Doctor Who - Documentary s02e08 Episode Script

(DOCTOR WHO THEME) NARRATOR: In December 1964, Doctor Who was into its second year.
And although the viewers had a short break in early autumn, the regular cast had been recording Doctor Who every week for over 12 months.
It's all most odd, isn't it? Most odd.
NARRATOR: Perhaps surprisingly, however, it wasn't the work load that led to the first departure of a regular cast member, but the rather more theatrical concerns of character development and type casting.
It wasn't a surprise.
She'd complained a lot to us, you know, that all she had to do was scream "Help" and That was what was wrong, and she really wanted something juicy to act, and she felt she wasn't getting it, and I think she talked to Verity about it, and she certainly talked to us about it.
And so, in a sense, it wasn't a surprise.
She had been one of the original companions, I suppose, and in these days, these were your sort of four friends that went through time and space.
And you were kind of sad that one of them had left.
I better clear out my cupboard.
It's in a dreadful muddle.
Yes, you little monkey.
You know, since you've been away from that school, you seem to have got yourself thoroughly disorganised.
RUSSELL: Carole was sort of perfect casting for Doctor Who's granddaughter.
I mean, she was amazing.
She did have this unearthly strangeness about her, and I don't think anyone ever attempted to follow that.
I mean, you couldn't.
McLACHLAN: When Susan left, particularly with that very sad music that they have at the end of Dalek Invasion of Earth, and the key and the stars and everything else, you felt, "Oh, that's really very sad.
I wonder what's going to happen next.
" NARRATOR: Carole Ann Ford's decision to leave upset the star of the show.
William Hartnell even wrote to her, asking her to reconsider her decision.
Goodbye, Susan.
Goodbye, my dear.
He couldn't understand that, you know.
When you're in success, you know, stay in success, you know.
Don't leave.
He couldn't understand that.
CHRISTOPHER BARRY: I think he was upset at having to get to work with a new young companion.
I don't remember any particular incident there, but I think there was just a general feeling that he felt that he'd got to get to know someone else, just when he'd broken in nicely with her.
NARRATOR: Having decided that the new girl should also be a teenager, Verity Lambert and her team began creating her character.
They decided that she should be an Earth orphan from the future, stranded on a far distant planet.
They considered various names for her, including both the exotic and the frankly odd.
Among these were "Lukki" with two K's, and "Tanni".
Susan, back then in the '60s, there was quite a few girls called Susan, so it was quite a normal, sort of ordinary name.
But things like "Tanni", I never knew a girl called Tanni.
Or some of the other names that There were quite a few, I think, that they were going to give to this new companion.
What was interesting, it wasn't "Victoria".
It wasn't a shortening of Victoria 'cause I think in The Rescue, it specifies she's actually called Vicki, V-l-C-K-I.
NARRATOR: The production team considered an array of actresses before narrowing the field to a final two.
One of these was a promising young performer, Maureen O'Brien.
Fresh out of drama school, Maureen had just started her first job at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool.
O'BRIEN: A wonderful guy who taught me at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Harry Moore, sent me a telegram, saying, "Chance of work on telly.
Phone me.
" So I phoned him.
And this is a measure of my innocence at the time, I said, "But, Harry, I've already got a job.
" He said, "Don't be silly, darling.
" And he said, "They're replacing the girl "in Doctor Who, and they're looking for someone else.
" I went to see Verity, who was terribly sweet to me, and she said, "Come back and do a screen test.
" Then I got the part.
And suddenly I had to leave the Everyman, and I also suddenly found myself besieged by journalists.
It was a complete shock.
NARRATOR: Vicki's first story was entrusted to outgoing story editor, David Whitaker.
The Rescue was envisaged very much as a vehicle for the new companion.
I think the thing about The Rescue that was fascinating was that it was so short and certainly focussed much more on the companions than it did on anything else.
It was very much a character-driven story.
It seemed a little bit put together in a bit of a rush, which I think it was.
