TLIAPOT: Shuffling the Doc

1. William Hartnell (1963-1966)


In November 1963 a new science fiction series appeared on British television. It started with two teachers concerned with the wellbeing of one of their pupils. They followed her home, which happened to be a scrapyard, and confronted her grandfather, who seemed to have locked her in an old police telephone box. They forced their way in and found that both the police box and the grandfather were far more than they appeared. This was the first appearance of the Doctor and the TARDIS.


William Hartnell had a long career in theatre and movies. Initially playing comic roles, he mainly played police and army sergeants, including the first Carry On film. This carried over to his first TV appearance in The Army Game. He accepted the role of the Doctor partly as an attempt to get away from this type-casting.


The strenuous 48 weeks-a-year shooting schedule combined with Hartnell’s ill health meant that he had to step down from the role. The producers came up with the concept of regeneration to allow not only a change of actor but also a change in the Doctor’s character. The question was who could replace Hartnell.


Hartnell himself recommended Patrick Troughton. However the producers were looking at having the new Doctor be a more comical character and Troughton was wary of being type-cast in such a role. In what he would later describe as the worst decision of his life, Troughton turned down the part. Instead the second Doctor would be an actor known for playing in comedies.


Cheers,
Nigel.

So what’s this then ?


My humble attempt at a Shuffling the Deck TL based on Doctor Who.


Aren’t you just copying the suggestion made by DTF955Baseballfan ?


Well there were a couple of posts on the subject back in the original Shuffling the Deck thread as well.


Aren’t these things supposed to be a TLIAD ?


I’m not sure that I can get this TL finished that quickly.


You haven’t actually written a TL before have you ?


No, but it’s about time I did.


There doesn’t seem to be much divergence so far.


I need to have the series established much as it was OTL. The POD is at the end.


So who’s going to be the second Doctor ?


I’m glad you asked.




Cheers,
Nigel.

Pertwee as Number 2? Do the late 1960s still go with the Troughton-style Base Under Siege framework, or do we get a different direction?

2. Jon Pertwee (1966-1969)


Jon Pertwee was known for playing several comedy roles – on the radio in The Navy Lark, the theatre in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and on screen in a couple of Carry On films. As such he was a natural to play the Doctor as a comedic character – a cosmic hobo, as Sydney Newman described him. His scruffy appearance and bumbling manner caused a number of villains to underestimate him. Pertwee has said that he wished his portrayal of the Doctor could have been a bit more elegant and serious and that he tried to mellow the character as time went on. He did get a chance to play a more elegant character in the story The Dominators, where he played the would-be global dictator Salamander.


Sadly, very few of Pertwee’s stories remain intact due to the BBC’s policy of deleting older black-and-white episodes. However some missing episodes are occasionally found. Recently discoveries include the complete story The Web of Fear, where the Doctor and his companions had to face the giant spiders of Metebelis III.


In the final story of Pertwee’s era, we finally learned more about his people, the Time Lords, and the reason why he was on the run. The Doctor had been an agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency, but had tired of constantly interfering in the history of various planets and so struck out for freedom. It was hinted that the Doctor hadn’t been as free as he imagined, with the TARDIS occasionally being guided by the Agency to deal with a particular problem. Now they needed him to deal with several invasions and other problems that the Earth would be facing. To make sure that he stayed there, they would be disabling his TARDIS. They would also be altering his appearance – the Third Doctor would be very different from the Second.

Cheers,
Nigel.

Maeglin said:

Pertwee as Number 2? Do the late 1960s still go with the Troughton-style Base Under Siege framework, or do we get a different direction?

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Yes - pretty much. The Base Under Siege plots were driven for a large part by having a mainly studio-based production. Things will be going in a somewhat different direction with the Third Doctor.


Cheers,
Nigel.

3. Patrick Troughton (1970 – 1974)

In an interview, Troughton said, “You don’t get many second chances in life. I regretted turning down the chance of playing the Doctor, so when it was offered again I jumped at it”. As he had previously played Sir Andrew Ffoulkes on film in the Scarlet Pimpernel and Robin Hood on television, he was more cut out to be a dramatic hero than Pertwee.

Troughton was the first actor to play the Doctor in colour. To keep production costs down, his first couple of seasons were mainly Earth-bound, dealing with the various invasions and other problems that the Celestial Intervention Agency directed to him. He lived in a suite in the Carlton Grange Hotel and appeared to enjoy lounging around the pool or taking dinner in the restaurant when not on a mission. He was always elegantly dressed – often more so than the situation required – which made a stark contrast to the scruffy attire of the second Doctor. In the tenth anniversary special that re-united the first three Doctors, the First Doctor underlined this by saying, “So you’re my replacements – a Scarecrow and a Lounge Lizard!"

