John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Observer | file = 1967-02-05 Observer.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 1967-02-05 | author = Cyril Dunn | pages = 23 | language = Eng..."

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Created page with "{{article | publication = The Observer | file = 1967-02-05 Observer.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 1967-02-05 | author = Cyril Dunn | pages = 23 | language = Eng..."

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{{article
| publication = The Observer
| file = 1967-02-05 Observer.jpg
| px = 250
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| date = 1967-02-05
| author = Cyril Dunn
| pages = 23
| language = English
| type =
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| text =
NEW ADVENTURES for 'Dr Who.' On Saturday he starts a [[broadwcast:The Moonbase|four-episode battle]] on the moon to save a weather control station front the Cybermen (those silver-clad offspring of cybernetic surgery, who return by popular request). With the Doctor in an up-to-date spacesuit, it will all be grippingly authentic.

Especially so as the author, surprisingly for Children's TV, is Dr Kit Pedler, Head of Anatomy at London University's Institute of Ophthalmology. He promises 'some splendid chases in low gravity.'

For most of the time Dr Pedler probes the mysteries of the retina. He was a medical doctor, 'but I decided helping humanity wasn't my métier. There was no scope to be original.' While researching for his PhD on the diseases of the retina he decided that the retina itself would be 'a marvelous fundamental study.' and for six years has been trying to assemble the main pattern of its biological circuit. 'Within something little bigger than a 10,000th of a millimetre it has its own computing systems,' he explains.

'The retina is a piece of the brain in the eye. It does the brain's activity and processing on the spot, saving time and space.' In his office minute fragments of retina lie set in plastic at the bottom of Lyons cupcake tins, waiting to go into the £15,000 electron microscope next door.

Altogether Dr Pedler is a very modern-minded man. He thinks science is often taught abominably (' What children want is bloody great bangs') and that scientists forget they are essentially communicators.' They shouldn't be inside any ivory tower. So often when they come into the hot-wash of life they are mute.'

He wanted to know how to write for television (he doesn't like 'not understanding'), and he and the BBC met when the Outside Broadcast team came to his department for a 'Horizon' programme. In his first 'Dr Who' story he created the Cybermen and blew up the Post Office Tower (he can see it frogs his lab. window). His four children act as watchful critics.

In his spare time, Dr Pedler builds racing cars, and sculpts and paints. 'No, I couldn't bear to sell my paintings. They're all about cells—images stored up from the microscope. Even if they are scientifically valueless, they're aesthetically satisfying.'

SHOOTING starts tomorrow of another film for BBC-TV in the same class as 'Up the Junction' and 'Cathy.' It is based on Tony Parker's book called 'Five Women' —four real-life characters from Holloway Prison and one girl 'in need of care.'

BRIEFING Edited by Cyril Dunn with Edward Mace and Helen Dawson

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Doctor who creates Who - Revision history

John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Observer | file = 1967-02-05 Observer.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 1967-02-05 | author = Cyril Dunn | pages = 23 | language = Eng..."