But, I mean, David in fact did do the main thing.
And the main thing was introduce this new girl and see how attractive she was and how easy she was, and how the Doctor liked her and we liked her and That was covered.
O'BRIEN: When I began, the first episode, my kind of being found, like Miranda in The Tempest, on this deserted planet with my Caliban, I did find that rewarding, 'cause that was a bit of acting.
She was happy, she was sad, she was angry.
You know, all the emotions were sort of carefully explored.
And I think it was a very good audition, as it were, for her.
O'BRIEN: Sydney Newman, who was the kind of big boss, whom I liked very much, he was a very straightforward, not to say rude, man.
But I appreciated that 'cause I come from Liverpool and that's how you talk to people, so it seemed okay to me.
And he came down onto the floor, and he said, "We're thinking of having you cut your hair and dye it dark.
" And I said, "Why don't you just get Carole Ann Ford back?" I said, "I'm going to cut my hair and dye it "when I leave Doctor Who, not while I'm in it.
" She was kind of introduced as the new companion, so you kind of knew that she was before she actually became it.
But that was, I think, just a day or so before the actual show.
Bennett, the rescue ship's landed! It's arrived.
We'll be taken back! Isn't it marvellous? I was happy to welcome her.
I knew of her.
I'd seen her work and thought she was a very good little actress.
She was also very charming, very intelligent, and pleasant to have on the set.
O'BRIEN: I found Jackie and Russell and Bill and Verity, and the directors, all of them, very welcoming and lovely, and very kind to me, because I was an innocent abroad.
Jackie and Bill especially looked after me very, very well.
We all liked her very much, and she was a very intelligent girl, and a very good actress I think.
And she managed to get a lot into The Rescue.
And I can remember Carole Ann Ford turning up on my first day of rehearsal to say, "I had a wonderful time and good luck.
" And I thought that was very sweet.
NARRATOR: Assigned to direct The Rescue was Christopher Barry, who had directed the first appearance of the Daleks the year before.
The director, Christopher Barry, was one of the, sort of, stalwart directors of Doctor Who, really, and he was very nice to work with, very thorough, very good.
I liked Chris, I mean, he was very easy to get on with as a director.
Very.
And he got a move on, you know, he didn't waste time.
NARRATOR: In a new approach for the series, The Rescue was to use the same production team as the four part story that followed, The Romans.
For recording purposes, the two stories were treated as a single six episode block.
Blocks of six seemed to be a favourable length of time, either for storytelling or to run budgets to, or something.
But, yes, and it was obviously worthwhile doing the filming for both stories together.
NARRATOR: The filming, at Ealing Studios, was primarily concerned with the model sequences.
These models were built by an outside contractor to the specifications of the programme's designer, Raymond Cusick.
Shawcraft Models were excellent model makers.
They couldn't design, which I discovered quite early on.
Usually with a good visual effects designer, you can scribble something on the back of an envelope and say, "Make that.
" And they go away, design it and construct it.
But with Shawcraft Models, you had to spell it out to them.
I prepared a drawing of the spacecraft as it would be in flight, sort of thing.
And then I did another drawing of the craft all crashed up and in bits.
So they worked from the two.
I think if I hadn't given them the second drawing, they couldn't have visualised it, really, how it should look.
NARRATOR: Raymond Cusick and fellow designer Barry Newberry handled the lion's share of the design responsibilities on Doctor Who during its first two seasons.
CUSICK: When Barry and I were doing Doctor Who, we were alternating on the stories.
There was a design continuity.
And I noticed, after I left the programme and other designers were brought in, on a turnaround, you know, that continuity went out the window.
BARRY: But he was so inventive and nothing fazed him.
He got on with things and he did wonderfully, I mean, going back to the Daleks, which is where we worked together first, it was wonderful creating them.
With his limited budget, you know, he found things to do that were very imaginative, I think.
You start off with a basic sum.
