John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Belfast Telegraph | file = 1985-02-28 Belfast Telegraph.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1985-02-28 | author = | pages = 6 | language..."

2025-02-27T05:04:18Z

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| file = 1985-02-28 Belfast Telegraph.jpg
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| date = 1985-02-28
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| pages = 6
| language = English
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DOCTOR Who is being dropped for at least 18 months by the BBC to save cash to make other drama programmes, it became known yesterday.

It will be the first time in the serial's 22 years on TV that it has been missing from the screens for so long.

The axing of Doctor Who until late next year was ordered by the new controller of BBC-1, Michael Grade, a month before the next series, starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, was due to go into production.

A BBC spokesman said: "We want to make a lot of new drama programmes, and we cannot do that and produce Doctor Who as So the Doctor is being rested."

The decision is bound to upset the Doctor's 110m viewers in 54 countries around the world.

Dr. Who fans immediately launched a bid to reverse the deciSion, described by the programme's official historian as "amazing, horrifying and staggering."

Peter Haining, author of a book on the series, said: "After 22 years, to think that anybody could contemplate taking it off the screen is disgraceful; it must be stopped.

"It is one of those programmes that appeals right across the spectrum. My nine-year-old daughter is as hooked as I am."

He said public opinion had forced the BBC to reverse its decision not to show its .latest Dallas episodes and a Doctor Who campaign could have the same effect

"What other programme could change the central actor and his character and still hold a magic grip over each new generation?

"Doctor Who is unique. There will be a tremendous outcry to save it."

One of the co-founders of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, Mr. Jeremy Bentham, said members were already pressurising the BBC.

"The loss of Doctor Who Will leave a hole in the heart of the viewing public which will be impossible to fill," said Mr. Bentham, who is also a former associate editor of the Doctor Who monthly magazine.

"Certainly the programme had its peaks and troughs, but with a new Doctor and the BBC returning it to its Saturday slot it had only recently hit one of its best moments."

The appreciation society, launched in 1976, had 3,500 members " in Britain and hundreds of thousands in America, where the series has become an even greater cult attraction.

Mr. Bentham said that the BBC made a similar decision in 1969 to suspend the programme, while they looked around for another science-fiction series.

"They wanted to try a Jules Verne, Victorian sort of production, but realised it could not compete with the universal appeal of Doctor Who, and so brought it back with a new doctor — Jon Pertwee," he said.

"Since then it has taken off and become the world's longest-running science fiction series. The public won't let it die."

Caption: Colin Baker: Fans in 54 countries.

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BBC rests Doctor Who to save cash - Revision history

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