Episode 01


RSS

Recommended Posts

It's the original theme, which can be found pretty easily online.

Thanks! I had forgotten the original theme, but I now remember the 5th doctor theme was a tribute to it (in one of the approximately google books I have being moved out of storage). Wow, I knew (emphasis on knew) everything about the Doctor when I was eight years old. I guess I'll be going through several Doctor-induced (non-drug) flashbacks for the next ten years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's the original theme, which can be found pretty easily online.

I know it's stupid to ask this because you've never changed the WFP theme, but when you hit the modern series (Doctor 9-infinity) will you play the modern theme?

I'm not sure we've totally decided yet, but we have a few years before we have to worry about it. :laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

*blinks*

*looks around*

Hey guys. Been a while, hasn't it?

Anyway, been listening to this, and halfway through the first podcast before I'm having to wander off, but this is going to become a regular for me.

Some notes for you, as I'm something of a Whovian. This isn't me criticising, but just giving you a few thoughts on it, as I've now been a Doctor Who fan for twenty years, and think of this as me being the third guy in the conversation. This is some stuff that I'd add.

It's weird listening to this, as I caught up with 'An Unearthly Child' when I was 10, and only recently rewatched it (and am about to pick up the 'In The Beginning' boxset). Rather scarily, Hartnell was younger than Peter Davison was in the recent 'Timecrash'. Peter Davison is now older than Hartnell and looks much, much younger. So weird.

It wasn't a children's show. It was a family show. This is somewhat important, because it means that the audience included children rather than was aimed directly at them. The original aim of the show was partially to educate, as much as to entertain, because that was part of the BBC's remit as a public organisation. Because we pay for it by a TV license, originally, there was the element of having to have some element of education involved.

It runs more slowly because TV in the UK was generally taped almost like a live show. Think of it with that kind of ethos, and the style and pace of the show will make a lot more sense. To give you an idea, when the Peter Cushing production of 1984 was shown in the sixties, it was repeated a few days later, and so they redid the performance live rather than repeating a taping. It just wasn't the style. The American style of making shows didn't catch on in the UK until much, much later.

The sixties in the UK was seen as being genuinely modern. There was a feeling that things wouldn't get much better than this, and so there's the suggestion that *of course* Susan would want to visit it. It was one of the greatest periods in history.

Don't assume, at this point in the show, that The Doctor is an alien. The original idea, I believe, was for The Doctor to be a time traveller from far in Earth's future, and it takes a long, long time to suggest otherwise. The Time Lord stuff was essentially a retcon.

The point of it being a family show was that Barbara, Susan, Ian and The Doctor make a family unit. Parents, grandfather and daughter. There wasn't any plan in place for what would happen with future companions, because nobody knew if the story would go that far. Also, think of The Doctor as being more of a Sherlock Holmes/Prospero character than the hero. He's an enigma at this point, and the stars are Ian and Barbara. The ethos didn't change for a long time.

It was also retconned eventually that The Doctor stole his TARDIS, and it's faulty - so the chameleon circuit may have been breaking anyway. Also, The Doctor has supposedly only recently left Gallifrey, so his ethics are different than where they end up going.

Also, it's worth pointing out that it's budget was actually pretty good for the time, as far as the UK goes. It wasn't until MUCH later that the budget became an issue, but that's a future conversation, I think.

Final point - there were issues around the names of stories until the VHS releases came out. Was this '100,000BC', 'An Unearthly Child' or 'The Savages'? It was a bone of contention for a long time.

Anyway, good stuff. This is going to become a regular for me, and to be honest, I want to join in on this some time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the feedback! You make some excellent points.

Don't assume, at this point in the show, that The Doctor is an alien. The original idea, I believe, was for The Doctor to be a time traveller from far in Earth's future, and it takes a long, long time to suggest otherwise. The Time Lord stuff was essentially a retcon.

The Doctor makes specific reference to "being cut off from [his] home planet". It's implied he's an alien pretty early on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the feedback! You make some excellent points.

Don't assume, at this point in the show, that The Doctor is an alien. The original idea, I believe, was for The Doctor to be a time traveller from far in Earth's future, and it takes a long, long time to suggest otherwise. The Time Lord stuff was essentially a retcon.

The Doctor makes specific reference to "being cut off from [his] home planet". It's implied he's an alien pretty early on.

You're right, looking back at it. I've just rewatched the episode for the first time in years, and I had forgotten that reference.

I've just picked up the 'In The Beginning' boxset, which is just wonderful on numerous levels.

