Category: Sideways in Time
Sideways in Time: An Unearthly Child / Pathfinders…
‘Bringing science fiction into reality, Britain has launched two manned space rockets to the Moon.’ Doctor Who didn’t spring from nowhere. The aim of these entries is to look sideways from each Doctor Who serial at other media, seeking out influences and inspirations, and boldly viewing what no Matt has viewed before. Starting with the Pathfinders… serials from the early 1960s. There were four (the first, Target Luna, is lost) written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice, and produced by Sydney Newman. They focus on Professor Norman Wedgewood’s British rocket programme as it succeeds (albeit with a safety record as bad as Quatermass’s – invariably journalists, children and rodents find their way on board) first in sending humans into space, then to the Moon, Mars and finally Venus.
Continue readingSideways in Time: Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (19/8/1972)
‘There’s always an answer to be found if you only dig deep enough.’ In every respect this is a superior movie to Dr. Who and the Daleks, dropping most of the laboured comedy and making the most of its significantly bigger budget to bring the highlights of the TV serial (i.e., not the Slyther) to the cinema screen, IN COLOR!. And yet, released in August 1966 after the peak of Dalekmania and during a period of reduced Doctor Who TV audiences, it didn’t capture the public imagination. Nor do I imagine it had quite the same impact on TV audiences on first broadcast in August 1972 – coming just seven weeks after the debut of Dr. Who and the Daleks.
Continue readingSideways in Time: Dr. Who and the Daleks (1/7/1972)
This big-screen reimagining of the first Dalek serial is not strictly in the scope of the Pilgrimage – as it wasn’t made by the BBC. But it has at least been broadcast on BBC One several times since it first aired in July 1972, in the downtime between The Time Monster and The Three Doctors. Thus, while it was the first colour Doctor Who when it played in cinemas during 1965, by the time it reached TV screens it was too late to be either the first story broadcast in colour, or the first Dalek story broadcast in colour.
Continue readingSideways in Time: X – The Unknown (21/9/1956)
‘Let’s not conjure up visions of nameless horrors creeping around in the night.’ Hammer Films originally hoped to use Professor Quatermass in this follow-up to their 1955 hit adaptation The Quatermass Xperiment, but Nigel Kneale declined. Instead, they took the general tone and approach, repurposed Quatermass as a doctor (explicitly not of medicine) and leant into the ‘mixture of scientific hokum and sadism’ that had so appalled the BBFC. The result is an interesting predecessor to Doctor Who – both drawing similar lessons from The Quatermass Experiment.
Continue readingSideways in Time: The Quatermass Experiment – Persons Reported Missing (25/7/1953)
‘New horizons, of course.’ With the Pilgrimage fast approaching its end, I’ve started to look beyond Doctor Who at films or TV episodes that are Doctor Who adjacent – that have some sort of significant creative overlap, inspired or were influenced by Doctor Who. Sideways in time, if you like. And where better to start than The Quatermass Experiment, in particular with an episode that aired 70 years ago today?
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