Doctor Who 1963 BBC Reports & Notes> Background Notes On Dr. Who part 1

There’s a longstanding debate on whether “Doctor Who” is just the name of the show or the proper name of the Doctor. We won’t get into that this week.

We will, however be looking at the characters’ original concept. In our last report we saw the archetypes for what characters to have in the show, something that we kind of got for most of the Third Doctor’s run as I came to realize while writing the previous installment–just as I realized a few minutes ago I wrote the name of this article series wrong on the series title card. I’m not a professional, but I try to act like one!

Anyway, much like the Star Trek pitch, character names in this early concept on what has finally gotten the proper show name do not match what we got. I’m not sure how far into production these notes came together and I still don’t have access to a proper writer’s guide for any season of the show. This report, “DR. WHO” General Notes on Background and Approach, is the closest we’re going to get. And it must be really early because Sydney Newman has “handwritten” notes for pretty much everything. The TARDIS Fandom wiki has the proper timeline of events for production in 1963, or at least I hope they do. If I follow the information, this came out in May and was prepared by Head Of Serials Donald Wilson, staff writer C.E. Webber, and Head Of Drama Sydney Newman, submitted to Donald Baverstock.

Baverstock is a new name in this production chain, controller of BBC Television at the time. And somehow it doesn’t surprise me that “controller” is a title at the BBC. Apparently he really wanted this show to happen, despite previous reports either seeming to be against science fiction altogether (media snobs have looked down on sci-fi for decades) or going against a bunch of things that are Doctor Who staples, like the young girl, time travel, and the focus on the monsters. He also controlled the budget, and I get the feeling we’ll be talking about him more in the wrap-up article.

For now, though, let’s read the report, Newman’s notes on pretty much everything, and look into the Doctor Who that might have to see if we’re living in the better timeline. Again, check the prologue to see how to pick these up for yourself. As you can guess from the headline, this is not going out in one goal. The original full article was almost 5000 words and I’m not going to take up all that time. YOU don’t have a TARDIS. I assume. So let’s start our journey by seeing what the cast would have looked like.

“DR. WHO”
General Notes on Background and Approach

A series of stories linked to form a continuing serial; thus if each story ran 6 or 7 episodes there would be about 8 stories needed for 52 weeks of the serial. With the overall title, each episode is to have its own title. Each episode of 25 minutes will begin by repeating the closing sequence or final climax of the preceding episode; about halfway through, each episode will reach a climax, followed by blackout before the second half commences (one break).

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: “Each episode to end with a very strong cliff-hanger.”]

If this is the report sent to Baverstock, was Newman just clarifying things or sending info back? If it wasn’t the final report before shooting the first version of “An Unearthly Child”, the pilot that had a creepier Doctor and Susan and was riddled with production errors (apparently by the time they found out they chose the wrong studio it was too late to do anything about it), Then I wonder about some of the notes Newman added. Was this an early draft of the final notes sent to Baverstock?

This is of course the format we got for early Doctor Who. Over time story arcs would have a definitive ending, but if you watch the Hartnell years you’ll see that every arc that ends still has a teaser for the start of the next arc. That’s certainly a way to keep people talking about what’s coming next, though having a definite end to the story when the arc was done has the merit of letting you know the story ends here. There have been times when the show would start a new story coming off the previous arc. “Kinda” and “Snakedance”, or the “Key To Time” are examples of this.

Each story, as far as possible, to use repeatable sets. It is expected that BP [abbreviation for ‘back projection’] will be available. A reasonable amount of film, which will probably be mostly studio shot for special effects. Certainly writers should not hesitate to call for any special effects to achieve the element of surprise essential in these stories, even though they are not sure how it would be done technically: leave it to the Effects people. Otherwise work to a very moderate budget.

“I’m so sorry we almost named you Biddy.”

Funny thing is, the special effects costing more than originally stated was one of the things Baverstock got upset about according to the wiki, and this is a series that always had a “couch cushion budget” as I call it for the entirety of classic Doctor Who. This led to the occasional dodgy monster, some funny backstage anecdotes of what they were being hit with, and set designs that made Star Trek look like Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The classic show never really had a decent budget, which was one of the reasons later BBC One controller Michael Grade hated the show. Nevermind him, though, it’s time for the good part of this note:

There are four basic characters used throughout:—

CHARACTERS

BRIDGET (BIDDY)
A with—it girl of 15, reaching the end of her Secondary School career, eager for life, lower—than—middle class. Avoid dialect, use neutral accent laced with latest teenage slang.

