"Mary Whitehouse will never accept this" : A Dr Who Production History (Inspired by Guajolote)

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nezza

"With Rachel we were seeking to modernise the companion. In my initial chats with Alphonsia we discussed how the character was to be an amalgam of Liz, Sarah-Jane and Romana. Rachel was a no-nonsense character who didn't suffer fools gladly and in some ways was the doctor's equal but she was also something of a mentor for the Doctor when it came to him understanding human beings and how they thought, acted and felt, she was his conscience and his teacher.

And while we're talking about this I want to lay this particular ghost to rest. The 8th Doctor was not portrayed as autistic, granted there were some scenes where Rachel would chastise the Doctor for how he spoke to people but back in 1994/5 Aspergers had only just been added to American psychiatric books.

But many years later as more became known about the condition there was a lot of retrospective discussion about the way in which 8 acted and many autistics would say to me and others that seeing the Doctor act in the same way they did gave them comfort. Looking back now that moves me"

Greenwood
 

nezza

Ogrebear said:
So what does Mary Whitehouse think of the various incarnations of the Doctor?
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I was wondering how long it would be before someone asked me that...

As we know in reality Whitehouse did rail against the show during the Tom Baker era with "The Deadly Assassin" being the focus of most of her ire. I don't know if she did complain about Monty Python in late 60's and early 70's but she certainly did with the Life Of Brian....
kirbopher15 said:
I think she would pan them all
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Very possibly. She might have given Conti a bye because he was and as far as I'm aware still is a Conservative supporter:

Conti considered running as the Conservative candidate in the 2008 London mayoral election, but did not, and in the following election in 2012, he supported unsuccessful independent candidate Siobhan Benita.[12] In the run up to the 2015 general election, Conti said in an interview published in several newspapers that he was once a Labour supporter but had come to view socialism as a religion with a "vicious, hostile spirit".[13]

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Conti#Politics)

But the rest...

Chapman would been given short shrift not just because of his involvement with Python but also because he was gay and an alcoholic. Two things that Whitehouse would certainly have got hotunder the collar from.

Mayall...Well need I say more? He was known as a comic who used violence to get laughs

Jones...I don't know to be honest. Maybe his past with Manfred Mann during the 1960's might have got her goat. Plus the 'family friendly horror' nature of the Jones era would have garnered attention.

Webb...Again I can't be sure

Mary Whitehouse was and indeed still is a very controversial figure even though its been nearly 20 years since she died. I regard myself as a liberal and support a lot of what she opposed eg gay rights. But and this is very important she was instrumental in helping to bring in legislation that protects children and for that and that alone she must be thanked.
 
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nezza

Series 26
Miracle On Regent Street (90 Mins)
Demons of Necros (50 Mins)
Critical Mass (50 Mins)
Munich (2 x 50 Mins)
Where Darkness Has Lease (50 Mins)
Old Wounds (50 Mins)
Deepwater (50 Mins)
The Wolves Of Twilight (50 Mins)
Division (50 Mins)
Iceworld (50 Mins)
Evil Incarnate (2 x 50 Mins)
 

CalBear

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nezza said:
PLASTIC FANTASTIC
"For those of us of a certain age Christmas Day on BBC1 was Morecambe and Wise. For weeks beforehand we would wonder who was going to be on. Would it be Des, would it be Angela. Would Peter finally get paid?

For those of you born after 1978 you wouldn't have the first idea what I'm talking about but you might have had similar discussions about Doctor Who. Certainly the BBC have been pushing the thing for what seems like eternity. Many have claimed that having the titular time lord going up against double length Coronation Street was a risk.

Well lets be honest Corrie did win the battle for ratings but not by that much. So what did we get? Well we got a new faceless title sequence which wasn't a problem because we knew who Danny Webb was with the floor to carpet trailers and previews.

'Miracle On Regent Street' was the most punning title but that's were the jokes ended. What we go was a superb blend of scares and thrills. The Autons were back, killer shop dummies dedicated to absorbing the planet's emissions and only the good Doctor could stop them.

Webb's first full adventure was a rip-roaring story with the flavour of Indiana Jones. Dressed in jazz musician clobber with a taste for Miles Davis the initially confused hero leapt into action with charm and athleticism leaping from roof to roof and blasting the twisted marionettes into the next dimension.

Alphonsia Emmauel as shop manager Rachel Cassidy was fantastic. Her sassiness and no nonsense manner was more than a match for Webb's flair whilst her empathy enabled the Doctor to lament on his losses and errors during the quieter moment of which there were some.

Yes, it was a risk for the Beeb to have the Doc up against Bet and Co but he scrubbed up well"View attachment 678731
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nezza

"During Danny's first series we made up perhaps the most rounded incarnation of The Doctor. We made him into a more fallible, more 'human' time lord. No-one wins all the time, there have to be losses and mistakes and certainly during that series we gave a lot of focus to that.

"Munich was the highlight of that series as far as were concerned. You had Rachel's story of her grandfather being a black American soldier who came over during WWII and fell in love with her grandmother. How the horrors of the war affected him so much that he drank himself to death and how when given the chance to kill Hitler following the aborted putsch she was going to do it.

You had the Doctor stopping her and how she exploded in rage at him. You then had the 'moral' doctor, the time-lord who knew that the rules of time and space had to be followed or the most terrible consequences could occur. That scene in the TARDIS was absolutely superb. Two total professional giving it their all"

(Greenwood)
 

nezza

The Doctor pressed a series of keys on the TARDIS console and the monitor burst into life

"Come here Rachel"

Rachel approached the TARDIS console with a face full of anger

"What are you showing me?"

