Doctor Who: 1963 BBC Reports & Notes> The SF Report part 2

The second half of the first report. In part one we looked over how two people not versed in science fiction explored the possibility of science fiction on British TV. Not very well, apparently, and that continues here.

As a reminder: the Head Of Light Entertainment asked the Head of Serials of the BBC drama department to look into science fiction on television. I couldn’t tell you what sparked that, but he sent Donald Bull & Alice Frick out to make a report about the possibility, with Bull writing the final report we started reading last time. You could already see how this was progressing into the ramblings of your typical upper class elitist who had no understanding about the genre or if it would actually work.

Today we see the second half of that report, which only confirms all of that. By the time this is done, the fact that Doctor Who was ever made will be the surprise. Decades later you’d have a controller who worked to axe the show rather than improve the show’s budget, his biggest complaint. Executives make no sense to me. I don’t know where Bull and Frick fit into the hierarchy at the BBC, but here the rest of their report, still being written by Donald Bull. Fitting, as there’s a bit of “bull….” in this.

7. We thought it valuable to try and discover wherein might lie the essential appeal of SF to TV audiences. So far we have little to go on except “Quatermass”, “Andromeda” and a couple of shows Giles Cooper did for commercial TV. These all belong to the Threat and Disaster school, the type of plot in which the whole of mankind is threatened, usually from an “alien” source. There the threat originates on earth (mad scientists and all that jazz) it is still cosmic in its reach. This cosmic quality seems inherent in SF; without it, it would be trivial. Apart from the instinctive pull of such themes, the obvious appeal of these TV SF essays lies in the ironmongery — the apparatus, the magic — and in the excitement of the unexpected. “Andromeda”, which otherwise seemed to set itself out to repel, drew its total appeal from exploiting this facet, we consider. It is interesting to note that with “Andromeda”, and even with “Quatermass” more people watched it than liked it. People aren’t all that mad about SF, but it is compulsive, when properly presented.

“Andromeda” of course doesn’t mean the Kevin Sorbo Star Trek knockoff. It most likely refers to A For Andromeda, which according to IMDB takes place in the far-off year of 1970, where “a team of scientists decipher a mysterious signal from space and discover that it provides instructions to build a powerful super-computer. This in turn contains instructions to create a living organism. Once built, this computer provokes argument between two of leading team members, Fleming and Dawnay, over the machine’s real intentions as it provides further instructions to create a living organism, which Dawnay starts to develop. Later it appears to compel lab assistant Christine to commit suicide, and when the organism is fully developed, it appears in the exact form of Christine, and named Andromeda. But what is the purpose of this “creature”?” This show was another victim of BBC’s lack of foresight, with a sequel, The Andromeda Breakthrough, and a 2006 movie.

Audiences — we think — are as yet not interested in the mere exploitation of ideas — the “idea as hero” aspect of SF. They must have something to latch on to. The apparatus must be attached to the current human situation, and identification must be offered with recognisable human beings.

Not necessarily. You could do a compelling show with robots, anthropomorphic animal people, regular animals…it’s all in the execution, in giving the characters relatable personalities that you can connect to. You don’t have to see yourself…no matter what modern Hollywood and BBC think, just a character that you can relate to while still finding their very different world fascinating. Grounding in reality is one of the issues I have with current sci-fi not set on present day Earth. The way it’s constructed, it might as well BE modern day California.

8. As a rider to the above, it is significant that SF is not itself a wildly popular branch of fiction — nothing like, for example, detective and thriller fiction. It doesn’t appeal much to women and largely finds its public in the technically minded younger groups. SF is a most fruitful and exciting area of exploration — but so far has not shown itself capable of supporting a large population.

Well we all know that’s BS. Geek culture might not be what it is today, but science fiction still has advantages. Maybe 1960s British aristocrats had no interest in it, but you just said “largely finds its public in the technically minded younger groups”. So go with that. When those kids get older you can make sci-fi older, but don’t give up trying. The Twilight Zone went for five seasons. You have a target audience, and given that Doctor Who was the BBC’s biggest export until they cancelled it for snobbish reasons, making it was the right move. This almost says “there’s no audience so don’t bother”. Apparently they agree with me somewhat, though.

9. This points to the need to use great care and judgement in shaping SF for a mass audience. It isn’t an automatic winner.

No doubt future audiences will get the taste and hang of SF as exciting in itself, and an entertaining way of probing speculative ideas, and the brilliant imaginings of a writer like Isaac Aaimov will find a receptive place. But for the present we conclude that SF TV must be rooted in the contemporary scene, and like any other kind of drama deal with human beings in a situation that evokes identification end sympathy. Once again, our field is therefore sharply narrowed.

And yet much of Doctor Who took place in space and their most famous enemy were a bunch of pepper pots piloted by people who thought their ugly mutated forms were the height of racial purity. Go figure. It seems like they asked a lot of people outside of science fiction fandom, the same snobbish attitude that would have kept Star Wars form being made if George Lucas didn’t fight so hard to see it through.

Conclusions

10 We must admit to having started this study with a profound prejudice — that television science fiction drama must be written not by SF writers, but by TV dramatists. We think it is not necessary to elaborate our reasons for this —it’s a different job and calls for different skills. Further, the public/audience is different, so it wants a different kind of story (until perhaps it can be trained to accept something quite new). There is a wide gulf between SF as it exists, and the present tastes and needs of the TV audience, and this can only be bridged by writers deeply immersed in the TV discipline.

