BBC Opens up ‘Doctor Who’ Archives
Doctor Who is about to turn 45, young for a Time Lord but old for a television character. To celebrate, the BBC has opened up it s archive which has detailed information on the series from its early development through current production.
Among the fascinating artifacts is a 1962 report discussing whether the BBC should make a sci-fi drama, concept notes written in 1963 forming a summary of ideas for just such a program, and background notes by C E Webber and Sydney Newman in which they outline the format for the new series that had been christened Doctor Who.
The site welcomes fans and says:
“Explore the origins of a TV legend with this collection of documents and images. It’s now the number one family favorite, but Doctor Who had a difficult birth, emerging from the imagination of some of BBC Drama’s top minds.
Here, we tell the story of the creation of Doctor Who from the very beginning, starting with a report on the possibility of making science fiction for television and leading up to the moment a new drama series is announced in the pages of Radio Times.”