Netherlands

The Netherlands (also known as Holland) is in west Europe, to the north of France.

Profile

Country Number (37)	1975	SECOND WAVE
Region	Europe
Television commenced	1951
Colour System	1968	PAL
Population	1974	13.4 million
TV Sets	1974	4 million
Population	1984	14.25 million
TV Sets	1984	6 million
Language/s	Dutch	Subtitled

Television Stations / Channels

The Netherlands began its television service in 1951.

Colour transmissions began in 1968 using the PAL colour broadcast system.

Doctor Who aired on Televisie Radio Omroep Stichting (TROS).

Language/s

The principal language of the Netherlands is Dutch, however English is also in common usage. Foreign television programmes are broadcast with their original audio language, with Dutch subtitles.

DOCTOR WHO IN THE NETHERLANDS / HOLLAND

One of Holland's earliest exposures to Doctor Who was in the form of a hardback edition of the novelisation of The Daleks – see Novelisations below.

The Netherlands was the 37th country to screen Doctor Who, but the first in Continental Europe (see Selling Doctor Who).

It was also the very first country to air the early Tom Baker stories, playing season 12 only seven months, and season 13 only a few months after the original UK broadcasts. In fact Planet of Evil aired only two months after its UK screening.

BBC Records

The Seventies records a sale of "(9)" stories to "Holland" by 28 February 1977. This figure is correct in terms of the number of Tom Baker stories that did air from 1975 to 1976.

The Eighties - THE LOST CHAPTERS records a sale of "(20)" stories to "Holland" (by 10 February 1987).

The November 1985 issue of the DWAS newszine Celestial Toyroom reported "The Dutch are trying Doctor Who again after a long break from the programme. Holland have bought the first twelve Peter Davison stories". However, that only nine Davison stories aired suggests that the reported figure of 12 was either wrong, or three additional Davison stories were also purchased but did not go to air.

The total in The Eighties might also be inaccurate, as it suggests there were 11 Davison stories in the sale.

In DWM issue 54 (July 1981), reader R E Ross from Rotterdam, reported on the screenings in the Netherlands.

And in DWM issue 168 (November 1990) Patrick Bremmers's article THE DOCTOR IN HOLLAND presents a detailed overview of the 1975/76 and 1985/86 broadcasts of the series by TROS.

In DWM, Holland is identified in the story Archives of 17 of the stories named below; it is omitted from the Archive for 4A.

Stories bought and broadcast

TOM BAKER

Nine stories, 36 episodes:

4A	Robot	4	Robot	Robot
4B	The Sontaran Experiment	2	Het Sontaran Experiment	The Sontaran Experiment
4C	The Ark in Space	4	Het Ruimtestation	The Space Station
4D	Revenge of the Cybermen	4	Der Wraak van de Cybermaten	The Revenge of the Cybermen
4F	Terror of the Zygons	4	In de Greep van de Zygonen	In the Grasp / Grip / Clutches of the Zygons
4H	Planet of Evil	4	De Onheilsplanet	The Evil Planet
4J	The Android Invasion	4	Invasie der Androiden	Invasion of the Androids
4K	The Brain of Morbius	4	Het Brein van Morbius	The Brain of Morbius
4L	The Seeds of Doom	6	De Zaden van het Kwaad	The Seeds of Fear

The Netherlands therefore bought GROUPs A and B of the Tom Baker stories, with the exception of two stories (4E and 4G, unscreened possibly due to censorship.)

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks, which aired with Dutch subtitles.

PETER DAVISON

Nine stories, 34 episodes (but not aired in the correct order):

5W	Four to Doomsday	4	Monarch	Monarch
5X	The Visitation	4	Het Betzoek	The Visit
5Y	Kinda	4	De Kinda	The Kinda
6B	Earthshock	4	Aardshock	Earthshock
6C	Time-Flight	4	Tijd-Vlucht	Time-Flight
6E	Arc of Infinity	4	In Levensgevaar	Lives in Danger
6D	Snakedance	4	Slandendans	Snakedance
6F	Mawdryn Undead	4	Een Nieuwe Bedreiging	A New Threat
6A	Black Orchid	2	De Zwarte Orchidee	The Black Orchid

The Netherlands therefore bought GROUP A and part of GROUP B of the Peter Davison stories, with the exception of Castrovalva.

If the report in Celestial Toyroom is correct, two further Davison stories were purchased but didn't air.

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks, and broadcast with Dutch subtitles.

PAUL McGANN

TV Movie, 84 minutes:

TVM

The TV Movie

1

Transmission

TOM BAKER

The series started on Monday, 28 July 1975, at 7.05pm, with Robot. The series aired at this time until 20 October when it changed to 7.30pm. As with all other screenings overseas, The Sontaran Experiment played before The Ark in Space.

28 February 1977 Daily Mail article (image courtesy of Peter Haining's The Key to Time)

Mid-way through Revenge of the Cybermen, from 3 November 1975, the series changed to screening fortnightly. The 36 episode run ended on 20 September 1976 with part six of The Seeds of Doom.

