DBWI Has anyone ever heard of "Doctor Who"

The Oncoming Storm

I've been doing some Googling recently and I found some interesting stuff about Doctor Who, a pilot for a proposed BBC series about a time traveller. The pilot was shown exactly 50 years ago today but received poor ratings and wasn't commissioned. Those who were involved with its production blamed this on it being overshadowed by the assassination of JFK the previous day and extended news bulletins. The tape of the programme was believed wiped in the infamous purge of the BBC Archives in the early 1970's which means that all that remains is a poor quality audio recording made by a viewer, some stills and publicity photos and the tape of its eerie sounding theme music composed by Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was regarded as groundbreaking for the time.

The show's premise was quite interesting, two teachers become suspicious about Susan one of their pupils so they follow her home to find her address is a junkyard, they discover an old style police box and catch a man, the title character played by veteran character actor William Hartnell, entering, they enter the box and discover that its actually a time machine that is bigger on the inside than the out and discover that the Doctor is Susan's grandfather and they are really aliens in exile from their own World. After a short trip to the Stone Age to prove the machine works, the Doctor returns them to 1963 and they leave the "Tardis" as it's called after promising not to reveal their secret, the Doctor and Susan then leave Earth.

Had it gone ahead then it would have seen the Doctor and Susan travelling to various times in history and being caught up in historical events, it was actually intended to educate children about history, however there are rumours that the production team were sent scripts that featured more typical sci-fi with various aliens. There is actually some fan fiction out there featuring the adventures of the Doctor and Susan.

So could Doctor Who have made it into full production and how would it have fared?
 

iupius

It sounds like an interesting concept, although perhaps a tad unrealistic. Due to Hartnell's illnesses and failing health, I don't see any seasons of 'Doctor Who' lasting far beyond the late '60s - it's not as if they can just replace him with another actor, after all!
 
Beedok

Beedok

TheWatcher said:
It sounds like an interesting concept, although perhaps a tad unrealistic. Due to Hartnell's illnesses and failing health, I don't see any seasons of 'Doctor Who' lasting far beyond the late '60s - it's not as if they can just replace him with another actor, after all!
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They could make him replaceable by having the part by like the Dread Pirate Roberts and have him take on apprentinces who replace him. Or rename the show to something less about the main character to allow for spin-offs (perhaps 'Time Trek' :D).
 

Drunken_Soviet

Had the BBC (Or at the very least, the people who were involved in the show) persevered to get more episodes, then it could have been one of the best Sci-Fi shows in the history of Television.

Also the Theme, although poor quality is pretty decent.

I wonder if the BBC has plans to bring Doctor Who back, so to speak
 

TheNordicBrit

I can imagine it would have some marginal success, probably with parents hoping it'd educate their children. That'd get pretty stale though, and with many in the top brass of the BBC requesting there be "no bug-eyed monsters" I doubt the show would last for more than a few years.

If they did go for a more sci-fi-ish show, though, perhaps when Hartnell leaves his granddaughter would take over? Perhaps bringing her teachers back on board, so as to provide the show with older characters.
 

Drunken_Soviet

TheWatcher said:
It sounds like an interesting concept, although perhaps a tad unrealistic. Due to Hartnell's illnesses and failing health, I don't see any seasons of 'Doctor Who' lasting far beyond the late '60s - it's not as if they can just replace him with another actor, after all!
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True, but they could always pull a James Bond (Although unlike the James Bond films, any characters would take note of any differences between various "Doctors"), although how to do the transition from one "Doctor" to the next is going to be a problem.
 

iupius

Drunken_Soviet said:
True, but they could always pull a James Bond (Although unlike the James Bond films, any characters would take note of any differences between various "Doctors"), although how to do the transition from one "Doctor" to the next is going to be a problem.
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James Bond could be quite a good analogy - Hartnell could be replaced by another actor from the time, perhaps by some sort of "transformation" process? The Doctor gets injured and changes? A silly idea, but it could sustain the episodes...

OOC: :p
 

Just a Rube

Drunken_Soviet said:
True, but they could always pull a James Bond (Although unlike the James Bond films, any characters would take note of any differences between various "Doctors"), although how to do the transition from one "Doctor" to the next is going to be a problem.
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Well, the goal is to educate kids about history, right? So you could easily have him pass the torch e.g. to one of the teachers and so on. Maybe have him decide to retire, gives a letter to the sidekick, sidekick opens it and finds the keys to the time machine.

Maybe you could do something like Mr. Peabody's Improbable Histories, where he goes back and "fixes" things that have gone wrong in time? The same sort of humor (Britishized of course) could work.
 

PandaRosa

The trick would have been making the programme stay on course, keeping the focus on history, and hopefully on most of the facts. It's too easy to get distracted by crazy ideas: "Aliens!" "Interdimensional conspiracies!" and other weird things that send the plot skidding into all sorts of pointless and needless directions it does not need to go. The thing is getting people to learn about history here; there are enough real intrigues, villains and yes, even conspiracies to keep the ball rolling without dragging in annoying robots or enchanted statues and the like, that just gets people arguing over things that can never happen.
 

sharlin

Banned
PandaRosa said:
The trick would have been making the programme stay on course, keeping the focus on history, and hopefully on most of the facts. It's too easy to get distracted by crazy ideas: "Aliens!" "Interdimensional conspiracies!" and other weird things that send the plot skidding into all sorts of pointless and needless directions it does not need to go. The thing is getting people to learn about history here; there are enough real intrigues, villains and yes, even conspiracies to keep the ball rolling without dragging in annoying robots or enchanted statues and the like, that just gets people arguing over things that can never happen.
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C'mon thats all well and good but this isn't a weird version of I Claudius with time travel thrown in (although that would be awesome) its what sounded like it was going to be more a young adults programme with some educational stuff thrown in there. Also this is 60's BBC, budget? Whats that?
 
Mad Bad Rabbit

Mad Bad Rabbit

Lindseyman said:
How can a non news programme last 50 years. Was it going to be the Life and Death of Doctor Who?
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"Coronation Street" ? "General Hospital" ?

Not sure how you'd keep viewers interested in a soap opera about a lone time-traveller, though.
Maybe give him friends in various eras (a multitrack period drama?)
 
Peabody-Martini

Peabody-Martini

John Fredrick Parker said:
Knowing this board, somebody's going to turn this into a TL starting with the show's 50th Anniversary, or some such nonsense. :rolleyes:
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Running a TV show into the ground by bringing it back year after year long after it's gone stale is more of an American thing. Look at The Simpson's for example. British TV shows typically only run for a few seasons. So even if that show had been picked up it might have had a good run for a few years, that's it. 50 years is impossible.
 
Fleetlord

Fleetlord

Y'know, I remember hearing about this show in an interview with Terry Nation -- he was supposed to write for it before it went under, and it sparked his interest in science fiction. So even if Doctor Who only lasts a couple of seasons (as is likely, given Hartnell's health issues), this could have serious butterfly effects on sci-fi in general.

Would Star Trek have become the phenomena it did without the Daleks?
 
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