BUT I'M STILL THE DOCTOR, a Doctor Who timeline from DValdron and Chimera Viru

[DValdron]

Portland, Oregon. July, 1983


"'But I'm still the Doctor,'" Harriet bitched, her lips pursing with a little moue of disaproval. "He says that like it’s the end of the matter. Well, I’m the one paying the bills."

Nigel stared out the car window, tuning out his mother’s rant. He needed new glasses, the optometrist, had said so. But his mother insisted that his vision was perfectly fine. Nigel sighed. His Brian Aldiss novel sat in his lap. He didn’t dare pick it up and read while his mother was talking. Instead, he sighed, and nodded and looked in her general direction, his gaze focusing on the space beyond the car window.

He wished he could be somewhere else. He wished he could play sports. He wished he could write like his idols. He’d written a few reviews here and there, had even published one or two. But it wasn’t a career to speak of. Maybe he should quit trying to be a writer, get a part time job.

A butterfly landed on the car mirror, distracting him. He tuned out his mother’s negativity a little more, watching it. It was a monarch, black wings laced with colour.

He watched its wings beat once, twice, and then it was off.

His mother’s voice intruded. He didn’t want to listen. Be a writer, he thought. Then an idea occurred to him. Surely there weren’t a lot of writers on the Pacific Northwest. Maybe he should write to Starlog and some of the other magazines. Starburst, that was the English one, wasn’t it? He could offer to be their Pacific Northwest Correspondent, unpaid of course, but it would be a title. Maybe he’d get taken a little bit more seriously if he had a credential like that. Maybe he could even get into conventions for free.

His mother went on and on. She’d approve of that surely. Free conventions? She always complained about the price of everything. Yes, he decided, he’d do it.

"What are you looking at Nigel," his mother demanded. "This is the Doctor I’m talking about."

"Nothing," Nigel said quickly, but then amended. "A butterfly... but it’s gone now."

Pacific Coast Correspondent, he thought, that had a nice ring. Surely someone would go for it.


***********************

This is our POD. Everything that happens will proceed from the consequences of this trivial little moment in the middle of nowhere.

For the record, Starburst Magazine was a British Sci Fi media publication of the 80's and 90's. It was the English equivalent of America's Starlog magazine. It also received regular newsstand distribution in the United States.

Nigel and his mother, unfortunately, are fictional characters. But Nigel's sort... a young sci fi media and print fan with dreams of becoming a writer, is an almost universal trope to be found everywhere. Through the 70's and 80's, there was a plethora of newsstand magazines, specialty magazines, small press publishers, fanzines, zines, newsletters, bulletin boards, APA's, conventions, clubs, contests, which offered markets or at least outlets for Nigel's species. There would be literally dozens, or hundreds of real life candidates or stand ins for Nigel, in the appropriate places and times we're looking at to get the ball rolling. All it would take for any of them, is a moment of trivial reflection or decision to try and move their career forward, by doing something that they didn't quite get around to in OTL. Nigel is a fictional character, but he stands in the place of any number of real persons unknown to us, who might easily have supplied the key POD.
　

 

[DValdron]

No one would have believed in the last years of the 1970's that this rather eccentric little children's show was being watched keenly and closely by tory hacks more arrogant than the usual arts crowd and yet more narrowminded than any marxist; that as John Nathan Turner and Colin Baker busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency the production staff went to and fro over the show about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their fan following and their place on the listing schedule. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the larger worlds of politics and elitism as sources of trepidation, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of being noticed on that level as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most John Nathan Turner fancied there might be other markets for Doctor Who, perhaps inferior to the BBC but still ready to welcome a British series. Yet across the gulf of office corridors, minds that believed they were to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this humble show with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the 1980's came the great disillusionment.

**********************

Postscript: Astute readers will note that I've ripped off the opening to H.G. Wells 'War of the Worlds' once again. I can't help it. It's just such a great piece of writing, the best foreshadowing you'll ever see. A century later, it still sends chills up my spine.

