Anyone who knows me knows that I'm absolutely obsessed with the unmade stories of Doctor Who - the ones that, for one reason or other, didn't make it to the screen. I continue to be obsessed despite the best efforts of Big Finish (and, thirty years earlier, Target Books) to demonstrate that quite a lot of them were rejected for a very good reason.

But one thing that's always bothered me is that anyone trying to tabulate them ends up mixing stories at various stages of development, so that e.g. a three line verbal pitch from a newbie writer seems to carry as much weight as a fully scripted serial that was pulled from production at the last minute.

So recently I've tried to sort the wheat from the chaff and come up with a more precise list of what didn't get made, and I decided to focus on stories that actually made it to script level. Not everything that was scripted is equal of course - the single episode commissioned for 'The Living World' back in 1963, for instance, was only commissioned as a test to tell if it would be suitable or not - but generally it seems like the best measure of the production team's faith that this story could be brought to TV.

So I'd like to present here what I think is the definitive list of unmade stories that either were commissioned for at least one script or were partially scripted with the approval of the production team.

General rules:

- I've included a few items where it's possible but not clear that a script was written. I've indicated these with a * - mostly these are stories that appeared on the BBC's Drama Classified Lists but are not flagged up as being storylines or breakdowns only, but it's possible these are in error. A couple of others I've included because Andrew Pixley's DWM archives have indicated that scripts were - or were approved to be - written (for the record these are 'The Miniscule Story' and 'The People Who Couldn't Remember').

- I've split these up into seasons, placing stories by the earliest season the script was up for. Where the dates are unclear, I've usually followed the season placements suggested by the Decades books by Howe, Stammers & Walker.

- I don't include stories that were eventually made under earlier seasons they might have been considered for (e.g. 'Time-Flight' and 'Kinda' for season 18) but make a note of the more remarkable ones under each season list.

- Where a story had multiple titles, I generally use the most recent one as the main one but list the others too. Where a title isn't known but we have a vague idea of the content I use a description in "quote marks".

- I only include scripts from the original series (if anyone wants a crack at doing this for the new series that's fine by me) and don't include any speculation about what might have been in season twenty-seven if the show had continued after 1989.

- 'Shada' doesn't count. It's not an unmade story if you can watch it on DVD.

SEASON ONE
The Giants (C.E. Webber)
The Masters of Luxor/The Robots (Anthony Coburn)
The Living World (Alan Wakeman)
The Miniscule Story (Robert Gould)*
The Red Fort (Terry Nation)
The Hidden Planet (Malcolm Hulke)
The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance (Moris Farhi)
Farewell Great Macedon/Alexander the Great (Moris Farhi)

SEASON TWO
“Dalek story” (Terry Nation)

SEASON FOUR
The Herdsmen of Aquarius (Donald Cotton)*
The People Who Couldn’t Remember (David Ellis & Malcolm Hulke)*
unknown (Eric Laithwaite)
The Imps (William Emms)

SEASON FIVE
Operation Werewolf (Douglas Camfield & Robert Kitts)

SEASON SIX
The Lords of the Red Planet (Brian Hayles)*
The Dreamspinner (Paul Wheeler)
The Rosemariners/The Rosicrutians (Donald Tosh)
The Prison in Space/The Amazons (Dick Sharples)
“Second Doctor finale” (Derrick Sherwin)*

SEASON EIGHT
The Gift (Bob Baker & Dave Martin)
The Cerebroids (Charlotte & Dennis Plimmer)

Notes: 'The Gift' is an early version of 'The Claws of Axos', but that story was a new commission.

SEASON NINE
The Mega (Bill Strutton)*
The Furies/The Space War (Ian Stuart Black)*

SEASON TWELVE
Space Station (Christopher Langley)
The Ark in Space (John Lucarotti)

Notes: John Lucarotti’s version of 'The Ark in Space' was entirely different (apart from the title and very basic premise) from the broadcast version.

SEASON THIRTEEN
The Nightmare Planet (Dennis Spooner)
The Prisoner of Time (Barry Letts)

Notes: This season was originally due to end with a 6-part version of 'The Hand of Fear' radically different from the version broadcast in the subsequent season.

