Paddy Russell: "As I understand it, other producers took great pains over choosing an outfit for The Doctor, but we asked Iain what he thought might work and he said 'Sgt. Cork', so we went with that."
Peter J. Hammond: "These days when you mention
Sgt. Cork, people think about the 70s revival with Frank Finlay, but at that time we didn't know it was going to be brought back. Iain was thinking of the original 60s show with John Barrie. He wore a tweed suit and an Inverness cape or an Ulster. Iain would go without the bowler hat and his suit would be a finer quality, but it matched what we wanted. Iain was going to be very noticeable with his height, so we gave him something less conspicuous to wear. That way, he could decide when to be the centre of attention and when not to be. Also, we were planning a location shoot on Ilkley Moor, where that Inverness would be most welcome when the wind whipped up."
- DVD Extra, Storm Of The Cybermen
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The Fourth Doctor is notable for his constant changes in mood. Quiet, paternal and a little sad to his companions, when he comes into an unfamiliar situation he will be loud and ebullient, but able to make his mirth somewhat menacing if he starts to suspect evil in the person he's addressing. Finally, when confronted with the worst the universe has to offer, he will display a quiet anger that threatens dreadful consequences.
- Andrew Barbicane, The Complete Fourth Doctor [1]
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"We carefully designed
Doctor Who with Iain to do two mutually exclusive things. The children watched for thrills, we needed to keep the safe scares or they'd lose interest. But we also needed to make sure we didn't fall foul of the whole controversy about violence on TV. I'm not just talking about Mary Whitehouse, as the envelope got pushed more and more in other shows like
The Sweeney[2] the whole of television came under scrutiny.
"I'd worked on
Ace Of Wands over at Thames and that show was carefully devised with a lot of research and child psychology behind it. I used to parrot what I could remember of that when
Doctor Who came in for criticism. That helped, but Paddy and I did have our own rules about what we would and wouldn't do. Just look at how many cliffhangers involve the baddie pointing a weapon at the companion, then the Doctor will stand in front of them and looked concerned. So you get across the peril, but you leave that little bit of reassurance. The Doctor is there.
"Sherlock Holmes was something we talked about a lot. Not in terms of the characterization, but the character's role in the plots. Quite a few of those stories are Gothic thrillers. There's a young woman, a remote location a not entirely trustworthy male protector and something unnatural happening. That's
The Copper Beeches,
A Case of Identity, and
The Adventure of the Speckled Band alone. Then Sherlock Holmes comes in and shows it's all perfectly logical. So that was an idea we went with. Creepy atmospheres and the Doctor eventually works out that it's just scientific wrongdoers.
"Naturally, it didn't silence criticism. But when people said it was too frightening, but being able to reply 'it's just moody lighting and long silences, there's no gore' bought us some credit with the BBC hierarchy.
It didn't buy me any credit with Robert Holmes, who would say to me 'You should be scaring the little buggers'[3]. I turned down so many ideas from him I'm lucky he didn't take it personally."
- Peter J Hammond interview, Doctor Who Magazine, 2002
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Submitted for season 14
The Dangerous Assassin[4]
An outline by Robert Holmes for a story that would explore the Doctor's home planet was rejected by script editor Peter J. Hammond for clashing with the mystery about the Doctor's origins, which Hammond thought was important to the series' success.
- List of unmade Doctor Who serials and films, Wikipedia
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"I liked writing for a character without much backstory. I had the same thing later with
The Time Shapers [5]. People asked me who Sapphire and Steel really were. Well they just *were*. That's your explanation. They existed and acted. Enjoy the mystery.
"I've given different answers to this over the years. I can't quite decide, but today I'll say that, yes, I was influenced by
Doctor Who when creating
The Time Shapers. In some ways, it represents the way I would have liked to have written The Doctor. I'd have liked it if we'd never seen the Time Lords or the homeworld. I like the implication that maybe The Doctor was the same kind of being as the things he fought against. I threw in a few lines in that direction, but it couldn't stick. We already knew about the Time Lords.
