Paul MC Smith

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Design, data and Doctor Who. http://www.wonderfulbook.co.uk

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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1975: The monster, setting and Jekyll-and-Hyde theme were all presented to the writer as elements to include. Not sure how “unique” this was, certainly during the Hinchcliffe era but even before and definitely since…

October 11 1975 ‘Planet of Evil’ becomes unique among Doctor Who stories as the adventure in which the monster was invented before the story. Philip Hinchcliffe explains: ‘We wanted to get away from the usual monster which is an actor inside a monster suit. So I asked our special effects department what we could do, and they came up with this shapeless creature idea which is all done by electronic wizardry. It was when we knew we could do this sort of creature that we asked Louis Marks to write a story incorporating it.’ The story also provides a remarkable performance from actor Frederick Jaeger as a scientist who becomes an ‘outer-space version of Jekyll and Hyde’ to quote one report. Jaeger himself says later: ‘It is eleven years since I was in Doctor Who, and it will probably be as long again before viewers get over what happened to me. It took eight hours in the make-up chair to transform me into that mixture of Piltdown man and Guy the gorilla!’The anti-matter monster on Zeta Minor – strong vibes of the id creature from Forbidden PlanetFrederick Jaeger devolves into a brute from prolonged proximity to anti-matterDoctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1975: The monster, setting and Jekyll-and-Hyde theme were all presented to the writer as elements to include. Not sure how “unique” this was, certainly during the Hinchcliffe era but even before and definitely since…

October 11 1975 ‘Planet of Evil’ becomes unique among Doctor Who stories as the adventure in which the monster was invented before the story. Philip Hinchcliffe explains: ‘We wanted to get away from the usual monster which is an actor inside a monster suit. So I asked our special effects department what we could do, and they came up with this shapeless creature idea which is all done by electronic wizardry. It was when we knew we could do this sort of creature that we asked Louis Marks to write a story incorporating it.’ The story also provides a remarkable performance from actor Frederick Jaeger as a scientist who becomes an ‘outer-space version of Jekyll and Hyde’ to quote one report. Jaeger himself says later: ‘It is eleven years since I was in Doctor Who, and it will probably be as long again before viewers get over what happened to me. It took eight hours in the make-up chair to transform me into that mixture of Piltdown man and Guy the gorilla!’The anti-matter monster on Zeta Minor – strong vibes of the id creature from Forbidden PlanetFrederick Jaeger devolves into a brute from prolonged proximity to anti-matterDoctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1979: Actually published on the 11th (the cover date was to tell newsagents when to take it off the shelf ahead of a new issue), now-Doctor Who Magazine, and its comic strip, are still going…

October 10 1979 The Doctor gets a magazine wholly devoted to his adventures after years of being just the star of comic strips. Doctor Who Weekly, the brain-child of Dez Skinn, one of the most innovative comic men in Britain, is launched by Marvel Comics and offers a mixture of feature articles and comic strips. The publication is to run for 43 issues as a weekly and then become the Doctor Who Monthly in September 1980. The magazine has appeared in a constantly developing format to this day, and the continuation of the Doctor Who comic strip gives it the world record for being the longest-running strip adaptation of a film/TV concept.Cover of the first issue of Doctor Who Weekly featuring Fourth Doctor Tom Baker with a DalekDoctor Who Magazine's latest issue, 634, features an interview Anneke Wills who played 60s companion PollyDoctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1979: Actually published on the 11th (the cover date was to tell newsagents when to take it off the shelf ahead of a new issue), now-Doctor Who Magazine, and its comic strip, are still going…

October 10 1979 The Doctor gets a magazine wholly devoted to his adventures after years of being just the star of comic strips. Doctor Who Weekly, the brain-child of Dez Skinn, one of the most innovative comic men in Britain, is launched by Marvel Comics and offers a mixture of feature articles and comic strips. The publication is to run for 43 issues as a weekly and then become the Doctor Who Monthly in September 1980. The magazine has appeared in a constantly developing format to this day, and the continuation of the Doctor Who comic strip gives it the world record for being the longest-running strip adaptation of a film/TV concept.Cover of the first issue of Doctor Who Weekly featuring Fourth Doctor Tom Baker with a DalekDoctor Who Magazine's latest issue, 634, features an interview Anneke Wills who played 60s companion PollyDoctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1965: The absence of the regular cast was not due to their unavailability but to avoid extending their contracts for a week. The extra episode is because ‘Planet of Giants’ was edited down from four to three…