 

[DValdron]

For John Nathan Turner, 1984/85 was going to be a spectacular year. Turner had come up through the ranks, starting in 1966, working as a floor manager for productions like Doctor Who. From there, in the 1970's, he’d moved up to Production Unit Manager, working on Tom Baker’s Doctor Who, and on All Creatures Great and Small with Peter Davison.

In 1979, he accepted the commission to produce season 18, Tom Baker’s last season, under the supervision of Barry Letts. With Baker and Letts departure, Turner found himself alone as the dominant force on the show.

Initially, his decisions were careful. Tom Baker had held the role for seven years, and over forty serials. For an entire generation, Tom Baker was the Doctor, and no one was really sure if the show had a future without him. Playing it safe, Turner went with Peter Davison, who he’d worked with, and who was already an established television star. Not quite trusting Davison, trying to bridge from Baker, he had added companions to appeal to every possible demographic, Nyssa for continuity, Adric for the youthful male audience, Tegan for the Australians market. He emphasized continuity, calling back to the shows old glories, in the vague hope that it would help hang onto that old audience. Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, Omega, the Time Lords, even the Silurians and Sea Devils would make a return. He had experimented, with guest stars, with ‘stunts’, even with the format.

Turner had come up on the production side of things. He wasn’t a writer or a story man, his training and interests were in the process. Nevertheless, his mandate was to make Doctor Who a success. He tried to shake things up, bringing in new writers and directors, sometimes untried and untested people.

It worked though, the Davison Doctor was a success. The first year was strong. The second wobbled a bit, but recovered for the third season. Davison had signed a three year contract, and at the end of the second year, had decided he would not renew. But overall, Turner had a lot to be happy about. His choice of Doctor was validated. His instincts in terms of how the show should be run had been largely validated. If the ratings had not reached the heights of Tom Baker’s best years, they’d recovered nicely from the depths of Baker’s final year and satisfaction was high. Turner could confidently look back on three years of success with Davison.

There was something else. Doctor Who was breaking through in the United States. As a result of sales of Tom Baker’s serials to Public Television stations, Docto Who had become a celebrated cult item. Well, Baker had moved on, and wasn’t terribly interested in looking back. But Turner was the man on the spot, and soon found himself besieged by fans, requests for interviews, invitations to conventions. He was something close to a rock star.

The John Nathan Turner of 1984 and 85 was a very different man from the John Nathnan Turner of 1979 and 80. That man had been new, untried, uncertain, careful, even cautious. Wanting to put a stamp on things, wanting to put a team together, but feeling his way. This man was confident, tested and proven, a man who had shown his mettle, who had his team, whose tentative ideas had been proven, who was celebrated and lionized, who had international status. He was as big a star as character of the Doctor himself.

This was a man with the confidence to make big changes. Davison’s departure was not the crisis that Tom Baker’s was. He’d proven he could shepherd a new Doctor.

The selection for the new Doctor turned out to be a profoundly quirky and personal decision. Colin Baker was offered the role, ultimately because he had been brilliant and entertaining at a party that Turner had attended. There was a little more than that, Turner had been impressed by Colin Baker, when he’d had a guest starring role in Doctor Who under Davison, the name had been recommended to him. But bottom line, that was it: Colin Baker had been the life of a party, and that got him the job.

Colin Baker’s Doctor would soon become an avatar for John Nathan Turner himself. Turner’s flamboyance and theatricality would be reflected in the new character, his multi-coloured hideous shirts, would be reflected by the Doctor’s hideous multi-coloured shirt. This Doctor would be husky in build, bushy haired, an idealized reflection of Turner himself.

Along with the new Doctor came a format change - a switch to hour long episodes, mostly as two part serials. Doctor Who had been the last half hour drama left. It was time for a change. Acknowledging a broader, more mature audience, the stories became darker.

