Serial 108.5: Shada

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor), Paul McGann (8th Doctor)
Companions: Romana II, K-9

Written by: Douglas Adams, Gary Russell (audio adaptation), Gareth Roberts (novelization)
Directed by: Pennant Roberts (and Gary Russell)

Background & Significance: As of the day I'm posting this, there are 106 episodes missing from the Doctor Who archives. The number would be 108, but two were returned to the archives last December and the number decreased accordingly. Unfortunately, those missing episodes were the first recoveries in eight years and it's doubtful many more will ever be recovered. To travel in the other direction, Doctor Who is going to outlast all of us because it's infinitely malleable and so long as stories exist, Doctor Who has the potential to exist. I'll be sad if there's Doctor Who stories still coming out after I die, but if there aren't I'll probably more disappointed than I ever would be sad.

As fans, this leaves us with the notion that Doctor Who has created a need that will never truly be satisfied. There are points where you might burn out on Doctor Who, but you'll always come back because you will always want your experience to be as complete as possible to make up for the fact that there's one in ten episodes that you will never see, and because there's stories that will air long after you die that you'll never see because you're, well, dead. We're obsessed with the gaping hole left simply by being Doctor Who fans, by the infinite wealth and treasure trove we alone are privy to and the wasted opportunities strikes us as inherently wasteful, because why waste a good story?

Which brings us to "Shada".

"Shada" is the only Doctor Who story that can never truly be "complete". Unlike those stories missing from the archives, (which hypothetically could be returned despite its unlikelihood) "Shada" was completely written, partially produced, and never completed, which is entirely different.

The serial was intended to be the last big hurrah of the Graham Williams era. Williams himself was really done with the program by this point, and between Tom Baker's increasing irritability and not being able to get a budget near what he wanted it to be (it's never near what you want it to be, which is, inevitably, "infinity dollars" (or "infinity pounds" as this case might be)) he decided to go out on an story penned by his script editor, Douglas Adams, one that would be funny and delightful and rompy and basically everything Williams ever wanted his era to be. He even planned for it to have a good budget, having been recently slammed his first two seasons by failing to account for a big, six-part season finale, which is why "The Invasion of Time" and "The Armageddon Factor" are so insanely, unbelievably cheap-looking. So he pinched his pennies and made "The Nightmare of Eden" and "Horns of Nimon" (and even "Creature From the Pit") on an unusually small and tight budget.

It was all looking to go awesome. There would be Time Lord intrigue (which Williams always worked into his season finales) and Douglas Adams's own particular brand of humor and lots of money so he could go out on a proper note.

And then this labour dispute happened in December and they targeted Doctor Who because Doctor Who was a really good target that would get their point across. Williams fought to get the whole thing done in time and did good on the location work and made some progress on the studio time, but the labour dispute turned even more sour, the BBC postponed all recording dates in December, and because Christmas programs were way more important to the BBC than Doctor Who, Williams found it impossible to schedule the five recording dates he needed to finish the story and get the whole thing done before the story would actually make it to air.

So Williams's planned swansong never aired and "Horns of Nimon" became his legacy.

The part that stings most about this is that Williams had half a complete serial, and that's the part that I think gets in most people's heads about this. The whole story is a big ol' question mark that's gotten Doctor Who fans since it first didn't air. (And who can blame them? Just hearing the titular "Shada" is a Time Lord prison is enough to kick your brain into overdrive. I know it was a story I became particularly enraptured with when I first became aware of it. Hell, I still am and I'm not even a Douglas Adams fan) The fact that we'll never see it as it "should have" existed is the biggest kick in the teeth and the one that pushes Doctor Who fans from "intense curiosity" to "obsessive need."

