Something Streaming This Way Comes: "Doctor in Distress" (1985)

Every once in awhile, you venture down a rabbit hole on YouTube, find yourself absolutely nowhere near where you started, and yet you still end up having discovered something that makes the whole expedition worthwhile, if only from the standpoint that you get to share something fascinating with other people.

Let me see if I can break this down: in the wake of watching Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, I found myself reminiscing about how I used to listen religiously to The Dr. Demento Show, which in turn led me to look up old playlists and check out some of the songs I really only remembered by title. As a result, I found myself looking at the list of tracks played by Dr. Demento on the week of August 25, 1985, including a whole sequence of sci-fi-centric songs.

One of those songs…was “Doctor in Distress.”

I’ll freely admit that my experience with Doctor Who at this point in my life was very limited. I knew about The Fourth Doctor, I was at least intrigued by the concept of the show, but I just couldn’t get into it. Indeed, it really wouldn’t be until the Eighth Doctor, i.e. the version played by Paul McGann in the movie that aired on Fox in 1996, that I found myself ready to get onboard with Doctor Who, which is doubtlessly why the movie proved to be a ratings flop that effectively killed the franchise until it was revived by Russell T. Davies in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor.

But I digress.

I am legitimately fascinated by “Doctor in Distress,” a single which took the then-uncertain fate of Doctor Who, treated it as if it was a charitable cause, and brought together some semblance of a supergroup to perform a song to both draw attention to the possibility of the series’ cancellation and—at the same time—earn money for an actual charitable cause, i.e. cancer relief.

Mind you, I use the phrase “some semblance of a supergroup” because… Well, let’s just say it’s a very interesting cavalcade of characters.

First and foremost, there are four individuals from the Who-niverse: Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), and Anthony Ainley (The Master). Insofar as actual singers go, there had originally been talk of Elton John, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and the Village People taking part, but while none of them managed to make their way to the sessions for the song, we do get a couple of members of the Moody Blues (Justin Hayward and John Lodge), members of Ultravox, Tight Fit, Bucks Fizz, Matt Bianco, Dollar, and Time UK, along with Hazell Dean, Jona Lewie, and a few others.

Like I said, it’s interesting…although if I’m to be honest, the absolute most interesting thing about the song is that the music was played by none other than future famous film scorer Hans Zimmer.

Look, everybody’s got to start somewhere…