Apparently one of the writers from Juliet Bravo - Martin Bannister - was meant to write the following episodes. He revealed in a 2003 interview that he had planned to have Dr Who and the teachers meet Hannibal, and accompany him on his journey through the alps. It makes me even sadder that this show never continued, as the 2nd Punic War is such a bold and ambitious choice of subject for a first serial. But then again, who can say whether 60’s television would’ve been able to do a story like that justice.
This was surprisingly disturbing. Doctor who is so woven into my identity that I felt like I was being erased watching this. As lifelong doctor who fans, who are we without doctor who?
By the time I got to the Iplayer to watch this obscure episode, the BBC had taken it down, apparently, the writer's son who holds the rights wants to destroy his father's legacy and does not want anyone to enjoy what he made. He must really hate his dead father. He must be spinning in his grave.
So great to see someone else who has seen this obscure 60s scifi pilot and is talking about it, I never see anyone talk about this. Imagine if this show went on for 60 years or something.
@@brokended_pencil How could Chris Chibnall have destroyed Doctor Who in season 11 or 12, given that the pilot aired in 1963? He would have been like 5 or 6 when it aired! That's the only way that could make sense, since the alternative (putting the show on a decades-long hiatus, then returning it to airwaves with a new "Season 1" while designating the 1963 show as "Series 1" would just be so ridiculous as to not bare considering. Well, such a shame that w ewould never get to find out, given that this "Doctor Who" show only got one episode back in 1963...
Also, I will point out that "Axe Cop" is a pretty good series so maybe giving a 5-year-old Chris Chibnall the ability to run the show wouldn't be that bad.
That's ok we just had the 70th season of Quatermass recently. Only room for the one big show on the BBC licence fee really. I prefer the adventures of dear old/young Bernard/Bernadette.
Damn! This show looked like it had potential. Imagine if it became the world's longest-running sci-fi show and also a cultural phenomenon still going on 60 years later. Oh, and given how the BBC used to have an old policy of junking old programs, I'm surprised this pilot still exists since the show didn't go anywhere.
Yeah. It certainly would’ve become what could be argued as the longest running Superhero show. But due to not coming out a Japanese show named Ultraman from 1966(and the entire franchise that it started) takes that honour (No I’m not making that up. People actually call Doctor Who the longest running superhero show. Which I don’t quite agree with. Instead pointing at 1966’s Ultraman)
It’s amazing this obscure pilot. William Hartnell was great in The Army Game and Carry On Sergeant, and it’s so strange to see him play a straight role. Imagine if the show caught on, but we know that would never happen. Strange it survived, of all shows, a pilot no less.
It is probably best that it didn't continue. The foreboding of the shadow and unanswered questions are best left hanging. Sci-fi reveals are often not as good as the mystery.
It really is, some of the scenes where she's the damsel in distress are unwatchable. Her last story she completely changes between the "hurt ankle" and that scene in the end, she helps make it believable and one of the best moments of the show.
I had heard of this program, but hadn't watched it as I'd misread the title as "Dr World Health Organisation" and had assumed it was a documentary. I've done a bit of research and found that although it was abandoned by the BBC after the pilot, a company called Large Conclusion has made audio dramas including various actors as the Doctor (bit weird repeatedly changing the actor if you ask me) They've even got some alien things that look like salt cellars...
I think that those audio dramas got taxing for the voice actors after awhile, and/or they were unavailable when they recorded them. So they just cast another person as the role of the Doctor.
I really enjoy this look at Doctor Who, an interesting peak into another world where the Doctor, Daleks and their adventures never came to be. I watched An Unearthly Child for the first time yesterday and I was struck by how different and unsettling the Doctor is. He feels sinister, sneaky and mysterious. He also has this smug superiority when arguing back and forth with Ian and Barbara about Susan being in the police box. Like you said, I honestly really enjoy how Susan gets characterised by her acting here. She makes it abundantly clear that she's not quite "normal" and her dialogue with her grandfather really gives this idea they have a long history together. For a pilot/first episode it's incredibly efficient. Nice work Stu
I couldn't tell whether Stu was using the unaired pilot or the normal first episode here - in the original pilot the Doctor's character was even harsher, plus there were technical problems like the Tardis doors opening when they shouldn't which caused them to reshoot it, and they softened the Doctor's character a touch in the meantime.
