enlightenment 172 may2014
TRANSCRIPT
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Vol 30, No 1 | Whole Number 172 | Spring 2014
Enlightenmentis the quarterly fanzine of the
Doctor Who Information Network, a not-for-prot organization dedicated to the celebration
and promotion of DOCTORWHO(a BBC
copyright programme) and its fandom.
Editor: Cameron Dixon
Layout & Design: Heather Murray
Cover Art: Source: Flickr: Evil (Stuart
Crawford) (Licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)
All articles, artwork and photos remain the
copyright of the original contributors. No partof this publication may be reproduced without
permission of the copyright owner.
With thanks to:
With thanks to: Michel Albert, Graeme Burk,
Julie Chaston, Gian-Luca di Rocco, Matt Grady,
David J. Lamb, Ibrahim Ng, David Rudin,
Robert Smith?, Deborah Stanish and SPACE:
The Imagination Station.
To make a submission to
Enlightenment, send articles [email protected]
Next Issue Deadline:
Jully 31, 2014
2014 Doctor Who Information Network
FORMATION
Doctor Who Information Network
PO Box 912, Station F, Toronto, ON M4Y 2N9 CANADA
Write here for: Membership, General Enquiries, Research Department, etc.Visit our website at: www.dwin.org
CHAPTERS AND LOCAL GROUPSBrethren of Time and Space
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c/o Dean Shewring, RR#2, 236 Eastwood Road, Peterborough, ON K9J 6X3
(705) 742-2936 (after 9pm) fax: (705) 742-3513e-mail: [email protected]
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c/o Lisa Truant-Tan, 39 Eastbourne Crescent Toronto, ON M8V 1W7(416) 252-0105 (710:30pm)
e-mail: [email protected]
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c/o Tom Robinson, 20 Foster Street, Hamilton, ON L8N 1Z6www.hwcn.org/~an933/three.htm
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Note: no formal meetings scheduled
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MEMBERSHIPThe DOCTORWHOInformation Networkis the oldest fan-runDOCTORWHOclub in North America. It maintains theDOCTOR
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The worlds
been changi
for a whilnow
Chronic Fatig
Cameron D
It was a
COLD,
DARK NIGHTin November
Im going to ask you to time-
travel now. Dont worry, this is the
perfectly ordinary kind of time travel that
we do in our heads all the time; I personally
havent lived in the present day for going on
two decades now. What I need you to do is
close your eyes, shut out the outside world, and
imagine yourself back to a quarter past ve,
GMT, on the evening of Saturday 23 November
1963.
Its getting dark now, and its time for you to
go home. You might pass a police box on the
way; theyre not exactly ubiquitous, but even iftheyre not a big part of your world, you know
what they are. If youre lucky, then theyre a
symbol of safety and of protection. Theyre solid,
theyre reliable, and they mean that the bobbies
are walking the beat somewhere nearby, looking
out for you, keeping you safe. They mean that
ocers and cars will respond to urgent calls. If
you can see one now, it means youre protected,
just that little bit safer than you would be if there
were nothing out there with you in the growing
dark.
Your home is lit up when you get back, a
beacon in the November evening. Your family
is inside, and the television is warming up in
the corner of the sitting room. Youve had a long
hard day, probably;
actually, its Saturday, so
youve more likely had
a long hard week. You
want to relax with your
family, either with your
children or your parents
depending on who you are in this scenario,
and the TV listings tell you that theres a new
show coming on that you can all watch together.
Youre not sure what its going to be like, but if
its meant to be for all the family, then surely itll
be safe viewing.Because lord knows you want to be safe today.
After what happened yesterday in Texas, the
world seems just that much darker. But they
couldnt have known that back in October when
they turned on the cameras in Lime Grove
studios and started recording the rst episode
of this new, family-friendly BBC science-ction
series. They were making this show in a more
comfortable world, the one that no longer exists
unless you close your eyes.
Or were they? Because lets face it, the worlds
been changing for a while now, both on and o
the screen. When you think of a bobby walking
the beat, you might think of good old Dixon of
Dock Green, keeping the peace and greeting
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COLD, DARK NIGHT
the viewers with an avuncular, Good evening,
all. Hes been around since 1955, wise and
comforting, and you know you can trust him.
But a couple of years ago the BBC started to
air a new police drama called Z-Cars, and thatone comes from a very dierent world. Its a
darker world, its more violent, the policemen
are rougher and less friendly. They may still be
trying to keep you safe, but they live in a more
dangerous world. Its a little bit less certain. You
dont really know what to expect from it.
And then
theres that other
popular show,
the one set in the
junkyard: you
know, Steptoe and
Son. The comedy.
The one where
poor old Harold
Steptoe strives for
something betterin life, only to get
put right back in
his place, week
after week, by his
scheming old dad. You can be certain of that.
And if you think about it, thats a little horrible,
isnt it?
But you probably dont think about it. You
dont watch these shows over and over again,
picking apart every moment for its social and
semiotic signicance. Its television, theatre for
the airwaves; its meant to be aired once and
then forgotten. So you sit down in front of the
telly with your family, and you watch this new
show, wanting only to be taken away from the
world you know for a while before you have to
come back to it.
And theres a bobby, walking the beat. Theres
a junkyard. Theres a police box.
And its all wrong.The music is like nothing youve ever heard
before, eerie throbbing and ghostly wailing.
The familiar images fade in over a glowing
light like a crack in the skin of the Universe.
The police box is in the middle of the junkyard,
exactly where it shouldnt be, and its humming
with power and
potential, like
something locked
down, just waiting
its chance to break
free.
Everything
that you should
know is made
unfamiliar. This
isnt the safefamily show
you expected.
This is from a
world where two
perfectly ordinary schoolteachers, trustworthy
gures of authority, step in to help a troubled
girl and are forcibly taken away from the world
they know, possibly never to come back.
This is where DOCTORWHObegins. And theres
no way you can know that it will still be going
more than fty years later. But you know one
thing as you watch: it wont be quiet, it wont
be safe, and it wont be calm. But if youre very
lucky, it will be the trip of a lifetime.
Welcome to the future.
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WhoL
Gian-Luca di
Peter Capaldis frst season
SHAPING UP(contains minor casting spoilers)Production of DOCTORWHOs 2014 season is well
underway. At the time of writing, six episodes
have completed principal photography. Steven
Moat has written the debut episode, as well
as Episode 4; it is expected that he will also
write the season nale and one or two others.
The season is expected to be 12 episodes long,
followed by a Christmas special; the BBC has
recently released
a teaser trailer
announcing that it
will begin broadcast
in August.
Other writers announced for the series include
veterans Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, Neil Cross
and Steven Thompson, who have all writtenepisodes for Moat in the Matt Smith era. Phil
Ford, a veteran of The Sarah Jane Adventures,
returns for his rst DOCTORWHOepisode since co-
writing The Waters of Marsin 2009. Two writers
completely new to WHOhave been announced:
Peter Harness, who has written for the detective
series Wallander; and Jamie Mathieson, who has
written for both Being Humanand Dirk Gently.In addition to Peter Capaldi and Jenna
Coleman, it has been announced that the full
Paternoster Gang Neve McIntoshs Madame
Vastra, Catrin Stewarts Jenny, and Dan Starkeys
Strax will all appear in at least one episode of
the new series, believed to be the rst Twelfth
Doctor episode.
A new recurring character, not necessarily a
companion, has been announced: Danny Pink,another teacher at Coal Hill School (where Clara
has taught since the anniversary special, The Day of
the Doctor). The character is to be played by Samuel
Anderson, previously best known for playing a
regular character on the British soap Emmerdale(as
had been the case with Jenna Coleman).
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WHOLINE
Other guest cast members announced include
Keeley Hawes (Spooks, Ashes to Ashes), Ben Miller
(Primeval, Armstrong and Miller) and Tom Riley
(Poirot, Marple,and Lost in Austen).
Directors announced thus far include DouglasMacKinnon, who has previously directed
episodes with both David Tennant and Matt
Smith, and several directors new
to the show: Ben Wheatley, Paul
Murphy, Paul Wilmshurt, and
Rachel Talalay (director of the
movies Tank Girland Freddys
Dead: The Final Nightmare).
