SEASON 4
Producer: Innes Lloyd
Script Editor: Gerry Davis (The Smugglers - The Evil of the Daleks Ep.3) / Peter Bryant (The Evil of the Daleks Ep.4 - 7)
Regular Cast: The Doctor: William Hartnell (The Smugglers - The Tenth Planet) / Patrick Troughton (Power of the Daleks - The Evil of the Daleks).
Ben: Michael Craze (The Smugglers - The Faceless Ones). Polly: Anneke Wills (The Smugglers - The Faceless Ones). Jamie: Frazer Hines (The Highlanders - The Evil of the Daleks). Victoria: Deborah Watling (The Evil of the Daleks).
Synopsis:
The Doctor is furious that Ben and Polly have intruded into the TARDIS just as he has dematerialised the ship. They have left Fitzroy Square and the ship soon lands at its next destination.
When they emerge from the TARDIS it is to find themselves at the mouth of a cave on a beach. Ben and Polly accept that they have moved location, but the Doctor cautions that they have travelled in time as well. They see a church nearby, and Polly thinks they may be in Cornwall as it reminds her of a holiday there. Ben is keen to find a train station so he can get back to London so he can rejoin his barracks.
A bemused Doctor follows as they head for the church.
In the graveyard they spot that the headstones are largely unweathered, despite their early dates.
They are confronted by the churchwarden, Joseph Longfoot, who is suspicious of them. When he realises they are simply travellers he invites them into the vestry. He mistakes Polly for a boy, as she is wearing trousers and a cap concealing her long hair. Ben has to accept that this is the 17th Century.
They have been spied on by a burly, bald-headed man.
Longfoot explains that he had feared that they might be part of the pirate crew of Captain Avery. Whilst he is now dead, his men - led by Captain Samuel Pike - are still active.
Explaining that the tide has come in, and the TARDIS cave now cut off, the Doctor decides that they should seek out the nearest hostelry. Longfoot gives them directions to the village.
Before they depart, the churchwarden gives the Doctor a cryptic message.
Once they have gone, the bald-headed man enters the vestry. Longfoot recognises him as Pike's henchman Cherub.
At the local inn, landlord Jacob Kewper is arranging a special delivery with his pot boy Tom when the TARDIS travellers arrive, soaked by a rainstorm. Suspicious of strangers, Kewper relents and provides some hospitality when they mention being friends of Longfoot. Ben is given a change of clothing, whilst Tom sets off to meet with the churchwarden.
At the church, Longfoot refuses to tell Cherub what he wants to know and is killed. The killer departs before Tom arrives and discovers the body. He hurries back to the inn to alert Kewper.
The landlord immediately suspects the strangers of having murdered his friend and sends Tom to fetch the local squire.
Cherub arrives with some of his men. He abducts the Doctor, and Ben is knocked out.
When Squire Edwards arrives, he places Ben and Polly under arrest.
The Doctor, meanwhile, is carried in a rowing boat out to a ship anchored off the coast. This is the Black Albatross.
Cherub takes him to the main cabin to meet Captain Pike who reveals that his left hand has been replaced with a cruel metal spike...
Written by: Brian Hayles
Recorded: Friday 8th July 1966 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 10th September 1966
Ratings: 4.3 million / AI 47
Designer: Richard Hunt
Director: Julia Smith
Guest cast: Terence de Marney (Joseph Longfoot), Michael Godfrey (Captain Pike), George A Cooper (Cherub), David Blake Kelly (Jacob Kewper), Mike Lucas (Tom), Paul Whitsun-Jones (Squire Edwards), Derek Ware (Spaniard).
Brian Hayles first attempted to write for Doctor Who when he submitted a script called "The Dark Planet" in early 1965. Unsuccessful, he tried again a few months later and this time his idea was accepted - eventually to become The Celestial Toymaker. How much of what made it to screen belonged to Hayles is debatable, but generally thought to be very little.
