The Genesis of Doctor Who

After reading Timeless Adventures:

How Doctor Who Conquered TV by Brian

J Robb, I concluded just how fortunate

Whovians are that our beloved show was produced at all.

In March 1962, Eric Maschwitz, assistant to Controller of Programmes, Stuart Hood,

assigned Alice Frick and Donald Bull of

the BBC Survey Group to prepare a

feasibility study into the creation of a new

science fiction series. A second report by

Frick and John Braybon recommended a time travel format.

Sci-fi buff Sydney Newman began work

as new Head of Drama for BBC TV that December, and was soon expanding

Frick's work with Donald Wilson and

C E Webber.
But the old guard at Television Centre

were determined for 'Dr. Who' to fail -

only for it's defenders - key personnel

Verity Lambert, David Whitaker, Anthony Coburn, and Waris 

Hussein - the embryonic show would have fallen at the first hurdle.

Fast forward to the transmission of the first Dalek adventure in

December 1963 - the Corporation's powers-that-be thankfully

reacted by abandoning the show's intended thirten-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 Doctor Who contract to just 13 weeks, and cancel the

show when all remaining stories finished 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 arrived in 1989 with outright can-

cellation.

It's hard to believe that the programme could have ended after

The Dalek Invasion of Earth (just fifty-one episodes), and was

so close to becoming a footnote in TV history.