MISSING EPISODE NEWS
(OR LACK THEREOF)
At the time of writing, no further
announcements have been made
conrming or denying whether
any more of the 57 episodes
ocially missing from the archiveshave been found. There has been
no statement of any kind by either
the BBC or Phil Morriss Television
International Enterprises Archives,
which suggests that TIEA simply
doesnt have any more missing
episodes in its possession. Philip
Morris has repeatedly said to
expect the unexpected when
asked whether there are more to be
found. WhoLine will continue to
report only on ocial new stories
or announcements from either the
BBC or TIEA as they happen.
OBITUARY
Kate OMara, the actress who played the
villainous Rani in 1980s DOCTORWHO, passed
away earlier this year at the age of 74 after a
short illness. OMara played the Rani in two
proper DOCTORWHOstories, The Mark of the
Raniand Time and the Rani, as well as reprising
the character in the 30th-
anniversary charity skit
Dimensions in Time. Her
nal appearance as the
character was in the 2000
BBV audio play The RaniReaps the Whirlwind. She
was perhaps best known
internationally for her
role as Caress in Dynasty,
which she played between
her two appearances on
WHO. OMara also starred
alongside two Doctors in
other famous productions:
Colin Baker in the mid-70s
television series The Brothers,
and Peter Cushing in the
1970 Hammer Horror lm
The Vampire Lovers. She
had also been married to
two dierent actors who
had played guest roles inDOCTORWHO: Jeremy Young,
who played Kal in the very
rst DOCTORWHOserial;
and later to Richard Willis,
who played Adrics brother
Varsh in Full Circle.
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Moffat has
turned the
series on its
head and
reorientethe Doctotravels.
Crater of Need
Gian-Luca di
Living for the
MOMENTDOCTORWHO: The Day of the Doctor
Starring Matt Smith, David Tennant,
John Hurt, Jenna Coleman, Billie Piper
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Nick Hurran
Broadcast 23 November 2013
I
n the 20th-anniversary
special The Five Doctors,
then-incumbent DoctorPeter Davison indicated
that he tried to believe three
impossible things before
breakfast. The 50th-anniversary special
The Day of the Doctorgoes one step further:
it actually does three impossible things. It
manages to tell a story, while also celebrating
all 50 years of the programmes history in away that still made it accessible to viewers
mainly familiar with the new series or for
that matter, complete newbies watching
this as a one-o in the cinema and at the
same time it was doing both of these things,
it managed to lay the foundation for a new
direction in the programmes immediate future.
If all that wasnt enough, the story manages to
redeem past elements of DOCTORWHO, many ofwhich we never thought possible in 3D, no
less! And Ive still not mentioned John Hurts
performance as the conicted War Doctor,
or the magical moment when Tom Baker is
seen talking to Matt Smith itself only
a few moments after Peter Capaldis
eyes make a thrilling
appearance, allowing
the as yet unseen
Twelfth Doctor to be
part of an epic climax
that had many fans
literally jumping out of
their seats. Quite simply,
The Day of the Doctorwas
the triumph that we all
dreamed it could be.Steven Moats
ever-inventive script
manages to juggle all
of the above elements
more successfully
than perhaps anyone
thought was realistic.
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The only fault, perhaps, lies with the Zygon
plot fading away fairly quickly once the
main issue of whether the Doctor will
still destroy his homeworld or not
re-emerges for good. Even then, oneimagines that the Zygons may come
back another day, and the discerning
viewer can easily guess what must
have happened; in the meantime,
most of the audience is too
busy celebrating or recovering
from shock at all of the surprise
appearances to even care what
happened with the Zygons. The
plot overall bears the familiar mark
of Moats work, as it holds up
well upon subsequent viewings,
and the feelings of celebration,
redemption and hope are so
strong by the time one gets to
the end of the story that one is
tempted to forgive any looseends that might remain.
One criticism that many have
levelled at The Day of the Doctor
is that it undermines the RTD
era of DOCTORWHO, but this
accusation falls wide of the mark.
Firstly, the special focusses on the
nal events of the Time War, a story
concept squarely originated in the
RTD era. Secondly, the decision to
bring Billie Piper back (when Alex
Kingston could just as easily have
played the role of the Moments
sentient interface) clearly identies
The Day of the Doctoras a heartfelt
tribute to RTDs time as showrunner at least
as much as it pays tribute to any other era
of the show.
While The Day of the Doctorspecically
undermines (and arguably retcons) TheEnd of Time, it would be too simplistic to
suggest that this means the entirely of RTDs
era has been undermined in the process
particularly as The End of Timeseemed to
undermine earlier RTD stories, such as
The Parting of the Ways, by eectively
rewriting our understanding of the
Time War. In The Parting of the Ways,
the Doctors decision to end the Time
War is presented as a terrible one,
and is paralleled within the episodes
plot itself: again, the Doctor is forced
to choose whether to kill millions
of innocent lives in order to save
billions more from the Daleks. The
point made in The Parting of the Ways
is that the Doctor has learned hislesson; this time, he refuses to make
such a wholesale sacrice. In The
End of Time, the decision is seen in
a dierent light: the Time Lords are
essentially all bad, barring literally
two people, because ghting the Time War
has made them so. The Time Lords prior
description as goodies is explained away by
the Doctors remark to Wilf that its how
I choose to remember them. The Doctors
choice thus becomes: kill two sets of insane,
evil, aggressive baddies to save the cosmos,
or dont. Not exactly the great dilemma
suggested earlier.
The Day of the Doctorresets
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MOMENT
things back to the original view of the Time War.
There are billions of innocent Time Lords,
including their many children, who are
victims of circumstance and dont deserve
to die. It is only the High Council whohave turned to evil. The introduction of a
separate War Council neatly sidesteps
the need for an erasure of
The End of Time, although
it does poke a hole in the
assertion that it was the
eects of war that caused
the Time Lords to become
either evil or insane; if such
a correlation were accurate,
it should have aected the
members of the War Council more
than the High Council.
With this reset, the Doctors
choice becomes a terrible one
again, and provides what might
be called the most triumphantmoment in all the Doctors lives.
One can readily see why Steven
Moat hit the reset button. There is
far more drama to be found in the
Doctor undoing the single greatest
tragedy of his life than in him
merely avoiding a perfectly justiable
decision. This allows the 50th anniversary
special to be the biggest in-character
celebration possible.
Additionally, Moats reset denes a Time
Lords regeneration as an event that brings
about the renewal of the same character and
man, rather than equating it with death, as
The End of Timehad done. The solution to the
problem of saving Gallifrey is reliant upon all
13 Doctors being the same man, and, in
fact, having the same mind. We can see
the thought processes that lead to the
storys resolution start with one Doctorand then make their way into the others.
This is further evidenced with the reuse
and for some, the redemption
of the I dont want to go
line. The line is redeemed in
that it reprises Tennants nal
line in the show, but makes
it a reference to the Doctors
actual death, rather than
his regeneration from one
incarnation to the next. David
Tennants nal appearance
(to date) is no longer the
bitter, cynical, self-pitying
one from The End of Time. Such
an end served only to undercut
everything this optimistic seriesand its unselsh, compassionate
lead character always strove to
present. The anniversary special thus
allowed this fan to enjoy the David
Tennant Doctor and his era as a more
positive whole.
A further rehabilitation occurs in the
area of the Doctors relationship with
Queen Elizabeth I. In both The End
of Timeand a few of the early
Eleventh Doctor stories this
relationship is presented as
somewhat tawdry. In The Day
of the Doctor, we are given a
much clearer picture of the
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MOMENT
relationship, as one that was far more innocent
in origin and much less sleazy than we were
previously led to believe.
When Steven Moat was asked in 1999
what he would do with a revivedDOCTORWHOtelevision series, he
responded that hed chuck out
all that yawn-inducing Gallifrey
rubbish I dont care where the
Doctor came from. When he
became a part of the creative team
that did in fact revive the series,
that is precisely what happened.
With The Day of the Doctor,
Moat has reopened this door to
a new Gallifrey, one that shows
no signs of being yawn-
inducing at any point in the
near future. With this single
reintroduction, Moat has
turned the series on its head
and reoriented the Doctorstravels. For the rst 50 years,
he sought to leave or avoid
Gallifrey; now he is searching
for it, embarking on a long journey
home. The mythos surrounding
Gallifrey has proved too much a
part of the Doctors adventures to
be permanently abolished, no matter
how hard the television series, books,
audio plays, or imaginative depictions
of unmade Eric Saward stories by Ian
Levine have tried.
