Article — History of Doctor Who

First Published:
As a high school English assigment

Publish Date:
1990

Comments:
This was an "expository piece" for my year 11 English class — may as well write what you know about! Love the
upbeat ending…

In The Beginning

It was the spring of 1963 in England. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had a problem. They had
enormously popular sport coverage ending at 5:15 on Saturday evenings, and then at 5:45 the very popular Juke Box
Jury, a pop music programme. In between there was a vacuum of ratings. Something had to be found, or made, to fill
the gap. And so the situation stayed, until the BBC Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, preferred the idea of a new
show called Doctor Who…

Sydney Newman

Sydney Newman has, more or less accurately, been called "the father of Doctor Who" many times. He certainly
provided the initial spark and idea.

Sydney Newman was born in Toronto, Canada, and rose to the position of Drama Supervisor in the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation before being lured over to ABC Television in Britain in 1958. The BBC saw his potential
in 1961, and offered him the post of Head of Drama. Newman accepted, even though it meant a drop in salary,
because it offered him almost unlimited power to restructure as he saw fit. Once he got there, one of the first shows
he suggested was Doctor Who. He discussed the concept with Donald Wilson, the Head of Serials, and by mid 1963
had begun the process of choosing a production team.

Preparations

Sydney Newman knew exactly who he wanted as producer. Once he had been given the go-ahead, he recruited his
former production assistant at ABC, Verity Lambert. He also chose David Whitaker as the script editor. Then, after
telling them that he wanted around half of the stories "historical" (going into the Earth’s past, for example, the Aztecs
or the French Revolution) he left them to their own devices.
By the end of September, 1963, the role of the Doctor had been decided. It went to William Hartnell, a 55 year old
with a history of playing ‘tough soldiers or hard-bitten policemen.’ Verity Lambert was convinced of his talent after
seeing his latest film, This Sporting Life, in which he played a ageing football talent scout. She has also decided on
the Doctor’s three companions, to be played by Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, and Jacqueline Hill. Recording
started, with the first half-hour episode set to be shown on Saturday, November 23rd.

The First Stories

Less than twelve hours before Doctor Who was due to first go out, US President Kennedy was assassinated. The
ensuing extra news caused Doctor Who’s pilot episode to air somewhat late and to be greatly overshadowed. Because
of this, the BBC took the unprecedented step of re-showing the first episode before the second the following week.
The first story of four episodes then passed without incident, gathering modest ratings. And then, with the second
story, came the Daleks…

The Daleks

Even today, the Daleks are the symbol that most people think of when they hear of Doctor Who. Without them,
Doctor Who could well have sunk into obscurity. The Daleks well and truly started Doctor Who on its trail of
success.

The Daleks were the first "monsters" on Doctor Who, and maybe that helped them to become so famous. One thing
that can not be debated is that with that second story, ratings rocketed up from four million to ten-and-a-half million
(Britain had a population then of around 45 million), that high point being almost three million more than any show
had ever achieved in that timeslot. Doctor Who had only existed for eleven episodes, and was a smash hit.

The Daleks would return the following season to even higher ratings, and whenever Doctor Who seemed troubled
they could raise it to new highs. Over twenty-seven years, there have been thirteen Dalek stories, and they have
appeared in smaller roles in many other stories. In the 1960s one could go see one of two Doctor Who/Dalek films,
wash yourself with Dalek soap, wear Dalek slippers, fly a Dalek Kite, bowl down Dalek skittles, or listen to the quite
atrocious single ‘I Want to Spend my Christmas with a Dalek’.

The Second Doctor

By the middle of 1966, Doctor Who had a serious problem. Not ratings — they were still high. It was a more deadly
enemy — quite literally. William Hartnell had developed arteriosclerosis, and it was increasingly obvious he could
not continue. The BBC was in a dilemma — drop the program and try to replace it with something else (a difficult
enough task), or find some way to keep Doctor Who going. The BBC decided on the latter, and on September 2nd,
1966 they announced that William Hartnell was to be replaced by Patrick Troughton, with the Doctor regenerating
into his new form. This news was greeted cautiously, as nothing like this had been done before.
At the end of Hartnell’s final story, The Tenth Planet, Hartnell appeared to die only to leap up revitalized and with a
totally new body. This Second Doctor promptly proceeded to dance a little jig, accompanying himself with a recorder
that had come from one of his deep pockets. Patrick Troughton’s first story as the Doctor brought back the Daleks —
the producers knew how to make sure he was a success!

