Urban's 'All New' Doctor Who Thing

Urban Hat€monger ? · 04-29-2015, 10:30 AM

So this time I'm going to do it properly.
The way I should have done it last time, from beginning to end.

Let's re-start this thing it's been too long.

Urban Hat€monger ? · 04-29-2015, 10:30 AM

Origins - Part 1: The Beginning

Sydney Newman

The genesis of Doctor Who started in late 1962 when Canadian Sydney Newman became Head of Drama at the BBC. Newman had a reputation for being a good ideas man with his finger on the pulse of what viewers wanted. He had left his job in his native Canada working for CBC and had moved over to the newly formed ITV network in Britain in 1958. After 4 years working for ITV where he had huge successes with shows he had created such as The Avengers and the gritty Armchair Theatre he made a move to the BBC with the intention of modernising it and getting rid of the stuffy upper class mentality it had and make programmes for the middle & working classes, the people who actually watched TV. Needless to say not everybody was thrilled by his appointment.

At the BBC one of the first things that became apparent to the BBC Controller of Programmes Donald Baverstock was that there was a half hour slot on Saturday evenings between two hugely popular shows that was losing viewers. Usually it would feature a Dickens adaptation or something along those lines. It fell between Grandstand, the BBC's flagship Saturday afternoon sports show and Juke-Box Jury an early evening pop music show where the pop stars of the day gave their opinions on new records entering the charts. Newman was ordered by Baverstock to come up with ideas for a show to fill this half hour.

Although there was no pressure to make the show a science fiction show specifically (A drama at a school was proposed & rejected) it was decided fairly early on by Newman that he wanted to go down that route having had success with an adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea for CBC and a show for ITV called Pathfinders which even to this day is considered one of the most influential children's TV shows ever made. Pathfinders was about explorations in space. Newman wanted something like this only this time his main influence would be The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

Donald Wilson

In early 1963 Newman drafted a memo featuring the basics of the series and gave it to Donald Wilson the head of serials. The memo contained the ideas that the time ship be bigger on the inside than out, also that the main character be a crotchety senile old man who has flashes of brilliance, that is on Earth because he is on the run from an advance civilization from the future. He also cannot control this time ship meaning he cannot get his human companions back home thus allowing them to have more adventures.

Rex Tucker

After being sceptical at first Wilson thought there was something in this and in March 1963 bought in Producer / Director Rex Tucker. Tucker did not want to commit to a lengthy serial, least of all Doctor Who which he hated the idea of. It was agreed he would just be a caretaker producer and help get the project off the ground. It has been suggested by actor and director Hugh David (More of him later) that it was Tucker who came up with the name 'Doctor Who' around this time but there is no documentation to confirm this.

C.E. 'Bunny' Webber

Wilson and Tucker bought in a mutual friend, writer C.E. Webber, known as Bunny to his friends. Bunny was given the task of fleshing out the ideas on Newman's memo and writing the first serial. Here's the four page document he came up with, Sydney Newman's notes are also included.

Quote:

C.E. Webber and Sydney Newman outline the format for the new 'Doctor Who' series.

BBC ARCHIVE WRITTEN DOCUMENT 1963

[Page 1 of 4]

"DR. WHO"
General Notes on Background and Approach

A series of stories linked to form a continuing serial; thus if each story ran 6 or 7 episodes there would be about 8 stories needed for 52 weeks of the serial. With the overall title, each episode is to have its own title. Each episode of 25 minutes will begin by repeating the closing sequence or final climax of the preceding episode; about halfway through, each episode will reach a climax, followed by blackout before the second half commences (one break).

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Each episode to end with a very strong cliff-hanger."]

Each story, as far as possible, to use repeatable sets. It is expected that BP [abbreviation for 'back projection'] will be available. A reasonable amount of film, which will probably be mostly studio shot for special effects. Certainly writers should not hesitate to call for any special effects to achieve the element of surprise essential in these stories, even though they are not sure how it would be done technically: leave it to the Effects people. Otherwise work to a very moderate budget.

There are four basic characters used throughout:-

CHARACTERS

BRIDGET (BIDDY) A with-it girl of 15, reaching the end of her Secondary School career, eager for life, lower-than-middle class. Avoid dialect, use neutral accent laced with latest teenage slang.

MISS McGOVERN (LOLA) 24. Mistress at Biddy's school. Timid but capable of sudden rabbit courage. Modest, with plenty of normal desires. Although she tends to be the one who gets into trouble, she is not to be guyed: she also is a loyalty character.

CLIFF 27 or 28. Master at the same school. Might be classed as ancient by teenagers except that he is physically perfect, strong and courageous, a gorgeous dish. Oddly, when brains are required, he can even be brainy, in a diffident sort of way.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Top of his class in the parallel bars."]

These are the characters we know and sympathise with, the ordinary people to whom extraordinary things happen. The fourth basic character remains always something of a mystery, and is seen by us rather through the eyes of the other three....

DR. WHO A frail old man lost in space and time. They give him this name because they don't know who he is. He seems not to remember where he has come from; he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignance; he seems to have some undefined enemy; he is searching for something as well as fleeing from something. He has a "machine" which enables them to travel together through time, through space, and through matter.

Quote:

[Page 2 of 4]

QUALITY OF STORY Evidently, Dr. Who's "machine" fulfils many of the functions of conventional Science Fiction gimmicks. But we are not writing Science Fiction. We shall provide scientific explanations too, sometimes, but we shall not bend over backwards to do so, if we decide to achieve credibility by other means. Neither are we writing fantasy: the events have got to be credible to the three ordinary people who are our main characters, and they are sharp-witted enough to spot a phoney. I think the writer's safeguard here will be, if he remembers that he is writing for an audience aged fourteen... the most difficult, critical, even sophisticated, audience there is, for TV. In brief, avoid the limitations of any label and use the best in any style or category, as it suits us, so long as it works in our medium.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Not clear"]

Granted the startling situations, [Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "What startling situations."] we should try to add meaning; to convey what it means to be these ordinary human beings in other times, or in far space, or in unusual physical states. We might hope to be able to answer the question: "Besides being exciting entertainment, for 5 o'clock on a Saturday, what is worthwhile about this serial?"

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Not clear"]

DR WHO'S "MACHINE"

When we consider what this looks like, we are in danger of either Science Fiction or Fairytale labelling. If it is a transparent plastic bubble we are with all the low grade space fiction of cartoon strip and soap-opera. If we scotch this by positing something humdrum, say, passing through some common object in street such as a night-watchman's shelter to arrive inside a marvellous contrivance of quivering electronics, then we simply have a version of the dear old Magic Door.

Therefore, we do no see the machine at all; or rather it is visible only as an absence of visibility, a shape of nothingness (Inlaid, into surrounding picture). Dr. Who has achieved this "disappearance" by covering the outside with light-resistant paint (a recognised research project today). Thus our characters can bump into it, run their hands over its shape, partly disappear by partly entering it, and disappear entirely when the door closes behind them.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Not visual. How to do? Need tangible symbol"]

It can be put into an apparently empty van. Wherever they go some contemporary disguise has to be found for it. Many visual possibilities can be worked out. The discovery of the old man and investigation of his machine would occupy most of the first episode, which would be called:-

"Nothing at the End of the Lane"

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Don't like this at all. What do we see?"]

The machine is unreliable, being faulty. A recurrent problem is to find spares. How to get thin gauge platinum wire in B.C.1566? Moreover, Dr. Who has lost his memory, so they have to learn to use it, by a process of trial and error, keeping records of knobs pressed and results (This is the fuel for many a long story). After several near-calamities they institute a safeguard: one of their number is left in the machine when the others go outside, so that at the end of an agreed time, they can be fetched back into their own era. This provides a suspense element in any given danger: can they survive till the moment of recall? Attack on recaller etc.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Good stuff here"]

Quote:

[Page 3 of 4]

Granted this machine, then, we require exciting episodic stories, using surprising visual effects and unusual scenery, about excursions into time, into space, or into any material state we can make feasible. Hardly any time at all is spent in the machine: we are interested in human beings.

OVERALL CONTINUITY OF STORY.

Besides the machine we have the relationship of the four characters to each other. They want to help the old man find himself; he doesn't like them; the sensible hero never trusts Dr. Who; Biddy rather dislikes Miss McGovern; Lola admires Cliff... these attitudes developed and varied as temporary characters are encountered and reacted to. The old man provides continuing elements of Mystery, and Quest.

He remains a mystery. From time to time the other three discover things about him, which turn out to be false or inconclusive. (i.e. any writer inventing an interesting explanation must undercut it within his own serial-time, so that others can have a go at the mystery). They think he may be a criminal fleeing from his own time; he evidently fears pursuit through time. Sometimes they doubt his loss of memory, particularly as he does have flashes of memory. But also, he is searching for something which he desires heart-and-soul, but which he can't define. If, for instance, they were to go back to King Arthur's time, Dr. Who would be immensely moved by the idea of the quest for the Grail. This is, as regards him, a Quest Story, a Mystery Story, and a Mysterious Stranger Story, overall.

