Dr Who 2

When the BBC cancelled Dr Who in 1969 it was considered the right thing to do. Ratings had been falling consistently during the latter half of Patrick Troughton's tenure. The series was also costing far too much in terms of props etc and the imminent switch to colour meant that savings had to be made across the whole corporation

Troughton's final appearance "Trial of A Time Lord" in 1969 was seen as a coda for the series. In the six part story the truth about the Doctor's fleeing from Gallifrey, his meddling in other races affairs and his ability to regenerate were explained.

Jamie and Zoe were returned to their own times with their memories altered. The Doctor is found guilty of interference but the Time Lords take his evidence into consideration. The last we see of the Doctor is being trapped in a tube which flashes....


1983

The BBC start releasing their back catalogue of programmes onto VHS. From Comedy comes Dad's Army, from Drama comes When The Boat Comes in and from Sci-Fi comes some of the remaining episodes of Dr Who

Those who watched Dr Who in the 60's make the re-releases a hit The BBC take notice and an idea starts to form....
 
A goodly number of 2nd Doctor stories were/are missing, and quite a few of the 1st Doctor, can't really get round that.
 
The BBC were cheerfully wiping their old black and white programmes until the late 1970s - a situation that only stopped when angry Doctor Who fans realised what was going on. If you stop Doctor Who in 1969, the wipings don't stop until much later. It's entirely possible that no 1960s Doctor Who - or 1960s BBC programming in general - survives.
 
All you need is for Ian Levine still to have the same passion about the show and the same deep pockets to chase prints around the globe.

One thing, Gallifrey wasn't named until 1973.
 
Thanks for the feedback. The plan I had was this:

Dr Who finishes in 1969 but the explosion of interest rekindled by VHS releases leads the BBC to reboot the show in 1984 featuring Troughton in the role for 1 series before regenerating into Graham Chapman and then continuing as normal.
 
Thanks for the feedback. The plan I had was this:

Dr Who finishes in 1969 but the explosion of interest rekindled by VHS releases leads the BBC to reboot the show in 1984 featuring Troughton in the role for 1 series before regenerating into Graham Chapman and then continuing as normal.

You'll need to avoid the wiping policy (see http://missingepisodes.blogspot.com/p/timeline.html for detailed look at what went missing when). Perhaps you could have the BBC decide that archiving 1960s material is worth it after all? That's a pretty big POD though...
 
Top