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Classic Who and Budget

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I've noticed in watching classic Who that, in the DVD extras, the behind-the-scenes people consistently mention that the show had no money. This was even mentioned as the years went on, through Pertwee and Baker, even though the show had become much more popular. I've been wondering why, if the show became so popular in the 70s, why there wasn't a significant improvement in sets and special effects through the Baker era, which is where I am right now in watching classic Who. It especially sticks out when I'm watching a Baker serial and it looks like 60s Star Trek. Did the BBC have something against Doctor Who?
 
it was problem that plague the origina series right to the end. On More the 30 Years In The TARDIS how everything was rush rush and done in the shortest possible time to keep costs down.

A lot of it probably came down to which department paid for the show - it's quite possible that the show was produced with money from BBC division that handled children's programming which would of had a smaller budget than "adult dramas". (though I recall after the show was canned in 1988, the BBC then when and blew a large chunk of cash on some soapy drama that was a complete and utter flop).

Though no doubt there were those at the BBC that hated the show and would gladly liked it to go away.

However if you really want to see some-one bitch about the money for production, Patrick McNee has a lot to say about the producers of the Avengers and their tight fisted ways.
 
Here's the comparison I've made over the years.

"Evil of the Daleks" is three times the length of "City on the Edge of Forever" and was done at half the budget. (The actual budget, that is. Not Roddenberry's imaginary budget that he trotted out over the years.)

One of the major problems in the 1970s was inflation, which reached an absurd 25% one year. The show was budgeted for a certain amount, but inflation severely reduced the spending power between commission and production.
 
Here's the comparison I've made over the years.

"Evil of the Daleks" is three times the length of "City on the Edge of Forever" and was done at half the budget. (The actual budget, that is. Not Roddenberry's imaginary budget that he trotted out over the years.)

One of the major problems in the 1970s was inflation, which reached an absurd 25% one year. The show was budgeted for a certain amount, but inflation severely reduced the spending power between commission and production.

This is true the show was greatly affected double digit inflation. The Pirate Planet was said to have cost 30,000 Pounds which really wasn't as cheap as people make it out to be.
 
DW was shot on video, Star Trek on film - that's an important consideration in calculating how far the budgets would go, because the simple cost of film was a major factor in those days. The cost of negative stock, developing and printing could run about ten percent of the cost of making a show like Trek.
 
Pah, Who's budget was probably huge compared to Blakes 7's! When B7 began it was given the budget of the show it was replacing, a contemporary police show called Z-Cars! :lol:

Its amazing that Who and Blakes 7 look as good as they do.
 
Pah, Who's budget was probably huge compared to Blakes 7's! When B7 began it was given the budget of the show it was replacing, a contemporary police show called Z-Cars! :lol:

Its amazing that Who and Blakes 7 look as good as they do.

And not just those shows. For whatever reason, the economy, people not taking SF seriously, whatever, BBC and ITV-produced SF of the 1970s were almost universally given zero-level budgets. And this continued into the 80s.

Check out the first seasons of Red Dwarf. Also Sapphire & Steel. The Tomorrow People seemed to get a bit more money to play with, but not much. I seemed to recall thinking they probably spent most of their budget on the opening credits for that show.

All that said, everything is relative. The only reason US productions of the time looked bigger in budget is because they were shot on film, and film automatically makes shows appear more impressive in some ways. If you want proof, track down any old non-VidFired release of 1960s Who, say An Unearthly Child or The Daleks, and then compare with the recently restored versions that reverted it back to the original videotape look. The videotape version looks cheaper. Even Patrick Macnee's much-maligned early Avengers (and I believe his budget complaints primarily involve the first 3 seasons that were shot on video and even aired live on a couple occasions) look like they had bigger budgets than they did because they only exist as kinescopes now. If they were to be remastered back to video, they'd look really cheap.

Not that North American TV didn't produce UK-style cheap SF at times. The infamous series The Starlost is on DVD and when I watched it I realized the much-maligned SFX of that ultra-cheap show (which was videotaped at a Toronto TV studio probably down the hall from the news desk, just as Doctor Who was at the BBC Television Centre) were no worse, and sometimes were even BETTER than Doctor Who and Blake's 7 episodes of that era.

Being an open-minded viewer, I don't watch old TV expecting the SFX to match what we have today (which is why the cutting and pasting of modern CGI onto Star Trek TOS grates with me so badly). But I do bemoan the fact that the single storyline of the 1970s, or indeed of all of classic Who, that comes close to matching the high-end look of most US SFTV of the time, or nuWho, was Pertwee's first story, Spearhead from Space, which stands as the only regular DW story ever to be completely produced on film (due to some fluke involving a strike, I believe, that forced them to do this). It was an experiment that was never repeated, and even today nuWho is videotaped and transferred to film.

Alex
 
But I do bemoan the fact that the single storyline of the 1970s, or indeed of all of classic Who, that comes close to matching the high-end look of most US SFTV of the time, or nuWho, was Pertwee's first story, Spearhead from Space, which stands as the only regular DW story ever to be completely produced on film (due to some fluke involving a strike, I believe, that forced them to do this). It was an experiment that was never repeated, and even today nuWho is videotaped and transferred to film.
The Scene-Shifters Union was on strike, which meant that Who couldn't film on the soundstages, which meant they couldn't use videotape. "Spearhead" was shot on location, entirely on film, as a result. It wasn't an "experiment," per se, just an attempt to work around the production limitations of a strike.
 
There was a bit of a budget jump when JNT took over, but the show still had corny FX...

There are some impressive FX in the classic series here and there. The Trial Space Station for instance and also some of Mike Tucker's FX for the McCoy era weren't too shabby either. (He's also worked on the new series).
 
A lot of it probably came down to which department paid for the show - it's quite possible that the show was produced with money from BBC division that handled children's programming which would of had a smaller budget than "adult dramas". (though I recall after the show was canned in 1988, the BBC then when and blew a large chunk of cash on some soapy drama that was a complete and utter flop).

Eldorado. :lol:

These days you can get fairly decent special effects on the cheap and the BBC have some of the best special effects people in the world on their doorstep.
 
Yeah it's a shame they can't go back and make the old Who's look as good as TOS does now (although I admit there is something kind of magical about those grainy B&W 60s episodes).

Speaking of budget, I've always wondered what kind of salaries the actors playing the Doctor got? They had to be just as popular in Britain as any of our TV stars, yet my impression is they never really got paid shit. Except maybe Tom Baker who hung around for awhile.
 
^Actually there has been plenty of restoration on the DVDs, and they've even in some cases added new visual FX.
 
^Actually there has been plenty of restoration on the DVDs, and they've even in some cases added new visual FX.
Yes, there's been restoration, but TOS still looks better by dint of having been shot on film.
 
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