History of Doctor Who

In March 1962, Eric Maschwitz, the Assistant and Adviser to the Controller of
Programmes at BBC Television, asked Donald Wilson, the Head of the Script
Department, to have his department's Survey Group prepare a study on the
feasibility of the BBC producing a new science fiction television series.[1] The
report was prepared by staff members Alice Frick and Donald Bull, and delivered the
following month, much to the commendation of Wilson, Maschwitz and the BBC's
Assistant Controller of Programmes Donald Baverstock.[2] A follow-up report into
specific ideas for the format of such a programme was commissioned and delivered in
July. Prepared by Frick with another Script Department staff member, John Braybon,
this report recommended a series dealing with time travel as being an idea
particularly worthy of development.[3]

In December, Canadian-born Sydney Newman arrived at BBC Television as the new Head
of Drama. Newman was a science fiction fan who had overseen several such
productions in his previous positions at ABC Television and the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation.[4] In March 1963, he was made aware by Baverstock – now
promoted to Controller of Programmes – of a gap in the schedule on Saturday
evenings between the sports showcase Grandstand and the pop music programme Juke
Box Jury.[5] Ideally, any programme scheduled here would appeal to children that
had previously been accustomed to the timeslot, the teenaged audience of Juke Box
Jury, and the adult sports fan audience of Grandstand.[6] Newman decided that a
science fiction programme would be perfect to fill the gap, and enthusiastically
took up the existing Script Department research, initiating several brainstorming
sessions with Wilson, Braybon, Frick and another BBC staff writer, C. E. Webber.[5]

Webber’s first outline document about the series, dated 29 March 1963, envisioned
the show, tentatively titled "The Troubleshooters",[7] being driven by a group of
Earth-based, contemporary humans who are constantly conflicting with a recurring
foe.[8] Newman would then personally came up with the idea of an educational series
featuring a time machine larger on the inside than the outside and the idea of the
central character, the mysterious "Dr. Who"; he also gave the series the same
title.[9][10]

Webber’s second outline, now calling the series ‘’Dr. Who’’, followed an amnesiac
“frail old man lost in space and time” with a machine which enables him “to travel
together through time, through space, and through matter.”[11] The character of Dr.
Who was described as being “suspicious and capable of sudden malignance”, disliking
his other supporting characters, and hating scientific progress, with the secret
mission to meddle with time and destroy the future, while his time machine was
described as “unreliable” and being invisible. Sydney Newman penciled in a
rejection of the character’s description, as he didn’t want the main character of
the series to be “a reactionary”, but a “father figure” who would “take science,
applied and theoretical, as being as natural as eating”. He also disliked the idea
of an invisible time machine, saying that a "tangible symbol" was needed, but was
enthusiastic about the idea of the time machine's unreliability. In addition,
Webber suggested ways Dr. Who's identity could develop. He suggested Bethlehem as a
location for a Christmas story and Dr. Who as Merlin, as Jacob Marley, and his wife
as Cinderella's godmother chasing her husband through time. Newman wasn’t keen on
the proposed direction for the series, writing, "I don't like this much - it reads
silly and condescending. It doesn't get across the basis of teaching of educational
experience - drama based upon and stemming from factual material and scientific
phenomena and actual social history of past and future."[7][12]

The final memo detailing the format of the series, written by Wilson, Webber, and
Neyman and dated 16 May 1963, described the character of Dr. Who as a “650 years
old” man whose “watery blue eyes are continually looking around in bewilderment and
occasionally a look of utter malevolence clouds his face as he suspects his earthly
friends of being part of some conspiracy”. He “seems not to remember where he comes
from but he has flashes of garbled memory which indicate that he was involved in a
galactic war and still fears pursuit by some undefined enemy”. His ship is also
described as a “a police telephone box [...] but anyone entering it finds himself
inside an extensive electronic contrivance. Though it looks impressive, it is an
old beat-up model which Dr. Who stole when he escaped from his own galaxy in the
year 5733; it is uncertain in performance; moreover, Dr. Who isn't quite sure how
to work it, so they have to learn by trial and error.” [13] Later in the year
production was initiated and handed over to producer Verity Lambert and story
editor David Whitaker to oversee, after a brief period when the show had been
handled by a "caretaker" producer, Rex Tucker.[9] Concerned about Lambert's
relative lack of experience,[citation needed] Wilson appointed the experienced
staff director Mervyn Pinfield as associate producer. Australian staff writer
Anthony Coburn also contributed, penning the very first episode from a draft
initially prepared by Webber.[14]

Doctor Who was originally intended to be an educational series, with the TARDIS
taking the form of an object from that particular episode's time period (a column
in Ancient Greece, a sarcophagus in Egypt, etc.). When the show's budget was
calculated, however, it was discovered that it was prohibitively expensive to re-
dress the TARDIS model for each episode;[citation needed] instead, the TARDIS's
"Chameleon Circuit" was said to be malfunctioning, giving the prop its
characteristic 'police-box' appearance.[citation needed]

The series' theme music was written by film and television composer Ron Grainer
(who would later go on to also compose the theme to The Prisoner, among others) in
collaboration with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. While Grainer wrote the theme, it
was Delia Derbyshire who was responsible for its creation, using a series of tape
recorders to laboriously cut and join together the individual sounds she created
with both concrete sources and square- and sine-wave oscillators. Grainer was
amazed at the results and asked "Did I write that?" when he heard it. Derbyshire
replied that he mostly had. The BBC (who wanted to keep members of the Workshop
anonymous) prevented Derbyshire from getting a co-composer credit and half the
royalties. The title sequence was designed by graphics designer Bernard Lodge and
realised by electronic effects specialist Norman Taylor

In 1979, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) - then commercial

television's regulator - decided production should be reduced further to three
episodes a week from April 1980, with the chairman of the IBA Lady Plowden
reportedly[11] describing the soap opera as "distressingly popular".[12] ATV
planned to replace the fourth episode with a spin-off series called A Family
Affair,[13] but this idea was dropped. Series star Noele Gordon, who played
matriarch Meg Richardson, won the TV Times 'Most Compulsive Female Character'
viewers award eight consecutive years during the 1970s. After winning for the
eighth time, Gordon was placed in the TVTimes "Hall of Fame" making her ineligible
for the award in the future.[3]

Viewers reacted negatively at the dismissal of Gordon in 1981, an action taken by

head of programming Charles Denton who became a "national hate figure".[14] The
series producer Jack Barton agreed with Denton, thinking that Gordon's character
had become too dominant,[7] but the episode gained heavy coverage in the press for
some time.[15]

A brand new drama production has been announced by ITV Studios in November 2021,
which is to feature Helena Bonham Carter as Noele Gordon. Written by Russell T
Davies, the production is titled "Nolly", following her period in Crossroads.[16]