These decisions were not universally embraced by Turner’s crew. In particular, Eric Saward, the story editor, hated the choice of Colin Baker, and let that dislike creep into the scripts.

For his part, Turner was sure his new Doctor would be a success. It had the Baker name, significant when the American audience was still grooving on Tom Baker. Turner took a number of measures to establish his Doctor - starting his first serial in Davison’s final year. Starting Baker’s first full year with the continuity laden Attack of the Cybermen, bringing back a character from the Davison years, teasing the audience with a possible repair of the chameleon circuit. The Daleks, the Master and even the Sontarans would return. There would even be a ‘two Doctors’ special.

Colin Baker’s 1984/85 season had everything going for it, Turner had done everything possible to ensure that it was a success, and that it was a success that reflected his own personality and vision. This was to be John Nahan Turner’s Doctor Who.

It seemed like a success. The ratings numbers were good for that first season, starting off with 8.9 million, and generally hovering around seven. Easily comparable to the Davison years, and generally respectable in the show’s history. The approval ratings for episodes were likewise high. It wasn’t perfect, of course. Mary Whitehouse, England’s national scold, complained of the violence and adult content. The stories had some wobbles. But Turner could as the season drew to a close, feel that he’d triumphed.

So it came as a shock when the BBC, in February, 1985, before the season had even finished its run, decided to cancel the series.

***********************

Postscript: This is essentially OTL. The perception that Colin Baker's Doctor was an idealized avatar or projection of John Nathan Turner himself is my own personal theory. It just seems so blatant to me. Arguably, at least some of the motivation, and the acknowledged motivation was to get a Doctor who was as different from Davison's portrait, as Davison had been different from Tom Baker. But the very choice of Davison, and the choices around Davison were extremely cautious and conservative. Turner was visibly playing it safe every single step of the way, from choosing an established star with whom he already had a relationship, to a conservative costume, a ship full of carry over companions, etc., he simply wasn't rocking the boat. But the choice of Colin Baker and the choices around him were much bolder and riskier, and I think, much more personal. Everything we know about JNT said the man had an ego, he liked the spotlight, and he wanted to be the big dog - he didn't like competition. Davison was Turner playing it safe. Colin Baker was Turner wrapping the show around his ego.

 

[DValdron]

Within the narrow confines of his show, John Nathan Turner had no reason to anticipate the crisis that was about to burst upon him. The ratings were good, approvals were satisfactory, the new format changed seemed to be working out well, and the new Doctor fulfilled his expectations. The series was experiencing massive popularity overseas, in the United States, Australia, Canada. What was there to worry about?

But there was a world beyond Doctor Who, and in that wider world, things were changing. In that world, in the BBC, Doctor Who was still a small little show. Attack of the Cybermen had drawn 8.9 million viewers, perhaps a sixth of the British population. But that only placed it 71st in the ratings. That meant that in a week, 70 other television programs scored better. Mostly, Colin Baker’s season drew around 7 million, which placed it around 100th. A really successful program, like Coronation Street could draw 15 million regularly.

Doctor Who was arguably lucrative, particularly with overseas sales. But then all those sales went into the great pot of the BBC, it wasn’t applied to the show. So profitability meant very little.

Changes were in the air. In 1983, Jonathan Powell had been elevated to the position of Head of Drama for the BBC. Powell was no stranger to the BBC, and had a long career as a producer with them through the 70's and 80's. He’d shepherded productions such as Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Smiley’s People, Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, Crime and Punishment - his bent was for high end and literary productions.

Powell didn’t think much of science fiction generally, and thought very little of Doctor Who in the 1980's. Done well, sci fi was thrilling, juvenile and very expensive. Done cheaply, it wasn’t thrilling, wasn’t interesting, was thoroughly juvenile and entirely shabby. Which was where Doctor Who had ended up.

