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Text File | 1977-12-31 | 14KB | 243 lines

@2-- Dr Who - Behind the Scenes in Season 25 -----------------------------------

@3                               BACK-STAGE NOTES

@1The April issue of "Doctor Who Magazine" has a nice roundup of behind-the-
scenes information on the season that just ended.  As many of you know, I'm
fascinated by all the stuff that happens behind the cameras.  I must admit
I don't know if any of the rest of you who read this room share that
interest but, just on the off-chance you do, I'm summarizing some of the
more interesting details (well, I found them interesting) that appeared in
the article.

@4REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS
@1
Production for this story literally got off to a bang.  The sound of an
exploding Dalek on location near Waterloo set off fire alarms in the area
and brought the local fire brigade to the scene.

A lot of changes were made to Ben Aaronovitch's script because of budget,
time and the usual variety of other considerations.  One of the biggest
changes was the introductionon of the military headquarters for Gilmore's
task force.  Originally, all of the action set there was to have been
filmed on location at the Totter's Lane junkyard and nearby streets.
Because of the expense involved in extended location work (of which there
was quite a bit anyhow), many of the expository scenes were relocated to
the studio.

Aaronovitch also had set many of the scenes at the Coal Hill School at
night.  Prohibitive expenses forced many of these to be shot during the
daytime, which didn't detract from the end product any, but does explain
why it's still so light out after 5 p.m. in early winter.  (Would *you*
have cut out the BBC announcer in-joke just because it didn't look like
late afternoon outside?)

The Dalek weapons were originally much more formidable than they actually
turned out.  In the scene where a Dalek gunblast shatters the windshields
of the Detector van, narrowly missing Mike, the blast originally hit the
van's side dead-on--and melted it.  In another bit entirely deleted from
the shooting schedule, we would have learned that Daleks have weapons that
can fire around corners.
The Special Weapons Dalek was originally planned as a floating weapons
platform with no recognizable Dalek features; Aaronvitch describes it as
a "Masters of the Universe-type thing."  The two factions of Daleks,
incidentally, were originally supposed to be red and blue.

Several key scenes were written but had to be dropped during shooting.
Originally, when the Doctor opened the casket containing the Hand of
Omega, he reached in and withdrew a parcel containing an advanced firearm
which he later used to destroy the black Dalek at the end of the story.
(In the aired version, the Doctor taunts, cajoles and basically talks it
into self-destructing.)  Also gone is a scene where the renegade Daleks
attack the Cafe and kill Harry the proprietor and a scene where the Dalek
converts the Dalek Confuser into a tracer to locate Ratcliffe's warehouse.
The tracer is destroyed in another deleted scene introducing the Daleks'
ability to fire around corners.

The Vicar originally met the Doctor in the Cafe in another deleted scene.
A sequence cut from Episode Three had the Doctor receive a telepathic
warning at the Cafe when Ratcliffe plunged the rod into the grave where
the Hand of Omega was buried.

The idea of having Davros be the Dalek Emperor wasn't Aaronovitch's idea.
He says he got it from a member of the Visual Effects Department who always
liked the oft-suggested notion that Davros was the Emperor.  The idea made
sense to Aaronovitch, who rationalized that Davros would have himself
implanted into a Dalek shell for greater protection (remember the Doctor
holding him at gunpoint in "Resurrection"?).

By the way, if you look carefully at the scene where the Dalek command ship
explodes, you can just see Davros' escape pod ejecting from its belly.  So
he does get away in the end.

"Remembrance" was the first story in which story editor Andrew Cartmel and
the writers began the deliberate redefining of the Doctor's character to
regain the air of mystery the show used to have.  One of the lines cut from
the confrontation between the Doctor and Davros had the Doctor saying,
"Oh Davros, I am far more than just a Time Lord."  Yes, they have decided
who the Doctor really is but they don't intend to tell us quite yet.


@4THE HAPPINESS PATROL
@1
The production seems to have a headache all through.  The scripts came in
far longer than they were supposed to be and too much of it was shot,
necessitating a lot of editing.  Extensive rewriting was also done.  The
story was the last recorded but rescheduled late in the day to be the second
one aired, forcing a lot of scrambling to get it finished.

