The BBC has a fascinating article up on an important part of early television SF history – the creation of the original Doctor Who series way back in the Swinging Sixties. Documents have just been revealed from the original planning and concept stages of the show, with the BBC very unsure about putting on a science fiction drama on prime time in 1963 (who would have thought then that more than four decades on Who’s resurgent success would be a huge spur to an explosion of quality telefantasy?) and early meetings where some suggested the Doctor travel in an ‘invisible’ machine, which fortunately head of drama Sydney Newman told them was silly and that actually the Doctor needed a machine with a strong visual impact – that would eventually lead to the use of the old Police Box design for the TARDIS, of course.
(excerpt from some of the concept notes outlining the companions, later changed to Susan, Barbara and Ian and for the errant Time Lord himself, long before we even knew the name of his species)
The Beeb Archive has digitised a number of documents pertaining to the creation of Doctor Who and put them online, along with some photographs from the show’s early days. Its not quite travelling back to 1963 in our own TARDIS to see it happen first hand, but its as close as we can probably get.
(the very first Doctor, William Hartnell, borrowed from the Beeb’s archives and (c) the BBC)
Wed, Nov 19, 2008
Film, TV and radio