placed a synopsis for Slipback against the billing for Meglos part 1!
Both the Straits Times and Singapore Business Times contained weekly radio listings for "Doctor Who" through until Monday, 24 February 1986 and Wednesday, 26 February 1986.
HOWEVER, that's a span of seven weeks. Since there were only six instalments, there must have been at least one pre-emption of each episode during that period but it is unknown which week/s this was.
UNITED STATES
While the serial was playing on the BBC World Service, it also appeared on a couple of US radio stations:
- WVIK (90.1 FM) aired the mini-series from Saturday, 1 February 1986 at 9.15am, as part of its Saturday Morning Live programme. (It's unknown if it aired in a single session on this date, or if it was serialised over several hours, or days or weeks.). The station was based at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, and was one of the United States National Public Radio (NPR) stations available in parts of Iowa and Illinois.
- Los Angeles station KCRW-FM (89.9) broadcast each episode twice per week, on Wednesdays at 7pm and again on Thursdays at 3.45pm, from 7 May 1986 to 12 June 1986. A National Public Radio (NPR) station, it was based on campus at Santa Monica College and broadcast to the greater Los Angeles area.
There may very well have been broadcasts of Slipback on other NPR stations across the United States, but these radio listings may have simply said "Dr Who / Doctor Who" in the papers, and as such cannot be easily traced with OCR searches.
The Slipback / Genesis of the Daleks double-cassette (see above) was released in the States by The Mind's Eye in late 1989.
NEW ZEALAND
Although BBC World Service was available in New Zealand, Slipback didn't air there in 1986. It was however broadcast 11 years later on local radio...
- New Zealand's National Radio transmitted the serial to the whole country for three weeks from Saturday, 20 September 1997 to 4 October 1997, playing two episodes during a 3.06 to 4.04pm timeslot (although the three billings in the New Zealand Listener incorrectly said "Pt 1 of 6", "Pt 2 of 6", "Pt 3 of 6"). National Radio broadcast on a network basis, but on different frequencies around the country.
- It was repeated on New Zealand radio six years later, weekly on Sundays, from 23 November 2003 to 28 December 2003, during the 4.50 to 5.10pm slot. Like BBC Radio 7 (see above), this was scheduled to celebrate the TV series' 40th anniversary.
