Doctor Who – The Trial Of A Time Lord – Original Concept Idea
At least that is what I am suggesting. Please read my tale below and make your own decision.
Back in 1984 I, and my best friends at school, were major Doctor Who fans and I had just been blown away by Peter Davison’s magnificent last season as the Doctor which ramped up the emotion and tension until the final crescendo of drama which was The Caves of Androzani. So moved was I by this amazing performance I felt empowered to write a synopsis of a story idea to send to the BBC’s Doctor Who office that, in my teenage naivety, I thought they may want to take up. As obviously Peter Davison had moved on I needed to write it for Colin Baker’s Doctor, but thankfully I had been introduced to this strong, irascible character in The Twin Dilemma. The story idea I came up with was based around the Doctor being put on trial by the Time Lords by a mysterious ‘Accuser’, so I called it ‘The Accusation’. To read the story I sent in please click here. I have included a scan of one of the pages to the right to prove I wrote it (with some terrible spelling mistakes though I think my handwriting was better then than it is now). I also find it rather amazing that I came up with this story without realising that Colin Baker had trained to be a barrister.
I was rather excited to receive in June later the same year a letter with a picture of the TARDIS on it from the BBC (see to right) but was disappointed to find that it was the BBC returning my story with a duplicated letter with a copied signature from then script editor, Eric Saward. Reading it now it is obvious that it was a pre-typed and signed letter which was copied and automatically sent out with any scripts or story ideas sent to the production office (see to right). So its very unlikely that Eric ever read it, but the then Production Secretary, Jane Judge, would have (you can see her initials at the bottom of the letter).
The envelope also included a duplicated ‘The Script Editor’s Guide to Dr Who Storylines’ which had been written by none other than Douglas Adams back in 1979 (click here). At the time I was rather bemused by it as it included the following;
The Master; We’ve used the character once since the loss of Roger Delgado but don’t think we should do so again. Please don’t submit Master stories.
...as in 1984 The Master had been back in the series for the past three years this was obviously well out of date.
I put the whole thing down to experience but held onto my letter as a piece of personal memorabilia; Wow, getting a letter from the Doctor Who office at the BBC ! I didn’t even think about it again until 6th September 1986 when I started to watch the first episode of Doctor Who season 23 where in the very first scene we see the TARDIS transported into Gallifrey and the Doctor being put on trial. I was absolutely gobsmacked and became more so as the season continued as core elements of my idea became central to the connecting story of the entire season: the Doctor on trial in Gallifrey for breaking the law of non-interference, a mysterious ‘accuser’ figure and the presenting of the Doctors adventures as both evidence for and against. I was convinced that my idea had been the catalyst for the story arc of the series and was rather pleased by this. I was less pleased by the later, significant negative reaction to the season and, I must also admit, the rather convoluted and complicated completion of the story plus, what I felt, the rather weak replacement of my idea of who the Accuser was in my story with the rather overly obtuse idea of it being an evil Doctor's non regeneration (still haven’t got my head around that concept yet). I was even more unhappy to find that the outcome of the season was an almost cancelling of Doctor Who completely and the eventual sacking of Colin Baker. Not something to crow about then.
Then in 2018 I watched an interview with Eric Saward where he shared about John Nathan-Turner deciding at a very late stage in the season planning that he wanted an overarching story idea and wanted Eric to think of one. So, under pressure to come up with an idea quickly, he suggested the trial of the Doctor. Then in an interview with Eric in 2020 for Doctor Who Magazine (DWM 538) he states that the idea of the trial had actually been suggested to him by his then girlfriend (and now partner) and Doctor Who Production Secretary, Jane Judge! So the person who suggested the idea was probably the only person who actually read my concept idea. My original written synopsis had been returned to me so how much of my original idea she remembered I don't know but to me it seems very likely that when Eric mentioned to her that they needed a story arc idea quickly that she remembered the concept idea I'd sent, whether consciously or subconsciously. The only person who can confirm this is Jane herself and I don't have any contact details for her to check this out (anybody out there know?) but it would be nice to think that one of my story ideas was deemed worthy enough to eventually become a rather significant, if subsequently unsuccessful, Doctor Who story.
Richard J. Peat
What do you think? Please comment below.
PS: In a DWM 2012 interview apparently Gary McCoy took credit for suggesting the trial idea, though this seems to have been contradicted now by Eric in 2020.
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