Powell also found himself disliking John Nathan Turner. He disliked Turner’s sexuality, his vulgar boorishness, his hucksterism and what he saw as unseemly self promotion He just didn’t like him. He would later be quoted as saying, of Turner, "I wanted him to fuck off and solve it - or die, really."

Personal dislike or distastes aside, he didn’t really spend a lot of time thinking about Doctor Who. As BBC head of drama, he had dozens upon dozens of other programs to think about, he had projects which interested and engaged him. Some modestly rated trashy children’s show just wasn’t worth a lot of his attention. He wasn’t going to do it any favours - the budget would go down, not up, the episode slots were going to go down, not up, the scheduling wouldn’t be particularly favourable. But mainly, he wasn’t going to think about it.

The following year, Michael Grade became Comptroller of the BBC in 1984. Grade was an outsider. As he joked, he’d taken a substantial pay cut to come work for the BBC. He was intended to be, and he considered himself, a breath of fresh air sweeping through the stuffy corridors of the BBC, shaking up the establishment, bringing in new shows, clearing out old deadwood, dragging the BBC into the new era of the 1980's and 1990's, and out of the doldrums of the 60's and 70's, to which it clung.

Overall, Grade didn’t particularly like science fiction. One of his first acts was cancelling the expensive but well received Tripods series. H

e wasn’t impressed by Doctor Who, it seemed to him a relic of a past age. He watched a few episodes, and was appalled by the shambling ill fitting costumes of Warriors of the Deep and its appallingly bad monster, the Myrka. It was a half hour drama in an era when the half hour drama was just about a dead letter. It was a serial production, in an age when serials were long gone in favour of stand alone episodes.

As far as Grade was concerned, it was a terrible show, long past its prime in the 1960's and 1970's, coasting on past glories, endlessly retreading its stories, hopelessly old fashioned. It was a new age of Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Terminator, an era when special effects and production design had leaped ahead to a new reality and viscerality.... And Doctor Who was still making do with cardboard sets and paper-mache monsters.

There was a little more to it though. Grade in particular didn’t like Colin Baker. Part of this was professional. Grade thought Baker was a terrible actor. Well, not terrible per se, but excessively theatrical. This was stage acting, or high school gymnasiums and community theatres with poor lighting and worse acoustics, it was broad to the point of histrionic, over the top, shouty. Maybe it was fine for wherever or whatever Colin Baker was good at. But it was terrible for television. It was an old, fusty style of acting that ignored four decades of television and film evolution, which shifted towards a far more naturalistic style.

It certainly didn’t help his opinion, that Colin Baker had been encouraged to go with an interpretation of the Doctor that played to theatricality and flamboyance. Perhaps Baker had more range than Grade credited him with, but Baker’s performance as the Doctor distilled everything he loathed in a performance.

Then, there was the personal matter. Colin Baker’s marriage had failed, and it had failed messily and acrimoniously. Michael Grade was a good friend of Baker’s wife, perhaps more than a friend, as she moved in with him. Regardless of the state of bedroom affairs, Grade was predisposed to take her side against Colin’s, and so he loathed the man.

Of course, Grade was a professional. And as with Powell, he wasn’t going to dwell excessively on a grubby, shabby little mid-card to low-card children’s show, even if the producer was creepy and the star was someone he loathed. Again, it wasn’t like he was going to support it in any way, certainly not with budget, or scheduling or number of episodes. It could sink or swim on its own, and mostly, he might have wanted it to sink, but he wasn’t going to go through the bother of holding its head under water.
Michael Grade had vision. Michael Grade had a mission to remake the BBC, to recreate and revitalize the institution. And that was what he wanted to do.

Now, under normal circumstances, Doctor Who would probably have been allowed to cruise along under a policy of neglect and indifference, and perhaps Colin Baker might have evolved his character, built up a following, the stories might have improved, the new format might have worked. The show, despite the dislike of Grade and Powell might well have sailed on.
But there was something else on the horizon, a looming shape, like an Iceberg waiting to turn everything upside down. Or if you want a sci fi analogy, the Death Star was coming into view.

