Doctor Who: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Waters Of Mars
14. There Were Loads Of Financial Issues
The Waters of Mars was conceived in 2008. And what else happened around this time? The world's economy fell apart.
The impact of the global financial crash resulted in a shortage of funds for Doctor Who, and it was initially thought that The End of Time would have to be shortened to two 45-minute episodes, instead of the proposed hour-long ones.
The other option that was floated about was to abandon The Waters of Mars entirely, as it was deemed the least-important of the remaining specials.
Thankfully, executive producer Julie Gardner was soon able to secure funding – but the show's money problems weren't yet over.
The BBC made a mistake which led to some of the budget for Planet of the Dead going missing, so money was moved over from The Waters of Mars' budget to compensate. This resulted in huge CGI water creatures being scrapped, and the villain instead became the viral infection known as the Flood.
Considering how fantastic a villain the Flood is, this whole ordeal definitely worked out for the best.