Doctor Who (5 page)

With revenue pouring in from comics, toys, and films, Terry Nation became a millionaire. Despite having actually designed the Daleks, however, Raymond Cusick didn't get any royalties since he had no ownership rights.

Expanding Monster Population

Doctor Who
was originally supposed to present a number of stories that were historical fiction without science fiction elements added. But while viewers loved the slightly magical environment of the first episode, “An Unearthly Child,” they generally didn't care for the next three chapters of the story that featured cavemen. It's an opinion that holds to this day.

Doctor Who
novelist and audio drama writer Simon Guerrier works on
Doctor Who Adventures,
a popular magazine and website for children. On November 23, 2012, he watched “An Unearthly Child” with several young viewers. Despite its age, the episode met with such great approval that the kids asked if they could watch the next episode. As Guerrier said in an interview for this book, “We watched episode two, and they quickly got bored. So
Doctor Who
wasn't as good as it used to be from the very beginning.”

The BBC saw how the program's popularity spiked when the second story arc introduced the Daleks and Skaro. The show started changing from educational stories about lost time travelers to a saga about heroes who fought monsters. Starting with the second year, historical fiction stories (often called just “historicals”) happened less frequently. If the TARDIS landed in Earth's past, an alien force was now lurking about. Since the conclusion of the story “The Highlanders” (broadcast from December 17, 1966 to January 7, 1967),
Doctor Who
has only broadcast one pure historical, “The Black Orchid” in March 1982.

In an interview for this book,
Doctor Who
novelist and comic book writer Dan Abnett said, “I think the potential for having purely historical stories in
Doctor Who
is there as ‘in case of emergency, break glass' to prove we're a legitimate television show that doesn't rely just on actors in rubber suits. The fact that it hasn't happened for so many years is a testament, I think, to the audience saying, ‘It's already not a purely historical story because you have an alien scientist who got there in a blue box.' I think it's a serious challenge to have the Doctor have a story without any science fictional elements and make it as compelling as the stories that do. I think a pure historical declaws what
Doctor Who
is. There's a promise that there will be an unearthly threat, even if it doesn't seem unearthly at first, and the Doctor will be here to stop it.”

In the commentary track for the “Rose” episode, Russell T. Davies spoke glowingly of the monsters, adding “[
Doctor Who
's] unique quality is to take everyday things and make them scary.” Ultimately, it's good story and characterization that make an alien villain successful. In the documentary
Doctor Who: A New Dimension,
Christopher Eccleston said about the monsters, “There's a danger of relying on them visually. To just think,
If we just roll them in with three heads, that's enough
—it isn't. They all have a relationship with the Doctor.”

Many more monsters have populated the Whoniverse over the years, so what is it about the Daleks that so strongly enshrines them in viewers' minds as the hero's arch-foes?

Nicholas Briggs is the actor, writer, and director who has voiced the Daleks (and Cybermen) in Big Finish audio dramas and all their appearances in the modern TV program. When we discussed the villains, Briggs
said, “The Daleks are time travelers like the Doctor, they possess a strange high intelligence like him, and he sees them as a genuine threat, so they're natural enemies. But also, I think people like certainty. Life is so full of gray, isn't it? . . . But the Daleks are certain about everything they do, and they are also certainly bad in everything they do. Symbolically, there are layers to them, but emotionally Daleks aren't conflicted at all, which also means you can't reason with them, and that's scary. That also throws the Doctor into sharp contrast because, even if other people don't believe him, we know how right he is that these things are pure evil; we see how good he is now in contrast to how bad they are—and there's always something fun about seeing true evil getting its ass kicked.”

4

An Educational Crew

“As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.”

—First Doctor to Barbara, from “The Edge of Destruction” (1964)

 

In the beginning, part of the Doctor's mystery revolved around his relationship with young Susan. When Anthony Coburn first revised Webber's script for “An Unearthly Child,” Susan became “Suzanne,” an alien girl from the same world as the Doctor. That draft also had the mysterious Doctor hinting that Suzanne was considered “royal blood.”

David Whitaker liked the idea of this teenage girl coming from the same alien society as the Doctor, but he didn't want her to be royalty. Suzanne changed back to “Susan,” and now used the assumed surname of “Foreman” during her stay on Earth, taking it from the owner of the junk yard that hid the TARDIS: I. M. Foreman. The idea of the Doctor adopting and raising a girl of Gallifreyan royalty would later inspire the character Miranda Dawkins, who appeared in Eighth Doctor novels from BBC Books and got her own comic book mini-series.

The script made clear that the Doctor was acting as a parental figure and guardian to Susan. Nevertheless, Coburn feared that some might still infer inappropriate reasons why this secretive, mercurial old man was traveling alone with a teenage girl. Others agreed, and Coburn made Susan the Doctor's granddaughter, which is explained in “An Unearthly Child” before the mysterious scientist even appears on-screen.

Carole Ann Ford, twenty-three at the time of filming, played Susan. Often cast in younger roles, Ford was happy to play an alien teenager, one who liked foggy streets at night, had an incredible knowledge of science and history, and possessed telepathic traits. As with the Doctor, Susan's odd remarks made the audience wonder at times whether she was deliberately witty or just honest and strange.

