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DR.WHO AND THE DALEKS
24 June 1965; written by Milton Subotsky; Regal Films International/Aaru Productions
DALEKS: INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D.
22 June 1966; written by Milton Subotsky with David Whitaker; Aaru Productions
In the Fifties and early Sixties, British cinema and television fought an often bitter battle for audiences, with film companies often resorting to adapting popular TV shows of the time for the big screen in the hope that audiences lost to TV would be won back. Most of these film adaptations featured the original TV cast in their original roles, but a few, including the Quatermass trilogy, were hampered by the BBC's refusal to allow contracted actors to appear in non-BBC productions and had to be totally recast. Dr.Who and the Daleks was the first of two films based on original Doctor Who stories and, apart from a handful of changes, was a faithful reproduction of Terry Nation's original The Mutants. Writer Milton Subotsky's main changes included making the Doctor an eccentric English scientist called Dr.Who (not unlike the character in "TV Comic"'s comic strip), Susan his 10 year-old grand-daughter, Barbara her grown-up cousin and Ian Barbara's accident-prone boyfriend. The other major change was in the design of the Tardis interior, reflecting its creator's Heath-Robinson eccentricity by resembling an explosion in an electronics factory with wires and cables strewn everywhere. Hammer horror star Peter Cushing was cast as the Doctor, looking remarkably like Jon Pertwee in Carry On Screaming, whilst comedian/musician Roy Castle added a humourous slant as Ian. Jennie Linden played a rather bland Barbara, whilst young Roberta Tovey appeared as a very precocious Susan. With Subotsky having to condense over 171 minutes of Nation's original script into less than half that, the result was a fast, action-packed narrative with the emphasis on humour rather than sci-fi adventure.
The success of Dr.Who and the Daleks at the box office encouraged Subotsky to shoot a sequel almost immediately. However, although again based on a Nation TV original (The Dalek Invasion of Earth), Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. - the lack of a reference to the Doctor in the title reflecting a belief that the Daleks were the true stars of the show - was less profitable. Peter Cushing again starred as "Dr.Who" with Roberta Tovey reviving her role as Susan, but neither Barbara or Ian featured. In their places were a niece, Louise, played by Jill Curzon, and clumsy cop Tom Campbell, played by comedy-actor Bernard Cribbens, who stumbles into the Tardis believing it to be an ordinary police call box. Although Subotsky had less to trim off to reduce the 148 minute TV original to feature film length, several important changes had to be made to the plot, including a total rewrite of the ending where Susan stayed behind to marry David. As the film Susan was only about 10, this might not have been entirely appropriate! Jill Curzon's character Louise managed to be even more bland than Linden's Barbara, whilst Cribbens was forced to carry much of the film as Cushing was laid low with an illness he picked up during filming (coincidentally, the same thing happened to William Hartnell in the TV original!).
Subotsky's option for a third Doctor Who film was never taken up, although several ideas were floated from time-to-time, including a non-Dalek story and adaptations of The Chase and The Evil of the Daleks. Subotsky knew that the Daleks had been the films' major attraction and, with Nation by now touting his creations around Hollywood, their presence in a third film was almost definitely out of the question. Subotsky and financial backer Max J.Rosenberg moved into making horror films, both for Hammer and their various rival studios.
SEVEN KEYS TO DOOMSDAY
16 December 1974 to 11 January 1975; written by Terrance Dicks; Robert de Wynter & Anthony Pye-Jeary
THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE
23 March to 19 August 1989; written by Terrance Dicks; Mark Furness/John Newman for Barry O'Brien (1969)/Dina & Alexander E.Racolin/Martin Eprane
Adapting popular TV shows for the theatre was usually reserved for comedy sketch shows, not long-running drama serials. Nevertheless, nine years after a Dalek-only play was staged in London's West End, the parent show made the potentially disastrous transformation from pre-recorded TV to live theatre. Promoted by Robert de Wynter and Anthony Pye-Jeary and written by the ever versatile Terrance Dicks, Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday was staged at the Adelphi Theatre on The Strand during the traditional Christmas panto season in 1974. Unlike the earlier cinematic ventures, theatrical Who was 100% original, with the title role played by Trevor Martin (who had appeared as a Time Lord in The War Games). This was a move made out of necessity. Jon Pertwee had just given up the part on TV and Tom Baker had yet to appear. One was unwilling to continue with the character, the other was still unknown.
