BBC ARCHIVE

WRITTEN DOCUMENT 1963

TO: Donald Vilson

FROM: C.E. Webber
29th March 1963

SCIENCE FICTION

Characters and Setup

Envisaged is a "loyalty programme", lasting at least 52 weeks,

consisting of
various dramatised S.F. stories, linked to form a continuous serial,
using
basically a few characters who continue through all the stories. Thus
if each
story were to run six or seven episodes there would be about eight
stories
needed to form fifty—two weeks of the overall serial.

Our basic setup with its loyalty characters must fulfil two
conditions:—

1. It must attract and hold the audience.

2. It must be adaptable to any S.F. story, so that we do not have to
reject
stories because they fail to fit into our setup.

Suitable characters for the five o'clock Saturday audience.

Child characters do not command the interest of children older than

themselves.
Young heroines do not command the interest of boys. Young heroes do
command the
interest of girls. Therefore, the highest coverage amongst children
and
teenagers is got by:—

THE HANDSOME YOUNG MAN HERO

(First character)

A young heroine does not command the full interest of older women; our
young
hero has already got the boys and girls; therefore we can consider the
older
woman by providing:—

THE HANDSOME WELLDRESSED HEROINE AGED ABOUT 30

(Second character)

Men are believed to form an important part of the 5 o'clock Saturday

(post—
Grandstand) audience. They will be interested in the young hero; and
to catch
them firmly we should add:—

THE MATURER MAN, 35 — 40, WITH SOME "CHARACTER" TWIST.

(Third character)
Nowadays, to satisfy grown women, father—figures are introduced into
loyalty
programmes at such a rate that TV begins to look like an Oid People's
Home: let
us introduce them ad hoc, as our stories call for them. We shall have
no child
protoganists, but child characters may be introduced ad hoc, because
story
requires it, not to interest children.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: "Need a kid to get into trouble,
make
mistakes."]

What are our three chosen characters?

The essence of S.F. is that the wonder or fairytale element shall be

given a
scientific or technical explanation. To do this there must be at least
one
character capable of giving the explanation, and I think that however
we set up
our serial, we must come around to at least one scientist as a basic
character.
I am now suggesting that all three be Scientists, though handsome and
attractively normal people. Such vague clicnes as Government Project,
Secret
Research, Industrial Atomics, Privately Financed Laboratory in
Scot1and, do not
necessarily involve our group in every kind of S.F. story presented to
us.
Therefore I suggest that they are, all three,

THE PARTNERS IN A FIRM OF SCIENTIFIC CONSULTANTS.

They are a kind of firm which does not exist at present, being an
extension of
today's industrial consultant into the scientific era. We are in a
time which
is not specified but which is felt to be just a bit ahead of the
present; but
the wonder is introduced into today's environment.

The firm carry on normal lines of research in their own small

laboratory, or in
larger ones elsewhere if the job requires it; this is their bread and
butter;
but they are always willing to break off to follow some more unusual
case. In
fact, they have a reputation for tackling problems which no—one else
could
handle; there is almost a feeling of Sherlock Holmes about this side
of their
work. Our stories are the more unusual cases which come their way.

[Handrwitten note from Sydney Newman: "But no one here to require

being taught."]

This setup gives us fluidity for an everlasting serial. One, or two,

of them can
persue [sic] a story, leaving at least one behind to start on the next
case when
we need to transfer to another story. They are:

"THE TROUBLESHOOTERS"

Each of them is a specialist in certain fields, so that each can bring

a
different approach to any problem. But they are all acutely conscious
of the
social and human implications of any case, and if the two men
sometimes become
pure scientist and forget, the woman always reminds them that,
finally, they are
dealing with human beings. Their Headquarters or Base illustrates this
dichotomy: it consists of two parts: 1. a small lab fitted with way—
out
equipment, including some wondrous things acquired in previous
investigations
and 2. an office for interviews, homely, fusty, comfortable, dustily
elegant:
it would not have been out of place in Holmes's Baker street.

Villains.

It would be possible to devise a permanent villain for the above

"Troubleshooters" setup. Our heroes find themselves always coming up
against
him in various cases: the venal politician who seeks to use every
situation to
increase his own power; or the industrialist always opposing our
heroes.
Possibly some continuing villain may create himself as we go, but I
suggest that
we create ad hoc villains for each story, as needed. It is the Western
setup in
this respect: constant heroes, and a fresh villain each time.

Overall Meaning of the Serial.

We shall have no trouble in finding stories. The postulates or S.F.,

from which
its plots derive, can be broadly classified, even enumerated; and we
all have
additions or startling variations up our sleeves. But I think we might
well
consider if there is any necessary difference between the dramatic and
the
literary form, as regards S.F.

a. S.F. deliberately avoids character—in—depth. In S.F. the characters

are
almost interchangable. We must use fully conceived characters.

b. S.F. is deliberately unsexual; women are not really necessary to

it. We must
add feminine interest as a consequence of creating real characters.

c. Because of the above conditions, S.F. does not consider moral

conflict. It
has one clear overall meaning: that human beings in general are
incapable of
controlling the forces they set free. But once we have created real
characters,
we must consider the implications in terms of those characters in
their society.
Drama is about moral conflicts: it is about social relationships.
Experienced
S.F. writers may disagree with me. Well, let them create their own
live S.F.
drama. but for me, it seems a fine opprtunity to write fastmoving,
shocking
episodes, which necessarily consider, or at least firmly raise, such
questions
as: 'What sort of people do we want? What sort of conditions do we
desire? What
is life? What are we? Can society exist without love, without art,
without lies,
without sex? Can if afford to continue to exist with politicians? With
scientists? And so on.