How much money have you got? What can you afford? What can't you afford? Luckily, I discovered some materials, basically reeded hardboard, which I used for the shell of the ship, sprayed silver of course.
So it was quite cheap to use and it was quite effective.
Look, Vicki, I know how badly you want to get off this planet, we both want to get away, but it's no good building up our hopes.
NARRATOR: Casting forThe Rescue was a fairly straightforward task.
With only one other major speaking part.
Originally considered for Bennett, and therefore Koquillion, was Bernard Achard.
In the end, the part went to Australian actor Ray Barrett.
It was fun to work in it, and I had a ball.
I really enjoyed it.
Well, you just let yourself go.
I mean, you got tremendous licence, haven't you, to play this character Bennett and then who changes into a monster, Koquillion.
And I remember vividly how uncomfortable that uniform was, you know, the monster.
Ray Barrett started, of course, in Australia.
He started, I believe, when he was very young.
He did shows on the radio.
He started working, I think, in a radio station.
He came over to Britain, at the end of the 1950s and he starred in Emergency-Ward 10.
Ray Barrett was an actor whom I had seen on a show once and was impressed by.
I liked his sort of rugged face.
And he had a sort of haunted look, I thought, about him, which would suit this character rather well.
Anyway, I'd noted him down in my little notebook of actors and actresses whose performances I wanted to remember, and I dug him out of the book when the time came.
And I thought he did very well.
I thought he served the part beautifully.
I just played him as a normal straight human being.
I mean, I think that was important.
Not to give it away.
Do you know what I mean? So therefore the contrast, playing this monster, had more impact, really.
You have been outside.
Stand up! Daphne Dare, the costume designer, designed Koquillion.
She was an excellent designer.
It was suitably repellent.
From little children's point of view, I should think they were terrified when they first saw it.
There was always the feeling, I think, even back then, is what's really underneath them.
So, whether you actually took the actual costume as being the character, or whether it was what he was wearing, and there was a creature underneath.
There's a theme throughout Doctor Who, I think, that there's more than meets the eye.
That's one of the themes right through the whole series, from the Tardis being a police telephone box but really a spaceship, the Doctor looking human but actually not really being.
There's something beyond the obvious, and I think one of the philosophies, ideas, of Doctor Who in the olden days was, "Look beyond.
There is more to life than meets the eye.
" This used to be the People's Hall of Judgement.
Fitting in the present circumstances, don't you think? Hmm? Mr Bennett, may I remind you that masks and robes such as you are wearing are only used on absolutely ceremonial occasions.
Hmm? Are you finished? BARRETT: I must mention Bill Hartnell, William Hartnell.
He was a lovely character.
He could upset a few people, you know.
But I got on famously with him and had a ball.
I gave him as good as he gave me, you see? And I think he respected that.
For me, Bill Hartnell is the Doctor Who.
I don't think any of the others have ever had this terrifying quality.
He was mysterious.
He was strange.
And he was from another planet.
O'BRIEN: Bill, in real life, did have a kind of suppressed rage.
Which was partly, I think, to do with his He had a lot of bitterness about his life as an actor.
Because he felt he had something really very big inside him to give, and he'd spent his life playing little sergeant majors, horrible, little, snarling sergeant majors.
So Doctor Who, for him, was a lifeline.
And he grasped the end of that lifeline and he climbed up it.
And he knew that for him this was going to be the wonderful part of his life.
And he really loved it.
He did.
He really enjoyed it, yes.
My goodness, when Jackie and I left, it was a real scene.
I mean, it was awful.
What's the matter? What is it? What is it? Oh, good gracious me! I quickly sussed out that he was a very irascible man and that he lost his temper at least three times a day, with various things.
They would always be little things.
Little nonsense things.
I sussed this out, and my role quickly became that of the person who laughed him out of his rages.
I could laugh him out of anything.
And that's what I did.
And I spent as much energy doing that as I did acting.
It just became my role in the family.
