Doctor Who - Documentary s06e14 Episode Script

One thing that used to scare me as a kid was seeing how scared the other characters were on television.
Which is why the Second Doctor stories, I remember them with such fondness.
Because Patrick Troughton was very good at looking scared.
And that's what kids respond to, they respond to cues.
You say to them ''this is scary'' by doing that, and they believe it.
That's what all successful Doctor Who monsters do.
They say to children in a very clear way, ''I'm meant to be scary.
'' And the kids go, ''I get it.
Ahh!'' The Daleks were the first monsters in Doctor Who, and they were phenomenally successful, everyone knows them, that's why Doctor Who became a success.
So they immediately thought, ''Well, quick, let's write another Dalek story.
'' And this time they invaded Earth.
For years writers and production teams have tried to come up with a monster to better the Daleks, or to at least be up there on the same level as the Daleks.
BRIGGS: Blatantly to start with, they were trying to create something that would be as good as the Daleks.
WARE: None of them quite reached that mark.
Because there's something so beautifully simple about the Daleks.
They're nasty and they just want to do bad things.
And there's nothing sophisticated about their motivations.
Kill him! All Doctor Who monsters do have the Daleks as the benchmark monster.
The others, really, you know, they want to kill people and conquer planets and stuff, well, that's what the Daleks wanted to do and they did it first.
WARE: They created the Zarbi or the Mechanoids even, to try and compete with the Daleks.
BRIGGS: There's the War Machines.
They presented them on Blue Peter saying, ''Oh, this is Whoa, it's like a Dalek but bigger and really'' It's just rubbish.
(LAUGHS) It's a (GROWLING) (MOCK SHOOTING) You know, nonsense.
I mean, were the War Machines ever going to have movies made about them? I don't think so.
The Quarks, they were sort of set up to be a big monster and bizarrely, they were kind of bought up by TVComic who ran a Doctor Who strip.
And they became like a replacement for the Daleks in that.
I mean, I think there were small schoolchildren inside the Quarks.
I think there's legislation that stops that kind of thing.
WARE: On the league table of Doctor Who monsters, obviously, -Daleks at the top.
-BRIGGS: Cybermen definitely second.
Then I think the Ice Warriors.
No, is that right? Third, now, here's the big thing.
For me, obviously, being a child of the '60s, it's the Ice Warriors, absolutely third place.
No question about it.
You arguing? Daleks, Cybermen Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Autons, Ice Warriors.
Oh, hang on, I forgot the Weeping Angels.
The Weeping Angels need to go in there somewhere.
Okay.
Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, Sontarans, Autons.
Do you know, I think I'm going to say the Yeti.
I think, yeah, you know.
Bizarre, I know.
Controversial choice, maybe.
WARE: Yeti.
Oh, got to have the Yeti in there.
Only been in two stories, but very memorable monster.
For me, in my heart, yes, I have a Yeti sphere.
(LAUGHS) The obvious answer as to why some monsters come back is because there are still some monster costumes left in the costume department which can be used with minimal cost tarting them up, so they can use it in another episode.
I mean, certainly in the case of the Daleks they kept coming back, and clearly they didn't do anything to repair the props from the last time the scene shifters bashed them around.
So you get them turning up in ''Destiny of the Daleks'', you know, looking like, frankly, someone has snuck into the scenery dock and beat them up with a baseball bat or something.
And then said, ''And now, put them in front of the cameras.
'' The production team don't have to bring back monsters, but it's often a good idea just to have one or two things from the past in a series, just because viewers like to see it.
''Oh God, I remember them.
I remember the Daleks.
''I remember the Cybermen.
Ooh, they're back.
'' Yeah, and that makes your audience feel very satisfied about knowing what these things are.
Fans in the public love to see some of these old monsters back.
It's like when you go to a concert and you see your favourite artist performing one of your favourite songs.
You like their new material, yeah.
But you're really there waiting to see the old ones, or waiting to hear the old ones.
And that's what it's like when a Doctor Who monster comes back.
Guard! Kill him! Writers in general on Doctor Who try to create monsters which work for that particular episode, or that particular story.
Not necessarily with the view to them returning.
I mean, the Daleks in their first story, even the Cybermen in their first story, was never envisaged that they would be returning monsters.
