Four classic Doctor Who episodes won’t be part of the BBC’s Doctor Who Archive. In fact, they’re the first four episodes ever made.
An Unearthly Child was Doctor Who’s first storyline, named after the iconic British sci-fi show’s first episode. Consisting of episodes one through four, the story effectively began the series, with William Hartnell starring as The Doctor.
In a statement issued to RadioTimes, the BBC confirmed An Unearthly Child won't be included in the back catalogue of episodes hitting iPlayer this November: "This massive iPlayer back catalogue will be home to over 800 hours of Doctor Who content, making it the biggest ever collection of Doctor Who programming in one place but will not include the first four episodes as we do not have all the rights to those."
Written by BBC staff writer Anthony Coburn, the four-part serial is an important part of Doctor Who history. But Coburn’s son, Stef Coburn, alleges that the BBC lost the right to use ideas presented in his father’s script when he died in 1977, and he’s turned down attempts to license those episodes ever since.
“The deal I offered the BBC, which my solicitor (an IP lawyer of international repute) described as a ‘solid & not off the scale counter-proposal’, was PRESENTED, ostensibly, as a STARTING POINT for negotiations,” he said on Twitter. “Believing they would not even bother trying, I was NOT disappointed.”
The deal I offered the BBC, which my solicitor (an IP lawyer of international repute) described as a "solid & not off the scale counter-proposal", was PRESENTED, ostensibly, as a STARTING POINT for negotiations. Believing they would not even bother trying, I was NOT disappointed.
— Stef Anthony Coburn ? (@Stef_Coburn) October 16, 2023
“I am thus, in no way to blame for what has happened,” he added. “The BBC had EVERY chance to behave rationally & responsibly. Instead of which, they pulled their usual arrogantly high-handed 'give us what we want, exactly the way we want it, or it's no deal', crap, & reaped the consequences.”
Coburn claimed he offered the BBC a potential deal after rejecting its original offer. However, it looks as though this deal included the production of an unrelated TV pilot that was written by his father, something the BBC was apparently not interested in making.
“A major part of my purpose re: the BBC, has been to give Tony his due as a MAJOR talent of his time,” Coburn explained. “To that end, PART of the deal I offered them involved the production of 'Anthony Coburn's Frontier 21', based on a pilot he wrote & the [science-fiction] novel he derived from it before he died.”
Anthony Coburn wrote three more Doctor Who stories but they were never broadcast. They included two unnamed serials that were never commissioned as well as The Robots, a story that was intended to be Doctor Who’s second serial. This was ultimately canned in favour of the now classic Doctor Who story The Daleks, which introduced the show’s iconic villains.
Coburn reworked The Robots into a new story, The Masters of Luxor, but filming delays turned into scheduling conflicts and this was eventually rejected too, resulting in Coburn stepping away from the show completely.
Coburn’s son now alleges his father was “mistreated” by the BBC over its handling of the situation. “All I did was, in effect, do to them, what they did to Tony in 1963 when he protested their unethical illegal plagiarism of his script for 'Masters',” he alleged. “They put him over a barrel, with a (metaphorical) gun to his head, & THREATENED him into compliance.”
This, he explained, is why he rejected the BBC’s original offer. “I could not, in good conscience, given what they did to my father, have simply taken their (pitiful compared to what they pay Gary Lineker to TALK about FOOTBALL, for f**k's sake) money, & caved to their arrogant demands; & thereafter looked myself in the mirror, with ANY regard.”
Of course, Doctor Who fans haven’t taken this lightly. Many have responded to Coburn to allege he has acted in bad faith, and say that withholding the rights from the BBC is tarnishing his father’s legacy.
“Regarding the hysterical hatred coming my way from the entitled outraged 'fans' of Doctor Who, I should say that, in the event of my death, I have bequeathed ALL my father's DW related copyrights, to an ENEMY of the BBC, possessing ALL the resources required to act against them,” he added.
As for why Coburn is hanging onto the rights, it’s worth noting that with the show’s 60th anniversary coming up, there’s a renewed interest in Doctor Who. Coburn has also challenged the BBC over its Doctor Who rights before. Shortly before Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, Coburn claimed the BBC was in breach of copyright over the TARDIS (or Time and Relative Dimension in Space), the show’s iconic blue police box used by The Doctor to travel through time and space.
It's true his father did choose the classic police box design, but the idea for the TARDIS was put forward by Verity Lambert, and the interior of the machine was designed by Peter Brachaki. Coburn claimed that since his father’s death in 1977, any informal agreement for the use of his work had expired. He demanded that the BBC stop using the TARDIS or pay the Coburn family for every single use of the box since his father’s death.
“It is by no means my wish to deprive legions of Doctor Who fans (of whom I was never one) of any aspect of their favourite children's programme,” he told The Independent in 2013. “The only ends I wish to accomplish, by whatever lawful means present themselves, involve bringing about the public recognition that should by rights always have been his due, of my father James Anthony Coburn's seminal contribution to Doctor Who, and proper lawful recompense to his surviving estate."
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Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
