Derrick Sherwin

I was sorry to hear of the death of Derrick Sherwin today. He was script editor during the latter part of the Patrick Troughton era, before becoming producer of Doctor Who for a short period. His passing leaves only one of the "Classic Era" series producers still with us - Philip Hinchcliffe.
He started off as an actor, with small roles in film and TV throughout the 1950's and early '60's. His Equity Card allowed him to take on the small role of the commissionaire in the UNIT car park in Spearhead From Space, after the extra hired proved unsuitable, and I'm sure he is one of the comatose victims of the Cyber-Hypnotic signal in The Invasion.
He was always a joy to listen to or watch on the DVD commentaries and documentaries for the stories he was involved with, as he was always pretty forthright in his views and told it like it was.
He joined the programme as script editor on The Dominators, at a time when the show was in a state of crisis. Troughton was very unhappy with the scripts, and with the working conditions in general. Sherwin did not like the Lincoln / Haisman story, and he had the final two episodes rewritten to become one, greatly upsetting the writers and potentially having them block the story being broadcast all together. With the series now an episode short, Sherwin stepped in and wrote the first part of The Mind Robber - an episode which is widely regarded as one of the best of the era.
It was Sherwin who decided to restructure the programme to make it more Earthbound, building on the Doctor's relationship with the military as seen in The Web of Fear. He wrote The Invasion, from some ideas put forward by Kit Pedler, and so introduced the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce - promoting Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart from the Yeti story to Brigadier. The plan was that stories set on contemporary (or near future) Earth would be cheaper but this did not quite pan out - The Invasion ending up quite an expensive story to produce. He is on record as saying that "jellies in outer space" did not really interest him, and he didn't think the viewers were that keen either.
The final year for Troughton saw a number of scripts go down, sometimes very late in the day. Things weren't helped by Frazer Hines' changing his mind about when he was going to leave the programme. Sherwin's assistant, Terrance Dicks, was nurturing a story by Robert Holmes which had been rejected by another series, and this became The Krotons. Dicks was then asked to do some serious rewrites to The Seeds of Death, with Sherwin becoming producer in all but name. This was the last story of the B&W era to feature alien creatures, partly due to cost. A planned story about a planet dominated by women was mercifully dropped, and Robert Holmes stepped into the breach with his space western The Space Pirates. Sherwin then officially became the producer. With no scripts left in the pile, and 10 episodes left to fill, he commissioned Dicks to write the massive The War Games to see out the incumbent Doctor and the B&W phase of the show. Dicks turned to his old friend and mentor (and one-time landlord) Malcolm Hulke to co-write.
As well as creating UNIT, Sherwin was responsible for the creation of the Time Lords, and the whole backstory for the Doctor which underpins the series to this day.
With the series under threat, Sherwin was also working on replacement ideas, including one revolving around an RAF base in the Far East. Once it was known that the series would continue into colour, Sherwin took the decision to have the Doctor exiled to Earth and working alongside UNIT full time. He cast Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor. Pertwee was unhappy to learn, on his first day in the job, that the man who had given him the role was leaving. Before he went, Sherwin saved Spearhead From Space when it was threatened by a strike - making it entirely on film and on location. Had he been allowed to make the entire series in this way, he may have fought to stay on the show, but he was reassigned to help the struggling Paul Temple series, and his replacement was Barry Letts.
As it was, Sherwin only ever produced two Doctor Who stories, but they were key ones, and his role as script editor was a significant one for the history of the programme.
Unafraid to be controversial, he became quite bitter towards the series in recent years, complaining about a lack of recognition for his contributions in his final DWM interview. I think he had a point.

