Doctor Who: Professor Wenn - The Series That Never Was
The series appears to have been the creation two low-level BBC employees; Piers Fraus-Dolus and Martin Bannister.
Im sure by now most of you have already read or heard the fascinating news from the BBC. Apparently a very, very early draft version of Doctor Who has surfaced. How early? 1956, making it a full seven years before the series actually aired. From what it sounds like, this idea never really made it past the concept stage. They never did any filming or casting, though they had some people in mind, and never wrote any stories, but they did have some outlines. The series was to go into production in 1957, in an effort to capitalize on the success of The Quatermass Experiment. BBC budget cutbacks early that year prevented this from happening, which was for the best, as youll see. The BBC article is quite long, so Ill summarize it for you tl;dr people. The series appears to have been the creation two low-level BBC employees; Piers Fraus-Dolus and Martin Bannister. It was to be called Professor Wenn. The name was pronounced like when and was meant to emphasize the characters ability to travel through time rather than the mysterious origins that a name like Doctor Who might suggest. Heres the outline for the main characters. Professor Kronus Wenn An inventor in his mid-thirties who builds a time/space travel machine. Wenns purpose for this is to visit famous inventors through history. No mention is made of him being an alien, so we can assume that, like the Cushing Doctor, hes meant to be human. He was also put forth as more of an action/adventure sort of hero than the First Doctor was. Sally Reed Wenns fiancée. Shes described in the BBC documents as being a vivacious young woman with a mind of her own. Jonathan Edward Reed Sallys grandfather. Yes, the production team had the grandfather/granddaughter dynamic even in this early version of the show. Hes a cranky, cantankerous old man, not unlike the First Doctor, and doesnt trust Wenn very much. The three of them would have wound up stranded in time and when Sally and Jonathan come to visit Wenn as hes working on the time machine (its not given any special name, its just referred to as the machine in the outline, and its made clear that it carries four passengers and doesnt appear to be bigger on the inside). There were also some suggested cast notes, which seem to be written more as a wouldnt it be nice if we could get so-and-so, as opposed to actual efforts at casting. The possible names included Donald Pleasance and Patrick McGoohan for Wenn, and Yvonne Mitchell for Sally and Reginald Tate (who played Quatermass), for Jonathan. Interestingly, one of the early notes suggests Geoffery Bayldon or Patrick Troughton might be good choices for Wenn. Bayldon was considered for the role of the Doctor when Doctor Who launched, and of course Troughton went on to play the Second Doctor. Jacqueline Hill, later cast as Barbara Wright in Doctor Who, is also mentioned as a possible actress for Sally. Even more interesting is a suggestion that Richard Hurndall might be good to play Jonathan. Hurndall went on to play the First Doctor in The Five Doctors. The BBC also provided some basic outlines for stories. Stranded in Time would have been the first full story and would have featured Wenn, Sally and Jonathan stuck in Britain during the time of the druids. They would have gotten involved in the building of Stonehenge, but beyond that, there arent a lot of details. The Metal Men would have featuredwell, stop me when this sounds familiar. Our travelers would have arrived on a dead planet with high levels of radiation. After wandering about a bit they would have encountered a group of aliens who traveled in metal travel devices and were called Dolakers. The story was to be written by a young fellow named Terry Nation. Mission to Madness! Complete with an exclamation point at the end. The details of this are very vague, but apparently the travelers would have encountered Dracula, Ivan the Terrible and Kublai Kahn. The BBC documents are vague as to where the series would have gone after that point. Plans apparently called for 100 episodes a year and a budget of about two-thousand pounds, an amount which was deemed way too large for a TV series such as this. The series was shelved at that point, and appears to have been forgotten until 1962 when Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert stumbled upon it and made it what it is today. As for the series original creators, Piers Fraus-Dolus and Martin Bannisterwell, Fraus-Dolas went missing while on a visit to Norway in 1961 and Bannister was institutionalized in 1959. Apparently he started thinking that the stories hed come up with were real. These things happen. For those who want the whole story behind the concept and what exactly happened with it, you can click here.