By the way, have you considered starting a DeviantArt page, where you can post higher resolution versions of your images?
"Phil won't leave his room" - A Doctor Who Production History
- Thread starter Guajolote
- Start date
-
- Tags
- doctor who
Part 13
George Gallaccio's time as Doctor Who producer is the perfect barometer for how fan opinion ebbs and flows. Maybe even to the extent that it shows fandom up for being a fickle beast.
At the time it was on air, Gallaccio's Who was a fan darling. It was more grown up, it was more serious, it wasn't some kid's show like Buck Rogers *spit*. And if the ratings slipped a little, that was just the show finding its audience. This wasn't mass-market stuff, it was special TV for special people.
Then came the next producer, the next Doctor and an increase in popularity and suddenly Gallaccio's time was a failure. It was serious and serious meant dull. And Don Henderson? Far too working-class. The Doctor is a Time *Lord* after all.
Come the Seventh Doctor and the consensus was that Gallaccio hadn't been all that bad. The Seventh Doctor was the Fifth Doctor done right. Gallaccio had been trying to do in the early 80s what the show succeeded doing in the late 80s.
These days the consensus, if there is one, is that the Gallaccio Years are the best ones to show to someone who's skeptical about the very idea of an adult still enjoying Doctor Who. Lower key, to be sure, but one that rewards careful viewing. Stories you can discuss afterwards. A Doctor whose eccentricities are quiet and underplayed, but still there. Not as posh as the Doctors either side, but one who is articulate, softly spoken and chooses his words carefully. The one who in the 30th anniversary multi-Doctor episode took the absent First Doctor's place as the mature Doctor; the one with the clearest judgement.
The George Gallaccio years are as successful as any other in the show's history.
- Andrew Barbicane, The Complete Fifth Doctor
__________________
I think science fiction was a bit disenfranchised on British TV. The TV companies let the old time detectives scratch the itch for a certain type of escapist drama that might otherwise have been sci-fi shows. The dearth of escapist sci-fi had a knock-on effect to more realistic stuff.
Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks had an idea for a "grown-up" sci-fi show called Moonbase 3. They were busy making Gabriel Baine, but the idea was hanging around and at some point, it was hoped that I might be in a position to produce it. But it never happened.
The Baine Boom also had the effect of thing getting extremely middle-class. I saw one of the early pitches for The New Avengers and one of the characters was 'Mike Gambit', who was a Major in the Paras [1], someone who worked his way up the ranks. By the time the show was on air, he was 'Mark Gambit' and Peter Egan was playing him with upper-class charm, like a junior Steed.
I don't want to make it sound like I have a problem with detectives or middle-class characters, but I saw a gap in the market and when I was offered Doctor Who, I saw a chance to address some of my concerns.
Don had been disenfranchised, too. He'd been on the police procedural Strangers playing Inspector Bulman [2]. A second series of that got knocked on the head when Granada decided to make their Sherlock Holmes series. I liked Don in Strangers. He was eccentric, but not in a wacky professor way, and he was gruff and working-class, but very interested in learning. I won't lie, I encouraged Don to play The Doctor almost exactly like he played Bulman. I didn't cast him because of Star Wars, I'd forgotten he was in that. Apparently, even Don managed to forget he was in Star Wars once. [3]
- George Gallaccio, Interview by letter for Banana Split fanzine [4]
__________________
"Season 18 was a weird one from where I was looking. We'd seen off some stiff competition and I got the feeling Doctor Who was no longer a plucky underdog show. Just going by the reactions from people I'd bump into at TVC [5], I felt I was being treated like one of the big players at the BBC. Well, as big as a script editor can be."
- John Kane, DVD Extra, Dead Funny
__________________
"The main thing I think of when I think of Doctor Who is the fact that I came in at a time when there were personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
"While season 18 was going out, we were aware that BBC1 would be getting a new controller. Bill Cotton was leaving to be Deputy Director of Television and Alan Hart became the new Controller of BBC1. What made things uncertain for George and me was that before he left, Bill had indicated he thought Doctor Who was a bit flat and we were making it too grown-up. Everyone else in the Corporation was patting our backs and the head of BBC1 thought we were doing it wrong.
