Imagine you’re a “Doctor Who” fan, sitting down to watch the latest episode of your favorite series when you suddenly get an urgent knock at your door. You open the door and find Tom Baker standing outside, asking if he can join you to watch the current episode.
If you were a family in Preston in the UK in November of 1976, this is was happened…at least according to Mr. Baker.
According to Mr. Baker’s autobiography, he was journey back to London on the date in question and eager to see the latest episode of “Doctor Who” and how younger children were reacting to the current storyline. The actor says he knocked on a door and asked the disbelieving family if he could join them to watch the latest episode.
“Their amazement was, well, amazing,” Baker wrote “They were utterly gobsmacked. They couldn’t grasp how I could be in two places at once. And, to their dad’s delight, they couldn’t believe that Doctor Who was in their house.”
The incident is part of the story surrounding the controversial story, “The Deadly Assassin.” At the time, a British group led by advocate Mary Whitehouse was critical of “Doctor Who” for the gothic nature of the stores and the perceived high levels of violence in the story. The controversy reached a zenith with episode three of “Deadly Assassin” which ended on a cliffhanger of the Doctor’s being held underwater in a life and death struggle and then a freeze frame happened. Whitehouse argued that younger audience members would assume that the Doctor was alive under the surface of the water in the gap week-long gap between episodes and that they might try to emulate the behavoir.
The incident let to a change in producer for the show and a toning back of the harder edged stories of the past several seasons.
With “The Deadly Assassin” set for release on DVD later this year, the “Doctor Who” Restoration Team is looking for the family in question to participate in an extra on the incident.
“What intrigues me is it is from an age where Doctor Who can just turn up at your door like that. Fingers crossed, the family in question will turn up,” said writer Simon Farquhar.
According to Farquahar, the family’s friends didn’t believe Baker dropped by, leading to the actor heading to the children’s school for photographs and to verify the story.
If you know anything that can help track down the family in question, please contact chris.visser@lep.co.uk. “The Deadly Assassin” will debut on DVD later this year in the UK.
That must have been so cool for those kids. 😀
I didn’t really perceive Doctor Who as being excessively violent when I watched it as a kid. (Although Pertwee did have that badass judo chop.) Then again, American censors tend to be more tolerant of violence than the Brits, and more concerned about sexual content, which DW has never had a whole lot of.
the family might not want to be botherd it was years ago and how do you know how tom baker will feel about it