Transmat:Doctor Who

Playback

Playback was a television production technique in which pre-recorded material was literally played into a scene, rather than being added as a post-production effect. It was universally used in the 1960s as the method by which actors were seen on view screens. As seen in the picture at the left, William Hartnell was pre-recorded separately, then projected live into the scene with the actors in the foreground. Though antiquated, the technique was used even into the 1980s, most notably for the title sequence. The quality of the opening titles for the 1963 version of Doctor Who was never high, because it was never a first-generation copy of the titles. Instead, they were played live into the recording of the first scene of many episodes, causing actors to have to time their first lines to the final notes of the studio-audible Doctor Who theme.

The women who gave Doctor Who back to us

Click for video

Think Doctor Who is just for boys? Don't you believe it. Not only was the show's very first producer a woman, but it would never have come back without the fierce advocacy of Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner. Considering her importance to Doctor Who it's somewhat ironic that Tranter's only on-screen credits are for Torchwood: Miracle Day. But Gardner, her "partner in crime", is tied only with Russell T Davies as the most prolific producer in Doctor Who history.

Industrial action

Click for a video of a 21st century geek as he takes delivery of one of the two Paintboxes used by the BBC in the 1980s

The Quantel Paintbox was a graphics workstation that allowed Doctor Who to have a primitive form of colour grading in the 1980s. To find out more about the "business of show", go to category:production information, where you can read about colour separation overlay, low loaders, telerecordings, vidFIRE, rostrum cameras, 2" quad tape, Ealing Studios and tons more.

Surprising guest star

Beryl Reid was a big deal when she was cast — or maybe miscast — as a freighter captain in Earthshock. As things turned out, she was the last piece of "stunt casting" to be seen in a highly-rated episode of Doctor Who until the 1996 television movie. From Earthshock until the end of the original series, audiences were mostly in a state of decline. Find out more about the thousands of actors who have been on Doctor Who by exploring Doctor Who guest actors.

Ex-Doctors never die, they just make audios

The careers of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors are significantly longer in audio than on television. Check out their latest works at category:2024 audio stories.

The relevance of comics

Officially, only The Lodger has been explicitly adapted from a comic strip — also called The Lodger.

However, several stories have clearly taken material from comic strips — often those in Doctor Who Magazine. The Shakespeare Code contains a good amount of material from A Groatsworth of Wit, and the notion of the Doctor absorbing the time vortex in order to spare a companion was explored in both The Parting of the Ways and The Flood.

The first of the "money men"

Donald Baverstock was the BBC executive who set the the wheels in motion that eventually led to the creation of Doctor Who. Essentially the original commissioner of the programme, he hired Sydney Newman and later imposed a sense of financial responsibility upon producer Verity Lambert.

But Baverstock wasn't the only BBC executive to have a profound impact on the development of Doctor Who. Make sure you read about Lorraine Heggessey, Mark Thompson, Danny Cohen, George Entwistle, Tony Hall, Shaun Sutton, Sydney Newman and others.

Things released on 3 November

• 1973 - Part four of the TV Comic story Nova was published.
• 1979 - Part two of The Creature from the Pit premiered on BBC1.
• 1981 - "The Cave of Skulls" was repeated on BBC2.
• 1986 - Revenge of the Cybermen was released on VHS.
• 1994 - The Seventies was published by Doctor Who Books.
• 1997
  • Ghost Devices was published by Virgin Books.
  • The VHS box set The E-Space Trilogy was released.
• 2003
  • Exile was released by Big Finish Productions.
  • Deadly Reunion was published by BBC Books.
  • Marco Polo was released by BBC Audio.
• 2008
  • Part one of The Mark of the Berserker premiered on CBBC.
  • Doctor Who: The Complete Fourth Series was released on Region 2 DVD.
• 2010 - DWDVDF 48 was published by GE Fabbri Ltd.
• 2011
  • Aladdin Time was released by AudioGO.
  • DWA 242 was published by BBC Magazines.
  • DWI 8 was published by Panini UK.
• 2015 - The Doctor Who Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions was released.
• 2016
  • The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume 2 was released by Big Finish.
  • The CD re-release of Tales from the TARDIS: Volume One was released by BBC Audio.
  • DWFC 84 was published by Eaglemoss Collections.
• 2021 - Timejacked! was released by Big Finish.
• 2022
  • Tenth Doctor Novels Volume 5 and the audiobook of The Power of the Daleks were released by BBC Audio.
  • A special illustrated hardback edition of Doctor Who and the Daleks was published by BBC Books.

Did you know…

• ... that Catherine Tate's introductory scene as Donna Noble was filmed twice due to a change in cinematographers?

• ... that Manchester DI Patricia Menzies easily accepted the Sixth Doctor's time travelling life because she had seen Back to the Future? (AUDIO: The Condemned)

• ... that the fob watch carried by the Seventh Doctor was the same one that the First Doctor regularly used? (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire)

• ... that Dragonfire establishes Ace to be 16 years old, a full decade younger than her actor, Sophie Aldred?

• ... that the Thalatth were a species with several radically different developmental stages, and that, when fully mature, they were known as Solarix Prizmatterflies, capable of flying through space? (COMIC: Hook, Line and Sinker)

3 November births and deaths

• 1910 - Actor Richard Hurndall was born.
• 1966 - Actor Vincent Franklin was born.
• 2021 - Writer Bob Baker died.

Production history for 3 November

• 1969 - Location filming for Spearhead from Space took place. (REF: Doctor Who The Handbook: The Third Doctor)
• 1976 - Pre-filming for The Robots of Death took place at Ealing Studios. (REF: Doctor Who The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor)
• 1979 - Studio filming for Shada took place at BBC Television Centre studio 3. (REF: Doctor Who The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor)
• 2005
  • The Children in Need Special was filmed at Upper Boat Studios. (DWMSE 14)
  • Big Finish's Sarah Jane Smith audio story Buried Secrets was recorded at the Moat Studios.
• 2006 - Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield audio story The Tub Full of Cats was recorded.
• 2009 - Big Finish's audio adaptation of the unproduced TV story The Macro Men was recorded at the Moat Studios.
• 2018 - Big Finish's Rose Tyler audio drama anthology The Dimension Cannon was recorded.
• 2020 - Big Finish's audiobook version of Fellowship of Ink was recorded remotely.