"Then Alan Hart came in and he said something very interesting. 'Bill's right if you're only thinking of Doctor Who as an early Saturday evening show.'
"Alan had a new plan for evenings on BBC1."
- John Kane, DWM Interview, 1999
__________________
"Constant personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
SOMEONE NEW FOR DR. WHO
Lesley Dunlop (25) is to be Dr. Who's new assistant in the BBC sci-fi series. Her character, Maxine Clegg, will be replacing Who girl Tina Gibson, played by Dawn Hope, in the 19th series of the space adventure in the new year.
- Daily Mirror, October 8th 1981
__________________
"There were other changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
DOCTOR WHO MOVES TO WEEKNIGHTS
Dr Who is moving to a twice-weekly cliff-hanging format as part of a new look to BBC1 schedules.
The series, which has occupied the early Saturday evening slot for 18 years. will be seen on BBC1 on Tuesdays and Thursdays when it returns in the New Year for its 19th series.
It will follow Nationwide on BBC1 at around 7pm. In the past, Dr Who has been a big audience-puller for viewers of all ages, although it was conceived as a children's show.
- The Yorkshire Evening Post, November 18th 1981 [6]
__________________
"That stuff was putting a good PR face on things. The fact is, Buck Rogers had eaten enough into our ratings to give the higher ups pause. They thought, incorrectly as it turns out, that ITV would make another concerted effort to knock Doctor Who off its pedestal and next time they might get it right.
"As it happened, the twice a week arrangement did fit in with Alan's plans for BBC1, but it wasn't quite the promotion the press releases made it out to be.
"The ratings weren't quite at the same height as they'd been in the 70s, but it was still a popular show. But I think Bill Cotton's attitude still cast a shadow over us and I'm not sure we ever entirely shook that off."
- John Kane, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
"But mainly, it was the personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
"That wasn't the reason I left Doctor Who. I'm proud of my time on the show, but I'd done four years and wanted to explore new opportunities."
- John Kane, DVD Extra, Dead Funny
__________________
"Big personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
Doctor Who is to have a new script editor. Andrew Davies, perhaps best known to our readers as the author of the Look & Read adventure Dark Towers.
- The Celestial Toyroom, Doctor Who Appreciation Society Fanzine, November 1981
__________________
"Huge personnel changes!"
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
__________________
YTV MAN FOR TOP JOB AT BBC
Managing Director of Yorkshire Television and Former BBC1 controller Paul Fox has been announced as the new BBC Director-General, replacing Sir Ian Trethowan.
- The Yorkshire Evening Post, December 11th 1981
_________________
[1] The British Army Parachute Regiment
[2] Bulman started out as an antagonist in the novel and later TV series The XYY Man before becoming part of the team in Strangers. ITOL Strangers ran for 5 seasons and Bulman then got his own spinoff in 1985.
[3] That story is told on this page http://embraagain.blogspot.com/2013/08/an-interview-with-don-henderson.html
[4] I needed a name for a fanzine. For some reason ITTL, banana splits are important to The Doctor.
[5] BBC Television Centre
[6] I couldn't find a news story about the slot change, apart from one the actual week of Season 19's premiere, so this is from whole cloth unless I eventually find an OTL source.
Last edited:
Wait, I'm confused. Are you trying to say that there were personnel changes?
(In all seriousness, great job as always, m'colleague!)
Last edited:
Part 14
Alasdair Milne was the front runner for the top job, but his volatile temper, which had landed him in trouble with BBC top brass before, finally got the better of him. A trade journal had asked him about the changes broadcasting faced in the 1980s and when the topic moved onto the matter of the franchise changes (or lack thereof) in the ITV network, Milne could not resist letting loose.
"The IBA have been engaged in nothing more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
It was widely expected that they'd put ATV in its place, but the token changes they've asked for shows that they understand that ITV can't survive without its main purveyor of glossy showbiz nonsense. Peter Jay at LWT may make much of this supposed 'mission to explain', but fundamentally, ITV is a profit-driven operation. Television is just the product these companies put before the public. It might as well be baked beans. Ultimate power at ITV is held by bankers."
