David Maloney (14 December 1933-18 July 2006[1]) directed various Doctor Who television stories. He also worked as a production assistant during season 2 and season 3.
By the late Troughton era, he had taken the BBC's directorial course. He was entrusted with the plurality of the episodes in season 6. Because he helmed The War Games, he was one of an elite number of directors to offer his own representation of the regenerative process. He took a break from Doctor Who, but returned for a significant stretch of episodes during the late Pertwee and early Baker eras.
At the time, however, Maloney was at the centre of allegations that the show had become too violent during Philip Hinchcliffe's tenure. Some of these rebukes were fairly levelled at him personally. He rewrote the opening to Genesis of the Daleks into a more violent version. This displeased writer Terry Nation and morals activist Mary Whitehouse. (DCOM: Genesis of the Daleks) His direction of The Deadly Assassin famously featured a drowning scene that was so criticised by Whitehouse that it was edited from the videotape master. (DCOM, INFO: The Deadly Assassin)
When producer Graham Williams fell ill during production of The Power of Kroll, production manager John Nathan-Turner stood in for Williams. Maloney (then serving as producer of Blake's 7) also kept an eye on the series during Williams' absence. (INFO: The Power of Kroll)
In 1977, Maloney appeared in "Whose Doctor Who," an instalment of The Lively Arts news programme which addressed the criticisms levelled by Whitehouse and others about the show allegedly being too intense for younger viewers.
Career[[edit]]
After his time on Doctor Who, he became a producer, overseeing the first three seasons of another popular BBC science-fiction series, Blake's 7, during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He also produced the BBC's famous 1981 adaptation of John Wyndham's novel The Day of the Triffids. Among his directorial work was a 1971 adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans.
Death[[edit]]
He died on 18 July 2006. The documentary The Matrix Revisited was dedicated to him.
Credits[[edit]]
As production assistant[[edit]]
- The Rescue (uncredited[2])
- The Romans (uncredited[3])
- The Time Meddler (uncredited[4])
- The Myth Makers
- The Ark (uncredited, INFO: The Ark)
As director[[edit]]
- The Mind Robber
- The Krotons
- The War Games
- Frontier in Space (minor: reshot ending to part six as a consequence of directing next serial)
- Planet of the Daleks
- Genesis of the Daleks
- Planet of Evil
- The Deadly Assassin
- The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Documentary Appearances[[edit]]
- Whose Doctor Who
- Adventures in Space and Time
- Carnival of Monsters
- The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond
- The Fact of Fiction
- A Darker Side (archive footage)