While his mystery may never be solved, or may perhaps be revealed slowly over a very long run of stories, writers will probably like to know an answer. Shall we say:-

The Secret of Dr. Who: In his own day, somewhere in our future, he decided to search for a time or for a society or for a physical condition which is ideal, and having found it, to stay there. He stole the machine and set forth on his quest. He is thus an extension of the scientist who has opted out, but he has opted farther than ours can do, at the moment. And having opted out, he is disintegrating.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Don't like this at all. Dr Who will become a kind of father figure - I don't want him to be a reactionary."]

One symptom of this is his hatred of scientist, inventors, improvers. He can get into a rare paddy when faced with a cave man trying to invent a wheel. He malignantly tries to stop progress (the future) wherever he finds it, while searching for his ideal (the past). This seems to me to involve slap up-to-date moral problems, and old ones too.

In story terms, our characters see the symptoms and guess at the nature of his trouble, without knowing details; and always try to help him find a home in time and space. wherever he goes he tends to make ad-hoc enemies; but also there is a mysterious enemy pursuing him implacably every when: someone from his own original time, probably. So, even if the secret is out by the 52nd episode, it is not the whole truth. Shall we say:-

Quote:

[Page 4 of 4]

[Continued from previous page]

The Second Secret of Dr. Who: The authorities of his own (or some other future) time are not concerned merely with the theft of an obsolete machine; they are seriously concerned to prevent his monkeying with time, because his secret intention, when he finds his ideal past, is to destroy or nullify the future.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Nuts"]

If ever we get thus far into Dr. Who's secret, we might as well pay a visit to his original time. But this is way ahead for us too. Meanwhile, proliferate stories.

The first two stories will be on the short side, four episodes each, and will not deal with time travel. The first may result from the use or a micro-reducer in the machine which makes our characters all become tiny. By the third story we could first reveal that it is a time-machine; they witness a great calamity, even possibly the destruction of the earth, and only afterwards realize that they were far ahead in time. Or to think about Christmas: which seasonable story shall we take our characters into? Bethlehem? Was it by means of Dr. Who's machine that Aladin's palace sailed through the air? Was Merlin Dr. Who? Was Cinderella's Godmother Dr. Who's wife chasing him through time? Jacob Marley was Dr. Who slightly tipsy, but what other tricks did he get up to that Yuletide?

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "I don't like this much - it reads silly and condescending. It doesn't get across the basis of teaching of educational experience - drama based upon and stemming from factual material and scientific phenomena and actual social history of past and future. Dr. Who - not have a philosophical arty-science mind - he'd take science, applied and theoretical, as being as natural as eating."]

- DOCUMENT ENDS -

Webber having got feedback from Newman then went on to write the first script which would see The Doctor & his 3 companions reduced in size to an inch tall and find themselves trapped in their school. This script was rejected outright by Tucker who felt that Webber had written something too cerebral for children and that he was too good a writer to be wasted on Doctor Who although in truth he knew it was the old fashioned kind of writing Newman was anxious to get away from. The concept would be revisited by writer Louis Marks for the series 2 opening story Planet Of Giants.

David Whitaker & Anthony Coburn

Two more writers were bought in, one was Australian Anthony Coburn who had been recruited to rewrite the first story and the second was David Whitaker who would be the shows script editor. Coburn's script bought in many of the things we know about the show today. It was him that suggested the ship be a police box, it was him that came up with the name TARDIS and it was him who changed Cliff, Lola & Biddy to Ian, Barbara & Susan. It was also him who suggested Susan be the Doctor's granddaughter because he felt that a teenager travelling around on her own with an old man distasteful. The script for the first episode was liked after a few tweaks (Whitaker wanted it less educational and more exciting) and Coburn began working on his script set in the stone age that would be tagged onto the first episode to make up the first story.

By now it was April 1963 and Tucker was beginning to look at actors for the show. He interviewed an unknown Australian actress to play the part of Susan but nothing became of it. He also approached actor Hugh David who had just finished playing the lead in a successful ITV show called Knight Errant about playing the role of The Doctor. David turned it down saying that he was uncomfortable with the fame that came with a long running show. Later he would become a director and direct two Doctor Who stories during Patrick Troughton's run. He also recruited electronic music pioneer Tristam Carey to do the music for the show.

Meanwhile Sydney Newman who was having less day to day input into the show needed a permanent producer. He first asked director & play-write Don Taylor who turned it down instantly. Taylor was one of those people who disliked Newman labelling him as 'an uncultured populist with no theatrical knowledge or background'.
Secondly he asked Shaun Sutton a staff producer at the BBC but Sutton was making a name for himself with adult dramas such as Z Cars & The Troubleshooters and wanted to remain doing them. It was then that Newman decided to phone up a 27 year old production assistant he had worked with at ITV....

Urban Hat€monger ? · 04-29-2015, 11:02 AM

Origins - Part 2: Enter Verity Lambert

Verity Lambert

Verity Lambert came into the BBC not only it's youngest producer but also it's only female one. To help with any inexperience Lambert may have had veteren producer Mervyn Pinfield was assigned to be associate producer. Pinfield was known for having a great technical knowledge and being at the forefront of developments in that area. In fact he invented the 'Piniprint' a forerunner of todays autocues. It was thought that with an effect heavy show like Doctor Who this knowledge would come in useful.

Lambert with Waris Hussein & Mervyn Pinfield

Casting was still to be done and a Doctor needed to be found. David Whittaker suggested Cyril Cusack who turned the offer down, Mervyn Pinfield suggested Leslie French who also turned it down. Meanwhile Verity Lambert was going around turning upside down everything that Rex Tucker had done. In her mind she wanted this show to be unlike anything the BBC had ever done before. Around this time she was joined by director Waris Hussein who would direct the first story and they began looking to cast the show. By the end of June 1963 they had their regular cast, They were....

William Hartnell (The Doctor) : Well known character actor with the peak of his fame being in the 40s & 50s. Mostly known for playing either comic characters or villains & Sergeant majors. His two biggest successes were playing the sadistic Dallow in 'Brighton Rock' and Sergeant Ned Fletcher in the army propaganda movie 'The Way Ahead' both with Richard Attenborough . In the late 50s he became known to TV audiences as Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in sitcom 'The Army Game' from 1957-61. In 1963 he then appeared in the Lindsey Anderson directed movie 'This Sporting Life' playing an old & bitter Rugby League scout named 'Dad' alongside Richard Harris. It was his part in this that had alerted him to producer Verity Lambert of the role of The Doctor, which he was offered and accepted. Retired due to ill health in 1966, had a couple of small parts in the following years and died in 1975.

William Russell (Ian Chesterton) : Was a sought after name on television in the early 60s. He had already appeared in the hugely successful The Adventures of Sir Lancelot for ITV in 1956/57 where he played the lead role. He then followed that up over the next few years by playing the leads in things such as Nicholas Nickelby, David Copperfield & Hamlet. In 1963 his last job before joining Doctor Who was filming The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. After Doctor Who he had a solid career in British television guesting on a vast amount of name shows including a stint on Coronation Street as Ted Sullivan, Rita's second husband. He was last seen on TV doing a cameo in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary biopic 'An Adventure In Space And Time' playing Harry the BBC security guard.

Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright) : Started her career in the mid 50s in the west end and with guest appearances on popular shows at the time such as Fabian of the Yard and An Enemy of the People.
In 1957 she appeared in the BBC's adaptation of the play Requiem For A Heavyweight which would be directed by Alvin Rakoff, who she would marry the following year. It was during this production of this play that Jacqueline suggested to her future husband that he should cast a unknown Scottish actor in the play because he'd be popular with female viewers.
His name.....? Sean Connery.
She was asked to play Barbara Wright by Verity Lambert who had worked with her at ITV after which the two of them later became good friends. After Doctor Who she took some time out to raise a family she returned to acting in the late 70s and to Doctor Who playing the high priestess Lexa in the Tom Baker story Meglos. She died in 1993.

Carole Anne Ford (Susan Foreman) : Carole was beginning to make a name for herself in the early 60s. She was a regular on TV appearing on popular shows like the early soap opera Compact, Moonstrike, Dial M For Murder, Emergency Ward 10 & Z Cars. As well as appearing in the movie version of Day Of The Triffids. It was while she was recording a one off guest appearance on a show called 'Suspense' that Doctor Who director Waris Hussien happened to see her on a TV monitor while they were setting up a shot and thought she looked 'otherworldly', he rushed back up to Verity Lambert's office and told her of this girl he had seen who was perfect to play Susan. They went back down to see her and Carole was offered the job on the spot. After Doctor Who she found work difficult to come by although he did appear in a few movies including The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery. Due to a long illness during the 70s she gave up acting and went on to became a highly demanded voice coach. Like William Russell she had a cameo in 'An Adventure In Space And Time' playing a young Doctor Who fan's mother.

During August & September of 1963 work began on fleshing out the rest of the series. Terry Nation a former comedy writer for Tony Hancock was producing a script called 'The Mutants', a Canadian friend of Newman's called John Lucarotti was writing a story about Marco Polo and Anthony Coburn was writing a script tentatively titled the Robots/The Masters of Luxor which ultimatly was not used. The production team were not entirely happy with the stone age script but they couldn't get a last minute replacement and were forced to go with it. The cast began rehearsals for the pilot episode.

