Story 1 - An Unearthly Child

In which Coal Hill schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are intrigued by pupil Susan Foreman. She is brilliant in some subjects yet makes elementary mistakes about other things. Following her home one evening, to speak to her grandfather, who is supposed to be a doctor, they find that "home" appears to be a junkyard, at 76 Totter's Lane - a junkyard with a battered blue Police Public Call Box in it.
Susan is nowhere to be seen, but the Doctor turns up. An old man with long white hair, dressed in old-fashioned Edwardian style garb, he is evasive and dismissive of their concerns. Susan is in the Police Box, and the teachers push their way in - finding themselves in a brightly lit futuristic control room. The Doctor is furious and fears they will expose his secret, and so he dematerialises the ship (which Susan has called the TARDIS).
In a prehistoric landscape, they are captured by a palaeolithic tribe which has recently lost the secret of fire-making. The leader, Za, is also in the midst of a power struggle with a newcomer name Kal. An old woman who fears the return of fire helps the time-travellers escape. Za and his bride-to-be, Hur, give chase. Za is injured in an animal attack and the travellers stop to help him - leading to their recapture.
Kal has killed the old woman, and is forced out of the camp. He returns and is killed by Za.
Ian makes fire for Za, hoping he will release them. When it appears that he won't, they frighten the superstitious tribes-folk with 4 skulls planted on flaming sticks. The diversion allows the travellers to escape back to the TARDIS.

This 4 part story, broadcast between 23rd November and 14th December 1963, was written by Anthony Coburn. The production team had serious reservations about using it to launch the series - fearing the viewers might not engage with a bunch of grunting cavemen.
Its biggest strength is the opening episode, which in only 23 minutes or so introduces the principal characters, the attributes of the TARDIS, and sets up the premise for the rest of the series. A couple of ordinary people, thrown unwillingly together with a strange old man and his grand-daughter, into a series of adventures in Time and Space.
Susan is the identification figure for the younger viewers, even though she is no ordinary schoolgirl. The enigma of her character is set up through an after school chat between Ian and Barbara, and through the use of flashback scenes. She knows a lot about chemistry, but not about something as humdrum as the British currency.
Sydney Newman had originally wanted her to be an Earth girl, but Coburn and script editor David Whitaker developed her as being an alien like the Doctor. Making her his grand-daughter was added to get round why a young girl would be travelling around with an old man.
Ian and Barbara are also audience identification figures - this time for the adult viewers. Ian, a science master, is a natural born cynic - refusing to believe the Doctor and Susan until he steps out onto the stone age world.
Barbara, who teaches History, is far more ready to accept what is going on. The choice of their academic subjects was an important one - Ian would be able to comment on science matters in the futuristic stories, and Barbara in those stories set in Earth's past.
The Doctor is abrasive, rude, and threatening initially - though less so than in the aborted "pilot" version. He resents the presence of the teachers in his "home" and in his life. Later in the adventure he appears to be jealous of Ian's leadership qualities - and Susan's admiration for him. (An original idea had been for Susan to have had a crush on him).
Alarmingly, at one point the Doctor appears capable of murder. When Za has been injured by the animal in the forest, the Doctor wants to leave him to his fate - concerned only for is own safety. When the others refuse to leave the wounded man, he picks up a sharp stone. We - and Ian - are left with the impression that he intends to finish Za off.

The Doctor is seen to be a pipe-smoker in this story - never revisited - and this is probably just there to get the principals involved in the fire-making plot. Kal - Doctor Who's first villain - sees him using matches and so abducts him, and the others follow. The tribal politics are interesting, though it is fortunate that they only take up 3 episodes. Concerns that the characters would be grunting cavemen are unfounded. Some of the language is quite poetic.
There are captures, escapes, chases and fights - all to become staple elements of the programme and the sort of adventure necessary to capture a family audience's attention.
Unlike other genre shows, the solution to the time-travellers' predicament is achieved through brains rather than brawn. They don't beat up the tribes-people and run off. Susan gives Ian the idea for the 4 flaming skulls. The Doctor is not yet the hero in his own programme - this role is very much Ian's for now.

Cliffhanger episode endings would become an important element of the programme.  This story has the following:

1. An Unearthly Child - the arrival of the TARDIS in a bleak landscape, with the ominous shadow of a watching figure.
2. The Cave of Skulls - the travellers trapped in the titular cave, the skulls showing evidence of great violence.
3. The Forest of Fear - cut off from the TARDIS by a group of armed tribesmen.
4. The Firemaker - the ship's radiation meter rises to the danger level, unnoticed by the travellers.

Having a cliffhanger leading into the next story was established here and would be the norm for much of the first couple of years of the programme. 

Barry Newbery designed the story (following Peter Brachacki's designs for the opening episode) and he does a sterling job in the cramped Studio D, Lime Grove - creating an impressive forest set along with the cave areas and the TARDIS landing site.