Arachnids in the UK - A Review

A lot of people who do not normally watch Doctor Who will have tuned into tonight's episode following the buzz which surrounded last week's Rosa, expecting to see more of the same. What they got was a much more traditional Doctor Who story. Rosa was great, but you simply can't deliver that kind of story on a regular basis.
I was reasonably happy with this episode, despite being a terrible arachnophobe. Three things stopped it being great for me, though.
The first was the character of the Trump-like businessman, Jack Robertson. I say character, but he was little more than a caricature of a nasty businessman. He sacks Yaz's mum, seemingly on a whim in the first few minutes, then has his assistant draw a gun on her and Yaz soon after. (Yaz is a police officer, let's not forget, but does she mention this at all?). Characters such as this usually get their comeuppance by the end, but Robertson is left alive and well, and potentially a future POTUS. Which brings me to another dislike - the ending. Everything was wrapped up a little too easily and quickly for my liking, with too many threads left dangling like so many spiders' webs.
The smaller spiders get lured into a room to be left to perish eventually, whilst the mother beast is dying anyway from its enlarged size, but Robertson shoots it dead. (The shooting is set up as if to say this character is bad, but actually it was a mercy killing. Was the Doctor going to just stand there whilst it slowly suffocated to death?). He walks off, and there is no mention of any consequences for his having built his hotel on top of dumped waste from one of his own companies. There is no mention of any other spiders still out there in the city, or even about how the waste dump is dealt with to prevent any more mutants being created. It's as if this part of the story has just switched off, because they need a few minutes of the run time to get the new companions to turn up at the TARDIS wanting to continue their travels with the Doctor, who has clearly been hoping for this since she dropped them all back home at the start.

The third thing that bugged me was the level of coincidence going on. We are told that the spiders have spread out across the city, and can see this on a map, yet the only ones we see just happen to be at Graham's house, and next door to Yaz's home. Apart from a bit of exposition, there is nothing to suggest that this is a city-wide problem. Then there was the fact that Yaz's mum just happened to be at the place where the spiders originated, and the hotel owner just happened to be the sort of person who had a panic room, full of weapons, and assistants who carried guns.
So, apart from some plotting issues, and the cartoon businessman, there was much to commend the episode. Hearing that Yaz's family were to feature, I was quite worried that their inclusion might pull the story more towards soap, with the actual spider business sidelined, but this was not the case. We met Yaz's dad and sister only briefly, and her mum just happened to be already at the hotel from whence the spiders came anyway, this being where she was supposed to work. I thought they were rather pleasant myself, and nothing like how Yaz seemed to be describing them in The Ghost Monument. It looks like it might be Yaz who has the problem, with no friends and certainly no partner, if her mother doesn't even know if she likes boys or girls.
There was a little more bonding between Graham and Ryan, but this took place as the action unfolded - so the story wasn't stopped in its tracks to make room for it. It was also nice to see Grace back again, if only in Graham's mind as he faced up to the ghost of her presence in his house.
I've no idea of the order this season's stories were recorded in, but Jodie Whittaker seemed a lot more settled in the role. I loved the Ed Sheeran jokes.
The spiders themselves were very well realised, and once again the cinematography was first class.
I wasn't impressed with the disco-lights Vortex at first, but it looked better on second viewing.
I am definitely missing the pre-credits teaser scenes. A big mistake in leaving these out I think, and I also miss the throw forward trailer forming part of the closing credits.
Mind you, next week's trailer was incredibly weak. There was nothing about it which would make you want to tune in. Good job I am a fan and will be watching anyway, but you can't say that for everyone.

Inspirations - The Ark in Space

There are some really complicated histories behind a number of Doctor Who stories, and The Ark in Space can certainly be counted among these.
This story marks the debut of Philip Hinchcliffe as Producer on the show. We've already mentioned that he has been shadowing Barry Letts for a while, but one thing he has not been able to do is influence the shape of his own first season. Letts and Terrance Dicks had already commissioned the stories that would make up Season 12. In planning this, they have taken into account the popularity of Jon Pertwee. He had been Doctor for longer than either of his two predecessors, and his casting had led to a huge upturn in the ratings. Concerned that his replacement might struggle to make an impact initially, they have loaded the new season with returning favourite monsters. The Sontarans are going to be back for a rapid rematch, following the success of The Time Warrior. Robert Holmes is now fully in place as Script Editor, so their tale will be written by the Bristol Boys - Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who can be trusted to deliver something challenging. The Daleks are naturally going to be present, as Terry Nation is still committed to providing one story per year at this point. And the Cybermen will be back. They were going to be included in Frontier in Space, but the costumes were found to be in a poor state and there wasn't enough money for new ones. Though it will eventually be held over to the next season, new writer for the programme Robert Banks Stewart will be producing an adventure set in his native land, featuring the Loch Ness Monster.
The final slot was initially going to be a contribution by Christopher Langley called "The Space Station", which was quickly deemed unworkable.
The remaining four episodes were then offered to one of the series' veterans - John Lucarotti. He had provided three scripts for the Hartnell run - Marco Polo, The Aztecs and The Massacre, after being promised a three story deal. The problem was, however, that the last of these stories had not been his version. The then script editor Donald Tosh had disliked his submission, and had come up with his own page-one rewrite. Lucarotti had made contact with Letts and Dicks through Moonbase 3, which is how he came to be invited back after such a long absence.