The format reverted to that of the mid- to late-Sixties, with the Doctor accompanied by two young companions of each gender, "picked" from the audience at the beginning of each performance after Martin had recovered from regenerating. In actual fact, both companions were plants, played by former companion-actress Wendy Padbury, as Jenny, and James Mathews as Jimmy. The inclusion of the Daleks was a deliberate ploy to attract large audiences to watch an entirely original show, some elements of which later turned up in Dicks' TV story The Brain of Morbius. Unfortunately, despite enormous publicity and the presence of the Daleks, audiences were disappointing. Central London was experiencing a spate of terrorist bombings at the time and many people preferred to stay out of the city's more prominent areas for safety's sake.
Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure was an altogether more ambitious venture. An all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza that was part comedy, part musical, featuring a plethora of TV monsters, including Daleks, Cybermen, Draconians and a Vervoid, two new companions and two original TV Doctors. Unlike its theatrical predecessor, The Ultimate Adventure hit the road, beginning at the Wimbledon Theatre in London with Jon Pertwee in the title role, and Colin Baker taking over halfway through a nationwide tour at Newcastle's Theatre Royal. After Pertwee fell ill during the first of two performances at Birmingham's Alexandra Theatre, Brookside and regular Cyberman actor David Banks stepped in, adopting a McCoy-style costume for his short tenure. All three were aided in a battle of wits with both the Daleks and the Cybermen by nightclub singer Crystal, played by Rebecca Thornhill, and Jason, played by Graeme Smith and, later, David Bingham. Although fairly popular throughout its five month run, the sheer expense of the special effects meant the play struggled to break even, the promoters eventually being forced into liquidation.
Early in the Nineties, a third stageplay was written for a proposed tour of American theatres by U.S. playwright John Ostrander. Entitled The Inheritors, this was to have starred Roger Muller as the Doctor but fell through before dates could be finalised. The play has nevertheless been performed many times by amateur casts at American Doctor Who fan conventions.
THE TIME MACHINE
4 October 1976; written by Bernard Venables; BBC Radio 4 Schools Exploration Earth
THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE
21 November 1990; written by Lambros Atteshlis & Berry-Anne Billingsley; BBC 2 Schools Search Out Science: Planet Earth
The popularity of Doctor Who was twice utilised to teach schoolchildren the basics of science. The Time Machine was an episode of the 1976 Radio 4 schools' series Exploration Earth featuring Tom Baker and Lis Sladen in their TV roles, and John Westbrook as Megron, an evil alien who wanted Earth to remain in a permanent state of primeval chaos. Compared with the relatively sophisticated TV stories, it was fairly minimalistic in approach but at least managed to feature both the current Doctor and companion, the first non-TV story to do so.
The Ultimate Challenge united the recently redundant Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred with the long retired K9 (voiced by John Leeson) for an episode of the BBC2 schools series, Search Out Science. Written by the series' producer (Atteshlis) and director (Billingsley), it took the form of a TV quiz show with McCoy's Doctor as the host, and Ace, K9 and an alien from planet Glurk, Cedric, the contestants. As with the 1976 radio episode, The Ultimate Challenge was a purely educational exercise with no bearing on the official TV series whatsoever.
A FIX WITH SONTARANS
23 February 1985; written by Eric Saward; BBC 1 Jim'll Fix It
DIMENSIONS IN TIME (2 episodes)
26 & 27 November 1993; written by John Nathan Turner & David Roden; BBC 1 Children in Need & Noel's House Party
CHILDREN IN NEED SPECIAL
18 November 2005; written by Russell T.Davies; BBC Wales for BBC 1 Children in Need
TIME CRASH
16 November 2007; written by Stephen Moffatt; BBC Wales for BBC 1 Children in Need
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
27 July 2008 (audio), 1 January 2009 (visual); written by Russell T.Davies; BBC Wales for BBC Radio 3/BBC One The Proms - Doctor Who concert
A Fix with Sontarans was specially written for the popular Saturday tea-time show Jim'll Fix It, a show where host Jimmy Savile tried to help children (and the occasional adult) fulfil their ambitions. The recipient of this particular honour was young Gareth Jenkins, who got to star alongside current Doctor Colin Baker and former companion Janet Fielding (Nicola Bryant being engaged elsewhere) in a short skit with a couple of Sontarans from The Two Doctors.
