From Sin to Who - Recycling the Future

How did this:

Madam Sin (1972) ITC

End up here:

Doctor Who Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) BBC

Well lets go for a bit of a ramble and speculate...

ITC (Incorporated Television Company) or ITC Entertainment as it was known in America was a British television production and distribution company best remembered for a string of cult TV shows made during the 60s and 70s.

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Champions, The Prisoner, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Stingray, Joe 90, Man in a Suitcase, Department S, The Persuaders!, Jason King and The Protectors, to name but a few of the ones we may look at here one day.

In addition to television programming, ITC also produced several feature films, including; Capricorn One, The Eagle Has Landed, The Boys from Brazil and Madam Sin.

The latter; Madam Sin, had started life as a pilot for a potential TV series but had failed to excite the American network schedulers and so, following its initial broadcast in 1972 on ABC, it saw distribution to the rest of the world in the aforementioned guise of a movie.

And, having recently viewed the cinema trailer, I can now identify it as one of those half remembered movies I started watching on my portable TV late one night in the early 80's (?) without ever knowing its name.  I think I fell asleep without seeing it to conclusion but I do intend to rectify that quite soon because it looks like fun.

Its perhaps also worth mentioning at this point that ITC was founded by television mogul Lew Grade who, with fingers in many other TV pies of the day, was also co-owner of Century 21 Productions, alongside founder and creator Gerry Anderson.

Now when the Century 21 partnership ended in 1970, many of its costumes, sets, and props from its various TV productions were sold off to hire companies, with quite a few of the smaller pieces going to the special effects boys from the BBC who, rumour has it, filled up a van with goodies for 70 quid.

So my guess is that the sonic gun from Madam Sin was mixed in with the Century 21 stuff as part of the clearance and as such destined to be recycled as a dinosaur stun gun in Doctor Who.

There are a few other bits and bobs from the back of the van that are worth looking at in the future but this seemed as good a place as any to start, if only because its that little bit more obscure than the sonic screw driver and various spaceships... and a bit of speculation usually brings the experts out into the open and starts discussion.

In the mean time it is a hansom prop and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it had featured in further roles as well as these.

Steve

The Herb garden (1968)

Steve

Cybermen - 1975 to 1982

I've been thinking about the Cybermen recently, following a couple of very good articles in a recent issues of DWM. Now I'm old enough to remember watching The Revenge of the Cybermen on first transmission back in 1975 and I was still watching when they made their surprise return in Earthshock in 1982.

 

Somewhere in between that I became a "proper" Doctor Who fan and as such you have to decide who your favourite monster is and for me it was the Cybermen.  Sure the Daleks were good but the Cybermen were much better, much scarier, much more unknown and unknowable.  As a modern fan of the new series, I'm very much of the opposite opinion because the new writers really understand the Daleks, where as the Cybermen have been reduced to tin plated soldiers, looking for a good plot.  And with hindsight, they always were.

 

Anyway my recent thoughts were about how and why the Cybermen had become my favourites back then, especially when there was so little of them on screen for so long.  And we are going back to a time before the internet, video and with little or no repeat of old shows on any of the two BBC channels. How then did they even feature in my younger life.

 

How indeed...

 

Revenge of the Cybermen 1975

 



1975

1975

 

 

1975

 

1976

 

1977

 

1977

1978

 

1978

 

1979

 

Black Legacy - Comic strip 1980

 

Deathworld - comic strip 1980

Throwback - Soul of a Cyberman comic strip  (1980)

 

1981

Earthshock in 1982

 

And there you have it; they were hiding in plain sight.   Interesting though how almost no two are quite the same and at least half are not the correct version for the story they are meant to be illustrating.  And yet the Cyber brand is clearly identifiable and strong enough to carry the race's reputation across the decade.

 

Steve

Behind the Planet of the Daleks (1973)

Welcome to the Beachfields Quarry in Surrey.  It's the 2nd or 3rd of January 1973 and we are here filming the Doctor Who story; The Planet of the Daleks.  Come the spring when the story transmits, this will be the planet Spiridon, just one more alien world to be subjugated by the tyranny of the Dalek forces.

Steve

Tom Baker and the Daleks at BBC TV Centre (1974)

Its interesting how they've been using these images for decades now but its only through putting a few of them together for this blog post that I've thought of them as a set of stills from the same photo-shoot.  That's quite an icon and successful photo-shoot for which I would like to credit the photographer, if anyone knows.

I reckon this must be Tom's Abbey Road

 

Which oddly the following isn't!

 

And that's why you haven't seen these images of Jon Pertwee, 3rd Doctor, used quite so much - Come on Man! Get up and stand up to them!

 

 

Steve