"Phil won't leave his room" - A Doctor Who Production History
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I did some "The Collection" style portraits of my Doctors over on Deviantart, including your first glimpse of the Tenth Doctor's costume. https://www.deviantart.com/tiltaraiza/gallery/79975919/doctor-who-alt-hist-portraits
I've actually got 1-12 done. I'm leery about putting up 1 and 2, because it'd be too easy for someone to nick 'em and then fake up blu-ray cover for one or two of the 60s series. 11 hasn't been revealed yet and 12 is a not wholly formed idea that might never materialize and is a rather safe and obvious choice of actor who's been in a lot of other alternate-Doctor media.
I for one would like to see the 1-2 one, as I'd like to make a collage. As for the obviousness of 12, sometimes the safest choices are the ones that work the best.
Part 37 - The 1998 Series, Part 1
By the time you read this, the first episode of what we're probably all going to call Season 30 of Doctor Who will have gone out on BBC1 and you'll have made your mind up. But there is a reason for me to tell you about the advanced press screening I attended and it's not just to show off that I'm allowed into advanced press screenings (but I am, yay for me).
It's fair to say that the pre-publicity for the show has been a bit mixed. So much has been made of the BBC's supposed lack-of-faith in this co-production with Cinema Verity that the first ever lady Doctor almost got forgotten about. Being the correspondent from the official Doctor Who magazine, my opinion was particularly sought out by the members of the "proper" press, the reviewers from media outlets that cater to people who don't know every little detail about Doctor. Heck, they don't even know to write "Time Lord" instead of "Timelord".
I don't want to think the worst of these people, but I couldn't help but feel they wanted tales of "anoraks" and "trainspotters" tearing up their copies of DWM and cancelling their subscriptions in disgust. But I reassured them, even the fans who hate the idea aren't going to do anything quite so extreme as not watch Doctor Who. The people who were representing less specialized sci-fi and fantasy titles agreed with this. They didn't need to see the new show to work out whether their readers were going to watch the show. But they needed to see the two episodes shown at the event to get a sense of whether this was going to be a show that the readers were going to talk about. Was this going to be a show people watched or an actual HIT?
After the episodes, the "proper" journalists were intrigued but nonplussed, so once again they sought me out. Again, I might be doing them a disservice, but I think some of them wanted me to dismiss it out of hand for some obscure continuity reference. I had to disappoint them and say
"I think I've just seen a really successful reinvention of Doctor Who."
- Andrew Barbicane, DWM, December 1998
Two significant things that marked 90s TV sci-fi from earlier times were the vogue for "story arcs" tying whole series together and the increasing fascination with conspiracy theories, the latter of which could be used to introduce sci-fi elements into a more or less realistic setting while not having to deal with the huge societal fallout of things like aliens being real.
Doctor Who had made a slight concession to the conspiracy genre by having so much of the TV Movie centred around "The Agency", but that was pretty much it. It was the 1998 series that finally committed to the trends of 90s TV fantasy and it made up for being late by virtue of possessing the unique format of Doctor Who.
Forget the messy press conference, forget the "telegenic" memo. The BBC/Cinema Verity co-production is elegantly put together and it moves forwards with a unified purpose. Season 30 is dedicated to looking at Doctor Who and asking "why does The Doctor save some lives and not others?". OK, hunker down for a lot of textual analysis from yours truly. No laughing at the back.
First, the casting. It's not "stunt casting", at least not in a cynical way. When pre-production began, a huge list was complied of actors and actresses who were felt to have a "Doctorish" quality and as it was whittled down, Selina Cadell's name remained on the list. Casting a woman serves the purpose of making the audience really look at the new Doctor. By 1998 there had been only two years since 1963 where British TV saw no new episodes of Doctor Who. The ninth person to play the lead in the show ran the risk of just being "the latest one". Add to this the fact that regenerative handover from Eight to Nine wasn't shown at all in her first series. It's a neat way of setting up the viewers to look upon Cadell as "The Doctor" and not "The New Doctor".