The special also gifts us with John
Hurts War Doctor, who
generally represents the classic
series Doctors in a way that neither Paul
McGanns nor Christopher Ecclestons Doctors
could possibly do, given that the eighth and
ninth Doctors characters are so clearly
dened in their own right. While theminisode Night of the Doctorgave the
much longed for nod to both Paul
McGanns audio adventures and the
series that never was, it took this
new incarnation of the Doctor to
give a voice to the fans who have
been disappointed with the new
series less scientic and often
more romantic approach to the
character.
Linked to all of these
observations must be the
tting tribute the 50th
anniversary special paid
to the much loved William
Hartnell era and the
adventures of the veryrst Doctor. Choosing to
open the story with the
original theme and visuals paid
homage to the magical moment
this unique series made its debut.
Taking the connection even further,
the Doctor once again takes a teacher
from Coal Hill School and show her the
wonders of Time and Space, just as he did
50 years ago (albeit in a more mutually
consensual context). It is wonderful to see
that Ian Chestertons name still carries
some weight at Coal Hill School, and
reassuring to know that I.M. Foremans
is still open for business just down the
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MOMENT
street.
The Patrick Troughton eras penchant for
monsters invading bases under siege is also
given lip service here, not just with the Zygons
placing UNIT HQ under siege but withGallifrey itself under siege by the Daleks.
The presence of UNIT provides a warm
tribute to the Jon Pertwee era, and the
special appearance of Tom Baker (not
to mention the reintroduction of one
of his best-loved and heretofore
underused monsters) has his era
covered. The Davison and Colin
Baker eras are taken care of with
the heavy use of continuity
(including returning monsters
and a Gallifrey-based, multi-
Doctor story); although the
argument could be made that
the years between 2008 and
2013 have seen the heaviest use
of continuity in the history ofthe series, The Day of the Doctor
packs in a denser use of the
concept than long-time fans are
generally accustomed to. Lastly, the
Sylvester McCoy era gets a shout-out
through the introduction of another
ancient Gallifreyan weapon, this
one both terrifying and uniquely
sentient.
Besides Tom Bakers appearance
on screen with another Doctor,
and the surprising cameo by Peter
Capaldis eyes, perhaps the two
most surprising aspects of the
special are the fact that Kamelion
received more screen time than K9 (honestly,
who saw that coming?) and the complete
lack of River Song. Given how important a
character she has been in the past ve years, one
thought a cameo might at least have beenforthcoming. It is perhaps less surprising
that Billie Piper did not actually play
Rose Tyler, and frankly, this was the
right move.Journeys Endmore than
adequately demonstrated that you
cant eectively shoehorn the
seminal Doctor/Rose relationship
into a story that is trying to do so
much else.
At the end of the story, the
Doctor confesses that he does
indeed have a dream: he dreams
about going home. I had a
dream as well: 25 years ago,
I dreamt that I could go to
see DOCTORWHOon the big
screen in a packed theatrewith an all-ages audience and
people lining up out the door
for the next showing as I left
the cinema. It took another quarter
of a century, but my dream came
true. Heres hoping that the Doctors
dream is fullled too, one day and
that Im still around 50 years later to
see it.
GIAN-LUCA DI ROCCO is
the reviewer none of the other
reviewers talk about
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An Adventur
is a lovely
tribute to an
era of British
television tha
no longerexists.
5Annivers
Celebra
Graeme
You can rewrite
HISTORYAn Adventure in Space and Time
Starring David Bradley, Brian Cox, Jessica
Rayne, Sacha Dhawan, Lesley Manville
Written by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Terry McDonough
Broadcast 21 November 2013
T
he sprinklers never went off in
Lime Grove Studio D during
the recording of the originalpilot episode ofDOCTORWHO. The
TARDIS was never a standing permanent set.
Mervyn Pineld left DOCTORWHOin 1965 and
died shortly after, and was never an advisor
to Sydney Newman. The Daleks was already
four episodes into lming when the Kennedy
assassination happened. The TARDIS wasnt in
ight during the nal scene of The Massacre, sothere was no need to turn on the time rotor
These and
many more
historical
inaccuracies
can be found in
An Adventure
in Space and
Time, the TVmovie about
the creation of
Doctor Who.
And none of
them honestly
matter.
Okay, two ofthem seriously
bug me. The
rst is Brian Cox as
Sydney Newman, who
plays the Canadian
innovator who arguably
created the series as
a brash would-be
Hollywood mogul whoexclaims Pop! Pop!
Pop! as a catchphrase.
Its not that Cox
isnt huge fun as the
character hes great
playing the guy who
pricks the pomposity of the sti-shirted BBC
but in a sea of reasonably thought-out portrayalsIm disappointed they chose to go with such
a broad
caricature.
The
second is
Patrick
Troughton.
Reece
Shearsmithis a great
actor but
terribly
cast here,
and I think
the most
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HISTORY
amateurish cosplayer could come up with a
better Second Doctor costume than that.
But, heck, maybe even these two things dont
matter. An Adventure in Space and Time is a
lovely tribute to DOCTORWHO, the people who
brought it into existence and an era of British
television that no longer exists.
It shouldnt work. In spite of the jerry-rigging
of history into a compelling storyline (andjettisoning everything else; Delia Derbyshire
gets a brief appearance on screen but Terry
Nation, David Whitaker, Raymond Cusick and
C.E. Webber dont even get a mention), the fact
is that the real events sabotage the drama. Of
the people most responsible for DOCTORWHOs
creation Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert,
Waris Hussein and William Hartnell three of
them are gone or have little inuence on the
show within two years, leaving Hartnell (and a
version of Sydney Newman deputising for all of
Verity Lamberts replacements) to carry the rest
of it.
It creates a funny shape to the proceedings,
eectively two separate dramas with two
separate leads. The rst hour is spent showing
how DOCTORWHOcame to the air and became
a smashing success thanks to Verity Lambert.
The last half hour is spent showing William
Hartnells decline. It pulls it o by makingHartnell the connective tissue between the two
parts, with Hartnells inrmity coming into the
spotlight just as Lambert decides to leave it.
Its a very canny decision on the part of writer
Mark Gatiss. The reason An Adventure in Space
and Timegets away with everything, from its
odd shape as a drama to its fast-and-loose
treatment of real events, is because while it
fudges so many of the details its utterly rock-
solid in capturing William Hartnell. The real
Hartnell didnt fumble around quite so much
as David Bradley does that said, Hartnell was
pretty inrm by the end of his tenure as the
Doctor, and there are lots of nightmare stories
about working with him but what Bradleys
portrayal does is capture the emotional reality:
a man who nally found the role of his lifetimejust as his body was failing him.
Bradley is wonderful doing this. His Hartnell
is pompous and irascible but genuinely
vulnerable. And Gatiss sweetens the script to
great eect here. The sequence in which Bradley
as Hartnell haltingly recites the closing speech
from The Massacreis a brilliant scene. Its utter
bunkum the real Hartnell aced that scene, and
beautifully, too but its perfect for the drama, as
we nally get into the sheer terror someone like
Hartnell must have faced as a man now bereft
of everything he began DOCTORWHOwith, who
cant even retain the words in his head. Bradleys
performance here is deeply moving.
That broader emotional realism also works in
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HISTORY
the rst hour
chronicling the
creation of the
series. Here, its
a sh-out-of-water story as
Verity Lambert
and Waris
Hussein (played
beautifully
by Jessica Raine and Sacha Dhawan) struggle
against the powers that be to bring something
amazing to air. Raine is great at capturing the
bolshie side of Verity, who would stand up to
anyone who got in her way. Dhawan, though, is
quietly stunning at capturing the real Husseins
mannerisms and making him a man desperate to
make his mark, even on a childrens show.
An Adventure in Space and Timeis gorgeous
to look at. Even if it doesnt quite get its WHO
right (stand up, bad Cyberman and Second
Doctor costumes!), the attention to period detailis sumptuous (it helps that they were able to
lm at BBC Television Centre before it closed).
Terry McDonoughs direction mostly tries to
stand back and let the pageantry of recreating
1960s DOCTORWHOdo its thing, with a few
visual ourishes here and there. The real star
of the lm, though, is Edmund Butt, whose
score is genuinely beautiful and really moving.
