20 Cancelled Doctor Who Episodes You Need To Know About
4. Strax On Trial
Just as the Pertwee era “UNIT Family” saw in Tom Baker’s Doctor but pretty much disappeared straight after, the Twelfth Doctor’s debut story, Deep Breath, would turn out to be the Paternoster Gang’s last.
However, at one point things might have been different, with one of the gang getting their very own episode.
As he revealed on his blog back in 2018, Green Wing writer James Henry was invited to pitch an episode for the Twelfth Doctor’s first series.
After suggesting various ideas that had already been taken, he was offered another premise: what if the Sontarans found out that Strax had been helping humanity, and the Doctor, and put him on trial, effectively sentencing him to death?
Despite believing it to be “the worst pitch” he’d ever done, Henry was asked to develop Strax on Trial into a full script. In the end it just missed out, which is a pity, as it would have made Strax a more three-dimensional character and given Dan Starkey a chance to do more than just shout about acid and grenades.
Henry also recalled a mortifying email where he wrote the story’s title with a p instead of an x, but insists that this had nothing to do with him not getting the gig.