Part 5
"It was a strange sensation, leaving Doctor Who. I'd never been in one place for so long as an actor. 5 years as the lead wasn't something I'd experienced before. I hadn't realized how attached to it all I'd become. I think my main regret was not getting to do more with Jenny. She was a lovely contrast to Gabrielle and it would have been nice to explore the different relationship Doctor Who had with Kay as opposed to Jo."
- Roger Delgado, Commentary track Army Of Hate DVD
"It's ridiculous that people are complaining that the current series is 'too political'. Have they forgotten Army Of Hate? The 3rd Doctor is destroyed because of racism, no two ways about it."
- Twitter status, November 2010
"Ironic, really. I'm an alien. I'm from a different planet entirely, but those people hate me because I look like a human, just not the right kind of human."
- The Doctor, Army Of Hate Episode 5, BBC1 June 1st 1974
"Both Paddy and Roger were concerned that the story shouldn't become a Play For Today with The Doctor plonked in the middle. I knew where they were coming from. A couple of times as script editor, I'd had to remind writers that this was going to go out in a Saturday teatime slot.
"More than once I've had fans say how powerful it would have been to have had Brigadier Knight be possessed by The Hate. That ignores the type of show Doctor Who is. Even as you talk about real life evils, the children had to have a little bit of certainty.
"That's also why the script doesn't use the word 'racism', but talks about 'looking different'. Make it a straightforward idea that the younger viewers can let roll around their minds without the sense that the news headlines have parked themselves in the middle of their escapist show."
- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, Army Of Hate
"I directed Roger's last story and everything went very smoothly. I think the only problem was that Roger is something like 5'8" tall and Iain is 6'4". We ended up going a tiny but over budget making a replica of Roger's white suit that would fit Iain.
"Have I mentioned how intelligent Iain is? He is. His father was a famous scientist and Iain himself has degrees in modern languages. Roger knew this, they'd probably worked together before. Anyway, Roger, who'd had a Belgian mother and Spanish father, decided to start swearing at Iain in French and Spanish to see if he could make him corpse. Things got a little end-of-term and Roger has that kind of sense of humour."
- Paddy Russell interview, Doctor Who Magazine, 1996
"I did have a nice little speech planned for The Doctor before he regenerated, but Roger decided he'd had a better idea and I'm not going to say he was wrong."
- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, Army Of Hate
"Kismet."
- The Doctor's last word, Army Of Hate Episode 6, BBC1 June 8th 1974
Feted as it is, The Adventures of Gabriel Baine is a fluke in terms of British television exports. It bypasses the problems British companies have with American networks by going straight to the syndication market and its status as a co-production is driven more by its creator, Terry Nation, than by the BBC. We can't look to the Corporation for a new generation of British exports.
- Martin Aldenham, The Guardian, November 12th 1973 [1]
"Gabriel Baine was a lovely expensive-looking series that was an overseas hit and even splitting the money three ways, it generated a nice income for the BBC. But the BBC is always damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. When it makes big popular hits, the industry says 'private companies should be doing that'. When it makes specialized, niche programmes, the industry says 'why should we subsidize this elitist stuff?'. Of course, the whole point of the BBC is to strike a balance.
"Some people had been expecting, hoping maybe, that this would bring about a strand of BBC filmed action series, but apart from Quiller a couple of years later, the thinking at the BBC was that it was best to channel the money back into prestige productions. Too many shows like Baine and the 'unfair competition' argument would have raised its head. It fell to the ITV companies to pick up where Baine left off."
- Barry Letts, The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
Insufferable, arrogant, brilliant! Doctor Thorndyke is a new 13 part film series from London Weekend Television starring Roy Marsden as Dr. Thorndyke and David Swift as his friend Dr. Jervis as they solve the most perplexing crimes 19th Century London has to offer!
- London Weekend Television press release, 1973
"Gabriel Baine didn't kick off the Victorian detective boom by itself. LWT had had to shut down its film series department, because it was wasting money[2]. Thames had started branching out with their Euston Films subsidiary, that probably bothered them a bit. But the BBC having this thing shot on 35mm, LWT weren't going to let that lie.
