Launched in 1903, the Daily Mirror, has covered behind the scenes reporting of the television series across its fifty years. The Doctors - The Archive was an issue of the Mirror newspaper’s bookazine collection featuring themed volumes from the newspapers photographic archive.
Publisher Summary
When Doctor Who first hit our TV screens in 1963 it was an instant hit. But nobody could have predicted at the time that it would go on to become a television phenomenon that is still commanding millions of viewers 50 years on. Featuring rare and exclusive pictures from the Mirror archives, this celebratory special edition looks back at five decades of time-travel and the 11 Doctors and numerous companions that have shaped one of Britain’s best loved programmes. It’s a souvenir any Doctor Who devotee will treasure.
Contents
Features
- The Myth Makers – birth of a legend
- The Daleks – and designer Raymond Cusick
- The Keys of Marinus
- The Dalek Invasion of Earth – The Daleks return and The Go-Go's release a single.
- The Rescue
- The First Doctor – William Hartnell
- The Web Planet
- The Chase
- Galaxy 4
- The Daleks' Master Plan
- The Ark
- The Gunfighters – a musical makeover
- The War Machines
- The Dalek Movies
- The Moonbase
- The Abominable Snowmen
- Blue Peter – Design a Monster competition.
- The Ice Warriors
- The Web of Fear
- The Wheel in Space
- Terror of the Zygons
- The Face of Evil
- The Invisible Enemy
- The Ribos Operation
- City of Death
- Destiny of the Daleks
- State of Decay
- Thirtieth Anniversary and The Dark Dimension.
- Paul McGann
- The Hungry Earth
- The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
- Matt Smith’s day at the Mirror office
- Karen Gillan returns to Glasgow to launch character figures
- Clara Oswald (aka actress Jenna Louise is introduced as the new companion
- The Doctor Who Experience.
Credits
- Senior Editor: Paul Dove
- Words: Kenny Smith
- Designed and Produced by: Roy Gilfoyle and Adam Oldfield
Notable Information
- Dalek designer Raymond Cusick received an ex-gratia payment of £100, which after income tax, came to £80, 10 shillings and sixpence when he left the BBC.
- The first four Daleks made from fibreglass were built on a total budget of £250.
- During episode six of The Keys of Marinus one of the Voord very visibly trips over its own flipper. A retake would have been to costly so the scene remained in the finished programme.
- Terry Nation’s submitted script for a six episode Dalek story that became The Daleks' Master Plan was just 24 pages of camera direction and a rough storyline.
- The Gunfighters featured the vocal talents of Lynda Baron (later to play Captain Wrack in Enlightenment ) and Peter Purves (travelling companion Steven Taylor).
- Publicity for : The War Machines included the First Doctor facing a War Machine with actor William Mervyn – the father of Michael Pickwoad, who designed Matt Smith’s second TARDIS control room.
- The Cybermen were designed by 25 year old Alexandra Tynan (using her maiden name (Sandra Reid) in about an hour after discussion with Kit Pedler.
- The 1967 Blue Peter –‘design-a-monster-competition, attracted some 250,000 entries. The winning designs were the Steel Octopus (created by Karen Dag), the Hypnotron (created by Paul Worrall) and the Aqua Man (created by Steven Thompson). Unlike the Abzorbaloff, none of the winners designs appeared in the TV series.
- Officially known as the Alien, the Whomobile was privately commissioned by Jon Pertwee from car customiser Peter Farries. The vehicle was capable of speeds in excess of 100mph and was equipped with a computer, TV, telephone and stereo.
- When filming City of Death Tom Baker rattled the doors of the Louvre so hard when it was closed because of a public holiday ,that he set off the burglar alarm!
- A miscalculation of £250,000 in the accounting meant that The Dark Dimension project would have been lucky to make a break-even figure rather than any profit (even after figuring in merchandise and video sales).
Ratings for The Doctor Who movie were an impressive 9.1 million in the UK but against opposition from the final Roseanne in America gained only 5.6 million and was not deemed successful enough at the time to take up the option of a series.
Additonal details
- This volume included references as recent as the drama An Adventure in Space and Time but no reference to Matt Smith's iminent departure from the TARDIS.
- Copies of the photographs contained in this volume were available for purchase from the mirror-photos.co.uk website with prices from £9 (UK).
- This magazine and had a cover price of £4.99 (UK).