Lucarotti was asked to come up with a story set on a space ark. This was not a new concept for the programme, there having previously been the story now known as The Ark, by Paul Erickson and his partner Lesley Scott, which was broadcast in March 1966. Hinchliffe, Letts and Holmes would have known about this as Gerry Davis noted when he visited the BBC to discuss his Cyberman story that a system he introduced when he was script editor was still in place. This was a wall-chart in the production office covering every story produced so far, with a brief synopsis and an illustrative photo. The intention behind this was to avoid repetition of a previously used idea. The new team obviously thought that this was a concept worth revisiting, and enough time had elapsed since it was last employed.
The story which Lucarotti submitted involved alien spores infesting a space ark, which would accumulate into large balls. Their heads floated around on discs (not unlike what Terry Gilliam later had in his Baron Munchausen film with the King and Queen of the Moon). Having spent very little time living in the UK, and not seeing Doctor Who for years, Lucarotti gave each episode its own title - each with the word "ball" in it - e.g. "Puffball". The Doctor would have whacked the spore-balls into space with a golf club at the conclusion. Hinchcliffe and Holmes were not at all impressed, but there was a problem as far as rewrites were concerned. Lucarotti was living on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean, and was virtually uncontactable. The decision was made to reject the scripts but, with time running out, there was no chance to offer the slot to anyone else. Holmes therefore decided to write the story himself. The BBC disliked script editors commissioning their own work, for fear of antagonising the Writers' Guild, but Hinchliffe was able to argue the case for an exception due to the time frame, the importance of this being Tom Baker's first season as the new Doctor, and the fact that Holmes was the person best placed to know the series and come up with something workable.

The Pertwee seasons had comprised a large number of six part stories, which Holmes disliked as he felt they needed a lot of padding. He advocated splitting them, narratively, into two and four episode sections. Bearing this in mind, he and Hinchcliffe discussed making two totally separate stories out of the budget for one six-parter. To save money, the main set for one of these would be reused in a third story - which would be Davis' Cyberman adventure.
Generally, each story was set up to include a small amount of filming, followed by a longer block of studio work. The length of the story determined how many days of filming was available, and how many studio days. This filming wasn't necessarily location work - it could be model filming. Previous producers had split this allocation across whole seasons, so that some stories might be entirely studio based (usually alien planets like Peladon), with the filming allocation given to another story (contemporary Earth set, or on a quarry-like planet). Apart from some visual effects filming, The Ark in Space would be an entirely studio bound four-parter, whilst its filming allocation would be given over to the Sontaran story, which was to be recorded entirely on location, and would only be two episodes long.

Whilst The Ark had dealt with the destruction of Earth in the far distant future, with the human race setting off to found a new society on another planet, Holmes' story featured an ark which was more of a lifeboat. The Earth was only temporarily uninhabitable, and the people were up in a space station in suspended animation, orbiting the planet until the time was right to recolonise. However, an alien had got on board and messed up their alarm clock, making them oversleep. The story naturally set itself up as a base-under-siege sort of tale - something which the programme hadn't done for quite a while.
Another idea which Hinchcliffe and Holmes came up with for the season was a story arc. We mentioned these not long ago, when considering the whole Pertwee era from Terror of the Autons through to Planet of the Spiders. The Season 12 arc would be much more explicit. Robot had seen the Doctor leave UNIT HQ with Sarah, and they had invited Harry Sullivan along for the ride. This story begins immediately following that one - with Harry having tampered with the controls of the TARDIS to send them into the far future, instead of the planned quick trip to the Moon and back. At the conclusion of the story, the Doctor would have to visit the Earth to repair the transmat for the awakening humans, and he elects to leave the TARDIS behind and use the transmat to pop down. Using the machine to get back to the Ark, he and his companions would be hijacked by the Time Lords and deposited on Skaro, to face the Daleks. Given a Time Ring to get back to the Ark and the waiting TARDIS, they would then arrive much too early, when the station was a navigation beacon. This would be the Cyberman story, at the end of which the TARDIS would be sent back through time to meet them, and there would be a message from the Brigadier summoning them back to Earth for the season's final story - the one set around Loch Ness. UNIT would therefore top and tail the season, and Harry could stay behind and become a single season companion - no longer needed as they had gone with a younger Doctor than the one originally envisaged.