My dear, why don't you come with us? Hmm? In that old box? (LAUGHS) We can travel anywhere and everywhere in that old box, as you call it.
I took him over to St John's Wood.
He lived in, what, Sussex or somewhere.
I don't know, one of the counties, southern counties.
And, for some reason, he couldn't get back that night, filming or something or other.
So I said, "Well, come with me, I'll take you over to St John's Wood," where I lived, Maida Vale, St John's Wood.
And I found him a hotel and took him to my local pub and everything.
And everybody was, you know, knocked out to see Doctor Who drinking a pint in the local, you know.
NARRATOR: The story was recorded at the BBC's Riverside Studios over two Fridays in early December 1964.
It was largely problem-free, although there was an accident involving one of the visual effects.
Jacqueline Hill was hurt during The Rescue.
That was when she fired off this What I call the Very pistol.
The trouble with special effects explosions is you can't exactly control them, and sometimes they're a bit bigger than you expect.
And I don't know, in fact, how much we'd rehearsed that.
At this distance in time, I can't remember whether we'd rehearsed it or whether it was entirely new to her when it suddenly happened.
NARRATOR: Firing too soon on the first take, the explosion went off in Jacqueline Hill's face.
Although it caused no lasting damage, she was highly startled by the incident.
Jackie was so calm, and usually you would notice if she was upset.
Certainly.
NARRATOR: To create the impression that the cliffs were overlooking the crashed spaceship, the production team used one of the few video effects available to them.
Barbara, look! CUSICK: Inlay, that was done with a machine in the control room, and was quite simple to use, really.
And that was really our basic bit of trickery we could use, we used it quite a lot.
It was done by putting a flat up and masking the person behind the flat, and then putting something beyond them and shooting, so you embrace both images.
Now, that wasn't just done literally like that, it was done electronically, because the background was a model.
So one camera, or it may have been telecine, I don't remember.
If it wobbles, it was telecine.
But if it's steady, then it was another camera.
Come in.
Come in, won't you? I've been waiting to talk to you.
NARRATOR: The story's climax, featured the Dido temple.
The team used design and lighting to create a dark, foreboding atmosphere.
This was done quite cheaply, mainly using black drapes with smoke.
And the lighting director was Howard King, who went on to become quite good at lighting.
In fact he, in the end, ended up lighting first-class dramas.
All lighting engineers, as they were, were obviously keen to improve their reputation, and keep the good standard of the production up.
And those who were really good and moody and knew what they were doing got asked for all the time on the prestige drama productions.
And producers would fight over which crew they wanted in order to get the right engineer to light it.
CUSICK: Howard King, he was a great believer in reflected light.
You would have a large set, and he would have like a large white screen in front of the set, allowing access for cameras, but he would throw all his light on the screens to bounce back into the set, to give us a particular soft lighting effect.
He was very experimental.
I am your only protection! NARRATOR: In order to protect the surprise revelation concerning Koquillion's identity, the cast listings for part one included an interesting pseudonym.
Now I was, sort of, about 11 or something when it was on.
And you were kind of aware of actors a bit, because I used to read the Radio Times, so that's how you read about Koquillion played by this Sydney Wilson, which, of course, you thought, "Oh, that's an actor.
" BARRY: Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson.
The names from the two heads of department, head of Drama and head of Serials, in order to keep it anonymous, because it was obviously important that you shouldn't give away in the programme notes, so to speak, that it was the same guy.
Well, now, let's have a look and see what's doing.
Lan! NARRATOR: The show was a great success in terms of viewing figures.
BARRETT: It was great to know, to find out that that particular story I was in was a top-rater, and top rating at the time, and that gave me quite a thrill.
NARRATOR: With an audience of 13 million, a figure Doctor Who would not equal until the Tom Baker years, The Rescue even beat the ratings for the preceding Dalek story.
It out-rated the Daleks.
That's something, isn't it? I shall have that on my tombstone.
"He out-rated the Daleks.
"