Ron Grainer

Meanwhile Lambert was giving thought to the theme tune. She got an idea for the music after watching a French avant garde act called Les Structures Sonores playing glass tubes, she asked head of music Lionel Salter about having them record something but was told it was too expensive. Salter suggested she use the BBC's own Radiophonic workshop. She told the Workshops head Desmond Briscoe what she wanted and he assured her it was possible. She approached veteren composer Ron Grainer famous for the themes to Steptoe & Son and Maigret who had actually retired at the time from writing TV theme tunes but he was so excited at doing something totally different that he agreed to compose it. Grainer worked alongside Bernard Lodge who was creating the opening titles with a technique called 'Howlaround' by filming a card with the shows name on one camera and then filming the moniter with another camera causing it to feedback and swirl around and ripple.

Delia Derbyshire

He gave his music to Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop who realised his score.
On hearing it for the first time Grainer was astonished at what he was hearing and asked Derbyshire if what she was playing him had been written by him. Derbyshire replied "Well, most of it".

Grainer pushed the BBC for Delia to be given a co-credit as the composer of the theme but as she was doing it as a BBC employee of the Radiophonic Workshop it was the Workshop that should get the credit, not Delia herself.
After 50 years of injustice Delia finally got her first credit on Doctor Who for the 50th anniversary special where her original theme starts the episode.

Delia finally gets her much deserved credit during 2013's 50th anniversary special

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop wouldn't only be responsible for some of the music on Doctor Who, they'd need to make the sound effects too. Brian Hodgson took his house key to the insides of a piano, scraped it up and down, put it through a modulator and made television history.

On 19th September 1963 the pre-filming sequences for the first episode took place at Ealing film studios and 8 days later filming proper took place at the BBC's own Lime Grove studios.
After the show was filmed Newman watched it and decided he didn't like it.
He didn't like the portrayal of Susan manically making an ink picture and ordered her to be more like a normal teenager so the audience could relate. He also felt the Doctor was too bad tempered and wanted his character to be played lighter. He also wanted a line removed about the Doctor being from the 50th Century stating that it was too specific and that the Doctor's origins should be a mystery. There was also the problem of the inner TARDIS doors swinging open and banging closed while stage hands tried to control them throughout the episode. Newman ordered the whole thing to be re-shot on October 18th.

This time the filming went well and Newman agreed the date for transmission, the 23rd of November.
Next time it would be outside events thousands of miles away in Dallas that would jeopardise the shows future.

Trollheart · 04-29-2015, 11:43 AM

Woo-hoo! The king is back! Excellent intro Urb and looking forward to the "re-imagined" Doctor Who Thing!

Urban Hat€monger ? · 05-01-2015, 01:12 PM

"Have you wondered what it's like to be wanderers in the forth dimension? ... Have you?"

SERIES 1

AN UNEARTHLY CHILD

Written by Anthony Coburn
Directed by Waris Hussein

TX - 23rd November - 14th December 1963

As the first story is really an amalgamation of two stories I have decided to treat them as two parts of the same story.

An Unearthly Child
Two schoolteachers, science teacher Ian Chesterton & history teacher Barbara Wright become concerned at the behaviour of one of their pupils Susan Foreman who appears the be brilliant at some things and totally ignorant of others . Ian concedes to Barbara that Susan knows more about science than he ever will, whilst Barbara is concerned about how Susan was keen to take more classes until she mentioned coming around to her house. She explains to Ian that when she got Susan's address from the school secretary she went there only to find nothing but a junkyard.
They decide to follow her home one night out of concern and curiosity. Susan disappears in the junkyard and the two teachers follow and find a strange old man who claims to know nothing of Susan and a strange Police Box that appears to be alive that the old man seems very defensive over.

100,000 BC
After refusing the allow the schoolteachers to leave his ship The Doctor dematerialises much to the horror of Susan. When they land they find themselves in the Stone Age and get mixed up with a Stone Age tribe embroiled in a leadership battle over who can provide fire and who can provide food.

Regular Cast

Notable Guest Cast

Howard Lang as Horg - Would later become well known as Capt. William Baines, one of the principle characters of the BBC's popular 1970s sea-fearing drama 'The Onedin Line'.
Jeremy Young as Kal - Had a long career in British television playing mostly guest parts but is included here because he was the husband of The Rani actress, Kate O Mara.
Derek Newark as Za - Would return to Doctor Who in Jon Pertwee's first series in the story 'Inferno' and be mostly remembered for playing Greg Sutton, the manly drilling expert who probably smelled of Old Spice. Also received praise for his portrayal as Nazi Martin Bormann in a BBC film titled 'Inside The Fourth Reich' in the 1980s.

Trivia & Continuity

Because this story is two stories grafted together and because when the show began it would display individual episode titles at the start of the episode rather than the full story title there has been some debate over what this story is actual called. The first episode was always called 'An Unearthly Child'. '100,000 BC' was the collective working title given to the three Stone Age episodes that followed it. To make matters easier on BBC documentation it was classed as one 4 part story and 100,000 BC was the name given as the full title in all the paperwork at the time. In 1991 the BBC released the story on VHS as 'An Unearthly Child' and has since then used this title for the story as a whole in all of it's literature & merchandise. 'The Tribe Of Gum' was also used as a working title for the story.

The individual episode titles for this story were as follows
Episode 1: An Unearthly Child
Episode 2: The Cave Of Skulls
Episode 3: The Forest Of Fear
Episode 4: The Firemaker
All 4 episodes exist in the BBC archives

The first episode of Doctor Who was screened at 5.15 on Saturday 23rd November 1963, the day after the assassination of American president John F Kennedy. The viewing figures for the episode were a extremely disappointing 4.4 Million because most people in the country were following news of the assassination. Verity Lambert requested the first episode be repeated before the screening of Episode 2 the following week which was granted. The viewing figures for that week were a little more respectable but still bad 5.9 Million. It was decided to cancel the show after the 2nd story had finished production because of it's high costs and low viewing figures. But we all know what happened next........

There was an urban myth that the first episode was delayed because of news of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. This was no truth in this as Oswald wasn't killed until the following day on 24th November. The show did go out late because of the news but only by 1 minute 20 seconds.

Sydney Newman hated the opening titles and music and instructed Verity Lambert to change them. She refused. He admitted later on that she was right to do so.

Famed hair stylist Vidal Sassoon was bought in to give Susan a hairstyle that reflected her alienness with the hope that teenage girls would rush out and copy it.... They didn't.

The policeman who appears in the opening scene was a bit part actor named Reg Cranfield. He would appear in various bit part roles in Doctor Who over the next 13 years. In 2013 in the 11th Doctor novel 'Shroud of Sorrow' there is a character named Reg Cranfield patrolling around the junkyard in Totters Lane.

When we first meet Susan it's stated that she has been attending Coal Hill School for 5 months. The Doctor claims he's only staying in London in the 20th Century to keep Susan happy and that he hates being there.

The address of the junkyard is 76 Totters Lane in the East End London suburb of Shoreditch and is owned by someone named I.M. Foreman.

The Doctor reveals to Ian & Barbara he and Susan are cut off from their own planet and time and that they are exiles.

In episode 2 Ian calls The Doctor 'Doctor Foreman' to which The Doctor replies to himself "Eh... Doctor Who? What's he talking about?" starting a endless pun that would go on throughout the shows history.

When the travellers land in the Stone Age The Doctor is surprised that the TARDIS still retains it's Police Box shape suggesting this is the first time it's Chameleon Circuit had gone faulty. He would attempt to repair this throughout the shows history (notably in Logopolis & Attack Of The Cybermen) but it still refuses to work.

In this episode we see The Doctor smoking a pipe. This would be the first and only time The Doctor smokes onscreen, probably because he loses both that and his matches in this story.

Opinion
An Unearthly Child as a 4 part story is very much a case of a game of two halves. the opening episode with Ian & Barbara discovering this whole new world inside a junkyard in London is just fantastic. It's interesting to look at this first episode in the context of a child in 1963 watching the show for the first time and also as a long time fan or fan of the modern series looking back at this story and finding out just how much of the shows iconic imagery and folklore stems from this one episode alone.

Image being a child in 1963 watching for the first time and seeing these almost psychedelic like opening titles 3 or 4 years before psychedelia ever became a mainstream thing. The haunting electronic score of which it's like had never been heard before. And once those are over you're placed right back into the comfortable familiarity of a normal secondary school with a pair of ordinary teachers. You meet this strange girl and then all of a sudden you're whisked from being in a junkyard to this magical futuristic box that can go anywhere in space and time with a crotchety old man with a warm grandfatherly like playfulness for doing things he shouldn't. Is there any wonder why this show took off?

One of the strengths of the early years of the show were down to it's solid casting of the regulars. Even fans of the new series who go back and watch the old show regularly say that Ian & Barbara are right up there with their favourite companions. Ian is very much the hero character in the early series butting heads with The Doctor about doing the right thing. Barbara is smart and resourceful and is often called on to be the voice of reason. It's very much Ian & Barbara who form the backbone of the shows morality in the early years.