When Holmes had been interviewed by the 6th Floor for his new post, he had been told about some silly writer who had once included killer policemen and murderous dolls in Doctor Who, which had caused some controversy. He was naturally bemused by this, that writer being himself. Letts and Dicks had shied away from horror elements after Terror of the Autons but Holmes loved this sort of thing, and found a kindred spirit in his new producer. Hinchcliffe wanted to aim the series at a more adult demographic, and away from it being seen as a children's show. We will be talking about Horror influences a lot over the next batch of these posts, and Holmes' particular obsession with "body-horror". The two main themes of this are mental possession, and people being physically taken over, their bodies mutating and transforming. Holmes sets out his stall early here, with the character of Noah, leader of the sleeping humans. Even before he gets bitten by a Wirrn larva, his mind has already been tampered with and a psychic link created with the insectoid interlopers. He then begins to physically as well as mentally mutate, his flesh becoming green and lumpen like the larva's. It should be noted that bubble-wrap was very new when this story was made, so at the time it looked particularly effective. Having Noah become a Wirrn also works on a dramatic level, as it gives the Doctor someone to converse and debate with.
One thing which is missing is Holmes' trademark comedic double act. Instead we get the single character of Rogin, who seems totally out of place in this society - a down to earth, bloke next door, personality surrounded by people who seem emotionally sterile.

One of the inspirations for the Wirrn is mentioned within the dialogue. They lay their eggs inside living creatures, which are then consumed by the larvae when they hatch. The Doctor refers to the Eumenes wasp. Also known as Potter or Mason wasps, because they fashion mud nests for themselves, this genus of vespidae is named after a Greek general who fought alongside Alexander the Great. After Alexander's death his generals fought a series of internecine wars and split up his kingdom. Eumenes spent his last few years under siege, which is presumably why his name came to be associated with the wasp family - he had sealed himself up. The Royal Navy frigate which Harry mentions does not exist.
Whilst he was happy with Roger Murray-Leach's designs for this story, Hinchcliffe was very disappointed with the Wirrn costumes.
It has been said that The Ark in Space can be counted as one of the inspirations for Ridley Scott's breakout movie Alien. This is due to the creature planting its young in a human host, as well as the base-under-siege format and the picking off of crew members one by one. If that is the case, then one of The Ark in Space's forebears might well be 1958's It! The Terror From Beyond Space, which is definitely an inspiration for Alien (as is Mario Bava's 1965 movie Planet of the Vampires). The former has an alien stowaway on a spacecraft, picking off crew, and includes some classic ventilation shaft action. Scott claimed he knew neither film, but give them a go and you will spot so many references. It! is free to view on dailymotion, and Vampires is on You Tube, though both have had recent Blu-ray releases.
Next time: Sontarans become Doctor Who's new Nazis, and Tom Baker is having a cracking time out on location...

G is for... Ganatus

An adventurous young Thal, encountered by the Doctor and his companions on the planet Skaro. He was a lot more proactive than many of the more conservative members of his race, and was instrumental in getting his people to assist the time-travellers when they became trapped on the planet, after leaving a vital TARDIS component in the Dalek city. He realised that an attack could be made via the Lake of Mutations, on the far side of the city, despite having experienced the horrors which dwelt there. He led the expedition to break into the city by this dangerous route, accompanied by Ian and Barbara, and by his more timid younger brother Antodus. Ganatus was fiercely protective of Antodus, so was angered when he wanted to abandon the rest of the party and turn back. When a rockfall put an end to this plan, Ganatus was prepared to claim that his brother had actually saved him from it. Later, he witnessed Antodus' death when he fell into a chasm. The journey brought Ganatus and Barbara closer together, and he seemed to hope that she would remain with him on Skaro after the Daleks had been defeated. Barbara clearly had some affection towards him, but she left in the TARDIS with the others, after he had given her a gift of some cloth with which to make a new dress.

