Doctor Who: The Cartmel Masterplan - What Could Have Been

Sadly, due to Andrew Cartmel's late arrival during the production of Sylvester McCoy's first season, he wasn't able to inject many of his new ideas into the scripts.

This resulted in the first run of stories feeling jumbled in terms of quality, direction, and tone. It naturally made it difficult for Sylvester McCoy to find his footing as the Seventh Doctor. Andrew Cartmel managed to turn things around during the season finale, Dragonfire, which began to stir the show in the direction he wanted.

From there, he did his best to build stories based around the mysteries surrounding the Doctor's past, incorporating the demi-god like presence within his new persona. Of course the writer's had to be careful about building up this grand masterplan, particularly since producer John Nathan-Turner wasn't too keen on the idea of the Doctor being associated with religious symbolism, especially if it led to audience members becoming offended.

An example of this is John Nathan-Turner forcing a scene to be removed from Remembrance of the Daleks, which indicated towards the Doctor being more than just an ordinary Time Lord when speaking to Davros. This didn't prevent the sly hint towards the Doctor being the Other earlier on in the episode, when he accidently let slip to Ace that he was amongst Rassilon and Omega during the creation of the Hand of Omega. Though he quickly covered up his mistake.