October 9 1965 The most curious of all Doctor Who stories is screened – a complete-in-one adventure, ‘Mission to the Unknown’, written by Terry Nation, in which neither the Doctor nor the companions appear! It is not, though, some fiendish plot by Nation to get rid of the Doctor, but rather a prelude to what will be (and still remains) the longest Doctor Who story ever, ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, which is to bridge Christmas and the New Year in twelve episodes. This prelude, which is known by the BBC title, ‘Dalek Cut-away’, has come about as a direct result of instructions from Sir Huw Weldon, Director General of the BBC, to Verity Lambert’s team to produce a ‘monster length’ Dalek story, because – said later newspaper stories – his mother was a great fan of the Daleks! As well as this unprecedented move, the programme is granted an extra episode for the season, and Verity Lambert decides on using it as a trailer for the Dalek special. The only trouble is that the regular cast are on holiday during the only recording dates­ – the first week of August! The situation is resolved with the story of Dalek activity on the planet Kembel, where they are planning an invasion of Earth.The assembled delegates of the Dalek alliance. No, I can’t remember which is which, and nor can youDoctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1965: The absence of the regular cast was not due to their unavailability but to avoid extending their contracts for a week. The extra episode is because ‘Planet of Giants’ was edited down from four to three…

October 9 1965 The most curious of all Doctor Who stories is screened – a complete-in-one adventure, ‘Mission to the Unknown’, written by Terry Nation, in which neither the Doctor nor the companions appear! It is not, though, some fiendish plot by Nation to get rid of the Doctor, but rather a prelude to what will be (and still remains) the longest Doctor Who story ever, ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, which is to bridge Christmas and the New Year in twelve episodes. This prelude, which is known by the BBC title, ‘Dalek Cut-away’, has come about as a direct result of instructions from Sir Huw Weldon, Director General of the BBC, to Verity Lambert’s team to produce a ‘monster length’ Dalek story, because – said later newspaper stories – his mother was a great fan of the Daleks! As well as this unprecedented move, the programme is granted an extra episode for the season, and Verity Lambert decides on using it as a trailer for the Dalek special. The only trouble is that the regular cast are on holiday during the only recording dates­ – the first week of August! The situation is resolved with the story of Dalek activity on the planet Kembel, where they are planning an invasion of Earth.The assembled delegates of the Dalek alliance. No, I can’t remember which is which, and nor can youDoctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1980: Three years to the day after K9’s first appearance in episode two of ‘The Invisible Enemy’. His last scenes had already been recorded the previous Saturday. K9 Mark III would get his day, though…

October 8 1980 K9 is definitely to leave the series next year, John Nathan-Turner announces.’ He is restricting our writers because he never gets anything wrong.’ The Daily Mirror headlines its report ‘K9 Gets The Boot’ and says the time-travelling dog is to go because he is too bright ‘and makes it too easy for the Doctor to get out of trouble’. In a major feature in the Daily Express, Douglas Orgill reports that ‘not since the death of Dickens’s Little Nell has the nation faced such a trauma’, and talks about the horrified reaction to the news among children. To prevent K9’s disappearance, one child suggests, ‘Couldn’t they make him a bit less clever?’, while another recommends giving him some companions: ‘I’d like a lot of them, a pack of them – they could hunt Daleks!’ Out of a class of 23 children at Wimbledon Chase Middle School in London, Orgill finds that 18 of the youngsters would rather see the Doctor and his companions leave the series than K9! He does, though, extract a promise from John Nathan-Turner: ‘There could, one day, be a Mark III K9 . . .’K9 head off into the void in his last story, ‘Warriors’ Gate’, broadcast 3-24 January 1981From http://cuttingsarchive.org Daily Express, 8 October 1980 K9 Gets the boot! Dr. who’s mechanical mongrel K9 is getting the boot from TV chiefs because he is too bright. The time-travelling dog with a built-in computer will disappear from the BBC’s long-running series in the New Year. K9 has been KO’d by producer John Nathan-Turner who said yesterday that the dog made it too easy for Dr. Who—played by Tom Baker—to get out of trouble. “He is restricting our writers because he never gets anything wrong,” said Mr. Nathan-Turner. But the Outer Space superdog won’t be going on the scrapyard. He already has a down-to-earth future lined up in a museum at either Blackpool or Longleat.Doctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1980: Three years to the day after K9’s first appearance in episode two of ‘The Invisible Enemy’. His last scenes had already been recorded the previous Saturday. K9 Mark III would get his day, though…

