Patine
Deity
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- Feb 14, 2011
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On November 23, 1963, the BBC broadcast, "An Unearthly Child," (and re-broadcast a week later after being drowned due to media coverage over the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy), starting the world's longest-running science fiction television series, Doctor Who. William Hartnell played the first of what became many incarnations (each portayed by their own actor) of the title role, Carole Ann Ford, as the Doctor's, "granddaughter," under the assumed name Susan Foreman (a familial relationship that has been contentious, in retrospect, in Doctor Who canon a few times, but she was definitely a much younger Gallifreyan, by species), and Jaqueliline Hill and William Russell as Susan's schoolteachers in 1963 London, investigating her alien perspective on England, and going to her registered address, an old police box in a junkyard, and Jeremy Young as the tyrannical and ruthless fire-seeking Paleolithic chieftain Kal, who is officially the first villain in the series. An interesting bit from an interview with Ford (now 83) about what she was originally offered in the role of Susan, compared to how it turned out,
"her character would be "an Avengers-type girl <the British spy series, not the Marvel Comics, though neither was that old in introduction to the public media at that time> – with all the kapow of that – plus she would have telepathic powers. She was going to be able to "fly the TARDIS" as well as [the Doctor] and have the most extraordinary wardrobe. All that a teenage girl in the '60's could want."
Hartnell and Ford were given a great degree of consultation and leeway in contributing and imagining to the backstories of their characters before debut. Susan being the Doctor's, "granddaughter," was originally deemed a necessity as scriptwriter Anthony Coburn did not think not think it was, "seemly," for a single, elder man to travelling through time and space with a teenage girl, otherwise.
"her character would be "an Avengers-type girl <the British spy series, not the Marvel Comics, though neither was that old in introduction to the public media at that time> – with all the kapow of that – plus she would have telepathic powers. She was going to be able to "fly the TARDIS" as well as [the Doctor] and have the most extraordinary wardrobe. All that a teenage girl in the '60's could want."
Hartnell and Ford were given a great degree of consultation and leeway in contributing and imagining to the backstories of their characters before debut. Susan being the Doctor's, "granddaughter," was originally deemed a necessity as scriptwriter Anthony Coburn did not think not think it was, "seemly," for a single, elder man to travelling through time and space with a teenage girl, otherwise.
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