The scene breakdown was once considered an important foundation of a Doctor Who script. JONATHAN MORRIS looks at some examples.

 from top: Roger Delgado as the Master in Terror of the Autons (1971); a clockwork soldier in The Mind Robber (1968); and one of WOTAN’s mobile computers in The War Machines (1966).

Above from top: Ben (Michael Craze), the Doctor (William Hartnell) and Sir Charles Summer (William Mervyn) in Episode 3 of The War Machines; the Doctor, Ben and Polly (Anneke Wills) arrive on the coast of Cornwall in Episode 1 of The Smugglers (1966).

Left: The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) meets Eldred (Philip Ray) in Episode One of The Seeds of Death (1969).

Fin the story, describing in the space of a paragraph or two everything that happened in each scene, including who was in it and where it was to take place. This also included whether it was to be recorded in the studio or pre-recorded on film, and, if on location, whether it was day or night. or much of the 20th-century run of Doctor Who, the next stage after the outline usually required the writer to provide a scene breakdown.

This would consist of a complete list of scenes There were several reasons for asking for a scene breakdown (also known as a ‘scene-by-scene’ and a ‘story breakdown’). The most important was that, during the early years, Doctor Who was put together in a similar way to soap operas like Compact (1962-65) and Crossroads (1964-88), with a rapid turnaround of scripts. Making sure an episode could be achieved within the show’s budget and schedule before a full script was written would obviate the need for any time-consuming rewrites later on. Once the breakdown was agreed all the writer had to do was stick to it – or at least to deviate from it as little as possible.