October 8 1980 K9 is definitely to leave the series next year, John Nathan-Turner announces.’ He is restricting our writers because he never gets anything wrong.’ The Daily Mirror headlines its report ‘K9 Gets The Boot’ and says the time-travelling dog is to go because he is too bright ‘and makes it too easy for the Doctor to get out of trouble’. In a major feature in the Daily Express, Douglas Orgill reports that ‘not since the death of Dickens’s Little Nell has the nation faced such a trauma’, and talks about the horrified reaction to the news among children. To prevent K9’s disappearance, one child suggests, ‘Couldn’t they make him a bit less clever?’, while another recommends giving him some companions: ‘I’d like a lot of them, a pack of them – they could hunt Daleks!’ Out of a class of 23 children at Wimbledon Chase Middle School in London, Orgill finds that 18 of the youngsters would rather see the Doctor and his companions leave the series than K9! He does, though, extract a promise from John Nathan-Turner: ‘There could, one day, be a Mark III K9 . . .’K9 head off into the void in his last story, ‘Warriors’ Gate’, broadcast 3-24 January 1981From http://cuttingsarchive.org Daily Express, 8 October 1980 K9 Gets the boot! Dr. who’s mechanical mongrel K9 is getting the boot from TV chiefs because he is too bright. The time-travelling dog with a built-in computer will disappear from the BBC’s long-running series in the New Year. K9 has been KO’d by producer John Nathan-Turner who said yesterday that the dog made it too easy for Dr. Who—played by Tom Baker—to get out of trouble. “He is restricting our writers because he never gets anything wrong,” said Mr. Nathan-Turner. But the Outer Space superdog won’t be going on the scrapyard. He already has a down-to-earth future lined up in a museum at either Blackpool or Longleat.Doctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1983: Peter’s dating for this entry, about a long-running conjecture, appears to be publication of the Doctor Who Magazine 1983 Winter Special, from which Nathan-Turner’s quotes are paraphrased…

October 5 1983 The making of a full-length Doctor Who film is raised again. The project, known as Doctor Who – the Motion Picture, has been several times discussed, John Nathan-Turner reveals. ‘The possibility of a film has come up on a number of occasions in the past four years,’ he says, ‘but each time the idea has fallen through. The BBC were never very happy with the Doctor Who films made in the Sixties and would want to be very closely involved with any such new project. They would also want whoever was playing the Doctor on television to star in the film. I myself wouldn’t want Robert Redford or someone like that as the Doctor! I am determined that it will happen sooner rather than later.’Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1983Extract from the Special’s interview with John Nathan-Turner: “The possibility of a film has several times over the last four years reared its head but has so far fallen through. I think one of the problems is that because the BBC got its fingers burned with the Doctor Who films in the Sixties, which the corporation was not, as I understand it, artistically happy with, my head of department is very keen that if there is ever a movie I am to be very closely involved, to the point where I would be an Associate Producer. As well, before parting with the option of a film one of my main reservations is they would have to have whoever is playing the current Doctor on television – even if it is American money that is financing it or not. I don’t want Robert Redford as the Doctor, it must be the current actor. Inevitably this has put some people off, but it is a thing I am determined will happen sooner rather than later.”Doctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1983: Peter’s dating for this entry, about a long-running conjecture, appears to be publication of the Doctor Who Magazine 1983 Winter Special, from which Nathan-Turner’s quotes are paraphrased…