"This is an Events Extrapolation Unit or EEU. It monitors what we do and what the TARDIS does and can compute alternative paths. I am going to show you what in all likelihood would have happened had you killed Hitler"

Rachel watched the monitor, she saw herself pulling the trigger and Hitler falling to the ground with the bullet piercing his heart. The image faded away and was replaced by what seemed to be a Nazi propaganda film from 1973.

"What is this?" she asked the Doctor

"Hitler's death in 1923 made him a martyr. Many Germans who wouldn't had supported the Nazis rallied behind the party. Hess took over as leader and was able to use Hitler's death as a rallying call. Hess became Chancellor in 1933. He and Goering placed Germany on a war footing. Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and World War 2 began"

The screen showed a reconstruction of what appeared to be the fighting at Dunkirk. It showed allied soldiers fleeing into the English Channel. Then it showed a squadron of jet fighters swooping in from the sky and massacring them. The Doctor continued.

"in reality Goering was overseeing the upgrading of the Luftwaffe to using jet fuel technology. It didn't happen in our world but in this reality the support that Hess and the nazis got was translated into Deutschmarks and scientific knowledge. There was no evacuation of Dunkirk, no fleet of little ships, no finest hour"

The screen continued. It showed a graphic of the Nazi War Machine invading the UK. Images of London, Manchester,Sheffield, Edinburgh and Cardiff festooned with swastikas. It showed Edward VIII back on the throne with Wallis Simpson as Queen and Mosley as Prime Minister but they were puppets controlled from Berlin. King George's family escaped to Canada. Churchill was executed

The Nazis landed in the Irish Republic and invaded Ulster reuniting north and south. Ireland became an ally of Germany.

"With no-one to stop them the Nazis used bases in the UK to launch a full scale invasion of the USA. Within 6 weeks they took Washington. Roosevelt was killed when a bomb hit the White House...Your grandfather came from Chicago?"

Rachel nodded.

A picture showed a city in ruins

"That is Chicago after the Nazis razed it to the ground in 1940"

One final image appeared on screen. It was a German document but had an English name...Jeremiah Cassidy. It was his death certificate. The screen turned off.

Rachel started to sob. The Doctor took her by the waist and guided her back to the chairs.

"I'm sorry I had to do that Rachel but you had to know what would have happened. In history, our history Hitler's so called thousand year Reich lasted for 12 years from 1933 to 1945. One reason was that Hitler was deranged. You eliminate him and someone like Hess takes over, someone who was evil but not deranged. Someone who could have made the Reich last for a thousand years. Don't forget that it was Hitler who ordered the advance at Dunkirk to stop. Hess, Goering, Himmler could have ordered the massacre of the allied troops"

Rachel sat quietly with her head in her hands with a look of bewilderment and desolation on her face. The Doctor continued"

"Rachel, time is like a cliff-edge. Brittle, unstable and dangerous. One mis-step here or too much pressure there and the whole thing could collapse. Time travel isn't just about watching history unfold its about understanding its power and respecting its motives. I understand why you wanted to kill Hitler but the universe has a role for all of us and can't be changed not by a human and not even by a Timelord"

(From the 2002 Target Books Novelisation of "Munich" by Robert Sloman)
 

nezza

"Television went all out that Christmas. BBC, ITV and BSKYB packed the festive season with movies, comedies, drama and sci-fi. The gaudiness and warmth of the on screen promos and identities a specific response to the craziness and fear of that year. From the excitement of Danny Webb's first story as Doctor Who to Maxine giving birth in the Rovers Return Christmas Day in 1994 viewers felt that they had earned it.

None more so than John Smith. He and his family must have gathered round the set in Edinburgh and been lost in a haze of joy. But Smith also knew that 1995 was going to be a big year. He knew that he was ill, the heart attack he had had in 1990 had left irreversible damage and that his time at Downing Street was coming to an end.

But he also knew that he had to make sure that Labour was in a strong position.

(Marr)
 

nezza

"Being the Master was a wonderful time in my career. I'd worked alongside some magnificent actors and had such an amazing response from the public but it was a guest role and that doesn't help with the mortgage. So when the offer came through to join Casualty as a regular I jumped at the chance. My last story was "Evil Incarnate" and I was reading the script and as I came to the end it said

"the master regenerates"

I read it and reread it and then I realised that they were giving me a regeneration scene, that had never happened before. A few days later Tony Greenwood rang me and said that I deserved a proper send off....sorry that still bring tears to my eyes even now"
(Colin Baker 2003)
 
Ogrebear

Ogrebear

I guess the Master had to cycle out at some time.

Hopefully Colin can be brought back to 5 Masters or some sort of similar reunion.
 

nezza

"Good Morning. I have just returned from Buckingham Palace after asking Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament to allow a general election to be held. That request has been approved. The election will be held on the 25th of May. The past three years have been some of the most tumultuous of our post-war history. We have faced challenges both at home and abroad and have dealt with them with confidence, maturity and certainty.

But in politics a job half done doesn't count. Our economy while recovering slowly is still in need of stability and concentration. Our standing abroad while still strong faces threats the likes of which we have never envisaged and our relations with Europe which are at their highest for a while need redoubled efforts.

The choice is very clear. A majority Labour government will deliver what it promises. The only alternative of a conservative government will merely revert back to caring for the vested interests in this nation.

We've made a start.Now we must finish the job. Thank you very much"

(John Smith 20th April 1995)
 
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