SEASON FOURTEEN
The Angarath (Eric Pringle)
The Gaslight Murders (Basil Dawson)*
The Lost Legion (Douglas Camfield)

SEASON FIFTEEN
The Vampire Mutation/The Witch Lords (Terrance Dicks)
Killers of the Dark/The Killer Cats of Geng Singh (David Weir)

Notes: A new version of 'The Vampire Mutation' was later produced as 'State of Decay' in season eighteen.

SEASON SIXTEEN
Shield of Zarak/The Doppelgangers (Ted Lewis)

Notes: 'Dixon of Dock Green' creator Ted Willis wasn't commissioned for a story called 'The Lord of Misrule' for this season. This was a hoax that DWM fell for back in 1995 but is still often cited as a genuine unmade serial.

SEASON SEVENTEEN
Child Prodigy (Alistair Beaton & Sarah Dunant)
Erinella/Dragons of Fear (Pennant Roberts)
The Doomsday Contract/Shylock (Allan Prior from a story by John Lloyd)
The Tearing of the Veil (Alan Drury)

SEASON EIGHTEEN
Sealed Orders (Christopher Priest)

Notes: A new version of 'Erinella' (see season seventeen) was commissioned for this season.

SEASON NINETEEN
The Dogs of Darkness (Jack Gardner)
Project Zeta-Sigma/Project ‘4G’/Project Zeta Plus (John Flanagan & Andrew McCulloch)
The Enemy Within (Christopher Priest)

SEASON TWENTY
Song of the Space Whale/Space Whale (Pat Mills, originally with John Wagner)
Parasites (Bill Lyons)

Notes: This season was originally intended to conclude with 'The Return', an earlier version of 'Resurrection of the Daleks', but it lost its production dates to strike action.

TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
The Six Doctors (Robert Holmes)

SEASON TWENTY-ONE
Poison (Rod Beacham)
Man-Watch / Maytime (Christopher Bailey)
Ghost Planet (Robin Squire)

SEASON TWENTY-TWO
The Children of Seth (Christopher Bailey)
Leviathan (Brian Finch)
The Macros/The Macro Men (Ingrid Pitt & Tony Rudlin)
Volvok/Strange Encounter (Ian Marter)

Notes: 'Children of Seth' may have been a new version of 'Man-Watch' (see season twenty-one). 'The Space Whale' (previously meant for season twenty) was also scheduled for inclusion in this season.

SEASON TWENTY-THREE (cancelled version)
Mission to Magnus/Planet of Storms (Philip Martin)
Yellow Fever and How to Cure It (Robert Holmes)
The Nightmare Fair/Arcade (Graham Williams)
In the Hollows of Time (Christopher H. Bidmead)
The Ultimate Evil (Wally K. Daly)
The Children of January (Michael Feeny Callan)
Meltdown (Gary Hopkins)
unknown (Jonathan Wolfman)*
unknown (Paula Woolsey)*

SEASON TWENTY-THREE (broadcast version)
Gallifrey (Pip & Jane Baker)*
The Second Coming (Jack Trevor Story)
Attack from the Mind (David Halliwell)
Pinacotheca/The Last Adventure (Christopher H. Bidmead)
Paradise Five/End of Term (P.J. Hammond)

SEASON TWENTY-FIVE
Alixion (Robin Mukherjee)*

Notes: 'Alixion' was commissioned as a back-up in case another story fell through from this season. It was also under consideration for Season Twenty-Six.


Now obviously this omits several really well known unmade stories because they never made it to script form. I don't want to brush these under the carpet, so I've also compiled a non-definitive list of stories that were either commissioned or seriously under consideration in outline form. I try to exclude anything that doesn't seem to have been anything more than a pitch or a basic idea rather than a proper storyline (e.g. John Wiles' 'The Face of God', Douglas Adam's B Ark storyline he later reused in 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy', Barry Letts' Troughton-era 'The Mutant'). But I have played a little fast and loose with the rules - I don't think, for instance, that 'Genesis of the Cybermen', 'The Krikkitmen' or 'The Menday Fault' were taken seriously by the production team but as outlines have made it into print I've included them for completeness' sake.

Note that while I'm about 80% certain of the season placings here, a lot of the rest is guesswork!