There was also the mystery of why Susan had joined the Doctor in exile. In the third story arc, “The Edge of Destruction,” the Doctor falls unconscious for several minutes. When he wakes, he says, “I can't take you back, Susan! I can't!” Some viewers wondered if this meant Susan had never intended to travel in the TARDIS, perhaps forced onto the ship by her grandfather who didn't want to travel alone. Others thought that she chose to join him but regretted the decision later, and the Doctor was reliving an old argument.

In 2013, the episode “The Name of the Doctor” finally sheds a little light on the mystery. A flashback scene shows the Doctor selecting a TARDIS so he can leave Gallifrey, with Susan willingly entering the ship first.

Of course, this still doesn't answer another basic question. Who were Susan's parents? Which of them was a child of the Doctor? Did they approve of her leaving Gallifrey or did the family consider her and her grandfather as black sheep who were best forgotten?

The Big Finish audio play “Auld Mortality” refers to Susan as the daughter of the Doctor's daughter, but that story was meant to take place outside continuity and her exact lineage has never been confirmed on-screen. The television episodes “Fear Her” (2006) and “The Doctor's Daughter” (2008) confirmed that the Doctor was a father, but didn't say if he had a son, daughter, or multiple children. Behind the scenes, Hartnell suggested that Susan was the child of the Doctor's son and thought her father could be introduced as a villain who traveled in his own TARDIS. Hartnell even mused that he himself could play the Doctor's son, making him a twisted reflection of the hero. Though this character never appeared, the idea of such a villain presaged later enemies the Monk, the War Chief, the Rani, and the Master.

In the 1964 story “The Sensorites,” we learned that while the Doctor's people had telepathic traits that could be honed through training, his granddaughter's were naturally stronger than his own. In the same story, Susan also gives the first description of their home world. According to her, “The sky is a burnt orange, and the leaves on the trees are silver.” In 2007, David Tennant's Tenth Doctor repeats these words almost exactly in the episode “Gridlock,” adding that the light of the rising sun made the forest look as if it were on fire.

In later years, some readers put forth the notion that Susan wasn't literally the Doctor's granddaughter but just his first traveling companion, whom he came to consider family. As far as the show's creators and cast were concerned, they were indeed directly related, and the writers made sure to say as much in their dialogue. Creators of the modern program share this belief. In the 2005 episode “The Empty Child,” a man named Dr. Constantine remarks, “Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I'm neither, but I'm still a doctor.” The Ninth Doctor quietly replies: “Yeah. Know the feeling.” To this day, when some have referred to Susan as the Doctor's “first traveling companion” or “first assistant,” Ford openly objects, saying: “I wasn't a companion; I was the granddaughter.”

Anthony Coburn, the writer responsible for making Susan and the Doctor family, never wrote another story for
Doctor Who
after “An Unearthly Child.” When his scripts failed to be produced, he left the show in frustration. The script for “Masters of Luxor” was published by Titan Books in 1992. It was then adapted as an audio drama by Big Finish in 2012.

Ian Chesterton, Man of Action

William Russell—born Russell William Enoch—played Ian Chesterton. During his time in the Royal Air Force, he organized entertainment and after graduating from college went into repertory theater. In addition to appearing in
Hamlet
in London's West End, he appeared in several films, including
The Great Escape,
and was known as a heartthrob leading man.

Doctor Who
's educational aspect determined the roles of the first two traveling companions. Ian the science teacher could prompt the Doctor to explain science fiction concepts more simply for the audience, grounding it in his own understanding. Ian was also there to be the man of action when needed, as the alien scientist was too elderly to fight. The Doctor's need for a younger and more physically able male companion continued until 1970, when the martial arts savvy Third Doctor arrived. Along with his physicality, Ian's morality became a driving force in the stories. In “The Daleks,” the Doctor volunteers to lead the Thal people to victory. Ian overrules him, saying that it is better to inspire people to fight for themselves.

Russell appreciated this role of a romantic hero and the messages of the
Doctor Who
stories. In the commentary for “The Daleks,” he summed up one of the program's recurring messages by saying, “You've got to make a decision, you've got to come to a conclusion. You can't just ignore it. You face it and you say, ‘All right, then I'll stay. . . . You all run away.' ”

Russell also enjoyed the relationship that developed between Ian and the Doctor, evolving from potential enemies to colleagues who liked each other more than they'd admit. Despite a desire to go home, Ian finds himself enjoying many of his adventures. In “The Reign of Terror,” the Doctor insists that they've returned to 1960s London but is, again, wrong. Yet when Barbara asks if Ian is disappointed, he replies, “Funnily enough, no. I don't know.”

Barbara Wright, voice of reason

Jacqueline Hill played Barbara Wright. She entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on scholarship at age sixteen. In 1957, she starred in the BBC adaptation of Rod Serling's
Requiem for a Heavyweight,
convincing the director, Alvin Rakoff (whom she later married), to cast relatively new actor Sean Connery as well, believing he would be popular with female viewers.

