[Jon R @replies]

Apologies, if this turns to have been posted in the wrong place.

I’m trying to check whether my memory of something Tom Baker

said is accurate, or I’m just imagining things.

I think I can remember him saying that he spent some time

on the Isle of Skye, as a teenage monk, on one of his DVD commentaries.

However, listening to dozens of hours of commentaries, to find

out whether he did, or nor, is a daunting task.

Does anybody know whether this is true, or not, and if

it is, could you tell me where he says it.

Thanks Jon

[Jon R @replies]

<li style=”text-align: center;”>Lis Sladen, Mary Tamm and Doctor Who as a Christian Saint

 

The most popular version of Doctor Who, of all time, was undoubtedly the one played by Tom Baker.

Tom Baker became a more popular figure than his predecessor, Jon Pertwee, because he didn’t suffer from the haughtiness and arrogance of Pertwee’s Doctor. He was closer to the kids than Pertwee had been.

One of the themes that keeps coming up in Tom’s DVD commentaries, is that as a young man he was very religious, and very concerned about the struggle between good and evil.

When I was a teenager, in the 1970s, Doctor Who was my all-time favourite TV show. I came from a family that didn’t go to church, and looking back on that time now, I realise that I probably absorbed a lot of my basic moral attitude to life, by watching Doctor Who.

In effect, Tom (and, to a lesser extent, Jon Pertwee) played the role in my life that – in earlier times – a good parish priest might have done.

Back in his ‘glory days’ in the mid-1970s, Tom Baker was playing the closest thing to a modern-day, Christian saint, on television. And delivering the message that good must always prevail over evil, to a MASS audience!

As such, the message he was sending out, week after week, would not have been appreciated in certain quarters.

IF you accept that there is a power in this world, which would object to a popular children’s programme being used to propagate basic Christian morality – then it’s fairly obvious that this power would be eager to disrupt that message, and get it taken off the air waves, in ANY way that it could.

One of the big advantages that Tom had, when he first took over the role, was that he was backed up by the most popular Doctor Who companion of all time – warm, funny, playful Lis Sladen.

One way of disrupting the message, would be to undermine and pressurise Lis herself, to get her off the show, and have her replaced by a less popular figure.

So it’s probably not a ‘coincidence’ that Lis nearly died TWICE, early on in Tom Baker’s reign – once, when she was nearly stabbed with a pitchfork by Ian Marter, and again when she nearly drowned in Wookey Hole.

Whilst on location there, late in 1974, both Lis and Ian had seen a part of the script they were rehearsing, that didn’t make any sense to them. When they looked for it in the script again, to discuss it with the director, that scene just wasn’t THERE any more!

What I’m pretty sure was happening, was that something was pointing out just how weak and tenuous our hold on life is.

Now you’re in the script, now you’re not. In other words – now you’re in life, now you’re not!

A couple of days after this THREAT was made, Lis nearly died!

Although she clearly never understood what had happened while she was still ‘alive,’ it IS clear from her autobiography, and her DVD commentary on that story, that it really spooked her.

And I’m sure that her experiences with Ian Marter (Martyr !) and the pitchfork, and down in Wookey Hole, will have created a sense of unease in her mind, which ultimately helped to propel her off the show.

And Lis was not the ONLY one to be threatened like this – before she was cast as Romana, something very similar happened to Mary Tamm, on her first day’s shooting for the film, Tales That Witness Madness.

As Mary describes in her autobiography, First Generation, whilst being driven to the location, her car was overtaken by another car, which then veered off the road and burst into flames. Later on her caravan, inexplicably, caught fire.

So that’s two fires on the SAME day, and both on the FIRST day of shooting!

Having had a couple of similar experiences myself, I knew as soon as I read this, that this was something quite sinister.

The crucial factor here is the TIMING – Mary was working on Tales That Witness Madness at the SAME time (late 1972/early 1973) that Tom Baker was making Vault of Horror, and they were BOTH Amicus films!

Whilst sceptics will scoff, that that was years BEFORE she became Romana, I can assure you that there are lots of things, on the ‘other side,’ that know what the future holds in store for us, long before we do.

When she started filming on Tales That Witness Madness, Mary had just moved significantly CLOSER to Tom Baker, and her FUTURE role on Doctor Who – and I’m pretty sure that something was taking the opportunity to express its displeasure at this.

Mary hadn’t made this connection, when she wrote her autobiography, but – being slightly psychic – I’m pretty sure that she has NOW.

Jon R

[Author]

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