"Thorndyke was a good choice, the only problem was that Thames had already adapted two Dr. Thorndyke stories as part of their Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes series and at one point, LWT were wondering if they could maybe do something to stop the second one going out. In the end, they decided it wasn't worth the bad publicity, but it meant Thames had got wind of LWT's new project. Quite how R. Austin Freeman's estate managed to sell the rights twice over, I don't know and this was only a few years after the BBC had their own Thorndyke series.
"Anyway, Thorndyke was well received, Thames decided they're going to get Euston Films in the Victorian detective business. ATV sees what's happening and decide to bring back Sgt. Cork. In the end, we got the credit for it all and they later called 'the Baine Boom'."
- Terrance Dicks, outtake from The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
"There was something of a backlash against Baine in the BBC. Gerald Savory [3] had an idea for a series of plays centred around Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples. A real prestige production and all to be made on videotape in the studio. The BBC was eager for another big export hit like Elizabeth R or The Pallisers and they'd been studio-based shows.
"There was some disquiet in the Corporation at how much all this was going to cost, so Metromedia was asked if they were interested in co-producing, but they weren't interested. Once they said no, everyone else who might have co-financed it started to think 'What do Metromedia know that we don't, they've got a close relationship with the Beeb'. So that was the end of that. Shame really, I think it could have been a really interesting project. [4]
- Barry Letts, outtake from The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
British TV is getting clogged up with Victorian geniuses. No sooner had Gabriel Baine chuffed off our screens in his private train than Dr. Thorndyke returned superbly embodied by Roy Marsden, he of the dark brown voice and imperious sneer (leavened with the occasional irresistible smirk). While they might appear to be cut from the same cloth (and LWT is probably hoping Baine's fans feel that way about Thorndyke) we're actually witnessing a dual between two different type of hero. We have the men of action on one side and the thinkers on the other.
Gabriel Baine, with his fancy togs and anachronistic kung fu, is something of an action man reaction to Doctor Who, played with charming stillness by Roger Delgado. Baine is a superb swordsman, boxer and marksman. If the good Doctor's ever in a fight, he has to resort to low cunning; holding off an attack with a rolled-up newspaper (or in the last series, a salami) just long enough for his clever trap to be sprung.
So after Baine we got Thorndyke, who saves the day by thinking, talking and driving his best friend Dr. Jervis to distraction. David Swift's bald pate accurately portrays that of Jervis, who must have torn his hair out at his best friends obtuseness.
Just as Thorndyke sounded the call for the intellectual adventurer, Sexton Blake has returned to make the case for the action hero. Blake, in the youthful form of Norman Eshley, appears to have caught Baine's propensity for overdressing, as he cuts a more dandified figure than previous versions of the character. It's left to Peter Duncan as the faithful sidekick Tinker to bring things down to Earth with his Cockney urchin charm.
I'm happy to say that like his fellows in the field, Eshley straddles the arrogant/likeable line with ease. However, if Sexton Blake isn't a hit, can I suggest that, with Edwin Richfield having departed for pastures new, Mr. Eshley become the new Master in Doctor Who? [5] With his piercing eyes and cavernous nostrils, Eshley could be king of the sneers.
- Owen Harbottle, My TV Week, Daily Mirror, Oct 22nd 1973 [6]
__________________
BBC Memorandum
From: H.Serials D. Tel
Subject: GABRIEL BAINE CAST SUGGESTION
To: Producer, Gabriel Baine February 5th 1974
copy to: Ch. P. BBC 1., D.Tel., H. Drama Tel.
Had a letter from actor Tom Baker about getting some work out of us. Remind me to mention this at our next meeting, I think he'd fit in with Gabriel Baine's world.
- Memorandum by BBC Head of Serials Bill Slater
Next week a new series of The Adventures of Gabriel Baine starts and the dashing detective seems to have met his match in the criminal genius Lord St John Giordano!
