The genesis of the Tardis

I’m a big Doctor Who fan, and in fact I remember watching some of the very early William Hartnell episodes from the early 1960′s. I was only born in 1961 so this is pretty good going, and in fact when I recently watched the very first season (which was shown in 1963) I remembered a couple of scenes very clearly — in particular the corridors of the Dalek’s city and the scene where a Dalek’s movements are impaired with a cloak spread on a floor. I can remember a lot of things from when I was two, so this doesn’t surprise me too much.

But I digress. I merely wanted to mention that there’s an interesting article on the BBC news website about some of the decision-making that went into the creation of the show, and some surprising insights into the development of the Tardis, the Doctor’s iconic space-and-time-travel machine.

Newly released documents, which reveal the 1960s conception of Doctor Who, show how nervous the BBC was about producing a sci-fi show, writes Tom Geoghegan.

The Doctor without his time-travelling police box is difficult to imagine, but its creators initially proposed he journey through space in an invisible machine covered in light-resistant paint.

When BBC producers were devising the show in the early 1960s, they thought viewers should see no machine at all, only “a shape of nothingness”.

It’s hard to see how that could have possibly worked out!

Fortunately:

The BBC’s head of drama Sydney Newman, who commissioned the first series, insisted an invisible machine would not work and the doctor’s vehicle should be a strong visual symbol.

Thanks goodness! And then we get to the real genesis of the Tardis:

But a seed of the Tardis idea is sown when they suggest using “some common object in the street” like a night-watchman’s shelter.

Police boxes — which were telephone boxes for policemen but could also be used as a short-term shelter (for having a warming flask of cocoa, for example) — were still common when I was a kid. Edinburgh has preserved a few, and at least one of those is now an espresso stand.

These discussions are revealed in six previously unpublished documents, now digitised on the BBC Archive website. These include handwritten notes by Mr Newman, regarded by fans as the genius behind the original concept.

It’s great that the BBC has started archiving. Many of the original episodes of Doctor Who have been lost because the Beeb recycled its tape. This includes, alas, the Yeti series in which Padmasambhava appears. I remember some scenes from those programs, but not Padmasambhava himself. That’s a shame, because the Padmasambhava sadhana was the meditation practice I was given at my ordination.

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