A Visit With The Doctor
By Karen E. Wilson
Photos
By Fran Evans
He came by way of airplane, not by
TARDIS, and the long scarf and
floppy hat had been replaced by a
three-piece business suit. But the curly brown
hair, rich British accent and charismatic wit
marked him unmistakably as Tom Baker, the
flamboyant BBC star best known as Dr. Who.
STARLOG spoke with Baker in Los Angeles,
where he paid a surprise visit to a Dr.
Who convention.
"It was simply marvelous [being] with the
supporters of the program! They were
wonderful! It was heaven. It's interesting that
in the United Kingdom the average age of the
people who turn out for two hours to meet
me, to talk to me for 30 seconds, is about six
years old. Now the thousand people who
turned out Saturday were certainly young
adults.... So that's very surprising.
"I think when one looks at the success of a
film and television series, after the thing has
become successful people start asking rather
searching questions. And the ghastly sort of
reality is, that it was all an accident. In fact,
the first reason why it's successful is because
there isn't anything like it So therefore, it's
bound to have some. kind of success; it
doesn't admit a comparison. That makes it
unique!" Baker exclaims, his arms waving,
his eyes wide. "And secondly, I think the
BBC do have a very high level of technical ex-
pertise that backs up the uniqueness of the
program. I think for those two reasons we do
rather well among people who are interested
in the subject.
"And mostly, I've always thought that
most of the science-fantasy or science-fiction
things that I look at are rather devoid of any
irony or humor. Let us think of something
for which one cannot say one single thing
except that it employed a lot of people. Space:
1999, that was an exercise designed
it seems to me by accident — to put the whole
viewing public into a coma. There wasn't one
single redeeming feature to it. In spite of the
fact that the expertise that went into it was
stupifying! Marvelous designers of costumes
and sets, excellent actors, lovely music, lovely
special effects. And quite serious people
writing the scripts. Why didn't it work?" The
effervescent Baker pauses for effect, fully
prepared to answer his own question.
"I think that somehow when they set out
on that project, they were actually impressed
by the project! Why don't they just tell a few
adventure stories within the formula of Space: 1999!
"No! There were those actors with their
hearts on their sleeves being—damnit! so sincere
and it was so ponderous. There was
nothing silly about it. Now, if there's nothing
witty or funny or silly or something, it's utterly
devoid of any resemblance to reality. My
view is: I cannot conceive of any situation
which is real or imaginative which isn't all of
those. If you want to work with an alien or a
group of aliens in outer space, you've got to
look for irony and humor, and silliness,
embarassment, a sense of verve, dynamics,"
Baker continues. He is seated, but animated.
"But you cannot roll in it as if it were the
first time anybody's ever heard [Beethoven's]
Fifth Symphony. It starts in: Ba ba-ba-
boom!, as though it were some new thing
with something really important to say. Since
when did television actually think it had
something important to say? Time to switch it
off," says Baker, "actually start talking to
each other."
It is quite dear that Tom Baker has strong
feelings about television and science fiction
and the products of their intermingling. And
he is refreshingly outspoken.
"The real trick about television is that the
really gifted people are all alchemists. And
they are alchemists in the sense that they have
to transmute whippetshit—I can't think of
anything more despicable to say about popular
lar television scripts than to call them whip-
petshit," Baker explains. ("I don't even
know what whippetshit looks like, but it
sounds to be very thin and obscene....) But
they have to transform whippetshit into the
gold of entertainment."
"And sometimes, if they're very, very
clever, to transform it into something quite
inspiring and amusing, diverting, that fills
people with optimism. That's the real test of
who's any good at it.
"Anyone can stand up on television with a
modicum of expertise and indulge, or pander
to prejudice and bigotry. And say 'the right
things' in a reasonant voice. And be charm-
ingly dressed and do whatever it is — a quiz
show or some ghastly situation comedy. But
it needs someone really very clever to transmute
that to something very special."
Baker chuckles when asked if, after all,
there is any difference between himself and
the equally incisive and charming Doctor.
"You'd have to ask someone else," is his
cautious response. "I mean, I don't know a
thing about Dr. Who from an actor's point of
view. Of course, Dr. Who is not the only
unique thing about it [the series], I play an
alien. Of course it's not really an acting
part.. .it doesn't admit any development.
You have a character who is actually utterly,
utterly predictable. That's a burning formula
for boredom," Baker states.
"I don't really know how it went at the
beginning; that was 17 years ago. But imagine.
