The State of Doctor Who in 2006, Part 2

[parma_violets]

Of course, this wrongness in the series’ conception can’t be pinned down to just one writer, and certainly not one who didn’t contribute much writing this year. As Russell T Davies says in the first part of his exclusive interview this month:

That’s branding, basically. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of branding… I thought it was in

Comments

[londonkds]

On an unrelated note, this is the second year in a row that Mark Gatiss’s episode has been completely different in practically every respect from the story in Russell’s original documents. Evidently, a man who knows where the bodies are buried!

Gatiss's interviews on the DVDs for S1 seem to suggest that the major rewrites on Unquiet Dead were driven by RTD's feelings that the initial idea was turning out too grim, rather than Gatiss dithering.

[parma_violets]

The original outline Russell wrote in the Series One outline (he has to submit at least a brief outline of what every episode is going to be about before production starts) seems to outline something a bit jollier than what ended up on screen, a Ghostbustersy romp with a dotty old medium operating an Ectoplasm Machine and accidentally bringing spirits through from another universe. Possibly Gatiss found a way to make this grim and disturbing - he can make anything grim and disturbing - but I suspect the 'darker' draft he was talking about was his first attempt at the story we saw on screen.

Though - having said that - it's surprising how little 'The Idiot's Lantern' changed after its outline, and yet how different it feels. The original was a bubblegum rock 'n' roll tale where people's faces were being stolen by a being that can travel in sound waves - ie. through the radio. Obviously the finished story isn't much different, but the slight shift in milleu makes it feel worlds apart.

[londonkds]

The idea with the medium is what he was definitely talking about.

[parma_violets]

Right, that's interesting. I've got no idea how you could make that idea disturbing, but if anyone can find a way...

[londonkds]

According to Gatiss on the DVD, the ectoplasm machine was part of it, and it was set in a spiritualist hotel full of mediums, where most were fake but one was actually real and in touch with the Gelth.