"But what about all the references to previous Doctors?" I hear you cry. Well, that's where things get turned on their heads. The usual post-regeneration scene being one of the first things to be inverted. The Doctor herself has nothing to say about her recent regeneration and she has no companion to explain it to. But the companion-to-be, Linda Manzetti, knows all about The Doctor, or thinks she does. She isn't our point-of-view character to be introduced to The Doctor's world. Linda is, in effect, an analogue for a casual TV viewer. They know some things about Doctor Who, but now the viewer is being called upon to look closer at The Doctor by the casting of a woman; just as Linda is called upon to fully investigate The Doctor by the magazine she's working for. So the viewer at home might be seeing The Doctor with new eyes, but the companion is used to the phenomenon of someone overdressed calling themself "The Doctor" turning up and fixing crises.
There have been scripts down the years that propose a relaunch of Doctor Who that have featured a cynical person becoming a companion of The Doctor, always being ready to cut down anything too fantastic with a dry quip (or more usually, adolescent snark that the writer thinks is wit). In 1998 Doctor Who, Linda isn't skeptical about the sci-fi trappings of The Doctor's world. There's an ambiguity about whether she really subscribes to any of the conspiracy theories she writes about or whether she just makes a show of believing them because she's writing for a magazine that's similar but legally distinct from Fortean Times. But while she's largely onboard with aliens, suggestions of time travel and some strange fixer who might be multiple people or the same person somehow radically changing appearance, Linda has one big question about The Doctor. Why does The Doctor fix some things and not others?
Not every episode is about this question, but it hangs over every story as Linda joins The Doctor on her travels but doesn't find and answer to the thing she wants to know the most about The Doctor. The theme appears to come to a head in what was the season's most (undeservedly) controversial story.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s
Church groups have expressed concern at the news the new series of Doctor Who will contain a story set in the First Century which deals with early Christians. Martyn Ghal, of the pressure group Stop Anti-Christian Media expressed dismay. "This is the history of a group of people who are constantly misrepresented in the media and is not the kind of thing that should be picked up by a science-fiction show for entertainment". The Doctor Who production office said that the story would be handled with sensitivity and that the writer, Kelvin Maugham, was a practicing Catholic himself. The new series will begin in October with Selina Cadell as the famed Timelord.
- Daily Mirror, April 3rd 1998
- Kelvin Maugham, convention appearance, 2006
In the story The Sign The Doctor and Linda encounter a group of early-Christians hiding from Roman soldiers. Linda makes a case that this is an opportunity to derail Christianity at its outset, she then lists the wars and inquisitions that could be prevented. The Doctor refuses to countenance such an idea. In a way, the conflict at the heart of The Aztecs is replayed, but with the added frisson that the religion being discussed is one that is still adhered to by millions, including millions of Doctor Who viewers. And then we get that scene.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s
The Doctor: I can't just go around upending the faith of all the Christians at this time and assume that I've prevented Torquemada or any other brutal zealotry done in the name of their god. To do that I'd have to manage the timelines, constantly having to make sure that the right action leads to the right reaction. I would become a god myself and everyone would lose their free will.
Have you ever wondered why my people are content to simply observe the timeline and not get involved? They're scared of the same thing I am, becoming the only beings in all of time with any agency. I can't quite bring myself to do what they do. I can't stand by when people need help. But I can only handle the problem that's before me as best as I can in the hope I don't break history. I can help that group of people who are being pursued by an empire that wants them dead. It's a fact that there will come a day that other empires will be born claiming to subscribe to the same beliefs, but that's not something I can worry about right now. Yakov, his family and friends need help and I will give it to them.
If their god really is out there, I can't tell you why it would let good things happen to bad people. But I can explain why I do. Facing the options of uncaring observer or the only true force in time, I've messily tried to navigate the middle, like a unicyclist who hasn't had quite enough practice. I'm trying to do as much good as I can, but sometimes it's not possible or I just fail. I'm not a god, I'm just a man. [looks down and sees female form] And I can't even get that right.
- Doctor Who, The Sign by Kelvin Maugham, BBC1 December 5th
And that seemed to be the answer to the question.
But it isn't.
