Dark Season Production

Dark Season - Production

Cast on location

The Shoot:

For budgetary reasons, the majority of the programme was shot on location within a ten mile radius of London. The Behemoth control room - which was specially constructed at Ealing Film studios - is a notable exception. [1]

Editing:

Unlike its successor Century Falls, minimal trims were required to bring Dark Season in at the correct running time. Davies recalls two particular edits: a line concerning Thom's lack of knowledge about computers (which explains his horror on his sudden understanding in episode two), and a scene in the final episode in which Pendragon's followers realise she is insane, and desert her [1].

Publicity:

Teasers for each episode appeared in The Radio Times:

1: Only Marcie can sense that there is something wrong.
2: Tonight the children will go home. And they will turn to the machine. And the machine will embrace them.
3: The pattern is almost complete. Marcie and Mr Eldritch perform the final step.
4: It's the end of the century, the end of a whole thousand years. Powerful times. A time for things to be wrong.
5: Legends are safe and sound in the past, but the things man has made with his own hands in the 20th Century are the real monsters.
6: This time the world can end. This time the madness has a face and a voice, and it's name is Behemoth. [2]

Caption slides advertising the novelisation appeared on screen after several episodes.

Archive:

The completed serial exists in the BBC archive on its original transmission tapes [3]. To date, the serial has yet to be made available on video or DVD. Take a look at the FAQ for details of a couple of organisations that *might* be interested in releasing it.

Going Digital:

Dark Season was granted a rare repeat run on the new CBBC digital channel. In line with current broadcasting trends, the original 4:3 picture was cropped into a widescreen 16:9 image (thus losing detail). The first four episodes were shown over the weekend of Sun 23-24 March 2002 at 1500-1600, with the concluding two parts transmitted at the same time the following Saturday.

Acknowledged sources:

[1] 'Russell T Davies - School's Out!' by David Richardson, TV Zone issue 60
[2] from the Radio Times, quoted in The Guide
[3] Response to question posed on the Doctor Who Restoration Team forum