Someone says, 'Well, look—here's this char-
acter, he's an alien, comes from Gallifrey,
and he flies around in a police box, and he's
got this girl with him sometimes.' And the
producer must have said to the director,
'Well, what docs he do?' He gets involved in
all sorts of scrapes and finally he triumphs
and he's a son of hero, a melodramatic hero.
And they said, 'Does he knock off the girls or
is he a drunk, is he tired, does he have a hump
on his back?' No, he's absolutely straight-
forward! .He doesn't smoke or drink, he
doesn't eat, he doesn't even drink tea! Let
alone take sugar in it! He doesn't get involved
in an emotional relationship with anybody,
and he is never, but never, gratuitously
violent.
"Someone must have said, 'Well Christ!
That sounds like a very convoluted formula
for anesthetic!' But that if the character. The
character is incapable of development for the
person who is playing him. Fine fellow, but
utterly predictable," Baker says.
"The real trick, and fun for the actor playing him, is:
How can you be utterly predictable
and still come in with enough vitality
and generate enough static and surprise to
gloss over the commonplace and turn it into
something else? It's very difficult."
"One of the problems in science fiction is
that in the future it gets very difficult to
describe the ordinary artifacts of existence,"
Baker continues. "What are cars going to
look like in the 23rd century? Or men's hair-
cuts? Or women's figures? Nobody knows. It
becomes difficult for writers of the future to
define these artifacts.
"But in fantasy, you can actually blow up
the time factor and go anywhere you want;
but not irresponsibly, because the characters
have to be defined. And yet, in our fantasy,
while we have to define the characters and
their responsibilities, we're not channeled by
the tedious business of what is scientifically
viable—because fantasy actually gives one
the freewheeling area of what might be
desirable, if we could break all the laws of
science and morality or whatever. You break
all the laws! And we can go into a worldwhich'is marvelous. And it's funny, and
sometimes frightening. All the time there is
the underlying heartbeat of being optimistic,
diverting! But the most important thing is
that television shouldbe diverting! Take people
out of themselves, literally out of life.
"So fantasy has a marvelous service to offer
of audience that watches what I do. I adore
them! I love them! They make my whole existence
possible! I truly do love them."
But Baker would still like a chance to
realize more of the Doctor's potential and
perhaps share it with a new audience. Toward
that end, he wrote a screenplay for &Dr. Who
film, but hasn't been able to sell it.
"Nothing has come of it, as you would expect"
Baker says with a sardonic chuckle.
"Moviemakers are very cautious, aren't
they? Dr. Who sells in every country in South
America except two. It sells all over the Mid-
dle East and the Far East, in the United Kingdom,
Australia, New Zealand and sixty-five places
in America.
"It's a formula which is underpinned by
hundreds of hours of television all over the
world. They run it again, and again and
again! And yet somehow, no one will enter
into actually making a movie of it!
"You see, most of the science-fiction or
fantasy movies are contingent upon special
effects for their success. I'm not interested in
special effects, and I think I have a kind of
.popular taste. I trust the audience. And I
don't think that people are interested in just
special effects.
"The only thing that is interesting, that
makes life bearable, is sharing something
with other people. All the rest is just whippet-
shit! It's only people in dilemmas that're in-
teresting to anybody. What is especially in-
teresting is people cracking the dilemma and
pushing on, surviving.... I'm interested in
ingenuity. I'm interested in characters who
actually amuse me."
\"I'll laugh, but especially at people who
will inspire me with their fundamental sense
of optimism—what they do isn't solved by
the annihilation of the opposition. It isn't
solved by some absolute decision, which
means something is killed or destroyed....
Bores me to death!
"I mean, I think of a few successful shows
like Kojak. I can't picture anything more
despicably sentimental and appalling than the
character of Kojak. So charmless! And when
he tries to be charming he ends up shockingly
sentimental.
"There's such a terrible simplifying of
everything. What happens is such a waste of
material and resources and a waste of tech-
nical possibilities, because they could all be so
much more fun and interesting. I'm opposed
to 'bang bang bang comma, boom boom
boom exclamation mark! On popular televi-
sion there are too many exclamation marks.
Really, the punctuation's pretty awful. Too
many dashes and exclamation marks!"
Baker breaks up laughing at this, and then
looks around. Everyone in the coffee shop
has stopped to listen to him, and he smiles,
enjoying his audience.