The Kandy Man was a collaborative effort by various in-house and outside
artists and technicians.  It was deliberately made to resemble the
product of a certain British confection manufacturer, which didn't take
too kindly to the idea.  A couple of the Kandy Man's bits were edited out.
In one, he is chopping ingredients for his sweets when he accidentally chops
his thumb off.  After a good bit of cursing, he sticks it back on.  His
last line was a poignant "Ah well, I gave it my best shot."

The Kandy Kitchen backdrop was a model paintboxed in during post-production.
Several scenes involving it were cut, including ones where Ace stumbled
inside it and Trevor Sigma, the galactic census-taker, dropped in and
got chased out.  The deadly fondant surprise was food-thickening agent
dyed red, lots of it.

The cheesy-looking Waiting Zone set was a stand-in for a prison complex set
that was too expensive to build.  All the scenes slated for the prison were
rewritten for the Waiting Zone.

FX work for this work overlapped with "Silver Nemesis," which was shot just
before it.  The shot of the shuttle leaving Terra Alpha was executed during
the FX session for "Nemesis."  The weapons carried by the Happiness Patrol
are actually the Cyberguns from "Nemesis" in disguise.

Deleted for time reasons were introductory scenes for the sympathetic
Patrol member Susan Q (while escorting Ace down the street, she overhears
Earl's music and confesses to once owning a collection of blues records,
which got her demoted after they were discovered) and the tyrannical
governess Helen A. and her aide, Joseph C. (in which they listened to one
of Helen's broadcasts urging the citizens to put the killjoys out of their
misery).  Also cut was much of the dialogue between Sid S. and Stan S., the
two snipers watching the protest, in whwhich they discuss the films they've
seen recently and dismiss them as predictable because the plots are always
about female protagonists and have happy endings.

In the final version of Episode Two, the climax has the Doctor staring at
an ominous poster bill at the Forum.  Originally, the episode ended with
Daisy K., the Patrol leader, leading Ace and Susan Q. to the Forum with
the sinister words, "It's showtime girls!"

@4THE GREATEST TIME IN THE GALAXY
@1
This is the story that almost got away, i.e. canceled.  Studio work
originally scheduled for Television Centre was suddenly called off during
an asbestos scare that closed down the facility.  John Nathan-Turner's
people managed to keep the plug from being pulled on the production
altogether and relocated interior work to the car park at the BBC's
Elstree Centre where a huge circus tent was erected.  (Oddly enough, there
wasn't going to be a real tent, originally.)

"The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" was filmed immediately before "Silver
Nemesis" and was supposed to come before it in the show's continuity as
well.  When the order of the stories was switched, it causes a few
continuity problems, for example, Flowerchild gives Ace an earring which
she wears all through "Silver Nemesis."

There was actual little rewriting on this story and not much was lost.
A bridging scene where the Doctor and Ace met up with the Captain and Mags
again after separating was lost.  Also missing is the tail end of the scene
where the panic-stricken Chief Clown tells Morgana and the Ringmaster that
they're running out of acts--at that point Whizzkid runs in and asks
everybody for their autographs.

A few slight changes were made.  The name of Mags' home planet was changed
from MacVulpine(?) to Volpana.  The robot buried in the sand originally
begged passersby to release it.  Ace and Deadbeat were supposed to escape
from the circus by using Nord's motorcycle, but they couldn't get it to
start during the shooting.  (Incidentally, the FX people didn't build that
bizarre machine for the story.  They borrowed it--and the Happiness
Patrol vehicle and go-cart in a later story--from a couple named Bootsie
and Ferret.)  The Doctor's closing line was to have been:  "Someone down
there once said everyone has to hang up their traveling shoes and stop
wandering sooner or later.  Maybe I'm just the exception that proves
the rule."


