John Nathan-Turner And The Sociopathetic Abscess

The "With-drawing" room in Tamworth Castle,
designed as a grand public room for the noble family and visitors

Part 3 in a series on the Doctor Who story "State of Decay" by Terrance Dicks

Romana and the Doctor looked around. They were in a huge circular chamber, walls decorated with rich and somber hangings. On a raised dais at the far end were twin thrones, side by side. The whole place had an atmosphere of gloomy splendor, and was obviously some kind of formal state room. There was a man and a woman, tall and thin, with white faces and glittering black eyes, both gorgeously robed. The man said, "Greetings." His voice was cold, with a hissing quality. "I am the Lord Zargo. This is the Lady Camilla."

--from the novelization Doctor Who and the State of Decay by Terrance Dicks

In his attempt to prepare "State Of Decay" for production, John Nathan-Turner's (JNT) new Script Editor Christopher H Bidmead had gone to war with writer Terrance Dicks. After ceding a draw, Bidmead had taken it upon himself to comprehensively rewrite Dicks' script. While the new version might reflect JNT's ideas for updating Doctor Who to meet contemporary tastes, it also caused director Peter Moffatt to tender his resignation. 

This placed John Nathan-Turner in the worst position possible. Should he alienate a former Script Editor and long-term writer for the series, who had novelized many of the Doctor's previous adventures, a writer so beloved by Doctor Who fans? Remember: older Doctor Who stories weren't repeated very often in Britain. Nor had the home video revolution yet occurred, which would make it possible to purchase and replay any story that BBC Enterprises had released on VHS videotape. The only way fans could discover and relive those old stories was to purchase the Doctor Who novelizations, many of which were written by the prolific Terrance Dicks. 

But then, Terrance Dicks didn't work for John Nathan-Turner, and wasn't responsible for commissioning, shaping, and shepherding scripts through the preproduction process. That duty fell to new Script Editor Christopher H Bidmead, who shared JNT's ideas, and worked hard to incorporate them into commissioned scripts. Peter Moffatt might have been JNT's friend (or at least a director he admired), but like writers, directors only worked on individual stories. They came and went, as their schedules and interests dictated. Should he allow Peter Moffatt to walk away from Doctor Who, after watching him masterfully direct episodes of All Creatures Great and Small? Regardless of what he decided, JNT risked disappointing and alienating people who could prove tremendously valuable to him in the future. And then there was the fact that it was his first time producing any show, let alone one as popular and long-running as Doctor Who. Whatever decision he made, the BBC hierarchy would be watching.

"What is--is," said Lady Camilla, as if that explained everything. 

"Ah yes," said the Doctor argumentatively. "But what is--is wrong. Look, societies develop in varying ways, but they all develop. Yours seems to be sliding back into some sort of primitivism. Don't you agree, Romana?"

"Oh yes. A society that evolves backwards must be subject to some exceptionally powerful force."

"The rebels seem to think that force emanates from this Tower. From you."

"They flatter us," said Lady Camilla."

"After all," said Lord Zargo smoothly, "in any society there is bound to be a division between the rulers and the ruled."

"A division!" The Doctor was indignant. "More of a yawning chasm, I'd say, wouldn't you, Romana?"

"I'd say a sociopathetic abscess, to be precise."

"A very good diagnosis, couldn't have put it better myself. Yes, a sociopathetic abscess. I've never seen such a state of decay."

As in our own lives, TV shows run to a schedule, and it's just as important to complete a project on time as it is do it as best as you possibly can. As John Nathan-Turner was Lord of the Doctor Who castle, so the responsibility for the entire production was his. This was a test of his ability to be a producer: his time to demonstrate his worthiness for the huge responsibility with which he had been entrusted. So he walked into Christopher H Bidmead's office, and when he walked out, he handed Peter Moffatt a version of the script that better represented the story Moffatt had fallen in love with, that fired the director's imagination, and made him yearn to deliver the best TV show possible. Then he no doubt returned to his office, shut the door, and attempted to not think about the possible repercussions of making such a draconian decision.

