"Genesis Of Doctor Who" Drama-Doc Thread

[Dino]

According to this http://blogtorwho.blogspot.com/2012/...of-dr-who.html Mark Gatiss is said to be writing a "Genesis Of Doctor Who" drama-documentary about the show being commissioned.
And no doubt, it'll be full of little in jokes about the golden age of television etc...

But hold on a second! Surely, if you were to make a drama-documentary about anything Who, it should be a drama based on the 18 month hiatus?

A drama-doc about the start, or a drama-doc about it's attempted murder?
From a drama point of view surely 1985 would be more interesting than
"What can we call the hero?"
"We call him Who... Doctor Who!"

Plus, you could exaggerate the 80's of the whole thing and shoot it like Dallas/Dynasty.

Or would that mean the BBC wouldn't be able to admit it made a mistake?

So what part of Doctor Who's history should have a drama-doc made about it?

[Rob McCow]

I think the Genesis of Doctor Who could be absolutely superb! There's a surprising amount known about the early days of Doctor Who, so we could all sit there with our reference books saying 'That's not right!'

[Dino]

I think the Genesis of Doctor Who could be absolutely superb! There's a surprising amount known about the early days of Doctor Who, so we could all sit there with our reference books saying 'That's not right!'

Well I'll still watch it. But I feel they've missed a better story.
Is there a book about the hiatus? Or a blog, I'm currently obsessed with it.
Perhaps a bit too much...

[Andrew Curnow]

It's a great idea, and if it's as good as the Corrie one it'll be well worth watching. Of course, as you say, we fans will be all too able to spot anything that has been changed or simplified for dramatic purposes, and will probably spend too much time moaning about that - but the idea itself, I'm looking forward to it already.

[Dave Tudor]

This was always going to be on the cards, especially after the superb 'The Road to Coronation Street'. BBC Four have got a knack for producing classy drama abot significant cultural events, and Mark Gatiss is the just the right man for the job.

As for Aaron's suggestion, well I think you could make dramas about several incidents in the show's history: Hartnell's departure; the transition to colour and the behind-the-scenes changes at the start of the 1970s; the 'battles' with Mary Whitehouse; the end of Tom's era and the arrival of JNT; the hiatus; the cancellation - they could make a whole series of plays for the fiftieth anniversary. Never mind what's happened on screen, there has been just as much drama OFF screen.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I can't see what could be in the hiatus drama. Surely the only things that actually happened in those 18 months are behind the scenes things at the BBC that we either still don't know about or aren't all that interesting, an awful charity song that totally bombed, and Ian Levine putting his foot through his TV screen or whatever it was he did that time. The only way to extract any drama from all that would be to focus on rabid fans tying chaining themselves to fences or other such things that we'd just find cringe-worthy anyway.

[J.R. Southall]

And seriously, if there is to be a drama about Doctor Who for its fiftieth, it's going to be a play that's aimed at the casual viewer more than at the fans - and they're going to expect something about the birth of the programme (a universal theme) rather than an incident they probably remember nothing about...

[Dirk Gently]

Didn't we get a small drama about the beginnings of the programme on the Doctor Who Night.
I tried to find it on youtube but I can't.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Suffice it to say that Warris Hussein mentioned the Genesis docudrama at Monochrome Magic last month. It's currently still in scripting/development stages so it's meant to still be officially unconfirmed but Warris did also say that Gatiss was writing it so the amount of whispers going around suggest it probably has been provisionally greenlit.

[Stuart Wallis]

Didn't we get a small drama about the beginnings of the programme on the Doctor Who Night.
I tried to find it on youtube but I can't.

And Mr. Gatiss was involved with that as well! Somehow I can't see Colin being too excited about it...

If they were doing an origin of the series, they could get a bit of mileage out of the creation of the Daleks.

[J.R. Southall]

Yeah, the Dalek thing could be going on in tandem with the fight to get An Unearthly Child to the screen - after all, that's how it was working in real-life!