As before, the Dalek boys all learned their lines for rehearsal. In the studio, however, as Michael was playing Davros now, it was Roy Skelton who took over. Roy is the master of Dalek voices, he really is. Brilliant to watch as well. He’d be in the studio, headphones on, studying the screen and acting out all the parts. When the Daleks argue among themselves, he’s just hysterical.
One of the more threatening aspects of Genesis is the whole ‘master race’ undercurrent. I think Terry Nation originally worked a lot of Nazi allusions into the show with Robert and Philip’s blessing, although these were watered down in later episodes. (Lovely Guy Siner, who plays Ravon, would of course go on to play a rather camp Nazi in ’Allo ‘Allo!) Spotting the similarities does add that layer of menace, I think. If you’re too young or naïve to spot the allegorical references, that’s fine too.
There’s a hint of a ‘final solution’ in Genesis, of course, which threw up all sorts of issues. The Doctor realises he has the opportunity to connect two leads and prevent the Dalek race from ever existing. Harry and Sarah urge him to act for the sake of the future universe but he can’t.
And Tom couldn’t either.
It was a big moment at Television Centre when, as we were actually preparing to shoot these lines, Tom just said, ‘No, I can’t do this.’
He just stopped the whole thing. Refused to go on as it was written.
‘Maloney, this isn’t right,’ he called up to the gallery. ‘We need to think this through seriously.’
To put this into some sort of context, Tom’s suggestions were often along the lines of: ‘What if there was a Mer-man sitting at my feet? Wouldn’t that be astounding?’
‘Er, I don’t think we have the budget, Tom,’ would be the normal excuse. ‘But thanks …’
This time he was being deadly serious.
‘Think about it, Maloney. I’m the Doctor – I can’t go around wiping out entire civilisations. Do I have the right?’
They struggled with it for ages. Tom was very uncomfortable. Rewrites were drawn up and a lot of his questions made it into the script. It was powerful stuff. Not exactly the sort of debate you find on your average kids’ programme.
So we went from an exciting scene in a fast-flowing episode to a major philosophical discussion point, thanks to Tom.
Over the years, of course, the Doctor has theoretically wiped out the Daleks several times (I even helped him in Journey’s End). If Philip and Robert had their way, they would have been killed off for good in 1975: neither man could stand the Daleks and I think it must have been pretty galling for them to have to work on Genesis which, like the rest of Season Twelve, had been commissioned by Barry and Terry as part of their outgoing duties.
* * *
Part one of Genesis of the Daleks went out in March 1975 – impressive considering we only finished shooting Episode 6 on 25 February. When you’re airing shows so rapidly after wrapping there’s a risk the end result will suffer. This one certainly didn’t. The whole serial attained, I think, a punchy realism that was hard to beat at the time. Some would argue it was too realistic. In fact, Mary Whitehouse did argue that very fact – and quite a lot more. Younger readers won’t remember Mary, but she was a campaigner for standards on television and radio. She was quite a celebrity in the 1970s and 80s, always on the warpath about the levels of sex or violence in this programme or that. Her name has become synonymous with censorship, and not always for good reasons, I think.
In a way it was a compliment if Mary Whitehouse noticed you. Once she started her sabre-rattling about Who I thought, We’ve really arrived now. But she really went ballistic at Genesis of the Daleks. ‘Tea-time brutality for tots,’ she called it. Apparently Davros was too scary, which he was meant to be – Christ, he terrified me – and there was too much violence. I heard Terry Nation thought it might be a bit much for kids. Philip Hinchcliffe disagreed and so do I. I mean, the message of Who is very clear: it’s good versus evil and there’s a hero and good always triumphs. And if you take away anything from the programme it’s that you should never give up. Time Lords, journalists, navy doctors – we can all make a difference. Barry came to me once and said, ‘Do you think it’s too much for children?’
‘In my opinion the only children who would be bothered by it are the sort of children who would be bothered by a cabbage rolling down the stairs. They’re just a bothered child – you can’t legislate for them. And you certainly cannot allow programmes to be made for such a very specific minority,’ I said.
Of course, we hadn’t seen The Brain of Morbius yet …
* * *
What with the weather and the workload, I was looking forward to the final serial of Season Twelve. I think the plan was to end on Terror of the Zygons, then break for summer, rather than record the first serial for the next block. Brian and I had been talking about getting away for a while. Tangiers kept cropping up as a destination, so we began to look at brochures and flights. That put a spring in my step as we finished Genesis. When you know you’ve got a break coming up, it’s hard not to count the days.
It was some time in January when all our plans went out the window. ITV, the only competitor to the BBC in those days, announced plans for a new sci-fi series called Space: 1999. It was the brainchild of Gerry Anderson, creator of Thunderbirds and Stingray, so we could expect it to be of quality, although live action and not puppet-based this time. As a non-fan this didn’t particularly bother me. What did, however, was the fact it was scheduled to launch in late summer. There were all sorts of confabs at the Beeb and they all agreed: if this programme starts before the new series of Who and sinks its claws into our viewers, we might not win them back.
It’s a pretty negative view, I believe, and in hindsight probably the wrong one. But we didn’t know that then. So, the decision was made to bring forward Season Thirteen. Rather than start in winter, it would now begin in August. The good news was Season Twelve production would now conclude with Genesis – which meant we’d finished that block.
The bad news was the new season would commence recording straight after, with no break. I had the offer of a new contract on the table for another series (Todd was in negotiation with Philip), but what about summer? What about Tangiers?
I honestly didn’t think I could do it.
Chapter Nine
I Thought You Were Doing A Doctor
IT WAS with a certain reluctance that I started recording Terror of the Zygons. Not that I had anything against the script – from what I could tell it looked very strong. Nor the director – from the initial meetings with Douglas Camfield, I thought we were in safe hands here. But knowing it wasn’t the end of term, being told this was just the halfway point in a pretty arduous schedule, that was almost too much to bear. And there was no discussion.We were either doing it or we weren’t – those were the options.
But that wasn’t all. On top of everything else I knew that Zygons would also see me saying goodbye to a very dear friend.
Being positive for a moment, 1975 was a good time to be involved with Who. Possibly the best time – I’ll let others decide. I don’t think our stock had ever been higher. Tom was really winning plaudits with every episode and there was a genuine groundswell of love for his Doctor. Viewing figures were largely supporting the new fella as well. I remember being called into Philip’s office in February. For some reason he was delirious. He was this close to dancing on the table – and if you know Philip, you will understand how unlikely that image is!