Instead we got Susan, the time traveller and granddaughter of the title character. I’ve only seen one story with Dodo, an infamously not well received character, but Biddy sounds more like her than Susan. We never really saw Susan interact with the other students at Coal Hill, but given what little we know of her time there, I’m not sure she was a “with-it” girl, whatever that means. I don’t remember her using a lot of slang. Being American, I don’t know where “Secondary School” fits in the age charts. I’m guessing it’s like high school here since she’s 15. She would be the first Companion to leave, finding love in a post-Dalek Earth (you have to wonder how a bombed out Earth became the galactic power we’d see later in the franchise) because Carole Ann Ford left to further her career. She’s returned as Susan in “The Five Doctors”, “Dimensions In Time”, Big Finish stories, and whatever the hell the Disney + second season was doing with her, while Ford did a licenced fan story involving the Sontarans as a different character.

MISS McGOVERN (LOLA)
24. Mistress at Biddy’s school. Timid but capable of sudden rabbit courage. Modest, with plenty of normal desires. Although she tends to be the one who gets into trouble, she is not to be guyed: she also is a loyalty character.

However you’d describe Barbara, “timid” isn’t coming to my mind. She was no Tegan but she wasn’t afraid to speak her peace, and despite being a history teacher once hoped to talk the Aztecs out of being the baby sacrificing warriors they were back in the height of their power in South America. (High doubts any descendants do that now, mind you.) I’m also not sure she got into any more trouble than the others.

CLIFF
27 or 28. Master at the same school. Might be classed as ancient by teenagers except that he is physically perfect, strong and courageous, a gorgeous dish. Oddly, when brains are required, he can even be brainy, in a diffident sort of way.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: “Top of his class in the parallel bars.”]

This is the first time I’ve heard the word “diffident” and apparently it’s me, the shy type. That doesn’t sound like our science teacher Ian Chesterton at all. He certainly wasn’t afraid to call out the Doctor’s more impulsive actions. Brainy, yes, though his character was originally in the muscle position with the old man and the two girls (1963, remember). I don’t remember being good at gymnastics being part of his character, either.

These are the characters we know and sympathise with, the ordinary people to whom extraordinary things happen. The fourth basic character remains always something of a mystery, and is seen by us rather through the eyes of the other three….

DR. WHO
A frail old man lost in space and time. They give him this name because they don’t know who he is. He seems not to remember where he has come from; he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignance; he seems to have some undefined enemy; he is searching for something as well as fleeing from something. He has a “machine” which enables them to travel together through time, through space,
and through matter.

I have too few pictures of the First Doctor. I should fix that someday.

Much of the Doctor’s backstory had not been developed. Blame the amnesia in-universe I guess. While we later learned he was running from the Time Lords for his own reasons, at the time the writers didn’t even know if he was from another planet or just our future. At first Ian and Barbara assumed his last name was Foreman, as it was the last name Susan would take on, getting it off of the junkyard sign. The first person to even make the title drop was the Doctor himself when they called him “Doctor Foreman”, possibly because Susan hadn’t shared that bit of info with him. Right now we don’t even have a dimensionally transcendental machine. It could be a DeLorean or a phone booth at this stage of development. I wonder when they opted for Snoopy’s dog house interiors?

QUALITY OF STORY
Evidently, Dr. Who’s “machine” fulfils mary of the functions of conventional Science Fiction gimmicks. But we are not writing Science Fiction. We shall provide scientific explanations too, sometimes, but we shall not bend over backwards to do so, if we decide to achieve credibility by other means. Neither are we writing fantasy: the events have got to be credible to the three ordinary people who are our main characters, and they are sharp—witted enough to spot a phoney. I think the writer’s safeguard here will be, if he remembers that he is writing for an audience aged fourteen… the most difficult, critical, even sophisticated, audience there is, for TV. In brief, avoid the limitations of any label and use the best in any style or category, as it suits us, so long as it works in our medium.

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: “Not clear”]

Don’t worry, Sydney. By the time the you leave most of this will be ignored anyway. The only explanation we ever get for how the “bigger on the inside” bit works is that things look smaller on televisions so it’s not impossible. It would take a very long time before we even got a handwaving “pocket dimensions” excuse for things like a raging waterfall and grassland being on the ship. We the audience of any age group just accepted a lot for the sake of a good story. Then again, the next one is so not clear he actually make a note that goes during the paragraph in the txt file I have:

Granted the startling situations, [Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: “What startling situations.”] we should try to add meaning; to convey what it means to be these ordinary human beings in other times, or in far space, or in unusual physical states. We might hope to be able to answer the question: “Besides being exciting entertainment, for 5 o’clock on a Saturday, what is worthwhile about this serial?”

[Handwritten note from Sydney Newman: “Not clear”]

I’m assuming they mean the situations the characters would be ending up in each week. As it turns out “being exciting entertainment” was enough. And now that we’ve met those characters, even if only the Doctor was close to the initial plan. This ends part one. Next time let’s see what the TARDIS started life–well, “see” may not be the right word…as we learn more about this Dr Who character and finish this early production note reading. Expect more notes from Sydney, a couple of videos, and more changes from things you remember.