Dr Who - Losses and Mistakes

 Created 10/03/2013, Changed; 15/06/2020, 24/03/2020

Old this webpage;   http://ww1.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/engineer/dr-who-classic-estb-1963/Dr-Who---Losses-and-mistakes

Jean Marsh played Rose subsequently in the 1970's TV series Upstairs Down Stairs and was married to Jon Pertwee, Dr No.3 for 5 years sometime prior to Dr Who.

A few stories earlier Mission Unknown and also Myth Makers sets up this story.  There is also a break from the terrible things happening for Christmas and a greeting from Doctor Who once again is another unique and never repeated departure from the story line.  This story "Daleks Master Plan" particularly goes all over the place, sees people compromised with dreadful choices and sacrifices and losses.

Some of these story's have been narrated by various actors who featured in those story's for example Peter Purvis (from Blue Peter and a traveller with the first Dr Who) Dr Who - Daleks' Master Plan

Notice in the first episode of Daleks' Master Plan their is a seat in the TARDIS, that can hold a person seated like a magnet.  The Dr. made the seat but we never see this device used again but Dr Who 3 has a similar forcefield device fitted to Bessie the car we see used in Ambassadors of death.

One person who worked on the Beeching plan acknowledge, on Radio 4, that two Scottish rail lines and the Central England line probably should not have been closed.  But also said Dr Beeching did good things for the railways introducing Containers and Coal Wagons that released the coal whilst the wagon moved slowly.

The introduction of containers prevented steeling that occurred at the docks.  Was supposed to secure the supply chain. You could buy anything meat etc. black market in London in the 1960s.  I was told an anecdote, decades ago, that a docker was caught with a dozen oranges. He was left in a room and told if there was no evidence including pips and peal he could not be disciplined. Rarely do large scale wrong things get address in fact they are made legal, TAX loop holes, Usury, Gambling and the National lottery, Killing and War, etc.  Of cause the supply line of goods can be secure but the documentation compromised.

But then things are made for supermarkets by quality Brand names but to the supermarket's recipe or price.  This compromised for cost saving - seems there is no difference between fake goods and goods made legally Branded but down to a cost or another recipe.

[The picture is of a West Somerset Railway]]

Homes were not central heated, generally, and in the winter Jack Frost visited in the night leaving icy patterns on the windows.  In 1963 icicles went from the gutters to the ground.  Jack Frost sometimes came to the inside of the windows.

There were a number of stories about similar to The Ark, such as The Ark in Space  in which space insects laying eggs in the hibernating humans (The BBC take care not repeat a story but tell a variation of a story in a way does not conflict.  This Ark is waiting in orbit until the earth recovers from the solar flair that had devastated the earth). Here is another Underworld - The edge of the Cosmos - nothing beyond (as, I guess, if it is flat like the world was thought to be?) Minions of Minos who have been on a 100,000 year quest are so tired they really want to let themselves die. Get a visit from one of their Gods, a Timelord, The Doctor.  The story is good but I did not remember it, there were too many good stories one after another at this time.

Microbes live forever, that is they divide, assimilate and most die of predication this is of cause true of all life.  A part of us is a thread of life from the beginning of life on earth.  Life adapts and our knowledge and understandings stretches back those 4 billions years, that history is hard-wired (to use modern words) into our DNA.  The earth will be uninhabitable for higher organism in 1 billion years when the water evaporates some microbes will survive 3 billion years underground (BBC Radio 4, 2 July 2013).  Actually some microbes live forever but most divide non-uniformly so the strongest bits of DNA go into one cell and the the weaker bits go to the other cell in the division.  I am not suggesting microbes have a Doctor Who gene! But there is a biological intelligence in this natural behaviour which I will discuss later.  I do believe Gaia Hypothesis to be correct and started with the start of life on earth 4 billion years ago - a Scientific understanding of a pure interpretation of old Pagan knowledge of the way of life both based on observation?

Hand of Fear - Do actors in costumes as alien suffer.

The version narrated was released in 1992 see;  BBC episode guide Shada  It is a strange artefact of the BBC which so much reflects the establishment but steers a line of appearing reasonable to most people in it's openness to some scrutiny such as in this case.  The BBC has a very powerful influence on opinion and it's ways are subtle or clever in there blatancy sometimes.  But not admirable.

My view is that the story was worth completing - it often seems that BBC has a low regard for science and technology even though that organisation is highly technology based.

