Time and tide melts the snowman… or something. Unusually for a show about time travel, some Doctor Who episodes were penned in a hurry, for one reason or another. Here are some of the most famous examples…
The Daleks’ Master Plan
The writer and Dalek creator Terry Nation was famously quick at delivering scripts. But, alas, he wasn’t always the most reliable writer, and during the production of the 1965 story ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ he was particularly over-stretched as he was also penning The Baron for ITV. To add to the problem, these Doctor Who episodes constituted the longest Doctor Who story ever written (at the time, anyway) and the clock was ticking.
As we all know, Terry Nation did indeed deliver all his Doctor Who scripts on time, but they were far from finished. Many of them were under-running, and some were handed to the script editor Dennis Spooner just minutes before Nation was due to board a plane. Spooner, therefore, had to do a considerable amount of re-writing to bring them up to scratch, and ended up penning over half of the 12 part story.
But was ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan‘ a success? Well, these Doctor Who episodes are frequently cited as some of the most popular of the First Doctor’s era, and are many people’s favourite Dalek story. But at the time, its bleak tone and three month length seemed to drain viewers, and after these Doctor Who episodes were broadcast, the series saw its first ever major ratings dip. The show went from a peak of 10.3 million viewers to a low of 5.8 by the time the last episode of the subsequent story ‘The Massacre‘ went out.
The Mind Robber
Although the bulk of these Doctor Who episodes had a reasonable amount of writing time allocated to them, the opening part was hastily penned. Originally, ‘The Mind Robber’ was only supposed to be four episodes long, but there was a problem; the preceding story ‘The Dominators’ was struggling. It was meant to be a six parter, but the production team felt that it wouldn’t stretch. It was therefore decided to cut it down to four, and tack an extra episode onto the beginning of ‘The Mind Robber.’
This wasn’t easy, though, given that they had no money for any sets or additional actors, and little time to get a script written. They couldn’t even hire the main writer Peter Ling to pen it, and the task therefore fell to the resident script editor Derrick Sherwin.
Because of all these production woes, each part of ‘The Mind Robber’ underruns considerably, and episode five is one of the shortest Doctor Who episodes of all time at a slender 18 minutes. At least they won’t have to cut much out when they finally get round to colourising it, eh?
City of Death
The funny thing about these fastly-written Doctor Who episodes is that, on the whole, they are some of the most highly regarded of all time. ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ is often hailed as a lost classic. ‘The Mind Robber’ has legions of fans.
And there is perhaps no more popular story than 1979’s ‘City of Death‘ which, technically, was written in about two days. A considerable amount of work had been done on these Doctor Who episodes prior to this, but a number of a major rewrites were needed, and the story’s author David Fisher wasn’t able to do them owing to personal problems. Again, the clock was ticking, and the producer Graham Williams had no choice but to tackle the job himself, along with his script editor Douglas Adams.
According to Adams, he was taken back to Graham Williams’ house, locked in his study, and essentially “hosed down with whiskey and black coffee for a few days.” Adams took the framework built by Fisher, but reconstructed the story from the ground up, under Williams’ guidance.
In fact, these Doctor Who episodes were so different from what David Fisher had written that he didn’t think it fair for his name to go on the credits. But the BBC was unable to attach Douglas Adams’ name to it, as it was against the rules for a script editor to write for his own show. As such, ‘City of Death’ was attributed to the mysterious David Agnew – a known BBC pseudonym that, in this case, was the cover name for Graham Williams and Douglas Adams.
It’s remarkable, therefore, that ‘City of Death‘ is often regarded as one of the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time – considering it was written over the course of a weekend.
Fear Her
Some Doctor Who episodes are more fondly remembered than others, and it’s fair to say that ‘Fear Her’ doesn’t fall into many fans’ top 10s. And this begs the question: would people really have rather watched a blank screen, or had Series Two curtailed? (Actually, maybe we shouldn’t ask that question!)
Granted, ‘Fear Her’ isn’t one of David Tennant’s most distinguished Doctor Who episodes, but like many of the others on this list, it was borne out of a crisis. In this instance, the crisis was ‘Doctor Who and the Green Knight’ – a tale by Stephen Fry which had fallen through. And, as was the case with ‘The Mind Robber,’ there was little money to speak of, and so the writer Matthew Graham was hired by Russell T Davies to deliver something simple and inexpensive that could be shot on a housing estate. Furthermore, Graham was instructed to write something that would appeal to his seven year old son.
This might explain, therefore, why ‘Fear Her’ has failed to win legions of adult fans. But it is a testament to what can be achieved with minimal special effects and a relatively small cast. Furthermore, ‘Fear Her’ is not without ambition, and it was a nice touch to set the episode against the backdrop of the 2012 Olympics which, at the time, were a distant, future event.
And if ‘Fear Her’ is not your favourite of the Doctor Who episodes on this list, tell us: which one is the best? And can you think of any that you would add? Let us know in the comments below.
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