Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Cultural Icon?

Well, I couldn't let today go by without mentioning the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, which is being billed by the BBC as reflecting all our social history, forming the golden casket of all our collective childhoods, and generally being the most wonderful thing ever to happen on television ever (even when they cancelled it for years).

Here's the original, Doctor I M Foreman* himself, William Hartnell, in the first series with grandaughter Susan (second left) and companions Ian and Barbara.

BBC

Whatever happened to Susan...?

Anyway, last night there was a programme about the genesis of the programme, called An Adventure in Time and Space.  Written by Mark Gatiss in his usual somewhat self-indulgent style, it told the story of how Doctor Who came to be made as a children's programme for the BBC back in the wibbly-wobbly black and white days of 1963 (and unfortunately screened for the first time on the same day as President Kennedy was assassinated).  

 

Doctor Who: An Adventure In Space and Time

William Hartnell (David Bradley) and Carole Ann Ford (Claudia Grant). Photograph: Hal Shinnie/BBC

It didn't make any huge revelations, and was typically Gatiss-moist-eyed about the nostalgia of BBC as a creative powerhouse.  There were a number of lingering shots of the round architectural form of Television Centre that made it look like Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

However, the programme did also show how the BBC (acting as a microcosm for 60s society) was sexist (in its attitude towards female producer Verity Lambert), racist (in its attitudes towards director Waris Hussein), but suprisingly, not ageist.  It put grandfather-figure, William Hartnell, at the centre of its new cutting-edge children's programme.  How's that for a revolutionary forward-thinking idea?  

 

Newscom

Hartnell was, of course, only 55, but looked 75, and his own complex character and hard-living lifestyle led to crotchety, unpredictable, idiosyncratic behaviour that made him both charming and exasperating.  Perfect as the template for the alien doctor. 

However, it also led to an inability to remember lines, which led in a strange way to the longevity and success of the programme - in having to replace Hartnell in 1966, the BBC had to invent one of the core concepts of Doctor Who - that of regeneration.  

Thus Doctor Who could continue, rather than just being a footnote in BBC history, and Who could tap in to a whole rich seem of traditional folklore and mythic legends of rebirth and renewal, such as the Green Man and Robin Hood (cf the 80s series Robin of Sherwood, with its change of lead actor).  This mutability means that it can be an ever-changing mirror to reflect and comment on the ever-changing social and political culture in which it exists.  

After An Adventure in Space and Time, there was a showing of the first 4 episodes, An Unearthly Child.  

I'd never seen them before, and they made for very interesting, if slow-paced viewing.  Originally, there was a continued adventure across several 25-minute episodes, like a serial.  These centred around introducing 15 year old Susan Foreman, her grandfather the Doctor, and Susan's teachers Ian and Barbara.  They all get transported back to prehistoric times and are held captive by a tribe who want them to create fire.  

There are some very lengthy discussions about fire, which is seen as a desirable necessity, but also as a threat by some members of the tribe. The holder of the secret of fire is the one who holds the power (fire therefore being a metaphor for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis - big topical stuff for young minds).

BBC

Whilst at times it seemed as though nothing was happening, it was still riveting from an 'I'm actually watching the very first episodes of Doctor Who!!' squee point of view, and also from relief at having plots which were good, plain, involving adventures, not convoluted ego trips for writers (Moffat!! (shakes fist)) .  

The best bit was when Ian put his hand on the Tardis, and felt it hum and vibrate.  "It's alive!" he exclaims.  Oh, yes it is.  And that tiny tactile scene and those two words introduced a massive central idea - that the Tardis is a character, but also a metaphor - it's like Spenser's House of Alma in The Faerie Queene.  And it's like all of us, bigger on the inside.

 

Steve Hill Doctor Who Image Archive

There was also a lovely piece of dialogue from the Doctor to Ian, "If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?"  That's poetry.  

It was surprisingly violent.  However, the scariness of Doctor Who has been a common thread through several generations of children, who can see their deepest fears and untangeable uncertainties about the world around them displayed on screen in visible, nameable ways - a cyberman, a dalek - and then explore the ways that they can overcome them. The Doctor is worth the monsters. 

At one point (episode 4) there is a wrestling scene where two semi-naked cavemen fight together in the firelight.  Which made me wonder was Ken Russell amongst the 10 million viewers in 1963?  Because it reminded me mightily of the firelit wrestling scene in the 1969 film Women in Love between cavemen-like Oliver Reed and hirsute Alan Bates.

Now there's a link I never thought I'd make...

Tomorrow it's The Day of the Doctor.  Most amazing television event ever or huge let-down, like every Who Christmas special since The Christmas Invasion?  

