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The Doctor Who Years
Remastered 'colourised' opening (c)1975 BBCtv Production still (c)1962 BBCtv
(Reprinted with kind permission from 'Broadcast' magazine - 21 Sept 2001)
Ask most people which actor was the first to portray the classic time travelling eccentric and they will
invariably reply William Hartnell. Whilst it may be true that Hartnell was the first televised Doctor he was
not in fact the first actor to portray the famous Time Lord.
During 1983 in a bid to clear out their archives the BBC began destroying old TV recordings believing
them to be of little value in a world that craved only the new. It was during this period that many early
broadcast episodes of Doctor WHO were lost forever. Due to eagle eyed fans however many episodes were
saved and kept in private collections hidden away from public eye. One of these collectors, a Dave Spillington,
who sadly died in September of 2001 from a rare case of osmosis of the inner ear left behind what was to
become one of the most unusual pieces of Dr WHO history.
Mr Spillington was in the business of collecting pilot episodes of various television programmes, that is 'test;
versions which try out early concepts before they are fully developed into series. The most famous of
these is probably the Star Trek episode 'The Menagerie' which not only featured a different Captain from
the classic William Shatner led series, but also a highly emotional, not to say, angry vulcan character.
It was amongst the Spillington collection that a film can marked only with the letters 'WHO P-62' was found.
When the film was run for the first time since 1962 it was a revelation, for this wasn't a long lost William Hartnell
episode as had been previously thought, but an altogether different Doctor, a female Doctor!
The rough and scratched blury openeing credits named this Doctor as one 'Janet Ewer' an actress who
after achieving a certain noteriety in the music halls during the 1950's vanished into obscurity after
a bizarre accident involving a dictionary in a local library which left her stage partner, Edith Cruet dead.
Ewer's reign in the role as the enigmatic Time Lord sadly only lasted for this brief 20min episode before
once again she withdrew from the world.
Further digging into the past revealed that it was in fact Hartnelll himself that forced Ewer to retire from
the role, even to having every copy of the Ewer WHO adventure destroyed. This sheds new light on the
personality of Hartnell.
Sadly the quality of the Ewer episode is so poor that only a few stills are of a publishable nature at this time,
although a restoration team is apparently busy at work recontructing the film, but estimate it will take
them 10years to complete the work.
Janet Ewer 1962
William Hartnell - 1963-1966
Patrick Troughton - 1966-1969
Jon Pertwee - 1970 - 1974
Tom Baker- 1974 - 1981
Peter Davison - 1982 - 1984
Colin Baker- 1984-1986
Sylvester McCoy - 1987-1989
Paul McGann- 1996-
Digitally remastered still from the unaired story, 'The Davros Affair' which
would have seen Ewer's return to the role of the Doctor. (c)1975 BBCtv