Doctor Who - Documentary s04e06 Episode Script

(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER) But the Cybermen were all killed when Mondas blew up, weren't they? Stop this Cyberman nonsense.
There were Cybermen, every child knows that, but they were all destroyed ages ago.
- So we all thought.
- That's enough.
When we received the scripts for "The Moonbase", we were struck by how quickly the Cybermen were back.
REG WHITEHEAD: "The Tenth Planet"itself had obviously been a success.
It was fairly obvious, talking to people, reading a bit in the press, hearing about it.
But we never dreamt it would come back that quickly.
You're different.
You've got no feelings.
KRAIL: Feelings? I do not understand that word.
To us, that we understood, they must have been popular.
They did go down well, then.
(ALARM BLARING) But this time, we're not on a planet, we're on We're on the moon.
Look, it's there.
Another one! The whole timescale was immensely fast, actually, because "The Tenth Planet" went out in November '66 and within a few weeks already, we were into doing "The Moonbase".
By the end of February, I think, it was over and done.
So, it was very quick the way that the Cybermen came back.
The costumes that we had on "The Tenth Planet" were a total nightmare.
We sweated.
We stank.
They were painful.
They fell apart.
So there was always a problem with them.
Nobody was more pleased to hear that we'd got a redesign of them.
To me, the Cybermen, sort of Mark 2, were a lot better than the original ones with those sort of see-through golf balls and sort of tubes and like sort of a I was going to say condom, but like a balaclava on top.
But the new ones, with just those two little dots and that horrible sort of mouth, they, to me, were much better than the original lot.
CYBERMAN: You will listen to me and follow my instructions.
I actually liked the original Cybermen, because what I liked about them was that they weren't that far removed from the human being, which was Kit Pedler's initial idea, which was that if we did that to human beings, we would become robots.
And that was the whole thing.
This thing you saw, what was it like? It was enormous and silver and it had holes in its head for eyes, - like a robot! - A robot? Of course, a lot had changed since the last time we met the Cybermen, because now a part of the Tardis crew we had Jamie had come onboard, which happened at the end of "The Highlanders".
I remember Innes Lloyd coming up with his pipe and his blazer.
He put his arm around me.
"Now then, Frazer, old boy, "how do you fancy joining the old Tardis crew for a year or so?" And I said, "But, Innes, I've already filmed, you know, "at Frensham Ponds, waving goodbye to, you know, Polly and Ben and the Doctor.
" "No, no, no, leave that to me" (MUMBLING) So, I said, "Yeah, I'd love to.
I'd obviously love to.
" And so then we went on a Sunday back to Frensham Ponds and this time, I got into the Tardis and I waved goodbye to Hannah Gordon and my laird.
That started three of the happiest years I've ever had.
There was a lot of rewriting that had to be rather hurriedly done, because we moved into "The Underwater Menace".
That had to be rewritten to include Jamie.
- Jamie, you'd better watch Zaroff.
- But why? Well, we need a guide, and only Ramo knows all the passages.
Oh, if you say so, Doctor.
The scripts, I seem to recall, although I could be proved wrong, had seemed more to do.
But then we got the scripts for "The Moonbase" and of course I didn't have a lot to do at all because I think they gave me a couple of lines of Ben's.
Obviously, I didn't say, "Here, here, Polly! All right, duchess?" I had to change it to Jamie's way of speaking, but he was knocked out.
The piper! I knew! Kit Pedler, I have to tell you, was not all that keen on having a character from the 18th century holding back the action of his story, which was set in 2070.
So, the way that he dealt with that was simply to have Jamie unconscious for most of the story.
(LAUGHS) People drop in their tracks, they develop this black pattern on their skin.
Then some of the patients disappear, right? So, that was rather ruthless in a way, but, you know, that was how he handled it.
But I didn't mind that because I was getting paid to lie in a bed and have my brow mopped by the beautiful Anneke Wills.