Milne's impolitic rant drew howls of protest from every representative of ITV and the IBA. The least charitable responses read sinister undertones to his mention of "bankers", especially so close to allusions to ATV and its flamboyant boss. Milne hadn't meant for any lines to be drawn between the targets of his ire. Indeed, his approach was entirely scattershot.
As the dust settled, the BBC Board of Governors could only conclude that Milne was too fond of confrontation and invective. The job of Director-General needed to go to someone who understood the BBC, but perhaps it needed just as much to go to someone who knew the world outside the BBC. Milne's crime had been being too much of a BBC man. He couldn't understand that people might actually like ITV, regardless of its commercial basis.
Paul Fox, a former BBC man who had distinguished himself at Yorkshire Television was just the man for the job.
- Martin Aldenham, Changing The Programme, The BBC and the Nation, 1974–1987 [1]
"The people at the BBC who were nervous about Paul Fox potentially commercializing or taking the BBC downmarket either hadn't worked in television or were too young to remember when he was the head of BBC1. He knew the job.
"Alan Hart had been called to the DG's office for a meeting, but the main thrust of it was Fox told him not worry about micro-managing from a man who used to have his job. The only decision Fox took for Hart was point out there was a very good reason ITV shows started on the hour or the half-hour.
"BBC1 started programmes whenever it was ready. I remember looking at a Friday night schedule at the time and the slots were 3.55, 5.35, 5.45 6.55. That kind of thing. From my point of view, I think Doctor Who suffered a bit from not having a fixed timeslot.
"When Season 20 came, Doctor Who was on at 7pm Tuesdays and Thursdays and I think the ratings benefitted from it.
"But Don wasn't entirely happy. I think his confidence had taken a knock with Season 18 being menaced by Buck Rogers and Season 19 being less of a ratings juggernaut than the show had been on Saturdays.
"History repeated itself. Just as Iain had left Doctor Who to go back to playing Charlie Endell, Don got an offer to play Inspector Bulman again. It was no secret that he loved the part and I think Doctor Who had made Granada realize what a great actor they'd had in Don.
"As it happened, I was leaving too. Despite everything, I was regarded as having done good job on Doctor Who and was being offered Shoestring [2]. But I took Don aside and said 'Don't leave at the end of this series, the 20th anniversary's coming up and I think there's going to be a special and it would be a hell of a send off."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Dalek Plague
The final evidence of the BBC's mixed-signals over George Gallaccio's tenure comes with his departure and replacement. BBC1 Controller was full of praise for the more grounded approach to Doctor Who. The fact Gallaccio moved onto the producership of Shoestring seems to be a sign that his bosses believed in him. But then he was replaced with a producer best known for his work within the BBC Children's Department, Colin Cant.
If one looks at the script-editors, the anchoring of Doctor Who to creators with a strong showing in children's television begins with the employment of PJ Hammond as script editor in the summer of 1972. Gallaccio himself must have been part of this process as he gave the script-editor job to Andrew Davies.
Some Doctor Who fans are precious about their programme not being a "children's show". But that doesn't elevate Doctor Who, it overlooks the high-quality of drama produced by the BBC's Children's Department. Gallaccio's approach may have been more mature than most eras, but in his script-editor choice, he showed he knew the value of keeping children interested in the show.
The future direction of Doctor Who wasn't to alienate adult viewers, but it would bolster and increase its child audience. The 20th anniversary would be the first example of that approach.
- Andrew Barbicane, The Complete Fifth Doctor
"I wish Lesley Dunlop had stayed on Doctor Who a bit longer. I think her vulnerability would have played nicely against the Sixth Doctor's boundless confidence. The Fifth Doctor is a little bit gruff, maybe even grim. The Fourth Doctor gave his foes the sense he might be something more terrible than them, deep down. The Fifth gave everyone that sense. Tina had her hard-nosed realism to protect her from that. With Maxine, it was almost like she stuck with the Doctor not because he was the most wonderful person she knew, just the least frightening. With the Sixth Doctor who is all about putting on a brave face and swaggering through danger, I think she would have blossomed. As it is, she's a bit overlooked and that's a shame.