Patrick Troughton knew that to copy William Hartnell’s characterization of the Doctor would be folly, and so he,
noting Sydney Newman’s suggestion, played it as a ‘cosmic hobo’. He therefore set up the pattern of each new
Doctor being different to the ones that had preceded him.

Patrick Troughton’s reign as the Doctor lasted just under three years before he decided to step down after The War
Games.

More Doctors

Following Patrick Troughton in 1970 was the 48 year old Jon Pertwee. Known mainly as a comedian in series such as
The Navy Lark, he played this role straight and as a simple hero. In many ways he was similar to James Bond, always
with gadgets ready and ready for action. He stayed in the role for five years.

In 1975 the longest lasting Doctor, Tom Baker, took over. The best known Doctor, he made his eighteen foot scarf
almost as much a symbol of Doctor Who as the Daleks. He stayed at the helm for a massive seven seasons.

Peter Davison was the Fifth Doctor. Already well known from the BBC show All Creatures Great and Small, he
started in 1981 and "died" in 1984.

The Sixth Doctor arrived in the form of Colin Baker. He was the first Doctor to have appeared in the show before his
role as Doctor. In that role he shot the Fifth Doctor, though not to, as he said jokingly later, to ‘get his job, though!’
Season-wise, he lasted the shortest of all Doctors to date, just getting over two. He was fired after the twenty-third
season on the pretext of not being popular.

His successor, and so far the latest Doctor, was played by Sylvester McCoy, who had been born in Scotland (all the
previous Doctors had been English) named Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith. He has been in the title role for three
years now.

Key Doctor Who Events: 1985 to the Present

’Wednesday, February 27, 1985, was the day the unthinkable almost happened. The day when Doctor Who was
cancelled and there were real fears the good Time Lord might never be seen again’. So writes Peter Haining, the self-
titled official Doctor Who historian, with no exaggeration at all. Doctor Who was then saved from the edge of
oblivion by an angry public, who sent the BBC some 80,000 letters in the following week. The BBC then backed
down, and changed the axing to a one-year rest.
When Doctor Who did return it was with a much shorter season, and to a quite smaller audience. The ensuing season
was hardly a great success, but it was still a shock when it was announced on December 18th, 1987, that Colin Baker
had been sacked from his role as the Doctor. Later news revealed that the order for this had come directly from
Michael Grade, the BBC Controller, the very same man who had personally ordered the axing of Doctor Who in
1985. Colin Baker later claimed that he had been made a scapegoat. In the fan world this is the generally believed
explanation for his sacking. Michael Grade has since left the BBC.

In January 1988, the BBC announced that they had clinched a deal with Paramount to make a Doctor Who movie.
While details were sparse, it was (optimistically) hoped the movie could be ready for November 1988, the 25th
anniversary. As time has shown, this was an incredibly hopeful prediction, and the Doctor Who movie has yet to
appear. Now, two years later, the money (rumored to be US $40-60 million) has apparently all been collected, the
script readied, and the production team arranged. The role of the Doctor has not been officially announced, but it
would seem likely to be Donald Sutherland, star of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers and many other films. Sooner or
later (cynics say later) the movie shall come out…

The future of Doctor Who is an undecided one as of this writing. New legislation in Britain has meant that the BBC,
which is a government station like the ABC in Australia, has to have 25% of its shows made by independent
companies by 1993. Doctor Who is to be one of these shows. The lucky company has yet to be decided, with a half
dozen having realistic chances. What this means to the viewer is that Doctor Who is going through another one year
break as the details are worked out. But don’t worry — he will be back…
Article — Doctor Who in America
First Published: Dark Circus #5 Publish Date: Autumn 1991

Comments:
The Star Trek comments were pre-Next Gen, of course. And I’d like to see the survey technique that concluded
Doctor Who was the favorite show of 6% of Americans! And I think there were quite a few more American zines
than I implied here; I just didn’t know of them at the time.

In 1988 Coast to Coast (now Green Light) carried out a survey to discover what America knew about Doctor Who.
They found that only 38% of Americans over the age of six had even heard of Doctor Who, but, conversely, one-sixth
of those who had heard of it rated it as their favorite show. This gives us a good overview of the situation in America:
while it is not widely known as in Australia or Britain, a strong fandom movement does exist.

Doctor Who has a completely different public image in America than here in Australia. Here, the general public see it
as a children’s show. In America, it is thought of as a very weird show, and is often grouped mentally with the likes
of Monty Python (partially because British shows are not as prevalent there as here in Australia). Doctor Who is a
recent phenomenon there — it has only been widely shown since 1978 (and even then not on the major networks),
and has not had 25-odd years to establish itself. It also has to combat the higher public image of Star Trek (despite the
Doctor Who following being both larger and better organized).