So, it wasn't too bad at all.
At this point, Patrick was had settled into the role of the Doctor.
And he was having such a good time.
He was doing his Mr Toad act, you know.
Whenever he could, he was dressing up as a woman and he was doing all his clowning around and he was just having a ball.
It's interesting because because there were very many people, Innes and many people were trying to tone him down.
But he wasn't having any of it.
(LAUGHS) Ah, he was just having too good a time! Morris Barry was our director and he was one of the BBC's "talented gentlemen in tweeds".
He was old-fashioned and highly disciplined.
Somehow or other, it was like Patrick knew he'd met his match.
Morris was very tough, actually, on Pat.
And he wasn't going to have any clowning around and the costume and his performance was toned right down.
HINES: He would never say it on the set.
I think he would just take him aside and put his arm around him and say, "I think, old boy, we ought to sort of just pull that down a bit.
"Let's do less of the, you know, facial expressions and that.
" So, you know, Morris would never bawl somebody out on set.
There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things.
Things which act against everything that we believe in.
They must be fought.
And actually, when we watch it now, I think it's really good because now we get to see the darker, more serious side of the Doctor.
And Morris Barry was the only one, I think, who could make Pat do that, you know? So, it was interesting.
It was interesting.
Move the probe and we'll see if the indicators move the right distance - on the map, okay? - Right.
Benoit, keep an eye on the probe itself, will you? Okay.
Kit Pedler came and had dinner with us in December, with my husband and I.
And it was Michael Gough who suggested to Kit Pedler that Patrick Barr, who was our best friend, our very dear friend, would make a wonderful Hobson, because he had the kind of kudos for such a character.
We've got to hold that hurricane in the Pacific.
Stand by.
Now! Patrick Barr and I, we were old friends because I played his son years previously in a play called Honour Bright at the Lyric Hammersmith.
I'd taken over from Richard O'Sullivan, who went off to make a movie.
So Patrick Barr and I were, you know, we were great friends and it was just, well, you know, "Hi, Dad!" "Hello, son!" You know, it was that sort of thing.
What do you know about all this? Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
We'll see about that in a minute.
There was a lovely thing between Patrick Troughton and Patrick Barr because they were old friends, too and so, again, to get to work with each other And I think, in a way, that's why Patrick stopped his clowning around because here he was working with somebody who was very serious about what we were doing.
We started the whole story of "The Moonbase" filming at Ealing and we had this massive The whole studio was the moon set.
It was exciting for us because moon travel had been talked about between the Russians and Americans and the Space Race, et cetera.
And so we were quite excited because we were going to get to the moon before the Americans and the Russians.
And of course, when we filmed it at Ealing Studios, it was a fantastic set.
Like children we were, when we would step onto the set for the first time.
And it was really quite extraordinary and unique because we had a moonscape.
We had craters! In fact, when the moonwalk was actually on, when the moon landing was actually on, I don't think I saw it live because I thought, "No, I've been there.
Been there, done that.
" (LAUGHS) "And got the T-shirt.
" DESMOND McCARTHY: Stories abounded that the whole thing was a construction anyway, that the moon landing took place in a studio in America.
I don't believe that but there were stories.
And, you know, it didn't look much different when we saw the very grainy pictures coming from that camera on the moon, to what we saw on the Doctor Who.
I thought that moon landscape was quite convincing in the studio.
WILLS: We actually had proper spacesuits.
And they were padded, quilted, zipped up the back.
I was worried 'cause I thought my bum looked big in them.
HINES: The helmets, to me, they were the worst thing because it wasn't like a visor.
You were clipped into, bolted into it.
WILLS: They steamed up immediately.
And for me, being a claustrophobic, it wasn't very pleasant, actually.
HINES: And the minute you've got a helmet on, the minute you can't do something, your brain says, "I want to scratch my nose now.
" And you can't.
You can't scratch your nose.
"I'm going to sweat now.
" No, I don't want to sweat! The minute you put that thing on.