Eastenders, that iceberg, that death star, would change everthing.
Coronation Street had been successful for ITV. The BBC decided it was time for its own working class soap opera. Development began in 1993, over the next two years, development proceeded. A soap opera was nothing like an ordinary show. Eastenders was going to have 24 principal cast members, it would require literally dozens of standing sets, indoor and out, ranging from peoples homes, living rooms and bedrooms, to pubs, markets, garages, to a revolving door of temporary sets and transient roles, and would air several times a week.

That was going to take money. Especially, it was going to take a lot of money, huge truckloads of pound notes, forklift pallets of pound notes, all of it at the front end, building and hiring and commissioning and auditioning everything and everyone from scratch.

Make no mistake, it was a good investment. Through the eighties and nineties, Eastenders would go on to be one of the most popular shows in Britain, steadily drawing audiences of seventeen million and more.

But the BBC’s budget was finite. Grade and Powell budgeted for it, which meant taking some money from existing shows, finding new money, putting off new drama.

But then, in late 1984, the BBC’s independent production partners and exhibitors moved their schedule up. The BBC had to move its production schedule up. Which meant that in 1985, Grade and Powell had to find a lot of money, extra money, more money than they’d planned on.

Well, what to do? For Grade and Powell, the solution was obvious. There was no new money to be had, there was a lot more money needed. They pulled out the production schedule, pulled out the BBC budgets, the show budgets. It was time to start making sacrifices. Shows would have to be cancelled to free up enough money to launch Eastenders.

A lot of shows got cancelled, based on cost effectiveness, ratings, and personal likes or dislikes.

In February of 1985 the decision was made. Doctor Who was cancelled, another victim of the massacre, nothing personal, it just didn't make the Grade (heh heh).

John Nathan Turner wasn’t told of course. But the word got out. By February 21, 1985, John Nathan Turner started getting phone calls, from writers like Bob Holmes, from fans, from industry insiders, that his show had been cancelled.

The shit hit the fan.

********************

Postscript: All of this is basically OTL. Over on the pacific coast, the butterfly has flapped its wings, but it's going to take time for the ripples to spread.

 

[The Chimera Virus]

Welcome to the timeline, folks. We've got some interesting stuff planned!

 

[Tovarich]

Is it breaking the site's "no revenge fantasies" rule to hope something really nasty happens to Michael Grade in TTL?

Not death, that'd be too much; just something like catching a nasty dose off a hooker, that kind of level.

 

[Orville_third]

Is it breaking the site's "no revenge fantasies" rule to hope something really nasty happens to Michael Grade in TTL?

Not death, that'd be too much; just something like catching a nasty dose off a hooker, that kind of level.

Well, there was a picture that I wish I could find of Grade being throttled by a hand coming out of a TARDIS- and it was real! (Someone took the picture not long after the launch of New Who.)

 

[The Chimera Virus]

Is it breaking the site's "no revenge fantasies" rule to hope something really nasty happens to Michael Grade in TTL?

I flat out murdered him by pushing him front of a bus in my previous TL... And had planned for Mary Whitehouse to be put in a Persistent Vegetative State.

Should I not have done that?

 

[DValdron]

Wow, and I thought I was trying to be fair to the guy.

Okay, just for the record:

1) "No man should be held responsible for where his cock leads him," Gomez Addams, from Tequila Sunrise. So we can't blame him for taking up with Colins wife. That's just one of those romantic triangles.

2) Despite the relationship with Colins wife, he was still pretty professional. OTL, he put up with Colin in 1984, 1985 and 1986. He didn't interfere directly in the show.

3) You got to admit, the Myrka blew bloody chees chunks - particularly the Kung Fu scene, but also the fact that it could barely move, and left paint smears all over the sets.