Well, we should be thankful that bafflingly obscure shows like this are being brought back to prominence! Now the John Lumic Media Foundation has taken over the BBC, we should be getting lots more old stuff coming back. I can even download The Archers to my Cybus Earpods now! Isn't he such a generous man?
Oh yes, John Lumic’s such an honorable man. His work has improved so much since he hired the “You Can Trust Me On This” guy who made Vitex. Pete Tyler, I think he’s called.
Not sure why there are so many comments talking about "dustbin/salt shaker aliens" or something... the creators specified that the show wasn't going to have aliens in it at all if it did continue - it was meant to be educational after all... would probably have had a few more history themed episodes. Can't see it lasting very long, especially as the lead actor (was his name Hartnett?) wasn't in the best of health and would have had to quit soon after starting. It's a shame it didn't get continued but we can't really be missing out on too much.
my best guess for the salt shaker aliens is that since the space ship is meant to be a time machine, maybe it could have gone to the future as well? but im not sure how educational it could have been, its not like the show could use those unique settings and characters as social commentary on the real world at the time. completely agree that its a shame, could have been a really fun show
@@zone6440For the physics. Like, salt shaker aliens would be hard on the outside, implying a cybernetic sort of casing, so how strong would its metallic properties be? Could it have built-in ray guns, and how would you make the rays ? Salt shakers would be the wrong shape to go upstairs, so how could they be a serious menace ? The writers might have to eventually cheat and say they learned to levitate, by built-in rocketry or magnetically.
Ah, I've heard of this but always assumed it was an old medical serial! Looks like it was actually broadcast twice on a technicality, because it was just different versions of the same episode. Seems if it'd carried on, they'd have done stories based on physics lessons as well as history.
It’s so weird because this was first pitched to the BBC by Sydney Newman, the guy who pitched The Avengers to ITV. To think this could also have been going 60 years later under Disney and earning like $3 billion dollars at the box office.
I’d heard about this pilot, but I’d thought it was lost media now. It’s great to see it again. I think it could’ve been a great concept if done properly
Fun fact: Back in the early 2000s some people at the BBC found the pilot and pitched a reboot of the show for modern audiences. There were plans to cast little-known actor David Tennant as the Doctor but they ultimately came to nothing.
Huh. Makes me think of that American science fiction show from the same decade that didn’t get past the pilot. Can’t remember the name now… Star Trick?
Was that anything to do with that movie from the 70s that was meant to be a trilogy before it bombed at the box office? Think it was called Star battle or something like that
@@CouncilofGeeksyeah there was also that director (i can't remember his name, stephen zuckerberg or something) who kept making the most random shit like that one shark movie that no-one saw (teeth?) and that weird alien one. glad that guy retired in the 90s, his work was pretty shit
The show had real potential with that great caveman material, such a shame they jumped the shark introducing those dustbin aliens. Cancellation was inevitable.
I’d heard about this pilot, but I’d thought it was lost media now. It’s great to see it again. I think it could’ve been a great concept if done properly
You know, I am fascinated by old television like this. It is certainly interesting, and a good concept. It’s such a shame it never picked up, especially with such talent on display… well, I say talent, the most notable actor in this is William Russell as Ian, who played bit parts in such films as The Great Escape, Superman and The Man Who Never Was. He also happens to be the father of Alfred Enoch from Harry Potter. William Hartnell (Dr. Who) also featured in such films as Carry On, Sergeant (the first of the famed Carry On series), and a comedy entitled “Will Any Gentleman” in which he starred against Worzel Gummidge actor, Jon Pertwee, who also made appearances in certain Carry On films.
Apparently, he originally blacked up and put on women's clothes to play the part..... That absurd idea was dismissed immediately as being utterly nonsensical and just blatant pandering...
I found some old production notes dating back to this, hell even found a script. Apparently the next episode was going to be them going back to the Stone Age which… I’m not sure? It sounds off but from what I’ve read it definitely characterises the doctor as less of an emotionless alien and more of.. someone who just wants to go back home. Which… yeah that’s something. Another script was found though from what I’ve heard not much outside of the first episodes script has been found, we do have concept art. This was going to feature an alien race called “The Daleks” who are quite obviously based off the Nazis. They were apparently meant to be “legless moving on a round metal base” which.. I’m not sure if they could even pull that off. Given the budget it sounds ambitious. This was written by Terry Nation and it almost seems like the Daleks were a prototype for the aliens in his book series “The Destroyers” which is a really interesting read. Shame this never got off the ground..
They should try to reboot this or something I think it has great potential. If it's a drama they're going for maybe they could get Russel T Davies to produce it?
