Quote:Originally Posted by Sancty

THE SHOW: Doctor Who (1963, 2005)

WAHAY!!!!!

Quote:IT RAN FROM: 1963-1989, 2005-2009)

It's commissioned for 2010 and 2011 as well, and rumours are coming from the BBC of a three-five year contract for new Doctor Matt Smith. So it's about the safest show in Britain currently.

Quote:BREAKOUT STAR(S): Tom Baker, William Hartnell, David Tenant, Billie Piper (I'm totally guesing... some Brits help me out!)

Alongside that? It boosted/rejuvenated/started (and sometimes all three!) the careers of Patrick Troughton (The Priest in the Omen!), Frazer Hines, Jon Pertwee, Nick Courtney, Slyvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Louise Jameson (went on to the Omega Factor, now a leading RSC actress), Peter Jeffrey, Janet Fielding (now a leading acting agent), Peter Davison, amongst others.

It also had acclaimed appearances by Phillip Madoc, Brian Blessed, Alexei Sayle, William Gaunt, Roger Delgado, Tony Ainley, George Colouris (aye, him from Citizen Kane was in Dr Who!), Lynda Baron, Michael Barrington (Porridge), Michael Brandon, John Cleese, Edward Brayshaw, Bernard Bresslaw, Eleanor Bron, Tony Beckley (The Italian Job), Bernard Archard (Emmerdale!), Petter Butterworth, Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett!), Martin Clunes, Simon Callow, Pauline Collins, Peter Copley, Maurice Denham, and just about anyone worth a jot in British acting history over the last 40 years. Some of them even played it straight. (But not Brian Blessed, thankfully)

Sir Laurence Olivier wanted a role in the show, until the then producer decided he wanted one of the finest Shakespearan actors of the 20th Century to dress up as a marsh mutant!

Ridley Scott also worked his BBC apprenticeship on it!

Quote:Of the 253 episodes of "Doctor Who" that were produced in the 1960s, 108 no longer exist in the BBC Television Archives due to an archive purge in the 1970s. The most recent episode to be recovered as of 2006 is a print of the 1965 episode "The Daleks' Master Plan: Day of Armageddon", returned by a former BBC engineer in January 2004.

Aye, and there's nothing worse than getting right into something only to find out someone destroyed the next episode back in the 70s! Damn.

Quote:The format of the show's entire run was a series of cliff-hanger adventure serials. Each of the Doctor's adventures would be told across several half-hour episodes, with a cliff-hanger ending each one. Each "season" of the show would be broken into several stories, taking usually 4 to 6 episodes to play out

Some were 2 parters - over too quickly.
Most were 4 parters - a nice 90 minute length.
Some were 6 parters - a good writer could make this work (see Robert Holmes), a bad writer would chuck in padding.
The few 7 parters all seem to work quite well, surprisingly.
8+ episodes = lots and lots of padding.

Quote:- on-screen, each individual episode would begin with the title of the story ("The Android Invasion", to name one),

Though, please, I beg of you, if you haven't heard of the show before now, don't go looking up The Android Invasion on Wiki to get an overall sense of what the show is about.

I believe in a recent poll, it finished 3rd from bottom out of 230 odd stories.

This is because it is shit. This is why Terry Nation never really broke out after inventing the Daleks - one trick pony.

Quote:On three occasions, past Doctor actors have to returned to the series as the Doctor in stories known as "multi-Doctor" stories, meaning that they feature multiple incarnations of the Doctor. In 1973, the tenth anniversary story, The Three Doctors, saw William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton return to the role alongside Jon Pertwee.

Hartnell's last role ever - his artersclorisis trouble is plain to see, and he died not too long afterwards. Great actor with a long range of acclaimed British films to his name, shame his public farewell was so tepid (unavoidable due to the nature of his ill health).

The Three Doctors is quite amusing. Pertwee was very much a "learn the lines precisely" type actor. Troughton, on the other hand, learned AROUND the lines.

This led to several arguments. Apparently they were great friends...when they didnt have to act together.

It is a shame though. Hartnell was gutted when he got essentially sacked from the show, and he never really recovered. Though he was possibly the true visionary - back in 63, the producers thought if they were lucky the show could go for 6 months, and Hartnell was insistant in his belief it could run for up to 5 years! He knew, and remained a big supporter of the show and his successors till his death in April 1975.