And that was It wasn't enjoyable, I must say.
But I was hugely looking forward to flying on the moon.
I wanted to fly.
Doctor, look.
We had these Kirby wires, Kirby's Flying Ballet, which gathers you up underneath and to make it look like you're flying and jumping and leaping.
Even Anneke got sort of I think a nappy rash is the best thing to put it.
WILLS: It really hurt! Like Because the thing was that they came over the shoulders, the hooks, and then they came through the crotch, and then there was a gap, like this, which you had to bend and they would hook you in.
And then they'd say, "Now straighten up.
" (GROANING) So, you're straightened up, and then you had to act with this intense pain going on.
When you landed and fell over, the guys on the wires, they, you know, couldn't sort of guide you Guard you every millimetre.
And you'd fall over and still get pulled up short.
It wasn't fun at all.
DOCTOR: I hope it's the last we see of them.
When we got to Ealing, the first day we got there, we had a photo call.
All 11 of us, out there along with the general public, who put in many appearances and who had to be handled with care.
Also, I do distinctly remember somebody being peed on by one of By a stray dog which had walked over from somewhere on the common.
And this was very definitely not in the script.
We went back in and we walked all over the moon's surface.
So we asked them to look as if they were walking slowly and then I think the director asked the cameraman to overcrank, I think it's called, make it into slow-motion.
WHITEHEAD: Even though there had been lots of changes made to the costumes, there were still plenty of problems hanging about for us.
You got into it and there always seemed to be things, little studs and things in them, which were digging into your face.
So you're It was still not pleasant.
You did that with your You moved your left arm and down in your right ankle I can remember a stud making contact with oneself.
So, they were unrelated.
You'd never know that these things were liable to be there.
But they had There were plenty of problems there.
Those poor guys.
'Cause they were like wetsuits, zipped up the back.
And again, once you're in it, you probably want to go to the loo.
But you can't get yourself out because then you've got the accordion strapped to you, you've got the helmet on top of you.
We used to feel for those lads and if there was a break in filming, you know, we were always, "Quick, get the helmets off!" You know.
"Well, hang on, we're just" "No, look.
"While you're talking shots, those poor guys, you know.
" They started off at 6', I'm surprised they didn't end up 5'2" at the end of the studio day.
We were put then into Riverside Studios and again, they had opened up the entire studio for this immense set.
As soon as we could, we were in, because we wanted to see what the designers had come up with for our Because before that, there'd have been tapes on the rehearsal room floor and now all of a sudden, we get to see this thing, this gravitron thing, which was this enormous structure.
And Patrick was off there, having a little explore on his own, and he turned, then, away and the thing fell off it I don't know, it fell of its, you know, thingy.
It fell literally inches I mean, we nearly lost Patrick at that point.
And he We were all freaked out but he was really unnerved.
Later on in the pub, it became a big story, but at the moment, you know, this thing fell off its base! It was this massive great structure.
Working with the Cybermen in the studio was tricky, actually.
I mean, for a start, you didn't know which one was talking.
And it wasn't because It was because it wasn't always the one that was closest to you who was talking.
And quite often you could only know if you saw if their mouth was open, "Oh, it's that one.
" CYBERMAN: They have blocked up our way into the base.
Other methods to gain entry will be tried.
So, I think Patrick devised a little thing that whoever was talking would kind of lift his hand up, you know.
So, Patrick, "Ah, yes, now.
Ah.
Now, what "Oh, yes, you're talking now.
" CYBERMAN: Emergency.
Emergency.
There is a spaceship approaching from Earth.
Morris Barry asked me to help to create the Cyberman voices.
The machine from Earth must first be destroyed.
What came to me was a film of Godard which was called Alphaville.
I don't know whether you remember it.
It was the '60s.
And there's a scene in that when, in a corridor, where there were a number of doors, and I think they're like toilets, you know.
And the voice said, "Occupé.
Libre.