- Radio Times, 1974
Dear Paddy,
Sorry I was out when you called. I'm feeling fit as a fiddle, thanks for asking.
I've got another film job. This time I'm alongside Michael Caine and Sean Connery, no less! I have some more films lined up, maybe I'll be a movie star at last.
I got talking to Herbert Lom when we were doing the latest Pink Panther and he said he wouldn't mind doing a Doctor Who provided it didn't take too much time. He's busy, busy, busy!
Naturally, if you ever want Dr. Who 3 to stop by and meet Dr. Who 4, give me enough notice and I'd be happy to come back.
Love, Roger
- Letter to Paddy Russell, 1975
[1] Original character but I based his comments on some things I read in an article in The Guardian February 26th 1971 by James Preston, former London Weekend Television executive. It detailed a downturn in opportunities for ITV companies to export to and import from US TV networks.
[2] Really happened in OTL, another James Preston article that gets to the bottom of that story was "LWT subsidiary was just a 'gravy train' for writers", The Stage, May 20th 1971
[3] Gerald Savory was a writer and producer who'd previously been the BBC TV's Head of Serials and was the one who spiked John Wiles and Donald Tosh's original plans for The Celestial Toymaker as a reference to Savory's play George And Margaret
[4] IOTL Churchill's People went ahead as a co-production with Universal TV and was made on videotape, in the studio and for 26 episodes. It was a disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill's_People
[5] Like Roger Delgado IOTL, Richfield has found that people think he's in Doctor Who all the time and it's getting in the way of finding work. Also like Delgado, he's given the choice between slipping away quietly or going out with a bang. He's chosen to slip out quietly.
[6] Another original character, mainly because I would want to portray an OTL TV critic as writing quite so badly as that. Call it exposition-by-cliche.
Next time: a guest post about Terror Of The Autons in which my friend Andrew Hickey argues that Delgado's Third Doctor was most subversive under Barry Letts
Thanks to my friend Mark McMillan of TV Ark for doing the aging effect on the TV Times cover
I edited this part on May 9th 2021 to change the Twitter status from 2019 to 2010 to better fit in with where I see the show going in the 2010s
- Roger Delgado, Commentary track Army Of Hate DVD
__________________
"It's ridiculous that people are complaining that the current series is 'too political'. Have they forgotten Army Of Hate? The 3rd Doctor is destroyed because of racism, no two ways about it."
- Twitter status, November 2010
__________________
"Ironic, really. I'm an alien. I'm from a different planet entirely, but those people hate me because I look like a human, just not the right kind of human."
- The Doctor, Army Of Hate Episode 5, BBC1 June 1st 1974
__________________
"Both Paddy and Roger were concerned that the story shouldn't become a Play For Today with The Doctor plonked in the middle. I knew where they were coming from. A couple of times as script editor, I'd had to remind writers that this was going to go out in a Saturday teatime slot.
"More than once I've had fans say how powerful it would have been to have had Brigadier Knight be possessed by The Hate. That ignores the type of show Doctor Who is. Even as you talk about real life evils, the children had to have a little bit of certainty.
"That's also why the script doesn't use the word 'racism', but talks about 'looking different'. Make it a straightforward idea that the younger viewers can let roll around their minds without the sense that the news headlines have parked themselves in the middle of their escapist show."
- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, Army Of Hate
__________________
"I directed Roger's last story and everything went very smoothly. I think the only problem was that Roger is something like 5'8" tall and Iain is 6'4". We ended up going a tiny but over budget making a replica of Roger's white suit that would fit Iain.
"Have I mentioned how intelligent Iain is? He is. His father was a famous scientist and Iain himself has degrees in modern languages. Roger knew this, they'd probably worked together before. Anyway, Roger, who'd had a Belgian mother and Spanish father, decided to start swearing at Iain in French and Spanish to see if he could make him corpse. Things got a little end-of-term and Roger has that kind of sense of humour."
- Paddy Russell interview, Doctor Who Magazine, 1996
__________________
"I did have a nice little speech planned for The Doctor before he regenerated, but Roger decided he'd had a better idea and I'm not going to say he was wrong."
- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, Army Of Hate
__________________
"Kismet."
- The Doctor's last word, Army Of Hate Episode 6, BBC1 June 8th 1974
__________________
Feted as it is, The Adventures of Gabriel Baine is a fluke in terms of British television exports. It bypasses the problems British companies have with American networks by going straight to the syndication market and its status as a co-production is driven more by its creator, Terry Nation, than by the BBC. We can't look to the Corporation for a new generation of British exports.
- Martin Aldenham, The Guardian, November 12th 1973 [1]
__________________
"Gabriel Baine was a lovely expensive-looking series that was an overseas hit and even splitting the money three ways, it generated a nice income for the BBC. But the BBC is always damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. When it makes big popular hits, the industry says 'private companies should be doing that'. When it makes specialized, niche programmes, the industry says 'why should we subsidize this elitist stuff?'. Of course, the whole point of the BBC is to strike a balance.
"Some people had been expecting, hoping maybe, that this would bring about a strand of BBC filmed action series, but apart from Quiller a couple of years later, the thinking at the BBC was that it was best to channel the money back into prestige productions. Too many shows like Baine and the 'unfair competition' argument would have raised its head. It fell to the ITV companies to pick up where Baine left off."
- Barry Letts, The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
__________________
Insufferable, arrogant, brilliant! Doctor Thorndyke is a new 13 part film series from London Weekend Television starring Roy Marsden as Dr. Thorndyke and David Swift as his friend Dr. Jervis as they solve the most perplexing crimes 19th Century London has to offer!
- London Weekend Television press release, 1973
__________________
"Gabriel Baine didn't kick off the Victorian detective boom by itself. LWT had had to shut down its film series department, because it was wasting money[2]. Thames had started branching out with their Euston Films subsidiary, that probably bothered them a bit. But the BBC having this thing shot on 35mm, LWT weren't going to let that lie.
"Thorndyke was a good choice, the only problem was that Thames had already adapted two Dr. Thorndyke stories as part of their Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes series and at one point, LWT were wondering if they could maybe do something to stop the second one going out. In the end, they decided it wasn't worth the bad publicity, but it meant Thames had got wind of LWT's new project. Quite how R. Austin Freeman's estate managed to sell the rights twice over, I don't know and this was only a few years after the BBC had their own Thorndyke series.
"Anyway, Thorndyke was well received, Thames decided they're going to get Euston Films in the Victorian detective business. ATV sees what's happening and decide to bring back Sgt. Cork. In the end, we got the credit for it all and they later called 'the Baine Boom'."
- Terrance Dicks, outtake from The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
__________________
"There was something of a backlash against Baine in the BBC. Gerald Savory [3] had an idea for a series of plays centred around Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples. A real prestige production and all to be made on videotape in the studio. The BBC was eager for another big export hit like Elizabeth R or The Pallisers and they'd been studio-based shows.
"There was some disquiet in the Corporation at how much all this was going to cost, so Metromedia was asked if they were interested in co-producing, but they weren't interested. Once they said no, everyone else who might have co-financed it started to think 'What do Metromedia know that we don't, they've got a close relationship with the Beeb'. So that was the end of that. Shame really, I think it could have been a really interesting project. [4]
- Barry Letts, outtake from The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
__________________
British TV is getting clogged up with Victorian geniuses. No sooner had Gabriel Baine chuffed off our screens in his private train than Dr. Thorndyke returned superbly embodied by Roy Marsden, he of the dark brown voice and imperious sneer (leavened with the occasional irresistible smirk). While they might appear to be cut from the same cloth (and LWT is probably hoping Baine's fans feel that way about Thorndyke) we're actually witnessing a dual between two different type of hero. We have the men of action on one side and the thinkers on the other.
Gabriel Baine, with his fancy togs and anachronistic kung fu, is something of an action man reaction to Doctor Who, played with charming stillness by Roger Delgado. Baine is a superb swordsman, boxer and marksman. If the good Doctor's ever in a fight, he has to resort to low cunning; holding off an attack with a rolled-up newspaper (or in the last series, a salami) just long enough for his clever trap to be sprung.
