Most Doctor Who fans seem forever eager to learn the latest piece of
news about the show. Every regular newsletter and fanzine has sought to be the
first out with the latest news on the upcoming season of Doctor Who. Sometimes,
in the absence of legitimate news items, fans are tempted to create their own
false rumours. Some publications have an annual tradition of April Fools
hoaxes (even Doctor Who Magazine has featured such jokes). Since 1982
there have been many rumours and hoaxes concerning Doctor Who. This article
highlights some of the most amusing, clever and intriguing examples. Don't
believe anything you read here (except for the notes in brackets).
The Four Doctors
The final story of Season 18 is called The Four Doctors and features the
Doctor's regeneration. (This hoax was started by the Doctor Who Appreciation
Society in 1980. Interestingly, at the time this was reported the official
announcement of Baker's resignation had yet to be made, so the author of the
piece was probably in the know).
Season Nineteen
Castrovalva features flashbacks to old stories. Christopher Bailey,
author of Kinda, is in fact singer Kate Bush writing under a pseudonym;
the 'evidence' being that somewhere on her album The Hounds of Love there's
supposed to be a sample of dialogue from Kinda. Black Orchid
is a cross between Agatha Christie and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Time-Flight will star Australian singer Olivia Newton-John and is set on
a planet where aliens kill people by giving them headaches!
Season Twenty
Tegan's new regular outfit is a silver and purple spacesuit (this apparently
stemmed from a publicity photo of Janet Fielding wearing a leather suit and
choker). This will be the last season of Doctor Who (in fact from this
year, rumours of series cancellation crop up every season). The plot of Arc of
Infinity has the Doctor assigned by the High Council to track down renegade
Time Lords, including the Master and Omega. The Ice Warriors will appear at the
end of the first episode of Terminus. The Ice Warriors will appear in
The Five Doctors, which is a story made for cinema release.
The Phoenix Rises
The loss of the Dalek story from the strike-shortened Season 20 would be filled
by a new story featuring recently found footage from a William Hartnell story
that was abandoned in 1964. Mixed with new footage with the current TARDIS line-up,
The Phoenix Rises would use the latest in video effects to enable the
Fifth Doctor to meet his former self. (The April 1983 issue of Doctor Who
Monthly featured this hoax, and the only clue that it was bogus was that
the starting date given for the recording of the new material was April 1st).
Season Twenty-One
The Ice Warriors will appear in Warriors of the Deep. Frontios
sees the return of Richard Hurndall, reprising his role as the First Doctor, in
a black and white retrospective story remembered by the Fifth Doctor after he
bumps his head on the TARDIS console. The last story of the season is The
Doctor's Wife by Robert Holmes (this was a hoax instigated by the producer
in an attempt to identify the culprit leaking information about the series).
The regeneration takes place when the Doctor and Maxil's bodies fuse together.
Colin Baker's costume will be like a pirate, complete with eye-patch, and his
new companion will be a mechanical cat. The Twin Dilemma stars Richard Hurndall
and Peter Davison, with appearances by the Cybermats and the Ice Warriors.
The Opera of Doom
This is the title of the first story of Season 22, written by Barbara Clegg,
Eric Saward or Peter Grimwade. The story is set in an old theatre with the
Doctor trapped in a dimension where the play being performed on stage mirrors
the true events he is facing. The Master and Magnus Greel were the lead
antagonists. Litefoot and Jago return having turned their theatre into an opera
house. They trick the Doctor into a series of deadly vocal duels with such old
foes as Omega, the Master, Padmasambhava, the Rills and the Cybermen. Anthony
Ainley would have played both the Master and Magnus Greel, MC-ing the event.
(This was all nothing more than a hoax created by the fanzine DWB).
Season Twenty-Two
The Master will get a teenage companion. The Brigadier and Zoe appear in The
Two Doctors. The writer of Timelash, Glen McCoy, is a pseudonym for
Christopher H. Bidmead, Eric Saward or Peter Grimwade. The Ice Warriors will
appear in the last story of this season.