Within universities and colleges, however, Doctor Who has an extremely high following. I lived in a small town in
upper New York State (Ithaca) where there were two colleges, and never ceased to be amazed at the amount of
people who watched at least casually. I watched the debut of The Trial of a Time Lord (all fourteen episodes at once!)
with nearly ten others on a campus building’s communal TV. Down the hill at Ithaca High School, however, it
remained unknown.

The true test of the number and vitality of Whovians (Whovians, incidentally, originated as a term through the Doctor
Who Fan Club of America — their newsletter is called Whovian Times) in the area came with ‘Doctor’n the
TARDIS’. They passed with flying colors. It was the #1 request on one of my local radio stations for over three
weeks, and stayed in the Top Eight for another three. The style of the song, however, and timidity on the part of radio
stations, meant it achieved little in the national charts. Considering that it reached #2 in Australia, this clearly shows
the nature of the following and public attitude in America.

One extremely interesting point to note is that there are, relatively, very few fanzines in America. There are many
groups, with several very major ones (much larger than the Star Trek equivalents), but the proliferation of fanzines
you would expect from such a number is absent. There is much more emphasis on the "professional" magazines such
as DWM. It is a great shame.
I’ll close with a few revealing facts from a 1988 survey done for the Whovian Times. Included in the Top Ten stories
were Arc of Infinity and The Invasion of Time (placed worse than 86th and 44th respectively by Data Extract after
Season 25). Whovians have about 50% more university education than the average American and are aged around 28.
The fourth and fifth Doctors reigned supreme, as did Sarah Jane Smith (no doubt that has changed by now). A
massive 71% of Whovians supported Doctor Who through their local PBS station. Finally, and this is by far the most
intriguing fact of all, 62% of Whovians are female — a complete contrast with sci-fi in general and British Whovians
in particular (96% male, according to DWB #65).
Article — What is it about these Daleks anyway?
First Published:
Year 12 English essay

Publish Date:
1991

Comments:
This was the "informative piece" for my year 12 communications project in English, which I gave a Dalek theme.
The prospective audience was described as ‘General but having seen Doctor Who at some stage’. I have removed the
‘ten minute delay of the first episode’ comment that was in the original piece, for accuracy’s sake.

When your average person off the street hears of Doctor Who, almost always the first thing to come to mind are the
Daleks chanting the battle-cry ‘Exterminate!’. Why is this? What is it about these metallic creatures that makes them
stand out so much? The Daleks have starred in only four Doctor Who stories over the last fifteen years. Why then
should a child born in that time think so highly of them? The answers are to be found way back in history — over a
quarter of a century ago, to be precise. What the Daleks achieved them was powerful enough that today’s parents
have transferred their memories to their children.

Doctor Who was first shown in Australia on January 12th, 1965, some fourteen months after it had begun in Britain.
At that time Doctor Who was a massive success in Britain — which no doubt influenced the ABC in their choice to
purchase the show — and that success could be largely boiled down to one aspect: the Daleks. So let us now switch to
Britain and go back those fourteen months.

Doctor Who had a modest beginning on Saturday, November 23rd, 1963, the day after the American President
Kennedy had been shot (resulting in the first episode, because of the news overload, being delayed slightly). The first
four half-hour episodes, screened weekly, attracted modest ratings, being about the 80th most popular show of the
time. Then a story, simply titled The Daleks, began it’s seven week run…

While the Daleks’ design and nature are quite powerful ones, there was no warning of what was to occur. 1963 was a
relatively simple time, when fads like, say, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, were of an incredibly smaller scale. By the
end of The Daleks, Doctor Who had broken into the top twenty-five shows, and the Dalek craze was beginning.

In that first story, the Daleks were apparently destroyed forever by the Doctor and his allies. But public pressure can
be a mighty thing, and the next season ended up featuring two six-episode Dalek stories. Consequently the ratings for
Doctor Who entered the top ten shows a total of seven times that year — not a bad achievement for a "children’s
show".
During this time there had been an incredible variety of toys, models, and other promotions based on Doctor Who.
Virtually all concerned Daleks. You could wake in your Dalek pyjamas, slip into your Dalek slippers, eat your Dalek-
promoted Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks, and afterwards clean yourself with Dalek-shaped soap (though after a few uses
the already vague shape was lost forever!). Then you could listen to ‘All I want for Christmas is a Dalek’ on the
radio, read ‘The Dalek Outer Space Book’ or the comic strip in the magazine ‘TV 21’, play with your Dalek glove
puppet, and then get some exercise with your Dalek kite, or even slip into your life-size model of a Dalek and
terrorize (?) the neighbours. Meanwhile you could rot your teeth on Dalek-advocated lollypops, sweet cigarettes or
jelly babies.