Having Hartnell playing the Doctor was a master stroke. Many of the cast and crew from the time talk about him being a very dangerous actor in the sense that he was very unpredictable and quirky and sometimes likely to lose his temper when he felt things weren't being done in the right way, and yet at the same time most of them also say just how fond of him they were and how he could also be very charming. It's that edge and charm he brought to the part and although this would be toned down as time went on during the first few stories you really didn't know if you could trust this guy or not.

There's no better scene to highlight this when they are escaping through the forest in episode 3. They hear the caveman Za is being attacked nearby by a wild animal. Barbara runs to help him followed by Ian and they find Za bleeding to death. The Doctor just wants to get back to his ship and the only thing that stops him going is Susan follows the two schoolteachers going against the Doctor's wishes. With the help of Za's wife Hur the travellers tend to his wounds and decide to take Za back to the tribe again the Doctor just wants to leave. On the way there the Doctor picks up a large rock but is stopped by Ian before he can do anything. Ian asks the Doctor what he was going to do with the rock and the Doctor stutters an explanation about getting Za to draw a map on the ground so they can get back to the TARDIS. It's never stated what the Doctor's intentions actually are but given how dark his character is at the point in the show and how he's only really interested in self preservation, it's not really difficult to imagine his intentions being far more sinister.

Susan was probably the weakest link in the cast although she is good in this story. She's fiercely loyal and protective of her Grandfather but at the same time she genuinely has affection for Ian & Barbara and gets distraught that they think she is lying about the ship and her Grandfather.

The actual storyline about the Stone age tribe is dull as ditch water other than a few moments such as the Doctor full of bluster that he can create fire and then realising he hasn't got any matches which gets them into this whole mess in the first place, and also the (unintentional) comedic moment at the end of the story when the four travellers are running for their lives back to the TARDIS through the forest being chased by the tribe. As they didn't have a whole forest to run through the shots were achieved by having each cast member run on the spot while being hit all over by branches and leaves by the production crew. You can basically sum up the rest of the story as follows.
Episode 2 - they get captured
Episode 3 - they escape and get captured
Episode 4 - they escape again.

Verdict
Episode 1: A wonderful story that started off a television institution
Episodes 2,3 & 4: A dull stage play with people in animal skins grunting in an overly theatrical manner.

Just watch the first one and a half episodes to see most of the basis of the shows mythology.

Rating
Episode 1:

Episodes 2,3 & 4:

Unknown Soldier · 05-01-2015, 04:42 PM

I imagine this presentation is better than any books out there on the Doctor Who subject. Personally I always felt that William Hartnell was a grouchy old git and an actor of limited ability, what I will say though he was the right Doctor in hindsight to kick start the Doctor Who institution and bounced off well against his younger companions. Most of his three seasons are made up of unpredictable performances of either regurgitated lines or just plain forgetting them. I also think Ian and Barbara were great companions and some of the best ever, Susan though was the weak link in the group.

I actually really like the whole of the Unearthly Child for its nostalgic value as it kicked off an institution. You mentioned that episodes 2-4 are like grunted stage plays, well most of the historical adventures were like stage plays a lot of the time and were usually inferior to the sci-fi ones.

Looking forward to the reviews of The Daleks and the Keys of Marinus from the first season, both stories are classics and two of the very best from the first Doctor.

Urban Hat€monger ? · 05-07-2015, 03:22 PM

"Always search for truth. My truth is in the stars "

SERIES 1

THE DALEKS

Written by Terry Nation
Directed by Christopher Barry (episodes 1,2,4 & 5) & Richard Martin (3,6 & 7)

TX - 21st December 1963 - 1st February 1964

The TARDIS lands in the middle of a petrified jungle where everything turns to dust with no signs of life anywhere. The travellers miss the warning given by the TARDIS and are unaware that the place is covered in high levels of radiation and go out to explore. When they reach the end of the jungle they find a huge sprawling futuristic city, again with no signs of life.
The Doctor wants to go and look at it but the rest of the travellers want to leave, especially after Susan is startled in the jungle and then they hear something trying to get into the TARDIS from outside. During take-off The Doctor sabotages the ship and tells the rest of the crew that they need more Mercury to fix the ship's fluid link before they can leave and there is only one possible place to get it from, the city. Meanwhile the crew are getting more and more sick from the effects of the high levels of radioactivity on the planet.

Regular Cast

Notable Guest Cast

Alan Wheatley as Temmosus - Made his name as The Sheriff of Nottingham in ITC's big budget 'Adventures of Robin Hood' in 1954. Also played Sherlock Homes in the BBC's adaptation of him in 1951. But from now on he will always be known as the first man ever to be exterminated by a Dalek.

Philip Bond as Ganatus - Another actor who would go on to have a starring role in The Onedin Line, this time as the wealthy Albert Frazer. Accomplished jobbing actor who has appearances in most British TV dramas up until the present day. Known now as being the father of Samantha Bond who appeared in the James Bond franchise as Miss Moneypenny alongside Pierce Brosnan's portrayal of 007.

Virginia Wetherell as Dyoni - Would appear in many Hammer Horror movies in the 60s & 70s. Married to fellow Hammer actor Ralph Bates, her most high profile role was in 'A Clockwork Orange' where she plays the naked stage dancer towards the end of the movie.

John Lee as Alydon - Australian actor who spent most of the 60s in the UK. Went back to his native Australia where he would appear in Prisoner Cell Block H and then onto Neighbours playing Len, the husband of Mrs Mangle.

Peter Hawkins & David Graham - Dalek Voices- Name any British kids TV show from the mid 50s to the present day and you can bet that either one of these men were involved in doing a voice over for a character on it.

Hawkins was responsible for The Flower Pot Men, Noddy, Captain Pugwash, Tin Tin and voiced Zippy in Rainbow's first series. He also voiced the first ever Cybermen in The Tenth Planet. Ironically he died in 2006 the very same day that a Cyberman story was being shown on BBC TV , The Season 2 finale Doomsday.

Graham was responsible for doing lots of voice overs for many of Gerry Andersons shows such as Stingray, Fireball XL5 and most notably Thunderbirds where he voiced most of the main cast. In 2015 at the age of 90 he voiced 'Brains' in the CGI remake of Thunderbirds.

Trivia & Continuity

This story was never intended to be called The Daleks. It was originally named The Mutants. But then in 1972 another story also called The Mutants was aired (also directed by Christopher Barry ironically.)
In 1973 for the shows 10th anniversary the BBC put out a special magazine with an episode guide giving names to all the full stories for the first time as opposed to the individual episode titles that were shown on screen. In that publication this story was named 'The Dead Planet'.
It was during the 1980s when more and more factual material about Doctor Who was being printed this story became known as The Daleks, mostly out of convenience.

The individual episode titles for this story were as follows
Episode 1: The Dead Planet
Episode 2: The Survivors
Episode 3: The Escape
Episode 4: The Ambush
Episode 5: The Expedition
Episode 6: The Ordeal
Episode 7: The Rescue
All 7 episodes exist in the BBC archives

On the planet Skaro there were two races, The Dals and The Thals. The Dals were a highly intelligent race of teachers, philosophers and scientists while the Thals were a warrior race. A vicious war between the two of them saw each other wiped out by an atomic blast almost 500 years before the Doctor's arrival. The Thals were able to survive by developing anti radiation drugs and becoming farmers by finding small plots of land unaffected by radiation and relying on special rare weather patterns that are becoming increasingly more rare meaning that if things don't improve they may die of starvation.
The Dals retreated to the underground of their city and encased themselves inside machines to protect them from the radiation, they also learned to develop and grow their own food under the city using artificial growing methods. They are increasingly becoming dependant on the radiation on the planet to survive.
Neither race seems aware that the others still exists until The Doctor shows up.

The Daleks we see here are not the full on ranting, trigger happy, exterminating ones we see of later years. They are confined to their city having to have contact with metal floors to be powered, they don't even appear to have had space travel, let alone time travel like they would a few stories later. Rather than kill Ian when he tries to escape they only paralyse his legs. When Susan comes back to the city with the anti-radiation drugs from the Thals she brings two boxes because she knows The Daleks will take one. When they do they still allow her to keep the other box to save the TARDIS crew. Having said that they do lure the Thals to the city with the promise of food with the sole intention of bumping the whole lot of them off, which they would have done had Ian not warned them of it being a trap.

The Daleks use the Thal's drugs on some of themselves and it causes them to get sick. They then realise they need the radiation to survive and plan to detonate another atomic bomb into the atmosphere.

Inside the TARDIS we get our first looks at the TARDIS Fault Locator and the TARDIS food machine.

The Doctor starts his running joke of getting Ian Chesterton's name wrong. In this story he refers to him as Chesserman and Chesterfield.

Episode One had to be totally re-shot when it was discovered talkback from the production gallery had interfered with the microphones and was audible throughout the episode recording. Shortly before the recording of episode 2 news was given to the cast and crew about the death of JFK, there was some suggestion the recording would be cancelled but it went ahead anyway.

