A Visit With The Doctor
By Karen E. Wilson
He came by way of airplane, not by TARDIS, and the long scarf and floppy hat had been replaced by a three-piece business suit.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 expertise 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 stupefying! 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, embarrassment, 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 clear 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 television scripts than to call them whippetshit," 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 resonant voice. And be charmingly 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 character, 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 does 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 world which 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 should be diverting! Take people out of themselves, literally out of life.
"So fantasy has a marvelous service to offer people. I don't want to patronize any kind of audience that watches what I do. I adore them! I love them! They make my whole existence possible! I truly do love them."