The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 54 - Paul Bernard on Ian Levine, March 20, 1997

I never had any problem with Ian, not really. We had our rows on set, my god, we had some rows. I actually banned him from the sets a couple of times. And then once it got so bad, he shut the production down. That's what people remember.

But you know what, we patched it up each time. That's one thing I'll say for our relationship. We'd fight like a married couple all morning. But sometime after that, we'd put it away and we'd get on to working together, because we had to. Because if we didn't, then the show would be gone, it would all be down the toilet. It was ironic, the further we went, the more desperately we all needed each other, and the harder we fought. But we kept it together.

I think that Ian's gotten quite a bad reputation as an enfante terrible on the New Doctor, throwing tantrums, shutting down the production in fits of pique, disrupting the photography with a succession of crazy demands and ideas, being a spoiled prima donna. I had my part in that, I suppose, and Barry too. Let's face it, his relationship with Paul went downhill very fast. But a lot of that reputation was Ian too, he aired way too much of his dirty laundry in public, and it backfired on him badly.

The truth is though, we wouldn't have had a show without Ian. Take him out of the equation, you have ... nothing. You can say that for David too. Or me. Or Barry. But that doesn't take it away from Ian...

A miracle, really, that we actually got it done. That we got it as far as it did. No matter how well you do, of course, you want a little more. We pined for a second season, and blamed each other when that didn't happen.

But honestly, it was a miracle that we got as far as we did. It was such an unlikely thing, when you think of it. A series of coincidences - Ian and I knew each other of course, and it was in the air that the BBC wanted to license the series out. There were a lot of groups, David West was one of them I recall, that wanted to buy the rights and produce. I suppose if we hadn't made it, one of the others would have. None of the others, not even Daltenrays, came to anything, though. So maybe not. Maybe without us, there would have been nothing. At least not until the McGann thing.

But it was all a series of flukes. Meeting David Burton, and thinking 'He'd make a Doctor.' A conversation with Ian, and thinking about it and following it up. The meeting at the Grosvenor, there was no reason it should have gone any further than a hundred other meetings I've been to that went nowhere. If Ian hadn't been able to put the money together for Ness, that would have been it. Or with Ness, several times, we were all just ready to walk away and call it a bad job, but somehow, we stuck with it. We put aside our fights, worked around our problems. If David hadn't seen that magazine clip, if we hadn't gone to Vienna. If the proposal had gone in a day earlier, or a week late, and caught Peter in a worse mood... All just flukes, unbelievable flukes, we could have derailed at any point, and then no one would have heard of any of us, of it. We'd be on that dust heap of proposals that died along the way.

In that chain of flukes, Ian was right in there. If not for Ian, I don't know that there would have been enough motivation to set up the first meeting. Ian was the one that reached into his own pockets, and he was the one that got other people to reach into their own pockets so we could do this. Right then and there, that's essential. And there were moments when Ian was the one who kept things moving forward.

We all had those moments, when we'd all get busy with other things, losing momentum, and someone would pick up the phone and kick it along. Sometimes it was me, sometimes David, sometimes Ian. There were so many moments when it would just stall out, and always someone would come up to push. That's what I mean when I say it was all a fluke... It could have just died at any of those moments, faded away, the momentum dissipating, one day turning into the next, putting it back a week or a month or a few months and then ... gone. But somehow, there was always one of us who would give it a push at the right time, and it would lurch forward.

Ian was critical at critical times. With Monsters of Ness, my god, we really bit off too much. More than we could chew. All those location shots, and not easy ones. We shot in caverns, can you believe that? And on beaches? How do you light a beach or a cavern? Where do you put the lights? Where do you get the power? Generators? Then what do you do about the noise? What were we thinking?

With the BBC they had a hundred people used to solving these problems day in and day out, who had solved that exact problem a hundred times. But we didn't have those people, it was just us, me tearing my hair out over every shot. Ian gets a lot of blame for the rows, but let me tell you, I was stressed and short tempered, I have my share of blame. We were both trying to solve problems, and if his ideas were wrongheaded, well, it was a tough one.

It was Ian that was adamant about the costumes, I'll be honest about that. If it had been me, I would have just taken them, held my nose, and used them... And it would have all been rubbish. We'd have been a laughing stock - Mystery Science Theatre stuff - no one would have taken us seriously, it would have died. I'd probably end up wiping the tapes to save my reputation (chuckles).

But he was completely adamant. He wanted to send them back. He wanted his money back and to hire someone else. He wanted them redone. Of course, that wasn't possible. He would not budge an inch. Held up shooting for a couple of days. In the end, we worked out this compromise. I think it was David who came up with the Scooby Doo that everyone likes so much. I'll be honest, the Scooby Doo saved us, it took something that was turning into complete bollocks, and made us seem clever. I wouldn't have thought of that, it wasn't the BBC way, I'll be honest. But what it came down to, was Ian standing his ground.

Same thing with Vienna, 1913. Barry was in with us by then. By that time, I was pretty wary of Ian. We'd been through it with Ness, and I didn't want a repeat. No luck there. But Ian had this idea, he wanted his robot, and once again, he stuck to his guns. He got it, and to cope with the robot, Barry and I took it up to the next step - where the robot comes from and who. But without Ian, it wouldn't have been the same show, not at all. I think that the way we had it originally was just fine, but the way it turned out, nothing wrong with that.

It was Ian that brought in the Sontarans, you have to give him that. And that Draconian. That was for me, actually. The Draconian license was a gift to me, that tells you something about the sentimental way he thought sometimes. Completely inappropriate for production, but there's something to say for it.

Three of our principal serials - and Ian was a key part of the creative process, the production process, for each. You would not have had it without him. It would have been completely different. I can honestly say, we wouldn't have been as good, without him. Or considering what people say about us sometime, maybe that's not the right words... Hmmm. Without him, we might have been worse. It would have been different, certainly, not the same show at all.

That doesn't take away from my work, or Barry's or David's. You look at Barry's serial, that's completely his, and it's tops. But we were all a part of it, and Ian was a part of it.

Ian was certainly critical for the business side of it. I know he put a lot of his own money into it, and lost some of it. He was one of the ones who lined up the financing. Give him that. And he was the one who stuck it out with me, pursuing BBC Enterprises. That saved us. We didn't make money off the VHS deal by any means, but it provided a trickle of revenue that we used to negotiate our debts and resolve things with our creditors. I think we paid out something like twenty cents on the dollar... Do I have that right? We use pounds here, so its tricky to translate.

We've all heard the round robin for the second season - Ian wanted to work with me again, but was adamant that we replace David. David intended to keep Ian because the financing was essential, but I was out. And I saw David as vital, but wanted shut of Ian. Barry, of course, wanted shut of all of us. But the truth is, if we'd had another go round, I think all of us would come back.

It ended, we were tired and bitter and looking to blame each other. It didn't turn out the way I wanted. Not the way any of us wanted. I think that we were each of us, angry about that. There was disappointment and heartache.

But it's been a few years now, you get some distance. Maybe perspective helps. I didn't accomplish what I wanted. But we accomplished something. It's funny, I can watch it now, and the parts that give me the most pleasure are the parts where I can see them, where I can think to myself 'This is David's bit' or that came from 'Ian' or 'Here's Carol.' It's seeing my work mixed with theirs and maybe seeing something that was a bit greater than the sum of its parts, a collaboration.

It wasn't fun at the time, it didn't feel like collaboration, felt more like fighting. But let me tell you about giving birth to elephants sometimes.