Doctor Who - THE ABORTED SEASON 23 - THE TRUE FACTS.
18 March 2015 at 16:24
SOMEONE NEEDS TO FINALLY SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
HERE IS MY LETTER ABOUT IT TO GALLIFREY BASE.
I absolutely HAVE to wade in here and put the record straight. During this period, I was around JNT and Eric almost every day, and I knew absolutely everything to do with the production at that time, including who was writing what.
The DVD documentary about the aborted season 23 is flawed in the extreme, and nobody ever talked to me, the one and only person who knew what all six stories were. Eric has a memory like a sieve, and remembers nothing of that period, but I have a photographic memory, which mercifully was not affected by my stroke, and it still pains me to read such inaccuracies. The six stories of season 23 were as follows...
THE NIGHTMARE FAIR
THE ULTIMATE EVIL
MISSION TO MAGNUS
YELLOW FEVER
THE HOLLOWS OF TIME
GALLIFREY
There is no doubt about the accuracy of this. Eric was writing Gallifrey. After the cancellation, JNT and Eric had a furious row because John wanted to carry on with the same scripts. Eric said that it needed a new fresh approach so he refused to complete Gallifrey. In a classic fit of pique, John commissioned Pip and Jane Baker to write it to Eric's storyline. After one week, Eric made such an almighty stink that the commission was withdrawn, but I believe the stigma of this action led to Eric's finally walking out a year later. Eric finds this period so painful he has forgotten half of what happened, but Bob Holmes had offered the guidance of a mentor to Eric to write a story about con men, deposed Presidents, and sleeper agents with a hint of The Manchurian Candidate thrown in. Eric discussed the entire plot with me prior to the cancellation, but it never made it past the original story ideas as it would have been the last of the six stories to go into production, but Julian Glover was considered as the machiavellian arch villain President.
The Children Of January was a spare script and would only ever have made it to season 24, if ever used at all. Eric hated it.
As for Yellow Fever, I had a photocopy of the original scene breakdown of all three episodes, given to me by Eric. Indeed at one point Eric was hired to write it for the Doctor WHO book range, and got paid an advance, which he later returned.
The Rani was never to be in this story. Kate O'Mara was still doing Dynasty, and there was no mention of her in the story breakdown. This was a story about The Master, The Brigadier, UNIT, and Benton. The first half was set in London, with an Auton Prime Minister, the second half in Singapore. It would have been wonderful, especially with Graeme Harper directing.
I am really sick and tired of people spouting fantasy mistruths about this cancelled season. I always regretted its loss,down to being JNT's mouthpiece to Charles Catchpole of The Sun, and the dreaded Doctor In Distress, and I reconstructed three of the missing stories myself on audio, and did detailed visual recons on DVD of all six stories, with Nicola Bryant, Julian Glover, Milton Johns, Jon Levene, Waris Hussein, John Leeson, Nigel Plaskitt, Ian Fairbairn, and many many more. I am incredibly proud of them. Both Yellow Fever and Gallifrey were totally faithful to the original storylines.
I can 100% assure you all, no matter what anyone says to the contrary, that Gallifrey WAS to be the sixth story of that aborted season. And Yellow Fever's tag "And How To Cure It", was a Bob Holmes joke and never seriously intended to be a part of the title. That imagined cover featuring The Rani is just plain WRONG on so so many levels.