In many ways, this was a preview of the merchandising and promotions boom we face today. For 1963, however, it
was of an unprecedented scale. There were, of course, the blatant rip-offs; witness the ‘Anti-Dalek Fluid Neutralizer’
— under any other circumstances it would be known as a water pistol.

The biggest promotions were, however, the two Dalek films that arrived in 1965 and 1996. Basically remakes of the
first two Dalek stories from Doctor Who (but with vastly larger budgets and aimed more at children) they may have
met with mixed critical reaction but nonetheless collected the audience. As Doctor Who they are pretty pathetic, but
as Dalek promotion vehicles they are magnificent. Peter Cushing was officially the star as the Doctor but it was the
Daleks the audience came for.

In the last few months of 1965 came the television story The Dalek Masterplan, which was to last an incredible 13
weeks. The confidence that the Daleks could hold a single story up for three months very clearly shows the following
they had. At the same time, the play ‘Curse of the Daleks’ was packed over the Christmas season.

The Daleks’ incredible burst of popularity was to last over three years, and set Doctor Who into a position that would
help it survive for another quarter of a century (so far). It also made their creator, Terry Nation, a multi-millionaire
when, jointly with his agent Roger Hancock, he engineered a 15% slice of the action, despite his original script
description of them only running to 31 words! Raymond Cusick, who designed and supervised the making of them,
received no credit. That’s show business for you.

When the Daleks returned after lengthy breaks in the 1972 and 1973 seasons they topped the Doctor Who ratings for
those years. I somehow doubt the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will celebrate their nine or ten year anniversarys that
way.

When Doctor Who got to Australia, the Australians simply followed the British lead.

If one needs more proof that the Daleks have now become an inseparable part of the British, and to a lesser extent
Australian, culture, just look in the Oxford Dictionary. Or remember last year’s Fast Forward satire, or the single
‘Doctorin’ the TARDIS’ which went all the way to number two in the Australian charts a few years back. On the very
day I write this, in the first week of August 1991, the mayor of Perth has refered to an aspect of his police force as
Daleks. The Dalek legacy lives on.
Article — What’s in a Name?
First Published:
Sonic Screwdriver #83

Publish Date:
March 1994

Comments:
This piece was co-written with Rod Scott, who is an endless source of little-known tidbits and horrible puns. Along
that line of thought, if anyone understands the final phrase feel free to explain it to me!

It is not rare for Who writers to select names for characters or locales that hint at elements of the story’s plot. The
references may be from mythology or history, and sometimes the spelling is phonetically altered or otherwise altered
to make it a bit less obvious. Here are just some of the examples we have noted:

Hydromel, that ever so precious substance on Terminus, without which one will eventually die, is actually an archaic
term for mead. Nyssa spent the rest of her life synthesizing that ‘crude organic’ liquid, beer!

Karina and Bulic of Warriors on the Cheap are characters from Dvorak operas — and Dvorak becomes Vorshak, the
Sea Base commander.

The Janus thorn in The Face of Evil is named after the two-faced god of doors, whose temple was opened for war.

In The Hand of Fear, Tom Baker gives the telephone number of the Doctor Who production office as the co-ordinates
of Kastria. Much later, Mark Strickson (Turlough) had to enter a code number on the Trion ship: he used his agent’s
phone number!

The mandrels from Nightmare of Eden were hairy bipedal creatures. The Mandrel of The Sunmakers is a hairy thug.
The mandrills in West Africa are monkeys!

Janet the stewardess from Terror of the Vervoid was named so after Janet Fielding: Tegan, the air stewardess.

Time and the Rani has many a reference: the title comes from the play Time and the Conways by JB Priestly.
Loyhargil, as many know, is an anagram of Holy Grail, which probably explains why she’s so excited to get it. The
race of Lakertyans are lacertian in nature (i.e. lizard-like). Beyus and Ikona’s names come from ‘obey’ and
‘iconoclast’, suiting their natures. More obvious are the Tetraps — tetra, four, telling us their number of eyes. Urak,
their leader, is named after Uriah Heep from David Copperfield.
Of course, there are entire stories based on mythology. Take Underworld, which was virtually a re-make of Jason and
the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. Jackson is Jason — indeed, the Doctor calls him that at the end of the
story; the Race Bank cylinders are golden, the P7E is Persephone, and so on.