If Murray Gold should ever leave, heres his
replacement.
The DVD/Blu-ray is scant on extras (though it
does include An Unearthly Child, and kudos for
that). The making-of documentary has a couple
of surprises, including an ending from the
cutting room oor that would have seen Mark
Gatiss playing
Jon Pertwees
Doctor (in
photographs,
at least). Thereare several
recreations
of sequences
from the series,
including
the TARDIS scene from the pilot, which was
apparently made on the original Marconi
pedestal cameras from the early 1960s. This
particular sequence should make you appreciate
how skilled the original camera operators
were; its not a patch on what was originally
done in 1963. There are also a few sequences
of speeches from other stories thrown in,
which were presumably to have been intercut
but never made it. The ten-minute tribute to
William Hartnell is too short, but it uses a great
combination of cast members and Hartnellscontemporaries to bring the man alive, along
with recently found footage of the man himself.
An Adventure in Space and Timeends with
a cameo appearance of Matt Smiths Doctor,
symbolising the longevity of the program as
Hartnell departs, which was powerful at the
time; however, I do wonder if its impact will
be dulled in the future. For me, the thing that
most aected me was the wonderful postlude in
which they play a clip of William Hartnell at the
end of The Dalek Invasion of Earthas the camera
tracks through the empty TARDIS set. I cried
after seeing that. I still do, every bloody time.
GRAEME BURK is a blast from the past
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[Tom] was
potty as afruitcakewhen he did
DOCTORWHO,
and he was
great fun!
EnlightenConversati
David R
MICHAELWISHER:Up above the gods
Well, it was a long time
ago. It started, really, when I
was in the Royal Air Force. People
always wanted entertainment wherever you
were, so I used to get up and entertain. Anyway,
when I left the RAF when I was demobbed, as
we call it in my paybook was written, MichaelWisher, actor, who in his spare time works for
the Royal Air Force. From then on, of course, I
really couldnt do much else about it, because
when you try to get a job when somebodys
written that in your paybook, youve really got
to go along the line they dictate!
Thus was born the acting career of Michael
Wisher, something that would eventually leadhim into the annals of DOCTORWHOhistory.
Best known for creating the role of Davros, the
shows most famous mad scientist, his numerous
other appearances both on and o screen only
serve to underline the import of his place in the
Whoniverse.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr Wisher,
a witty, literate and amusing man, at the Leisure
Hive convention in England in August 1986.My thanks go out to him for his time, and also
to British fan Andrew ODay, who assisted me
in the interview and made it all possible by
allowing me to use his tape recorder after mine
had malfunctioned!
After attending the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Arts, Wisher said, he went on to work
in radio, as well as
doing voice-overs
for commercials and
dubbing on foreign
cartoons. It is thus not
surprising that his
initial work on DOCTORWHOwas doing a voice-
over during Patrick
Troughtons years as the
Doctor.
I know I did one
voice-over, he recalled.
They rang up in a panic on a telephone.
Somebody couldnt turn up, and it was just asimple voice-over of about half a dozen lines. I
dont know what it was. And thats how I got
into it.
It wasnt until the Jon Pertwee era, though,
that Wisher became deeply involved in DOCTOR
WHO. I started doing Dalek voices and playing
villains, Michael remembered. I was usually
shot, blown up or eaten sometimes all three!
None of these things befell him, however, inhis rst on-screen appearance, in the role of TV
reporter John Wakeeld in The Ambassadors of
Deathduring the rst Pertwee season.
I had to say all these speeches straight into [a
TV camera]. In those days they had these sh-
eye cameras for close-ups. You had this funny
reection of your face which was all distorted,
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MICHAEL WISHER
any problem at all. Never. It was just a barrel of
laughs all the way through.
Id been a big admirer of his work because
hed been an actor for many years and a
classical actor, too but Id never actuallyworked with him before. He was a character
actor, one seen quite a lot in Shakespeare and
various other plays of classical venues, but I
think he brought a lot of classicism to the role of
the Master, rearlly. I think thats what made it
such fun to watch.
Two years later, Wisher appeared as the
villainous revolutionary Kalik in Carnival
of Monsters, a story directed by producer
Barry Letts. Though normally thought of as a
lighthearted tale about an itinerant carnival man,
this particular story, according to Wisher, had a
more serious meaning behind it.
It was a story about the world, their world,
divided in two, he explained, as the eete
master race walked upon a higher level and the
grunts walked upon a lower level, and never thetwain met; and if they did meet, the high-level
people were liable to kill the low-level people. It
was a sort of monster apartheid.
I asked him if he thought Letts purposefully
tried to emphasise the divisions and social
injustice in this storys society. Yes, I think
he did, and I think he succeeded, Wisher
responded. I think he made that point
perfectly clear, to show how, indeed, parts of
this world could go if the worst came to the
worst. It could regress and go that way quite
easily, that you could produce almost two
entirely dierent races of people, the grunts
and the upper crust, by selective breeding, by
those awful systems that have been tried in
our own time in Europe and indeed in Africa.
And when man interferes with the normal,
natural process of the world then something
ghastly usually happens.
Nonetheless, Michael did say that the storywas fun to make. It was a delightful idea that
two entirely dierent ideas should come together
[with] this strange showman, who was not an
evil man, but who regarded the universe as his
personal pond from which to collect specimens
and take them around the galaxy for people to
gawp at, trapped in this machine rather like a
mini-zoo.
Playing the part of Kalik required Wisher to
wear a false scalp and have his face painted
grey. This, he said, posed no problem, but the
costumes that he and his colleagues had to wear
were another matter altogether.
I always used to describe the characters
as coming out of some futuristic Jacobean
tragicomedy, he laughed, in that the costumes
were sort of semi-armour plate, and theywerent easy to move around in. In fact, we
used to get strange letters from strange people
saying, Dear Sir, how nice to see the thighs
of young men once again in these costumes,
and we used to pin these letters on the wall.
There was something about these costumes that
roused some rather curious feelings in some
even more curious people!
Kalik was the rst villainous role Wisher
played on DOCTORWHO. Did he nd that villains
were more interesting to play? Well, yes,
because they always believe theyre right, dont
they? I mean, they dont think theyre being
villains. Very few villains do. They do things
that are necessary, because they believe in
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MICHAEL WISHER
what theyre doing. Thats a dreadful word,
necessary. You could how many times the
various fascist regimes of the world have used
the word necessary.
Carnival of Monsterswas the last story in whichMichael Wisher was seen during the Jon Pertwee
era. However, he was still heard, doing Dalek
voices in Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleksand
Death to the Daleks.
Oh yes, Dalek voices were bread and butter,
Michael explained. I used to sit in my little
cabin in the corner of the studio, entirely
separated from everyone else. It was rather
like being in air trac control, really. You had
a monitor and you had a pair of earphones on
cans, as we call them and you had a script.
And your left eye was on the monitor, and your
right eye was on the script; your left ear was
up on the control oor, and your right ear was
down on the studio oor; and you had to sort
of collect, collate, coordinate your bit of Dalek
speech with what the hell was going on aroundyou! You could also hear all the rude comments
in the box upstairs, and the blackmail time came
afterwards when you could get at least a pint of
beer out of the director.
The Tom Baker years ensued, and with them,
Genesis of the Daleks, in which Wisher gave his
supreme performance as Davros, progenitor of
the Daleks. Naturally, it was about this story
that Michael spoke the most, beginning with the
unusual way in which he practiced his part.
We used to practice with a wheelchair,
obviously, because Davros was four-fths dead,
and he was certainly dead from the waist down.
His left side was dead, his eyes were dead, his
speech was dead. I mean there wasnt much
left of him alive, but he kept himself alive by a
sort of bionics, if you like. He had a mechanical
bottom half, a mechanical eye and mechanical
speech. His own speech must have been failing,
barely audible, therefore he had to boost it upby mechanical means. In other words, he was a
prototype for a Dalek himself, but he had done
this to himself. He was a scientist, probably a
brilliant man in his time and obviously right
round the bend now!