To celebrate Doctor Who's 30th anniversary, the BBC's biennial Children in Need telethon featured a short two-part story written by John Nathan Turner and David Roden. As it was a special occasion, all five surviving Doctors turned out, although Tom Baker merely introduced the piece, as did no less than nine companions, two UNIT regulars and an old foe. Naturally, many of the actors had visibly aged or changed their appearance. Lalla Ward, for instance, sported a shorter hairstyle, Louise Jameson wore a Pocahontas-style outfit instead of her traditional costume (she was 16 years older after all!), whilst Tom Baker was practically bald. Rather ironically, most of the story was shot on the set of TV soap EastEnders, ironic in that Doctor Who had never fully recovered from being rested in 1985 to help finance initial development of EastEnders! Several current EastEnders stars also appeared, as did a whole host of Who monsters, all "played" by members of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society. Money was raised by viewers 'phoning in to vote for which of the EastEnders regulars "Mandy" or "Big Ron" saved the Doctor from the Rani. The result and second installment was shown during Noel's House Party the following evening. For the record, Mandy, played by Nicola Stapleton, won the vote. As a matter of interest, Louise Jameson returned to the EastEnders set five years later as a fully fledged member of the cast.
Doctor Who's newfound status as THE programme to watch meant inclusion in Children in Need was an absolute must. The first, which didn't have an on-screen title, featured the recently installed David Tennant attempting to convince Billie Piper's Rose that he really was the Doctor (still hasn't convinced me though!). The second had Tennant's Doctor encountering Peter Davison's version, the latter appearing faintly embarrassed at appearing in a series he had made less than complimentary comments about a couple of years earlier. Unlike the 1993 special, neither Tennant cameos featured any action, special guests or outdoor filming, and were nothing more than extravagent links between the conclusion of the regular series and the subsequent Christmas specials.
Music of the Spheres demonstrates just how ridiculously OTT the Beeb's obsession with the Welsh series had got. In more sensible times, the idea of the annual highbrow Sir Henry Wood Proms featuring a performance of music from a TV series would have been thought preposterous, but these, it seems, were not sensible times. To introduce the whole sorry affair, Davies wrote a short cameo featuring Tennant's Doctor conducting a Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performance of a piece of music he had composed and accidentally allowing a member of the evil Graske race to slip through to Earth. In a rare cross-media outing, it and the accompanying concert was broadcast by BBC Radio 3 during the 2008 Proms season, then repeated with visuals on New Year's Day 2009 on BBC One.
SLIPBACK (6 episodes)
25 July to 8 August 1985; written by Eric Saward; BBC Radio 4 Pirate Radio 4
THE PARADISE OF DEATH (5 episodes)
27 August to 24 September 1993; written by Barry Letts; BBC Radio 5
THE GHOSTS OF N-SPACE (6 episodes)
20 January to 24 February 1996; written by Barry Letts; BBC Radio 2
Written to alleviate the lengthy gap between the 22nd and 23rd series caused by Michael Grade's enforced lay-off, Slipback was broadcast in six 10 minute episodes over three successive Thursdays as part of a BBC Radio 4 series for teenagers called Pirate Radio 4. Obviously intended to keep the target audience listening through the assortment of other features (actual transmission times weren't advertised), Slipback starred Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant in their TV roles and the wonderful Valentine Dyall as the amoral Captain Slarn in a tale which, unlike most of its ilk, could easily have worked on TV and is probably the best Colin Baker Doctor Who story ever performed.
Somewhat belatedly realising the effectiveness of Slipback, Doctor Who was given a new lease of life in 1993 as an on-going radio series. However, rather than carrying on from where Survival left off, writer Barry Letts and producer Phil Clark decided to go retro, producing a Third Doctor story featuring Jon Pertwee (sounding every one of his 74 years), Lis Sladen and Nicholas Courtney in their original TV roles, with a new character, Jeremy Fitzoliver, played by Richard Pearce. The first story in this new departure was The Paradise of Death, which Letts inexplicably set inbetween the TV stories The Time Warrior and Invasion of the Dinosaurs (the only two from the Pertwee/Sladen series that didn't have a "gap" between them) and involved an attempt by the alien Parakon Corporation to conquer Earth economically and leave it ruined by war and environmental exhaustion.