I may not agree with all of the decisions John Nathan-Turner made during his tenure as producer of Doctor Who, but I respect the fact that he made decisions to reflect the evolving nature of British society in the 1980s. Just like JNT, we all have to make hard decisions, and they're hard because we know that those around us may disagree with them. Those decisions risk negatively impacting those we care about and rely upon. Yet, we must make those hard decisions, or watch our lives, work, and relationships evolve backwards, or to decay. 

And let's face it: no one wants an abscess. Of any kind. 

Dragon Dave

John Nathan-Turner Encounters A State Of Decay

The Antechamber, or Pantry, in Tamworth Castle

This post is Part 2 of a series on the Doctor Who story "State of Decay" by Terrance Dicks.

Adric followed much the same route as the Doctor and Romana when he left the TARDIS, taking the track that led along the edge of the forest, past the ploughed land and into the Village. It was, he thought, as unattractive-looking a place as he had ever seen. He saw the open door of a large building at the end of the street, walked up to it, and slipped cautiously inside. 

At first, the big room seemed deserted, but the smell of food led his eyes to a kitchen area in the far corner, where he saw a homely old woman slicing vegetables into a cooking pot. Adric suddenly realized he was very hungry, and began sidling mouse-like along the edge of the room. He reached the kitchen area undetected and was just reaching out for a particularly tasty crust of bread when some instinct made the woman turn around. She grabbed Adric's wrist with a work-toughened hand and dragged him forward. "Got you!"

--from the novelization Doctor Who and the State of Decay by Terrance Dicks

Taking over the top job as Producer of a popular BBC TV series like Doctor Who was never going to be easy. Having never worked as a producer before, John Nathan-Turner (JNT) knew many in the BBC hierarchy doubted that he was up to the task. After all, the current (fourth) Doctor, played by Tom Baker, had connected with the public as never before, and become a national hero. So, in a highly unusual move, the BBC hierarchy commissioned Barry Letts, who served as Producer for all five years of the Third Doctor era, to oversee the show as Executive Producer. Although a normal role in America, BBC TV shows in that era did not usually employ Executive Producers. So JNT knew he had much to prove during his first year at the helm of the long-running series. 

Thankfully for him, John Nathan-Turner had laid the groundwork for his new role earlier in his career. While working as Production Unit Manager for the TV shows Doctor Who and All Creatures Great and Small, he had a chance to observe and work with many talented people. One of those was director Peter Moffatt. One day, on the set of All Creatures, he had approached Moffatt, explained his career hopes, and asked if the director might work for him if he became a producer. He felt insecure in doing so, as he was younger than Moffatt, and had worked under him up to this point. Moffatt graciously replied, "Don't be silly, young man. Of course I would work for you." After JNT became producer for Doctor Who, he remembered Moffatt, and sent him the preliminary notes for "State of Decay," which Terrance Dicks was then in the process of writing. Moffatt, directing a play in South Africa, loved the story, and readily agreed to direct it.

Unbeknownst to Peter Moffatt, or apparently even John Nathan-Turner, Terrance Dicks had refused to make the sweeping changes Script Editor Christopher H Bidmead demanded. So Bidmead had rewritten the script to suit his interests (as well as those, he believed, of JNT). When Peter Moffatt returned to England, and arrived in the Doctor Who offices to begin preproduction work on "State Of Decay," he was handed a much different script than he had anticipated. Tearing through the pages, he grew increasingly frustrated, until he finally walked into John Nathan-Turner's office and asked him to find another director. 

Surprised, Nathan-Turner sat Moffatt down and asked him to tell him why he wished to leave the production. As the two men talked, Moffatt explained that the script did not represent a fleshed-out version of the treatment he had been sent. Gone were all the Gothic aspects of the story. Instead of the medieval village and castle, the story was set in a future. A focus on blood and vampires had been replaced with (what to him seemed like) techno-babble. All this confused Moffatt, and in no way represented the ideas that had fired his imagination when he read the initial proposed story. This being the case, he could not commit his time, effort, and enthusiasm to directing this story. So John Nathan-Turner found himself little further along than when he had begun his tenure as producer. He had commissioned two stories, but production of this second one, "State Of Decay," seemed on the verge of falling apart. What's more, he had disappointed Peter Moffatt, a director he greatly respected and admired, by delivering a script significantly different than the one he promised. 

