Serendipity or the Lucky History of Who!!

[Andrew Curnow]

It seems to me that over its 45 years, a lot of Doctor Who's triumphs, successes, brilliant decisions, etc, etc have been down to luck or necessity rather than inspiration or well-organised planning. So this is the thread to celebrate those twists of fate that for reasons of desperation nevertheless gave us something wondrous. I'll start off with a fairly minor something or other...

...The New Series' Next Time trailers. From the very first one at the end of Rose, with its tantalising snippets from The End of the World, I've really loved this new innovation. Was it a bit of inspired RTD planning, to fill the potential void left by the absence of the cliffhanger? No - it was created simply as a cheap way of filling a couple of minutes of the timeslot. Brilliant!

Next!

[Jonno]

Robert Banks Stewart was due to write the S14 finale and Robert Holmes went on holiday and left him to it. On his return, which was later than expected due to his wife being taken ill and in hospital, he found that RBS had not written it due to other commitments. So at very short notice he came up with - The Talons of Weng-Chiang. And they didn't get much better than that!

[Si Hunt]

Billie's pop career going down the snaffler. The loss of her music career was our gain...

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

The whole Tom Baker/Elisabeth Sladen partnership might never have happened- having already seriously considered a different actress to play the companion in Jon Pertwee's last season, by all accounts Barry Letts was at his wit's end trying to find a replacement Doctor a year later when Tom wrote in on spec.

[SiHart]

Mary Tamm suggesting to Graham Williams that perhaps Lalla Ward could replace her as Romana... it gave us one of the great companions!

Si xx

[Stuart Wallis]

Terry Nation just having lost his job as Tony Hancock's scriptwriter.

Terrance Dicks just happening to have a script by Robert Holmes he'd been working on when another story fell through.

[SiHart]

If Ridley Scott hadn't suddenly been double booked Ray Cusick may never have designed the Daleks...

Si xx