It's just that they were so memorable and really captured the public's imagination that they could return and go on.
That's where Steven Moffat's really good with his stories.
Or what about the one with the child who had a gas mask on and kept asking for his mummy? You know, really chilling things like that, very memorable things.
You want to create something that makes an impression, that connects with your audience.
And the biggest sign that you've connected with your audience is that they really remember your creation, and they want to see it again and again and again.
The fact that the Macra came back in Gridlock was, I don't think anyone could have guessed that that was going to happen.
Of all the mad things that you could have returning to Doctor Who, the Macra, the reason they came back, was obviously because Russell was a fan, and he thought it would be a mad and wonderful idea to have these monsters returning to the series.
You're the executive producer of the TV series, and you're a massive fan of Doctor Who.
In a story you need some monsters that are down at the bottom, and maybe they're insects or maybe they're crab-like.
''Ooh, I remember a Doctor Who story that had crab monsters in.
''Wouldn't it be fun just to say they're the Macra?'' WARE: Creatures who appeared once in a story which has long been wiped from the archives, which was transmitted once.
And loads of Doctor Who fans would go, ''Oh my goodness, the Macra.
'' And everyone else would go, ''Oh, it's just a crab monster, isn't it?'' I don't think it's necessarily true to say the best monsters are the ones which have returned the most times.
I mean, there's the Zygons.
Now, they're great.
They're the returning monster that's never returned.
Parasite seaweed is not going to turn up again.
And maggots aren't going to turn up again because they were a specific result of some chemical pollution.
You need aliens who have their own form of transport in order for them to turn up again.
They need a car to turn up in again.
If they just happen somewhere down in the ground or something, they can't come back.
When monsters come back, if you're lucky, and it often works that way, the stories that they return in are often better than the ones they were introduced in.
If you look at the Daleks, you've got things like ''Dalek Invasion of Earth'', ''Daleks' Master Plan''.
That's just in the '60s, which were terrific Dalek stories.
Cybermen, ''Tomb of the Cybermen'' I think most people would agree is better than their original appearance in ''The Tenth Planet''.
The Yeti, ''Web of Fear'', most people again would agree, I think, that that's better than ''The Abominable Snowmen'', and it goes on.
More than often when monsters return, they're different from their previous appearance.
They've either been modified in design, like the Cybermen who have subtle changes each time they appear, or you get to see new variants of the monster, like Dalek Supremes or CyberKings.
Or that the monsters have different aspects that we weren't previously aware of, like the Cybermen's allergy to gold, maybe.
The Sontarans have had a bit of a rough ride in terms of redesigns, I thought.
You know, they established what it was in ''The Time Warrior'', and then it was a sort of more simplistic version of it in ''The Sontaran Experiment''.
And then they came back in ''The Invasion of Time''and it was quite disturbingly unpleasant, the face.
Then you have ''The Two Doctors'', and someone forgot to tell them that the Sontarans were all meant to be short and almost identical.
And maybe have neck bits that fitted.
And then the new Sontarans kind of captured the spirit of the original ones, I think.
Although some people quibbled about the colour of their suits, because they were too blue, apparently.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that, is there? I don't know.
We'd better Can we check that? Anything wrong with that? No, I think we're fine.
We're fine.
WARE: In ''The Seeds of Death'', we get to see an Ice Lord, which is a different variant of Martian, which we weren't previously aware of.
BRIGGS: The original Ice Warrior, people say it's bit like a turtle.
I mean, you had the nasty clamps and everything, but there was something a little bit cuddly about them, you know? Sort of big tummy, big uncle Ice Warrior, you know.
Whereas you get the Ice Lord and he's kind of, you know, snake-like, isn't he? He's a bit like the snake from The Jungle Book.
''Trust in me.
'' You know, and he's got this horrible harsh voice.
SLAAR: We do not need an army.
Earth will be ours for the taking, very soon.
It's much easier for Alan Bennion, who played Slaar, to actually articulate and get his voice heard than it would have been for Bernard Bresslaw, who played the original leader of the Ice Warriors, Varga.
Yeah, there is an element of having monsters returning with more articulate members of their team.
Hunt that man.
He must not escape.
It's just upping the stakes, finding a way of You know, you thought you knew the Ice Warriors were nasty and scary, they're even more scary this time.
It's like any character when they come back.