The most complete version Dr Who Shada The spaceship (it's computer) is unlike the TARDIS, which serves and warns but does not argue, in this spaceship instead gets to dislike it's master but likes the Doctor instead.  Typically Douglas Adams, this was his last Dr. Who story.  There a lot of jokes repeated evidently the production of this story was never refined. To emphasises the point I make elsewhere that things had changed rather than being performed just right then broadcast the next day the performance is not quite right and in my view the polishing up later is not as good as aiming to get it right first time (that applies to all sorts of things; photography, electronics design - but a bit of both, what works, is the best way as in all things)

2001 A Space Odyssey, is;

• • • Generally reckoned to be the most influential and finest production of film of the 20th Century,

• Technically plausible and scientifically very accurate.  Arthur C Clark acknowledged, I suspect in the naming of one of the NASA Shuttle spacecraft Discovery after spacecraft in this story?

• There is artistic licence in the film such as where the computer is a large 1960's like machine full or plug in circuit cards. That was to show the machine being dismantled as opposed to a small box with holographic memory that the author thought would be the case in the future.

• A lot of dialogue was cut from the film intentionally to leave a mystery.  Much of the mystery answered in the book of the film publish four or five years later.  And the human failing in the computer explained in the sequel 2010 A space odyssey book of 1982.

There are a number of fictional computers that can almost be persuaded, with rational argument, to do things. The end of film Dark Star (1974) is quite memorably, the bomb is almost talked out of exploding until it gets to think about the old testament "And then there was Light".   I would not spend much time on the film but it is a novel idea.

The biggest loss is portrayed in Logopolis

Doctor would have accepted the offer to have his TARDIS chameleon circuit be fixed by the Monitors. They would have written the program for him quickly and easily.  The Master kills the monitors and entropy, that had been held in abeyance by the Monitors, catches up and a portion of the Universe disappear. Princess Nyssa's home planet, Traken, is lost with it. Finally the Doctor No. 4 falls, dies and regenerates.

**** [Do enjoy Adric's difficulty with the Doctor's diary.  Things happen then later they never happened 15 mins into the first part] **** I can't find which story this was?

Death of Adric is portrayed with excellence. Near tearful shock and silence with no closing title music. But the TARDIS interior is unprotected from weapon use by Cybermen which is more than just a shame, the virtual interior has inhibited the emulation (which is what I guess it must do) of weaponry previously.  The meddling in time leaves a paradox in other circumstances would not be allow in other story's.  That is by the intervention of man made spacecraft from the future crashed to earth creates the conditions for humans to have evolved in the first place.  All in all the Doctor, companions and others work together and the story is excellent - I think it is the best portrayed tragedy in Doctor Who.

Dr. Who is littered with absolutes that must not be done that are done, this first Law (Earthshock 1982) of time travel.  But in another story a law of time may be a bluff that comes off, for example in The-hand-of-fear (1976)  The Dr does refuses to take an evil alien (Eldrad) back to his own people in the past. Those people it turns out had sacrificed themselves to try to destroy Eldrad because he is danger to the Galaxy.  The Dr does take Eldrad away from Earth where he is destroyed and the ring which holds his DNA image discarded. Prior to this story and particularly in the first Doctor;  What was fated tended to occur anyway perhaps delayed a bit but occasionally the cause of events changed for the better by the Doctor's interference an observation the first Doctor seems explains a few times with considerable sorrow.

It is said that the BBC were wanting to end Doctor Who and were doing that by sabotaging the stories. In another story Frontios the TARDIS is broken apart and thought to be destroyed - that was enough the magic destroyed a point noted in the BBC's classic Dr Who website. Well performed story even so which is the mark of Peter Davison as Doctor he inspires an all round excellent production.

The Real Biggest danger self interest v self destruction;

Nuclear Winter model may have been one of the decisive factors but having a very enlightened Soviet leader Mr Gorbachev helped prevent the US carrying out its stated policy of undertaking a limited Nuclear War in Europe occurring during the 1980's.  On Radio 4 's Moral Maze in March 2014 Michael Portillo, former MP cabinet member, brought in as part of a conversation that the 1980's was about destroying the Soviet Union.  Michael Portillo, unusually, seemed to used terms of propaganda to slate the USSR as opposed to using rational argument.

As a young adult observing US President Jimmy Carter in place whilst the policy changed (Cruise Missiles promotional film on British TV in the late 1970s show us what would be coming to UK) the figure head changed, to fit the earlier policy change, subsequently when Ronald Reagan became President in 1981.  Observing during the administration of this well intentioned and influential peanut farmer President Jimmy Carter that the policy change to something very wicked, under his feet, made me very sceptical of the power of politics but I actively take my part in influencing things anyway.  It is similarly an Inconvenient Truth (Climate Change) that Al Gore got enough votes to be elected but the election was erroneously given to George Bush junior.