I worry about that “being trained to accept something quite new” part. You shouldn’t train your audience, and you shouldn’t need to. They also went to TV people and no science fiction people. I wonder if that’s why the follow-up was used. When we went through the original Star Trek guide earlier this year we noticed that they seemed to be training writers in how to make good science fiction. So even in America that was apparently a problem. That show came out three years after Doctor Who.

11. Only a very cursory examination has sufficed to show that the vast bulk of SF writing is by nature unsuitable for translation to TV. In its major manifestation, the imaginative short story with philosophic overtones, it is too remote, projected too far away from common humanity in the here—and—now, to evoke interest in the common audience. Satiric fantasies are presumably out. As far as the writers themselves are concerned, nearly all of them are American, and so not available to us even if we wanted them.

We are left with a small group of works, and writers, mainly novels written by British novelists. With the exception of Arthur Clarke and C.S. Lewis, they represent the Threat and Disaster school, which as we have said, is the genre of SF most acceptable to a broad audience. John Wyndham is the chief exponent.Wyndham’s books were studied in the Department on an earlier occasion, and we decided that with one exception they offered us nothing directly usable on TV. The exception was “The Midwich Cuckoos”, which of course was snapped up for a film. This is indeed the likely fate of any SF novel that could also serve us for TV

From Wikipedia: “The Midwich Cuckoos is a 1957 science fiction novel written by the English author John Wyndham. It tells the tale of an English village in which the women become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens. The book has been praised by many critics, including the dramatist Dan Rebellato, who called it “a searching novel of moral ambiguities”, and the novelist Margaret Atwood, who called the book Wyndham’s “chef d’œuvre“. The book has been adapted into several media, such as film, radio, and television.” Never heard of it. I also didn’t know C.S. Lewis did science fiction. A bit of horror and of course fantasy like the Chronicles Of Narnia series, but not actual sci-fi. Then again, these elitists probably can’t tell the difference. Frankenstein is a crossover at best, but sci-fi has always been good at mimicking other genres.

12. Two exceptions to “Threat and Disaster” are Arthur Clarke and C.S. Lewis. The latter we think is clumsy and old-fashioned in his use of the SF apparatus, there is a sense of condescension in his tone, and his special religious preoccupations are boring and platitudinous. Clarke is a modest writer, with a decent feeling for his characters, able to concoct a good story, and a master of the ironmongery  department. Charles Eric Maine, who again can tell an interesting story without having to wipe out the human race in the process, is
too much a fantasist: he is obsessed with the Time theme, time—travel, fourth dimensions and so on — and we consider this indigestible stuff for the audience. There is scarcely need to mention Fred Hoyle; we consider his ideas exciting, well related to the present day, and only need proper adaptation to TV to achieve great success. We consider “Andromeda” both a warning and an example.

Hahahahahahaha! And then they made a show about four people traveling through time and space in a police box that has large internal dimensions. You dumbasses! Also, given that they work for the BBC I’m not surprised they’re coming down against Lewis’ Christian themes, just that it was happening even that far back. So elitist snobs trapped in the “relatable modern world” is nothing new.

13. It is of course not possible to say what sort of hand Clarke, say, or Wyndham, or any other practitioner would make of writing directly for TV. Perhaps their best role at present would be as collaborators, in the way we are using Hoyle. They are obviously full of specialised know—how, but only a trained TV writer could make proper use of it.

And you couldn’t take time to train them, or have them train your writers in proper science fiction writing? Star Trek put the instructions in their writer’s guide! Again, three years later!

14. Our conclusion therefore is that we cannot recommend any existing SF stories for TV adaptation, and that Arthur Clarke and John Wyndham might be valuable as collaborators. As a rider, we are morally certain that TV writers themselves will answer the challenge and fill the need.

Then in 1988 they made a serialized version of The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. I guess audiences wer efinally ready?

Addenda to Joint Report

I met Brien Aidiss, editor of Penguin Science Fiction (editing another volume now) in Oxford. He is very knowledgeable and has a large reference library of SF. I believe he is the Honorary Secretary of the British Science Fiction Association, and he told me of the conference mentioned by Duncan Ross. He has been engaged by Monica Sims for the “Let’s Imagine Worlds in Space” programme. He will call me sometime soon and come to London, at which time he could meet someone regarding SF for television. He would be a valuable consultant — not a crank — with definite ideas about what could be achieved visually.

There are several sources of short stories which might be considered for a series of single—shot adaptations of the kind mentioned in Eric Maschwitz’s memo, Perhaps the best would be the Faber (several volumes of which we have read only one) and Penguin Anthologies of Science Fiction. These seem to be the best quality short stories available.

By the end of this the bias becomes more obvious. After this report I’m surprised they even bothered making a sci-fi show even though they had a couple on their schedule already, as did rival ITV, who didn’t have government dollars…sorry, quids to fall back on. So I have to ask what convinced the BBC to push Newman to make any kind of science fiction show, Doctor Who or otherwise. Perhaps the answers are in the follow-up report? Next time we’ll start finding out.