The Ghosts of N-Space was the second official radio serial and was intended to be transmitted during 1994. Unfortunately, during the hiatus, BBC Radio 5, which had broadcast The Paradise of Death, was relaunched as a news and sport channel, thus forcing the sequel to relocate. Two years passed before a slot on BBC Radio 2 became available, by which time Letts and Clark had decided to abandon plans for further serials, a decision compounded by the death of Jon Pertwee later in the year. Official Who continuity was again contradicted by Letts claiming N-Space, which the E-Space trilogy of 1980/81 had established was the term for "our" universe, was actually the nether-dimension the souls of the dead passed through on their way to wherever it is the souls of the dead end up. Pertwee, Sladen and Courtney revived their TV roles again, alongside the rather pointless re-appearance of quasi-companion Jeremy Fitzoliver, in a story that was an uncomfortable blend of ghost story and corny gangster movie. In fact, both Letts scripts relied rather too heavily on verbal descriptions of purely visual action which jarred the flow of the narrative. It was as if both had been written for TV and converted for radio at the last minute.
In August 2005, the BBC7 digital radio channel began broadcasting apparently new stories starring Paul McGann as the "Eighth" Doctor alongside India Fisher as Charlotte "Charley" Pollard, who he meets on the airship R101 during its maiden voyage to Singapore. However, these weren't original productions, having been recorded and released some years earlier on retail-only CDs. An analogy would be BBC Radio 1 claiming every piece of music their DJs played had been specially performed for them.
DOCTOR WHO
12 May 1996; written by Matthew Jacobs; Universal TV/BBC Worldwide for Fox TV
Five years after being officially dropped by the BBC, Doctor Who crossed the Atlantic to seek its fortune in Hollywood, or, to be more accurate, Vancouver where the filming actually took place. Produced by Universal Television with BBC Worldwide support, a pilot was made for Fox TV gambling on the original show's cult status Stateside. Much was made of the fact that many members of the production crew were British (such as writer Matthew Jacobs), but most were ex-pats who had lived and worked in the States for several years. Sylvester McCoy briefly reprised "his" Doctor in an attempt to forge a link with the original serial, but quickly regenerated into Paul McGann, who bore a vague resemblance to Tom Baker (they are also both natives of Liverpool) and adopted a similar outfit. The Tardis interior was totally transformed, being obviously based on the wood-panelled secondary console room featured in Series 14, the chameleon circuit became a "cloaking device" (for the benefit of American viewers more used to Star Trek terminology), and the Doctor got emotionally involved with his (one-off) companion Grace, played by Daphne Ashbrook and obviously based on the character of Sarah-Jane Smith. In another sop to American viewers more used to Star Trek, McGann's Doctor calmly announced he was half-human (like Spock), having an Earth-born mother (again, like Spock). It wasn't so much a follow-on from Survival as a revival of the mid-Tom Baker era for the benefit of American fans whose first contact with the show had been made then, suitably adjusted to mollify American xenophobia. It was a glaring example of the pointlessness of reworking essentially British TV shows for an American audience whilst trying to retain as much of the original as possible. What everybody involved clearly failed to realise was that although the "official" serial was popular in certain parts of the United States, it was just a minor cult there, and they enjoyed the original show for its "Britishness". Attempting to convert it into a shallow copy of Star Trek or The X-Files just to appeal to the average American viewer who knew nothing of the original was doomed to failure. Unfortunately for traditionalists, the fact that McCoy was seen to regenerate into McGann meant McGann was now officially labeled the "Eighth Doctor". Following an aborted plan to shoot a second pilot with Paul McGann, Doctor Who went into TV hibernation for almost nine years.
DEATH COMES TO TIME (13 episodes)
12 July 2001 & 14 February to 1 March 2002; written by Colin Meek; BBC for bbc.co.uk
REAL TIME (6 episodes)
2 August to 6 September 2002; written by Gary Russell; BBC Worldwide for bbc.co.uk
SHADA (6 episodes)
2 May to 6 June 2003; written by Douglas Adams, adapted by Gary Russell; BBC/Big Finish for bbc.co.uk
SCREAM OF THE SHALKA (6 episodes)
13 November to 18 December 2003; written by Paul Cornell; BBC/Cosgrove Hall Films for bbc.co.uk
Death Comes to Time began life as a potential radio series starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, but fell through after the pilot episode had been recorded. In 2001, some bright spark realised the recording could be broadcast over the Internet via the BBC's website. The story was duly illustrated and uploaded to a small if euphoric audience. Owing to the popularity of this one-off venture, a further twelve installments were commissioned and broadcast during 2002.