As reported in DWM 54, the episodes rated well, reaching some 2.5 million viewers, with a rating of 78 out of 100 'points'.

Two Tom Baker stories were missed – Genesis of the Daleks and Pyramids of Mars – presumably on account of censorship. As had been reported in DWM 54 and DWM 168, the series was discontinued mainly on account of its violence. This action may have been why the BBC subsequently found it difficult to sell the series elsewhere within Europe in the late 1970s – see Europe for more on this.

It was during the 1975/1976 run that a series of novelisations and a Doctor Who Annual were translated into Dutch – see Novelisations below.

PETER DAVISON

Clipping from Dutch TV listings guide, 30 September 1985: "tijdreiziger in een telefooncel" translates as "time traveller in a phone booth"

After a nine year gap, TROS gave the series another go. From Monday, 30 September 1985, at 4.20pm, the Peter Davison era began, not with Castrovalva, but with Four to Doomsday. The next two stories aired in production code order.

The nine story run played at different times, ranging between 3.30pm and 4.47pm, which was considered to be very poor scheduling particularly considering the core audience would still be at school.

One of the stories to air was Arc of Infinity, which had its location filming undertaken and was partially set in Amsterdam.

The run ended on 7 July 1986, with both episodes of Black Orchid airing back to back (from 4.18pm to 5.05pm).

There were three weeks during this run when the series was pre-empted.

PAUL McGANN

The TV Movie aired on 5 August 1999, at 10.06pm, on the Avro Netherlands channel.

Doctor Who did not screen in the Netherlands again.

TV listings

TV listings have been obtained from DWM issue 168 (November 1990).

We are also indebted to the Dutch Fan Website for additional information:

• DE NEDERLANDSE DOCTOR WHO PAGINA

This excellent site contains summaries of the Tom Baker and Peter Davison screenings – complete with newspaper clippings, rankings and audience figures for the stories that aired, as well as overviews of the other Doctors and the new series:

• TOM BAKER EPISODES
• PETER DAVISON EPISODES
• HISTORY OF WHO

Novelisations / Annual

Hardback 1966 novelisation

Covers of Dutch novelisations

Spines of Dutch novelisations

Back covers of Dutch novelisations

1975 Dutch Annual

In 1966, Dutch publisher U M West-Friesland Hoorn released a hardback edition of David Whitaker's adaptation of The Daleks: DR WHO EN DE DALEKS.

While the Baker stories were airing in the mid-1970s, translations of eight of the Target Books novelisations were published by De Gooise Uitgeverij - Bussum / Unieboek B V – Bussum:

• DOCTOR WHO EN DE DALEKS (The Daleks) (this was a completely different translation to that of the 1966 hardback)
• DOCTOR WHO EN DE ZARBI'S (The Web Planet)
• DOCTOR WHO EN DE KRUISVAARDERS (The Crusade)
• DOCTOR WHO EN DE INVASIE VAN DE AUTONEN (The Invasion of the Autons) (Spearhead from Space)
• DOCTOR WHO EN DE HOLEN-MONSTERS (The Cave Monsters) (Doctor Who and the Silurians)
• DOCTOR WHO EN HET DODELIJKE WAPEN (The Lethal Weapon) (Colony in Space)
• DOCTOR WHO EN DE DEMONEN (The Daemons)
• DOCTOR WHO EN DE DAG VEN DE DALEKS (Day of the Daleks)

The facing title page carried the statement: "Gebaseerd op de BBC televisie-serie en in Nederland uitgebracht door de TROS-televisie", which means "Based on the BBC television series, in the Netherlands screened by TROS-TV".

Although these novels feature the first, second and third Doctors, the back cover of all eight books features a portrait of Tom Baker. The artwork was cropped from the cover of Target's The Doctor Who Monster Book. That factual book was published in November 1975; the novelisations themselves do not bear a copyright date specific to the Dutch editions, but based on the appearance of that Archilleos Baker artwork the books must have been published not earlier than 1976. (Certainly not in 1974, as has been commonly cited.)

As an example of the translated text, the familiar Dalek war cry is "WE ZULLEN JE VERNIETIGEN", which translates as "We will destroy you!"

Also released was a Dutch edition of the 1975 World Distributors annual. Published in September 1975 by Mulder & Zoon B.V., this volume had a slightly different cover layout than its English counterpart. The interior had virtually the same contents as the UK edition, but was translated into Dutch.

Netherlands/ Holland in Doctor Who

• The French were allied with the Dutch in their war with Spain (The Massacre).
• There was a Dutch crewman (Jim?) on the Gravitron base (The Moonbase).
• Euro Sea Gas engineer, Van Lutyens (John Abineri), came from The Hague (Fury from the Deep).
• On the wall of the TARDIS's ancillary power room was the painting Giovanni Arnolfini and his Bride by Dutch artist, Jan van Eyck (The Invasion of Time).
• Arc of Infinity was filmed and set in and around Amsterdam.

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