"There was that funny little period in the 90s when the BBC was looking at co-producers. There were pitches flying around for movies and revivals and I read a few of them. Too many of them started with The Doctor's origins.
"Sometimes I'd get a call from someone putting a proposal together and they'd ask me 'what's The Doctor's home planet called?' and I'd say 'I don't know'. Then they'd say 'would you like to come up with a name?'. Well, no, I didn't want to do that.
"I'm not sure if it's an American thing. I mean, most of the American fans are lovely, but I used to get these very strange letters about The Doctor's origins and the ones who would not take 'no' for an answer were the ones in the US. It was towards the end of my time on the programme that we got a sudden influx of new fans from the US, thanks to
Gabriel Baine."
- Peter J Hammond, DVD extra, Empire Of Death
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"Just like The Doctor had The Master, we thought Gabriel Baine should have an arch-enemy. Around about the same time, the Head of Serials at the BBC said we should take a look at this actor Tom Baker and everything fell into place. We made him as flamboyant as Gabriel Baine, but in a more decadent way.
"Sadly, Jon and Tom didn't hit it off."
- Barry Letts, The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
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"I don't like talking about this, because there are a lot of people who like putting Jon down and this matter just adds fuel to the fire. No Jon did not dislike Tom because Tom was an inch taller. What happened was Jon and Tom would start arguing, Tom would pull himself up to his full height and say 'I'm taller than you'.
Jon was the star and he knew he was the star. If you want to call him big-headed, go ahead, but I don't think he was being unreasonable. It was his show. Tom was just so carried away with mischief, he liked getting a rise out of Jon. At first the tension gave their onscreen dealings a bit of extra electricity, but eventually, it was just destructive. Though before he left, we did come up with an idea to put Tom in his place and that led to one of the most celebrated episodes ever."
- Terrance Dicks, outtake from The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
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"People were always saying that Gabriel Baine and The Doctor should meet and it just became one of those ideas, like the Daleks should meet the Cybermen, that's so obvious there's no good reason to do it. It sounds exciting but once you do it, so what? Where do you go from there? The expectations would be so high that one would be making a rod for one's own back.
"One day Tom had decided to needle Jon and started with his usual 'Don't start with me, I'm taller than you and I'm from Liverpool'. Terrance leaned over to me and said 'You know what would shut up a 6'3" Scouser? A 6'4" Glaswegian. We should give Iain Cuthbertson a call'. Somehow, that comment from Terrance made it seem like a good idea. I don't know, maybe we just needed an excuse.
"That gave a boost to
Doctor Who in the US as
Gabriel Baine fans who might not know or care about
Doctor Who got to see the Doctor in action and naturally, some of them wanted to see more."
- Barry Letts, The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
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View attachment 537676
In a beautiful piece of synergy, by the time
Gabriel Baine ended in 1977, the
Baine fans were up to speed with
Doctor Who and found it kept them entertained while they waited to see if the proposed
Baine movie ever got off the ground.
- DWM Archive special feature, The Adventures Of Gabriel Baine: Who Rules Time?, Doctor Who Magazine 2002
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"You hear about sparks flying on the
Gabriel Baine set and think things must have been the same on
Doctor Who. But then you read anything about that period and they're all the same. 'And then Paddy Russell left and PJ Hammond became producer and Graham Williams replaced him as script editor and then Hammond left and Michael Briant replaced him'. I thought they're really must be something else to write about here but for the most part, there really isn't."
- Andrew Barbicane, Convention appearance, 2006
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"Paddy was leaving and everybody who was expected to replace her turned the job down, myself included. An agreement was reached, I only had to produce for one series while someone more permanent could be found. I'd get the producer credit for my CV, but my days working on
Doctor Who were mercifully numbered. I loved the show, but I was running out of ideas."
- Peter J. Hammond, DVD Extra, The Shadow Of Demios
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"I'd worked on both series of
Sutherland's Law as script editor[6] so I knew how to work with Iain and what kind of things would sound most natural coming from him. I mean, he could deliver any line convincingly, but I could tailor them precisely.
"I know my time on the show has been singled out for its more obvious humour, but it's not true that that was down to orders from above. Not directly, anyway.
