As a historical story, albeit from the more recent past, the inspirations for this are obvious - events surrounding the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and television of the 1950's. The two go hand in hand.
It also has something to say about Fascism, still a very recent threat in early Fifties Britain.
The title comes from something people who looked down upon it once said about television. It was believed that it would brainwash people, and prove addictive. People would stop listening to morally uplifting, educational radio or reading books.
Writer Mark Gatiss originally intended the hook for this story to be a song, so events would have had more of a focus on Rock 'n' Roll music. The alien threat would have attacked its victims via an "earworm" - i.e. a catchy tune which you can't get out of your head.
When this idea got dropped and the focus moved to television, it meant that the music angle had to go, as 1953 was too early for Rock 'n' Roll. There is a ghost of this in the story as broadcast as the Doctor is supposed to be taking Rose to New York to see Elvis Presley perform on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Instead the TARDIS arrives in North London in the year of the Coronation.
Muswell Hill was selected as you get a view of Alexandra Palace from there, and it was local to where Gatiss resided.
One error in the finished programme, however, is that the view from Muswell Hill towards the Palace has been reversed.
The Palace was opened in 1873 to act as a North London counterpoint to the Crystal Palace in South London. By 1900 it was already under threat and was saved when the neighbouring local authorities banded together to purchase it as a community resource.
It was in 1935 that the BBC first leased part of the building, and the following year it became the UK's first television broadcasting centre. Initially two different TV transmission systems were operated side by side, on alternate weeks. One was John Logie-Baird's 240-line system, and the other Marconi-EMI's 405-line system. In 1937, the latter was the one to be adopted.
When TV closed down over the war years, the transmitter was used to jam enemy aircraft navigation systems.
When TV returned after the war, it was seen by very few households. Many people were happy with radio and did not like this brash new arrival; TV sets were expensive, and coverage was patchy outside London. It would take a big televised event to get more people watching. That would be the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Whilst the event did lead to greater interest in television, with increased sales, the cost still kept the numbers down overall. People who had TVs were encouraged to allow friends and neighbours into their homes to watch their set. Why buy a set when you could pop next door and see the big day?
Mr Magpie, who has been enslaved by the alien Wire, is needed to help feed the creature. The more sets there are out there, the more she can feed. This is why he is selling them cheaply. There was a limit to the number of people who can view a shared TV set, and the national coverage still remained patchy.
The Wire arrives on Earth in the middle of a thunderstorm. The TV aerials on Florizel Street are shaped like swastikas - hinting at the fascist nature of the alien. We are less than a decade from the end of the war against Fascism. Eddie Connolly fought in this war, but he needs his son, Tommy, to remind him why the war had to be fought and won. The Doctor at one point compares events with Stalin's Russia, and we do have Eddie denouncing his neighbours - and even his family members - and the authorities abducting people off the streets. At the time, the general public would not have seen much difference between Fascism and Communism, both being seen as non-democratic totalitarian regimes. Neither played cricket, so each must be as bad as the other.
It is only hinted at in the finished programme that Tommy is gay. Gatiss may be basing him on aspects of himself, though he was a child of the 1960's rather than the 1950's. Gatiss does have a great love of the period, however.
He had recently taken part in a live remake of The Quatermass Experiment, and had written a Virgin New Adventures novel which featured a Quatermass-like figure - Nightshade.
The Wire, as played by Maureen Lipman (who lives close to "Ally Pally" as the Palace is known, and so was able to film her sequences in the actual venue itself on a single day) is based on the likes of Sylvia Peters - a presenter who dressed in a posh frock to do her introductions and continuity announcements, and who spoke with a very RP English accent (Received Pronunciation). RP used to be called "BBC English".
Florizel Street, where the Connollys live, is the original name for Coronation Street - the long running ITV soap.
Another Doctor Who connection with Ally Pally is that once the main TV production had moved to other venues, including the new Television Centre at Wood Lane, the Open University moved in. This provided a lot of work for future VFX Department figures such as Mat Irvine. They would be called upon to make models to illustrate the various OU programmes.
Some people have spotted a Sapphire & Steel inspiration for this episode, especially the image of people with no faces. A S&S story had featured creepy photographs of a man with no face appearing in other people's pictures. Creator of S&S, PJ Hammond, was coming aboard Torchwood at the time.
Others think the inspiration includes the 1981 children's animated series Willo The Wisp. Narrated by Kenneth Williams, this had a villain named Evil Edna - a witch who lived in a television set. It had been revived in 2005, now narrated by James Dreyfus.
No comments:
Post a Comment