And so, bearing all that in mind, I realised,
since this incredible face of his had been
designed, that prosthetics would have to be
placed round my own head. Now, directors
are not infallible. They tend, when they look
at you, to hear your voice and to look at your
expression. They bring the two together, and
they draw conclusions from that. But I realised
very early on that that would be a mistake,
because there would not be any expression. Not
in that mask, there wouldnt! There would just
be a voice. So, in order to get David [Maloney,the director] used to this idea and in order to
get me used to it, too I put a paper bag over my
head with just two eyeholes to see out of, so that
I could neither see nor hear very clearly, just to
get me used to the idea of being cut o from the
world when I was performing. I had to get used
to the idea and let him get used to the idea too,
so that all he had was a voice to go on.
Wisher said that a cast of his face had to be
made in order to create the mask he was to wear.
It was designed very closely with my features
in mind, but much exaggerated. As Davros
saw with an articial eye, the eyes of the mask
were closed, making sight dicult. If you close
your eyes now, and have the merest of slits so
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MICHAEL WISHER
that youre looking through your lashes, thats
roughly what I could see, he explained. If you
stick your ngers in your ears, thats roughly
what I could hear.
As if those conditions werent dicult enough,Wisher had to provide Davross mobility by
scooting along with his feet the whole time.
That was me doing everything, yes. BBC dont
run to electric motors. As for having to sit in
Davross chair, It was quite painful in trousers,
so I had to wear a kilt!
Having explained the physical problems in
being Davros, Wisher was asked if scriptwriter
Terry Nation had been on the set to help with
the characterisation. Well, I did speak to Terry,
yes, but it was usually either about cricket or the
weather! No, Terry never interfered. He presented
me with the script and he left it up to the director
and artist to do it. I mean, he may have had
private conferences with the producer or the
director, saying, I dont like the way this is going
or I like the way thats going. Who knows? Butwe didnt have any conversations on that matter.
Nonetheless, there was no doubt as to what
type of character Davros was. One was always
aware of what Terry Nation had in mind,
Wisher explained. It was perfectly clear that
this was the invention of the Daleks. It was
made perfectly clear why he invented the Daleks
and it was perfectly clear that he was going to
create them partially in his own image rather
foolishly as it turned out, in my opinion, because
I dont think it was a very perfect image, quite
candidly. I think he could have done better.
Hed done it to himself, therefore he knew
the system could work. I mean, here was a man
who I imagine must have been around 190 years
old and still around. I cant say that he enjoyed
life very much. I cant see that a person in those
circumstances could really enjoy life, except
cerebrally, you know; or maybe he enjoyed
power. There was nothing else he could enjoy. Idont think he could enjoy girls, or booze! He
trailed o with a laugh.
Wisher worked closely in this story with his
friend Peter Miles, who portrayed the security
chief, Nyder. I thought he was brilliant as that.
He was quite chilling as the head of the Skaro
Gestapo, the geheime Staatspolizei of Skaro.
I mean, he was the archetypal man of power.
Very quiet. He didnt have to be noisy. He
only had to put a pencil through a name and
that name was rubbed out. I thought it was a
tremendous performance.
In fact, I have to say that there are many
ingredients which make these successful.
The rst ingredient, of course, has to be the
writing. You can louse up a good play, but you
cannot make a bad script really good. You canget away with it but you cant make it good.
Then come the other ingredients, direction and
performers, and it just so happened that the
performers really were absolutely the correct
mix. Everybody in the company turned in
smashing performances.
So how did Tom Baker approach the part of
the Doctor in his rst year in the role? Much the
way Tom has always approached every part,
Wisher recalled. Id worked with Tom years
ago. We were in rep together up in York. He was
quite round the bend then. I mean, he was potty
as a fruitcake up there and he was potty as a
fruitcake when he did DOCTORWHO, and he was
great fun! I loved him. We had a lot of giggles
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MICHAEL WISHER
together. His greatest role, I suppose, in the
National Theatre, was playing Rasputin the mad
monk. Well, since he had been a monk for six
years and he was right round the bend I should
have thought it was a very good role for him!No, he was lovely, Tom. The stories he told
about his past, when he was a monk all those
years, had me in absolute stitches. I wouldnt
dare repeat them. Hes the only person who
could tell those stories with great eect. I did ask
him once, Why did you become a monk, Tom?
and he said, Look, when you come from the
back streets of Liverpool, like I did, if it had been
the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy or the Royal
Air Force coming up the streets I would have
joined. It happened to be the monks!
One other little tale Michael told concerning
Tom Baker regarded the recording of Dalek
voices, which in Genesiswas handled by Roy
Skelton. Roy couldnt do a couple of lines for
some reason, and I seem to remember that I hadto pre-record a couple of lines and then play
opposite my own recording. I always remember
the end of the scene because Tom was leaning up
against the wall and in a very acid voice at the
end of it all he said, Mind if we join in now?
Though his brilliant portrayal of Davros
represented the pinnacle of his DOCTORWHO
career, Wisher appeared in two more stories. In
that seasons next story, Revenge of the Cybermen
which had actually been recorded prior to
Genesis he had a minor part as Magrik, the
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MICHAEL WISHER
Vogan scientist. Yes, a rather pathetic character,
Magrik, he observed of the wheezing, coughing
Vogan. He got this silicosis of the lungs, not
surprisingly. He spent his life living down mines
and miners tend to get silicosis.Having worked with the Daleks, did Wisher
see the Cybermen as being very dierent from
them? Well, not a lot of dierence. I didnt, of
course, have to do the voices. That was all left up
to other people. I mean, they were just characters
rather chilling characters in that they behaved
like human beings but looked like spare suits of
armour that had been hung up on the wall.
Michaels nal DOCTORWHOappearance came
the next year, as crewman Morelli in Planet of
Evil, a small role. After being deeply involved in
nine stories in seven years, it suddenly came to
an end. No one has any idea about these things
at all, he said of this end to his tenure. Regimes
change, ideas change. Youre avour of the
month one month and youre persona non grata
the next. It depends whos in power, and thatsthe way, I suppose, of all things.
Wisher did, however, continue to do some
minor voice-overs for DOCTORWHOepisodes,
including Logopolis. I did a lot of bits and pieces
here and there which were totally uncredited.
The only reason I know I did them is because I
get repeat fees coming through the post.
So far, he has appeared at some British
DOCTORWHOconventions. Has he ever been
to any Stateside events? No, Ive never been
to America. It was once mooted that I might
go over there, he said, but to be honest, Im
trying to sort of earn a crust over here, and its
a bit dicult to take yourself out of the action
to get over there. I think if youre a star you
can aord to do that because you can say when
youll do things. Us working hack actors, we
have to play the ball as its pitched and take
what you can get where you can get it. Its a bit
dicult to write yourself out of the game whileyoure going over.
With time in the interview running short, our
nal questions once again concerned Davros.
Wisher gave us his views on what the only still-
viable Davros story could be.
I think the only story that you could have is
a story concerning a little further back in time,
[with] the young Davros. What made him what
he was? Why did he become the monster he
did become? Because obviously he was a very
intelligent man, a very brilliant man. What
happened? What was the sea change that made
him become the dreadful character that we all
know and love?
If this story were ever produced, would
Michael want to play the part again? Well, I
dont think I could appear as him in anotherstory because somebody else does him now, he
said, and I think, frankly, Im probably too old
to appear as him as a younger man. However,
when I suggested to Wisher that he was still
much younger than the 190-year-old Davros, he
reconsidered. So you want him to appear as a
mid-50s man? Yes, all right, certainly I would. If
he was that age, yes. Why not?
Why not indeed.
DAVID RUDINs interview with
Michael Wisher was conducted in
August of 1986 and was originally
published in the fanzine The UNYT Times
Reprinted with permission
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The Enemy
of the World
stands as a
testament to
what DOCTOR
WHOcan do
when itpulls out the stops
Fluid Li
Robert S
THEFRENEMYOF THEWORLD:A review in six parts
DOCTORWHO: The Enemy of the World
Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines,
Deborah Watling, Patrick Troughton
Written by David Whitaker
Directed by Barry Letts
Broadcast 23 December 196727 January 1968
iTunes release: 11 October 2013
1. THE NOVELISATION
For so long, The Enemy ofthe Worldonly existed as anovelisation. It was one of the rst
I owned, purchased on a family vacation, so I
read and re-read that book while on holiday
and then many times again in the years
afterwards. I was never quite sure if the cover
featured Giles Kent, Salamander or the Doctor,but I was pretty sure that was Victoria in the
high-collared shirt and helmet.