"When Peter became producer there was a suggestion from the BBC bosses that maybe he should lighten things up a bit. But he achieved that in two ways. First was his 'three-five rule'. The cliffhangers were now more focused on complications than threats. The peril came in episode 3; and if it was a 6-parter also in episode 5. Secondly, victories at the end were to be unambiguous and upbeat. Pretty much the opposite of what he did when he wrote
The Time Shapers.
"The humour was more because of Vicky Williams as the companion. She'd been in a children's drama called
The Changes and Paddy had cast her on the strength of that. In
The Changes she was playing a schoolgirl, but she was 19. She was meant to be playing a similar age group in
Doctor Who, about 15. I think she was getting tired of that kind of role, so her delivery was a bit droll and flippant. Once I came onboard as script editor, Peter and I agreed to just write her as her real age. I gather the fans have all sorts of theories about what this means for the character. Anyway, I have to confess, I kept giving her funny lines because I knew she'd do them justice. It gave the show a nice feeling of
The Avengers.
"Peter did have one rule. He would not let me do anything that dealt with the Doctor's past or home planet. 'Doctor Who is a question as well as a title. No origin story is required' he'd say."
- Graham Williams, Doctor Who Magazine interview 1990 [7]
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"The main production anecdote from that time is how Hammond's tenure ended up being one of the most dazzling pieces of fancy footwork to shut up Mary Whitehouse."
- Andrew Barbicane, Convention appearance, 2006
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"Whatever you may hear, it wasn't planned this way from the start, but towards the end of my tenure, I realized my short stay could be used to take some of the heat off the production office. So a journalist friend got a quote from Mary Whitehouse saying how dreadful we were. The BBC were then able to reply 'that producer doesn't work for us anymore'. It bought
Doctor Who a bit of time, I like to think."
- Peter J. Hammond, DVD Extra, The Curse Of Baron Samedi
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"One might call the years from 1975-79, The Quiet Years, at least as far as behind the scenes drama go." [8]
- DWM Archive feature, Blood For Gold, Doctor Who Magazine 1998
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"Did you see that in the Doctor Who Magazine? The Quiet Years. I notice they end in 1979. Oh boy, did they end in 1979!"
- Michael E Briant, Convention appearance, 1998
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"BBC1's Saturday night lineup was unbeatable in the 70s. So obviously, it became vital to ITV to try and get viewers away from us. Michael Grade at London Weekend Television had a plan. The first thing in his sights was the lynchpin of the BBC's Saturday evening schedule."
- The Fight For Saturday Night, BBC4 , 2008
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[1] Barbicane is an original character to stand in for fan writers, if I ever get my other TL done, we'll see more of his writing on a different topic
[2] Despite the Baine-inspired Victorian detectives ITTL, I think
The Sweeney goes ahead as Thames' Euston Films division was formed with ideas of making pacy, modern action drama.
[3] Viz. Philip Hinchcliffe from Doctor Who Magazine (OTL) "Bob was a bit of a devil and used to say, 'Let’s scare the buggers!'"
[4] The working title IOTL
[5] TTL's version of
Sapphire And Steel
[6] As per OTL, except
Sutherland's Law had 5 series. IOTL,
Sutherland's Law was piloted in the same Drama Playhouse strand as
The Incredible Robert Baldick, but as ITTL
Baldick has become
Baine and gone to series, the continuation of
Sutherland's Law has been squeezed aside by the change in how much of BBC Drama's attention and resources have been available. The other series in that Drama Playhouse run,
The Venturers didn't go to series at all ITTL.
[7] IOTL Graham Williams died in an accident in 1990. Take it as butterflied here, but I've decided to skirt around any specifics ITTL.
[8] There's no Philip Hinchcliffe going over budget on his last story after being fired. There's no Tom Baker refusing to let directors tell him how to play the part. It's all a bit ordinary in the production office at this time.
There will now be a pause in the story. Still to come: Grade takes his best shot, Sherlock Holmes arrives, the new companion is 'Wrong Genre Savvy' and just what is going on in the grounds of Pebble Mill?