"Mind you. I wouldn't want to lose Sophie. Sophie is great."
- Convention panel, Classic Series Companions, 2001
There's an irony to the use of the story New Horizons as a defence against the charge that classic Who was never emotional or political. It was exactly the interpolation of those qualities by script-editor Andrew Davies that caused the original writer to have his name taken off it.
In some ways the irony is doubled, it's political in the least didactic imaginable. It doesn't tell the viewer what to think of the changing face of Britain, just asks them to reflect on it, good and bad.
As originally written, New Horizons is one of those stories that's political on the outside, but hollow inside. The bad businessman is a pawn of the evil aliens, so you can pretend it's a commentary on capitalism. But nothing about the businessman's badness is shown to be part of the system he operates in. He's just one of the bad ones.
The rewritten story is about a businessman who's idealistic, in his own way, but refuses to face up to the effect his property development is having or that his partners might not have anyone's best interests at heart but their own. It's a gentle message to the Labour government (in its pact with the Liberals) and the relatively new Prime Minister David Owen not to let their "Programme for Change" overlook the people at the bottom. The people who have to work in those skyscrapers and even more importantly, the people who don't get to work in them but have to look at them.
Like a later story, the Seventh Doctor's (sort of) debut Paradise Towers, New Horizons isn't a reactionary screed against modern architecture, but a warning about shirked responsibility. These grand developments could be wonderful places to live and work in, if they're constantly maintained with an eye on the people who reside within them, not just the people who own them.
The refusal to draw simple lines of good and bad is reflected in the clash between outgoing companion Maxine Clegg, disturbed by how much her hometown has changed while she's been with The Doctor, and new companion Sophie Chen, who genuinely wants her bosses to build a better Britain. Maxine is right about the need of the developers to communicate with the community, but occasionally wanders into "it's different from how it used to be and that's bad" thinking. Sophie is right that you can't run a community on sentiment and tradition, but sometimes seems to promote change as an end in itself, rather than something that should only be undertaken to improve things for people.
There are few companion goodbyes more touching than the one where Maxine decides she has to use the new understanding she gained travelling with The Doctor to improve the place she once left. With beautiful symmetry, Sophie concludes she should join The Doctor's travels to find out just how much she doesn't know about people. Full credit to Lesley Dunlop and Sarah Lam, who imbue their characters with perfect conviction.
As the Fifth Doctor's time drew to a close, it could still remind us of everything that made it special.
- Andrew Barbicane, The Complete Fifth Doctor
__________________
As it had done ten years before, Doctor Who's anniversary missed the actual anniversary, this time coming too late rather than too soon.
The actual anniversary itself did not go unmarked. The newly rational BBC1 schedule, that started on the hour or half-hour, had left a gap between the children's programmes and the Six O'Clock News. Many different formats were tried to fill the gap, but luckily for us fans, Friday evenings from August 12th to November 25th were given over to Doctor Who. A run of classic stories from the Fifth, Fourth and Third Doctors. At the time, showing the Doctors in reverse order just felt like travelling back in time. We now know it was actually to make sure a certain plot elements were fresh in our minds when the anniversary special finally aired.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The 80s
Here are the stories confirmed for the repeat run. All episode will be on BBC1, Fridays at 5.35pm.
August 12th to September 9th - The Breaking Of Time
September 9th to 30th - The Sound Of Evil
October 7th to 28th - The Three Doctors
November 4th to 25th - Terror Of The Autons
- Doctor Who Magazine, July 1983
The Six Doctors eventually aired a month after Doctor Who's 20th anniversary on Friday December 23rd at 7.00pm. Fans complained that the show hadn't been honoured with a Christmas Day slot, but even the Friday before Christmas was a sign of the BBC's belief in the show, maybe influenced by the fact it was a regeneration story.