Nah, that would be terrible, and filled to bursting with grotesquely gratuitous homosexual entanglements and blatant deviancy in a ploy to make such abnormality acceptable.
Oh no, it's Yesterday but with Dr. Who! But seriously, this is a really cool framing of the pilot. I guess I've never seen it as a horror before, but it all kinda adds up.
This is interesting, and maybe if they'd have got the chance to do another pilot they could have got it right. Not that that would ever happen in the BBC of the 60s, of course - and even if they had, it probably would have been shelved for coverage of Kennedy's assassination.
There is another US based sci-fi television show pilot that never was picked up from the mid-1960s thereabouts. Something about tracking stars and Green women's asses...
I wonder if there's a universe out there that have 2 minute BBC shorts of random people looking for a police box and finding it only for it to disappear that have been broadcasting for 60 years.
Remember this was only 18 years after the end of WW2, and a lot of the country still had large sways of bombed out areas......so imagine coming home as a kid to watch this new tv show that would blow away your 1963 mind with music and sound effects that was very very alien from the start.
Really interesting article. I heard just the other day that apparently because they planned on this being an educational / science kind of show, they even got David Attenborough involved as a scientific advisor! That must have been before he'd even got a proper name for himself. No idea if he actually contributed anything...
Anybody remember a 1 series show called Star Trek? That was a weird one but Patrick Stewart acted his heart out. As for this Doc-Tor Who or something that was a TV oddity, someone must have been on the old Mary Jane thinking of all that crazy stuff.
Reminds me of that other one about the guy waking up in space and everyone he knew is long gone. The title would probably be consisdered offensive now, I think it was called Blue Midget.
This is so weird! I'm sure I remember this show actually going on, for years! I'm sure it ended about six years ago or so.I don't remember it being on TV since then. Damn.Must be another Mandella effect. Very strange. 😕
I think I heard about this monster they we’re going to use in a later episode called a dalek. It’s like a human size, pepper pot shaped tank with whisk for a gun and a plunger for a hand but the dalek is actually a squid like creature because it use to be human but because of radiation it mutated into that from. Looking at the scrapped footage the daleks city was really eerie and claustrophobic no wonder why they unplugged the show
Yeah imagine the plunger advancing on that teacher Barbara and her screaming. How's that for kids, specially as a cliffhanger even! The premise would fall between its 2 stools of sci-fi or educational.
Haha! I like you chose the grandfather to be telling the story of the Trojan Horse. I could totally see if an old show like that did a story based off of old myths of that sort, it would make irredeemable errors for someone who could look at Wikipedia and see how much they changed! Haha! Funny story told in that drawing for sure! 😅😂
Imo I think this show could work in todays modern landscape. Change the way the audience perceive The Doctor make him less creepy, ditch the educational stuff and take beats from contemporary drama’s and other TV shows. If they do bring it back I hope they don’t pick up from where this episode left off
Minor correction: Dr Foreman and Susan are not aliens. They are humans who hail from a distant planet in the 49th century - a time when when humanity has spread out amongst the stars. It would have been nice if we could have seen the story of how that conquest took place, but there are plenty of other sci-fi shows that tackle this exact idea. What I find absurd about this pilot's premise is that a duo of time travellers would choose to live in a junkyard when they could just as easily have themselves a penthouse or a palace. But I suppose the junkyard set was probably cheaper.
Funny because since RTD came back to become the showrunner to Quatermass again he brought up this piece of lost media in a recent interview and how it might have taken some inspiration from the original 1953 The Quatermass Experiment because the BBC wanted to take a gamble on more esoteric science fiction like that but why this Doctor who never got past the first episode, a lot of speculation but sadly not much from that era ever came out.
I heard a rumour that in the late 1960s they tried to bring it back with a man with a bealte styled haircut and flute but without the teachers and Susan who the BBC thought to be useless ideas and it didn't take off; yet in the 70s there were rumours of a more james bond equse reboot of this show and in colour
That’s one weird pilot. I can’t see how it would ever take off, last (say) 60 years and become a TV icon. Too weird. Just plain odd. I mean, a box with a room inside clearly bigger than outside? Time Travel? No one would ever buy that, surely?
