A huge ‘What if…’ in Doctor Who history is ‘The Lost Legion’, a story by regular director Douglas Camfield featuring aliens attacking the French foreign legion, ended with the death of companion Sarah Jane Smith. Script Editor Robert Holmes was unhappy with the script, and decided to bring back another rejected script – ‘The Hand of Fear’ – where the original draft killed off The Brigadier. UNIT were being phased out of the show in the mid-Seventies, and the plan was to send the Brig out in a blaze of glory. This was considered for ‘Pyramids of Mars’ in 1975, and ‘The Hand of Fear’ would have seen him stop the destruction of Earth in an explosive act of self-sacrifice. Sarah’s death, at the hands of the last surviving alien antagonist, would have been followed by her body being burnt on a funeral pyre as the Doctor left in the TARDIS.
Perhaps there was a sign up in the mid-Seventies production office that simply read ‘Better Immolate Than Never’.
Ultimately these stories were rejected, and 1989’s ‘Battlefield’ would also consider killing off the Brigadier, but writer Ben Aaronovitch reportedly found that he couldn’t write that scene. Sarah Jane and the Brig would return to Doctor Who and its spin-offs, their characters only passing with their actors.
The Missing Season 23
Colin Baker has a fair few missing stories, with Season 23 in pre-production when the show was temporarily cancelled, and a whole series binned. ‘The Nightmare Fair’ by former producer Graham Williams was to be the opening story, featuring the return of The Celestial Toymaker (as seen in 1966’s ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ and 2023’s ‘The Giggle’) at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Philip Martin had written ‘Mission to Magnus’, bringing back the return of the Ice Warriors after twelve years, and the character Sil from Martin’s last story ‘Vengeance on Varos’. Robert Holmes had outlined a story set in Singapore featuring the return of the Master, the Rani and the Autons.
Season 23 became a single 14-episode story, ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’, effectively three stories with the Doctor’s trial as a framing device, concluding with a two-part finale. The third segment proved especially tricky. Initially David Halliwell and Jack Trevor Story were commissioned to both write two-parters set in the same location, with Halliwell’s script concerning two animal-like races in escalating conflict on the planet Fred. Story, though, struggled with his two episodes and Halliwell’s weren’t popular with the production team.
Former Script Editor Christopher Bidmead wrote ‘Pinacotheca’ – about a museum of key moments in the history of the universe – and after working closely with Eric Saward on the scripts, was surprised to hear nothing for a month before the scripts were rejected. Saward turned to PJ Hammond, creator of Sapphire & Steel and future Torchwood writer, who quickly wrote ‘Paradise Five’ about a sinister holiday camp planet, but producer John Nathan-Turner didn’t like it. Nathan-Turner met Season 22 writers Pip and Jane Baker in a lift and suggested Saward talk to them. Saward resigned shortly afterwards, and Nathan-Turner script edited the Bakers’ scripts.
