User:DaveJB/History of Doctor Who 1970-1979

This is a history of the Science Fiction TV show Doctor Who between the years 1970 and 1979. It covers the Jon Pertwee era and most of the Tom Baker era.

The UNIT years

Producer Derrick Sherwin's first choice to replace Patrick Troughton was actor Ron Moody, star of the musical Oliver!, but when he turned the part down, comic actor Jon Pertwee, another candidate from Sherwin's shortlist, was cast instead. Sherwin had hoped that Pertwee would bring much of his comic acting skill to the part, but he was keen to establish himself as a serious dramatic actor as well as a comedian. Although some lighter touches were visible throughout Pertwee's era, he essentially played it very "straight" and not at all as Sherwin had envisioned. Pertwee's Doctor was more action-oriented than his predecessors, and the producers allowed Pertwee to indulge his love of riding various vehicles during his tenure, including motorcycles, hovercraft , the so-called "Whomobile" and the Doctor's vintage roadster, Bessie.

Sherwin stayed only to oversee the first story of the seventh season. Spearhead from Space was the first Doctor Who story to be made all in colour and — due to industrial action in the electronic studios — the only example of the original series to be made entirely on film (though there would be several occasions where stories were recorded entirely on Outside Broadcast Video after its introduction a few years later). Thereafter, he moved on to work on the series Paul Temple, and was replaced by director Barry Letts after another regular director on the show, Douglas Camfield, had turned down the job.

The seventh season, at twenty-five episodes, was shorter than any before, and established a pattern of Doctor Who seasons being between twenty and twenty-eight episodes in length, one that would last until the middle of the 1980s. However, although the new format of the Doctor being stuck on Earth had proved popular enough to save the programme from cancellation, neither Letts nor his script editor Terrance Dicks were particularly keen on the idea, and from the eighth season onwards sought reasons for the Doctor to be able to travel in time and space again, eventually having the Time Lords grant him full freedom at the conclusion of the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973, a serial which also featured guest appearances from Troughton and Hartnell, the latter in a restricted role due to his poor health.

Another innovation of theirs from the eighth season onwards was the introduction of the character of the Master as a new nemesis for the Doctor, conceived as a Professor Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes. Played by Roger Delgado, he became a highly popular character, although over the following two seasons it was felt that he became a little over-used. Delgado and the production team eventually agreed that he should be written out during the eleventh season by killing the character off, with some ambiguity as to whether or not he had died to save the Doctor.

However, before this story could be written, Delgado was killed in a car accident in Turkey. His death had a profound effect on Pertwee. With actress Katy Manning also having departed from her role as companion Jo Grant after three seasons, and Letts and Dicks both planning to move on, Pertwee felt that his "family" on the show was breaking up, and he decided to leave at the conclusion of the eleventh season in 1974. It is often said that Pertwee asked for a substantially increased fee for another year on the series and was told that his services were no longer required. It is unclear, however, if the story is true, or if it was merely a ploy to make his departure easier.

The Bohemian Wanderer

Although Letts and Dicks were both planning on leaving at the end of the same season, it was they who worked closely on re-casting the role of the Doctor, in preparation to hand over to their successors, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes, who had been a long-time writer for the programme.

Letts had intended to cast an older actor as the Fourth Doctor, to harken back to Hartnell's portrayal in the 1960s, but after a long search he eventually selected actor Tom Baker, who was suggested to him by the incoming Head of Serials Bill Slater. Baker was only forty years old, but despite not being the type of actor Letts had originally been looking for, he went on to become arguably the most popular and best-remembered actor to play the role. He starred in the series for seven years, longer than any of his predecessors or successors, and during his time on the programme Doctor Who enjoyed a consistent run of popular success and high viewing figures. Baker's Doctor was a more eccentric personality, at times passionate and caring, but at other times aloof and alien. This was deliberate on Baker's part, in an attempt to remind the viewers that the Doctor was not human, and therefore had non-human attitudes.

Under the control of Hinchcliffe and Holmes, who took over from the beginning of the twelfth season, Doctor Who became a much darker programme, with the pair being heavily influenced by Hammer Films' successful horror film productions and other gothic influences. While their era is frequently praised by fans as a highly successful one, the BBC received complaints from Mary Whitehouse, chairwoman of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, that the programme was unfit for children and could traumatise them. While the BBC publicly defended the programme, after three seasons Hinchcliffe was moved onto the adult police thriller series Target in 1977, and his replacement Graham Williams was specifically instructed to lighten the tone of the storylines.

After staying on during the fifteenth season under Williams for a brief handover period, Holmes also left the programme, and his replacement Anthony Read worked with Williams to create a more humour-based approach, which was much to the liking of Baker. The actor now felt very possessive of the part and frequently argued with directors over his inclusion of ad-libbed lines, but he was extremely pleased when the levity of the show increased even further after the departure of Read and the hiring of Douglas Adams as script editor for season seventeen in 1979. Some fans have criticized Adams for introducing too much of the sort of humorous content that served him well in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. However, others consider some of Adams' scripts to be among the series' high points, with City of Death being the primary example.

The season saw the show garner its highest ever viewing figures during the ITV network strike, with estimates of between 16 and 19 million viewers for episodes of the Williams and Adams-penned story City of Death. However, there were also problems: director Alan Bromly left the production towards the end of the story Nightmare of Eden due to frustrations at the technicalities of production and arguments with Baker, leaving Williams to oversee completion of the story. Rampant inflation in the television industry was squeezing the series, with the budget much reduced in real terms from where it had been under Hinchcliffe. The scheduled final story of the season, Adams' own Shada, was abandoned midway through recording due to industrial action, and the season finished after just twenty episodes in January 1980.

Williams and Adams both departed at the end of the season, Williams because he had had enough of the programme after three seasons in charge, and Adams to concentrate on his increasingly-successful Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy franchise. Williams recommended to Head of Series & Serials Graeme MacDonald that he be replaced by his Production Unit Manager John Nathan-Turner. Although MacDonald agreed with the principle of appointing someone familiar with the workings of the show, he first offered the job to Nathan-Turner's predecessor George Gallaccio, who after leaving Doctor Who in 1977 had already gained experience as a producer on the BBC Scotland drama The Omega Factor. However, Gallaccio turned the role down, and MacDonald offered it instead to Nathan-Turner, who accepted, and became the new producer.

User:DaveJB/History of Doctor Who 1970-1979

The UNIT years

The Bohemian Wanderer

Main Actors

The Doctor

Companions

Key Production Staff

Producers

Script Editors