In his missions, he was often aided by a journalist called Sarah (played by Caroline John) and had run-ins with a military unit commanded by Colonel Masters, who took an instant dislike to the Doctor and objected to his interference. Although effecting something of a James Bond look, the Doctor still relied on outwitting his enemies rather than fighting them. He would often confuse them by offering them a Jelly Baby.

The Daleks, who had been the main antagonists of the First and Second Doctors, only made a single appearance during the Third Doctor’s era. Instead the Cybermen became the Doctor’s main opponent, whether disguising themselves as shop mannequins in the story Invasion, or spreading seeds of the carnivorous Krynoid plant in Seeds of Death.

After The Three Doctors, the Celestial intervention Agency told the Doctor that his work on Earth was complete (for the moment) and so gave him complete control of the TARDIS again, though they said that they would “be in touch”. His final season saw the Third Doctor once again roaming the universe. However, it wasn’t to last. In Carnival of Monsters, he returned to Metebelis III, where he received a deadly bite from a giant fly. It was time for a new Doctor.

Cheers,
Nigel.

I like this idea. The older Doctors give your some room for maneuver here, and Troughton of course reprised the Second Doctor in the 1980s and did so pretty well. I wonder if he'll be the TTL Sixth Doc or something. Ecclestone and Capaldi could all come a lot earlier than they did.

I note that Pertwee seems to have OTL Troughton's personality. Will this stay the same throughout?

EDIT: Ninja'd.

I'm hoping the fourth doc is gonna be baker.

Tzaero said:

I'm hoping the fourth doc is gonna be baker.

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Colin, presumably?

The nice thing about the remaining Doctors is that they're all still alive, and thus can be put anywhere (though 80 year old Tom in 2014 would be a bit much).

4. Percy Kent-Smith (1974-1976)

After the more serious Third Doctor, the producers decided to go back to a more comic version of the character. For this they chose a young Scottish actor called Percy Kent-Smith.

Kent-Smith first worked in the theatre as part of The Ken Campbell Roadshow. There he played a stuntman called “Sylveste McCoy”. He later got work as a mime on the children’s programme Vision On.

His interpretation of the Doctor was ridiculously comical, almost clown-like. The Doctor would often indulge in juggling or playing the spoons. His costume included a multi-coloured jacket, which Kent-Smith hated to wear. In an interview, he revealed that “They also wanted me to wear an incredibly long multi-coloured scarf, but I kept on tripping over it.”

The stories of his era were notably lighter than the proceeding seasons. For example The Greatest Show in the Galaxy featured miniaturized versions of the Doctor and his companion Liz Shaw (played by Louise Jameson) trapped in a machine that replicated environments on various planets.

Sadly, this lighter approach wasn’t popular with the fans. The decision was made to replace Kent-Smith. Even his regeneration scene had a clownish quality, with the Doctor tripping and hitting his head on the TARDIS console. The next Doctor would prove to be far more popular. The Baker era was about to begin.


Cheers,
Nigel.

Meadow said:

I like this idea.

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Wow, thanks ! I must admit that I was a bit nervous about attempting this.

Meadow said:

The older Doctors give your some room for maneuver here, and Troughton of course reprised the Second Doctor in the 1980s and did so pretty well. I wonder if he'll be the TTL Sixth Doc or something. Ecclestone and Capaldi could all come a lot earlier than they did.

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Yes, the main constraints are the birth dates of the actors. Pertwee and Troughton were born with a year of each other so were realistic enough to swap. Tom Baker was born 14 years later, which makes him a bit too young to be the Second Doctor. Making him third would mean that everyone just got shifted along one place.

Meadow said:

I note that Pertwee seems to have OTL Troughton's personality. Will this stay the same throughout?

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In that case, the characterisation of the Second Doctor was something suggested by Sydney Newman. I assumed that he'd make a similar suggestion ITTL. It's not something that I think will stay the same throughout, but there will be similarities, due to having a broadly similar group of people involved in writing, directing etc.


Cheers,
Nigel.

Maeglin said:

Tzaero said:

I'm hoping the fourth doc is gonna be baker.

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Colin, presumably?

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Some things are just a little too obvious, aren't they.


Cheers,
Nigel.

Nice use of an alternative name for McCoy. I was thinking you'd put Troughton later than that, considering he was playing the Doctor as late as 1985.

Remember that all the Doctors except Hartnell and Troughton were still around to take part in Dimensions in Time in 1993, which gives you some scope.

5. Colin Baker (1976-1981)

Before he became the Doctor, Baker’s best known role was as the villainous Paul Merroney in the TV Series, The Brothers. While the Doctor was more of a heroic role, his interpretation was darker than his predecessors. This was exemplified by his trademark long black leather coat.