People have complained that the novelisation is
dense, but I loved it. Ian Marters style was vivid
and engaging, and brought the story to life for
me. Watching Episode 1 for the rst time recently,
I had the unusualexperience of watching
the lm of a book I
loved, where the lm
was almost exactly what
it was in my minds eye.
So that makes Enemy
of the Worlda more
successful visualisationfor me than The Lord of
the Rings.
Of course, the episode itself has some
marvellous gems. The Doctor skipping on the
beach and looking for a bucket and spade I knew
well, but Marter neglected to mention that the
Doctor was in his long johns and clicking his
heels. Why, I have no idea.
The other thing that stands out about therediscovered visuals is that they wipe out
decades of fan speculation about when the
story is set. Fans have gone through tortured
reasoning to date this story, most concluding that
it could only happen somewhere around 2030
but there on the screen, the Doctor glances at a
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FRENEMY
sign
indicating that its almost 2018.(Later, we discover that its 2017 from a similar
visual, a newspaper someone holds up.)
What this shows, I think, is the degree to which
the missing episodes have turned us into DOCTOR
WHOarchaeologists. Weve tried to reconstruct
an entire city based on bits of pottery, some coins
and an intact wall. But then somebody came
along and dug up an entire village for us.
2. THE MONSTER SEASON
Prevailing wisdom had it that Season 5
was so great because it was the monster
season. Watching the non-ction guides of
the 90s trying to justify this through a variety
of circular arguments is rather amusing.
However, the charge stands: the Cybermen
are rmly established as the go-to villain of
the Troughton era; the Yeti and Ice Warriors are
both introduced, the former being so successful
that they warranted a return appearance in thesame season; and Fury from the Deepintroduces
the ultimate in DOCTORWHOmonster purity, a sea
creature that can only be defeated by screaming
at it.
Then there was poor old The Enemy of the
World, the country cousin of Season 5, forever
relegated to a footnote because it didnt have any
monsters in it.
And yet, Ive always been fascinated by the
story for that very reason. In a season so self-
consciously about the monsters, what was
up with this? Whats more, the two people
most responsible for this story are stalwarts
of DOCTORWHO. In his rst outing, Barry Letts
brings a world-ranging story to life on a limited
budget, largely by being terribly creative. The
lmed backdrop of Jamie walking down a path,followed by his emergence on screen a moment
later, is a triumph of inventiveness. You can see
Letts love aair with CSO starting here even
before the technology had been invented.
And then theres the writer.
The Enemy of the Worldisnt some anomaly by
a writer unfamiliar with DOCTORWHOproducing
an Underwater Menaceor a Sensorites. Instead,
it was written by David Whitaker, the series
original story editor and a man with a decent
claim to have created DOCTORWHOas we know
it. The best we could do was rationalise that
Whitaker had lost it, becoming the equivalent of
Terry Nation in the Pertwee era, writing a script
for a bygone age.
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FRENEMY
Except that Whitaker had introduced
Troughton and was responsible for the eras
denitive story in The Evil of the Daleksjust a few
months earlier. So what exactly was he doing
with this enormous mismatch?
3. EPISODE 3
Even more damning than
the lack of monsters was the
James Bond structure. The
idea that the series could
carry o a Bondian story, with
worldwide locations, actionand helicopters something
inimical to DOCTORWHOas we
understood it was laughable.
That the surviving episode was
the third, made on a budget
so poor that Denes has to be
guarded in a corridor and
featuring Grin the comedy chef, only lentcredence to this claim.
And yet, in context, Episode 3 works a lot
better. For one thing, they have an actual budget
in Episode 1. They dont just show a hovercraft,
they actually use it. And the helicopter both
lands on screen and then, crucially, is used for a
glorious tracking shot away from the beach. The
budgeting decisions become clear: if you were
going to make an expensive episode and a cheapone, where would you rather spend the money?
Any producer worth his salt would be spending
it on the rst episode. Its just happenstance that
vastly more people ended up seeing the cheap
one.
Whats more, Grin the chef is a superb
character. He adds verisimilitude to the story,
being someone who contributes nothing to the
plot but everything to the sense of the world hes
living in. Everyone else in the story is one of its
moving parts, but Grin exists solely to suggesta much larger world beyond the one they can
aord to lm. When Episode 3 was all they had,
he seemed like a frivolity, lling up way too
much screen time. But in context, we see that
Episode 3 is his only episode and that makes
Grin work the way he was originally supposed
to: as a pause in the drama for some comic relief
that simultaneously paints a much larger picture
4. TELESNAPS
Fan recreations of missing episodes used
the John Cura telesnaps (photos taken of
the TV screen) to get a sense of the visuals.
Unfortunately, no telesnaps were taken of
Episode 4, leaving us an episode without any
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FRENEMY
visuals. Attempts were made, including by the
BBC for their photonovel website, to recreate the
fourth episode based on photos from elsewhere
in the story. But thats an uphill battle.
So this was a story with a limited visual record.Which is something of a shame, as its the rst
DOCTORWHOstory broadcast on 625 lines rather
than 405, making it visually richer than its
predecessors.
Theres another important visual on display
too: Fariah is the rst black woman to appear
in a speaking role in DOCTORWHO. And, unlike
recent clichs such as Toberman (strong, silent,
intimidating) or Jamaica (the name speaks for
itself), shes a complex character who doesnt
fall into stereotype. Part of her success is in
the writing: unlike Toberman, Fariahs central
conceit isnt awed. Yes, shes a food-taster, but
shes bitter and cynical, giving as good as she
gets to all concerned. Even more impressively,
nobody bats an eyelid in her presence. And its
not just because this is the future either; look athow Troughton plays o Tobermans size to be
comically intimidated by the scary black man in
Tomb.
Another thing to note is that the story follows
a curious structure. Its made very clear that
Salamander must have something to do with
the volcanoes, yet its also clear that he cant beacting alone. So the obvious conclusion, if youve
just come from Britannicus Base, is that hes
the puppet of some enormous crabs intent on
destroying humanity, probably operating from
a secret underground base. Except thats almost
the complete opposite of whats going on. Even
better, where the cast is pleasingly cosmopolitan,
the underground inhabitants are all very British.
So its clear: the monsters are here after all and
theyre us.
5. AUDIO
Fans familiar with the audio noted that
Salamanders accent, originally hyped as a
perfect Mexican one, was rather odd. (Although,
as someone who grew up across several ponds, itsounds identical to the accents I hear in Breaking
Bad but Im prepared to acknowledge that
this may just be me.) And Rods
attempt at an Australian accent in
the rst episode is so laughably
hilarious, it took me several
minutes to gure out what he was
even attempting. Giles Kent is
clearly an Aussie, though. (Thenagain, it probably sounds like
Janet Fielding to the rest of you.)
But what people missed with
all this focus on Troughtons
voicework is just how white-hot
the intensity is. Troughton plays
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Salamander for all hes worth.
Its a tour de force thats so
convincing youll honestly
forget that youre watching
Patrick Troughton the actor, orthat Troughton also cameos in
the story as another character
entirely.
Actually, thats not fair.
Throughout the story,
Troughton has to play
Salamander, the Doctor,
the Doctor impersonating
Salamander and, nally, Salamander
impersonating the Doctor. He eortlessly makes
these four characters distinguishable from one
another, even working in the character point that
Salamander has no idea what the Doctor sounds
like and therefore impersonates him without
speaking a word.
6. THE REDISCOVERED STORY
Id like to quote a few very pleasing facts: a)
there are now more Patrick Troughton stories in
existence than not; b) so much of Season 5 now
exists that you can almost do a marathon; and
c) more episodes were returned to the fans on
11 October 2013 than had been returned in the
previous 22 years put together.
This means that those lm cans sat on a shelfin a television station in Jos, Nigeria, suering
heat, indierence and the threat of disposal for
almost forty years. It took the dedication of one
fan, Phil Morris, to actually locate them, but it
also took the BBC to manage their return and
then distribution in a manner that would have
been unthinkable to David Whitaker or Patrick
Troughton: they were released simultaneously
on iTunes, becoming the top ten most
downloaded television.
And so, in October 2013, the news came
through that the miracle had happened again:
for the rst time since 1991, an entire story
had been returned to the archives. And oh
what a thing of beauty it is! Visually rich andcosmopolitan, its a story that justies having the
word World in the title.