The Christmas scheduling of the anniversary story was even reflected in merchandise
The title The Six Doctors was technically accurate, but in the reality, the show was carried by three Doctors. Alan MacNaughtan stood in for the departed William Hartnell, so that the show could boast a full complement of Doctors. In practice, he did very little as it was agreed that Hartnell was fundamentally irreplaceable and MacNaughtan's presence was largely cosmetic. While Iain Cuthbertson had made an impressive recovery from his stroke nearly two years earlier, he didn't feel confident enough to fully participate and so the Fourth Doctor was confined with the First in the centre of the diabolical trap set up by...hey, you have seen The Six Doctors before haven't you? I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The 80s
[1] IOTL, the relevant volume of the BBC's official history is Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation 1974-1987 by Jean Seaton, but the BBC is going to have a different relationship with the British government in the 80s, thanks to Morecambe and Wise
[2] This was originally a reference to Bergerac but an idea I might or might not pursue could butterfly that series away
There might be a break from updating this while a friend and I write out the plot breakdown of The Six Doctors
"The IBA have been engaged in nothing more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
It was widely expected that they'd put ATV in its place, but the token changes they've asked for shows that they understand that ITV can't survive without its main purveyor of glossy showbiz nonsense. Peter Jay at LWT may make much of this supposed 'mission to explain', but fundamentally, ITV is a profit-driven operation. Television is just the product these companies put before the public. It might as well be baked beans. Ultimate power at ITV is held by bankers."
Milne's impolitic rant drew howls of protest from every representative of ITV and the IBA. The least charitable responses read sinister undertones to his mention of "bankers", especially so close to allusions to ATV and its flamboyant boss. Milne hadn't meant for any lines to be drawn between the targets of his ire. Indeed, his approach was entirely scattershot.
As the dust settled, the BBC Board of Governors could only conclude that Milne was too fond of confrontation and invective. The job of Director-General needed to go to someone who understood the BBC, but perhaps it needed just as much to go to someone who knew the world outside the BBC. Milne's crime had been being too much of a BBC man. He couldn't understand that people might actually like ITV, regardless of its commercial basis.
Paul Fox, a former BBC man who had distinguished himself at Yorkshire Television was just the man for the job.
- Martin Aldenham, Changing The Programme, The BBC and the Nation, 1974–1987 [1]
__________________
"The people at the BBC who were nervous about Paul Fox potentially commercializing or taking the BBC downmarket either hadn't worked in television or were too young to remember when he was the head of BBC1. He knew the job.
"Alan Hart had been called to the DG's office for a meeting, but the main thrust of it was Fox told him not worry about micro-managing from a man who used to have his job. The only decision Fox took for Hart was point out there was a very good reason ITV shows started on the hour or the half-hour.
"BBC1 started programmes whenever it was ready. I remember looking at a Friday night schedule at the time and the slots were 3.55, 5.35, 5.45 6.55. That kind of thing. From my point of view, I think Doctor Who suffered a bit from not having a fixed timeslot.
"When Season 20 came, Doctor Who was on at 7pm Tuesdays and Thursdays and I think the ratings benefitted from it.
"But Don wasn't entirely happy. I think his confidence had taken a knock with Season 18 being menaced by Buck Rogers and Season 19 being less of a ratings juggernaut than the show had been on Saturdays.
"History repeated itself. Just as Iain had left Doctor Who to go back to playing Charlie Endell, Don got an offer to play Inspector Bulman again. It was no secret that he loved the part and I think Doctor Who had made Granada realize what a great actor they'd had in Don.
"As it happened, I was leaving too. Despite everything, I was regarded as having done good job on Doctor Who and was being offered Shoestring [2]. But I took Don aside and said 'Don't leave at the end of this series, the 20th anniversary's coming up and I think there's going to be a special and it would be a hell of a send off."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Dalek Plague
__________________
The final evidence of the BBC's mixed-signals over George Gallaccio's tenure comes with his departure and replacement. BBC1 Controller was full of praise for the more grounded approach to Doctor Who. The fact Gallaccio moved onto the producership of Shoestring seems to be a sign that his bosses believed in him. But then he was replaced with a producer best known for his work within the BBC Children's Department, Colin Cant.