How obsessive a need, you might ask? Well, plenty of people have attempted to get a faithful retelling of Shada up and running for years and years. Ian Levine did one in the early 80s with script inserts in place of scenes that weren't filmed (and apparently now has a cut of the film that he personally financed with animation to fill in the gaps that weren't filmed). Nathan-Turner worked after the show's cancellation to secure Tom Baker to provide linking narration to the existing clips to piece the whole thing together in a way that would make it make sense, getting a home video release in 1992, which remains the best he could do. Big Finish got permission from Douglas Adams's estate to produce an audio adaptation of Shada with animatics to visualize the story as best as possible. Because they couldn't get Tom Baker to reprise his role they asked then-incumbent Doctor Paul McGann to be The Doctor for the story and adapter Gary Russell wrote around it in such a way that it made sense. This was released in May of 2003.

Fast forward to this year: for the first time, Adams's Doctor Who story has been novelized by Gareth Roberts based on Douglas Adams's script and notes. It's the first time an Adams Doctor Who story has been novelized.

It's been an unsurprising obsession, but my question becomes "so how is it?" We have three different source texts to work with: Nathan-Turner's Tom Baker narrated home video release in 1992, Gary Russell's 8th Doctor Big Finish audio/animatic adaptation in 2003, and Gareth Roberts's novelization. I think it'd be a good idea to talk about all three of these and see which one works best, which one doesn't, and how do they all add up to the larger picture of the swansong Williams (and Adams) never got? Not only that, but how do these two Doctors' interpretations compare? It was written for Tom Baker, but how does Paul McGann do?  Was Douglas Adams really a great Doctor Who writer? Can we as a mass collective of Doctor Who fans ever move on?

Strap in, kids. This is gonna be a long one.

So let's get to it!

Doctor Who: The Movie (1996)

Doctor: Paul McGann (8th Doctor)
Companion: Dr. Grace Holloway


Written by: Matthew Jacobs
Directed by: Gregory Sax

Background & Significance: By 1990, Doctor Who was no more. McCoy's tenure ended and the BBC canceled the show. The fanbase, like Trekkies and Browncoats, turned inward to fill the void left by their favorite show. Zines, fanfiction, fan communities, conventions, radio plays... all of "the usual" cropped up to keep the show alive.

Needless to say, after its cancellation, Doctor Who proved itself a viable property, one with amazing staying power. It had all the cultural impact of Star Trek, and if Kirk and Spock et. al. managed to create a giant franchise empire, Doctor Who certainly could as well.

So in the mid '90's, they tried to revive it.

The BBC joined with American studios (attempting to bring in a U.S. viewership) to fund a single, made-for-TV movie with an American broadcaster that would function as a backdoor pilot to an ongoing series. It would be done on the relative cheap and filmed in Vancouver, and if the movie did well enough they would move it to series with this movie serving as the show's first episode.

They also decided that the movie would continue The Doctor's story where it had [essentially] left off in 1989. Certain changes would be enacted as it had to be new-viewer friendly. Other than that, it was essentially the same thing. The movie would introduce key elements. The Time Lords, The Master, Daleks, The TARDIS, and almost all of the original mythology would stay in place. The Doctor would regenerate, making a new incarnation in Paul McGann, giving a new generation a new Doctor to grow to love.

All that? Ridiculously logical. That all makes sense (for the most part). So what could go wrong?

Ohhhhhhhhh so much. As is probably clear, the movie failed to spark any backing or interest in continuing further, specifically from broadcast network Fox. The BBC couldn't move forward without an American network, despite the fact that the movie aired to eight million in Britain (about as large as Doctor Who was back at the end of its run... Which, considering that the show had been off the air for seven years at that point, isn't that bad).

And really, all of the problems everyone has comes from odd choices and lack of good, thrilling story that's--I hate to say worthy, but--worthy of the greatness of Doctor Who.

Personally? I came to this with much excitement. I had been looking forward to Paul McGann since I had first heard about him. And the movie itself didn't sound so awful (some of the complaints from the fanbase are things I was expecting and could just write off or around).

We can discuss all of its failings as we go through it, but just to be clear at the outset: I was excited for Paul McGann going into this, and he did not disappoint. More than anything, he really does a great Doctor. All the problems fall on the story and the writing and the direction and some really strange choices. So let's keep that in mind and separate the movie from The Doctor himself.

So let's get to it!