Season One: Britain 408 AD (Malcolm Hulke)

Season Two: unknown (Margot Bennett); The Slide (Victor Pemberton)

Season Three: The Dark Planet (Brian Hayles); "Eric the Red” (John Lucarotti); The Trap/The Space Trap (Robert Holmes); The White Witch (Brian Hayles); The Hands of Aten (Brian Hayles); The New Armada (David Whitaker)

Season Four: The Ocean Liner (David Ellis); The Clock (David Ellis); The Nazis (Brian Hayles); The Evil Eye (Geoffrey Orme); The Heavy Scent of Violence (George Kerr); The Hearsay Machine (George Kerr); The Man from the Met (George Kerr); The Hounds of Time (Brian Hayles); The Big Store (David Ellis & Malcolm Hulke)

Season Five: The Sleepwalkers (Roger Dixon); The Return of the Neanderthal (Roger Dixon); The Queen of Time (Brian Hayles); The Stones of Darkness (Brian Hayles)

Season Six: The Eye in Space (Victor Pemberton); The Laird of McCrimmon (Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln); The Impersonators (Malcolm Hulke); The Aliens in the Blood (Robert Holmes)

Season Seven: The Mists of Madness (Brian Wright); The Shadow People (Charlotte & Dennis Plimmer); The Vampire Planet/The Harvesters (William Emms); The Circles of Power (Brian Hayles)

Season Eight: The Spare Part People/The Brain-Drain/The Labyrinth (Jon Pertwee & Reed de Rouen); “plant life takes over” (Martin Worth); “Amazon city” (Douglas Camfield); The Hollow Men (Brian Hayles)

Season Nine: The Brain-Dead (Brian Hayles); The Shape of Terror (Brian Hayles); The Daleks in London (Robert Sloman)

Season Ten: Multiface (Godfrey Harrison)

Season Eleven: The Automata (Robert Holmes); The Final Game (Robert Sloman)

Season Twelve: The Sea of Fear (Brian Hayles)

Season Thirteen: unknown (Robert Sloman); The Haunting (Terrance Dicks); The Beasts of Manzic (Robin Smyth); The Eyes of Nemesis (Brian Hayles); The Menday Fault (David Wiltshire)

Season Fourteen: The Dreamers of Phados (Chris Boucher); The Mentor Conspiracy (Chris Boucher); The Foe from the Future (Robert Banks Stewart)

Season Fifteen: The Krikkitmen (Douglas Adams)

Season Sixteen: The Divided (Moris Farhi)

Season Seventeen: The Secret of Cassius (Andrew Smith); Valley of the Lost (Philip Hinchcliffe)

Season Eighteen: Into the Comet (James Follett); The Psychonauts (David Fisher); Mark of Lumos (Keith Miles); Mouth of Grath (Malcolm Edwards & Leroy Kettle); Farer Nohan (Andrew Stephenson); Soldar and the Plastoids (John Bennett); Romanoids (Geoff Lowe)

Season Nineteen: Psychrons (Terence Greer); The Torson Triumvirate (Andrew Smith); Hebos (Rod Beacham)

Season Twenty: unknown (Tanith Lee); Genesis of the Cybermen (Gerry Davis); Way Down Yonder (Lesley Elizabeth Thomas); The Darkness (Eric Pringle)

Season Twenty-One: The House That Ur-Cjak Built (Andrew Stephenson); The Place Where All Times Meet (Colin Davis); Nightmare Country (Steve Gallagher); The Elite (Barbara Clegg); The Underworld (Barbara Clegg); The Rogue TARDIS (Barbara Clegg); Circus of Destiny (Ben Steed); The Zeldan (William Emms); The SCI (William Emms); Warmongers (Marc Platt & Jeremy Bentham)

Season Twenty-Two: Hex (Peter Ling & Hazel Adair); The Guardians of Prophecy/The Place of Serenity (Johnny Byrne); The First Sontarans (Andrew Smith); unknown (Chris Boucher)

Season Twenty-Three (cancelled version): League of the Tancreds (Peter Grimwade); unknown (Bill Pritchard); Point of Entry (Barbara Clegg)

Season Twenty-Five: Knight Fall (Ben Aaronovitch); “Gate to Hell” (Ben Aaronovitch); Cat’s Cradle (Marc Platt); Shrine (Marc Platt)

Season Twenty-Six: Lungbarrow (Marc Platt)

So... what have I missed?

I continue to be obsessed despite the best efforts of Big Finish (and, thirty years earlier, Target Books) to demonstrate that quite a lot of them were rejected for a very good reason.

