What's Next for Dr. Who?

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Publication: Sunday Mail (Adelaide)
Date: 1980-03-09
Author: Julie Thomson
Page: 176
Language: English

Seventeen years and four heroes later ...

Dr Who is losing its sex appeal this year — 17 years after the intrepid time traveller orbited into international fame.

The ecentric doctor will be working with a teenage lad in future instead of one of the cave girls, time princesses and other curvaceous cohorts with whom he has shared a television legend in 22 countries.

With the introduction of a kind of cosmic Artful Dodger as his assistant, Dr Who will lose the only attribute he has in common with other cult heroes - the weakness for a pretty face.

But his "strangeness" has been his enduring appeal.

It has taken what started out as a children's science fiction serial, into a cult watched as eagerly by sternly critical five-year-olds and absurdly enthusiastic mathematics professors.

The British audience alone is more than 13 million, rating it second only to Crossroads and Coronation Street.

Dr Who and his bizarre antagonists have spawned a massive toy industry and world fan clubs and Who Appreciation Societies agitate querulously for the return of the daleks.

Like so many successes, the program's triumph was quite unforeseen. It was originally intended for a four week run.

Enthusiasm was limited for a start, until episode five, when entered a tinny-voiced tyrant grinding out in chilling monotone its favorite word — "ex-ter-min-ate."

The daleks had arrived — thought to hold the master key on the ring of clues to the popularity of Dr Who. The national, later in ternational love/ hate

affair with the callous tyrants, gliding round their antiseptic control rooms began.

And gently Dr Who's time machine moved to a new adventure — the planet of the grown ups.

There have been four Who's, having close encounters with extra terrestrial beings and fighting star wars long before either of those popular films were ever heard of.

Each have played a part in taking the show into what is now more subtly horrific than the soup tin daleks.

The present Who, Tom Baker, 46, in the part since 1974, is now fighting monstrosities like faceless trans-sexual liziards, invisible blood-sucking space gerbils and child-slavers who live on Venus, with his trusty screwdriver.

Mary Whitehouse has called it sadistic and warned it would give children nightmares.

Tom Baker admits it has gone beyond harmless. escapist sci-fi, but disagrees that his show is sadistic.

"It has none of that awful violence of guns and knives and things," he said.

"But I'm not playing Dr Who for laughs.

"I'm trying to stress his strangeness — that he is not of this world.

"He is not human, so his reactions are different from ours.

"I may be only a middle-aged 10-year old, but I take Dr Who very seriously.

"He has to be genuinely loveable, not pleased by violence and he must be honest.

"Humorous yes, but never comical."

Tom Baker, Who took over the role from avuncular John Pertwee, is probably the strangest Who.

The BBC took a big gamble to put his quick-witted, aggressive personality into the father-figure role.

With a host of classical roles behind him, Tom was working on a building site as a laborer, when he auditioned for the part.

When he got the role, the BBC asked him to keep it secret.

Three weeks later his photo appeared on the front page of the Saturday afternoon racing edition of a London paper.

"All my mates nearly died when they saw the cement mixer was Dr Who," he said.

Before this, the strapping 6ft 3 inch former plumber's mate from the slums of Liverpool had played the mad monk Rasputin in the film Nicholas and Alexandra and several Shakespearean parts in provincial rep.

He was married to Anne, daughter of the famous rose grower Alfred Wheatcroft, but they divorced 17 years ago. His two teenage sons, 17 and 20, live with their mother.

"'Who' is probably as interesting a part as Macbeth," Tom said.

"It isn't really an acting part.

"It's being inventive enough to project creditibility into scenes which aren't credible."

Tom, who earns an estimated $2000 a week as Dr Who, says he enjoys being a 25-minute Saturday afternoon hero and has no neuroses when people call him Dr Who in the street.

"I can't tell you just how dull life was when I was just Tom Baker. Simply nobody recognised me."

Caption: Flashback to 1974 ... Tom Baker, as the new Dr Who, meets a Cyberman, a creature from the series

Caption: Tom Baker and pretty assistant . his new helper, a teenage lad, will be a kind of cosmic Artful Dodger

TOM Baker has been in Sydney this past week, signing thousands of autographs for his army of young and not-so-young fans.

He was brought out by Grace Brothers stores and has spent nine hours a day shaking hands and signing autographs, each with a personal message from Dr Who.

He has done this so willingly and with such gentle affection for his fans that his usually strong inter galactic right hand has begun to pack up under the strain.

Some families queued for hours at four or five stores in the hope of meeting their hero, and one group of four kids came to Sydney from Orange to meet him.

As a result of Baker's huge follow.ng here it is believed he will discuss with the BBC the making of a new Dr Who series in Australia next year.

What's Next for Dr. Who?

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