Sometimes, we don't realize that a state of decay has entered our lives, or our workplaces, until we are caught in that "Got you" moment, just as the Doctor's young companion is caught when he tries to take something he has not earned. At such times, it suddenly grows apparent to us that this decay, hitherto invisible to us, has wreaked untold damage in our lives. Still, it's up to us to figure out how to eradicate the decay, rebuild relationships, and repair what has been damaged, if we wish to progress and accomplish our goals. Otherwise, we risk further decay, with our lives, careers, and relationships eroding, as has hindered the health and social development of the Village in Terrance Dicks' Doctor Who story "State Of Decay."

Dragon Dave

Terrance Dicks & Christopher H Bidmead Clash Over Vampires

A forbidding castle
Guards the village of Tamworth,
In the English Midlands.

This post is Part 1 of a series on Doctor Who and the State of Decay by Terrance Dicks.

Looming above the Village was the dark Tower. Its pointed turrets reared up against the night sky, dominating the landscape as they had done for a thousand years. The simple village dwellings huddled around its base. Beyond the Village was a scattering of ploughed fields, bordered on one side by dense forests, on the other by swamp.

So begins Doctor Who and the State of Decay, a novel by Terrance Dicks. Soon the TARDIS will materialize in the forests, and the fourth Doctor and his companions will investigate the only inhabited area of this planet. There they find threadbare peasants horrified by the idea of visitors. These people, worn and weary, eek out a miserable existence, giving the fruits of their labors to the Lords in the Tower. Each harvest seems worse than the last, and the Lords leave them with fewer scraps on which to survive. And then there are the Selections, when the Guards take away the strongest and most vital inhabitants. A few of those selected become Guards. The rest are never seen again.

But then, the lot of the Guards is little better than that of the peasants. 

One of them was Habris, Captain of the Guard. Lean and grim-faced like his fellows, he marched along the gloomy corridors of the Tower, with reluctant haste. The haste was because he was on the business of the Lords, and dared not delay. The reluctance was because, as always, to enter the presence of his rulers made Habris sweat with fear.

He's not sure why this should be, as he stands high in their favor. But there is something cold and distant in them, something lacking. Something not quite human.

Terrance Dicks initially proposed Doctor Who and the State of Decay for the fourth Doctor and his beautiful but uncivilized companion Leela. Then the BBC commissioned a big budget production of Dracula, and forbid Doctor Who to film a story about vampires. So all work on the project ceased, and the story seemed destined to be forgotten. Then, a few years later, a new producer named John Nathan-Turner took over the show. He had great plans for improving the series, ideas he had carefully considered during his years of working in lesser roles on the series. Most of his predecessors had inherited several stories commissioned by the previous producer that were ready to be put into production. After taking the reins of the show, he discovered that he had little to begin his tenure with. More importantly, as a first-time producer, many in the BBC hierarchy wondered if he was up to the task. In taking over such a long-running TV show, with seventeen previous seasons at this point, Nathan-Turner knew he couldn't afford to fail. He and his Script Editor, Christopher H Bidmead, would have to scramble to commission scripts that they could shape to incorporate their ideas to help steer the series in their desired direction.

The young producer went through Doctor Who archives. During his research, he came across a file that writer Terrance Dicks has suggested might have been labeled "Stories We Didn't Film For One Reason Or Another." Amid this treasure trove of possible stories, he found the notes from Dicks' ideas about vampires in Outer Space, and fell in love with them. Having served as Script Editor during the third Doctor era, and with his solid track record of delivering easily-filmable scripts on time (sometimes even in a rush), Terrance Dicks seemed like a safe bet to deliver a script on time that needed little input from or reshaping by Christopher H Bidmead to incorporate into their upcoming schedule. So John Nathan-Turner commissioned Dicks to write the story for the fourth Doctor and his current companions: the beautiful and sophisticated Time Lady Romana, the young boy Adric, and his robot dog K-9. Certain he knew the perfect person to direct it, he sent the story treatment to Peter Moffatt, with whom he had worked on All Creatures Great and Small. Moffatt likewise fell in love with the story, and agreed to direct it. Content with the good start he had made, Nathan-Turner left the task of developing the story for production to Bidmead, and went on to other tasks. 

