The British Library's newspaper archive in London contains a wealth of hidden information
and opinion about Doctor Who. This series looks at the comments made by the critics
and reporters who reviewed the programme for daily newspapers and other publications. What
do these comments tell us about the way the programme was perceived in the days and weeks
following the broadcast of the original episodes?
The world of 1963 was shocked and confused in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination.
The newspapers of Saturday the 23rd of November were dominated by reports and analysis of
this terrible event, so it's understandable that a new tea time serial from BBC television
received little initial publicity. The following Monday, the Mail became the first daily newspaper
to review Doctor Who.
It goes without saying that circumstances were hardly favourable for the launching of
the BBC's space satellite Doctor Who on Saturday afternoon, said the Mail's TV critic Michael
Gower. Unlike many journalists who would later repeat the myth that Doctor Who was only designed
to run for several months, Gower correctly predicted that the new series would have legs.
The machine which carries this mysterious old man, his inordinately precocious granddaughter and her unfortunate science and history teachers
will apparently be circumnavigating our screens for the next 52 weeks at least.
The success of the Daleks effectively launched Doctor Who at the end of 1963. Perhaps aware
they had failed to predict the impact made by the Daleks, the journalists of Fleet Street
were quick to promote the other monsters making their debut in 1964. The Vord were hyped by
a number of newspapers, all of whom seemed strangely preoccupied with the actors' rubber
costumes.
The Vords are all rubber, reported an incredulous Daily Mail on the 11th of April.
They bounce across BBC TV screens today in the first episode of a new Doctor Who space
series and could rival the dreaded Daleks.
The Dalek invasion of Earth began in November 1964 and the Daily Mail reported that the
BBC switchboard was jammed with over 400 telephone calls following the first episode's cliffhanger.
Angry viewers protested that the Daleks' appearance was far too brief.
Reporter John Sandilands was duly dispatched to the BBC where he tracked down Doctor Who
producer Verity Lambert.
At all dark and shapely, she became positively forbidding when I suggested that the Daleks
might one day take over Doctor Who.
I feel no way obligated to bring them back for a third time, even if this present story
is a tremendous success.
Sandilands seemed to find story editor Dennis Spooner rather less intimidating. Spooner
told him...
Writers have to be divided into those who can cope with trips back into the past and
those who can write adventures set in the future. Very few can do both. The futuristic
stories ought to be easier because the scope is endless, but we have to set some limits
to remain mildly plausible and we have found that many writers are completely lost with
science fiction.
As the latest Doctor Who serial continued, the Mail promoted another briefly seen monster,
the Dalek's pet, the slither. Actor Nick Evans, whose job it was to bring the creature
to life, described his less than enviable task.
It's like being inside a boiler suit with its hood and lumpy skin made of rubber and
plastic with straggly pieces outside and waggly claws. Frankly, it does nothing for my career
and in any case I'm playing a Roman slave trader in the next Doctor Who story.
Writing in the Financial Times on the 6th of January, T.C. Worsley mistakenly suggested
that the original story editor was in fact responsible for devising Doctor Who.
Why has its creator David Whittaker not collected one of the awards being thrown around at this
time?
Worsley claimed he overcame his allergy to science fiction to watch the first episode
of The Rescue. He suspected that the Dalek's absence was only temporary.
Will Mr. Whittaker do it again with the half-animal automata from the planet Dido? I rather doubt
it. Coquiltion is a memorable enough name to catch on, but these beast-machine men have
not the beautiful simplicity of their predecessors nor their catchy mode of speech.
Obviously not a well-informed fan of the programme, the confused Mr. Worsley then laid into its
production values.
The first episode of the show was actually disappointingly inexpert in the handling.
It ended indeed in fiasco when the pearl white fade-out with the Doctor and Ian poised above
a dragon-infested abyss was ruined by a misplaced camera.
Worsley then became one of the very first commentators to question Doctor Who's suitability
for children.
If I believed, which I do not, in the baleful effects on children of tales of violence and
horror, Doctor Who would be high on the danger list.
On the 23rd of January 1965, The Times placed the Romans high on another list.
The strongest weapon in the BBC armoury remains Doctor Who. The departure of the Daleks has
broken small hearts all over the country, but the new series with Miss Jacqueline Hill
and Mr. William Russell in the hands of the slave traders promises well.
Miss Verity Lambert's production is once again flawless.
As 1965 continued, positive reviews of Doctor Who became increasingly rare.
The programme was frequently criticised for its perceived over-reliance on the Daleks
and its low production values.
On the 15th of February 1965, the web planet was slated by the Daily Mail.
This really is inaction, wrote Peter Black.
The rushing about is mostly off-screen. The actors run into the shot and then suggest
speed and tension by breathing hard. When the story's crawling at full gallop, half
the dialogue consists of panting sounds.
The heroes are the dullest quartet in fiction, and so remarkably incompetent that it would
take their combined intellectual resources to toast a slice of bread. I suppose the attraction
is the ancient one of watching people who are dafter than yourself.
Although Doctor Who's ratings peaked during the early part of 1965, the show received
very few positive reviews for the remainder of William Hartnell's tenure.
Peter Black became the first of several critics to observe that
The weekend serial shows a sharp and calamitous decline from older days.