Things you might not have known:

• The TARDIS prop is smaller than real Police Boxes due to it having to fit into the studio lift.
• The male tribe actors were asked to show their chests and legs at audition. Hairy got you the job.
• One cave woman extra quit rather than wear the costume and make-up.
• The TARDIS gets stuck as a Police Box for the first time in this story - as we see from the Doctor and Susan's reactions.
• It is only ever assumed that this is prehistoric Earth - it is never stated, and so could be a primitive tribe on an alien world.

It really is called Dinosaurs on a Spaceship!

News filtering through from Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego, where Moffat, Smith, Gillan and Darvill are in attendance. Confirmed episode 2 title is Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. This was first mooted by the Daily Star months ago, and I have to admit I thought it "codswallop" at the time. I'll know better in future.
A lengthy scene was shown, which appears to be pretty much the whole pre-titles sequence, explaining how Nefertiti, Rory's dad and the Edwardian explorer come to be involved in the adventure. And yes there are dinosaurs. On a spaceship...
Depending which sites you look at, the next two episodes have also been titled - the Western one being A Town Called Mercy and episode 4 being Cubed.
A shorter clip was also shown from A Town... featuring the Doctor, Amy and Rory's arrival in the saloon. The Doctor orders a cup of tea - a strong one, with the bag left in.
No doubt these clips will appear before too long somewhere on the net - hopefully officially on the BBC website.

Yesterday, Matt Smith stated that the new series would begin transmission in August. If so, that would make it the late summer Bank Holiday weekend (Saturday 25th August to be precise). (Not that the UK has exactly had a summer this year...). This would mean that there would be a massive 13 week break between Episode 5 and the Xmas Special.

The Moonbase of the Axons? (aka DVD update)

With word that The Ambassadors of Death will be released in the UK in October, I had thought that this would be the last of 2012's Classic DVD releases. However, some on-line retailers (e.g. play.com & moviemail-online) are accepting pre-orders on a Special Edition release of The Claws of Axos - due 22nd October.
Supposedly with new extras, it will have improved picture quality - particularly in the 2nd and 3rd episodes.
This has yet to be confirmed by the "classicdw" people.
If true, the schedule for the rest of this year would then be:

• July 30th - The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
• August 20th - Planet of Giants
• September 10th - Vengeance on Varos (SE)
• October 1st - The Ambassadors of Death
• October 22nd - The Claws of Axos (SE)
• November - Series 7 Volume 1 (in lieu of the annual Box Set for Xmas).

That leaves us with the following for 2013:

• The Reign of Terror
• The Tenth Planet
• The Ice Warriors
• The Mind of Evil
• Inferno (SE)
• Terror of the Zygons
• Shada / 30 Years in the Tardis documentary.

Of course we still have the two rediscovered episodes to place. It was reported that these would be added to a couple of the above as extras - e.g. Underwater Menace Part 2 could go on The Ice Warriors DVD.

However, something Brian Hodgson (Radiophonic Workshop pioneer) said recently has got me thinking.

He said that he had recently contributed to a commentary on The Moonbase.

This can mean one of only two things - a reissue of the "Lost In Time" DVD set, or the two missing episodes (1 & 3) are being animated for a standalone release. 

Most of the "Lost In Time" episodes lacked a commentary, and picture quality improvement technology has advanced a great deal since the original release (2004), so a revisit is much needed - and this would be the most obvious home for the two rediscovered episodes. 

Yet we've been told they are going on other releases.

Hodgson's comment might then point towards the Cyberman story's release in its own right. 

We know that 2 episodes' worth of animation is realistic in terms of cost and practicality (The Invasion and The Reign of Terror each have 2 animated episodes - and The Ice Warriors will also need 2 episodes of animation). The only other story requiring no more than 2 episodes for completion is The Crusade.

With so few Troughton stories complete, I really do hope that a Moonbase release will happen. If not, a reissue of "Lost In Time" would make an ideal consolation prize.

Brachacki's TARDIS

Doctor Who's very first designer - and the architect of the iconic TARDIS control room - was the little known Peter Brachacki. Despite his massive contribution to the show, very little is known about him. He seems to vanish after 1979.

An Unearthly Child was his sole contribution - but he gave us a design icon. Every TARDIS interior since 1963 has used his original as its inspiration. They all have the 6-sided console, the rising and falling time rotor, and the wall roundels. The Matt Smith version has even re-introduced a version of the strange hexagonal ceiling feature (above).

Originally, Brachacki wanted the walls to be translucent, and to pulse with light when the ship was in flight. This proved too expensive to achieve. He also wanted to avoid conventional controls - designing isomorphic controls moulded to the Doctor's hands - again lost due to cost.
The scanner screen was to have descended from the ceiling when needed - but this interfered with the overhead lights and boom mikes. He actually wanted each of the 6 console panels to hold concealed microphones - to negate the need for boom mikes (the shadows of which represent Doctor Who's most persistent unwanted guest appearances).
Brachacki fell ill just after the recording of what would become the "pilot" episode, and was not available for the October 1963 remount. Barry Newbery stepped in, but exactly followed Brachacki's designs, and it was Brachacki who was credited.

Brachacki never returned (Waris Hussein has said he was never happy with his work and wanted someone more experienced) and Newbery would go on to become one of the programme's most accomplished designers.
For someone with little experience, Brachacki achieved a place in design history.
One wonders what he might have achieved had he continued with the programme.

