Doctor Who Prop Hunt

Last time I posted all about these small box panels that featured seemingly endless patterns of lights and knobs . Well, this panel design was also often incorporated into larger props. Here are all of the larger versions that I’ve found. Like the individual panels, there is a lot of variation in the layout of the lights, switches etc but they are all made up of the same basic elements. THE KEEPER OF TRAKEN, 1981 FOUR TO DOOMSDAY, 1982 In this case it’s the small cabinet to left of Bigon. EARTHSHOCK, 1982 WARRIORS OF THE DEEP, 1984 THE TWIN DILEMMA, 1984 ATTACK OF THE CYBERMEN, 1985

This week I’m looking at some computer panels from the early eighties. Like my last post, it’s a group of props that share a common design but are all a little different. They are grey boxes that are divided into two or three sections. And each section features a seemly random arrangement of coloured lights and black knobs. Here is a typical example… They are found in several stories from 1981 to 1984 and, apart from one instance, they all feature a unique pattern of lights and knobs. WARRIORS GATE, 1981 A couple of examples of the two sectioned, smaller, panels. Plus a three sectioned unit peeking out from behind Romana. THE KEEPER OF TRAKEN, 1981 A rare example where the panel is not mounted on a wall. We get a clear look at how these boxes are put together. LOGOPOLIS, 1981 The last of three examples from Season 18. SAND, 1981 In the same year as season 18, we get a couple of appearances in Blake’s 7. First in Sand and then in… BLAKE, 1981 FOUR TO DOOMSDAY, 1982 The first of a couple...

This is not the post I had planned at all! I’ve been working on something else for a while. In fact I’m a bit late with that as the research has taken longer than normal. But in the meantime something popped up and I just had to share it. Friday evenings on our house are filled with the BBC4 repeats of Top of the Pops. One of the episodes this week, from May 1984, featured something that made me point at my telly like Leonardo DiCarprio. It was this trio of consoles. But what Doctor Who stories feature these props and why were they on Top of the Pops? First let’s look at their Doctor Who appearances. The unit with the circular screen can be seen in The Twin Dilemma. Designer Valerie Warrender made sure to give it a suitably glittery finish. THE TWIN DILEMMA, 1984 Here is a closer look at the console screen.  The consoles next appearance is the very next story, Attack of the Cybermen. This story features several variations on the same prop. Some featuring the circular screen and oth...

I didn’t think I be back on this topic so soon. But following my last post both Bob Johns (@whilom_music on Instagram) and Zoe’s Feather Boa (@zoesfeatherboa.bsky.social) reached out with more information on those grey computer panels I have been looking at. It turns out that what I thought was just a prop, a bit of wood with few lights and switches, is actually a real computer! Created in 1962, the ICT1301 was a British made business computer from International Computers and Tabulators. As you can see from the image above, the grey panels from Doctor Who were just a small part of a very large machine. Very few of these computers still exist. The most famous example can be found at  The National Museum of Computing and is fondly referred to as Flossie. You can read all about the restoration of Flossie here . Zoe’s Feather Boa also made me aware of a few Doctor Who appearances of the ICT1301 panels that I had missed. So here they are.  MEGLOS, 1980 WARRIORS OF THE DEEP, 1984 TH...