Douglas Camfield
Douglas Gaston Sydney Camfield was a British television director, active from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Early life
Camfield studied at the York School of Art and aimed to work for The Walt Disney Company. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps in 1951 during his national service. Later that year, he transferred to the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1952 and was training to be in the Special Air Service, but due to an injury he pulled out of the application process. It has often been noted by those who worked with him that Camfield always retained an affection for the army and brought military standards of organisation to the programmes he subsequently directed.Career
His directing credits included Doctor Who, ''Z-Cars, Paul Temple, Public Eye, The Lotus Eaters, Van der Valk, The Sweeney, The Onedin Line, Blake's 7, Shoestring, The Professionals, Out of the Unknown, The Nightmare Man, the BBC dramatisation of Beau Geste, and Ivanhoe'', the 1982 television movie.''Doctor Who''
He is particularly well known for his work on Doctor Who and was production assistant on its earliest serials, both the pilot and broadcast versions of An Unearthly Child, and Marco Polo. Camfield directed many other stories in its first thirteen years:- Planet of Giants
- The Crusade
- The Time Meddler
- The Daleks' Master Plan
- The Web of Fear
- The Invasion
- Inferno
- Terror of the Zygons
- The Seeds of Doom
In 1967, Camfield submitted an initial script, co-written with Robert Kitts, titled Operation Werewolf. It was not brought forward by then producer Innes Lloyd, but was later adapted by Big Finish Productions in 2024. Shortly after directing The Seeds of Doom, Camfield was commissioned by Philip Hinchcliffe to write a four part serial for Doctor Who in 1976. The Lost Legion, would've centered around a North African outpost of the French Foreign Legion and two alien races at war. It was also going to feature the death of companion Sarah Jane Smith. After repeated submission delays it was dropped from the schedule.
He was also one of eight faces whose images are seen during the mind-bending sequence of the serial The Brain of Morbius, inferred to be early incarnations of the Doctor. Notably, the incarnation represented by his image appeared again in a flashback sequence of the Virgin New Adventures novel Cold Fusion.