TV Club: Doctor Who, “Time and the Rani”

“Time and the Rani” (season 24, episodes 1-4; originally aired 9/7/1987-9/28/1987)

By the time the Seventh Doctor rolled around, Doctor Who was probably already in a death spiral, weakened by years of cumulative creative gaffes, schedule changes, and growing hostility from the BBC brass. By now, they were making shorter seasons on a smaller budget, and I suspect the show was only kept on the air because the Beeb needed a sacrificial lamb to program against Coronation Street, the most popular soap opera of its day. The previous year’s season-spanning “Trial of a Time Lord” had ended in backstage disaster. Scriptwriter Robert Holmes died with the final episode unfinished. Script editor Eric Saward quit, incumbent Doctor Colin Baker was fired, and both complained bitterly in the press. Producer John Nathan-Turner also wanted to leave, and had made a deal to move on to a more prestigious show in exchange for firing Baker. Since he thought he was out the door, he didn’t try to hire their replacements and made no plans for the upcoming season. Which came back to bite him when the BBC decided to make him stay on Doctor Who after all, a decision that seems a little mystifying to me because everything I’ve read suggests that JNT was largely responsible for almost every change in the 1980s that made the show worse.

Originally published July 17, 2011 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.