4) Like it or not, Grade was right to back Eastenders the way he did. It became a huge success, a number one rated program, and regularly broke 17 million viewers.

 

[KingofArkham]

Another Doctor Who timeline? This is awesome. Also I like the updates so far despite the cancellation of Doctor Who. Looking forward to seeing what happens

 

[NCW8]

Interesting to see where you take this. Colin Baker has jokingly made the claim that, since we didn't really see him regenerate on-screen, the Sixth Doctor is actually still the real Doctor and the Seventh was just an impostor.

Colin Baker’s Doctor would soon become an avatar for John Nathan Turner himself. Turner’s flamboyance and theatricality would be reflected in the new character, his multi-coloured hideous shirts, would be reflected by the Doctor’s hideous multi-coloured shirt. This Doctor would be husky in build, bushy haired, an idealized reflection of Turner himself.

That is an interesting interpretation.

There was a little more to it though. Grade in particular didn’t like Colin Baker. Part of this was professional. Grade thought Baker was a terrible actor. Well, not terrible per se, but excessively theatrical. This was stage acting, or high school gymnasiums and community theatres with poor lighting and worse acoustics, it was broad to the point of histrionic, over the top, shouty. Maybe it was fine for wherever or whatever Colin Baker was good at. But it was terrible for television. It was an old, fusty style of acting that ignored four decades of television and film evolution, which shifted towards a far more naturalistic style.

It certainly didn’t help his opinion, that Colin Baker had been encouraged to go with an interpretation of the Doctor that played to theatricality and flamboyance. Perhaps Baker had more range than Grade credited him with, but Baker’s performance as the Doctor distilled everything he loathed in a performance.

I think Big Finish has shown that Colin does have more range than that, but his Seventies/Eighties TV performances tended to type cast him in hammy villainous roles. See his appearance in Blake's 7.

4) Like it or not, Grade was right to back Eastenders the way he did. It became a huge success, a number one rated program, and regularly broke 17 million viewers.

That's a good point. The BBC's previous attempt to get back into Soaps - Triangle - failed in large part due to lack of investment, especially in the attempt to avoid building permanent sets for the series.

The BBC's next attempt at a Soap was Eldorado, which just underlined how much of a one-off success Eastenders was.


Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[DValdron]

I think Big Finish has shown that Colin does have more range than that, but his Seventies/Eighties TV performances tended to type cast him in hammy villainous roles. See his appearance in Blake's 7.

I agree that Big Finish has shown that Colin had a lot of range, always did.
In terms of his casting in hammy and villainous roles, I think that came from him being a physically huge man. He stood six feet, which is well above average, even for 1980's England, and more than that, he was massive. Not fat, but big in the sense of being broad shouldered, barrel chested, broad faced. Ironically, Peter Davison was actually slightly taller, but Davison came across as slender and fine boned. Colin Baker looked like he could put a hurt on things. He just projected more mass. So when people were casting, he'd tend to fall towards the big overbroad thug side of things. The fact that he was actually a talented actor and apparently a really nice and charming person off camera probably helped him to broaden or break out of that niche.

With Doctor Who, there was a very deliberate choice to play as arch and flamboyant as he could get away with, and I don't think that was entirely Colin's choice. I suspect it wasn't his choice at all, but Turner's, and again, I suspect that Turner was projecting his inner self.

 

[DValdron]

THE WRATH OF EUKOR, SEPTEMBER, 1984, SEATTLE WASHINGTON

Seattle, Washington. September, 1984

It was raining in Seattle when he got back from the Worldcon. The drizzly sky fit his mood. After the excitement, the anticipation, the possibilities that had unfolded... here he was back in Seattle, back in the rain. It seemed like it was always raining, Ryan K. Johnson thought.

Carefully, he unpacked his 16mm reel case. Written across a strip of tape with a magic marker was: "Doctor Who: The Wrath of Eukor." He was careful with it. If anything happened to it, he could always have the lab strike another print off from the negative. But that would cost money, and he'd already spent thousands of dollars. He took a moment to look at it, wistfully, before storing it in his film locker. It was a good film, he thought. His baby, and all film makers loved their babies. It just hadn't been good enough to win.