The problem with the monster season, of
course, is blindingly obvious: all the stories are
the same. Bases under siege, unstable leaders,
shambling monsters, screaming companions.
Only one story dares to swim against the tide,
inverting the formula and showing us that
what matters is not John Levene dressed in
a lumbering costume but rigorous scripting,
white-hot acting and inventive direction. So
instead of being the country cousin of Season
5, The Enemy of the Worldstands head and
shoulders over its compatriots as a testament to
whatDOCTORWHOcan do when it pulls out all
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FRENEMY
the stops.
Something else has happened as a result: we
now have the democratisation of The Enemy of
the World. No longer relegated to inaccessible
or confusing formats, the story is nowavailable for everyone to enjoy
its delights and judge it for
themselves.
My own judgement is
this: David Whitaker
was the Robert
Holmes of the 60s.
Here was a man
who wrote seven
and a half stories
for DOCTORWHO,
every one of
which was entirely
dierent from
the others. Yet the
majority of them are
rich and sumptuous,with a structure to die
for.
Here, the premise is clear
from the outset: DOCTORWHO
is going to crash into a James Bond
story. But as soon as it does, the stakes
are raised, because the Doctor looks like the
villain. So youre desperate for them to have a
confrontation at the climax. Except that, along
the way, Salamander proves himself a master of
the narrative by exiting one plot and reappearing
in a much more dangerous one. And then we
get the nal showdown in a way that interrupts
the narrative again, because Salamander does
something no other villain has managed: he
penetrates the TARDIS. And so his fate is
even more horric than anything weve yet
encountered. This is a masterclass in giving the
audience not only what they want, but what they
didnt even know they wanted.Whitaker died in 1980, partway
through writing the original
version of this storys
novelisation. The Enemy
of the Worldmight
have been a forgotten
story, but that was
something he clearly
wanted to rectify.
Little could he
have known that it
would eventually
be returned and
stand as a tribute
to three giants of
DOCTORWHO: Patrick
Troughton the actor,Barry Letts the director
and David Whitaker the
writer.
But dont take my word for it.
See it for yourself. Thanks to a man
named Phil Morris, a restoration team that
kept its secrets for years and the decision of the
BBC to release the story on iTunes for everyone to
enjoy, the entire world can once again enjoy one
of the truly greatDOCTORWHOstories of the 60s.
Just in time for 2017 to almost be here for real.
ROBERT SMITH? has reconstructed this
review from archives recovered from the
war-torn ruins of Calgary in the year 2064
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This story ha
been built
up to nearmythologicheightsinfans eyes.
Love aMons
Te Deb of
EVENTProgrammingDOCTORWHO: The Web of Fear
Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines,
Deborah Watling, Nicholas Courtney,
Jack Watling
Written by Mervyn Haisman and
Henry Lincoln
Directed by Douglas Camfield
Broadcast 3 February 9 March 1968
iTunes release: 11 October 2013
Its difficult to write about TheWeb of Fear, the story, withoutwriting about The Web of Fear,
the event. While perhaps not the holy grail
ofMarco Poloor The Myth Makers, The Web of Fear
was one of the lost stories we might never have
seen again thanks to the BBCs draconian wiping
policy of the 1960s and 1970s. (The story of howthis travesty occurred is old news to DOCTOR
WHOfans, but if youre interested in a fascinating
look at the loss and rediscovery of many of those
episodes, grab a copy of Wiped!: Doctor Whos
Missing Episodesby Richard Molesworth.)
Despite swirling
rumours of episode
caches in attics
and dusty Africantelevision stations,
further fuelled
by the occasional
discovery of single
episodes as late
as 2011, most fans
didnt holdout hope of
a signicant
discovery. The
rumour mill
notwithstanding, most
of us felt we had found
all there was to nd.
When it was announced
in October 2013 thatnine Patrick Troughton
episodes had in fact
been found in a dusty
Nigerian television
station and that they
would be available to watch almost immediately,
its not an understatement that fandom went a
little crazy. The fact that they would be releaseddigitally through iTunes at the same time across
the globe was an unprecedented and savvy
move on the part of the BBC that had us near
giddy with delight. We were truly living in the
future and it was glorious.
Now, I have a
slightly dierent
relationship to this
story than longtimeDOCTORWHOfans. I
know, youre tired
of hearing me say I
didnt start watching
until 2005, but
think about it. The
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EVENT PROGRAMMING
whole oeuvre of classicWHOdidnt hit my frontal
cortex until late 2005 at the earliest, the early, early
episodes even later. The idea that whole episodes
were simply missing didnt hit my radar until at
least 2006. So, realistically, Ive only missed these
things for seven years. Sure, there was an ache, butin more of a completist sort of way. For lifelong
DOCTORWHOfans, it was more akin to the pain of a
phantom limb. And yet, as aDOCTORWHOfan (no
qualier necessary), I was just as caught up in the
excitement of the iTunes release, just as eagerly
watching the clock tick down to 12:00 a.m. GMT,
ngers paused on the iTunes purchase button.
So it almost seems mean and ungenerousto hold this shiny, shiny thing up to the same
review standards as you would The Day of the
Doctoror even The Bells of St John. Doesnt it
deserve a bit more consideration?
Well, yes and no.
As a phenomenon, it was darn near perfect.
The BBC created an event guaranteed to generate
excitement and not inconsiderable cash ow.
Who would have ever imagined that two nearlyancient black-and-white television programs
would hold the number 1 and 2 spots on the US
iTunes charts for days? Releasing the episodes
immediately on iTunes as opposed to waiting
for a DVD release saved them time and money,
allowed unprecedented access and helped whip
50th Anniversary Fever into a veritable froth.
As someone far, far from the lights of London,
I have to add that there arent nearly enough
words to describe the lilting magic of the phrase
universal release. Even the dodgy middle bit,where the footage had not been recovered and
we reverted back to narration and lm stills,
was forgiven in the giddy excitement of seeing
the Yeti at Charing Cross station, Anne Travers
delicious snark and the warm interaction
between Jamie and Victoria.
As a story, it was not bad. A classic base under
siege with surprise Yeti, bonus Alistair Lethbridge-
Stewart and a rare opportunity to see Jamie and
Victoria getting their companion on. The story
itself was only held together with a tangential bit
of logic and there is a limit to how much gurning
from Driver Evans that viewers should be expected
to tolerate. The paper-thin story was, however,
elevated to something a little more special by
the exemplary sets and clever camerawork (the
underground sets were so convincing, in fact, it isalleged that London Transport sent a letter to the
BBC complaining of unauthorised lming). The
artful shots give a convincing sense of the growing
claustrophobia that pairs nicely with the more
open shots, devoid of civilians, above ground. The
creeping sense of paranoia as to which character
was in league with the Great Intelligence was
executed awlessly through a combination of
lingering camera shots and savvy acting choices.
All in all, it was a nice, solid, middle-of-the-
road story as opposed to the world-breaker that
fans had anticipated. To be fair, The Web of Fear
suered more from heightened expectations than
it did mediocre storytelling. This was a story that
had been built up to near mythological heights in
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EVENT PROGRAMMING
fans eyes. Childhood images of Yeti in Charing
Cross had practically been woven into a section of
DOCTORWHOfandoms DNA. Even Mark Gatiss,
DOCTORWHOwriter and superfan, said, Its the
quintessentialDOCTORWHOstory, the most Britishthing you could ever imagine. That, right there,
is the very denition of big shoes to ll.
Even if the celebratory balloon was a bit
deated, there were still some nice surprises that
stills and audio simply could not convey. This
bit of conversation between Anne Travers and
Captain Knight, at rst glance, seems benign:
Knight: Whats a girl like you doing in a job like
this?
Anne: Well, when I was a little girl I thought Id
like to be a scientist, so I became a scientist.
Knight: Just like that?
Anne: Just like that.
Combined with the body language and
camerawork, this scene moves from benign to arather delicious interplay that feels fresh and a
little sly. It was a nice contrast to Victorias more
clinging performance. Yet Victoria was also a bit
of a revelation in this episode. Not a favourite
companion, Id often dismissed her character as
one of the weaker in the companion pantheon
[compantheon? Ed.]. But her distress and
willingness to move beyond her terror and fear
to save Jamie is a shining example that strong
is more than a physical trait and brave can be
dened as simply doing what you fear the most.