Philip Purser, writing in the Sunday Telegraph on the 13th of June, continued the Doctor
Who backlash. Purser was less than impressed by the new
Dalek story, The Chase. He expressed his disdain with one of the politically incorrect insults
of the day.
Generally, this is a ramshackle old serial these days.
The Daleks, recalled with increasing frequency and increasing desperation, are fast losing
their ancient menace. One of them has acquired a South London accent,
and another is undoubtedly queer.
Later that month, the movie Doctor Who and the Daleks premiered in London. It was met
with almost universal derision.
The film is just coy, wrote Philip Oakes in the Sunday Telegraph on the 27th of June.
The Daleks themselves, a tribe of space Nazis clad in steel ballards, are still pretty menacing,
but Peter Cushing's Doctor is a pale shadow of the TV grouch.
On Monday, the 28th of June, the Daily Mail's Desmond Zwa shared lunch with Dalek creator
Terry Nation and asked him his opinion on the cinematic version of his story.
I find that against my will I am sort of taken over by the Daleks. I've written better things,
you know, without wanting to sound too pompous, I hope. I was a rich scriptwriter before I
dreamed up the Daleks.
The film was a huge success, however, and a sequel, based on the Dalek invasion of Earth,
would soon enter production. Doctor Who's continued ratings success also led to a West
End stage play, The Curse of the Daleks. The Times sent a bemused critic to Wyndham's
theatre on the 22nd of December.
No less compelling on the stage than the television screen, the Daleks are the undoubted stars
of this futuristic adventure story. Gliding sleekly around the stage, carefully articulating
their orders, they possess a magnetism lacking in the flesh and blood characters.
On the 5th of February 1966, the Daily Worker Stuart Lane previewed the episode, War of
God. Betraying a hint of his newspaper's political agenda, Lane predicted that business
concerns would soon dictate the Daleks' return.
Today Doctor Who moves to 16th century Paris with plotting between the Catholics and the
Huguenots, but I fear that the Daleks may return yet again. After all, the BBC has already
granted 60 licences for the production of Dalek toys, with more still being negotiated,
and it gets 5% of the wholesale price on each toy.
In 1966, the historical stories which were generally interspersed with more fantastical
adventures were proving particularly unpopular with audiences. It's therefore surprising
that David Whittaker's story, The Crusade, was adapted as one of the very first Doctor
Who novelisations. Whittaker had contravened his own advice in the original Doctor Who
Writer's Guide by introducing a potential romance between Ian and Barbara in his first
novel, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks. For his next book, Doctor
Who and the Crusaders, he experimented with a few more adult themes.
The science fiction element in the new Doctor Who story is irrelevant. An undistinguished
historical story is neither helped nor hindered by the intrusion of the ubiquitous Doctor
and his young companions. What makes a rather silly book just a little disturbing is its
tone. Barbara is captured by a kinky Ymir who rewards her with a ceremonial flogging,
from which she is rescued later than convention in such stories demands. This introduction
of a 007 sexual sadistic element into children's literature, however unimportant and lacking
in quality it may be, is disquieting. In July 1966, the second Doctor Who film,
Daleks Invasion Earth, 2150 AD, opened in London. The critics were just as scathing
as they had been about the first film the year before.
I find the Daleks, cross little dustbins that they are, quite the most unattractive figures
in science fiction, wrote David Robinson in the Financial Times. He went on to describe
the production as a film of unusually low standards. Nina Hibbin, writing in the Morning
Star of the 23rd of July, was similarly unforgiving. The stated year is 2150 AD, but all the non-Dalek
props, clothes, furniture, packagings, radios, even homemade bombs, look like leftovers from
an old film about the London Blitz. Much of the action takes place in an old warehouse
that was cleared for demolition in 1875. Here, a crowd of at least ten people is planning
a rebellion against the robot invaders. As predicted by the critics, the popularity
of Doctor Who and the Daleks was on the wane. 1966 was a year of frequent cast changes for
the programme, and on the 2nd of August, the Daily Telegraph announced the most serious
cast change of all. Tougher Doctor Who is chosen.
Reporter Norman Hare claimed that the new Doctor, Patrick Troughton, would appear in
stories that were tougher, with a greater emphasis on science fiction. Hare also spoke
to Sidney Newman, Doctor Who's co-creator, who explained what he'd looked for in the
new Doctor. Our problem in choosing the new Doctor Who
was very difficult because we have decided to make considerable changes in the personality
of the character. We believe we have found exactly the man we wanted.
The departure of William Hartnell received very little attention from a press that was
now bored of Doctor Who. Hartnell told The Times he was leaving because,
I think three years in one part is a good innings and it is time for a change.
The Daily Mail quoted a friend of Hartnell's who said,
It has been a great strain for William over the last three years. The serial demands a
great deal from him as an actor. He has often said he would like to leave and return to
the theatre. And so the William Hartnell years of Doctor
Who came to an end. The departure of the show's leading man barely
remarked upon by critics who, for the last three years, had been far more interested
in Daleks. Twelve million people watch Doctor Who if
the Daleks are in it. Only seven to eight million if they are not, said the observer,
summing up the early impact of the programme. However, unlike newspaper critics, twelve
million people can't be wrong.