Countdown to 60: Facts of Fiction

One wonders if, back in 1967, the BBC costume designer allocated to "The Prophet" - latest of the Out of the Unknown sci-fi anthology series - would have had any idea that one of their designs would feature in a popular breakfast cereal promotion a decade later, be marketed as a figurine five decades later, and be used for a cosplay costume in 2023 - not that they would have known what cosplay was...

The Isaac Asimov adaptation required some robots, and the designer opted to keep it simple and go for a basic 'man dressed in carboard boxes and tubes' look.

They were painted in dark colours and had code numbers printed on their chests. One of the costumes was reused a few months later for another production called "Metal Martyr".

1968 sees a number of crises hitting the Doctor Who production office. Of particular concern to Derrick Sherwin is the script situation - his particular area of responsibility. Stories are beginning to collapse, and ones already commissioned, or even in production, are posing problems. 

One of these is The Dominators, from writing duo Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. They had provided the hugely popular Yeti stories - The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear - and were working on a third.

Sherwin had trouble with this six part story, which he felt couldn't stretch that far without a lot of rather dull padding. There were lengthy scenes of the Dulkis council debating, and not enough action. Sherwin decided that drastic action was needed, and he opted to prune the story back to just five episodes, combining material from the last two instalments into one and hurrying the story along to its conclusion. The writers were unhappy - enough to consider withdrawing the story at one point, which would have really wrecked the season. Luckily they opted not to do this - settling for having their names removed.

The next story lined up was Peter Ling's The Mind Robber, which had begun life as "Manpower". 

This was set in the Land of Fiction, having been inspired by Ling's main job - scripting soap opera Crossroads. He was surprised by the number of people who regarded the soap characters as real.

Ling's story was a four-parter, but the deletion of an instalment of The Dominators would leave a one week gap in the schedules. 

Sherwin decided to add an extra episode to the beginning of The Mind Robber - an extended set-up. He had no money for new costumes, sets or guest artists, so whatever he came up with had to be set in the TARDIS or against black drapes, and feature only the three regulars who were already being paid anyway. Sherwin had included some robots, and found the costumes from "The Prophet" in the stores.

Rather than black drapes, he had decided on making the TARDIS landing site a white void instead. The robot costumes were painted various light colours, including yellow, which would appear white on monochrome TV screens.

The robot costumes aren't the only reused prop. In the TARDIS power room is the "Morok freezing machine", first seen in Doctor Who in The Space Museum but which originated in a British sci-fi B-Movie called Curse of the Fly.

It has been pointed out many times that The Invasion opens with the TARDIS being reconstituted (after breaking up at the conclusion of this opening episode), the Doctor is sitting in the same armchair as he was at that moment, and the Master of the Land of Fiction suddenly vanishes without comment. The candles which Zoe sees in a later episode are a complete mystery in The Space Pirates, and Jamie has to explain to her how they function. 

Episodes 2 - 5 of The Mind Robber existed only in the Doctor's mind, and never actually happened.

A story concerning a world of fiction is itself employing artefacts which derive from works of fiction beyond its text.

Look closely at the scene where the Doctor pushes Jamie and Zoe back into the TARDIS console room. The scanner reads: "Producer - Peter Bryant". The Doctor and his companions have just been turned into works of fiction. This episode has no writer credit, so Derrick Sherwin has avoided making himself fictional.

The villain has actually won, but the true Master of the Land of Fiction is Derrick Sherwin.