Back in the fall of 1983, Ryan K. Johnson, a young man in his early 20's, had discovered Tom Baker’s Doctor Who on the local PBS station and he was enthralled.

The serials had been edited together, so that each week, Johnson thrilled to what was literally a new movie - one which dispensed with the three act structure, but went from plot twist to cliffhanger with savoir faire. It was full of flamboyant characters, outrageous situations, surprisingly deep characterization and witty lines. He'd never seen anything quite like it.

Johnson was a fan. But he was also an aspiring film maker. In 1981, he’d dipped his toe into amateur film making, shooting a one minute ‘trailer’ Escape From Seattle, a tribute to the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell film. It was pretty rough around the edges, but the next year, he’d directed a fifteen minute short, ‘The Count’ for his friend, Henry Gonzales. Then he’d gone on to create a short twenty minute thriller, ‘Kill Roy’ inspired by Hitchcock’s rear window in 1983, although that had gotten bogged down in editing an would not be released until 1985.

Johnson was serious about his films. He shot in 16 mm format, constructed and dressed sets for Kill Roy. Each project taught him more about the basics of lighting, editing, even instructions for the lab. It was not cheap. Even a short fifteen minute film could run thousands of dollars, simply with lab costs alone.

But the trouble with being an independent film maker in 1983 was that there weren’t a lot of venues to show your work. Especially for short films. There were a few festivals, but that was it. It wasn’t enough to make films, it was important to show them as well, to find an audience, to ensure that they would be seen. Every artist wants an audience.

The 1984 World Science Fiction Convention was being held in Los Angeles. And in recognition of Hollywood, the convention organizers had decided to sponsor a film contest, inviting industry and genre professionals like Gary Kurtz, the producer of Star Wars. For Johnson, it was too big an opportunity to pass up. It was a chance to not only show off his work, but a chance to be discovered.

He decided it was about time to do a science fiction movie. Of course, he didn’t have the money or resources to mount a Star Wars or a Star Trek. He needed to do something that would fit his resources. Doctor Who, low budget, quirky, charming, seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

The problem was, it was Tom Baker’s show. Tom’s Doctor, with his toothy grin and endless scarf was iconic. There was no way Johnson could find his own Tom Baker - anyone who he stuck in a long scarf would simply suffer in comparison. But Johnson had learned enough to know that Tom had not been the first or last Doctor, and that was an inspiration. Rather than try and imitate Tom Baker, Johnson made the leap to create his own Doctor.

But this was his chance at the big time. This was the chance to go to L.A., to rub shoulders, to meet and possibly impress industry professionals. He needed something more, he needed to make his Doctor special, remarkable..


His idea was to do something no one had ever seen on the show before: a female Doctor.

All he needed was an actress.

Barbara Benedetti was a thirty one year old stage actress who was working steadily in the Seattle theatre scene. In 1984, she had a starring role as a married punk rocker in A.M. Collins Angry Housewives. As the play was nearing the end of its run, Collins recommended her to Johnson.

Barbara Benedetti wasn’t a fan, who or otherwise. She’d seen Star Wars like everyone else, had watched Star Trek reruns, but that was about it. She didn't go to conventions. She didn't collect. She wasn't in any clubs. She was an actress, she acted, her professional and social world revolved around the Seattle theatre. Her friends were actors and playwrites, directors and set designers, composers, musicians, carpenters, all the sundry that made up the threatre world.

She’d never heard of Doctor Who, when Johnson approached her and truthfully, it sounded a little dubious. But her play was ending, she was free, and Johnson, despite being younger than her, seemed earnest and professional. He was talking sixteen millimeter, which was a real film stock. Ultimately, the recommendation from Collins did it for her. No money in it, but she had free time, and while the whole thing seemed bizarre, she trusted Collins not to send her into something foolish.