It gave me a new insight into her character that I
look forward to exploring further.
Finally, the character of Chorley resonated
strongly with a modern audience. Living in
a world where every political stumble is a
soundbite and journalist is dened as anyone
with a smartphone, the smarmy character seemed
only a slight step away from cable news pundits
willing to betray any sense of morality for a
headline. You could lift this character whole cloth
and plop him into the middle of any modern WHO
story, and it wouldnt cause a ripple.
Maybe The Web of Feardoes deserve a little
leeway. It was the perfect story at the perfect time:
it was revered, had the distinction of introducing
an iconic character, was oh so very British and was
gifted to us during a year in which DOCTORWHO
was a regular feature in the news cycles around
the globe. The BBC could not have orchestrated its
release more perfectly even if it had been sitting on
those lm canisters for years (that is a throwawaypithy comment, not a Missing Episode Conspiracy
Theory; simmer down, people!). So, yes. The Web
of Fear, the story, and The Web of Fear, the event, are
both worth the eort. Just like that.
DEBORAH STANISH wonders
whats this red button do?
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[Robert
Holmes] kne
he was being
appraised, b
he didntknow why
EnlightenConversati
Graeme
The
HINCHCLIFFE
YEARSI
havent done an interview for
Enlightenmentsince I left aseditor in 2010. But when Philip
Hinchclie was at the Gallifrey One Convention
in Los Angeles in 2013, I thought it might be time
to temporarily abandon my retirement.
From 1974-1977, Hinchclie was producer ofwhat was arguably one of DOCTORWHOs golden
ages: a three-year run in which, working with
script editor Robert Holmes and Tom Bakers
Doctor, a string of undisputed classics emerged
including The Ark in Space, Genesis of the Daleks,
Pyramids of Mars, The Seeds of Doom, The Deadly
Assassin, The Robots of Deathand The Talons of
Weng-Chiang.I approached this interview with remarkable
nervousness. For me,
Philip is to DOCTOR
WHOwhat George
Martin is to the Beatles
(curiously, both are
rather articulate gures
who speak the QueensEnglish uently!). But
Philip was very friendly.
By the time I got out my
recorder and started it,
the conversation was
already underway.
Philip started by asking about my own
background and how I became a fan ofDOCTOR
WHO. I told him about discovering Pyramids of Mars
as a 14-year-old. And I shared that not long after
discoveringDOCTORWHO, I discovered something
else Philip was responsible for (without knowing
he was the producer): the 1981 historical comedy
Private Schulz. This delighted Philip, who was
pleased that a 14-year-old would love Private
Schulz, one of his favourite TV productions.
Thanks to Cameron Dixons thoroughtranscription, you get a lovely sense of the actual
conversation as it took place. Its only been
moderately edited to take out some ums and ahs
And so we begin, in media res, talking about
the aegis of Private Schulzand its connection to
another lm...
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HINCHCLIFFE YEARS
>> Hinchclife: when the Nazis
>> Graeme: Oh, To Be or Not To Be.
>> H:I thought that was the title. It is, isnt it?
>> G:Yeah, yeah.
>> H:Youve seen that?
>> G:Yeah.
>> H:Well, when I was producing [Private
Schulz] when we were planning the show
and thinking about how to do it we were
referred to that, and had a look at that. I
mean, that was one of the best sort of tips we
had, really, cause it kind of showed you that
you could be almost serious and funny at thesame time, and just have this slow burn of
sort of humour.
>> G:Yeah, yeah. We were helped also by the
fact that I dont know if you were ever
able to seeMasterpiece Theater, but it was an
anthology format that
>> H:Oh, yeah. A lot of my shows went into
Masterpiece Theater.
>> G:Thats right. So you had Alistair Cooke
sort of guiding you through the minutiae of
[the bizarreness of a German spy] wearing
plus fours and trying and go to a pub at 2:00
in the afternoon, all that sort of stu. So you
sort of were nudged in the right direction,
so you kind of had that to help you along.
I hadnt thought about the
Lubitsch inuence, but I
can see it now that youve
mentioned it. It was yeah, I
love Private Schulz.>> H:Id love you to
mention that, because I dont
often come across people
who can remember watching
that, and its one of my most favourite
productions.
>> G:I actually went to the trouble of nding it
on PAL VHS when I was in my 20s, cause I
adored it so much as a kid.
>> H:Somebody uploaded somebody on
YouTube uploaded I dont know whether
its still on, but they uploaded the early part
of the rst episode, which was based on the
Venlo Incident and they uploaded it onto
YouTube.
>> G:Oh. Wow. I should look that up.
>> H:I think, if you I think if you Google what happened was, if you Google me, its
not there now, but if you Googled me a few
years ago, someone had kind of made this
link, and so it took you to that, but its gone.
>> G:Oh. Well, Ive been a big follower of your
career, so Im almost very, very tongue-
tied, like some people are around actors. I
guess my rst question was sort of a question
about, how much did you know about
DOCTORWHOgoing in? Had you watched the
show in the 60s? You were just going into
university shortly after
>> H:Yeah, Ive just answered that in a way up
there, which is that no, I didnt really see it at
all. So as I said just now, I was lucky enough
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HINCHCLIFFE YEARS
to have enough time to sort of watch a bit
and pick up the folklore of it. I mean, I kind
of was aware of it you know, it wasnt a
show that I watched and so I kind of did
my homework a bit before I took over. So theanswer is, Id seen very little.
>> G:So when you took over, did you were
you able to call up any tapes or lms and go
watch them, or did you just
>> H:Oh, yeah.
>> G:Were you watching mostly Jon Pertwees
episodes that Barry Letts had done, or was it
just sort of
>> H:Yes yeah, I think so. Cause I think
I remember seeing the rst episode with
Hartnell, and I probably had seen a few
minutes of Patrick Troughton, the sort of
thing that you Oh, thats on, and you
watch it for a bit and you get a feel for it.
>> G:So what was your assessment of it, sort of
watching those episodes of Pertwee? What
was your initial reaction to it?>> H:Well, I think my reaction was it was a very
grooved show. It was a format that worked,
a very unusual format that worked, but there
was a back-history, a folklore to it that you
had to sort of be cognisant of and not play
around with too much, because there was this
ready-made audience that sort of knew the
show and was sort of gradually moving on.
I felt that it was well-made, that Barry Letts
had done a lot with the new toys of [Colour
Separation] Overlay, and the new lightweight
cameras were coming in, electronic cameras
and stu, and so it was a very well-run
successful show. And its lovely to inherit a
well-run, successful show. So that was my
rst feeling. In terms of the content, I did a lot
of reading of science ction, science fantasy,
and just generally had my own sense of all
that. Which I realised I didnt know much
about science ction, its a bit patchy. But Ihad read, as a very young boy, quite a lot,
funnily enough, without realising it. I was a
bit precocious.
>> G:Its also said that you had taken in a fair
chunk of literary SF.
>> H:Yeah, yeah, and I mean, Ive mentioned
this before, but my childhood was listening
to radio and things like [1950s BBC Radio
drama]Journey into Space. And the producer
of that has only just died, Charles Chilton,
who was a sort of eminent radio producer.
So I decided that what I thought could
change was that they did a lot of invasion of
Earth stories, cause its cheap to shoot lm
on the real street, and I thought, well, that
was getting maybe a little tired; you know,
we could change that formula. And I thoughtthat I wanted to make it a little bit more I
suppose realistic is the wrong word, but
more compelling, I suppose.
>> G:The other thing that Ive always noticed
about your episodes is that you had a real
interest in the directors, and how they were
directed, and how they were shot. And you
can sort of see you know, I love Barrys
DOCTORWHO, but its very bright, its very
colourful, its very at lit, and suddenly
theres lots of very sort of the camera
the lmwork is much more polished and
the studio lighting is much Was that a
conscious choice?
>> H:Very conscious. In fact, Ive just read a
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HINCHCLIFFE YEARS
book that somebody wrote about my era, and
I was reminded of a remark that Id forgotten
that Tom made. He said you know, like
lm noir, he said our era was WHOnoir, and
I think thats a great description of what youtalked about, which is the Yeah, so, exactly
that. Youre the rst person whos really ever
picked up on that, and its
very Im so pleased that
you have done, because
that was specically
what I wanted to do. I
wanted to move away
from that bright lit, these
are sets, these are the
people in