The viewing figures jumped from 6.5 million for episode 2 to 9 million for episode 3. The last two episodes were watched by 10.5 million.

Sydney Newman hated the story and was furious when he read the scripts.
When the viewing figures came in he realised his mistake and decided that he had hired the right producer in Verity Lambert and from then on left her alone to do the job. He wouldn't get involved in Doctor Who again until 3 years later.

The designer that was allocated to The Daleks on the BBC staff rota was a young designer by the name of Ridley Scott. However a last minute screw up meant he was replaced by Raymond Cusick, and it was he who created the Daleks iconic design. Apart from directing a few small movies nobody has heard of such as Blade Runner, Alien & Gladiator nobody knows what happened to Ridley Scott.

Cusick's original Dalek design was more cylindrical in shape, which he changed when he realised the actors would have to stand up inside them all day. He then expanded the bottom to make the base wider so the actors could sit on a small tricycle and control it using that. In the end he decided to have just a seat and have the base move along on castors. You can see his early designs here.

The reason for the sink plunger was because they ran out of time and money, the idea was to have some kind of multi-purpose tool instead.
One dalek in this story has a welding tool instead of a sucker, each sucker contained a strong magnet so they could pick up props.

Because script writers working on BBC shows were hired freelance writers this meant they owned the rights to anything in the show they created. As Terry Nation created The Daleks it was he who cashed on the Dalekmania of the 60s and became a millionaire off of it. As a BBC staff designer Raymond Cusick felt that he deserved a cut of this money having created the design. On leaving the BBC in 1966 he was given £100 and a gold Blue Peter badge for his efforts.

Creating the Daleks was too big a job for BBC visual effects so their head Jack Kine suggested to Verity Lambert they use an outsider contractor named Shawcroft Models, who made 4 full size Dalek models for the price of £350, they also made the huge Dalek city model.
Shawcroft would be used to supply the shows special effects throughout the early years of the show.

The cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 when the Dalek claw creeps out of the cloak that it's bundled up inside was created by taking a hand off a gorilla costume and covering it in Vaseline.

In 1977 Northern Soul DJ and film collector Ian Levine approached the BBC about the possibility of selling him some episodes of Doctor Who they no longer had any use for. They told him that he could and sent him to their tape archive at Villiers House. On arrival he found all 7 episodes of this story sitting outside wrapped up in tape ready to be junked. He rescued them and then made calls within the BBC to stop them from junking any more episodes. Levine once said had he arrived one day later this story would no longer exist, although years later some episodes did turn up dubbed in Arabic.

In 1965 Milton Subotsky would adapt this story for Amicus Productions (Hammer's rival horror studio in the UK) for the first ever Dalek movie entitled Doctor Who And The Daleks, with Peter Cushing playing a human inventor named 'Doctor Who'.

Opinion
I have to admit I've never really paid much attention to this story before. In fact when I sat down to watch it over the past couple of nights I think that may be the only time I have watched this story from start to finish. Not being much of a fan of the Daleks and knowing how slow the show was in 1963/4 I can't say I was all that thrilled about watching all 7 episodes, but it surprised me.

What I really enjoyed about the story is the characterisation and the interplay between the regulars during the first four episodes. The Doctor takes great delight in sabotaging his own ship just to get his own way like a child and yet is really concerned when Susan is distressed and has a quiet word with Barbara asking her to talk to Susan as he feels that Barbara could do a better job of calming her than he could. I love the way during episode 7 he takes an almost childlike glee in smashing up the Daleks security system.

Ian gets to be heroic by making the Doctor accountable when his actions endanger the life of the crew. He is also strong for Barbara when she is scared of the alien-ness of everything around them and just wants to go home and basically tells her that while she's with him she'll always stand a chance of going home.

Barbara seems to make a real impression on the men in this story. In episode one she's really close to Ian telling him or her fears in a way that suggests there may be more to this relationship than meets the eye. By episode 7 she's caught the eye of one of the Thals, Ganatus who gives her material to make a dress as a goodbye present before kissing her on the cheek. She responds by giving him a full on smacker on the lips. As she leaves Ganatus says to Dyoni 'I'll never forget her'. The brazen hussy.

Susan gets to be the 15 year old girl nobody listens to. At least she doesn't trip over and sprain her ankle in this story.

The highlight of the story for me in during episode four. Having got back to the jungle after the Daleks had duped the Thals in coming to the city and exterminating their leader Temmosus the crew just want to get back into the TARDIS and leave the Thals to their fate. Ian then realises that the Daleks are in possession of the TARDIS's fluid link so they can't leave. We then get a situation where we see an different dynamic among the regulars. The Doctor and Barbara want to use the Thals to attack The Daleks while Susan and Ian are against the idea and thing that if the Thals want to attack the Daleks they should do it for their own reasons, which is unlikely with the Thals now being pacifists.

Barbara eventually talks Ian around to their way of thinking and so then he decides to act like a bastard to rile up the Thals to make them fight. Picking up on the feelings between Alydon & Dyoni he grabs hold of Dyoni and tells Alydon that if he has to use her in exchange with the Daleks to get the fluid link back he will. Alydon responds by punching Ian in the face. Lying on the ground Ian says to Alydon "So there are some things you'll fight for".

Episodes 5 and 6 are largely filler episodes. Ian & Barbara go off with a group of Thals to attack the Dalek city from the rear going through swamps & caves which means we get lots of slow walking through a jungle acting and jumping from ledge to ledge action. While The Doctor and Susan with the rest of the Thals stand at the edge of the city shining large mirrors at the Dalek scanners to interfere with them. At one point a Dalek asks another how long till the atomic bomb can be detonated, the other Dalek replies '24 days'. Clearly the element of urgency and suspense is alien to a Dalek. They decide to detonate their nuclear reactors instead because it's quicker..... smart.

One question: In episode 3 while being held captive in the Dalek city Barbara comes up with the idea of using their drinking water combined with the dirt scraped off Susan's shoes to put mud on the Dalek's eye stalk to blind it. When we cut back to the action Barbara has a massive mud pie in her hands....
Just how dirty were Susan's shoes??????

Verdict
This story rolled along at a pretty decent pace for the first few episodes and was really enjoyable but you could totally skip episodes 5 and 6 and not miss a thing as they don't progress the story along whatsoever. Much better than I was expecting but I'd still rank it last when it comes to 60s Dalek stories simply because it was the human characters that made me like the story and not the Daleks.

Rating

Urban Hat€monger ? · 05-07-2015, 03:24 PM

Ray Cusick's Final Dalek Designs

Unknown Soldier · 05-08-2015, 06:57 AM

I'm kind of surprised with your opinion on The Daleks, for me it's one of the best of all the Dalek stories. The originality of the story was amazing, the two distinct races I loved which of course would be fully explained in Genesis, but the Thals didn't really make a return till the Pertwee era anyway. I also love just how the all powerful Daleks were so restricted as they couldn't move outside their own city.

You mentioned the interplay between the main characters which was the impressive feature of these early adventures and I don't think that the Doctor got any more selfish as he is here in any other story. I'd certainly say that this was the best Dalek story of the Hartnell years with only that 12/13 part behemoth being better.

I've seen this story so many times and never get tired of it and prefer it over the next Dalek story Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Urban Hat€monger ? · 05-08-2015, 07:16 AM

I just dunno about it. When I think about the other 60s Dalek stories Invasion of Earth is more gritty, The Chase is more fun, Dalek's Masterplan is more epic and has a great human villain in it and I think the 2 Troughton Dalek stories are infinitely better written because dialogue & complexity were never Terry Nations strong points.
Plus I was bought up on the film version which is half the length of this, so maybe that had something to do with it.

04-29-2015, 10:30 AM	#1 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	Urban's 'All New' Doctor Who Thing So this time I'm going to do it properly. The way I should have done it last time, from beginning to end. Let's re-start this thing it's been too long. __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.