@4SILVER NEMESIS
@1
The opening of Episode One differed considerably from how it eventually
went out on-air.  All of the scenes were there but in different orders.
Originally, the story opened with a shot of the Nemesis comet in space
(shot on 16mm film later transferred to video where the starfield was
added), then went to the Doctor and Ace enjoying the jazz performance,
the introduction of Lady Peinforte and ended at De Flores' South American
villa.  I'm afraid I can't recall how things go in the finished version
but I do recall that we begin at De Flores' villa and end with the jazz
performance.

There's an interesting story behind the futuristic ghetto blaster
(complete with holographic viewer) the Doctor builds for Ace:  it's a
stand-in for the TARDIS control room.  All the scenes with the Doctor and
Ace on the riverbank scanning for the Cybermen were originally set inside
the TARDIS.  The decision to do "Silver Nemesis" entirely on location
required the junking of TARDIS interior scenes so the ghetto blaster was
designed to replace the TARDIS scanner and console.  I'll bet you thought
the Doctor was just showing off when he built that preposterous contraption.

Director Chris Clough was instructed to overshoot for this story because
the production team didn't want to take any chances of the anniversary
story coming in short.  As a result, they ended up with far more material
than they could fit into the story and a lot of ruthless editing took place,
as has been noted elsewhere.

One place where the editing shows is at Windsor Castle where the Doctor and
Ace's escape from the security forces is entirely cut out.  The Doctor gets
away by hypnotizing the security men using the specially redesigned TARDIS
key (all scenes with the key were cut out).  While running through the
castle back to the TARDIS, the Doctor and Ace pass an elegant 18th century
portrait of Ace in period dress (painted by designer John Asbridge).  Ace
is very confused by it but the Doctor tosses it off as a momento of an
adventure they haven't had yet.  (It's a very nice portrait, by the way.)

Many of the scenes involving De Flores and his assistant Karl were cut from
Episode Three.  Recall that when the two appear again after apparently
falling into the hands of the Cybermen (which we never see), they act
suspiciously like partially converted Cybermen.  They were.  In the sequence
cut, as the Nazis escape from the tomb, Karl trips De Flores and hands him
over to the Cybermen, saying they want to become like the cyborgs.  Karl
later kills his Cyberguard and frees De Flores, his betrayal having been
a ruse.

Other bits with the Cybermen were cut, too.  The Cybermen didn't actually
appear until the end of Episode One in the final version.  Originally,
after attempting to gun down the Doctor and Ace, the two Walkmen were
reprogrammed by a hidden figure with a large, imposing shadow and a
silver fist.  A sequence where the Cybership landed a second time and
let off a group of Cybermen with a Cyberscope is missing, too.  It's unclear
in the FX work but the Cybership was supposed to be shrouded during most of
its flight and only becomes visible when it lands.

Most of the close-up shots of the Cybermen were shot at one location, the
estate of Arundel Castle in Sussex, but were inserted into the action
sequences shot at the Greenwich Gasworks (the neo-Nazi/Cybermen battle
and Ace's battle with the Cybermen in the hangar).  The most interesting
juxtaposition was the scene where Richard plunges the gold-tipped arrow
into the Cyberleader's chest unit.  That bit was recorded at Greenwich
but the Cyberleader's collapse on the floor was actually shot inside
Lady Peinforte's crypt at Arundel a week later.  Incidentally, visual
effects assistant Paul McGuiness was the one who had to get into the
Cyberman suit for all the shots of exploding chest units.

Paintbox technology was used extensively in the story, to turn one
Cybership model into an entire fleet with flashing telltales and to
obscure the modern bits on the exterior of Lady Peinforte's house and
to hide the fact that it was raining during some of the location work.

The pulsing glow of the Validium artifacts was done through front-axial
projection, if you're wondering.  It's an FX technique where a highly
reflective paint is used to reflect light back along the exact plane from
which it comes, usually a frame of lights mounted around the camera.

Some famous "Who"-related names were among the tourists at Windsor,
including Peter Moffatt, Fiona Cumming, Nicholas Courtney, Kevin Clarke,
Peter Wyatt and Graeme Curry.
                               Chad Fogg