Timeless Adventures Read Free Page B

Newman’s own interest in science fiction, combined with the 1962 reports, which Baverstock and Donald Wilson brought to his attention, resulted in him issuing a brief to the drama department. He requested that they develop a full proposal for a science-fiction anthology series, consisting of a number of self-contained, short serials, to run for 52 weeks of the year, to fill the early-evening Saturday slot. The development of Doctor Who had begun.

    Responding to Sydney Newman’s directive, Baverstock and Wilson put together a committee to build upon the survey group’s 1962 findings and develop a proposal for the Saturday-early-evening, sciencefiction, family show. At the initial meeting on 26 March 1963 were Wilson, two of the authors of the 1962 report, Alice Frick and John Braybon, and script-department adapter Cecil Edwin Webber. According to Frick’s notes of the meeting, Wilson suggested a series based around a time-travelling machine and those who used it. Crucially, Wilson maintained that the machine should not only travel forwards and backwards in time, but also into space and even ‘sideways’ into matter itself (suggesting other dimensions). Frick herself preferred the idea of a ‘flying saucer’ vehicle, very in vogue since the phrase was coined following US pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sightings of 1947. She felt the saucer would be a better ship as it could contain a group of people, unlike (she assumed) a time machine that, in the style of HG Wells’ time traveller in his novel The Time Machine , would only allow an individual to travel. Wilson wanted the new show to steer clear of anything computer-related, as this had featured quite heavily in the BBC’s recent Andromeda serials. The telepathy idea from the original report was reconsidered, but not thought to be central to any possible series. Braybon suggested basing a future-set series around a group of scientific trouble-shooters who would investigate rogue science and scientists (this idea would later surface in slightly different form on the BBC in the 1970s as Doomwatch and in the twenty-first century as US TV show Fringe ). Each individual serial within the overall series could be devoted to exploring the impact of a single scientific idea, suggested Braybon.
    In developing a format for the proposed early-evening series, Wilson explained that the show must be built around a central group of continuing characters. Different members of the group could come to prominence in different serials, with others dropping into the background (a very modern drama structure now followed by soaps and TV drama). He felt that, in order to ensure the younger audience tuned in, at least two of the characters should be teenagers, while Frick felt that the teen audience would prefer to watch characters slightly older than themselves, possibly in their 20s. Two key problems were identified: how would the group be exposed to ‘wildly differing’ adventures and how would they be transported to the different settings and environments that the serial nature of the show dictated? CE Webber was tasked with coming up with a cast of characters who could form the central group that would feature in the series.
    Within the core of the subjects discussed at this meeting are the roots of Doctor Who as it would eventually come to the TV screen in November 1963, but the specifics were lacking. The committee approach, building on the previous work, came up with the idea of a group of characters travelling through time and space in a vehicle of some sort and enjoying/enduring a variety of different adventures each week. The task now would be to add the detail of the characters and pin down some of the specifics of the concept. Webber’s subsequent character notes suggested a ‘handsome young man hero’, a ‘well-dressed heroine aged about 30’, and a ‘maturer man with a character twist’. Webber’s notes also went on to explore in more detail the