A very good reason? There were THOUSANDS of 'em. Every line, in the case of, say, The Ultimate Evil. (And that's just the novelisation, I haven't managed to find the audio cheap enough yet, may the gods continue to smile upon me.)

and don't include any speculation about what might have been in season twenty-seven if the show had continued after 1989.

But there were LOADS of scripts for those! Enough for Big Finish to bless us with an entire audio Season Twenty-Seven! And to make me realise that Season Twenty-Six didn't prove that Who had safely returned to glory after all...(Well, obviously TSLABYOD proved that but I really THOUGHT we were being robbed of great Who instead of •••• Who.)

'Shada' doesn't count. It's not an unmade story if you can watch it on DVD.

Several different DVDs. And video. And webcast. And novel. It's basically the most made thing EVER.

The Giants (C.E. Webber)

Wasn't it similar enough to Planet of Giants?

The Miniscule Story (Robert Gould)*

Ditto?

“Dalek story” (Terry Nation)

Since when has the BBC ever turned down a Terry Nation Dalek story? I mean, even when he handed over a few pages for The Daleks' Masterplan and scarpered to America (or something)?

Gallifrey (Pip & Jane Baker)*

There's something so fundamentally, existentially wrong with that sentence.

(I mean, I know they DID do a Gallifrey story and it was no worse than the REST of Trial but somehow, CALLING it 'Gallifrey'...)

Season Eight: The Spare Part People/The Brain-Drain/The Labyrinth (Jon Pertwee & Reed de Rouen)

Good grief.

The Giants (C.E. Webber)

Wasn't it similar enough to Planet of Giants?

The Miniscule Story (Robert Gould)*

Ditto?

Same premise but different stories and scripts.

Since when has the BBC ever turned down a Terry Nation Dalek story?

It's a weird one. This is a six part Dalek story commissioned for the same slot as 'The Chase', but apparently it definitely isn't 'The Chase'. Quite how bad it must have been for 'The Chase' to be preferable is a matter for conjecture (though it is notable that the last time Nation had to deliver a story at the eleventh hour he used a similar episodic structure).

Good grief.

Even moreso when you remember Reed de Rouen played Pa Clinton in 'The Gunfighters'.

Quite how bad it must have been for 'The Chase' to be preferable is a matter for conjecture

I have NEVER seen conjecture on this issue.

Any sane human would run screaming at the very concept of worse than The Chase...

you remember Reed de Rouen played Pa Clinton in 'The Gunfighters'

Do you mean POP CLANTON?

The THIRD DOCTOR and POP CLANTON wrote a Who script?

Sometimes this 'real life' nonsense is stranger than Who...

Well, actors have a lot of downtime trying to get work and they have ideas for what they'd like to play, so it's hardly a surprise that they would get into scriptwriting.

Like that American actor who wrote a little script about a boxer that everyone, but Emily, will know about. ;-)

and don't include any speculation about what might have been in season twenty-seven if the show had continued after 1989.

But there were LOADS of scripts for those! Enough for Big Finish to bless us with an entire audio Season Twenty-Seven!

There were loads of ideas for it but nothing had really developed and certainly no scripts had been comissioned. The Big Finish versions were basically created from scratch.

There's some talk of scripts being written for some of the less-likely-to-make-it items like David McIntee's 'Avatar', but I suspect these were probably spec scripts that attracted the production team's attention but were never seriously under consideration for production. One story where scripts definitely were written - the first two episodes of 'Illegal Alien' by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry - was never even shown to the production team.

Did they know that the show was finished in 1989?

I've heard varying accounts on that.

If you're talking about Tucker and Perry, they planned to pitch the scripts and outline to Andrew Cartmel in the spring of 1989, but were intercepted by Ben Aaronovitch who warned them that it might tread on the toes of another WWII set story coming up*.

But it doesn't look like anything was seriously commissioned or considered for Doctor Who this year. It would have been imprudent to do that with the show's long-term future in doubt.

Most of what was going to be in "season twenty-seven" seems to have fallen into one or two categories: 1) ideas that Cartmel had discussed with established writers, but don't seem to have proceeded any further than that, and which largely form the basis of what Big Finish served up, and 2) spec submissions that Cartmel had liked; this led to discussions with their authors and maybe even encouragement to develop them further, but I doubt any of them were seriously likely to make it even to a storyline commission. ('Alixion' is the only known post-Colin commission not to have made it to the screen.)

