Christopher Morley looks at another unmade Doctor Who adventure, this time family matters in The Son of Doctor Who.
We all know the Doctor has had numerous family
ties- his first travelling companion having been his granddaughter
Susan ( An Unearthly Child,) his ' generated anomaly' daughter
Jenny ( The Doctor's Daughter)
etc. But had William Hartnell had his way we might have seen The
Son Of Doctor Who! The idea
seems to have been floating around almost since that first episode
went out on November 23, 1963- but somehow it failed to see the light
of day.
How would it have
worked? The basic concept was to have been that an evil son of the
First Doctor would appear, played by Hartnell himself, as a villain.
Bit like the average episode of Jeremy Kyle-
but across space & time! It raises the interesting point of
whether this son could have been Susan's father, too- if so the First
would have more than one good reason for spiriting her away from
Gallifrey to Earth at the first available opportunity.
Of course nobody ever gets suspicious at the sight of a police box
parked in a scrapyard....
Spice would have
been added should sonny-boy have returned at a point before Susan's
departure in the final act of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth
seeking a family reunion!
But lets allow the sadly missed Bill Hartnell a word-
Simple enough, no? And in fact he would go on to play a dual role
of a very different kind in The Massacre,
as both the Doctor & the Abbot of Amboise.
But lets allow the sadly missed Bill Hartnell a word-
'At one time (in late 1964) I thought we might extend the series and I suggested giving the Doctor a son and calling the programme The Son of Doctor Who. The idea was for me to have a wicked son. We would both look alike, each have a TARDIS and travel in outer space. In actual fact, it would have meant that I had to play a dual role when I `met' my son.'.
Susan might
certainly also have more than a few questions for the man she called
' Grandfather'. Or maybe she'd already have known her father was a
bad man, & made plans with her grandfather to leave for Earth. A
fresh start at Coal Hill School certainly becomes more appealing if
you follow that line of thinking! Of course, 'Susan Foreman' was
merely an alias in itself- her birth name was Arkytior ( Old High
Gallifreyan for ' Rose') as explained in the short story Roses.
Track down a copy of Birth Of A Renegade,
though, & you'll find a different account! This casts her as Lady
Larn....
It seems the Lady
was a high-ranking Time Lord whom the Doctor rescued from quite some
trouble in the constellation of Kasterborous. The Cartmel Masterplan
created for the Seventh Doctor in an attempt to restore a little
mystery presents yet another possible narrative for Susan, too.
Completing the hat-trick, we have Lungbarrow.
With Seven quite literally revisiting his past, its implied that
Susan was the last naturally conceived child on Gallifrey before the
Pythia cursed the Time Lords into sterility- necessitating the
creation of the Looms to ensure the survival of the race.
The Other ( the
Doctor before he became the Doctor, if you believe the Cartmel crew)
is believed to have thrown himself into a Loom after he turned
against the vision he initially shared with Rassilon & Omega,
emerging in a new incarnation who would become known as the First
Doctor. Susan still recognises the new man as the grandfather who'd
initially sent her off-world. How did they leave together? Stealing a
TARDIS! Helped by a version of Clara Oswald, too, if you take The
Name Of The Doctor at face
value. Spin-off novels & audio plays, perhaps most notably The
Beginning, Frayed
& A Big Hand For The Doctor greatly expand on what happened before they met Ian Chesterton &
Barbara Wright.
But why didn't
The Son Of Doctor Who
make it to the screen? Perhaps Sydney Newman was already starting to
have doubts over Hartnell's ability to keep up with the demand of Doctor Who. He would last another two years in the role before bowing out in The
Tenth Planet, to be replaced by
Patrick Troughton as the Second incarnation- about as different from
Bill's portrayal as it was possible to be. Where he had been a rather
stern figure, the ultimate space-grandad, before developing a little
more humanity ( perhaps influenced by his companions), he would
become what Newman had described as a ' cosmic hobo'. Whether his '
son' would have undergone a similar ' renewal' in order to become a
recurring villain isn't known. Of course, the Doctor has retained
memories of his family throughout his lifetime. And with the
rediscovery of Gallifrey at the climax of The Day Of The
Doctor, it could be said that
the door is open for the introduction of more of them should his
Twelfth & newest self ever actually return home ( whether that be
during Series Eight or beyond).
So he could
actually still be both a father & grandfather, the Ninth Doctor
having told Doctor Constantine that he had been, once. Back then he
hadn't known the true outcome of the Time War, believing that he'd
committed double genocide against his own people & the Daleks.
Seeing him reunited with them after so many years away could be quite
something if Steven Moffatt & the other writers deem it worthy of
inclusion. Certain details relating to Series 8 do make you question
if indeed that could be the case, too! We already know Clara is
holding down a job as a teacher at Coal Hill School, with her
colleague Danny Pink joining she & Twelve on their travels in the
TARDIS at some point.
A Doctor
travelling with two teachers has of course been done before. A glance
at this newest Doctor's ring finger reveals he's sporting a nice
signet ring, too- could it be the same one the First was seen to wear
before discarding it post-regeneration? It shouldn't be discounted,
either, that Peter Capaldi himself has waxed lyrical over his
earliest predecessor's era- here he is talking about The
Web Planet. Might he be given
the chance to make a return visit? Consider this-
Quite
an opening line! And he goes on. Clearly he hasn't taken off his
rose-tinted glasses for a second, even when it comes to questionable
special effects...“I was five when the show started. I don’t remember Doctor Who not being part of my life, and it became a part of growing up, along with The Beatles, National Health spectacles, and fog. And it runs deep. It’s in my DNA.'
“People look at them now and, understandably, mock the bargain-basement monsters, and the accidents and collisions that came from having virtually no time in the studio to shoot fantastically ambitious stories. But those old shows were only made to be watched once, on a flickering monochrome telly that smelled of valves and furniture polish.
“In that context, they succeeded immeasurably. They were triumphs of imagination.
“It may surprise you now, but something like The Web Planet [an episode from 1965] lived powerfully and expansively in my head for decades… until the DVDs came along and spoiled the party. But I’m glad to say that the Menoptra eventually flitted back into my dreams, where they belong.”
