For those of us who like to know where things came from, the BBC Archive Project has posted some amazing memos and reports revealing the thought processes that led to Doctor Who. Typewritten pages with skeptical scrawls reveal conversations with Brian Aldiss and Kingsley Amis. (Imagine such a consultation today.) Wondering if sf could work on tv at all, the network looked at stories like Poul Anderson’s Guardians of Time and C.L. Moore’s “No Woman Born” as possible projects. They almost went with “The Troubleshooters,” about a consulting firm that dealt with otherworldly events. The archive also includes the initial proposal for the series, as well as the (mixed) audience reaction for the first episode of the series that (some of us) know and love.

[Story tip: SF Signal; William Hartnell as the first Doctor, BBC]