The Origins of Doctor Who 5 - The Pilot

In a parallel universe somewhere, people will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who on 16th November next year. It's the universe where the first recording of An Unearthly Child, in Lime Grove Studio D on 27th September 1963, went without a hitch.
In our universe, however, this recording has gone down in history as "The Pilot".
In the 1960's, the BBC did not make pilots - they were very much an American concept. The production of Doctor Who's first episode on 27th September was supposed to be the real thing - but Sydney Newman did not like it for a couple of reasons.
One was the characterisation of both the Doctor and Susan, and the other was down to technical / performance problems.

The Doctor comes across as quite charmless - spiky and aggressive, calling Susan "stupid" - whilst Susan is too cold and aloof. Newman felt that the audience would struggle to relate to these people, or indeed to like them.
Ian and Barbara on the other hand, are very much as they will be seen in the transmitted episode.
Technical problems included some serious issues with the TARDIS doors - which either failed to shut, banged shut, or bounced back and forth. The camera work in the junkyard scenes jolts and jerks (with one good knock against a prop).
Fluffs include Carole Ann Ford getting the chart placing of "John Smith and the Common Men" the wrong way round - they drop down the chart instead of going up.William Russell has trouble with the props in the junkyard (knocking over a dummy), and he and Jacqueline Hill have problems getting through a classroom door.

You may wonder why you haven't seen all of these when you have sat down to watch the "Pilot".
That's because there are 5 different versions - depending on which take of the first half you watch, coupled with which take of the second half. (The split comes with the schoolteachers' entry into the TARDIS control room).

Differences to look out for, between the "Pilot" and the transmitted episode, include:

• Costumes - The Doctor wears a contemporary collar and tie, whilst Susan wears a futuristic shiny tunic when out of school.
• The Doctor states quite specifically that they come from the 49th Century.
• It's a different policeman.
• There is a "pistol-crack" added to the beginning of the theme music.
• The TARDIS dematerialisation scene is longer, and is accompanied by a cacophony of radiophonic sounds, over and above the now famous one.
• Susan creates a Rorschach-type ink pattern on a piece of paper, draws a hexagon around it, then suddenly tears it up before it is seen. This is replaced with the French Revolution book scene in the transmitted version.

Newman took producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein for a Chinese meal near Shepherds Bush once he had viewed the episode, and they are both on record as believing they were going to be sacked. 

Newman went through everything he didn't like and ordered them to do it again.

That there was always the probability of remounting the episode is confirmed by the fact that Verity Lambert had already asked for the props and sets to be retained. (Unfortunately the Design Department boys ignored her and junked everything apart from the TARDIS control room set).

The première of Doctor Who would now be put back a week - to Saturday 23rd November 1963.

As for the Pilot, it would not see light of day until August 1991, when it was screened on BBC2 as part of a tribute to Lime Grove Studios. 

The version on "The Beginning" DVD set is the most tidied-up one available. You can also see the various other takes on this disc.

Series 7 News

Mark Gatiss' 2013 episode looks like being something very special indeed - if the guest cast is anything to go by.
DWM 449 confirmed the marvellous David Warner (Sci-Fi connections have included the villain in "Time Bandits", the villain in the original "Tron", an alternative Doctor in a BF audio, and 3 different roles in the Star Trek Universe - a human ambassador, the Klingon Chancellor, and a Cardassian officer).
He is joined by Liam Cunningham ("Dog Soldiers", "Game of Thrones" and the remade "Clash of the Titans" as well as the rather po-faced BBC "Outcasts").
News now comes in that Mrs Emma Peel herself - Dame Diana Rigg - and her daughter Rachael Stirling have joined the cast. This is the first time they have been on the box together.
The story itself has a historical setting.

Assimilation Squared Issue 2

Second issue has now arrived. The TARDIS and Enterprise-D crew finally get together.
Whilst last month was ST-TNG lite, the Enterprise bunch get more of a show this time round. Again, they get a little introductory adventure all to themselves - a visit to a water world which has a Federation mining base. The locals are amphibious humanoids - think Aridians with more fish-like faces. The Doctor, Amy and Rory had a decent story last time, whereas the Enterprise crew turn up, have a look around, get a bit wet, then visit the Holodeck.
As I suspected last time, the San Francisco locale is the Holodeck - and that's where the 2 strands meet up.
There isn't any locking up of the time travellers - Picard et al seem to accept them with barely a shrug. Perhaps all those super beings like Q who used to turn up every other week have made them all a bit blasé.
A distress call comes in from Delta IV (attacked last month) and they go there Warp 9 to find a fleet of Borg and Cyberships.
No little hidden references this issue that I have found (so far).
Things to ponder:
The Doctor hasn't heard of Delta IV despite claiming to know every world in every system.
He also says he is seeing things that haven't happened yet (the green crystal's work?), and he knows Worf is a Klingon but says he had never heard of the word until then...
What on earth is going on? Tune in next month. If the cover is anything to go by, should be a corker.