Doctor Who Magazine and its earlier weekly and monthly incarnations can generally be trusted to provide accurate information about the series. Was it ever thus? Frankly, no.
Some of the errors I've come across during recent re-readings on the archive.org site have thrown up the following interesting nuggets:
- Edge of Destruction was written purely because the sets for Marco Polo weren't ready,
- Its original title was "Beyond the Sun",
- Chris Achilleos was the artist for the 1960's Dalek comics,
- Stephen Thorne played the K1 giant robot,
- The Seeds of Doom was filmed at Stargroves House,
- Martin Jarvis had an early TV role in The Chase,
- The monochrome footage of Patrick Troughton in The Three Doctors is a clip from The Macra Terror,
- Terry Nation co-wrote The War Games with Malcolm Hulke,
- The Two Doctors definitely takes place between Fury from the Deep and The Wheel in Space,
- Both Peter Davison and Roger Delgado have their names prominently misspelled (Davidson, Delgardo) on covers,
- Susan Jameson was cast as the new recurring Time Lord villain in Terror of the Autons but this was vetoed by Barry Letts' superiors.
The first one was the official line for a very long time - even mentioned by members of the production team of the day. However, it is now known that the series was threatened with cancellation on cost grounds and plans were made to terminate it after 13 episodes (multiples of 13 were sales-friendly to foreign TV stations, making up a quarter, half or full year's worth of viewing). The Edge of Destruction was therefore designed to round off the series. Naturally the ending would have been different had it been the end, with the teachers getting home, presumably.
"Beyond the Sun" was, according to Malcolm Hulke, the first episode of his "The Hidden Planet" story which failed to make it to production. Brian Hodgson of the Radiophonic Workshop also used this title as the overall sound effects project covering the first three Doctor Who stories, which might be why it has also turned up as an alleged title for The Daleks.
There is more than one artists for the Dalek comic strips for a start. The actual artists were Richard Jennings (issues 1 - 46), Jennings and Ron Turner (issues 47 - 51), Eric Eden (issues 52 - 58), and Ron Turner (issues 59 - 104). Achilleos' first ever Doctor Who work was the cover for Doctor Who and the Crusaders in 1973.
Michael Kilgarriff played the Giant Robot. He and Thorne had appeared together in Frontier in Space as Ogrons.
Whilst Pyramids of Mars and Image of the Fendahl were filmed at Stargroves (owned by Mick Jagger and home to his parents in the 1970's), The Seeds of Doom was filmed at Athelhampton House near Dorchester, in the charmingly titled Piddle Valley. It is of Tudor heritage, whilst Stargroves on the Hampshire / Berkshire border dates from 1848 and is in Victorian Gothic style (the original Tudor house having been destroyed by fire - I don't think the Doctor or Sutekh was to blame for that one...).
Martin Jarvis doesn't appear in the series until The Web Planet. One noted actor who does debut in The Chase is Hywel Bennett, so perhaps the writer was simply getting the two confused.
As for the Troughton ones, the Macra Terror clip notion was a tenacious one. Doctor Who Monthly was still pushing it in 1986, even after everyone had seen the repeat of the story during the Five Faces of Doctor Who season. The only surviving clips from that story are the Australian censor ones, featuring the Macra, Ben and Polly. There are no shots of Troughton. The scene was simply filmed during the location recording for The Three Doctors at the quarry being used as Omega's domain.
Another basic mix-up of Terrys explains The War Games gaffe, as it should be T. Dicks rather than T. Nation who co-wrote the 10 part series finale.
The placing of The Two Doctors is by none other than David J Howe, who is behind a number of excellent non-fiction reference works on the series - so really ought to have known better. Dialogue early in Part One clearly states that Victoria has been dropped off somewhere to study graphology - the implication being that she will be picked up again afterwards to continue her journeys. After Fury from the Deep is the very worst place possible for this to happen, as she is categorically seen to leave, in a scene which is then reprised at the beginning of Wheel. If not there, where?
Evil of the Daleks leads directly into Tomb of the Cybermen, and Jamie's dialogue in The Abominable Snowmen suggests they have just visited the Cyberman tombs. In The Ice Warriors, he thinks they've simply moved to another part of the Tibetan mountain. The Web of Fear opens with the conclusion to The Enemy of the World. This leaves two potential gaps where The Two Doctors might fit - between The Ice Warriors and The Enemy of the World, and between The Web of Fear and Fury from the Deep.
None of this accounts for a reliably navigable TARDIS, the aging of both the Doctor and Jamie, the latter's knowledge of the Time Lords, and the fact that the Doctor is going on missions for them when he should still be on the run from them - hence the "Season 6b" theory.
Finally, the Susan Jameson error is another of those where two different stories have become mixed up. Roger Delgado was always going to play the Master. No other actor was approached, as Barry Letts wanted him from the beginning. A couple of stories later we had Colony in Space, and this featured a villain named Morgan, henchperson to Captain Dent of IMC. Director Michael E Briant wanted to make this a female role, and Jameson was hired. Barry Letts' boss, Ronnie Marsh, then vetoed this, thinking a leather-clad, jackbooted female character too "kinky" for family viewing. Jameson had to be paid in full as she had given up other work to play the part. If you look closely you'll see a photograph of her on John Ashe's desk - presumably his dead wife, so she did manage to get onto the screen after all. She has never featured in the TV series, but did play the Fourth Doctor's housekeeper in some audio adventures.
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