10 Doctor Who Stories That Had Troubled Productions
2. The Trial Of A Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe (1986)
The Episodes: The Doctors trial for genocide reaches its final stages as he discovers that he is being framed and that his prosecutor the Valeyard is his future self, attempting to steal his Regenerations. The Problem: The threat of cancellation and the death of Robert Holmes. The season-spanning Trial Of A Time Lord story arc came at a turbulent time for Doctor Who. It had narrowly escaped permanent cancellation and its head was still very much on the chopping block. And while the first three four-part stories of Season 23 were produced without any significant problems, the same could not be said of the two-part finale. A minor problem with production was John Nathan-Turner vetoing a number of aspects of the script that he thought would give the BBC a reason to cancel the programme such as the death of the Sixth Doctors companion Peri and an ambiguous ending that would see the Doctor and the Valeyard fighting to the death. But Nathan-Turners attempts to avoid cancellation were minor compared to the real problem. Doctor Who stalwart Robert Holmes had been contracted to write the first and last stories of the season but passed away before completing the final episode. Script editor Eric Saward was brought in to round off the season but pulled out after disagreements with Nathan-Turner about the ending. Running out of options, husband and wife writing team Pip and Jane Baker (who had written the seasons third story) were drafted in to write the finale but, for legal reasons, werent allowed to see Sawards draft of the episode. Thus the season finale effectively had to be written blind and with almost no budget left. Although Doctor Who survived and was commissioned for a twenty-fourth season, it came at the cost of Colin Baker who was made a scapegoat for the seasons mixed reviews and subsequently sacked.
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