Well, it has Piper and Tennant in it, so it can't be all bad....

* The Tardis is hiding in the junk yard of I M Foreman, 76 Totter's Lane.  Ian then addresses the Doctor as 'Doctor Foreman'.  I M Foreman - I am for man.  Doctor for Man.  The doctor who heals mankind.

The real name of the Doctor is 'hidden in plain sight', and I M Foreman is not only suitably Messianic, but could explain why he's always hanging about planet Earth.  Well, it's as good a theory as any...and by the way yes, I know none of this is actually real.

Doctor Who and the Daleks

As a treat, today I took my son to see a big-screen showing of Doctor Who and the Daleks - ironic, considering that Ray Cusick, designer of the iconic pepperpot villains died today.

Yes, we're talking TECHNICOLOR!

Screened to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who, this grrrrrroovy 1965 film stars Peter Cushing as a very grandfatherly (and non-alien) inventor, who is actually addressed as 'Doctor Who' (as in he's a doctor who's surname is Who - rather than 'The Doctor').

Also causing is-it-cannon? carnage are bee-hived Barbara and sassy Susan as his granddaughters - yes, granddaughters -

and light relief in the form of accident-prone bungling boyfriend Ian played by Roy Castle.  

My son quite enjoyed the simple slapstick, which gave quite a different feel to the very intense viewing experience that forms watching any present day episode of Doctor Who, which demands memorising and mentally cataloguing every single word, object and action as being hugely, incredibly significant (but not for another ten convoluted episodes of the story arc).

Back in 1965 when things were so much simpler and more colourful, the plot is that dotty grandad has cobbled together TARDIS (not The TARDIS) in the back garden.

 
(That's not a Weeping Angel in the background there, is it?)

Soon the foursome have popped off in it to planet Skaro, home of the Daleks, with barely a shoogle.

Now for all its colourful campness, there's actually a moment of genuine filmic excitement and tension (at least for me).  Susan is alone in the TARDIS.   The widescreen is filled by the iconic blue of the TARDIS doors, bigger, wider and bluer than you've ever seen them before.  An unknown alien figure is slowly, slowly opening them from the outside... 

(Note that this TARDIS has doors which open out-the-way, as they should - it does say 'Pull to Open' on the outside after all.  These days they open in-the-way - wrong, wrong, wrong...)

Unfortunately, the intruder turns out to be someone from an indigenous tribe of Julian-Clary look-alikes, the Thals, who aren't at all scary.  But never mind.  It's all very 60s, and that's why we love it.

They may not have food, but there's no shortage of blue eye-shadow on Skaro.  And being the 60s, the Thal ladies don't say anything, just look vacant and decorative.

However, it's really quite a thrill seeing the Daleks in big-screen colour.  

(I once went to the charmingly run-down Doctor Who Museum in off-season Blackpool (it has a great beach and pier for photographing in the winter).  I was the only visitor, and was amazed by the wide variety of shapes of 1960s and 70s Daleks.  And the Cat People, who were mainly composed of bits of acrylic fun-fur and wellingtons.) 

Anyway, the Daleks look completely fab.  Especially the red one.

As usual, the Daleks, whilst aspiring to take over the universe, are actually charmingly naive.  There's quite a gap between ambition and actuality, even though they do mysteriously seem to have managed to construct the rather impressive water-pumping pipeline over a mountain whilst not being able to travel over anything bumpier than a piece of sandpaper. Just how did they manage that one?

Anyway, they obviously have quite a bit of downtime, with plenty of time on their plungers to decorate Dalek Central with acres of fetching pink shower curtain material and shiny bits of wrapping paper,  and even the occasional lava lamp.  It's really rather endearing... 

(Lava lamps were invented by British inventor, entrepreneur and eccentric Edward Craven-Walkerin in 1963 by the way, so they're as old as Doctor Who.)

Obviously adversaries don't arrive all that often on planet Skaro, and it's clear that the Daleks have taken their eye off the taking-over-the-universe ball whilst waiting for them to turn up.  Because they are still making the same old mistake of slowly and painstakingly outlining their intended plans to their opponents at every turn, and procrastinating by starting vital countdowns to bomb detonations at '100' rather than something more imminent, like '5'.  
 
And so the fate of the Daleks is sealed by their lack of urgency.  If only they'd concentrated less on the home decor and complicated civil engineering feats, and focussed more on the basic error of their lack-a-daisical countdowns. 

So there you have it.  It's bright.  It's simple.  It's really rather sweet and fun.  It's so unlike the Moffat years...