The Blake's 7 group of companions are very democratic though I don't mean voting but in the truer sense that they checked each other.  By comparison in Star Trek such as Voyager the sets, story's and acting very high standard. But everyone is fairly nice and never really bad or flawed.  The first and the fifth Doctor Who's, include real argument although B7 was more adventurous having main characters die, go missing and it's wonderful magic almost spaceship destroyed.

Skill shortage Innovation and temperament;

It was by popular public wish and government policy to close industry and move quickly to a post industrial - financial services based economy during the 1980's.  Now to my personal disappointment that is what we have.  People who started work in the 1980's are better off than the people who started work prior or subsequently to that time.  The cost was that the Family Silver (as Harold Macmillan put it) was sold off and none of the WWII debt to USA paid off.  That debt to USA although interest free, tied UK into dreadful obligations and one way science and technology transfers.

Happiness Patrol - Surprisingly, to me, summed up of the situation very clearly - looking back in retrospect.

Mrs Thatcher's government had earlier been interfering with BBC and I don't know if it is that influence that cause TV to become so markedly Dumbed down since.  But it is understandable that consequently actors would be let be freer to criticise. In case by the time this was broadcast Mrs Thatchers biggest adversary was her own party and government.

Programmable logic has remained one of the most significant developments in electronics behind all the customisable integrated circuits enabling high and low volume products.  Signetics, a Philips company in USA developed the Field Programmable Logic in about 1970 but Ferranti later developed that further with the highly successful Uncommitted Logic Array. The ULA has remained profitable for the then government agency the N.E.B and ever since. The ULA had 10,000 cells that could both do logic functions or do some analogue amplification type function wiring the cells together in the custom final mask of the semiconductor manufacturing process for the customer.  Philips went on to develop and license small very low power, called zero power, EPROM based PLD's such as 16V8 in about 1984 thereby also making the technology more available for low volume makers.

It is often said, incorrectly, that Britain invented things then others develop and profit from those things. Much work on Alternating Current was done by Nicoli Tesla - in fact nearly everything to do with AC power used throughout the world is down to Nikola Tesla and his backer's such as Westinghouse.  Very little is down to Edison who got the idea of electricity in the home for lighting but his system of Direct Current was dangerous and inefficient would require power station's every few miles.  Tesla (as in the measure of magnetism and the Tesla Coil [Transformer]) Discovered and patented AC, radio (also AC) and single wire power or signal transmission he was correct and proved it both theoretically and practically correcting Hertz and others earlier work But it is the British demonstration of transatlantic communication by the Marconi's radio that has gone down in history. It was also the British (until 1985) company Plessey who made the highest operating frequency Integrated Circuits for Radio through the 1960's until the early 1990's.  Conversely Edison did get recognition for Joseph Swan's incandescent Light bulb although the Swan company made light bulbs and many other electrical things in the UK.  Edison company did a considerable amount of improve on the Swan carbon lamp which in turn other earlier patents on incandescent light bulbs although were not viable lighting but the real success and successor was the Tungsten filament lamp was developed by many others prior and since.

Abraham Lincoln, said; You can't fool all the people all the time but you can fooling most of the people most of the time, Adolph Hitler said "Make the lie Big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it" Gerbels also said the same but more concisely.  Many others have said in words what has been know about manipulation for millennia. Another cliché is also so true is Divide and Rule. 

The harsh judgement of the Timelords

War games is the best epic story and most cohesive so far. For some it is the best story and the one from the second Doctor Who set that I remember most clearly.  One of the changes that the second Doctor brought to the series consistently was a tightly written and performed Doctor Who is played by Doctor Who, the a feature of this Doctor is that actor's that his name is immaterial though it was Patrick Troughton and says he was a jobbing actor.  An end of an era where British soldiers were cannon fodder, it might be thought.  I struggle to  understood how a school colleague can also be popular and kind but join the army willingly.  He's going to meet interesting people in interesting foreign places and then shoot them.  The boy I am thinking of intended by the time he had started junior school to be a soldier.

Dr No. 4, Tom Baker's last stories are the most tragic, played duly seriously; Warrior's Gate,  Keeper of Traken, Logopolis.

The previous story to this last Dr. No. 2 story was "Space Pirates" gives us incite of the next change to come to Doctor Who.  The spacecraft models are excellent, as we see with the subsequent Doctor Who stories.  The Doctor's role changes and he, just for this story, is the champion leading his followers more like Dr's 3, 4 and 6 to come.  The Doctor in classic 2nd. Dr style demonstrates magnetism what he is going to do but unfortunately instead of getting the TARDIS back, it is lost as it it magnetically repelled into space. 

The Old Doctor Who and the New Doctor Who

BBC has a very good section on classic Dr Who