At what point did you realize that Hinchcliffe had dropped the ball?

The Arc in Space.

There's only two things Hinchcliffe did wrong to my mind.

One was doing a scorched Earth on the budget during the tail end of Season 14 out of spite at the fact he was being booted over Whitehouse, which caused severe budget problems for the show in the years after.

The second was that he rejected Terry Nation's proposals to do any more Dalek stories and pretty much put them on veto, right at a point where the time couldn't be righter for a resurgence of the Daleks after Genesis. To the point its success wasn't followed up for another five years, by which time it was an anti-climax and the moment had passed.

Other than that, his era did everything right, and he was to my mind the last genuinely great showrunner the series had. All others after were coasting on the good work of his era.

I think he did the opposite, he started out weak in S12 (worst season up to that point), then 13 was a mixed bag (some real classics, some ok stories, and one turkey), then 14 was one of the best, most consistent seasons the show ever had.

The only reason Season 14 is worth a damn is because it introduced the lovely Leela character. Those last two stories are admittedly very good, but Hand of Fear and Deadly Assassin bore the shit out of me.

To use the ranking system from yesterday: I think Face of Evil, Robots of Death, and Masque are classics - and Talons, Hand of Fear and Deadly Assassin are good.

Fendelman wrote:I think he did the opposite, he started out weak in S12 (worst season up to that point), then 13 was a mixed bag (some real classics, some ok stories, and one turkey), then 14 was one of the best, most consistent seasons the show ever had.

Completely with you on this. 12 is the weakest of the era (not sure I agree it's the weakest overall to this point, I'd still take it over season 9 at least), 13 gets more of a style to it and 14 is just superb, with Hand being the only letdown (and even that starts well).

Tanmann wrote:There's only two things Hinchcliffe did wrong to my mind.

One was doing a scorched Earth on the budget during the tail end of Season 14 out of spite at the fact he was being booted over Whitehouse, which caused severe budget problems for the show in the years after.

The second was that he rejected Terry Nation's proposals to do any more Dalek stories and pretty much put them on veto, right at a point where the time couldn't be righter for a resurgence of the Daleks after Genesis. To the point its success wasn't followed up for another five years, by which time it was an anti-climax and the moment had passed.

Other than that, his era did everything right, and he was to my mind the last genuinely great showrunner the series had. All others after were coasting on the good work of his era.

Just some thoughts on what you said above. Apologies if i have misunderstood.

Hinchcliffe (PH) did not follow a scorched earth policy.

In those days, before the onset of Thatcherism but during the chaos of double digit inflation rates in the mid to late seventies, individual programmes did not retain unspent budget at the end of the production year. This may have changed now but not back then. Underspends went back to the centre where senior management then allocated it according to strategic priorities. So there were no real incentives on the part of producers to save money for next year like you seem to suggest. Rather there was the incentive to spend the money on your programme come what may. Given the fact Hinchcliffe (PH) would be judged on the quality of his output in a year his clear incentive was to spend all he had on the year in hand. He could save a bit i guess but he had no surety that that would be spent on Dr Who the following year. The beneficiary could have been any other programme - e.g., Dixon of Dock Green, Play for Today, Z-Cars, Survivors or sthg else.

Budgets were allocated to programmes on an annual basis and used up in that year, the unspent balances then reallocated across the Corporation. I guess PH could have allocated some of his in-year budget to "prop maintenance" but then his budget for the programmes he actually made would suffer - i.e., what his performance as a producer was judged on. And what props exactly? Daleks? Cybermen? Draconians? Wirrn? Zygons? With him being moved on PH wouldn't have a clue what would be a wise investment. If he had spent in-year budget on Dalek shells - well Graham Williams (GW) couldn't be bothered to use the shells until his third year on the show. So they would have probably  fallen apart again by then.

PH delayed a further Dalek story for two years at most - i.e., his second and third year. He'd done one and he wanted to explore other areas, a decision that worked out very well given how successful he was. Thats not really underuse in my opinion. Rather he was avoiding over exposing them. Contra Letts / Dicks and NuWho. JNT only used them 3 times in the nine years he did the show.

It was Williams' (GW) who delayed a Dalek story for another 3 years. So why do you appear to blame Hinch for a 5 year delay when its as much Williams' fault? I would say it was more Williams' fault. By the time Graham started it had been 3 years since Genesis. He was a new producer. He didn't do a Dalek story in season 15 or 16 and he couldn't argue in his defence "well i have already done one". Hinch did one in his first season. Williams' couldn't be bothered. He was more interested in exploring giant prawns, boring run arounds hospitals and dodgy CSO model caves.

The time was no righter for a Dalek story during the last two years of PH's era than at any time during GW's. There may have been a demand for it - certainly among fans like me and the DWAS which i was a member of at that time - but i dont think that demand dissipated just because PH didnt answer it. It was still there, all bottled up, when GW's took over. It was then for GW to develop such a story.

Destiny was an anti-climax, not because of the delay of another Dalek story since Genesis. but because Destiny was ... well ... a little bit meh. That is not PH's fault. It is GW's because GW is the guy who made it. In fairness any Dalek story subsequent to Genesis would probably suffer by comparison but then thats a reflection of the relative abilities of  PH / RH and GW / Douglas Adams.

Sorry but i can't quite agree with your last paragraph either as i also like much of JNT's era. Not as good as PH but still very enjoyable in my book.

stengos wrote:Just some thoughts on what you said above. Apologies if i have misunderstood.

Hinchcliffe (PH) did not follow a scorched earth policy.

