By the way, have you considered starting a DeviantArt page, where you can post higher resolution versions of your images?
Wait, I'm confused. Are you trying to say that there were personnel changes?View attachment 554261
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 choses 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
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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]
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"Constant personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
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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
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"There were other changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
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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]
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"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
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"But mainly, it was the personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
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"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
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"Big personnel changes."
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
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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
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"Huge personnel changes!"
- George Gallaccio, DVD Extra, The Wasting
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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
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[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.
Can we have a wrap-up post in the end to see who you picked anyway?I have the Doctors cast all the way up to Ten, but this TL will probably end with the Seventh because I'm not sure I have it in me to make the casting of Eight and Nine plausible.
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.
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?