Following the success of Doctor Who's first venture into cyberspace, a second serial was commissioned with Colin Baker reviving his Sixth Doctor persona once again. Linking this with the flood of retail-only stories Big Finish and BBC Worldwide were producing was the character of Evelyn Smythe, voiced by Maggie Stables, in an adventure featuring a Cyberman plot to rewrite history.
The third webcast story had a long history. Shada was written by then script editor Douglas Adams as the showpiece finale to Series 17. However, before filming could be completed it fell victim to the same brand of 70's-style militant trade unionism that had earlier forced ITV off air for several weeks and inadvertently made Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death the most watched Doctor Who stories in history. Although the technicians' strike ended before Shada was due to be broadcast, other productions had priority, so the story was reluctantly abandoned, although large chunks of the plot later turned up in Adams' 1987 novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. In 2003, Gary Russell adapted the script for audio transmission which, strangely, starred Paul McGann as the Doctor despite Lalla Ward and John Leeson reprising their original roles as Romana and K9, thus causing several continuity contradictions which rendered this and its ilk about as "official" as Virgin Publishing and BBC Books' original novels.
The fourth, and so far last, webcast story was the rather disappointing outcome of several months' publicity regarding the appointment of Richard E.Grant as the Ninth Doctor. Naturally, most Doctor Who fans assumed a new TV series was in the offing. Finding out that Grant was merely providing a voice-over for what amounted to a cartoon broadcast via a medium of limited accessibility was disappointing to say the least.
DOCTOR WHO (57 episodes so far)
ongoing from 26 March 2005; written by Russell T.Davies, Mark Gatiss, Robert Shearman, Paul Cornell, Steven Moffatt, Toby Whitehouse, Tom MacRae, Matt Jones, Mathew Graham, Gareth Roberts, Helen Raynor, Stephen Greenhorn, Chris Chibnall, James Moran, Keith Temple; BBC Wales + CBC (Christmas 2006 and Series 3)
More than fifteen years after the original series expired, and nearly nine after the abortive plan to conquer America, Doctor Who returned to British television via the BBC's Cardiff studio amidst a hail of publicity. However, any traditionalists expecting a revival of the familiar format were in for a shock. The version of Doctor Who brought to the screens by writer Russell T.Davies, whose previous British sci-fi offering had been the six-part children's serial Dark Season in 1991, was as different from the original as could be imagined. Very much a child of its time, Davies' Who was a slick, fast-paced visual spectacular, relying more on extravagent special effects and celebrity guest stars than plot content. In place of a series of stories broken down into twenty-five minute episodes was a collection of forty-five minute installments, most self-contained, some forming halves of longer narratives. The style of the new series was based very much upon that developed in the series of original novels published by Virgin and BBC Books, which had managed to alienate most of the show's traditional fans but found favour with a host of new devotees grounded in over-elaborate American sci-fi serials, whilst the visual side owed much to the American pilot, in particular the design of the Tardis interior (also reminiscent of the Tardis seen in the Sixties' films - the doors being visible from the inside for instance), the opening titles and music, and the overall dark, brooding atmosphere.
Playing the part of a newly-regenerated Doctor in the first series was Christopher Eccleston, but when Eccleston resigned to "avoid being typecast", David Tennant was drafted to replace him in a hurridly rewritten series finale. The first in what turned out to be a rotating entourage of companions was shopgirl Rose Tyler, played by former pop-starlet and current gossip column favourite Billie Piper. Piper lasted two series but was brought back for several episodes in series 4. Taking over the reins temporarily in the 2006 Christmas special was the media-trendies' favourite BBC comedienne Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, who returned as a full-time companion in series 4, whilst series 3 was the preserve of medical student Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, who also popped up in series 4. A second companion was introduced part-way through series 1, the ebullient Captain Jack Harkness played by John Barrowman, who was quickly made the central character in the first of two spin-offs from the new series, Torchwood. Pint-sized Australian pop superstar Kylie Minogue made a brief return to acting as the Doctor's one-off accomplice in the 2007 Christmas extravaganza, followed by former EastEnders regular Michelle Ryan in the 2009 Easter special, the latter returning home from the States after the failure of a remake of The Bionic Woman. In addition, the rather annoying habit modern TV writers have of involving members of regular characters' families, which had threatened the credibility of several other long-running TV drama serials in the previous ten years or so, saw regular appearances for Rose Tyler's mother and boyfriend during the first two series, Martha Jones' parents in Series 3 and Donna Noble's family in Series 4.
