Season 23a

[SiHart]

The original Season 23 would have been an odd old thing, wouldn't it? I can't make up my mind whether it would actually have been any good or not.

Lets look at the scant evidence we've got.

The Nightmare Fair
Great setting- something Doctor Who really ought to have done by now, a funfair/ theme park setting. It would probably have worked very well.
The Celestial Toymaker return. At the time this would probably have been exciting, but now the Toymaker has been revelaed to be one of the lesser enemies of the Doctor and the original Toymaker story revelaed to be rubbish and not actually a surreal classic, he might not have been a wise choice to bring back...
Blackpool, again a good setting. A pretty good story, would probably have been a cracking opener.

The Ultimate Evil
Hmm, the Dwarf Mordant probably wasn't the ulitmate in evil, but was an OK creation. Very like Sil though, which was a problem.
Doctor turns evil- probably the last thing we needed the 6th Doctor to do, after the Twin Dilemma.
The planet seems a bit cliched with it's two continents violently opposed to each other.

Mission to Magnus
Oh god! Sil and the Ice Warriors teaming up on a planet ruled by women. Give me strength!
The Doctor's childhood bully arriving to do... not very much really and just stops the main plot from beginning too soon. Probably would have been quite cringeworthy.
Would have been awful!

Yellow Fever (and how to cure it)
Singapore! Autons! The Master? The Rani? Over egged pudding? Probably. Not much else is known...

In the Hallows of Time & Children of January
Intriguing titles. Don't know much else. Who can say?

So... what do you think? Would it have been better than Trial? Like season 22, only more obscure returning villains?
Could January to March 1986 have been a classic time for Doctor Who?

Si xx

[WhiteCrow]

Depends - how much would "Pip and Jane Baker" have figured in this season?

[SiHart]

Well apparently, not at all. (I forgot to mention the writers, didn't I?) thought there was a rumoured Pip 'n' Jane story called Gallifrey mentioned once or twice...

The rumoured writers were:
Graham Williams
Waly K Daly
Phillip Martin
Robert Holmes
Christopher H Bidmead and
Michael Feeney-Callan

Si xx

[WhiteCrow]

It's an interesting conundrum. Would a season have stopped the rot?

I think more likely it'd have sped up the series decline, and we'd possibly not have had the McCoy era, robbing us of Curse of Fenric, probably one of the best classic series stories ever.

[Lissa]

Unless a miracle happened in the rewrites, script editing or production, The Nightmare Fair would've been terrible.

[Si Hunt]

It seems fairly obvious that it was "business as usual" for the Doctor Who team - with old enemy team-ups, a mixture of the usual old hands and troublesome new writers and a pointless jaunt abroad so they could all get a sun tan and buy souvenirs.

Thus "The Nightmare Fair" would have been fun but uncertain in tone (The Toymaker would have been not as good as you remember and there'd have been too many gruesome bits), "The Ultimate Evil" would have been like "Timelash" and "Return of the Autons" would have been glossy, shambolic and full of lavish shots of sunburnt actors wandering around holiday locations.

In short, it would have been however good you think Season 22 is.

Si.

[Jon Masters]

I've always suspected that Yellow Fever would have had so many elements jammed into it that Bob Holmes would eventually lose his patience and tell Eric to stuff it up his a@#e.

Thanks goodness we got the Mysterious Planet instead. (not a line you're likely to hear much anywhere else !)

[Captain Tancredi]

I've always suspected that Yellow Fever would have had so many elements jammed into it that Bob Holmes would eventually lose his patience and tell Eric to stuff it up his a@#e.

Holmes tended to be at his least inspired when writing to order, but on the other hand if you know the colonial Singaporean meaning of yellow fever, there could have been an interesting story there.

The Nightmare Fair seems to have had a couple of good ideas (and may well have picked up once the production team put Michael Gough in front of the cameras again) but the Toymaker was oversold as a "classic" villain in the mid-1980s before many people were familiar with the Hartnell story. Location work in Blackpool could have been good, though.

[Andrew Curnow]

Based on the Target versions only: Nightmare Fair could have been a classic if directed with some flair, but how they ever intended to animate the Mechanic character (giant spidery cyborg type thingummy) is beyond me.

The Ultimate Evil would probably have been pretty lame - my memory of the book is a lot of things happening because the plot says so, rather than because the characters are driving the story. And, as Si says, the Doctor being evil would probably have been very bad.

And Mission to Magnus - oh the humanity, no! The whole 'Doctor's school bully' thing shouldn't have got further than the sentence, "I'd like to write a story featuring..." And to make matters even worse, the character disappears about 1/3 of the way into the story never to be seen again, so IS NOT EVEN RELEVANT TO THE PLOT ANYWAY.

Si's nailed it though when he says "it would have been however good you think Season 22 is" - and although I was as outraged as anybody in 1985 when the show was cancelled/postponed, it really did need something doing to it. It's understandable that after several years in the job, both JN-T and Eric Saward were a bit jaded, or at least uninspired, but it's a big shame (especially for Colin who was coming into it with so much excitement and enthusiasm for something new) that neither they nor the BBC bosses considered that reason enough to get a new Producer and Script Editor.

[Stuart Wallis]

Mind you, since the bosses were seemingly that intent on getting rid of the show, it probably wouldn't have occurred to them anyway.