04-29-2015, 11:02 AM	#3 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	Origins - Part 2: Enter Verity Lambert Verity Lambert Verity Lambert came into the BBC not only it's youngest producer but also it's only female one. To help with any inexperience Lambert may have had veteren producer Mervyn Pinfield was assigned to be associate producer. Pinfield was known for having a great technical knowledge and being at the forefront of developments in that area. In fact he invented the 'Piniprint' a forerunner of todays autocues. It was thought that with an effect heavy show like Doctor Who this knowledge would come in useful. Lambert with Waris Hussein & Mervyn Pinfield Casting was still to be done and a Doctor needed to be found. David Whittaker suggested Cyril Cusack who turned the offer down, Mervyn Pinfield suggested Leslie French who also turned it down. Meanwhile Verity Lambert was going around turning upside down everything that Rex Tucker had done. In her mind she wanted this show to be unlike anything the BBC had ever done before. Around this time she was joined by director Waris Hussein who would direct the first story and they began looking to cast the show. By the end of June 1963 they had their regular cast, They were.... William Hartnell (The Doctor) : Well known character actor with the peak of his fame being in the 40s & 50s. Mostly known for playing either comic characters or villains & Sergeant majors. His two biggest successes were playing the sadistic Dallow in 'Brighton Rock' and Sergeant Ned Fletcher in the army propaganda movie 'The Way Ahead' both with Richard Attenborough . In the late 50s he became known to TV audiences as Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in sitcom 'The Army Game' from 1957-61. In 1963 he then appeared in the Lindsey Anderson directed movie 'This Sporting Life' playing an old & bitter Rugby League scout named 'Dad' alongside Richard Harris. It was his part in this that had alerted him to producer Verity Lambert of the role of The Doctor, which he was offered and accepted. Retired due to ill health in 1966, had a couple of small parts in the following years and died in 1975. William Russell (Ian Chesterton) : Was a sought after name on television in the early 60s. He had already appeared in the hugely successful The Adventures of Sir Lancelot for ITV in 1956/57 where he played the lead role. He then followed that up over the next few years by playing the leads in things such as Nicholas Nickelby, David Copperfield & Hamlet. In 1963 his last job before joining Doctor Who was filming The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. After Doctor Who he had a solid career in British television guesting on a vast amount of name shows including a stint on Coronation Street as Ted Sullivan, Rita's second husband. He was last seen on TV doing a cameo in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary biopic 'An Adventure In Space And Time' playing Harry the BBC security guard. Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright) : Started her career in the mid 50s in the west end and with guest appearances on popular shows at the time such as Fabian of the Yard and An Enemy of the People. In 1957 she appeared in the BBC's adaptation of the play Requiem For A Heavyweight which would be directed by Alvin Rakoff, who she would marry the following year. It was during this production of this play that Jacqueline suggested to her future husband that he should cast a unknown Scottish actor in the play because he'd be popular with female viewers. His name.....? Sean Connery. She was asked to play Barbara Wright by Verity Lambert who had worked with her at ITV after which the two of them later became good friends. After Doctor Who she took some time out to raise a family she returned to acting in the late 70s and to Doctor Who playing the high priestess Lexa in the Tom Baker story Meglos. She died in 1993. Carole Anne Ford (Susan Foreman) : Carole was beginning to make a name for herself in the early 60s. She was a regular on TV appearing on popular shows like the early soap opera Compact, Moonstrike, Dial M For Murder, Emergency Ward 10 & Z Cars. As well as appearing in the movie version of Day Of The Triffids. It was while she was recording a one off guest appearance on a show called 'Suspense' that Doctor Who director Waris Hussien happened to see her on a TV monitor while they were setting up a shot and thought she looked 'otherworldly', he rushed back up to Verity Lambert's office and told her of this girl he had seen who was perfect to play Susan. They went back down to see her and Carole was offered the job on the spot. After Doctor Who she found work difficult to come by although he did appear in a few movies including The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery. Due to a long illness during the 70s she gave up acting and went on to became a highly demanded voice coach. Like William Russell she had a cameo in 'An Adventure In Space And Time' playing a young Doctor Who fan's mother. During August & September of 1963 work began on fleshing out the rest of the series. Terry Nation a former comedy writer for Tony Hancock was producing a script called 'The Mutants', a Canadian friend of Newman's called John Lucarotti was writing a story about Marco Polo and Anthony Coburn was writing a script tentatively titled the Robots/The Masters of Luxor which ultimatly was not used. The production team were not entirely happy with the stone age script but they couldn't get a last minute replacement and were forced to go with it. The cast began rehearsals for the pilot episode. Ron Grainer Meanwhile Lambert was giving thought to the theme tune. She got an idea for the music after watching a French avant garde act called Les Structures Sonores playing glass tubes, she asked head of music Lionel Salter about having them record something but was told it was too expensive. Salter suggested she use the BBC's own Radiophonic workshop. She told the Workshops head Desmond Briscoe what she wanted and he assured her it was possible. She approached veteren composer Ron Grainer famous for the themes to Steptoe & Son and Maigret who had actually retired at the time from writing TV theme tunes but he was so excited at doing something totally different that he agreed to compose it. Grainer worked alongside Bernard Lodge who was creating the opening titles with a technique called 'Howlaround' by filming a card with the shows name on one camera and then filming the moniter with another camera causing it to feedback and swirl around and ripple. Delia Derbyshire He gave his music to Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop who realised his score. On hearing it for the first time Grainer was astonished at what he was hearing and asked Derbyshire if what she was playing him had been written by him. Derbyshire replied "Well, most of it". Grainer pushed the BBC for Delia to be given a co-credit as the composer of the theme but as she was doing it as a BBC employee of the Radiophonic Workshop it was the Workshop that should get the credit, not Delia herself. After 50 years of injustice Delia finally got her first credit on Doctor Who for the 50th anniversary special where her original theme starts the episode. Delia finally gets her much deserved credit during 2013's 50th anniversary special The BBC Radiophonic Workshop wouldn't only be responsible for some of the music on Doctor Who, they'd need to make the sound effects too. Brian Hodgson took his house key to the insides of a piano, scraped it up and down, put it through a modulator and made television history. On 19th September 1963 the pre-filming sequences for the first episode took place at Ealing film studios and 8 days later filming proper took place at the BBC's own Lime Grove studios. After the show was filmed Newman watched it and decided he didn't like it. He didn't like the portrayal of Susan manically making an ink picture and ordered her to be more like a normal teenager so the audience could relate. He also felt the Doctor was too bad tempered and wanted his character to be played lighter. He also wanted a line removed about the Doctor being from the 50th Century stating that it was too specific and that the Doctor's origins should be a mystery. There was also the problem of the inner TARDIS doors swinging open and banging closed while stage hands tried to control them throughout the episode. Newman ordered the whole thing to be re-shot on October 18th. This time the filming went well and Newman agreed the date for transmission, the 23rd of November. Next time it would be outside events thousands of miles away in Dallas that would jeopardise the shows future. __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.

04-29-2015, 11:43 AM	#4 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Woo-hoo! The king is back! Excellent intro Urb and looking forward to the "re-imagined" Doctor Who Thing! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