The series isn't over. The question is going to be asked again and it's going to hurt.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s
With thanks to Tyler Adams of the wonderful Goon Pod for the brilliant Private Eye cartoon
It's fair to say that the pre-publicity for the show has been a bit mixed. So much has been made of the BBC's supposed lack-of-faith in this co-production with Cinema Verity that the first ever lady Doctor almost got forgotten about. Being the correspondent from the official Doctor Who magazine, my opinion was particularly sought out by the members of the "proper" press, the reviewers from media outlets that cater to people who don't know every little detail about Doctor. Heck, they don't even know to write "Time Lord" instead of "Timelord".
I don't want to think the worst of these people, but I couldn't help but feel they wanted tales of "anoraks" and "trainspotters" tearing up their copies of DWM and cancelling their subscriptions in disgust. But I reassured them, even the fans who hate the idea aren't going to do anything quite so extreme as not watch Doctor Who. The people who were representing less specialized sci-fi and fantasy titles agreed with this. They didn't need to see the new show to work out whether their readers were going to watch the show. But they needed to see the two episodes shown at the event to get a sense of whether this was going to be a show that the readers were going to talk about. Was this going to be a show people watched or an actual HIT?
After the episodes, the "proper" journalists were intrigued but nonplussed, so once again they sought me out. Again, I might be doing them a disservice, but I think some of them wanted me to dismiss it out of hand for some obscure continuity reference. I had to disappoint them and say
"I think I've just seen a really successful reinvention of Doctor Who."
- Andrew Barbicane, DWM, December 1998
__________________
Two significant things that marked 90s TV sci-fi from earlier times were the vogue for "story arcs" tying whole series together and the increasing fascination with conspiracy theories, the latter of which could be used to introduce sci-fi elements into a more or less realistic setting while not having to deal with the huge societal fallout of things like aliens being real.
Doctor Who had made a slight concession to the conspiracy genre by having so much of the TV Movie centred around "The Agency", but that was pretty much it. It was the 1998 series that finally committed to the trends of 90s TV fantasy and it made up for being late by virtue of possessing the unique format of Doctor Who.
Forget the messy press conference, forget the "telegenic" memo. The BBC/Cinema Verity co-production is elegantly put together and it moves forwards with a unified purpose. Season 30 is dedicated to looking at Doctor Who and asking "why does The Doctor save some lives and not others?". OK, hunker down for a lot of textual analysis from yours truly. No laughing at the back.
First, the casting. It's not "stunt casting", at least not in a cynical way. When pre-production began, a huge list was complied of actors and actresses who were felt to have a "Doctorish" quality and as it was whittled down, Selina Cadell's name remained on the list. Casting a woman serves the purpose of making the audience really look at the new Doctor. By 1998 there had been only two years since 1963 where British TV saw no new episodes of Doctor Who. The ninth person to play the lead in the show ran the risk of just being "the latest one". Add to this the fact that regenerative handover from Eight to Nine wasn't shown at all in her first series. It's a neat way of setting up the viewers to look upon Cadell as "The Doctor" and not "The New Doctor".
"But what about all the references to previous Doctors?" I hear you cry. Well, that's where things get turned on their heads. The usual post-regeneration scene being one of the first things to be inverted. The Doctor herself has nothing to say about her recent regeneration and she has no companion to explain it to. But the companion-to-be, Linda Manzetti, knows all about The Doctor, or thinks she does. She isn't our point-of-view character to be introduced to The Doctor's world. Linda is, in effect, an analogue for a casual TV viewer. They know some things about Doctor Who, but now the viewer is being called upon to look closer at The Doctor by the casting of a woman; just as Linda is called upon to fully investigate The Doctor by the magazine she's working for. So the viewer at home might be seeing The Doctor with new eyes, but the companion is used to the phenomenon of someone overdressed calling themself "The Doctor" turning up and fixing crises.