October 5 1983 The making of a full-length Doctor Who film is raised again. The project, known as Doctor Who – the Motion Picture, has been several times discussed, John Nathan-Turner reveals. ‘The possibility of a film has come up on a number of occasions in the past four years,’ he says, ‘but each time the idea has fallen through. The BBC were never very happy with the Doctor Who films made in the Sixties and would want to be very closely involved with any such new project. They would also want whoever was playing the Doctor on television to star in the film. I myself wouldn’t want Robert Redford or someone like that as the Doctor! I am determined that it will happen sooner rather than later.’Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1983Extract from the Special’s interview with John Nathan-Turner: “The possibility of a film has several times over the last four years reared its head but has so far fallen through. I think one of the problems is that because the BBC got its fingers burned with the Doctor Who films in the Sixties, which the corporation was not, as I understand it, artistically happy with, my head of department is very keen that if there is ever a movie I am to be very closely involved, to the point where I would be an Associate Producer. As well, before parting with the option of a film one of my main reservations is they would have to have whoever is playing the current Doctor on television – even if it is American money that is financing it or not. I don’t want Robert Redford as the Doctor, it must be the current actor. Inevitably this has put some people off, but it is a thing I am determined will happen sooner rather than later.”Doctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1963: Thanks to subsequent access to production documentation, we now know Newman viewed the ‘pilot’ on 1 October, with changes made by story editor David Whitaker, not Webber…

October 4 1963 The pilot for Doctor Who is screened for Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson – but both have immediate reservations. There are several flaws in the actual production, and the two men are agreed that the character of the Doctor must be ‘softened’. Because Anthony Coburn is not available to amend his script, David Whitaker brings in a BBC staff writer, C. E. Webber, to revise certain scenes and change some of the dialogue. Satisfied that these changes will make Doctor Who a workable series, Newman and Wilson approve the almost unparalleled action of remounting the production for ‘another go’. As Verity Lambert is later to recall of this time, ‘We were all very nervous because we were doing things that had rarely been done before, and certainly not by the BBC.’The countdown clock for the first recording of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on 27 September 1963The Doctor and Susan in the first go at recording ‘An Unearthly Child’. Their characters would be adjusted slightly for the remount on 18 October 1963David Brunt’s Production Diary is the definitive history of the series’ production. Buy volumes 1 and 2 now at https://telos.co.uk/product-category/doctor-who/
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The year according to Peter Haining’s ‘Doctor Who: The Key to Time’ — Today in 1963: Thanks to subsequent access to production documentation, we now know Newman viewed the ‘pilot’ on 1 October, with changes made by story editor David Whitaker, not Webber…

October 4 1963 The pilot for Doctor Who is screened for Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson – but both have immediate reservations. There are several flaws in the actual production, and the two men are agreed that the character of the Doctor must be ‘softened’. Because Anthony Coburn is not available to amend his script, David Whitaker brings in a BBC staff writer, C. E. Webber, to revise certain scenes and change some of the dialogue. Satisfied that these changes will make Doctor Who a workable series, Newman and Wilson approve the almost unparalleled action of remounting the production for ‘another go’. As Verity Lambert is later to recall of this time, ‘We were all very nervous because we were doing things that had rarely been done before, and certainly not by the BBC.’The countdown clock for the first recording of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on 27 September 1963The Doctor and Susan in the first go at recording ‘An Unearthly Child’. Their characters would be adjusted slightly for the remount on 18 October 1963David Brunt’s Production Diary is the definitive history of the series’ production. Buy volumes 1 and 2 now at https://telos.co.uk/product-category/doctor-who/
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2026 is the 21st anniversary of Doctor Who’s revival. When the Classic Series was 21, WH Allen published The Key To Time: A Year-by-Year Record by Peter Haining, in which he “explored the history of the series through key dates in its many life-cycles”. Let’s revisit what OCTOBER dates he picked…

Doctor Who - The Key to Time: A Year-by-Year Record, by Peter Haining
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