Season Twenty-Three
Robert Holmes collaborates with Pip and Jane Baker on Gallifrey, the season
finale, in which the Daleks, possibly aided by the Master and the Rani, invade
and destroy the Time Lords' planet. Peri is turned into a Dalek and shoots the
Doctor, who then regenerates (producer John Nathan-Turner denied this rumour
but BBC documentation confirms the existence of a proposed story called
Gallifrey). Season 23 will be shorter than the previous season, perhaps
as short as 14 episodes (of course this was one rumour that did turn out to be
true). Robert Holmes will write three stories, each 2 episodes long. With Eric
Saward's departure either Philip Martin or Pip and Jane Baker will be the new
script editors. The Doctor's trial features flashbacks to old stories and the
Brigadier, K9 and Kamelion are all witnesses at the trial. A young Rassilon
will appear at some point during the season. Black actors Eartha Kitt and Grace
Jones will appear in Mindwarp.
Season Twenty-Four
Michael Briant will be the new producer and wants Sherlock Holmes actor Jeremy
Brett for the Doctor. Philip Martin is the new script editor and has
commissioned himself to write a third and final Sil story. The new season will
be only 12 episodes and one of the stories is Genesis of the Cybermen by
Gerry Davis and Christopher H. Bidmead. Paradise Towers features redesigned
Cybermen who lurk in the basement. Dragonfire sees the return of the Ice
Warriors (now where have we heard that one before?).
Season Twenty-Five
Ben Aaronovitch is an American fan writer using a pseudonym. Two old
companions, possibly Tegan and Jamie, will appear in the last story of the
season. Stratford Johns will be in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,
or The Happiness Patrol. Anita Dobson will play the ringmaster in
Greatest Show. Brian Blessed will appear in The Happiness Patrol. Silver
Nemesis was to have featured the Master, but the script was rewritten after
Anthony Ainley pulled out, feeling that he would be upstaged by the Cybermen.
The story will reveal the mystery about the Doctor's past.
Season Twenty-Six
The first story is The Pools of Lanyth. Rock group Hawkwind has been
asked to compose the incidental music for the first story (this rumour got as
far as the group themselves, who denied it, but were quite interested). Kate
Bush is to play Morgaine in Battlefield. David Bellamy will appear as
himself in The Curse of Fenric. Rona Munro, the writer of Survival, is a
pseudonym. The Master, the Valeyard and Gallifrey will appear in Ghost Light.
The Brigadier dies in one of several endings filmed for Battlefield
(this rumour was created by Nicholas Courtney himself). Several different
endings were also filmed for Survival.
The Colourised Tenth Planet
A Canadian project colourised The Tenth Planet after having found most
of but not the entire missing fourth episode. Using trick photography they
replaced the missing footage. (This hoax originated in the April 1984 issue of
Doctor Who Magazine. The clues were that the article's writer was John
Wakefield - a character from The Ambassadors of Death - and that the
production code given to the project was '01:04/84').
The Death of Yesterday
This was the title of a story by Christopher H. Bidmead involving the Valeyard
using the Raston Robot to go back in time and hunt down the Doctor's old
companions, including Sarah Jane and Tegan. (The hoax script had been concocted
by two fans).
The Dalek Script
A script for the unmade pilot episode of Terry Nation's (very real) projected
Dalek series for American television in the Sixties was unearthed. (This
elaborate hoax involved a yellowed script created by the perpetrators, who had
planted clues in the form of every Terry Nation story title from Doctor Who and
Blake's 7 in the text).
The Daemons Episode Six
An original print of The Daemons was discovered to contain an extra
episode! The story had been edited down to a five-parter at the insistence of
BBC heads who didn't take kindly to the climactic sequence in which God appears
in the cavern to destroy Azal. Accordingly Episodes Five and Six had all scenes
featuring God removed. (This hoax was created by writer Justin Richards for the
April 1993 issue of DWB. The fact that one of the fans who discovered the find
was one April Loofer did make it a bit obvious, but several readers still fell
for the hoax and even wrote demanding the BBC release the extended version!)
Michael Crawford as the Doctor
Information was discovered by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James
Walker in their research for The Seventies revealing that Michael
Crawford had been considered for the part of the Fourth Doctor. A screen test
had been conducted involving Crawford, Elizabeth Sladen and two Daleks on the
set of Death to the Daleks. Crawford, who was recording Some Mothers Do
'Ave 'Em at the BBC at the time, had played the part of the Doctor in his
Frank Spencer costume. A copy of this test footage is in the possession of an
unnamed private collector. (This hoax appeared in the April 1994 issue of
Celestial Toyroom).