If they're doing exactly the same thing as they did before, then there's no excitement to it, there's no real story to it.
We like to see them evolve.
We like to learn different things.
BRIGGS: The Autons, for example, they have the whole thing about them having their affinity for plastic, being made of plastic.
And it's like when they decided to bring it back, they investigated that more.
Phone cords that strangle people, and daffodils that squirt plastic gel onto people's faces and suffocate them.
And it's extrapolating what you've already created.
And like the Weeping Angels, you've got the statues and you know, they don't move.
But of course, the story is they do move, they just move when you blink.
So that next time you bring them back, you can think, ''Ooh, we can have those moments.
''We can find a way of showing the moment when they move.
'' That's another shock moment, because they're used to the other shocks.
And in a way, you're never quite going to tire of the Weeping Angels sort of going (SCREAMS) out of the dark, are you? But what if you see it move? And that was a whole other level.
And I think that's what you're looking for with your returning monsters, you know.
You say, well, what is the flavour of the Daleks? What is the flavour of this monster? And now, what can I do to bring that flavour out even further? Everyone's got their favourite monsters, I think.
Jon Pertwee, when asked, said his favourite monsters were the Draconians.
He related a story that he was sitting during a filming break, chatting to one of these actors, and he actually believed almost that he was chatting to an alien.
The make-up was that convincing.
Pertwee could see the eyes, he could relate to the character within the monster suit.
BRIGGS: David Tennant has said in interviews that his favourite monsters were the Zygons.
It's an amalgamation of reasons.
He was the right age to like the Zygons.
The story was really well done, and the monsters were really well realised.
(GASPING) BRIGGS: They sort of looked strangely helpless but they were deadly.
And they would turn themselves into copies of you and kill your friends, and send their big monster to tread on you.
John Woodnutt as Broton, you know, (HUSKY VOICE) did the most amazing voice as the leader of the Zygons.
You know, I mean, you want to impersonate it.
It's brilliant.
It's scary.
Destroy him.
Die, Doctor, die! The Doctor Who Magazine strip, from time to time, will bring back old monsters like the Sycorax, or the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Autons.
It's really a matter for the writer and the editor of the magazine, and Scott Gray, who edits our comic strip, to decide if and when monsters will come back.
We don't have them in every story, because again that would get dull and repetitive if it were just the same monster that you'd seen on TV.
But they do help to spice up the strip now and again.
BRIGGS: I suppose because Big Finish is aimed at the core audience of traditional Doctor Who fans.
I think I've made it part of our brief, really, to do the classic things.
We want something special form the Doctor's past, but something that perhaps people haven't thought of for a long time.
And on one occasion that was literally Alan Barnes picking up one of the many different, you know, Doctor Who episode guidebooks, and we went through, you know, to be 'Cause even though we're encyclopaedic fans of Doctor Who, we were trying to surprise ourselves with finding something.
''Oh, what about Oh, no, we don't want to do the Monoids.
''It was an interesting idea.
No, we won't do that.
'' And then you know, finally, he turned the page and said, ''Morbius!'' (SNORTING) ''That'd be quite fun, wouldn't it? That'd be quite neat.
'' If I was in charge of the TV show, I would bring the Draconians back.
(LAUGHS) WARE: There's the possibility and the potential that they might do.
They've got this big empire out there, apparently, in 500 years' time.
So, yeah, I'd like to see some re-imagined Draconians, please.
I would certainly bring the Zygons back.
I'd like the see the Zygons back next.
Or the Bandrils.
BRIGGS: Wasn't there that awful thing in ''Timelash'', the Bandrils, is that right? No, seriously, a well-realised Bandril could be fantastic.
(IN SQUEAKY TONE) ''Oh, hello.
Yes, I'm a monster.
'' So I wouldn't bring them back.
Although, the temptation would be to bring them back and you know, and say that was just a rubbish Bandril.
(DEEP, GRUFF VOICE) And all the others are big and with huge guns.
I'd love to see newly imagined versions of all the monsters that we've seen before on television.
With all the CDs, books, and what have you out there featuring the Doctor, does it mean that a sequel to any story is just a matter of time? Do you know, it probably does.
I mean, yeah, we all want to revive exciting things from our childhood, don't we? Yes, I think they all deserve to come back one way or another.