Doctor Who @ 61: Genesis

After nineteen successful years of the revived incarnation of

Doctor Who, the wilderness years of the 1990s seem a distant

 memory. Only fandom and a nostalgic minority supported this

 iconic but neglected property.

No one then could have envisaged a re-imagined, awards-laden

series that is now Britain's best-loved drama, the BBC's flagship

export, a mainstay of the festive TV schedule, and one of the

 world's biggest television franchises.

Not only is it difficult to imagine a time when Doctor Who wasn't

in production and being broadcast regularly, but from the show's

inception in 1962, it faced many obstacles just to be realised.

It seems that the old-guard within the BBC of the early Sixties

were determined for Doctor Who to fail, and only for its biggest

defenders Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert, then the

embryonic show would have fallen at the first hurdle - their

struggle was dramatised in Mark Gatiss' brilliant and moving

BBC Two biopic, An Adventure in Space and Time.

Fast forward to the first Dalek story's transmission, and the

powers-that-be thankfully reacted by abandoning the show's

intended thirteen-week lifespan.

Only after reading the production notes on The Rescue DVD did

I learn that by August 1964, Donald Baverstock again wanted

to revert the new series' contract to just three months, and cancel

the show when all remaining stories were due to finish in January

1965.

Only when Lambert and William Hartnell's agent dug in their

heels did Baverstock finally agree to another, twenty-six-week

run, by which time the programme's long term future was

secured. The threat of cancellation would however revisit the 

show in times of crisis. 

As The War Games concluded the black and white era in 1969,

the BBC considered a six year run to have been a good innings

and there was some internal debate about whether to axe

Doctor Who. 

The lowest point in the show's history was the 'hiatus' of

1985 when Michael Grade 'rested' the Doctor's adventures

for eighteen months, then the end finally came in 1989 with

outright cancellation.

It is inconceivable now to believe that the programme could

have ended after just fifty-one episodes (with the transmission

of The Dalek Invasion of Earth), and was so close to becoming

a footnote in TV history.