* Nowadays of course the response would be "WWII, eh? We can never have enough of those!"

And didn't Cartmel leave the show at this point?

I remember you mentioning that here somewhere, Kate.

Cartmel left 'Doctor Who' after Season 26 was completed to become script editor on 'Casualty'. He probably would have been discussing ideas of Season 27 informally in the months leading up to that on the off chance that the series had continued beyond that point. Post-'Trial' scripts seem to have been largely commissioned in the autumn so that would probably have been left to his replacement, but it's all moot anyway.

Cartmel left 'Doctor Who' after Season 26 was completed to become script editor on 'Casualty'.

The man knew a sinking ship when he saw one.

I'm surely Emily would scream "TRAITOR!"

I will, just as soon as I can get over the frozen shock of someone leaving WHO for...THAT.

Well, there was no point to him sticking around Doctor Who.

He couldn't Script Edit for s show that no longer existed.

'Casualty' was one of the BBC's big hit drama series*, at a time when it wasn't have much luck getting popular dramas off the ground, so it was a big promotion for and sign of confidence in Cartmel.

And it was a proper drama series back then rather than just another soap. The alternative would have been sitting in the Doctor Who production office twiddling his thumbs for another year. With JN-T. And without Sophie Aldred!

Better to DIE with Who than live with Casualty!

(I mean, not that I've ever actually SEEN Casualty, but that's ENTIRELY BESIDE THE POINT.)

Better to DIE with Who than live with Casualty!

This should be the epigram to 'Totally Tasteless'.

Better to DIE with Who than live with Casualty!

It's a business, not suicide. People get paid to work on Who, nobody does it for free. If they don't get paid they can't buy food, clothing, a TV license fee, some kinda expense related to lodging (rent, taxes, etc.), keeping their family/pets alive, so on and so forth.

Are you really so entitled that you expect others to work for nothing to give you a TV show?

Then again maybe you can volunteer to the BBC to run Doctor Who for free. We'd probably get more Who a year than Chibbers is capable of. ;-)

Are you really so entitled that you expect others to work for nothing to give you a TV show?

I'm not entitled, I'm just...a Fan.

Tom did a DWM-launch-tour at his own expense. Russell T God was DESPERATE to pay out of His own pocket for a Gridlock special effect when Who didn't have the budget for it.

You do what you've gotta do to keep Who going and having spent THREE YEARS desperately bailing out the sinking ship Cartmel should have had the decency to hang around for a bit longer to help in our Darkest Hour...(Paid, actually. JNT was paid to sit in that office twiddling his thumbs for years.)

The final fate of Classic Who was out of Cartmel's (and JNT's) hands.

It was the Bonehead Broadcasting Corporation that made the decision to kill it. And there was nothing either Cartmel or JNT could do or say to change their minds.

They could have made better stories.

(BEFORE Season Twenty-Six of Blessed Memory, I mean. Before it was too late.)

There are actually quite a lot of things JN-T could have done to save Doctor Who: "quit" being the top one.

We'll never know if Classic Who could have been saved, all we can do is speculate.

Besides, it ran for 26 seasons, it was time for a rest.

There are actually quite a lot of things JN-T could have done to save Doctor Who: "quit" being the top one.

I've seen arguments that if JNT had quit the BBC would have seized the opportunity to get rid of Who. That when he said between gritted teeth 'I have been persuaded to stay' and got a lot of flak from Fans for it, that he was actually sacrificing himself to save our raison d'etre.

Of course, the fact no one would ever have given him another job somewhat undermines this picture of Noble Self-Sacrifice, but still...

it ran for 26 seasons, it was time for a rest.

IT WAS NOT TIME FOR A REST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone who thinks it was time for Who to take a 'rest' should try taking a rest themselves...FROM BREATHING.

And I think it's time for Modern Who to take a rest.

And, with that, I'm gonna go hide now.

I've seen arguments that if JNT had quit the BBC would have seized the opportunity to get rid of Who.

But they got rid of Who anyway - and he still refused to budge for another year, which is a quite ludicrous amount of time to not take the hint.

