Bermuda
BERMUDA is a small island nation located to the east of the United States. It is a British territory, and member of the Commonwealth. Although it lies at the same latitude as the USA, it is still considered to be part of the Caribbean, which lies further south.
Profile
Country Number (12) | 1965 | FIRST WAVE |
Region | Caribbean | Commonwealth |
Television commenced | 1958 | |
Colour System | 1968 | NTSC |
Population | 1966 | 57,000 |
TV Sets | 1966 | 17,000 |
Language/s | English |
Television Stations / Channels
Bermuda began its television service in 1958. There is just one television station: Capital Broadcasting Co Ltd (CBC-TV), which operated two channels – ZBM-TV, Channel 10 and ZFB-TV, Channel 8.
Doctor Who aired on ZFB-TV, Channel 8.
DOCTOR WHO IN BERMUDA
Bermuda was the 12th country to screen Doctor Who, and the second in the Caribbean (two months after Trinidad & Tobago (see Selling Doctor Who).
BBC Records
The Stanmark Productions Ltd advertisement from 1966, identifies Bermuda as one of sixteen countries screening Doctor Who by January 1966.
Bermuda is not included in the list of 27 countries in The Making of Doctor Who (1972 Piccolo edition).
The Seventies records a sale of "(2)" stories by 28 February 1977. The Handbook identifies these as being D and E.
In DWM, Bermuda is identified in five Archives: A, B, C, D and E.
Stories bought and broadcast
WILLIAM HARTNELL
Five stories, 26 episodes:
A | An Unearthly Child | 4 |
B | The Daleks | 7 |
C | Inside the Spaceship | 2 |
D | Marco Polo | 7 |
E | The Keys of Marinus | 6 |
Bermuda therefore bought GROUP ONE and GROUP TWO of the William Hartnell stories.
The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks.
Origin of the Prints
Bermuda was most likely supplied with its prints from Trinidad, which was the first country in the Caribbean "chain", with the distributor, Television International Enterprises Limited / TIE (Programmes) Ltd acting as agent.
Transmission
WILLIAM HARTNELL
The series started on Monday, 13 December 1965, at 6.30pm on ZFB-TV, channel 8. It screened uninterrupted for 26 weeks in the same timeslot until Monday, 6 June 1966.
There is no record that Bermuda screened Doctor Who again, even after the introduction of colour.
Fate of the Prints
The films were likely sent to Jamaica, the third in the Caribbean group of countries.
TV listings
← AIRDATES ...... (CLICK ICON TO GO TO TABLE SHOWING EPISODE BREAKDOWN AND AIRDATES - N/S = story title is Not Stated) |
TV listings have been obtained from the Bermudan newspaper Bermuda Recorder.
Listings give the series name as "'Dr Who'" (including punctuation). None of the listings carried episode titles, so we can only assume the five stories aired in the correct order.
Three papers in January 1966, and one in February 1966, were missing.
The 13 December 1965 issue carried a brief preview of the new series, calling it "one of BBC's most talked-about serials". It gave the title of "... episode 1 "An Unearthly Child"".
The 3 January 1966 listings were illustrated with a publicity photo of Carole Ann Ford. The caption of which said, "CAROLE ANN FORD as Susan Foreman in BBC-TV's "DR. WHO" – an adventure in space and time consisting of a series of stories of varying lengths - started only recently on Channel 8. (Mondays at 6.30).
Bermuda in Doctor Who
- Earl Cameron (Williams in The Tenth Planet) was born in Bermuda.
- Sarah likens the mysterious goings on at Tullock Moor to be like "Another Bermuda Triangle" (Terror of the Zygons).