Inspired, he began making regular submissions, including "The Hands of Aten" and "The White Witch". Neither was taken up, but a story in which the TARDIS crew encountered "The Nazis" was seriously considered. However, the BBC had a general policy that the Second World War was too recent, the memories too painful, for anything other than a documentary or a serious drama on the subject to be considered. (Jimmy Perry's comedy about a Home Guard platoon, designed as a vehicle for radio comedy star Jon Pertwee, almost failed at its first hurdle because of this).
The war story was eventually dropped, and Hayles proposed a sci-fi tale called "The Hounds of Time". This also fell by the wayside and the writer was then asked to come up with another historical tale - this one based on Gerry Davis' preferred idea of literary or romantic history, rather than stories based on factual figures and events.
The historical period would simply act as the colourful backdrop to a more generic adventure story.
For inspiration, Hayles looked primarily to the Dr Syn books by Russell Thorndyke. There were seven novels in the series, the first of which was Dr Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh in 1915. These concerned the central figure of a mild-mannered village vicar who secretly ran a smuggling ring.
After a 1937 movie adaptation, the first novel was the source for two films of the early 1960's - Hammer's Captain Clegg (aka Night Creatures), starring Peter Cushing, and Disney's Dr Syn: Alias the Scarecrow (aka The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh), starring Patrick McGoohan.
Another inspiration was J Meade Falkner's Moonfleet (1898), filmed in 1955. This was adapted by the BBC in 1964 as Smugglers Bay, starring Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines.
Hayles' story featured pirates as much as it did smugglers - indeed more so - and there are obviously many literary and cinematic inspirations for them. The idea that the pirate leader would have a distinctive weaponised false hand clearly derives from Peter Pan's Captain Hook.
Hayles originally described the character of Pike as having "a vast black beard" - hinting at another piratical inspiration.
As with previous seasons, the final story of the production block was to be held over to launch the new series after a summer break.
The director selected for the story was Julia Smith - the series' second female director after Paddy Russell. She had handled a number of soap opera episodes as well as Dr Finlay's Casebook. One of the reasons for her selection was her familiarity with Cornwall. This story was to have the biggest location filming work to date, and what's more it was to take place well away from London. Up until now, locations were usually picked that were within a certain radius of Television Centre, so that cast and crew could go home in the evening. Accommodation needs obviously drove up costs.
Designing the episodes would be Richard Hunt, who had previously worked on Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown, which had been recorded as a single production.
This was the final story to have costumes designed by Daphne Dare, who had been involved with the programme ever since the first Dalek story.
Due to the heavy action sequences, both on location and in studio, Julia Smith worked closely with fight arranger Derek Ware. He had formed the HAVOC stunt agency in 1965 and this would be their first significant appearance in Doctor Who as a group. Ware was also cast as one of the main pirates to help facilitate his work.
Cast and crew headed off to Cornwall on Saturday 18th June - the day after studio recording on The War Machines' final episode.
The production team set up a base in Penzance, a few miles from Nanjizal Bay which would provide many of the filming locations. Smith elected to prioritise scenes involving the regular cast first, on Sunday 19th, in order to free them up. A cave on the beach would form the TARDIS landing site, and the prop was carried down to it with great difficulty. The arrival and departure of the ship were captured, as well as the sequence where the Doctor and his companions spot the church on the cliff top - filmed above the beach. This was the final work required from William Hartnell, so he could be released early. He would return to Cornwall later that summer - but this time on holiday and indulging in some angling, one of his favourite pastimes.
Some scenes featuring the abduction of the Doctor from the inn were filmed using Hartnell's double, Gordon Craig (seen in his Doctor costume above).
Filming continued around the beach area on Monday 20th. Tuesday 21st saw the production move to the church - St Grada's in the village of Grade - with harbour scenes filmed at Helston.
The inn was a redressed farm building at Trethewey, whilst the Black Albatross exterior was filmed at Newlyn Harbour.
In all, there were five location filming days. It was covered by local paper The Cornishman, which focussed on the use of locals as extras and some sea cadets who were employed to do the rowing.
Colour home movie footage of the location filming exists. It first featured on the unofficial "The Doctors" DVD, and later appeared on the "Lost in Time" set.