One thing that only came to light with Marson's JN-T biography is how reluctant Jonathan Powell was to risk losing Doctor Who's slots to another department if he'd cancelled the show. That, rather than JN-T's desperate clinging onto his gravy train, is what the show alive for its final years.

Seems to be that the only way Classic Who could have been saved would have been a complete management shake up and the BBC.

Sack Grade, Powell, and the whole sorry bunch and put people like Russell Davies and Stephen Moffat in charge.

However, as we know, that didn't happen.

It could have been saved if Grade and Powell had put time and effort into saving it, as both have since acknowledged, but they were reluctant to do that on something they felt was a lost cause.

The most obvious thing to do was get rid of JN-T but he couldn't be sacked and refused to take numerous not very subtle hints to resign. Powell could have moved him to a different series but that would have meant sacrificing that show by giving it to someone who wasn't competent to do the job.

Sack Grade, Powell, and the whole sorry bunch and put people like Russell Davies and Stephen Moffat in charge.

Because obviously the BBC would have replaced the men who gave us 'Edge of Darkness' and 'The Singing Detective' with an unknown teacher from Scotland and one of the people who drew the pictures on 'Why Don't You...?'

Heck, they should have hired Emily

They could have "sent him upstairs", which is a thing where they promote someone inconvenient they can't get rid of to a nominaly superior echelon, where they will no longer have any direct influence on how a show is made. That's what they did to Gene Roddenberry after the first couple seasons of TNG.

That's not how things worked at the BBC. Producers were BBC employees, assigned to particular programmes within their departments. While there had been executive and associate producers on Doctor Who before, they had specific roles to play rather than being honorary titles.

There was no "upstairs" for JN-T to go while remaining a producer. Short of being sacked - which would have been inviting the unions to intervene even if there had been solid grounds to do so - the only way JN-T could have been replaced was to put him on another show in the drama department.

Given the intense inter-departmental rivalry the obvious solution - to bump him across to Light Entertainment - would have been much less obvious than it seems with hindsight. Plus, would LE have wanted to take someone who thought 'The Little Jean Little Show' would have been a winner?

---

quote:

They could have "sent him upstairs", which is a thing where they promote someone inconvenient they can't get rid of to a nominaly superior echelon, where they will no longer have any direct influence on how a show is made. That's what they did to Gene Roddenberry after the first couple seasons of TNG.

---

Perhaps the BBC should have let him leave when he originally wanted to, after Season Twenty-Three. However, they kept him on and fired Colin Baker instead

As I explained above, that would have meant moving JN-T onto another drama series, a risk Powell wasn't willing to take.

If JN-T had genuinely wanted to leave after Season 23 he could have resigned but chose not to. Grade sacked Colin Baker because he couldn't sack the producer directly and this was the only way of forcing him out... but JN-T refused to take the hint and clung on anyway.

Powell was wrong, and so was Grade. These men are just as must responsible for Classic Who's demise as JNT was.

And Colin just got a raw deal (sorry, Emily, I know you don't like him as the Doctor, but that's just how I feel).

What drama series would you have moved JN-T onto in 1985?

Who the hell cares what gets ruined as long as it isn't Who?

Jonathan Powell, believe it or not (obvs he is Evil From Before The Dawn of Time And The Rani so I'm sure you will believe it).

In an ideal world, JN-T would have taken the opportunity to pitch something to prove himself and left Doctor Who behind in 1985. But that would have meant giving up a gravy train - not a criticism per se but Doctor Who put him at the centre of a milieu that he obviously enjoyed being in and was psychologically incapable of giving up.

More charitably, he just couldn't recognise a good idea or how to exploit it to fullest effect. He had few good ideas and not much of a sales pitch for them, which is just more evidence that he was in the wrong job.

Judged on my reading of 'Totally Tasteless' he was an excellent PUM and should really have been given a production associate role on another series.

Truth is, we'll never know what would have happened. We can speculate, but do nothing more.

The Timeless Adventures re The Dark Dimension: 'The project was reportedly cancelled when the other Doctor actors realised they would be playing supporting roles to Baker' - get over it, losers! - 'although, later, Philip Segal, producer of the eventual 1996 TV movie, claimed he'd been instrumental in the abandonment of The Dark Dimension as he felt it would conflict with his then in-preparation comeback for Doctor Who' - it's AMAZING that literally millennia later I'm STILL discovering new reasons to curse Segal's name...