It’s clearly the silly season…
The Daily Mail is reporting the story of a man who claims to have come up with the idea of Davros in a 1972 contest. The story alleges this gentlemen entered the idea of Davros into a TV Comic contest judged by the third Doctor himself and the series production team. He even has an undated picture to assist his claim.
Not wishing to judge this suit one way or another, but one has to wonder if the plaintiff realizes that he’s making a claim about creating a character in one of the most documented and researched television series ever. In the unlikely event that Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks and Jon Pertwee (the contest judges) thought Davros was an idea worth pilfering, this would have to involve a massive conspiracy involving outgoing producers and script editors (Letts and Dicks), the incoming script editor and producer (Robert Holmes, who played no small part in bringing Davros to life, and Philip Hinchcliffe), the designer, and much more.
I think the word I’m looking for is “completely baseless”. Ok, that’s two words…
In other news, I came up with Meglos in 1975. I have crayon drawings to prove it.
Posted by Graeme on Sunday, March 20 at 12:00 pm
4 Comments...
Although the fact one of the reports says the BBC’s lawyers are planning to go through the Terry Nation archives does give one pause. If that picture is legitimate it is a striking similarity, and worth investigation. But as noted, the show is so well documented that I can’t see this sticking. If he’d actually won, or was a runner up and TV Action had printed his entry, that might have helped his case. As you say, we don’t want to judge things ahead of, well, the judge, but I personally can’t see this sticking. Terry Nation wasn’t even involved with Doctor Who that much in 1972. He was so busy with The Persuaders that he gave the green light for another writer to do Day of the Daleks, and eventually got around to writing some stories himself later.
Posted by Alex on 03/22 at 04:54 PM
If this story were true it would rate as one of the most blatant examples of intellectual theft and plagiarism I have heard of: Television executives would have stolen from a child, not just the vague concept of a Doctor Who villain, but his name, design and detailed back-history, and they would have had to have transmitted this information to their professional replacements.
It seems quite unlikely to me. Too bad (or convenient)that so many of the people involved are now dead. Terrence Dicks must be the only survivor, no?
Posted by andrew B. on 03/23 at 05:17 AM
Well he wouldn’t be the first artist/designer that Terry Nation got rich from (Cough cough Raymond Cusick Cough Cough). However I would think that any contest like that would have fine print stating that all entries become BBC property, wouldn’t you?
Posted by Doug Grandy on 03/23 at 11:13 AM
@ Andrew B. What makes it seem unlikely to succeed in my opinion is that considering the many contests that were done involving “design a monster” for Doctor Who - heck, I think there’s one on right now in the UK - on Blue Peter, in magazines, and with some designs actually being used like the Absorbaloff in Love & Monsters, I can’t see the BBC or the DW production team lifting an idea wholesale from a contest entry, otherwise it would open them up to legal issues with virtually every contest entrant going back to 1965 or whenever, up to the contest going on now, if the show features any creatures that even come remotely close. Whether the claim is legitimate or whether it’s not, how the BBC proceeds may set a precedent that could come back to bit them if, say, someone claims ownership of the Cybermen, or the Weeping Angels.
Mind you, I’m surprised Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler never went after Paramount regarding the Borg, which I spotted as a riff on the Cybermen the moment they first appeared on TNG 20 years ago.
Posted by Alex on 03/23 at 01:56 PM
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