10 Doctor Who Stories That Had Troubled Productions

3. Warriors Of The Deep (1984)

The Episodes: The Tardis lands on an undersea missile base in the year 2084 that comes under attack by Silurians and Sea Devils. The Problem: An abrupt general election. At first, Warriors Of The Deep would have been pretty much the same as any other Fifth Doctor story. Not one of Peter Davison's best by a long chalk but still standard Doctor Who. But then an enemy of the Doctor that nobody could have foreseen cropped up: Margaret Thatcher. Shortly before production began in earnest on Warriors, Thatcher announced a general election which threw the story into complete and utter chaos. Because election coverage trumps science-fiction (especially science-fiction thought to be past its best), Warriors lost a fortnight of studio time to coverage and discussion of the election. And rather than cut the season short, the decision was made for the cast and crew to press on and work as best as they could despite the limiting factors. And, as we€™ve previously discussed, this didn€™t end well. The story was under-rehearsed and, harking back to the problems of the 1960s, there was precious little time for retakes if mistakes were made. As well as this, the costume for marine battering ram the Myrka was finished less than an hour before it was needed on set, meaning that the actors playing the creature had no time to rehearse, and neither did Hammer Horror veteran Ingrid Pitt for her fight scene with it. Which, in the final cut, comes out looking incredibly lame as Pitt is basically trying to have a karate fight with an enormous reptilian panto horse. And since the paint on the costume didn€™t dry in time, it ended up rubbing off on costumes and sets. All in all, this was exactly what Doctor Who didn€™t need at that time and footage of the Myrka was eventually used by BBC One controller Michael Grade to support his argument for cancelling Doctor Who.