Like its American predecessor, the BBC Wales series was caught in two minds over whether it was an entirely new show or a revival of an old one. The TV listings guides, for example, referred to the first series as Series 1, not Series 27. Yet Davies and his writing team couldn't resist reviving various aspects of the original series. The Daleks were an obvious choice for revival, making appearances in all four series, whilst the Cybermen popped up in Series 2 and 4, the Master (played by a John Simm fresh from the triumph of Life On Mars) provided a climactic finale to Series 3, and the Sontarans returned for Series 4. Series 2 also witnessed the revival of the character of Sarah-Jane Smith, played as ever by Elisabeth Sladen (probably one of the greatest victims of typecasting ever!), accompanied by K9, voiced as ever by John Leeson. As with Captain Jack, Sarah and K9 soon became central to the second spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures appearing in 2007 (over a quarter of a century after the original K9 and Company pilot!). The finale to series 4 went totally over the top with revivals, bringing together virtually every major character that had featured in the Welsh series since day one.
More than anything though, the new version of Doctor Who was just part of a vast multi-media marketing exercise involving spin-off shows, magazines, toys and DVDs. The TV series itself, more a spin-off from the series of original novels BBC Books had inherited from Virgin Publishing than a stand-alone continuation of the original series, was marketed aggressively, the initial screening on BBC1 being followed by two on BBC3, before being passed on to the BBC Worldwide owned UKTV Gold satellite/cable channel (now called Watch) and made available to the general public on BBC-produced DVDs within weeks of their original transmission. In addition to that, there were the two spin-off drama serials and not one but two behind-the-scenes quasi-documentary serials. Meanwhile, the long-running Doctor Who Magazine was quickly joined by a new children's periodical published by the BBC, whilst toyshops up-and-down the country were soon stockpiling model Daleks, Cybermen and Tardises manufactured under BBC franchises.
A fifth series was downgraded to a handful of "specials" when Tennant took time out to honour a commitment with the Royal Shakespeare Company then decided to quit the show altogether, forcing new Executive Producer Steven Moffatt to cast the virtually unknown, and very young, Matt Smith in the title role. It remains to be seen how much longer this vastly different version of Who will last.
ATTACK OF THE GRASKE
25 December 2005; written by Gareth Roberts; BBC Wales for BBC-i
In an attempt to persuade the licence-fee paying public that their investment of public money in new technology was being put to good use, the BBC staged this one-off interactive cameo immediately after the 2005 Christmas special via their BBC-i portal. The viewer/participant replaced Rose Tyler's character and helped the Doctor determine which member of an otherwise ordinary family was actually a Graske imposter. The venture ran immediately after The Christmas Invasion and the repeat screening a week later on BBC3.
THE INFINITE QUEST (13 episodes)
2 April 2007 to 30 June 2007; written by Alan Barnes; Firestep/BBC Totally Doctor Who
One of several proposals put forward for continuing the original TV series was as an animated cartoon series, in much the same way Star Trek had been briefly revived in the mid-1970s. However, like all the others, this idea came to nothing. Seventeen years later, with the BBC squeezing every last drop out of the Welsh series, including a post-screening "How It Was Made" Doctor Who Confidential screened on BBC3 (how on Earth did we ever manage to enjoy TV in the 20th Century without knowing every detail of how our favourite shows were made?) and a series for children, Totally Doctor Who, an animated story was not so quickly dismissed. Produced in twelve original episodes averaging 3½ minutes each (hardly a Disney epic!) with a thirteenth tagged on to the end of an omnibus edition, and shown as part of Totally Doctor Who, The Infinite Quest was a fast paced adventure story featuring Tennant's Doctor and Martha Jones searching for hidden datachips with which to unlock The Infinite - a spaceship which could grant people their dearest wishes, whilst evading the clutches of the evil Baltazar. Older fans would no doubt spot a resemblance to the plot of The Keys of Marinus and the "Key to Time" series. For younger viewers, with their typical 21st Century short attention spans, it was unquestionably popular and a powerful advert for the BBC's "Doctor Who Adventures" magazine.