" And the voice was created as those people who are unable to speak, from the stomach you create air and you can speak rather like belching.
And that was the method that we invented to create those Cyberman voices.
That's how A kind of stop and start.
CYBERMAN: I shall count to 10.
If you still stupidly remain silent, we shall fire.
Peter Hawkins was sitting in a little booth somewhere with one of those funny things that you used to put in the back of your Like for whistling sheep.
One of those, very similar to that.
I could never do that voice thing.
"Can I borrow it and put it in my" I could never get that Cyberman voice.
One of the reasons why I loved "The Moonbase", actually, was because Kit Pedler was a feminist and he loved me but he also loved the character of Polly.
He was excited about the fact that women could have jobs in the scientific field, of which he was a member.
Doctor, erm, it wouldn't I mean, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with Lister, could it? Lister? Well, I mean, you did say that you took your degree in Glasgow in 1888.
It does seem an awful long time from now, 2070 or whatever it is.
I was so excited, because he'd really given me a nice piece with the Polly cocktail and the bits of business with Patrick.
So it was me and Patrick working away together to, you know, to try and find out what the disease was.
Polly, are you suggesting that I'm not competent to carry out these tests? Oh, no.
No, no, no, no.
I was just wondering if there was anything that Joseph Lister didn't know in 1888 that might possibly help you now.
And the other part that I thought was really important was that when she's asked to make the coffee, this is not demeaning.
Why not make some coffee to keep them all happy while I think of something? All right.
Listen, if you have the honour of being an assistant to somebody as brilliant as the Doctor, you do what it takes.
You know, you're happy to make yourself useful.
Ah, coffee.
Splendid.
Thank you, Polly.
I think we could all do with a cup.
The oxygen masks! Quick, everyone, take a mask.
Over there.
Episode 4 we couldn't do in Riverside because it was booked for something else.
You can't imagine, actually, that they wouldn't think, "Well, we've got Doctor Who"No, no.
Okay, so we were sent back to Lime Grove, which, through the whole production, people, you know, off the wall, they didn't like this.
For me, it was wonderful 'cause Lime Grove was my old home.
As a child actress, I had started I did my first telly when I was 12.
That was in Lime Grove.
And what was so sweet was they actually gave me my old dressing room back.
So that was so lovely, to be back where I had started, you know.
- Let's have a look at the time scanner.
- The what? The time scanner.
Instead of the normal picture showing where we are, it gives you a glimpse of the future.
When you're doing one show, say like "The Moonbase", you do get the scripts for the next story, and from "The Underwater Menace" you got "The Moonbase" and so on.
So we were given the scripts.
You didn't finish on a Sunday and "Oh, here's the next one.
" And I was looking at "The Macra Terror", realising, "Oh, they're now beginning to write Jamie.
" You know, and I think "The Macra" was the start of me getting really settled in.
The second sight? Very dangerous.
I started to sort of feel more confident at the end of "The Moonbase" because I'd been reading "The Macra Terror" as well.
Look! (POLLY GROANS) (DOCTOR WHO THEME) WILLS: I suppose in a way, looking back, "The Moonbase" was the story that really placed the Cybermen in Because they In a way, they replaced the Daleks.
And so now, they have actually, absolutely got their place.
WHITEHEAD: I think the fact that they've been back as many times as they have I don't know what the number is but they've been back a number, and will come back again, I would suggest.
They really are part and parcel of Doctor Who.
I've always said that the Cybermen, to me, were the most frightening monsters because there was no emotion at all.
And their awful, metallic way of speaking as well.
CYBERMAN: Fire.
If you get hold of 20 people from that era and say, "What did you think of Doctor Who and the Cybermen?" They would say, (GASPS) "God, "I remember it through my fingers, behind the sofa.
" All this.
- (MACHINE WHIRRING) - Back.
(BEEPING) Poor old Patrick because he found them very difficult to work with but they were his nemesis, they absolutely were.