Patrick Troughton almost made his first appearance in Doctor Who today in 1966, had he agreed to play the title role of Johnny Ringo in the third episode of The Gunfighters. As it was, the role went to Laurence Payne - the first of his three appearances, the last of which was in Troughton's final story.
The 2005 series continued with Father's Day, one of only two stories written by Paul Cornell, which is a surprise. He seems to mainly write comic strips these days.
John Nathan Turner once wrote The Doctor's Wife up on his noticeboard as a prospective story title - to see which fanzine printed this. He suspected that a fan was gaining access to the production office.
Neil Gaiman selected this as the title of his first story which revolved around a personification of the TARDIS. It had been the Third Doctor who regularly referred to his ship as being female, this being the ancient tradition with ships, and later with cars.
A few birthdays of note today, starting with Prentis Hancock, who featured four times in the series. Probably best known as a regular in the (superior) first season of Space:1999, he appeared in Spearhead From Space, Planet of the Daleks, Planet of Evil and The Ribos Operation. He is 80 today.
Ysanne Churchman, who voiced Alpha Centauri in the two Peladon stories, as well as the giant spider which allies itself with Lupton in Planet of the Spiders, turns 97 today. She reprised Alpha Centauri for The Empress of Mars in 2017.
Indira Varma, who appeared in the first series of Torchwood as Suzie Costello is 49.
Greg Davies - King Hydroflax in The Husbands of River Song - is 54.
Today would also have been the birthdays of Dennis Chinnery (The Chase, Genesis of the Daleks and The Twin Dilemma, d. 2012); Gordon Gostelow (Milo Clancey in The Space Pirates, d. 2007); and composer Tristram Cary (d.2008).
Sadly, actor William Lindsay passed away on this date. He played King Zargo in State of Decay, and was only 40 when he died in 1986.
No comments:
Post a Comment