There have been scripts down the years that propose a relaunch of Doctor Who that have featured a cynical person becoming a companion of The Doctor, always being ready to cut down anything too fantastic with a dry quip (or more usually, adolescent snark that the writer thinks is wit). In 1998 Doctor Who, Linda isn't skeptical about the sci-fi trappings of The Doctor's world. There's an ambiguity about whether she really subscribes to any of the conspiracy theories she writes about or whether she just makes a show of believing them because she's writing for a magazine that's similar but legally distinct from Fortean Times. But while she's largely onboard with aliens, suggestions of time travel and some strange fixer who might be multiple people or the same person somehow radically changing appearance, Linda has one big question about The Doctor. Why does The Doctor fix some things and not others?
Not every episode is about this question, but it hangs over every story as Linda joins The Doctor on her travels but doesn't find and answer to the thing she wants to know the most about The Doctor. The theme appears to come to a head in what was the season's most (undeservedly) controversial story.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s
__________________
Church groups have expressed concern at the news the new series of Doctor Who will contain a story set in the First Century which deals with early Christians. Martyn Ghal, of the pressure group Stop Anti-Christian Media expressed dismay. "This is the history of a group of people who are constantly misrepresented in the media and is not the kind of thing that should be picked up by a science-fiction show for entertainment". The Doctor Who production office said that the story would be handled with sensitivity and that the writer, Kelvin Maugham, was a practicing Catholic himself. The new series will begin in October with Selina Cadell as the famed Timelord.
- Daily Mirror, April 3rd 1998
__________________
Private Eye cartoon, April 1998
__________________
"Yes, me being a believer meant it was going to be a sensitive and sympathetic story. However, the idea first occurred to me as a kind of joke. I thought wouldn't it be interesting to have a historical called Doctor Who And The Christians? I still sort of wish we'd actually called it that."Private Eye cartoon, April 1998
__________________
- Kelvin Maugham, convention appearance, 2006
__________________
In the story The Sign The Doctor and Linda encounter a group of early-Christians hiding from Roman soldiers. Linda makes a case that this is an opportunity to derail Christianity at its outset, she then lists the wars and inquisitions that could be prevented. The Doctor refuses to countenance such an idea. In a way, the conflict at the heart of The Aztecs is replayed, but with the added frisson that the religion being discussed is one that is still adhered to by millions, including millions of Doctor Who viewers. And then we get that scene.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s
__________________
The Doctor: I can't just go around upending the faith of all the Christians at this time and assume that I've prevented Torquemada or any other brutal zealotry done in the name of their god. To do that I'd have to manage the timelines, constantly having to make sure that the right action leads to the right reaction. I would become a god myself and everyone would lose their free will.
Have you ever wondered why my people are content to simply observe the timeline and not get involved? They're scared of the same thing I am, becoming the only beings in all of time with any agency. I can't quite bring myself to do what they do. I can't stand by when people need help. But I can only handle the problem that's before me as best as I can in the hope I don't break history. I can help that group of people who are being pursued by an empire that wants them dead. It's a fact that there will come a day that other empires will be born claiming to subscribe to the same beliefs, but that's not something I can worry about right now. Yakov, his family and friends need help and I will give it to them.
If their god really is out there, I can't tell you why it would let good things happen to bad people. But I can explain why I do. Facing the options of uncaring observer or the only true force in time, I've messily tried to navigate the middle, like a unicyclist who hasn't had quite enough practice. I'm trying to do as much good as I can, but sometimes it's not possible or I just fail. I'm not a god, I'm just a man. [looks down and sees female form] And I can't even get that right.
- Doctor Who, The Sign by Kelvin Maugham, BBC1 December 5th
__________________
And that seemed to be the answer to the question.
But it isn't.
The series isn't over. The question is going to be asked again and it's going to hurt.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The Late 90s
With thanks to Tyler Adams of the wonderful Goon Pod for the brilliant Private Eye cartoon
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oh my god, i love this quote. this is the best explanation for the doctor's slightly messy morals i've ever heard, this is their "with great power comes great responsibility", and i love it!
1. What would be the name of cuthbertsons last story, I know it involves the daleks
2. Would the dalek emperor from evil of the daleks return at some point?
2. Would the dalek emperor from evil of the daleks return at some point?