Similarly, The Horns of Nimon is a reference feast (well, actually a complete rip-off): the original story had King
Minos (’Lord Nii-mon…’) demanding a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens (replace seven, count them, of
those with Hymetusite crystals) rather than the Cnossian (Skonnos) king. Anaphe (Aneth) and Corinth (Crinoth) are
key places in each tale. Seth, the name of the whining kid (oh, sorry, hero), means, depending who you believe,
appointed (he is a Prince) or consolation (well, if you don’t get the Hymetusite, you’ll have to do with him…). As
with Underworld, we get a really obvious hint at the end from the Doctor: ‘I’m glad I remembered to get them to
paint the ship white. They forgot last time, caused a terrible hoo-hah! Oh, other places, other times, Romana. A hero
called Theseus who sailed to defeat a monster called the Minotaur. It had horns and lived in a maze and demanded
sacrifices.’ And so it goes on…

For those of you familiar with The Masque of Mandragora, Hieronymus Bosch was an actual medieval painter who
depicted humanity being taken over by demons, reflecting the opposition to the new scientific discoveries and
political reforms of the Renaissance.

The names of the Menoptera from The Web Planet are the same as Latin names for some species of butterfly. Also, as
normal butterflies are Lepidoptera, these humanoid ones are called Menoptera.

The Chelonians of the New Adventure are big nasty turtles. Chelonian is the scientific name for tortoises and turtles.

Organon, from The Creature in the Pit, literally means a method of investigation, in keeping with the nature of the
character.

Nyssa and Kassia are both botanical names, appropriate enough to the garden setting of The Keeper of Traken.
Looking more deeply, Kassia’s fate parallels that of the Roman General Cassius, who conspired to replace Caesar. In
turn, this parallels the conflict between Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam in the seventies, Malcolm
contemporaneously depicted as a stone statue on Easter Island a la Melkur (that last bit is Rod Scott’s fault!)

When Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln were dissatisfied with the making of The Dominators, they removed the
right to use their names, instead using a pseudonym, Norman Ashby. This was obtained from the names of their
respective fathers-in-law.

In The Green Death, Benton names two of the UNIT soldiers Letts and Dicks, after the producer and script editor.
Also, in what I hope was just a coincidence, BOSS of that story could be the BOSS of South Africa: the Bureau of
State Security!
Kinda is a feast for Buddhism references, even if the story on screen ended up with Christian overtones. Many of the
character names are taken from Buddhist terms: Dukkha (instability or suffering), Karuna (active compassion), Panna
(wisdom), Jana (meditation) and Mara (evil).

Leela was named after Leila Khalid, a notorious terrorist of the 1970s.

Most people know that Robert Holmes re-arranged ‘gourmand’ to get Androgum for The Two Doctors. Very few
realize, however that ‘Dastari’ was working on making his namesake, nearly: ‘a TARDIS’.

The pirate Brotadac of Meglos had his name formed as an anagram of ‘Bad Actor’, as that was how the writers
expected it to be played. Meanwhile, the Doctor is trapped in a Chronic Hysteresis — which is the proper name of
video howlaround, the technique used to produce the early title sequences.

Mawdryn Undead is a quite neat [Neat? Neat?! Neat?!!] title, for in Welsh mawdryn means death. The emblem on the
1977 Brigadier’s blazer is even cleverer — it bears a motto which in Latin means ‘five into one’.

Talos was the legendary bronze man, created by Daedalus to guard the coast of Crete, and so we get the origin of
Telos, the Cybermen’s adopted home planet. Alternatively, teleology, our dictionary tells us, is the ultimate purpose
of things, especially as regards natural processes. If Kit Pedler, creator of the Cybermen, were to hear this, his worst
nightmares would have been realised — evolution, a natural process, taken to its logical conclusion! Regarding
Mondas, the Cybermen’s original home planet, what about this: "maunders" means to wander idly, muttering like an
idiot. Sound like a good description of the tenth planet and its inhabitants? Or more like this piece? Or it could just be
the explanation given in the story itself: Mondas being an old word for the Earth.

There are hundreds of other such instances of such hidden meanings right throughout the history of Doctor Who.
Whether such a style complements or detracts from the enjoyment of a story is subjective, but clearly Time is an
Allusion.