One of the Spoiler Hints from the Brilliant Book Of DW mentioned Apollo 10.5 which would be a US 1960's set story. Presumably it gets launched from a secret site in the Utah Desert.
Historically,
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California would fill that role; they had a full space launch facility, including facilities for manned flight, and many military satellites were launched from there. Why create a fictional launch facility when there's a perfectly good real facility?
You have far more faith in
Doctor Who's ability to get obscure bits of foreign minutiae right than I do.
A visit to the Oval Office eh? Sounds uncomfortably like Victory of the Daleks pt 2!
Don't tell me Nixon has the Doctor's phone number as well (though could be Johnson also, 'late sixties' isn't overly specific).
I can't possibly imagine that the Doctor would be good friends with either one of those war criminals. I can see him tolerating Johnson -- but he'd
never get along with a monster like Nixon.
Re: The Oval Office.
Given that this would probably take place during Nixon's term, and given his predilection for overthrowing governments, I wonder if the Doctor was the guy who got Woodward and Bernstein to start investigating the Watergate break-in...
Good point. After seeing the BBC America promo (with the TARDIS crashing into Texas), it occurred to me that the story could be primarily set in Texas, which is where NASA's headquarters are, assuming that the "Apollo 10.5" bit from the Brilliant Book is a genuine spoiler.
I've wondered if they may also trek out to Hollywood. If they're filming a scene (or scenes) in the Oval Office, why build a set when there are perfectly good standing White House sets in Hollywood? Like for The Event, for instance. It would be cheaper to rent a set for a day's filming than it would be to build the set.
Good call, and from my, admittedly non US background, it's my understanding that the appointments of the Oval Office haven't changed that much so standing sets now could quite easily be tweaked to represent the late 60s.
Well, just putting on my super-dork hat for a minute, the drapes and carpets are always different from President to President, and neither Johnson nor Nixon used the Resolute Desk that is traditionally used and which is usually replicated in the various Oval Office sets used for TV shows and films that feature the President. But those are probably relatively minor adjustments that would only take a few hours to make -- and wouldn't strictly be necessary, since it's not like
Doctor Who absolutely needs to adhere to every minute detail of historical accuracy.
(Though I will admit that it
really bugged me to see the Interstate Highway System logo on the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, sign in "Dreamland." Goddamnit, the Interstate Highway System didn't even exist until the '50s...)
BTW:
Allyn, do you happen to know if the Oval Office set used for
The Event is new, or if it's one of the standing sets that were around throughout the last decade? I know that the Oval Office seen in
The West Wing was originally built for the movie
Dave before being used in
The American President and then
The West Wing, and also appeared briefly in
Smallville. And I want to say that I remember reading that the Oval Office set featured in
X-Men 2 was used for
Commander-in-Chief.
Yup, and if he's that easy to call then it makes a bit of a mockery of the character. I mean why can't he help defeat Hitler?
Fixed points in time, presumably. To be fair, "The Pandorica Opens" made it clear that even attempts to call the Doctor don't always work.
On the other hand, doesn't Utah have some salt deserts and the like?
It would be more accurate to say, "Doesn't that giant salt desert called Utah have a few cities and the like?"
