As the BBC’s excellent range of remastered Doctor Who music CDs reaches into the early 80s era of the show, sonic gems are being unearthed for the first time in years. If any proof be needed, check out the music from Full Circle, a 1980 story infamous in some fans’ eyes for introducing awkward youth Adric to the TARDIS crew. Paddy Kingsland’s memorable melodic score for Full Circle features a number of themes that beg – no, demand – to be hummed long after you’ve hit the stop button. Kingsland went on to score many other Doctor Who episodes, including the pivotal regeneration story Logopolis, but even though he has an instantly recognizable style, he seldom repeats actual material from story to story. (Kingsland’s trademark style was also a big part of the musical sound of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.) Unusually, the other score featured on this disc was divided up between Kingsland and Peter Howell (who arranged the most enduring of the 1980s’ versions of the Doctor Who theme). Meglos was a bit of a muddled exercise as far as storytelling goes, but musically it takes an interesting approach, including the use of a vocoder to weave random syllables and occasionally even story-relevant “lyrics” into the music.
The disc’s material has been fully remastered and remixed into stereo by Mark Ayres, and the effort poured into archiving and preserving the music is outstanding. Simply to have the music from Full Circle on CD has been a dream of mine for years – almost since I first saw the show – and that alone makes this latest volume of the BBC’s Doctor Who music series a worthwhile purchase.
- Doctor Who: Opening Theme (0:38)
- Burnout On Walkway 9 (1:10)
- The Deons (1:29)
- K9 Repaired (0:16)
- The Screens Of Zolpha-Thura (3:09)
- The Last Zolpha-Thuran (3:31)
- Chronic Hysteresis (1:59)
- To Tigella (1:55)
- The Deon Oath (1:24)
- The Power Room (0:51)
- The Bell Plants (2:10)
- Meglos (1:31)
- “She’s Seen Too Much!” (1:40)
- The Dodecahedron (1:43)
- The Ultimate Impossibility (1:01)
- The Deons Take Command (2:31)
- Earthling (1:04)
- Sacrifice (4:09)
- Other Lives To Save (1:17)
- Countdown (4:14)
- Summons To Gallifrey (1:27)
- Alzarius / The Outlers (1:07)
- The System Files / Adric (1:15)
- Mistfall (4:15)
- The Starliner (0:47)
- Decider Deceased (0:35)
- Adric Finds The TARDIS (0:40)
- Starliner Sealed (0:54)
- The Giants Leave The Swamp (1:57)
- K9 On A Mission / Third Decider (1:23)
- TARDIS Taken (1:57)
- The Marsh Child / K9 Loses His Head (2:43)
- The Spiders I (1:26)
- The Spiders II (0:26)
- A Little Patience (1:14)
- Romana Comatose (0:49)
- The Bookroom (0:34)
- The Experiment (1:22)
- The Work Of Maintenance (0:50)
- Marshmen I (2:43)
- Blue Veins (2:01)
- Marshmen II (1:24)
- No Return (1:01)
- Oxygen (3:02)
- Full Circle / The Deciders Decide (2:29)
- Doctor Who: Closing Theme (1:18)
Released by: BBC Music
Release date: 2002
Total running time: 77:48