Nearly60 years to the daythat physician Who began send , next month , the BBC will launch an unprecedented compendium ofover 800 episodesfrom the show ’s distant and not - so - remote past tense on its cyclosis weapons platform , iPlayer — thefirst of its kindfrom the potbelly . But it turns out that the very first story that kicked all those risky venture off in the first place wo n’t be a part of it .
Known by the title of its first installment , “ An Unearthly shaver , ” the four - part series was written by Anthony Coburn , at the time a faculty writer for the BBC , who would go on to write three more account for Doctor Who that never made it to air . Those included two nameless serials that were never add ahead , as well as “ The golem , ” which was intended to be the 2nd successive broadcast for the series , but was at long last replace withTerry res publica ’s “ The Daleks,”which sling Doctor Who on a very different flight . Coburn go on to rework “ The Robots ” into a new story titled “ The Masters of Luxor , ” but after it was repeatedly delayed in film due to scheduling issues and eventually resist , Coburn severed all his ties to the serial .
Decades later , Coburn ’s son , Stef Coburn , has repeatedly agitate back against the BBC over what he perceive as a mistreatment of his Father-God — specially over the conceptual melodic theme behind , and eventual name of , the Doctor ’s time - travelling car , the TARDIS.Coburn first attemptedto legally dispute the BBC ’s ownership of the TARDIS in 2013 , time to the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who — say that the corporation lose the right hand to habituate idea leveraged in Coburn ’s script for “ An Unearthly Child ” when he conk in 1977 , despite the corporation having heldvarious copyright and trademarkson the ship and its police loge designing for X prior .
Image: BBC
Now , a decade later , Coburn has take aim to social medium to confirm that he has rejected attempts by the BBC to license “ An Unearthly Child ” for streaming on its platform , claiming that the corp refused a propose deal to license the chronicle .
The mess I offered the BBC , which my solicitor ( an IP lawyer of outside reputation ) identify as a " solid & not off the scale leaf counter - proposal " , was confront , ostensibly , as a start pointedness for negotiations . believe they would not even bother trying , I was NOT disappointed .
— Stef Anthony Coburn 🗣 ( @Stef_Coburn)October 16 , 2023
“ This massive iPlayer back catalogue will be home to over 800 hr of Doctor Who subject , making it the big ever collecting of Doctor Who programming in one place , ” a BBC representative said in a argument toRadio Times . “ But [ it ] will not admit the first four episodes as we do not have all the rights to those . ”
As to why the BBC does n’t own the streaming right to the very first story of one of its big original serial , the answer is … complicated . Much for the same reason that hundreds of episodes of Doctor Who ’s early story werelost in the process of archival junking , tv set in the sixties was not made with the forward thinking in head that repeat broadcast ( and of course evolutions in the shape , like home medium release or streaming , in the decade since ) would become such a prevalent part of the metier landscape . That ’s something especially crucial now , as modern Hollywood reckons with twelvemonth of denying the creatives behind its depicted object adequate residual recompense , an yield at the heart of this year’sdual WGA and SAG - AFTRA strikes . Even in situation like Coburn being assigned to Doctor Who in the ‘ LX as a faculty author would see the rights to individual scripts persist with their writers , with the perceptual experience that these broadcast were one - and - done position . Hindsight of Doctor Who ’s monumental success with the advent of “ Dalekmania ” in the ‘ sixty would n’t have convert that either , it was just the standard of the time .
“ An Unearthly Child ” has been uncommitted in various formats in the years since its broadcast — it ’s presently available for streaming on Britbox , for example , and has been commercially released on various home medium formats , admit most recently as part of house liberation of the 50th anniversary docudramaAn Adventure in Space and Time . But Coburn has now alleged that he intend to lease any such licensing deals deprecate once they expire . In other threads on X , the program formerly known as Twitter , Coburn further statedthat as part of his continued claim against the BBC he plans to sell his father ’s right refer to “ An Unearthly tiddler ” to “ an ENEMY of the BBC , possessing ALL the resource required to act as against them . ”
As to why Coburn is only just now pushing against this — given that his previous function of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who to plunge claims against the BBC , it does n’t seem too far - fetched that the opportunity created by the show ’s 60th is a factor . But Coburn has also previously publicly lambasted the direction of modern-day Doctor Who at large . On X , between retweeting conspiracy theories about covid-19 vaccinations and various strains of bigoted comment , Coburn antecedently describedthe cast of Ncuti Gatwa as the latest incarnation of the Doctor as “ an OUTRAGE at what generations of progressively MORE corrupted BBC filth ” have done to Doctor Who . So it would at least seem on the surface that this is less about hand credits where it ’s due to a author who aid establish one of the longest - run sci - fi serial in account , and more about one valet de chambre try his damndest to spite its Maker for progressively unhinged reasons .
Want more io9 news ? hold out when to expect the latestMarvel , Star Wars , andStar Trekreleases , what ’s next for theDC Universe on pic and TV , and everything you require to know about the future ofDoctor Who .
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