"You know, there's a big difference
between television and film. The fundamental
difference is the context in which it takes
place. When you're going to the movies it's a
formal affair. You get on a bus or you go in a
car and you buy a ticket and, although the
movie is a communal experience, it actually
becomes instantly private when the screen
lights up because the movie happens in the
dark. It happens in the dark! That's what's so
marvelously exciting about them! Television,
as opposed to 'happens in the dark,' takes
place practically by definition in a domestic
context where the degree of concentration
and the instance of distraction is stupendous-
ly higher! People are making tea, or tele-
phones are ringing or babies are crying. Peo-
ple are having fights-all with the television
on. You can't do that in a movie, not without
being thrown out!
"So television is always domestic, isn't it?
And that sense catches people also. Although
their degree of concentration might be
slighter and more intermittent, it gets people
when they are terrifically vulnerable. And
because of that amazing intimacy, there's a
difference between television actors and film
actors, because when I meet the audience that
watches me in their living rooms, they feel
much more proprietary about me than they
do about-well, I don't know, say Jack
Nicholson.
"Someone spots me in a restaurant and
their kids come over and say, 'You're Doctor
Who!' And I say, 'Yes, I am. HeUo there.'
I'm the only man in England for whom
'don't talk to a strange man' doesn't apply."
And Baker obviously loves it.
"I'm owned by my audience," he states.
"I'm talking about the character as well as
me, because I inhabit the character physically
-and yet it devours me, it impinges on Tom
Baker's privacy. But I understand that; the
people who recognize me know me from their
living rooms, so there is a difference. They are
daunted by someone they see up on a
70-millimeter screen. But me? Everyone has a
license to talk to me or touch me or kiss me
because I am in their living rooms. So you see,,
television is infinitely more powerful than the
cinema."
Does that explain why Baker stays with the
show, despite TV's built-in limitations? "The
reason I keep on with the character is that,
first of all, it's my living, and secondly, when
I consider the alternatives of what I could be
doing.... You know, I'm really quite ag-
gressive and self-destructive in some ways.
I'm not frightened of unemployment, I'm
hot frightened of scrubbing floors or being a
bartender or whatever. I'm too occupied with
saving what little I have. But when I look
around and see the alternatives.... I know
something about my limitations. No one's
going to give me a big part in the movies,
mostly because I think the big movies are
made in America and by definition are rooted
in American subjects. So there's nothing for
me in American movies.
"Then, when I look at the BBC and popular
television and movies, when I think of
how marketable I am... I look at things on
the air: Well, I might get in that or that....
Do I want to be in that? I don't want to be
prancing around in a costume in some bloody
terrible Jane Austin series or terrible adaptation
of Nicholas Nicholby. It's a lot better
that I go to work and laugh my head off at Dr.
Who, help promote it by coming crazily here
for 48 hours. I may have a wit of a time. It's
much more fun to do that, be involved in the
books and the magazines. Oh, that's much
more fun than to actually pretend to be real.
"I mean, I could never play parts like that
bloody genius David Janson who plays those
paralyzing bores.' How he does it I don't
know. He's another fellow who could actually
make anesthetic redundant. How could he
play those parts?! I mean, I watch him, he's
an incredible man, obviously a genius. He's
a superior person. How he can actually walk
through a door on television and say that
stuff without cracking up, or walking
through saying it without embarassment.
I know I can't compete with those kind of
people.
"So I settle for jolly Dr. Who, which is
terrific fun. I'm not into anything that isn't fun.
"You know, when I got the character I was
desperately out of work and glad to have the
contract. Fortunately, I signed the contract
before anybody else did. I remember the
wonderful feeling I had when I signed this
beautiful contract, which was going to put me
into television history because of the formula.
Even if I had been a disastrous failure I would
have gone into history as the first failure,
because no one has failed Dr. Who.
"That means I never mistake myself for
the character, and I never, ever underestimate
the formula. There are certain actors who fed
nothing could go on without them and sometimes
they're right. What is constantly vital
about Dr. Who is the delicious formula.
"It doesn't matter who takes it on, given
professional expertise. Some hunchback or
... well, it doesn't matter. It's what the character
stands for, what the formula allows,
which is a success. So I never actually think
my contribution is bigger than the formula."
Tom Baker may play down his contribution
to the Dr. Who series, but he is the
catalyst that makes the formula work.
Intense and opinionated, he performs every
word with style, drawing on a dictionary of
gestures and expressions that would make a
mime jealous. Weaving warmth, humor and
verve into an entertainment medium that all
too often settles for the commonplace, Tom
Baker is a renegade in his field. And like the
good Doctor, he thoroughly enjoys it.
STARLOG/May 1980 pp. 37-39.
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