05-01-2015, 01:12 PM	#5 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	*"Have you wondered what it's like to be wanderers in the forth dimension? ... Have you?"* SERIES 1 AN UNEARTHLY CHILD Written by Anthony Coburn Directed by Waris Hussein TX - 23rd November - 14th December 1963 As the first story is really an amalgamation of two stories I have decided to treat them as two parts of the same story. An Unearthly Child Two schoolteachers, science teacher Ian Chesterton & history teacher Barbara Wright become concerned at the behaviour of one of their pupils Susan Foreman who appears the be brilliant at some things and totally ignorant of others . Ian concedes to Barbara that Susan knows more about science than he ever will, whilst Barbara is concerned about how Susan was keen to take more classes until she mentioned coming around to her house. She explains to Ian that when she got Susan's address from the school secretary she went there only to find nothing but a junkyard. They decide to follow her home one night out of concern and curiosity. Susan disappears in the junkyard and the two teachers follow and find a strange old man who claims to know nothing of Susan and a strange Police Box that appears to be alive that the old man seems very defensive over. 100,000 BC After refusing the allow the schoolteachers to leave his ship The Doctor dematerialises much to the horror of Susan. When they land they find themselves in the Stone Age and get mixed up with a Stone Age tribe embroiled in a leadership battle over who can provide fire and who can provide food. Regular Cast Notable Guest Cast Howard Lang as Horg - Would later become well known as Capt. William Baines, one of the principle characters of the BBC's popular 1970s sea-fearing drama 'The Onedin Line'. Jeremy Young as Kal - Had a long career in British television playing mostly guest parts but is included here because he was the husband of The Rani actress, Kate O Mara. Derek Newark as Za - Would return to Doctor Who in Jon Pertwee's first series in the story 'Inferno' and be mostly remembered for playing Greg Sutton, the manly drilling expert who probably smelled of Old Spice. Also received praise for his portrayal as Nazi Martin Bormann in a BBC film titled 'Inside The Fourth Reich' in the 1980s. Trivia & Continuity Because this story is two stories grafted together and because when the show began it would display individual episode titles at the start of the episode rather than the full story title there has been some debate over what this story is actual called. The first episode was always called 'An Unearthly Child'. '100,000 BC' was the collective working title given to the three Stone Age episodes that followed it. To make matters easier on BBC documentation it was classed as one 4 part story and 100,000 BC was the name given as the full title in all the paperwork at the time. In 1991 the BBC released the story on VHS as 'An Unearthly Child' and has since then used this title for the story as a whole in all of it's literature & merchandise. 'The Tribe Of Gum' was also used as a working title for the story. The individual episode titles for this story were as follows Episode 1: An Unearthly Child Episode 2: The Cave Of Skulls Episode 3: The Forest Of Fear Episode 4: The Firemaker All 4 episodes exist in the BBC archives The first episode of Doctor Who was screened at 5.15 on Saturday 23rd November 1963, the day after the assassination of American president John F Kennedy. The viewing figures for the episode were a extremely disappointing 4.4 Million because most people in the country were following news of the assassination. Verity Lambert requested the first episode be repeated before the screening of Episode 2 the following week which was granted. The viewing figures for that week were a little more respectable but still bad 5.9 Million. It was decided to cancel the show after the 2nd story had finished production because of it's high costs and low viewing figures. But we all know what happened next........ There was an urban myth that the first episode was delayed because of news of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. This was no truth in this as Oswald wasn't killed until the following day on 24th November. The show did go out late because of the news but only by 1 minute 20 seconds. Sydney Newman hated the opening titles and music and instructed Verity Lambert to change them. She refused. He admitted later on that she was right to do so. Famed hair stylist Vidal Sassoon was bought in to give Susan a hairstyle that reflected her alienness with the hope that teenage girls would rush out and copy it.... They didn't. The policeman who appears in the opening scene was a bit part actor named Reg Cranfield. He would appear in various bit part roles in Doctor Who over the next 13 years. In 2013 in the 11th Doctor novel 'Shroud of Sorrow' there is a character named Reg Cranfield patrolling around the junkyard in Totters Lane. When we first meet Susan it's stated that she has been attending Coal Hill School for 5 months. The Doctor claims he's only staying in London in the 20th Century to keep Susan happy and that he hates being there. The address of the junkyard is 76 Totters Lane in the East End London suburb of Shoreditch and is owned by someone named I.M. Foreman. The Doctor reveals to Ian & Barbara he and Susan are cut off from their own planet and time and that they are exiles. In episode 2 Ian calls The Doctor 'Doctor Foreman' to which The Doctor replies to himself "Eh... Doctor Who? What's he talking about?" starting a endless pun that would go on throughout the shows history. When the travellers land in the Stone Age The Doctor is surprised that the TARDIS still retains it's Police Box shape suggesting this is the first time it's Chameleon Circuit had gone faulty. He would attempt to repair this throughout the shows history (notably in Logopolis & Attack Of The Cybermen) but it still refuses to work. In this episode we see The Doctor smoking a pipe. This would be the first and only time The Doctor smokes onscreen, probably because he loses both that and his matches in this story. Opinion An Unearthly Child as a 4 part story is very much a case of a game of two halves. the opening episode with Ian & Barbara discovering this whole new world inside a junkyard in London is just fantastic. It's interesting to look at this first episode in the context of a child in 1963 watching the show for the first time and also as a long time fan or fan of the modern series looking back at this story and finding out just how much of the shows iconic imagery and folklore stems from this one episode alone. Image being a child in 1963 watching for the first time and seeing these almost psychedelic like opening titles 3 or 4 years before psychedelia ever became a mainstream thing. The haunting electronic score of which it's like had never been heard before. And once those are over you're placed right back into the comfortable familiarity of a normal secondary school with a pair of ordinary teachers. You meet this strange girl and then all of a sudden you're whisked from being in a junkyard to this magical futuristic box that can go anywhere in space and time with a crotchety old man with a warm grandfatherly like playfulness for doing things he shouldn't. Is there any wonder why this show took off? One of the strengths of the early years of the show were down to it's solid casting of the regulars. Even fans of the new series who go back and watch the old show regularly say that Ian & Barbara are right up there with their favourite companions. Ian is very much the hero character in the early series butting heads with The Doctor about doing the right thing. Barbara is smart and resourceful and is often called on to be the voice of reason. It's very much Ian & Barbara who form the backbone of the shows morality in the early years. Having Hartnell playing the Doctor was a master stroke. Many of the cast and crew from the time talk about him being a very dangerous actor in the sense that he was very unpredictable and quirky and sometimes likely to lose his temper when he felt things weren't being done in the right way, and yet at the same time most of them also say just how fond of him they were and how he could also be very charming. It's that edge and charm he brought to the part and although this would be toned down as time went on during the first few stories you really didn't know if you could trust this guy or not. There's no better scene to highlight this when they are escaping through the forest in episode 3. They hear the caveman Za is being attacked nearby by a wild animal. Barbara runs to help him followed by Ian and they find Za bleeding to death. The Doctor just wants to get back to his ship and the only thing that stops him going is Susan follows the two schoolteachers going against the Doctor's wishes. With the help of Za's wife Hur the travellers tend to his wounds and decide to take Za back to the tribe again the Doctor just wants to leave. On the way there the Doctor picks up a large rock but is stopped by Ian before he can do anything. Ian asks the Doctor what he was going to do with the rock and the Doctor stutters an explanation about getting Za to draw a map on the ground so they can get back to the TARDIS. It's never stated what the Doctor's intentions actually are but given how dark his character is at the point in the show and how he's only really interested in self preservation, it's not really difficult to imagine his intentions being far more sinister. Susan was probably the weakest link in the cast although she is good in this story. She's fiercely loyal and protective of her Grandfather but at the same time she genuinely has affection for Ian & Barbara and gets distraught that they think she is lying about the ship and her Grandfather. The actual storyline about the Stone age tribe is dull as ditch water other than a few moments such as the Doctor full of bluster that he can create fire and then realising he hasn't got any matches which gets them into this whole mess in the first place, and also the (unintentional) comedic moment at the end of the story when the four travellers are running for their lives back to the TARDIS through the forest being chased by the tribe. As they didn't have a whole forest to run through the shots were achieved by having each cast member run on the spot while being hit all over by branches and leaves by the production crew. You can basically sum up the rest of the story as follows. Episode 2 - they get captured Episode 3 - they escape and get captured Episode 4 - they escape again. Verdict Episode 1: A wonderful story that started off a television institution Episodes 2,3 & 4: A dull stage play with people in animal skins grunting in an overly theatrical manner. Just watch the first one and a half episodes to see most of the basis of the shows mythology. Rating Episode 1: Episodes 2,3 & 4: __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave. Last edited by Urban Hat€monger ?; 05-02-2015 at 02:43 AM.

