#barry letts

[taran-wood-beast]

See, the way you make good Doctor Who is you set out a mission statement that you're going to make the show more serious or toned down, and then you accidentally hire the exact wrong people to make that version of the show.

1970 they went "we're going to make Doctor Who a more grounded adult action series" and then they got a hippie with a fetish for psychedelic chromakey to produce it.

1980 they said "we're returning Doctor Who to Real Hard Science" and our new head writer is The Computers Mystic.

1987 they had a mandate to take the show in a lighter more kid-friendly direction, and then brought in a bunch of 20-something comic book nerds who wanted to kill Margaret Thatcher.

[ncc-42069]

Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks, and Stuart Fell on the creation of the character Alpha Centauri.

[companion-showdown]

Who is most important to the history of Doctor Who?

ROUND 1: Vote for your choice, the bottom two will be eliminated

Barry Letts – producer of the Pertwee era

Graham Williams – producer during the Tom Baker era

John Nathan Turner – producer of Doctor Who in the 80s

Philip Hinchcliffe – producer of the early Tom Baker era

Verity Lambert – original Doctor Who producer

Julie Gardner – original NuWho producer

see results

Voting ended onNov 27, 2024

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

propaganda under the cut

Verity Lambert – original Doctor Who producer

The very first female producer at the BBC, protégée of Sydney Newman, Head of Drama at the time and one of the creators of the show (@eloquently-him )

[secondhandgasstove]

Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks and Jon Pertwee (filming of The Time Warrior)

[cosmicretreat]

Barry Letts (March 26, 1925 - October 9, 2009)

Happy Barry Lettsentenial, Doctor Who fans! Thank you for the Third Doctor years, wherever you may be in time and space.

[pluralzalpha]

Tim Buckle has gone on to create three more "Morbius" Doctors:

First up is a swashbuckling Barry Letts

This one is actually feasible in a world where Doctor Who started earlier, as Letts was an actor in the 40s and 50s.

Next is old Uncle Terrance Dicks, captain of his ship

And finally, at my suggestion, Terry Nation

I always thought he had a Doctorish look to him.

I think in my headcanon it now runs:

Jo Martin

Verity Lambert

Waris Hussein

Barry Letts

Terrance Dicks

Terry Nation

Christopher Barry

and all the rest.

Now to ponder why the Doctor shifted from a more variable regenerative style to a long run of white blokes (with the brief respite of the unique Graeme Harper Doctor).

[nerds-yearbook]

On June 8, 1974, part six episode Planet of Spiders of Doctor Who aired. In the episode, the time traveling alien known as the Doctor regenerated (the first time the process was named). The character who had been protrayed by Jon Pertwee and was taken over by Tom Baker. ("Planet of the Spiders", Doctor Who vlm 1, TV, Event)

[demaupin]

"When I was a child, being a huge Doctor Who fan, I wrote numerous letters to the Doctor Who office largely inquiring about how the show was made.

"When it arrived the surprise package also [in addition to two full Jon Pertwee scripts] contained set designs and studio floor plans for these episodes and a delightful letter from producer Barry Letts giving me an idea what all this stuff was.

"It was a fantastic insight into both Doctor Who and TV production generally. I had never seen a script in any form whatsoever before then and was immediately fascinated by the documents."

The actor, who won a short film Oscar in 1993, was inspired to pursue a career on stage and screen by the BBC package.

He said: “That was a trigger to my ambition to work somehow  – I didn’t know how - in TV. The scripts are still sitting on my bookshelf.”

-Peter Capaldi, quoted in an old Scottish Express article, written back in 2008 when he was announced to play Caecilius (est in horto) in Fires of Pompeii