Played by: Philip Bond. Appearances: The Daleks (1963/4).

G is for... Games Controller

A young woman who processed all of the many TV channels operating out of the Game Station - the space station which had broadcast news 100 years before as Satellite 5. She had been installed there as a child, physically linked to the systems and living almost her entire life in the darkness of the control room at the top of the station, on Floor 500. She knew that the station was really under the control of the Daleks, and when the Doctor and his companions, Rose and Captain Jack, were brought she endeavoured to conceal them within the games.  When the broadcasts were temporarily suspended due to solar flare activity, she tried to inform the Doctor of the threat, but the Daleks transmated her away to the Emperor's command ship, where they exterminated her.

Played by: Martha Cope. Appearances: Bad Wolf (2005).

• Martha is the daughter of actor Kenneth Cope, best known for playing the ghost detective Marty Hopkirk, in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). He featured in the 1981 Doctor Who story Warriors' Gate.

G is for... Galloway

Dan Galloway was a member of the Marine Space Corps mission to the planet of Exxilon. They had come to obtain supplies of the mineral Parrinium, which was needed to combat a terrible space plague. A bluff Scotsman, he could be devious and temperamental. His commander - Stewart - did not trust him to take over the mission on his death, but Galloway decided to keep this fact from his colleagues and took control once Stewart died from his wounds. He immediately attempted to forge an alliance with the Daleks, who had come to the planet for the same reasons. He angered his colleagues by agreeing to hand over the Doctor to the Daleks in order to obtain the mineral. Once the Daleks armed themselves with weapons which were not affected by the power drain coming from the Exxilon city, Galloway found that he was as much a prisoner as the others. He and Lt. Hamilton were despatched to climb the energy-draining beacon atop the city and plant bombs. Galloway kept one of the explosives back, and later smuggled himself aboard the Dalek ship - blowing it up, with himself still aboard, before it could fire plague missiles onto the planet.

Played by: Duncan Lamont. Appearances: Death to the Daleks (1974).

• Lamont had played the doomed astronaut Victor Caroon in the original BBC serial of The Quatermass Experiment. 14 years later he played the drill expert Sladden in the Hammer movie version of Quatermass and the Pit.
• He had just completed location filming on an episode of Blake's 7 - "Hostage" - when he died of a heart attack. As he had not recorded any of the studio work, the part was recast - with John Abineri, who just happened to star alongside him in this Dalek story.

G is for... Galleia

Galleia was the wife of King Dalios, and Queen of Atlantis. She was much younger than her husband, and had taken a young nobleman named Hippias as a lover. When the Master appeared in the city Galleia switched her attentions to him. He had brought back the missing High Priest Krassis, and spoke of restoring Atlantis to its former glory. The Master seduced her, and on his recommendation she sent Hippias on a reckless mission to steal the Great Crystal of Kronos from the Temple of Poseidon, where it was guarded by a Minotaur. This resulted in the young man's death. Galleia then assisted the Master in staging a coup, taking him as her new consort. When the Doctor and Jo Grant revealed that the old king had died in the palace dungeons, Galleia turned against the Master - as she had not wished her husband harmed. However, the Master released the captive Chronovore Kronos, and it destroyed Atlantis. Galleia perished in its ruins.

Played by: Ingrid Pitt. Appearances: The Time Monster (1972).

• Pitt was an old friend of Jon Pertwee's, having worked with him on the Amicus horror anthology movie The House That Dripped Blood - both playing horror actors who become vampires. The self-styled Queen of Scream, she had appeared in a number of horror movies, including The Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula and The Wicker Man.
• She returned to Doctor Who in the Peter Davison story Warriors of the Deep, when she requested a change of roles - preferring the smaller part of villainous Dr Solow to the more substantial role of Preston. The notorious judo moves she makes on the Myrka were her own idea.
• Just after this appearance, she and her husband Tony Rudlin submitted a story idea to the programme - "The Macros". It wasn't commissioned, though an audio version was produced by Big Finish in 2010, the year of her death.