05-07-2015, 03:22 PM	#7 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	*"Always search for truth. My truth is in the stars "* SERIES 1 THE DALEKS Written by Terry Nation Directed by Christopher Barry (episodes 1,2,4 & 5) & Richard Martin (3,6 & 7) TX - 21st December 1963 - 1st February 1964 The TARDIS lands in the middle of a petrified jungle where everything turns to dust with no signs of life anywhere. The travellers miss the warning given by the TARDIS and are unaware that the place is covered in high levels of radiation and go out to explore. When they reach the end of the jungle they find a huge sprawling futuristic city, again with no signs of life. The Doctor wants to go and look at it but the rest of the travellers want to leave, especially after Susan is startled in the jungle and then they hear something trying to get into the TARDIS from outside. During take-off The Doctor sabotages the ship and tells the rest of the crew that they need more Mercury to fix the ship's fluid link before they can leave and there is only one possible place to get it from, the city. Meanwhile the crew are getting more and more sick from the effects of the high levels of radioactivity on the planet. Regular Cast Notable Guest Cast Alan Wheatley as Temmosus - Made his name as The Sheriff of Nottingham in ITC's big budget 'Adventures of Robin Hood' in 1954. Also played Sherlock Homes in the BBC's adaptation of him in 1951. But from now on he will always be known as the first man ever to be exterminated by a Dalek. Philip Bond as Ganatus - Another actor who would go on to have a starring role in The Onedin Line, this time as the wealthy Albert Frazer. Accomplished jobbing actor who has appearances in most British TV dramas up until the present day. Known now as being the father of Samantha Bond who appeared in the James Bond franchise as Miss Moneypenny alongside Pierce Brosnan's portrayal of 007. Virginia Wetherell as Dyoni - Would appear in many Hammer Horror movies in the 60s & 70s. Married to fellow Hammer actor Ralph Bates, her most high profile role was in 'A Clockwork Orange' where she plays the naked stage dancer towards the end of the movie. John Lee as Alydon - Australian actor who spent most of the 60s in the UK. Went back to his native Australia where he would appear in Prisoner Cell Block H and then onto Neighbours playing Len, the husband of Mrs Mangle. Peter Hawkins & David Graham - Dalek Voices- Name any British kids TV show from the mid 50s to the present day and you can bet that either one of these men were involved in doing a voice over for a character on it. Hawkins was responsible for The Flower Pot Men, Noddy, Captain Pugwash, Tin Tin and voiced Zippy in Rainbow's first series. He also voiced the first ever Cybermen in The Tenth Planet. Ironically he died in 2006 the very same day that a Cyberman story was being shown on BBC TV , The Season 2 finale Doomsday. Graham was responsible for doing lots of voice overs for many of Gerry Andersons shows such as Stingray, Fireball XL5 and most notably Thunderbirds where he voiced most of the main cast. In 2015 at the age of 90 he voiced 'Brains' in the CGI remake of Thunderbirds. Trivia & Continuity This story was never intended to be called The Daleks. It was originally named The Mutants. But then in 1972 another story also called The Mutants was aired (also directed by Christopher Barry ironically.) In 1973 for the shows 10th anniversary the BBC put out a special magazine with an episode guide giving names to all the full stories for the first time as opposed to the individual episode titles that were shown on screen. In that publication this story was named 'The Dead Planet'. It was during the 1980s when more and more factual material about Doctor Who was being printed this story became known as The Daleks, mostly out of convenience. The individual episode titles for this story were as follows Episode 1: The Dead Planet Episode 2: The Survivors Episode 3: The Escape Episode 4: The Ambush Episode 5: The Expedition Episode 6: The Ordeal Episode 7: The Rescue All 7 episodes exist in the BBC archives On the planet Skaro there were two races, The Dals and The Thals. The Dals were a highly intelligent race of teachers, philosophers and scientists while the Thals were a warrior race. A vicious war between the two of them saw each other wiped out by an atomic blast almost 500 years before the Doctor's arrival. The Thals were able to survive by developing anti radiation drugs and becoming farmers by finding small plots of land unaffected by radiation and relying on special rare weather patterns that are becoming increasingly more rare meaning that if things don't improve they may die of starvation. The Dals retreated to the underground of their city and encased themselves inside machines to protect them from the radiation, they also learned to develop and grow their own food under the city using artificial growing methods. They are increasingly becoming dependant on the radiation on the planet to survive. Neither race seems aware that the others still exists until The Doctor shows up. The Daleks we see here are not the full on ranting, trigger happy, exterminating ones we see of later years. They are confined to their city having to have contact with metal floors to be powered, they don't even appear to have had space travel, let alone time travel like they would a few stories later. Rather than kill Ian when he tries to escape they only paralyse his legs. When Susan comes back to the city with the anti-radiation drugs from the Thals she brings two boxes because she knows The Daleks will take one. When they do they still allow her to keep the other box to save the TARDIS crew. Having said that they do lure the Thals to the city with the promise of food with the sole intention of bumping the whole lot of them off, which they would have done had Ian not warned them of it being a trap. The Daleks use the Thal's drugs on some of themselves and it causes them to get sick. They then realise they need the radiation to survive and plan to detonate another atomic bomb into the atmosphere. Inside the TARDIS we get our first looks at the TARDIS Fault Locator and the TARDIS food machine. The Doctor starts his running joke of getting Ian Chesterton's name wrong. In this story he refers to him as Chesserman and Chesterfield. Episode One had to be totally re-shot when it was discovered talkback from the production gallery had interfered with the microphones and was audible throughout the episode recording. Shortly before the recording of episode 2 news was given to the cast and crew about the death of JFK, there was some suggestion the recording would be cancelled but it went ahead anyway. The viewing figures jumped from 6.5 million for episode 2 to 9 million for episode 3. The last two episodes were watched by 10.5 million. Sydney Newman hated the story and was furious when he read the scripts. When the viewing figures came in he realised his mistake and decided that he had hired the right producer in Verity Lambert and from then on left her alone to do the job. He wouldn't get involved in Doctor Who again until 3 years later. The designer that was allocated to The Daleks on the BBC staff rota was a young designer by the name of Ridley Scott. However a last minute screw up meant he was replaced by Raymond Cusick, and it was he who created the Daleks iconic design. Apart from directing a few small movies nobody has heard of such as Blade Runner, Alien & Gladiator nobody knows what happened to Ridley Scott. Cusick's original Dalek design was more cylindrical in shape, which he changed when he realised the actors would have to stand up inside them all day. He then expanded the bottom to make the base wider so the actors could sit on a small tricycle and control it using that. In the end he decided to have just a seat and have the base move along on castors. You can see his early designs here. The reason for the sink plunger was because they ran out of time and money, the idea was to have some kind of multi-purpose tool instead. One dalek in this story has a welding tool instead of a sucker, each sucker contained a strong magnet so they could pick up props. Because script writers working on BBC shows were hired freelance writers this meant they owned the rights to anything in the show they created. As Terry Nation created The Daleks it was he who cashed on the Dalekmania of the 60s and became a millionaire off of it. As a BBC staff designer Raymond Cusick felt that he deserved a cut of this money having created the design. On leaving the BBC in 1966 he was given £100 and a gold Blue Peter badge for his efforts. Creating the Daleks was too big a job for BBC visual effects so their head Jack Kine suggested to Verity Lambert they use an outsider contractor named Shawcroft Models, who made 4 full size Dalek models for the price of £350, they also made the huge Dalek city model. Shawcroft would be used to supply the shows special effects throughout the early years of the show. The cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 when the Dalek claw creeps out of the cloak that it's bundled up inside was created by taking a hand off a gorilla costume and covering it in Vaseline. In 1977 Northern Soul DJ and film collector Ian Levine approached the BBC about the possibility of selling him some episodes of Doctor Who they no longer had any use for. They told him that he could and sent him to their tape archive at Villiers House. On arrival he found all 7 episodes of this story sitting outside wrapped up in tape ready to be junked. He rescued them and then made calls within the BBC to stop them from junking any more episodes. Levine once said had he arrived one day later this story would no longer exist, although years later some episodes did turn up dubbed in Arabic. In 1965 Milton Subotsky would adapt this story for Amicus Productions (Hammer's rival horror studio in the UK) for the first ever Dalek movie entitled Doctor Who And The Daleks, with Peter Cushing playing a human inventor named 'Doctor Who'. Opinion I have to admit I've never really paid much attention to this story before. In fact when I sat down to watch it over the past couple of nights I think that may be the only time I have watched this story from start to finish. Not being much of a fan of the Daleks and knowing how slow the show was in 1963/4 I can't say I was all that thrilled about watching all 7 episodes, but it surprised me. What I really enjoyed about the story is the characterisation and the interplay between the regulars during the first four episodes. The Doctor takes great delight in sabotaging his own ship just to get his own way like a child and yet is really concerned when Susan is distressed and has a quiet word with Barbara asking her to talk to Susan as he feels that Barbara could do a better job of calming her than he could. I love the way during episode 7 he takes an almost childlike glee in smashing up the Daleks security system. Ian gets to be heroic by making the Doctor accountable when his actions endanger the life of the crew. He is also strong for Barbara when she is scared of the alien-ness of everything around them and just wants to go home and basically tells her that while she's with him she'll always stand a chance of going home. Barbara seems to make a real impression on the men in this story. In episode one she's really close to Ian telling him or her fears in a way that suggests there may be more to this relationship than meets the eye. By episode 7 she's caught the eye of one of the Thals, Ganatus who gives her material to make a dress as a goodbye present before kissing her on the cheek. She responds by giving him a full on smacker on the lips. As she leaves Ganatus says to Dyoni 'I'll never forget her'. The brazen hussy. Susan gets to be the 15 year old girl nobody listens to. At least she doesn't trip over and sprain her ankle in this story. The highlight of the story for me in during episode four. Having got back to the jungle after the Daleks had duped the Thals in coming to the city and exterminating their leader Temmosus the crew just want to get back into the TARDIS and leave the Thals to their fate. Ian then realises that the Daleks are in possession of the TARDIS's fluid link so they can't leave. We then get a situation where we see an different dynamic among the regulars. The Doctor and Barbara want to use the Thals to attack The Daleks while Susan and Ian are against the idea and thing that if the Thals want to attack the Daleks they should do it for their own reasons, which is unlikely with the Thals now being pacifists. Barbara eventually talks Ian around to their way of thinking and so then he decides to act like a bastard to rile up the Thals to make them fight. Picking up on the feelings between Alydon & Dyoni he grabs hold of Dyoni and tells Alydon that if he has to use her in exchange with the Daleks to get the fluid link back he will. Alydon responds by punching Ian in the face. Lying on the ground Ian says to Alydon "So there are some things you'll fight for". Episodes 5 and 6 are largely filler episodes. Ian & Barbara go off with a group of Thals to attack the Dalek city from the rear going through swamps & caves which means we get lots of slow walking through a jungle acting and jumping from ledge to ledge action. While The Doctor and Susan with the rest of the Thals stand at the edge of the city shining large mirrors at the Dalek scanners to interfere with them. At one point a Dalek asks another how long till the atomic bomb can be detonated, the other Dalek replies '24 days'. Clearly the element of urgency and suspense is alien to a Dalek. They decide to detonate their nuclear reactors instead because it's quicker..... smart. One question: In episode 3 while being held captive in the Dalek city Barbara comes up with the idea of using their drinking water combined with the dirt scraped off Susan's shoes to put mud on the Dalek's eye stalk to blind it. When we cut back to the action Barbara has a massive mud pie in her hands.... Just how dirty were Susan's shoes?????? Verdict This story rolled along at a pretty decent pace for the first few episodes and was really enjoyable but you could totally skip episodes 5 and 6 and not miss a thing as they don't progress the story along whatsoever. Much better than I was expecting but I'd still rank it last when it comes to 60s Dalek stories simply because it was the human characters that made me like the story and not the Daleks. Rating __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.

05-07-2015, 03:24 PM	#8 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	Ray Cusick's Final Dalek Designs __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.

05-08-2015, 07:16 AM	#10 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	I just dunno about it. When I think about the other 60s Dalek stories Invasion of Earth is more gritty, The Chase is more fun, Dalek's Masterplan is more epic and has a great human villain in it and I think the 2 Troughton Dalek stories are infinitely better written because dialogue & complexity were never Terry Nations strong points. Plus I was bought up on the film version which is half the length of this, so maybe that had something to do with it. __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.