She said yes.

Benedetti recommended Randy Rogel, who had played a character named ‘Lewd Fingers’ in Angry Housewives. Benedetti and Rogel had worked together, she felt comfortable with him, and they had good banter. Johnson said yes, and assigned him the role of Carl, a ‘Dick Van Dyke’ style chimney sweep, who would be the Doctor’s companion.

With the key roles cast, Johnson went to work on a script. His original draft was edited and revised by Cheryl Read, Linda Bushyager and Deb Walsh. The writing and rewriting process dragged on into May, with a final draft coming less than a week before filming. Cheryl Read would eventually receive the writing credit.

Principal photography took place in a ten day shoot, in the humid summer of 1984, with a section of downtown Seattle passing for early 20th century London, and much of the rest shot outside in the rain forests surrounding the city. Local actors Jim Dean, Kevin McCauley, Michael Smith and Tom Lance rounded out the cast. Mark Schellberg, served as production manager.

By the time principal photography was completed, the deadline for the the Worldcon's film contest was less than sixty days away. Johnson had almost no time to complete editing, sound mix and get a print from the lab ready for exhibition.

Along the way, he prepared a trailer, shown at Westercon, between June 29 and July 3, 1984.

On the 4th of July weekend, 1984, Johnson followed up with additional filming for second unit shots of stone pillars in the forest, critical to the plot.
　
The film was completed on time and sent off to the Worldcon.

The film premiered early on a Sunday morning without publicity at Timecon in San Jose, California, August 3-5, 1984. Ironically, John Nathan Turner, Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney were guests at the convention.

John Nathan Turner didn't see it of course. He had no idea it was even playing, and if he had, he wouldn't have bothered. Sunday mornings were for sleeping in after a late late Saturday night at the convention. As a rule, he stayed away from fan productions. He admired the enthusiasm, but the products were so often wretched, and there was always the perpetual risk of being sued because some fan felt that some part of the show had borrowed their work - or so the lawyers told him.

Jon Pertwee, on the other hand, was always an early riser, and his active participation with the show was a decade earlier. He enjoyed having breakfast with fans. Along the way, Pertwee and Courtney in company with fans, almost on a whim, stopped in politely at the screening room in to watch the first couple of minutes and ended up staying for the whole thing. Johnson, busy in the projection booth, never noticed.

Later, it was mentioned by Pertwee at lunch with John Nathan Turner, discussed briefly as a surprisingly polished production with an interesting conceit, and forgotten by both by the time they were headed back to England.

Finally, in August 30, 1984, the Worldcon arrived. Johnson printed up dozens of flyers to spread all over the convention, doing everything he could think of to promote the film. Thanks to this effort, his film, The Wrath of Eukor, would play to a packed house.

Two and a half hours later, someone else was announced as the winner of the contest. The big break had come and gone. Hollywood had showed, had seen, had passed. Wrath of Eukor might have been a brilliant recreation of Doctor Who, but a quirky British-style adventure, hadn’t been what grabbed them.
　
The Wrath of Eukor faded into obscurity, and Johnson returned to his previous project, struggling to edit and finish his prior film, Kill Roy.

Until Norwescon, six months later, in March, 1985....


*****************

Postscript:

This is exactly OTL. You can watch Wrath of Eukor here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LgCYTZn1tw


Here is a review:

http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/television/fan-film-reviews-the-wrath-of-eukor/


Ryan K. Johnson's web site:

https://www.eskimo.com/~rkj/doctor.html#Wrath
　
　

 

[DValdron]

More twists and turns to come. Meanwhile, as we come up to the latest season of OTL Doctor Who, chill out, sit back with a cold one, and watch the Wrath of Eukor, a delightful tribute to the classic series.

 

[KingofArkham]

An interesting update, can't wait to see how it pans out.