David Blake Kelly and George A Cooper had attended the location filming. When rehearsals began for the opening episode on Monday 4th July, at the regular Bulwer Street TA drill hall, the cast were joined by Terence de Marney who would be playing "Holy Joe" Longfoot. He had been appearing in films for decades, and had even enjoyed a lengthy spell in Hollywood, including a regular role in Western TV series Johnny Ringo. He had also been the very first ever The Saint, on radio.
Smith would later use him in other productions.
On the afternoon of recording, publicity shots were taken of the regulars on the TARDIS set, and of Michael Godfrey as Pike. Cooper was photographed having his make-up applied.
Footage of the TARDIS dematerialising from Fitzroy Square was shown after the opening credits. Unusually, these were in black type rather than white.
A piece of location filming of the empty Nanjizal Bay was shown on the TARDIS scanner. Hartnell had a brief argument with Smith over the correct use of the ship's controls.
The star was famous for his verbal gaffes, but the big one in this episode actually comes from a guest actor. The cryptic clue given by Longfoot was supposed to read "This is Deadman's secret key: Ringwood, Smallbeer, and Gurney". What de Marney delivered was "...Smallwood, Ringwood and Gurney".
Hartnell does get one slight fluff when he tells Ben and Polly: "You see that scanner? That's what I call a scanner, up there".
Closing credits ran over a close-up of Pike's spike embedded in the wooden table. Recording breaks had included setting a knife handle on de Marney's back for his death scene, and to allow Craze and Wills to change into their period costumes.
As season launches go, it's an underwhelming episode. It looks great, but then the BBC were masters of the period drama, and it is certainly helped by the extensive use of location filming - and an exotic locale at that, which is clearly not somewhere in the Home Counties. The audience would have been very familiar with this period of history thanks to the above mentioned inspirations as well as the works of writers such as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, which had been adapted for film and television.
The Doctor's initial anger at the intrusion of Ben and Polly quickly dissipates, and he seems to quite enjoy proving them wrong about where - and when - they are: "You may know where you are, my dear, but not when! I can foresee oodles of trouble!".
- Had this been a mid-season episode of Doctor Who, the ratings would best be described as middling. However, for a season launch they are very weak. The episode only just managed to feature in the top 100 programmes for the week (at 96th). Season 3 had launched with 5 million more viewers.
- The series returns to its later regular time slot of 5:50pm. The third season had been in a 5:15pm slot. Its main competition in most ITV regions was the hugely popular talent contest show Opportunity Knocks.
- Viewers had seen a 45 second trailer for the story, using location footage, immediately following the final episode of The War Machines on Saturday 16th July. This was narrated by Martin Locke.
- The "howlround" title sequence is briefly seen on the TARDIS scanner before the new landing site is seen, so representing the Temporal Vortex.
- David Blake Kelly had previously featured in the series as Briggs, Captain of the Mary Celeste, in The Chase.
- Terence de Marney appeared in a number of horror films, co-starring opposite both Bela Lugosi (The Mystery of the Mary Celeste) and Boris Karloff (Die, Monster, Die - an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space). He also features in vampire film The Hand of Night, and mummy movie Pharoah's Curse.
- Paul Whitsun-Jones would return in 1972 to play the Marshal of Solos in The Mutants.
- He was the first James Fullalove, the journalist from the Quatermass serials, and had played Porthos in the BBC's 1954 adaptation of The Three Musketeers, alongside Roger Delgado.
- Character actor George A Cooper was best known for comedy performances, but found fame with a younger generation when he became the ill-tempered janitor, Mr Griffiths, of Grange Hill School.
- The series featured on Junior Points of View the day before broadcast. This gave background to Ben and Polly (from their character notes). Whilst some viewers were excited by its return, others were already bored with the series.
- The episode was included in the BBC's weekly Programme Review Board meeting, in which it was praised as a "rumbustious return". William Hartnell's performance was regarded in a positive light. It was noted that a Japanese cartoon character (in The King Kong Show) was called "Dr Who" - prompting questions about whether or not the name was copyrighted.
- Radio Times previewed the new story as usual. After a brief word about the set-up and its guest actors, it reminded readers about the two new companions. The photographs derive from the opening and closing scenes of this first episode. Unfortunately, this piece gave away the identity of the titular smugglers:
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