In his first season, the Celestial Intervention Agency made a return, assigning him a Time Lady partner called Romana (played by Katy Manning). Their first mission together involved an attempt to destroy the Daleks soon after their creation in a story called Death to the Daleks. This marked one of the Sixth Doctor’s few failures.

The Sixth Doctor’s modus operandi involved setting situations up in advance so that his enemies ended up destroying themselves. This often didn’t work as planned, leaving the Doctor running around plugging the gaps in his plans. For example, in Silver Nemesis, he tricked the Cybermen into using a device that destroyed their home planet, but in the process had to deal with a renegade group of Cybermen that were also trying to steal the device.

The darker tone of his stories provoked the wrath of Mary Whitehouse, who complained (among many things) about The Horror of Fang Rock “showing children how to make Molotov Cocktails”. BBC TV Executives decided that they couldn’t ignore these complaints and ordered the producers to lighten the tone again.

Colin’s final episode involved him giving the last vial of an anti-toxin to his companion Nyssa (played by Lalla Ward), while the toxin almost killed him, forcing another regeneration.


Cheers,
Nigel.

Thande said:

Nice use of an alternative name for McCoy.

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Thanks ! His adoption of that stage name looked like something that would easily be butterflied away.

Thande said:

I was thinking you'd put Troughton later than that, considering he was playing the Doctor as late as 1985.

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It was a possibility, but putting him there allows a bit more flexibility with shuffling the rest. I'm trying to avoid anyone being younger than 22 or older than 60 when they take the role.

It's also interesting that both Troughton and Pertwee were playing against type IOTL - TV Tropes cites them as examples of the Leslie Nielson Syndrome and Tom Hanks Syndrome respectively. Swapping their characterisations like that has something of an ATL inevitability.


Cheers,
Nigel.

6. Peter Capaldi (1981-1983)

During the Troughton era, Capaldi sent several scripts to the Doctor Who production office. Barry Letts was impressed enough to invite Capaldi to visit BBC TV Centre. He appeared as an extra in a couple of stories and, following his appearance in the film Local Hero, he was chosen to be the new Doctor. The production team were looking for a young, fresh-faced actor to play the part as an indication that they were lightening the tone after the Baker era. To emphasize this, his costume had something of the look of a school uniform.

While lighter in tone, the episodes were still more serious than they had been during the Kent-Smith era. For example, The Leisure Hive featured a large tower whose occupants were always happy – or else. Full Circle featured a race called the Mara who tried to capture the Doctor and his companion Teggan in a time loop. Teggan was played by Nicola Bryant, who refused the producers' request to play the part with an Australian accent.

Many fans considered Capaldi too young to play the role and that his appointment was a sign that the BBC was no longer taking the show seriously. It was during his tenure that Doctor Who was moved from its traditional Saturday evening slot to a weekday evening.

Capaldi’s time as the Doctor ended with the Twentieth Anniversary special, The Six Doctors, which required the first six Doctors to combine their life forces to defeat the renegade time lord, Omega.


Cheers,
Nigel.

There's been a misnumbering: Colin Baker is Five, Capaldi is Six, so that title should be the Six Doctors.

I am enjoying this. It's amusing to see the bits and pieces of other eras being jumbled up.

Maeglin said:

There's been a misnumbering: Colin Baker is Five, Capaldi is Six, so that title should be the Six Doctors.

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You're right - it's fixed now.

Maeglin said:

I am enjoying this. It's amusing to see the bits and pieces of other eras being jumbled up.

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Thanks for your support !

Cheers,
Nigel.

To recap:
1. Hartnell
2. Pertwee
3. Troughton
4. Percy Kent-Smith (TTL McCoy)
5. Baker
6. Capaldi

Liking this so far.

7. Peter Davison (1983-1986).

Before becoming the Seventh Doctor, Peter Davison had starred as Arthur Dent in the TV adaption of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Some fans suggested that his interpretation of the Doctor was drawn from that, noting his love of tea and that his long coat looked something like a dressing gown.

The Seventh Doctor tended to wander unknowingly into situations from which he'd quickly have to think his way out. It was a long way from the Machiavellian planning shown by the Fifth Doctor. In Mawdryn Undead, even something as simple as taking a coach trip in 1950s Wales brought him up against beings known as the Eternals, who used the thoughts and emotions of so-called "Ephemerals" for their entertainment.

He was also portrayed as being somewhat clumsy. At the end of City of Death, set in seventeenth century London, the Doctor knocked over a lamp just before getting into the TARDIS. It is revealed that the fire he started was in Pudding Lane.

By this time it seemed that BBC Management had taken something of a dislike to the series, cutting the budget and then complaining that the series looked like a low-budget SF series. As viewing figures dropped, it was decided that the series should be put on hiatus - purely temporarily, of course.


Cheers,
Nigel.