Unfortunately, Christopher H Bidmead did not share the producer and director's enthusiasm for the story. He wrestled with Terrance Dicks over the ideas in the story, trying to bring it more into line with his more Hard-Science vision of the series. They argued over the title.  Bidmead wanted to call it "The Wasting," and dismissed Dicks' initial title "The Vampire Mutation." Dicks hated "The Wasting," believing that critics and viewers might belittle it as "A waste of their time." They argued over the structure. In order to make one scene work to Bidmead's satisfaction, the Script Editor suggested a change that would have necessitated numerous changes to other scenes. Dicks refused to rewrite all four episodes to "fix" whatever problems Bidmead perceived in that single scene. It was Bidmead's job to shape scripts to steer the production in the direction that his John Nathan-Turner wished to take the series. In his opinion, Terrance Dicks refused to adapt his storytelling approach accordingly. The two men clashed violently and often, and with each argument, each man's opinion of the other fell.

Imagine how the poor, overworked Doctor Who staff members must have crept past Bidmead's office when these two men met. Picture the storm clouds that gathered around the BBC tower as these men fought and raged. Fear for those who, with reluctant haste, had to interrupt either writer during these titanic story sessions. For some storytellers are mere humans, while others are Lords of Story.

Dragon Dave

James Herriot Trivia II

As with the British TV show “Last of the Summer Wine,” Yorkshire’s notoriously changeable weather saddled the production of “All Creatures Great and Small” with numerous problems.  Michael Hayes filmed one scene under a cloudy sky, only to have the sun blaze down when it came time to shoot the next.  So he ordered crew members to gather around, and hold their umbrellas over the camera, the actors, and the horses while filming.

In the commentary track for the episode “Pig in the Middle,” available on the third season DVD set, we learn that director Michael Hayes was used to conditions on a working farm, as he owned his own (horse) stud farm, and thus took the weather in his stride.  Carol Drinkwater, who played Helen Herriot in the show, also grew up on a farm, and so she was used to bundling up and sipping a little brandy to keep warm during cold, blustery days spent filming on Yorkshire fields, fells, and moors. 

Robert Hardy poses for me outside the real Skeldale House,
"The World of James Herriot" in Thirsk.

Robert Hardy, who played Siegfried Farnon, grew up on a farm in Ireland, and nature was such a part of his life that he didn’t shrink from sewing actual stitches into real living animals, as the actors did during the first few years of the program.  When asked about the first time he had seen a sheep deliver a baby lamb, he racked his brain, but simply couldn’t remember the first time he had seen this happen.  To him, such events were woven into the tapestry of his life. 

Watching his younger self riding horses brought Hardy a little sadness, as riding had given him great joy throughout his life.  But with the relentless march of years, he had finally decided to give up, due to the stresses on the body and the legal liabilities of the acting profession. 

The real Siegfried Farnon:
Donald Sinclair

He also missed Donald Sinclair, the man whom Alf Wight (writing as James Herriot) immortalized as Siegfried Farnon.  After the premature death of his first wife, Donald remarried eight years later.  Hardy met the veterinarian while working on the program and maintained a friendship with him until Sinclair’s death.  Every time Hardy thought of Donald, he remembered the vet’s second wife Audrey, and how devoted the couple had been to each other.  Apparently, they had never wanted to be apart, and couldn’t cross a room without holding hands.

Carl Drinkwater also spares a moment for me,
and my camera.

Carol Drinkwater left the program after a few years to take on larger roles. In order to record her commentary, she had flown in from her farm in France, where she grew olives, wrote books, and still acted when the right part came along.  She remembered all the dogs that tore around the studio sets of Skeldale House.  Two had been owned by John Nathan Turner, who served as Production Unit Manager for the first three seasons of "All Creatures Great and Small."  Like Drinkwater, Turner would also leave the series, in his case to become the producer of another great British TV show, “Doctor Who.”  There he employed notable directors like Michael Hayes.  But sadly, not the venerable actors Carol Drinkwater, or Robert Hardy.

Dragon Dave