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Classic Who | The Sensorites Part 6 | A Desperate Venture | Gallifrey Gals Get Wibbly Wobbly

🕑 Added 2024-02-15 18:00:06 +0000 UTC

Comments

Martyn Hill

At this time they only had 2.5 hours to shoot the entire episode, so time was always a factor. Stopping and retakes would only happen in extreme circumstances , basically the actors had to swear to get a retake

Chris Fone

I think it's important to point out; the six episodes you've just seen were each rehearsed for 1 week Monday-Thursday and then recorded on Friday evening. So Ep 1 recorded 29th May 64, Ep 2 recorded 5th June 64 etc etc. They recorded directly onto 2 inch videotape which was incredibly expensive if you had to make an edit (editing in these day was physically cutting and splicing the tape) and thus that particular videotape couldn't be used again (it was general practice to store the tapes for a certain period but eventually wipe them so the tape could be reused etc). Thus the odd fluffed line wasn't worried about, TV was an ephemeral medium like theatre, no one at the time expected it to still be able to be watched 60 years later, and beyond. You also asked about tight turnaround, I can tell you when they broadcast Ep 1, Ep 4 had been recorded the previous day, that's how close we're talking. As you can imagine working at such a pace for so many weeks does take it out of you and thus the main actors were given holidays every so often. We've already seen Bill Hartnell take 2 weeks off in The Keys of Marinus. Carole Ann Ford took 2 weeks off in the middle of The Aztecs, her scenes in those had to be pre-recorded on film (this was another thing that happened for things like this or especially complicated scenes like Ian's fight with Ixta) at the weekend, I expect, and Jacquie Hill had 2 weeks off here. That just leaves one more main cast member...hmmm...