I seriously recommend the 'About Time' series of books, incidentally. Some great stuff in there.

Actually, editing further, I think it's ambiguous. The boxset has the original pilot (with extended dialogue scenes and a different TARDIS interior), which makes much more clear that he's alien. That dialogue was removed, and the version left in cut out references to the alieness of him. In that, he keeps the line 'home planet', but it's arguable he could be talking about his time rather than place. After all, he's basically cut off from his people, and travels time and space - there's nothing to stop his home planet being 49th Century earth...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seconded on the "About Time" love. Fantastic series for anyone who a) has an even mild interest in the behind the scenes stories of the program, and b) can stand Lawrence Miles for more than a paragraph or two. (I think he's a very intelligent commentator, but I totally get why some people can't stand the man.)

And not to go into stuff we haven't covered yet, but in a few episodes we're going to cover a story that further pushes the "Doctor and Susan are aliens" angle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

So here's a thought from a non-expert. I'm on Tennant's first season, and have hardly watched any of the classic shows yet, so I'm just a rank tyro here, but, boy, this is addicting. I have read a bit about the different Doctors. Mike brought up that the first Doctor seemed more fearful than his successors (although the ninth Doctor cheerfully admitted to being a coward in "The Parting of the Ways".). Mike and Dan talked about this as an example of the differences between regenerations. Another way to look at it, though, is this: I think that the first Doctor at one point says he's 450 years old. In the revised series, the ninth Doctor talked about being in a phone booth for 900 years. Look at it this way: The first regeneration lasted 450 years. The next 8 combined didn't last much longer. Dude, you only get 12 regenerations. You need to make them last a bit longer. Maybe that fearfulness is a good thing.

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's something I've been thinking about, too. What did he do for those first 450-ish years? Sit around Gallifrey watching TV?

Actually, it was TIME TV.

I think I read that there was some comment that he was a couple of hundred years old when he got the TARDIS at some point in the series, so the First Doctor was probably only travelling for 200-250 years before regenerating. Still, he seemed to get a lot more mileage out of that one...

Of course, the other thing is that each regeneration seems to make him younger - I think Matt Smith, who will play the 11th Doctor in 2010, is 26. Maybe this is where they got the idea for Mork's people getting younger - when Mork & Mindy aired, theyed already gone from Hartnell to Tom Baker, so it could have been...

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Couple of questions:

1: Was Susan actually The Doctor's granddaughter? If so, why is there no mention of any of the rest of The Doctor's family? Outside of a reference in a Tom Baker episode that The Doctor comes from one of the oldest and most revered families on Gallifrey we never find out much about his folks.

2: Why did the Doctor allow Susan to go to a regular 'normal' school when it would be pretty obvious she's a whole lot smarter than everybody else. Including the teachers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

01. I believe some of the non-canon books suggests she's not related to him, but the modern series still works under the idea that she is. For that matter, The Doctor has mentioned losing a family thanks to the Time War.

02. They're both fascinated with Earth history?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Couple of questions:

1: Was Susan actually The Doctor's granddaughter? If so, why is there no mention of any of the rest of The Doctor's family? Outside of a reference in a Tom Baker episode that The Doctor comes from one of the oldest and most revered families on Gallifrey we never find out much about his folks.

2: Why did the Doctor allow Susan to go to a regular 'normal' school when it would be pretty obvious she's a whole lot smarter than everybody else. Including the teachers.

1. Susan's status as the Doctor's granddaughter is one of the points the show does work to support, though as the series developed her full status became something of a sticky wicket in terms of continuity. If she truly was a Time Lady, could the Doctor be more cruel in leaving her to outlive her boyfriend, stranded on Earth for the rest of her immortal life? Marc Platt's Lungbarrow--one of the last of Virgin's New Adventures line--attempted to shore this up by stating she was the granddaughter of the Other, a contemporary of Rassilon and Omega who the Doctor had been a reincarnation of (hence the 7th Doctor's odd knowledge of certain events in Gallifrey's ancient past and his assertions of being 'more than just another Time Lord). Big Finish has just announced Susan's return to the audio Whoniverse, so maybe they'll be some explanations and clarifications along that route. That's the great thing about Doctor Who continuity. . .it's largely build your own. ;p

2. Possibly to shore up her social skills more than anything else. Susan had a great deal of knowledge, but little experience in dealing with people. It might be the Doctor wanted her to learn more about humanity by placing her in a social setting conductive to her physical appearance of a teenaged girl.

Just my $0.02 and assorted pocket lint.

Stac

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.