One of the old '80s/90s fanzines (Skaro, funnily enough, IIRC) had an article in one issue about what was known about the "original" S23. Going by what they said, In The Hallows Of Time and Children Of January were the Bidmead and Feeny-Callan stories Si refers to (can't remember which was which); Ingrid Pitt and her husband sent in a complete script for episode one of a story called The Micromen - if you remember the Numbskulls from Beezer Comic...; Ian Marter was approached to do some writing; other scripts seemed to include The Song Of the Space Whale by (yes, the Pat Mills and John Wagner, and The First Sontarans by Andrew Smith of State Of Decay fame.

[Simon R]

The Nightmare Fair seems to have had a couple of good ideas (and may well have picked up once the production team put Michael Gough in front of the cameras again) but the Toymaker was oversold as a "classic" villain in the mid-1980s before many people were familiar with the Hartnell story. Location work in Blackpool could have been good, though.

There's a comment in the About Time book that Michael Gough might not have been able to reprise his role due to his appearing in "Arc of Ininifty" two/three years before and there being some rule at the BBC that an actor can't guest star in a drama within a four year period. Or something. Has anyone else ever read/heard that? Or did I imagine it?

I've read the novel of the "Nightmare Fair" quite closely as we were going to make an action figure version about 4 years ago and got as far as making a few sets and making a Sixth Doctor and Peri figure (in Geri Halliwell inspired costume for those that like that sort of thing). The computer games and funfair bits are good and long over due in the series but there's a lot of faffing around in a cell and there's a living cloud or something which would have stretched the effects team and not in a good way.

[Si Hunt]

I always think it's pointless to criticise Doctor Who for being like it was in 1985 because... well, it was 1985! Everything looked crap in 1985. Ask Bob Dylan fans. It was the age of outrageous bubble perms, hideous leather skirts and awful 'bruised face' make-up. And excess excess excess! Thatcher! Money! Living It Up! The Doctor Who team were having a whale of a time and the show was being made by a partying producer on the crest of the Yuppie tide. It's easy for us to look back on it with twenty years hindsight, but you can't blame 1985 Doctor Who for being so very 1985.

Si.

[Logo Polish]

There's a comment in the About Time book that Michael Gough might not have been able to reprise his role due to his appearing in "Arc of Ininifty" two/three years before and there being some rule at the BBC that an actor can't guest star in a drama within a four year period. Or something. Has anyone else ever read/heard that? Or did I imagine it?

Doesn't seem to have stopped Philip Madoc appearing in two stories within six months of each other in 1968 and 1969, unless the ruling was different then.

[Si Hunt]

Knowing the absurd attention to Doctor Who lore back then (don't forget the same team got the actor who happened to be inside the Cyber Controller in 1967 back the previous year, despite him never even having voiced him) I'm pretty sure they would have wangled a way round that rule, even if they had to pay half the budget to do so!

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

The BBC weren't keen on old companions coming back in different roles after Meglos, I know that much; they stopped Michael Craze coming back IIRC.

[Si Hunt]

Where did you hear that? It seems unlikely to me. Would the BBC really know, let alone care, that Michael Craze had been a regular in 1966? In 1983 they didn't mind the series' new lead actor having been in it as a different character a year before!!

Si.

[SiHart]

It's true. Graeme Harper wanted Micheal Craze to play Krelper in Androzani and was overruled by him. It was on the DVD production notes I think.

Si xx

[Stephen Morgan]

What was novelised by Target from these scripts? I remember The Nightmare Fair, and thinking what a plod it was, and I know the titles from what was documented in DWM, but can't recall if there were any more novelisations. I bet I'll go upstairs later though and find I have them all.

[Logo Polish]

The other two were The Ultimate Evil and Mission To Magnus. Doubt if any of the others were advanced enough for there to be potential for novelising.

[Simon R]

I could never get through the "Magnus" novel though I'm almost tempted to try again.

[Stephen Morgan]

The other two were The Ultimate Evil and Mission To Magnus. Doubt if any of the others were advanced enough for there to be potential for novelising.

AH!! Yes of course, I do have them, but recall absolutely nothing about them. I might look these out over the weekend.

[SiHart]

If you do, let us know what you make of them Stephen. I quite fancy reading the three of them again myself. I have a feeling they're not going to stand up too well now though, but at the time when it was a new and novel (ha!) concept to have new Doctor Who stories in book form, these were very exciting.

Si xx

[Phillip Culley]

Having read Mission to Magnus and The Ultimate Evil, I think we're very lucky the season never got made!

[Stuart Wallis]

Where did you hear that? It seems unlikely to me. Would the BBC really know, let alone care, that Michael Craze had been a regular in 1966? In 1983 they didn't mind the series' new lead actor having been in it as a different character a year before!!

I can't remember which issue, but it was mentioned many years ago in DWM.

[Larry]

certainly i've always felt that the original season 23 was a missed oppotunity and looking at the general out line it would easely of been a better season then what we ended up with

both The Nightmare Fair and Mission To Magnuss if written and produced well could of been good stories how ever I can't help thinking . Yellow Fever (and how to cure it) would of just been a rehash of Terror of the Autons. Eric Saward, was spot on with his feelings about the plans for this story Singapor was just crazy..

My only reservations about the season had it been made would of been that it was a bit top heavy on old monsters returning rather then any thing new.