Newly released documents, which reveal the 1960s conception of Doctor Who, show how nervous the BBC was about producing a sci-fi show, writes Tom Geoghegan.
The Doctor without his time-travelling police box is difficult to imagine, but its creators initially proposed he journey through space in an invisible machine covered in light-resistant paint.
When BBC producers were devising the show in the early 1960s, they thought viewers should see no machine at all, only “a shape of nothingness”.
The BBC’s head of drama Sydney Newman, who commissioned the first series, insisted an invisible machine would not work and the doctor’s vehicle should be a strong visual symbol.
Wisely, writers also said a transparent, plastic bubble would be “lowgrade”. But a seed of the Tardis idea is sown when they suggest using “some common object in the street” like a night-watchman’s shelter.
These discussions are revealed in six previously unpublished documents, now digitised on the BBC Archive website. These include handwritten notes by Mr Newman, regarded by fans as the genius behind the original concept.
The papers, accompanied by previously unseen images at rehearsals, show deep concerns about bringing a science fiction drama to a mainstream audience - “not an automatic winner”, says a researcher.
It was regarded as a rather obscure subject, says BBC archivist Jim Sangster, and given the space limitations at Lime Grove studios that ruled out an ambitious set, this added up to a huge gamble.
“Even having done something as massive as Quatermass, they didn’t have confidence in sci-fi. It was seen as niche and American.
“After Star Wars, we have a different view of course, and we see it as hugely entertaining and successful. But they were nervous - it wasn’t a Western or a period drama. It was something really obscure and they had to do research into it.”
There was no fanfare when the first episode was discreetly advertised in the Radio Times on Saturday 23 November 1963, at 5.15pm, sandwiched between Grandstand and Juke Box Jury.
That was typical of the times, says Mr Sangster. “They never said ‘This is a TV event’ because TV itself was an event. We only had two channels. ITV was all about spectacle and the BBC was a lot more dignified. So the Radio Times just says ‘Here’s something you might like to see.’”
At the start of that year, the BBC children’s writer Cecil Webber had devised three “main characters”, schoolgirl Biddy (later named Susan Foreman) and two teachers, Lola (later Barbara Wright) and Cliff (renamed Ian Chesterton). They were to be the audience’s eyes and ears, through which viewers would learn about the mysterious father figure, the Doctor.
In Mr Cecil’s illuminating background notes, he describes the Doctor as follows:
“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.”
It’s hardly heroic but that description, apart from being frail, fits David Tennant perfectly, says Mr Sangster. He’s quite unforgiving and it’s up to humans to remind him of his moral duty. And the characteristics of the three humans have been amalgamated into female companions such as Billie Piper’s Rose, he says.
That first description of the Doctor, played initially by an old-looking William Hartnell, still holds true today, says Doctor Who Online editor, Sebastian Brook, and his mystique is one of the show’s guiding principles.
“The suspiciousness is something that’s passed on through the years and the undefined enemy is things going wrong with the universe.
“And the mystery as well. It’s not just a question mark, but the character itself - who is he? If that’s ever resolved in the series, then that’s the day it fails.”
He believes Russell T Davies has seen these original ideas and gone back to basics to replicate its early success.
“He could have picked anything in 45 years to go back on. But as the show lost its way a bit during the 80s, it’s interesting that he’s picked that point at the beginning.”
But what about the ideas that didn’t make it?
Mr Newman scribbled “Nuts!” next to the suggestion that the Doctor’s secret mission was to meddle with time and destroy the future. But six years later, an element of that was worked into the plot when the Time Lords arrived.
In his background notes, Mr Webber had a brainstorm about ways the Doctor’s identity could develop. He stopped short of making him appear as Santa Claus but he suggested Bethlehem as a location and the Doctor as Merlin, as Jacob Marley, and even the Doctor’s wife as Cinderella’s godmother.
But Mr Newman wrote in the margin: “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.”
Mr Newman insisted that the show educate and inform, as well as entertain. Hence scenes where science teacher Ian discussed the property of acid on a planet, or history teacher Barbara enlightened viewers about the Aztecs.
But even Mr Newman’s foresight failed him on occasion.
One of the cardinal rules for the new show, spelled out in one of the newly-released documents, is “No Bug-Eyed Monsters” - which Newman abbreviated to “No BEMs” - and no tin robots.
He was therefore angry to find that rule had been broken to accommodate tin-can baddies armed with plungers, called Daleks.
Producer Verity Lambert had commissioned Terry Nation to devise an alien and he had come up with one that would glide across the floor like a Russian dancer.
But Mr Newman’s fury turned to delight when episode six of the first series, in which the Daleks made their debut, added six million viewers.
Even geniuses can get some things wrong.
A TOUCH OF TORCHWOOD
- Doctor Who spin-off began in 2006 but some of its elements can be traced back to 1963
- A plot written for the original Doctor but rejected, called Troubleshooters, can be seen in Torchwood
- Not many dashing male leads but Captain Jack Harkness continues what began with Ian Chesterton and continued later with Harry Sullivan
BBC News Magazine
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