John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = London Evening Standard | file = 1993-07-14 Evening Standard.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1993-07-14 | author = Nicholas Hellen |..."

2022-01-20T00:46:08Z

Created page with "{{article | publication = London Evening Standard | file = 1993-07-14 Evening Standard.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1993-07-14 | author = Nicholas Hellen |..."

New page

{{article
| publication = London Evening Standard
| file = 1993-07-14 Evening Standard.jpg
| px = 450
| height =
| width =
| date = 1993-07-14
| author = Nicholas Hellen
| pages = 32
| language = English
| type =
| description =
| categories =
| moreTitles =
| morePublications =
| moreDates =
| text =
IT SHOULD have been the perfect opportunity to display the BBC Drama Department's fresh willingness to give the public what they want.

But the ignominious collapse last Friday of plans to screen a 30th-anniversary special of Dr Who has infuriated the show's thousands of fans and made the return of the Time Lord appear more remote than ever.

Disregarding a three-line whip against discussing the fiasco, my BBC source tells me that the project ran aground on an unusually ill-tempered power struggle between rival departments. Dr Who has never been a favourite of the Drama Department. Indeed, one school of thought has it that the show was axed just to spite its obsessive fans.

But scrapping production three weeks into development has ended up irritating everybody. Garry Russell, editor of the Dr Who fanzine, tells me of hopes dashed and money wasted.

Actor Colin Baker, one of the more recent Doctors, is more dismissive: "The script was quite simply no good," he tells me. "It is sad that it went so far and yet failed to work out." In time-honoured Corporation fashion, he was still waiting to be told of the show's cancellation.

Spelling correction: Gary Russell
}}

The script was quite simply no good - Revision history

John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = London Evening Standard | file = 1993-07-14 Evening Standard.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1993-07-14 | author = Nicholas Hellen |..."