So after Baine we got Thorndyke, who saves the day by thinking, talking and driving his best friend Dr. Jervis to distraction. David Swift's bald pate accurately portrays that of Jervis, who must have torn his hair out at his best friends obtuseness.
Just as Thorndyke sounded the call for the intellectual adventurer, Sexton Blake has returned to make the case for the action hero. Blake, in the youthful form of Norman Eshley, appears to have caught Baine's propensity for overdressing, as he cuts a more dandified figure than previous versions of the character. It's left to Peter Duncan as the faithful sidekick Tinker to bring things down to Earth with his Cockney urchin charm.
I'm happy to say that like his fellows in the field, Eshley straddles the arrogant/likeable line with ease. However, if Sexton Blake isn't a hit, can I suggest that, with Edwin Richfield having departed for pastures new, Mr. Eshley become the new Master in Doctor Who? [5] With his piercing eyes and cavernous nostrils, Eshley could be king of the sneers.
- Owen Harbottle, My TV Week, Daily Mirror, Oct 22nd 1973 [6]
__________________
BBC Memorandum
From: H.Serials D. Tel
Subject: GABRIEL BAINE CAST SUGGESTION
To: Producer, Gabriel Baine February 5th 1974
copy to: Ch. P. BBC 1., D.Tel., H. Drama Tel.
Had a letter from actor Tom Baker about getting some work out of us. Remind me to mention this at our next meeting, I think he'd fit in with Gabriel Baine's world.
- Memorandum by BBC Head of Serials Bill Slater
__________________
Next week a new series of The Adventures of Gabriel Baine starts and the dashing detective seems to have met his match in the criminal genius Lord St John Giordano!
- Radio Times, 1974
__________________
Dear Paddy,
Sorry I was out when you called. I'm feeling fit as a fiddle, thanks for asking.
I've got another film job. This time I'm alongside Michael Caine and Sean Connery, no less! I have some more films lined up, maybe I'll be a movie star at last.
I got talking to Herbert Lom when we were doing the latest Pink Panther and he said he wouldn't mind doing a Doctor Who provided it didn't take too much time. He's busy, busy, busy!
Naturally, if you ever want Dr. Who 3 to stop by and meet Dr. Who 4, give me enough notice and I'd be happy to come back.
Love, Roger
- Letter to Paddy Russell, 1975
__________________
[1] Original character but I based his comments on some things I read in an article in The Guardian February 26th 1971 by James Preston, former London Weekend Television executive. It detailed a downturn in opportunities for ITV companies to export to and import from US TV networks.
[2] Really happened in OTL, another James Preston article that gets to the bottom of that story was "LWT subsidiary was just a 'gravy train' for writers", The Stage, May 20th 1971
[3] Gerald Savory was a writer and producer who'd previously been the BBC TV's Head of Serials and was the one who spiked John Wiles and Donald Tosh's original plans for The Celestial Toymaker as a reference to Savory's play George And Margaret
[4] IOTL Churchill's People went ahead as a co-production with Universal TV and was made on videotape, in the studio and for 26 episodes. It was a disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill's_People
[5] Like Roger Delgado IOTL, Richfield has found that people think he's in Doctor Who all the time and it's getting in the way of finding work. Also like Delgado, he's given the choice between slipping away quietly or going out with a bang. He's chosen to slip out quietly.
[6] Another original character, mainly because I would want to portray an OTL TV critic as writing quite so badly as that. Call it exposition-by-cliche.
Next time: a guest post about Terror Of The Autons in which my friend Andrew Hickey argues that Delgado's Third Doctor was most subversive under Barry Letts
Thanks to my friend Mark McMillan of TV Ark for doing the aging effect on the TV Times cover
I edited this part on May 9th 2021 to change the Twitter status from 2019 to 2010 to better fit in with where I see the show going in the 2010s
Last edited:
Incidentally, would you mind telling me where the image of Cuthbertson is from?)