Lambert personally approached Hill about playing Barbara, and the two discussed the character for some time before the producer officially offered her the role, which she accepted readily. Hill told
Doctor Who Magazine
:

 

All I knew at first, all I was actually told, was that my character was a very learned history teacher and that I was there to represent the Earth point of view when we went back in time and did the occasional serial set in the past. I found that quite easy, as I liked history and those historical stories appealed to me anyway. Everything else I had to put in myself, and this meant taking it up with either Verity or the director concerned. I think there were times when I said, “Barbara wouldn't say this or she wouldn't do this,” and they were usually very good and listened to me on those points because I knew the character better than anybody else.

 

The good thing about Barbara was that because she was older than most of the girls since, the writers were more hesitant about making her look silly or scream too much. That side of things was largely left to Carole Ann Ford, which is why she left earlier than Bill Russell and myself.

 

Some modern viewers have found it surprising just how realized Barbara's character is during the early adventures. While she does scream at seeing some of the monsters, she doesn't have emotional outbursts foreign to the circumstances (and Ian could get quite emotional during the stories, too). During their first journey through time, Ian refuses to accept the Doctor's stories as true, whereas Barbara—who considers Ian a friend rather than a mentor or a colleague with authority—instantly understands and seeks new answers. Even when the two teachers leave the TARDIS and discover that they have traveled to another place and time, Ian, visibly shaken, remarks that the situation is “impossible to accept.” Barbara on the other hand says matter-of-factly: “The point is, Ian, that it's happened.”

Barbara continues to stand out from many expectations in the next two stories. In “The Daleks,” Barbara is the one to find a love interest on a strange new planet rather than Ian, and in “The Edge of Destruction,” it's her imagination and insight that save the TARDIS crew from doom when she realizes the ship is alive and trying to communicate (something Ian can't quite believe). This third story finally convinces the Doctor that he has much to learn from these worthy human friends, meaning she is a major catalyst in making him a hero. We have producer Verity Lambert to thank, along with the writers, for the show treating Barbara so well in those early days.

Like Ian, Barbara's occupation had a purpose. Since the TARDIS “year-o-meter” broke in the second episode, it was sometimes left to the history teacher to determine where the ship had landed, noting various clues as she educated viewers on Earth's past.

Barbara also added drama by challenging the Doctor's authority in time travel. In the 1964 story “The Aztecs,” she is mistaken for a goddess and decides to take this opportunity to influence Aztec society for the better. The Doctor immediately opposes this, declaring it both impossible and amoral to
change history. In the end, Barbara's hopes come to nothing, and she regrets deceiving the Aztecs, particularly a kindly elder who defended her.

 

BARBARA:
“I gave him false hope, and in the end he lost his faith.”

DOCTOR:
“He found another faith, a better one. And that's the good you've done. You failed to save a civilization, but at least you helped one man.”

 

While Ian still challenged the Doctor openly, Barbara became keenly aware that the strange scientist had the final say in many matters as he alone could work the TARDIS and understood the full dangers of time travel. As she explained in “The Sensorites,” “We're very dependent on the Doctor. He leads and we follow.”

Changing Atmosphere

As time went on, Carole Ann Ford cooled on the role of Susan. Some of the writers seemed to forget that she hailed from a society of long-lived time travelers, portraying her more as an ordinary teenager who easily startled and often suffered being a damsel in distress. The TV story “The Sensorites” became one of Ford's favorites, depicting Susan as inexperienced but also wise beyond her apparent years, musing, “Isn't it better to travel hopefully than arrive?”

Because of this difference in vision and the grueling schedule of filming a fifty-two episode season, Ford decided to leave the program early in the second year. The second story arc of that year was “The Dalek Invasion of Earth.” When the TARDIS crew aids human freedom fighters, Susan grows close to a young man named David Campbell, and the Doctor takes notice. Despite her protests that she needs to stay with him, the Doctor tells Susan that she is no longer a child but a woman who needs to find her own life and home, as she's often wanted to. He locks the TARDIS doors, promises to return, and leaves.

In this pre-Internet era, viewers had no warning that Susan might leave. Some wondered whether the hero had left his granddaughter behind
to protect her from the unseen forces he was fleeing. Simon Guerrier's novel
The Time Travellers
points to that as the main reason for the parting, once the Doctor knows she has someone who loves her and will aid her against danger.

The Doctor's farewell to Susan became one of the most famous speeches in the show: “One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs—and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.”

After Susan's departure came the TV story “The Escape,” which introduced Vicki, played by Maureen O'Brien, a sixteen-year-old human born and raised in the twenty-fifth century. Though she had no family name in the program, some tie-in media gave it as Pallister.

Along with the change in cast, the second year of
Doctor Who
seemed to go down a darker path. “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” had featured germ warfare and forced brain surgery. “The Escape” introduced Vicki in the middle of a mass murder mystery, her father one of the victims. In the same story, Barbara kills Vicki's pet “sand beast,” mistaking it for a predator. With no family or home, Vicki forgives Barbara and accepts a place on the TARDIS.