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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!tellab1!barth
From: barth@tellab1.UUCP (Barth Richards)
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Re: Dr Who movie
Message-ID: <590@tellab1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 17:58:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: tellab1.590
Posted: Wed Sep 18 17:58:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 06:45:12 EDT
References: <5114@allegra.UUCP> <639@hou2a.UUCP>
Reply-To: barth@tellab1.UUCP (Barth Richards)
Followup-To: net
Organization: Tellabs, Inc., Lisle, IL
Lines: 33
Keywords: pilot episode, DOCTOR WHO--A CELEBRATION: TWO DECADES THROUGH SPACE AND TIME

In article <639@hou2a.UUCP> pjk@hou2a.UUCP (P.KEMP) writes:

>Also, on the subject of early Dr. Who, the book
>"Doctor Who - A Celebration," lists in the back
>that there was a "Pilot" and then "An Unearthly Child."
>Is this a mistake?  I thought that "An Unearthly Child"
>was the first show (repeated the next week) with
>"The Tribe of Gum" episodes following it.

There actually was a pilot episode, which was only shown to the powers that
be at the BBC, who thought it needed work (i.e. the Doctor should be made
a bit less irracible, sound effects should be revised). Some changes in the
script and sound effects were made and the episode was ENTIRELY refilmed.
This new version was the first episode, broadcast on Saturday, 23 November,
1963. Since most of the television coverage of Kennedy's assasination took
place on that Saturday, few viewers were still in the mood for a new science
fiction serial in the late afternoon, so the BBC decided to rerun AN UNEARTHLY
CHILD the following Saturday. The original PILOT episode was never aired.

Interestingly enough, one of the revised sound effects was that of the TARDIS
itself. Apparantly, in the pilot episode it had an electric-motor whining
sound, and was only changed to the more familiar whirring-grinding sound when
the episode was refilmed.


				       
				       Barth Richards
				       Tellabs, Inc.
				       Lisle, IL

				       "Ford, do you realize that robot
					can hum like Pink Floyd?"
                                       -Arthur Dent