Talk:John Nathan-Turner

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Lime Grove Studios[edit]

Was Doctor Who still in Lime Grove in 1969? I thought they were all being done in TVC or Riverside by then? Angmering

According to ABHOTT and The Second Doctor Handbook, the last serial to be filmed at Lime Grove D (between 21.02.69 and 28.03.69) was The Space Pirates, which JNT (as John Turner) worked on as a floor assistant. --khaosworks 17:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Well that's fair enough then! :-) Angmering 13:57, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
ABHOTT makes no such claim. It quite specifically says only episode 1 was filmed at the Grove. And the DW Locations Guide backs this up by saying Studio D was only used for one day. So what I've never been particularly clear about is whether JNT worked at the Grove as a general floor assistant to whatever happened to be filming that day, or whether he was actually attached to Doctor Who specifically. (His mid-1960s work in the BBC Costumes Department had not been programme-specific, but location specific, which is what makes me ponder.) If it's the former, then he only worked for the one day on Episode 1, because after that "Pirates" shifted to TC4. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 01:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and with the exception of The Dominators, every Troughton adventure from The Wheel in Space to The Space Pirates had at least some footage recorded at the Grove.
Sydney Newman, who had taken up Verity Lambert's crusade to get the hell out of Lime Grove — and secured it by threatening to stop production of Doctor Who — was nearing the end of his reign at the BBC by The Wheel in Space, and frankly, even if he had cared to fight about it again (instead of focusing his energies on creating Adam Adamant Lives!, the trick wouldn't have worked twice. The BBC Controller at the time, Michael Peacock, flatly turned down Innes Lloyd's request to move back to Riverside and then he threatened to take Doctor Who off the schedule. That, combined with the fact that Lloyd was himself leaving for other projects, seemed to stop the bitchin' about Lime Grove for a few months.
Then, somehow, Peter Bryant — who had been like the third guy on the list of people to replace Lloyd — suddenly got the gift of freedom from Lime Grove dropped in his lap. At least, that's what it seems like, cause nobody ever really talks about Peter Bryant. The dude is a cipher. Is it that the BBC listened to him because he had been a member of The Grove Family? Is it that his BBC Controller, Paul Fox, had been heavily involved with the British JFK assassination coverage and therefore felt a mystical affinity for the program, which led him to finally approve the move to TC? Is it that Bryant had a talent to get things done quietly, like a good agent (which he would later become)? Was it that he didn't fuss too much when he was asked to move around from one program to another, or to not get screen credit he was technically due? I dunno. But whatever happened, somehow, some way, the "Battle of Lime Grove", which had been exceptionally heated at several points in the 1960s just sort of ended. I'd love to find out why some day. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 02:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

JNT Picture[edit]

I'm the one who uploaded the free picture of JNT. It's a picture I took of him in Whovent 86 in.. I can't remember this second what city it was. Either Philadelphia or somewhere in New Jersey. Anyway, the original photograph that I scanned for this was pretty darned mangled 21 years later. I turned up the dust and scratch repair functions of my scanning program as high as they can go. It still made for a jpg that had some scratch damage. It doesn't look bad in the thumbnail on the JNT page itself, but if you look at the larger version, you can see it pretty clearly on the right side of the picture. If someone wants to take a stab at cleaning it up, let me know via my talk page. Thanks. Dopefish 17:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weasel Words[edit]

Are there still any present in the article? If so, can someone please point them out, or better still remove them? DavidFarmbrough (talk) 11:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After reading and tweaking without looking for too many new sources, I think there is still some weasel phrasings in this article. Can I pinpoint them? Not really, it is just the general feel I get from the amount of weight given to fan criticism. Maybe its more of an WP:Undue weight issue? ZueJay (talk) 02:06, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the criticism section is largely unreferenced[edit]

And let's be honest with ourselves, the fans don't care about the casual viewer except as a stick to beat JN-T (and Graham Williams) with, in order to prop up their messiah, Phillip Hinchcliffe. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 14:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That would be a bit of a whitewash of the criticism of the show's most controversial producer, I would have thought. The '80s is usually seen as the programme's nadir (mentioned by Christopher Eccleston in his Friday Night with Jonathan Ross interview in 2005) and his production decisions are even criticised by Peter Davison and Janet Fielding on the DVDs of their era. Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell, whatever you think of them, are very successful people in British TV and they obviously had utter contempt for him. There must be a reason he never worked as a producer again after Doctor Who was cancelled. However, I have added Mark Ayres' comment about him for some balance, but even he admits "a lot of what John did didn't work". Rodericksilly (talk) 17:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that much of the criticism and analysis over the years has come from fans and biased industry staff rather than objective outsiders viewing it through the general context of how things actually worked in the industry. And it's complicated by a contemporary fan base that was absorbing all the rumours and internal arguments in the 1980s in the way without parallel in the 1960s & 1970s - television has always been a stressful environment with disagreements, favourites and blackballing but the average row in the 1960s and 1970s didn't get covered in fanzines until decades later, even around the times when the series was facing cancellation (1965/6 & 1969/70). A lot of the DVD extras seem to have been produced by fans who grew up on a diet of DWB attacks on JNT and do seem to be aiming to flesh out the stories they grew up on and push for the negative. Had JNT lived even another seven years it's quite likely there would have been more balance, not least because he would have been able to address head on some of the specific criticisms. It's also become fashionable amongst cast and crew from earlier decades to bash the 1980s but it's hardly the only period of the series that did not find favour with previous crews - Verity Lambert's dislike of the Pertwee years springs to mind though it's not found in the article on Letts.
JNT never worked again as a producer in part because he had worked himself into a corner that was crumbling around him. He was brilliant at working the BBC system to get the best out of the budget but by 1990 the BBC was moving heavily towards outsourcing both production as a whole and individual resource departments and so his knowledge and skills were not easily transferable and also the BBC was actively trying to weed out the position of staff producer so were not rushing to assign series. Had he moved on in the mid 1980s he probably would have found success in the independent production companies but he stayed at the BBC too long. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"A lot of the DVD extras seem to have been produced by fans who grew up on a diet of DWB attacks on JNT and do seem to be aiming to flesh out the stories they grew up on and push for the negative. Had JNT lived even another seven years it's quite likely there would have been more balance, not least because he would have been able to address head on some of the specific criticisms." Actually, the DVD of Greatest Show in the Galaxy, where I got the Ayres comment from, is very kind towards Nathan-Turner, with everyone acknowledging he - more than anyone else - saved that particular production and it was one of his finest hours. But the biggest problem with Nathan-Turner, it seems to me, was that he had somehow got himself into the wrong department of the BBC. He'd have been a brilliant light entertainment producer but he wasn't really cut out for drama. The silly costumes, daft guest stars (with the perhaps sole exception of Nicholas Parsons, who surprised everyone) and his dependence on the script editors due to his lack of interest in storytelling all meant it was easy to kill off the show in the end. Rodericksilly (talk) 21:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Greatest Show DVD is something of an exception to the pattern, in large part because JNT's role in ensuring the story was completed at all is hard to brush over. As for the rest, this talk page is for discussing improving the article (including problems with the sources and details of the environment the subject was in), not foruming about the subject. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With respect, your post did a lot more foruming than mine and was a hell of a lot longer. Rodericksilly (talk) 21:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

liver failure[edit]

Can we not just leave out the contentious content?-- Deepfriedokra 21:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That book[edit]

Any sources for the final outcome? Or was it all dropped because he was dead? Guy (help!) 23:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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