In those days, before the onset of Thatcherism but during the chaos of double digit inflation rates in the mid to late seventies, individual programmes did not retain unspent budget at the end of the production year. This may have changed now but not back then. Underspends went back to the centre where senior management then allocated it according to strategic priorities. So there were no real incentives on the part of producers to save money for next year like you seem to suggest. Rather there was the incentive to spend the money on your programme come what may. Given the fact Hinchcliffe (PH) would be judged on the quality of his output in a year his clear incentive was to spend all he had on the year in hand. He could save a bit i guess but he had no surety that that would be spent on Dr Who the following year. The beneficiary could have been any other programme - e.g., Dixon of Dock Green, Play for Today, Z-Cars, Survivors or sthg else.

Budgets were allocated to programmes on an annual basis and used up in that year, the unspoent balances then reallocated across the Corporation. I guess PH could have allocated some of his in-year budget to "prop maintenance" but then his budget for the programmes he actually made would suffer - i.e., what his performance as a producer was judged on. And what props exactly? Daleks? Cybermen? Draconians? Wirrn? Zygons? With him being moved on PH wouldn't have a clue what would be a wise investment. If he had spent in-year budget on Dalek shells - well Graham Williams (GW) couldn't be bothered to use the shells until his third year on the show. So they would have probably  fallen apart again by then.

Oh.

I was going by the About Time books. They have tidbits of behind the scenes points on each story, and it described him telling his designers to 'spend away' on Talons, and mentioned that budget caps on the show by the BBC followed as a consequence. It was put in a way that seemed to make sense of the contrast between Talons and the shoddier production values of stories after.

But what you said here about budget allocations is illuminating. Perhaps the veracity of the About Time books is questionable in that case. Certainly it's true that the Williams era coincided with a period of massive inflation which must've hit the show very badly.

Also there was a bit in Richard Marson's book on JNT that interviewed design staff who'd worked under Williams who said that actually sometimes the BBC would just help themselves to a dip of the show's allocated budget if they wanted to spend a bit more on another show.

PH delayed a further Dalek story for two years at most - i.e., his second and third year. He'd done one and he wanted to explore other areas, a decision that worked out very well given how successful he was. Thats not really underuse in my opinion. Rather he was avoiding over exposing them. Contra Letts / Dicks and NuWho. JNT only used them 3 times in the nine years he did the show.

It was Williams' (GW) who delayed a Dalek story for another 3 years. So why do you appear to blame Hinch for a 5 year delay when its as much Williams' fault? I would say it was more Williams' fault. By the time Graham started it had been 3 years since Genesis. He was a new producer. He didn't do a Dalek story in season 15 or 16 and he couldn't argue in his defence "well i have already done one". Hinch did one in his first season. Williams' couldn't be bothered. He was more interested in exploring giant prawns, boring run arounds hospitals and dodgy CSO model caves.

The time was no righter for a Dalek story during the last two years of PH's era than at any time during GW's. There may have been a demand for it - certainly among fans like me and the DWAS which i was a member of at that time - but i dont think that demand dissipated just because PH didnt answer it. It was still there, all bottled up, when GW's took over. It was then for GW to develop such a story.

Destiny was an anti-climax, not because of the delay of another Dalek story since Genesis. but because Destiny was ... well ... a little bit meh. That is not PH's fault. It is GW's because GW is the guy who made it. In fairness any Dalek story subsequent to Genesis would probably suffer by comparison but then thats a reflection of the relative abilities of  PH / RH and GW / Douglas Adams.

Well I've always felt that Genesis was leading to some kind of new, greater, apocalyptic implications with the Daleks. From reading a particular Genesis overview in the Doctor Who Figurine Collection magazine on the making of the story, it seems Terry Nation was enthusiastic about the idea of doing a Dalek story every season, which seemed to make sense of the idea that Genesis was meant to be something of a big cliffhanger for the next season's encounter. But Hinchcliffe shot him down and said he had no interest in doing the Daleks again. I think this might be where a breakdown of contact or understanding began between Nation and the show's production team began.

After all Genesis itself had been rather a commission by the previous Letts/Dicks regime that Hinchcliffe had inherited, but I think he was just never keen on the Daleks and would've happily done without them.

With Williams, I think his plan had always been to do the Key to Time arc, but he couldn't do it in Season 15 because he wanted to plan it a bit, and had leftover commissions from the previous team to get out the way first (presumably filler made up the rest). So that seemed to rule out the Daleks for two seasons. After he seemed to think it was time, but by then the Daleks were looking worse for wear by disuse. I suppose I would apportion blame for that to both. But maybe it might've been different if David Maloney had become Hinchcliffe's natural successor instead.

Sorry but i can't quite agree with your last paragraph either as i also like much of JNT's era. Not as good as PH but still very enjoyable in my book.

Ah okay.

I suppose I could charitably say that I think JNT could've ordinarily been a good fill-in producer to shake things up. I think despite everything, things held up very solidly up to Earthshock. But I think the longer he stayed and became a more imposing gatekeeper, and the more Saward was embittered to rebel, the more I think the show suffered for it.

Perhaps there is a fair amount of enjoyment in there I've unduly overlooked and discounted, but for me it seemed somewhat tainted by the sense of behind the scenes pettiness becoming sometimes manifest in the show itself. And also it seemed much of the pleasures of the era were a bit fan niche-aimed in a way I've never quite felt part of or struggled to comfortably subscribe to (if that makes sense).

If anyone dropped the ball it was those who caved into Nanny Whitehouse.

Everything is William's fault.

If you're a sad bastard.

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