If one looks at the script-editors, the anchoring of Doctor Who to creators with a strong showing in children's television begins with the employment of PJ Hammond as script editor in the summer of 1972. Gallaccio himself must have been part of this process as he gave the script-editor job to Andrew Davies.
Some Doctor Who fans are precious about their programme not being a "children's show". But that doesn't elevate Doctor Who, it overlooks the high-quality of drama produced by the BBC's Children's Department. Gallaccio's approach may have been more mature than most eras, but in his script-editor choice, he showed he knew the value of keeping children interested in the show.
The future direction of Doctor Who wasn't to alienate adult viewers, but it would bolster and increase its child audience. The 20th anniversary would be the first example of that approach.
- Andrew Barbicane, The Complete Fifth Doctor
__________________
"I wish Lesley Dunlop had stayed on Doctor Who a bit longer. I think her vulnerability would have played nicely against the Sixth Doctor's boundless confidence. The Fifth Doctor is a little bit gruff, maybe even grim. The Fourth Doctor gave his foes the sense he might be something more terrible than them, deep down. The Fifth gave everyone that sense. Tina had her hard-nosed realism to protect her from that. With Maxine, it was almost like she stuck with the Doctor not because he was the most wonderful person she knew, just the least frightening. With the Sixth Doctor who is all about putting on a brave face and swaggering through danger, I think she would have blossomed. As it is, she's a bit overlooked and that's a shame.
"Mind you. I wouldn't want to lose Sophie. Sophie is great."
- Convention panel, Classic Series Companions, 2001
__________________
There's an irony to the use of the story New Horizons as a defence against the charge that classic Who was never emotional or political. It was exactly the interpolation of those qualities by script-editor Andrew Davies that caused the original writer to have his name taken off it.
In some ways the irony is doubled, it's political in the least didactic imaginable. It doesn't tell the viewer what to think of the changing face of Britain, just asks them to reflect on it, good and bad.
As originally written, New Horizons is one of those stories that's political on the outside, but hollow inside. The bad businessman is a pawn of the evil aliens, so you can pretend it's a commentary on capitalism. But nothing about the businessman's badness is shown to be part of the system he operates in. He's just one of the bad ones.
The rewritten story is about a businessman who's idealistic, in his own way, but refuses to face up to the effect his property development is having or that his partners might not have anyone's best interests at heart but their own. It's a gentle message to the Labour government (in its pact with the Liberals) and the relatively new Prime Minister David Owen not to let their "Programme for Change" overlook the people at the bottom. The people who have to work in those skyscrapers and even more importantly, the people who don't get to work in them but have to look at them.
Like a later story, the Seventh Doctor's (sort of) debut Paradise Towers, New Horizons isn't a reactionary screed against modern architecture, but a warning about shirked responsibility. These grand developments could be wonderful places to live and work in, if they're constantly maintained with an eye on the people who reside within them, not just the people who own them.
The refusal to draw simple lines of good and bad is reflected in the clash between outgoing companion Maxine Clegg, disturbed by how much her hometown has changed while she's been with The Doctor, and new companion Sophie Chen, who genuinely wants her bosses to build a better Britain. Maxine is right about the need of the developers to communicate with the community, but occasionally wanders into "it's different from how it used to be and that's bad" thinking. Sophie is right that you can't run a community on sentiment and tradition, but sometimes seems to promote change as an end in itself, rather than something that should only be undertaken to improve things for people.
There are few companion goodbyes more touching than the one where Maxine decides she has to use the new understanding she gained travelling with The Doctor to improve the place she once left. With beautiful symmetry, Sophie concludes she should join The Doctor's travels to find out just how much she doesn't know about people. Full credit to Lesley Dunlop and Sarah Lam, who imbue their characters with perfect conviction.
As the Fifth Doctor's time drew to a close, it could still remind us of everything that made it special.
- Andrew Barbicane, The Complete Fifth Doctor
__________________
As it had done ten years before, Doctor Who's anniversary missed the actual anniversary, this time coming too late rather than too soon.
