THE KEY TO TIMME AND SPACE
For his second season, Doctor Who producer Graham Williams tried something the series had never done before - one story told over an entire season. Brian J. Robb looks back at an innovative experimental era from the classic series…
Tom Baker, Mary Tamm and K9
In 1978, Doctor Who was celebrating an anniversary. It was 15 years since the venerable series had made its debut back in the November fog of 1963. William Hartnell, the original Doctor, was long gone, and even his two replacements - the clown and the dandy, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee - had come and gone too. Now piloting the TARDIS was Tom Baker, who had played the role for the past three seasons.
Producer Graham Williams had unexpectedly taken over the show the previous year from Philip Hinchcliffe, amid complaints the series had become too violent for its young audience. ‘Clean Up TV’ campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who had a big influence on 1970s British society and direct contact with those running the BBC, was primarily behind these accusations.
The action-packed ‘The Seeds of Doom’ from 1976 had been a particular target, with Whitehouse complaining that “strangulation - by hand, by claw, by obscene vegetable matter - is the latest gimmick, sufficiently close up so [children] get the point…” Williams’ new remit was not only to make the show cheaper during late-1970s hyperinflation but also to make it lighter, reduce the gore, and up the comedy. As a result, he became regarded as a failed producer, hamstrung by budgets and an increasingly out-of-control star in Tom Baker.
Williams’ first year in charge was something of a scramble to gather material and get it shot in time to meet the September 1977 broadcast deadline. “Normally you have about five or six months to set up and do preparation on a series with, usually, a few unused stories in the cupboard. We had nothing,” lamented Williams. Amid a few bombs (such as ‘Underworld’ and ‘The Invasion of Time’), that rushed-in-the-making 1977 season nonetheless produced some classics, like ‘Image of the Fendahl.’