Unfortunately, I'm not able to find this episode on Iplayer, not surprised they pulled it considering the potential subject matter of two teachers being kidnapped and stolen away though
every good old media is some big 50-film homework franchise now so i'm kind of glad this Dr Who thing died out. i can imagine someone sucking the life out of it and packaging it for marvelification. it would take a really, really good showrunner to pull a show like Dr Who off today. obviously the guy playing Dr Who (i think it's that military guy from the 50s) died quite a while back so it would have had to end then anyway.
60s TV is weird. I recently had a computer in the shop from some bloke who was obsessed with it. I had to recover his hard drive, 97 episodes of some obscure old show. Something about a police station and a Hollywood backlot? It was totally infested with bugs like I'd never seen. Had to wipe the whole thing clean just to get the computer working again. Couldn't reach the bloke afterwards. Just disappeared off the face of the earth!
What a shame Doctor Who never took off. Juke box Jury? Was that like Top of the pops, i wonder what the world be like if Elvis's career blossomed instead of being forgotten, there was also a group called "The Beatles" , Lennon and McCartney would've made a great writing team, then there was a guy called Cliff Richard,... whatever happened to him?, a one hit wonder !!. Can anyone actually remember Coronation Street?
To add some context to the cancelation, Sydney Newman, who was part of a new regime at the BBC, made the show the responsibility of Verity Lambert, who was facing an uphill battle as one of the few women with major authoriy in British television at the time. The second episode would have revealed that the characters had traveled back to the stone age, and had to escape a tribe of cavemen, with the alien ship being the only way out.There were some technical issues that made it to air because only one take would be put to film in those days. Lambert was pushing for funds to reshoot the first episode, and she accepted a script that would have the cast escape prehistoric times, but then get captured by Aliens on a radioactive planet instead of moving onto another historical setting. Seeing it as costly serial, and expecting it to fail its educational obligations, the BBC was happy to pull the plug on the show and move on before it fell behind its business projections. The premier broadcast was also undercut by coverage of the Kennedy assassination, so Lambert didn't have the viewership to defend the show.
I rather think your unexplained deja vu feeling shows something hypnotically clever about the premise. You can see this Doctor character in other actors' performances, and even if they are completely different to Hartnell, if they can do unearthly still capture a take on his Doctoring role. It's probably too far-fetched to suppose they could ever have had all these actors playing him (or even for one to be a her!), bit like James Bond but with a lot more difference of looks and nature. They would have to invent a way that his type of aliens get reborn, such as that they have 13 lives, unlucky for some, and his body remakes itself when he dies - I'm sounding like the Munsters, but actually they were this era too. I'm just thinking they might get away with a recasting to keep it going when Hartnell's health gave out within 3 years of this. Hartnell was known to admire a younger actor he was in a film with, Patrick Troughton, who could do impish, which is alien, blended with alien seriousness like in his part in the Omen. He could do the Doctor, not as a grandad but more a mysterious tramp with a protective wisdom when they got into trouble. Jon Pertwee, from The Navy Lark and Carry On films in this period, though he was a comedy actor his voice lent itself to grandfatherly seriousness. With imposing velvety jackets he could do the Doctor quite Bond-like and working with the army. The now-elderly little-known Tom Baker, who once played Rasputin well and does voiceovers in his deep voice, could do an alien distantness really well in that voice, and his eyes, with some moments of understanding too, I reckon he could hold the part down for years and years. Then, even such a very ungrandfatherly, homely and soft in demeanour, actor as the young Peter Davison, did sci-fi parts in very alien contexts, in The Tomorrow People and Hitch-Hiker's Guide, and he could channel them as an emotionally old in young body Doctor carrying much baggage. Just as he had been in one-off sci-fi parts, take a couple of one-off actors from Blake's 7: a brasher more thrusting version of the old in young carrying baggage, I see in Colin Baker: while Richard Hurndall, old with long white hair, I see as another Hartnell-like actor who could do a straight substitute for his take on the Doctor. Remembering it's a kids' show, how about a frequent yet alienly little-spoken figure.of mystery in 70s-80s kids' shows, Sylvester McCoy? He played spoof sci-fi superheroes "the O-men" in the word game show Jigsaw, who travelled in a photo booth, so he could be an elusive yet protective Doctor and channel some of Hartnell's version's darker side too. What think you ? Sorry I've swamped you thinking of so many of these that the show would have to run for a generation to get through them, but that shows how endlessly remakeable this basic character is!
I would say the title needs a question mark, but maybe "Who" is the guy's surname? I guess we'll just never know. Meh. E2A: Just spotted in the credits it's his name. So it's Susan Who and Doctor Who. How silly!