The actual anniversary itself did not go unmarked. The newly rational BBC1 schedule, that started on the hour or half-hour, had left a gap between the children's programmes and the Six O'Clock News. Many different formats were tried to fill the gap, but luckily for us fans, Friday evenings from August 12th to November 25th were given over to Doctor Who. A run of classic stories from the Fifth, Fourth and Third Doctors. At the time, showing the Doctors in reverse order just felt like travelling back in time. We now know it was actually to make sure a certain plot elements were fresh in our minds when the anniversary special finally aired.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The 80s
__________________
Here are the stories confirmed for the repeat run. All episode will be on BBC1, Fridays at 5.35pm.
August 12th to September 9th - The Breaking Of Time
September 9th to 30th - The Sound Of Evil
October 7th to 28th - The Three Doctors
November 4th to 25th - Terror Of The Autons
- Doctor Who Magazine, July 1983
__________________
The Six Doctors eventually aired a month after Doctor Who's 20th anniversary on Friday December 23rd at 7.00pm. Fans complained that the show hadn't been honoured with a Christmas Day slot, but even the Friday before Christmas was a sign of the BBC's belief in the show, maybe influenced by the fact it was a regeneration story.
The Christmas scheduling of the anniversary story was even reflected in merchandise
The title The Six Doctors was technically accurate, but in the reality, the show was carried by three Doctors. Alan MacNaughtan stood in for the departed William Hartnell, so that the show could boast a full complement of Doctors. In practice, he did very little as it was agreed that Hartnell was fundamentally irreplaceable and MacNaughtan's presence was largely cosmetic. While Iain Cuthbertson had made an impressive recovery from his stroke nearly two years earlier, he didn't feel confident enough to fully participate and so the Fourth Doctor was confined with the First in the centre of the diabolical trap set up by...hey, you have seen The Six Doctors before haven't you? I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.
- Niahm Bakewell, Doctor Who, The Compact Guide: The 80s
__________________
[1] IOTL, the relevant volume of the BBC's official history is Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation 1974-1987 by Jean Seaton, but the BBC is going to have a different relationship with the British government in the 80s, thanks to Morecambe and Wise
[2] This was originally a reference to Bergerac but an idea I might or might not pursue could butterfly that series away
There might be a break from updating this while a friend and I write out the plot breakdown of The Six Doctors
Last edited:
Loving this so far! The Fifth Doctor's casting caught me completely off-guard. Never in a million years would I have thought to cast Don Henderson! I'm excited to see what comes next. Well done, @Guajolote!
Can we have a wrap-up post in the end to see who you picked anyway?
I love how whilst your choices are completely unexpected, they still end up making total logical sense.
That makes me sound lazier than I really am. I genuinely like leaving unanswered questions on these things. If you collected a bunch of documents from another universe, there would bound to be references to things that were only illuminated in documents you hadn't managed to get hold of. I like that idea.
I tried to magnify it, but I didn't notice it was Warrington (who would have been my alt-5).
Good choice.
Good choice.
I am curious to learn who Peter Egans Mark Gambit was teamed up with, perhaps we got the version of Purdey named Charley who was Steed's niece?
As an idea, what's Pamela Sue Martin doing in this timeline?
As an idea, what's Pamela Sue Martin doing in this timeline?
Last edited:
Joanna Lumley's still in it, as you'll see on the Starburst cover in Part 2 of this TL. I pondered going in depth on The New Avengers, but passed on the idea. The Peter Egan reference is just a little gesture towards a path I didn't take. Had I dealt with it, there weren't going to be those New Avengers In Canada episodes.
Pamela Sue Martin is a bit outside my manor, but I've asked someone who wrote a guest post if they have any ideas.
Pamela Sue Martin is a bit outside my manor, but I've asked someone who wrote a guest post if they have any ideas.
This timeline has literally nothing to do with Pamela Sue Martin who was an American star mostly doing American television so it's somewhat random. I can't speak for @Guajolote but would imagine her career is as IOTL: Nancy Drew, a film for Roger Corman, Dynasty.
Last edited: