History TroubledProduction / DoctorWho

* The first shoot of series two was almost as troubled as the first shoot for the first series. With the team now allocated a [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion Christmas episode]], it was originally thought that the series would be able to fit fourteen episodes into the previous thirteen episode filming schedule of the first series, with "The Chrismtas Invasion" placed into the first production block with [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E1NewEarth "New Earth"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E3SchoolReunion "School Reunion"]]. This did not end well.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E1DayOfTheDaleks Day Of The Daleks]]" saw the Daleks return to the show for the first time in five years. The production team only discovered shortly before filming was due to start that the BBC could only possessed three Dalek props that were still in working order. The final episode was due to feature an asasult from a large Dalek army against a house, which proved incredibly difficult to realise with the limited props available. Forty years later, the BBC decided to fix these problems by staging a re-shoot.

* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E3TheSontaranExperiment "The Sontaran Experiment"]]: Filming on Dartmoor was hampered by nonstop rain, and the crew had to drag heavy cameras around, thanks to a short-lived decision to switch the show to all-video production instead of the VideoInsideFilmOutside style that was then prevalent for BBC productions -- video cameras were still bulkier than their film counterparts at this point, and it wouldn't be for over a decade later, in Creator/ColinBaker's second season in the title role, that they were finally able to make the switch permanently. On top of that, Creator/TomBaker, in the second story he actually filmed, broke his collarbone, which required him to be doubled for the Doctor's fight with Styre (the production notes on the BBC DVD release comment that the director initially feared Baker had broken his neck). On that note, the heavy Sontaran costume exasperated Kevin Lindsay's heart condition, requiring him to be doubled for the fight as well (he died shortly afterwards).

* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E4Inferno "Inferno"]]: Director Douglas Camfield had to withdraw from production after suffering a heart attack, leaving Creator/BarryLetts to finish the job. Fortunately, Camfield's preparations were so meticulous he merely followed Camfield's plans. Then Creator/JonPertwee accidentally injured stuntman Alan Chuntz when he ran over his leg while filming the chase sequence. Pertwee felt so awful about the accident that he became ill himself, which threatened to disrupt filming.

** As with [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]], this personal stress shows in the finished product's IdiotPlot and its {{Cliffhanger}} that hinges on the villains suddenly disregarding the rules they laid down earlier. While Moffat did not write the trilogy's conclusion, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand "The Lie of the Land"]] (Toby Whithouse handled that), it was shot in the following production block and it's hard not to see many of its shortcomings (ThirdActStupidity on the part of the villains, a bizarre tonal shift during an extremely dramatic standoff, some out-of-character behaviour for the Doctor such as [[spoiler:a regeneration fake-out]], a sentimental climax involving Bill's mother that seems to undermine the story's own themes, a lot of [[RecycledScript recycled plot beats]], and so on) as things that ''might'' have been ironed out had Moffat not been enduring bereavement at the time.

* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E2TheMindOfEvil "The Mind of Evil"]] ran seriously overbudget, to the point that director Timothy Combe (who had worked on the show before) was not invited back for another story. It also required a re-shoot at Dover Castle as one of the film negatives got damaged to the point it could not be used and there hadn't been time to shoot close-ups. With no actors available, several production staff had to step in as extras.

* The Monks Trilogy (Series 10), a mid-season three-part storyline, suffered a truly sad case of this. Creator/StevenMoffat's mother took deathly ill as he was working on the scripts for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis "Extremis"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E7ThePyramidAtTheEndOfTheWorld "The Pyramid at the End of the World"]]. While he managed to get "Extremis" into shooting shape, with only days left before filming was to start on the two episodes and no hope of pushing back production to later, the exhausted Moffat was not able to revise "Pyramid"'s script with co-writer Peter Harness; Moffat typed up the final draft of "Pyramid" ''at his mother's hospital bedside''. She ultimately succumbed to her illness.
** As with [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]], this personal stress shows in the finished product's IdiotPlot and its {{Cliffhanger}} that hinges on the villains suddenly disregarding the rules they laid down earlier. While Moffat did not write the conclusion [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand "The Lie of the Land"]] (Toby Whithouse handled that), it was shot in the following production block and it's hard not to see its shortcomings (ThirdActStupidity on the part of the villains, a bizarre tonal shift during an extremely dramatic standoff, some out-of-character behaviour for the Doctor such as [[spoiler:a regeneration fake-out]], a sentimental climax involving Bill's mother, a lot of [[RecycledScript recycled plot beats]], etc.) as things that ''might'' have been ironed out had Moffat not been enduring bereavement at the time.

* The "Trial of a Time Lord" arc: Producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner and script editor Creator/EricSaward were desperately trying to keep the show on the television after it had been UnCancelled, seeing the 14-part serial as their "trial" to prove to executives trying to kill the show that it still had value. They also both loathed each other, and their mutual egotism caused them to purposefully derail each other's ideas out of spite. Creator/RobertHolmes was scheduled to write a two-part conclusion to the arc, but died with only one of the two episodes completed. Saward took up the writing of the final episode himself, using Holmes' storyline, but Nathan-Turner got cold feet about the planned {{Cliffhanger}} ending, as he felt it would give BBC executives the excuse they were looking for to cancel the show outright. Saward was furious at this, and immediately quit the show, taking his version of Part Fourteen with him. Nathan-Turner had to temporarily take over as script editor himself and bring in Pip and Jane Baker to write a replacement episode, without telling them any of what the original conclusion contained (as legal reasons made this impossible). The result was a complete GainaxEnding, and the show went through several soft reboots in the final three seasons that followed. (It could have been even worse; Saward also attempted to withdraw permission to use Holmes' version of Part Thirteen, as he had already performed rewrites on it, but was informed this was work he had done in-house for the BBC in his role as script editor and he could not legally stop the production office from using it.)

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani Time and the Rani]]": Considering how late in the day most of the key production staffers and even Creator/SylvesterMcCoy himself were brought in, this was somewhat inevitable. Firstly, the story was originally supposed to be Creator/ColinBaker's regeneration story, but Baker, who'd been fired at the insistence of BBC controller and vocal ''Who'' cynic Michael Grade, refused to show up unless he got a full season, necessitating rewrites to make it [=McCoy's=] debut story instead. Creator/AndrewCartmel, who wasn't even brought in as script editor until after the story had already been commissioned, didn't get along at all with writers Pip and Jane Baker (no relation to Colin), who repeatedly told him that as a novice with no prior TV experience, he had no business trying to advise them on anything other than what was or wasn't feasible on the show's budget — which was actually the thing he was ''least'' qualified to advise them on — and didn't even always take his advice on that front. In particular, they refused to remove a scripted scene where King Solomon is abducted in the midst of the argument over who is the rightful mother of a baby just as his guard prepares to split it in two with an axe so as to give one half to each "mother"; the Bakers refused to back down on this until John Nathan-Turner pointed out that if neither he nor Cartmel were familiar with that parable, odds were most viewers at home wouldn't be either.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani Time and the Rani]]": Considering how late in the day most of the key production staffers and even Creator/SylvesterMcCoy himself were brought in, this was somewhat inevitable. It also didn't help that Creator/AndrewCartmel, who wasn't even brought in as script editor until after the story had already been commissioned, didn't get along at all with writers Pip and Jane Baker, who repeatedly told him that as a novice with no prior TV experience he had no business trying to advise them on anything other than what was or wasn't feasible on the show's budget — which was actually the thing he was ''least'' qualified to advise them on — and didn't even always take his advice on that front. In particular, they refused to remove a scripted scene where King Solomon is abducted in the midst of the argument over who is the rightful mother of a baby just as his guard prepares to split it in two with an axe so as to give one half to each "mother"; the Bakers refused to back down on this until John Nathan-Turner pointed out that if neither he nor Cartmel were familiar with that parable, odds were most viewers at home wouldn't be either.

*** Davis, therefore, had to tackle the scripts ''again''. These rewrites got Savory's approval, but the old production team were left wondering what had happened to their scripts. Tosh opined that Davis' approach was "much lighter, more pantomime" than his own. The results were no more pleasing to Creator/JohnWiles, who wrote a memo to Savory after he had technically left the production office. In it, he claimed that the central battle of wills between the Doctor and the Toymaker had been downplayed to the benefit of new elements involving a more childish confrontation between the companions and the Toymaker's creations. Ultimately, Wiles would have liked to have seen the entire production halted, since its commissioning producer and script editor had gone — and with them, the original, more adult intent of the story.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani Time and the Rani]]": Considering how late in the day most of the key production staffers and even Creator/SylvesterMcCoy himself were brought in, this was somewhat inevitable. It also didn't help that Andrew Cartmel, who wasn't even brought in as script editor until after the story had already been commissioned, didn't get along at all with writers Pip and Jane Baker, who repeatedly told him that as a novice with no prior TV experience he had no business trying to advise them on anything other than what was or wasn't feasible on the show's budget — which was actually the thing he was ''least'' qualified to advise them on — and didn't even always take his advice on that front. In particular, they refused to remove a scripted scene where King Solomon is abducted in the midst of the argument over who is the rightful mother of a baby just as his guard prepares to split it in two with an axe so as to give one half to each "mother"; the Bakers refused to back down on this until John Nathan-Turner pointed out that if neither he nor Cartmel were familiar with that parable, odds were most viewers at home wouldn't be either.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E1WarriorsOfTheDeep Warriors of the Deep]]": UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher announced an election and all the studio space was given to the coverage, meaning this serial lost two weeks of valuable production time, and thus most scenes were shot in one take and much of it was not even rehearsed. There were many rewrites, partially to Bowdlerise/remove political subtext that might influence the election, and partially due to Ian Levine, a meddling PromotedFanboy obsessed with preventing {{Series Continuity Error}}s.[[note]]Though at least some of Levine's concerns seem to have been justified, considering that writer Johnny Byrne was initially oblivious to the fact that the Silurians were ''originally from Earth'' and wrote them as just a bunch of generic invaders who intended to wipe out humanity ForTheEvulz.[[/note]] The Myrka costume was completed only half an hour before filming and the paint and glue on it weren't dry — it visibly smears on the sets as it staggers around, the actors inside the costume being light-headed from the fumes — so the director had ''begged'' to be allowed to ditch it. Creator/PeterDavison had NoStuntDouble and got tossed into an ice-cold pool of water because the stunt arranger's request to use warm water hadn't been followed. Byrne wanted the base to be dark and the sets had been built with that in mind, but due to the fact that this was the first story to use 1-inch Type C videotape (replacing the old 2-inch Quadraplex tape), there were concerns over how the original intention would look, leading to the brightly lit sets that made it to screen. In the end, this story deeply stained ''Doctor Who'''s reputation, and BBC execs used the FightSceneFailure of the Myrka sequence as grounds to cancel the show.

** Because the first episode underran, Eric Saward asked Stephen Gallagher to provide two new one-minute scenes. Unfortunately, Gallagher misinterpreted the request and instead extended several existing scenes to fill out two minutes' worth of material. Consequently, Gallagher's amendments were discarded.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E7TheTwinDilemma The Twin Dilemma]]": Anthony Steven's progress on the scripts was very slow, and he began offering the production team fantastical excuses such as his typewriter exploding. He eventually fell ill, leaving script editor Eric Saward to heavily restructure the scripts, which director Peter Moffatt felt had serious logistical and storytelling problems. Although the serial eventually made it into the studio, one of the studio sessions for the previous story, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]", was cancelled due to strike action by scenery movers, and one of this story's studio sessions had to be given over to it instead. The story might have been cancelled or held over to the following season in a revised form, but Creator/JohnNathanTurner was able to secure a fresh studio slot, arguing to his superiors about the importance of a new Doctor's debut.

** As a result of the money eaten up by these two serials, Nathan-Turner ordered script editor Eric Saward to put a script named "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E5Timelash Timelash]]" into production next, as it could be done on a low budget. Saward objected to this, as he had wanted to move it back to the following year due to the writer's glaringly obvious inexperience, but Nathan-Turner overruled him. Making things worse, Saward didn't have much time to mentor the writer, as he himself was busy writing "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks Revelation of the Daleks]]", and further budget cuts to "Timelash" ended up resulting in an infamously cheap, poorly-regarded story. Then, just to ''really'' stick the knife in, the BBC told the production team that they were pulling the plug on the show, as they felt it had gone too far off the rails...
* The "Trial of a Time Lord" arc: Producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner and script editor Eric Saward were desperately trying to keep the show on the television after it had been UnCancelled, seeing the 14-part serial as their "trial" to prove to executives trying to kill the show that it still had value. They also both loathed each other, and their mutual egotism caused them to purposefully derail each other's ideas out of spite. Creator/RobertHolmes was scheduled to write a two-part conclusion to the arc, but died with only one of the two episodes completed. Saward took up the writing of the final episode himself, using Holmes' storyline, but Nathan-Turner got cold feet about the planned {{Cliffhanger}} ending, as he felt it would give BBC executives the excuse they were looking for to cancel the show outright. Saward was furious at this, and immediately quit the show, taking his version of Part Fourteen with him. Nathan-Turner had to temporarily take over as script editor himself and bring in Pip and Jane Baker to write a replacement episode, without telling them any of what the original conclusion contained (as legal reasons made this impossible). The result was a complete GainaxEnding, and the show went through several soft reboots in the final three seasons that followed. (It could have been even worse; Saward also attempted to withdraw permission to use Holmes' version of Part Thirteen, as he had already performed rewrites on it, but was informed this was work he had done in-house for the BBC in his role as script editor and he could not legally stop the production office from using it.)

** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators The Dominators]]" proved to be such a disaster it was trimmed down from six to five episodes at the last minute, forcing an extra episode to be added on to start of the following story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E2TheMindRobber The Mind Robber]]". This caused problems as the show could not exceed its allocated budget, meaning it could not pay any guest actors or build any new sets or make any new costumes for the new Episode One. Therefore, the episode had to be made with only the three lead actors in speaking roles, only using the TARDIS set and a blank white studio, and featuring some non-speaking monsters in borrowed costumes from ''Series/OutOfTheUnknown''.

** Much got hastily reordered and even shoved back a season ([[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators "The Dominators"]] had been planned for Season 5 but was such a disaster it was edited down into five episodes and shoved into Season 6), which upset Creator/PatrickTroughton as it meant the material was under-rehearsed, eventually striking up a deal with the producers that for Season 6 he (and the rest of the cast) would only work on one story at a time. In order to churn out competent entertainment quickly, the producers decided to focus on StrictlyFormula Base Under Siege plots using recycled monsters, which Troughton found boring and repetitive, and at the beginning of Season 6 he announced his intention to quit the role — just after these problems had been extinguished, too.

* Season 5 had serious problems with the scripts thanks to some poor production decisions. Producer Creator/PeterBryant and script editor Victor Pemberton had developed a habit of sinking lots of time, effort and money into various script ideas and then abandoning them halfway through, forcing various last-ditch efforts. Much got hastily reordered and even shoved back a season ([[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators "The Dominators"]] had been planned for Season 5 but was such a disaster it was edited down into five episodes and shoved into Season 6), which upset Creator/PatrickTroughton as it meant the material was under-rehearsed, eventually striking up a deal with the producers that for Season 6 he (and the rest of the cast) would only work on one story at a time. In order to churn out competent entertainment quickly, the producers decided to focus on StrictlyFormula Base Under Siege plots using recycled monsters, which Troughton found boring and repetitive, and at the beginning of Season 6 he announced his intention to quit the role — just after these problems had been extinguished, too.
* The ending of Season 6 was a fiasco due to multiple scripts falling through after production had started, and replacements being hurriedly written as well as extended with tons of {{padding}}. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames "The War Games"]], the grand finale of the season, was written in mere weeks to take up the space of a six-parter and a four-parter that fell through. Several more stories had to be heavily rewritten — Creator/PatrickTroughton was going to quit at the end of the season, and lead companion Creator/FrazerHines at first announced he would be going mid-season but later decided to quit at the end of the season with Troughton. This vacillation was bad enough to kill at least one story at the last minute — "The Prison in Space" was commissioned as a comedy serial that wrote out Jamie and when Hines announced that he was staying, the serial had to be rewritten to include him. The production team and director hated the script for various reasons (it was an outrageously sexist MarsAndVenusGenderContrast comedy set in a dystopian matriarchy and included setpieces like Jamie disguising himself as a woman and, later, spanking Zoe to break her out of StrawFeminist brainwashing) and requested changes, and when the writer announced he was sick of rewriting the script, the producer decided to cut his losses and commissioned [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons "The Krotons"]] as a rush replacement.

* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace "Spearhead from Space"]] was derailed when the video camera operators went on strike, leading producer Creator/DerrickSherwin to make the whole thing on film instead. This made the whole thing very expensive, which was bad enough even before Sherwin and Peter Bryant were suddenly sent to rescue a disastrous German TV production mid-shoot. Creator/BarryLetts took over at the last minute, got it done, and got handed the producer job for the Creator/JonPertwee era as a result. (The film production unwittingly meant the serial could be released in HD in the distant future, which no other classic serial can ever be due to quirks of the usual VideoInsideFilmOutside production.)

* Season 3 was the first instance of production issues stretching across most, if not all of the season. The show's original producer, Creator/VerityLambert stood down at the start of the season and was replaced by Creator/JohnWiles, which rapidly turned into a case of TyrantTakesTheHelm when he fired Creator/MaureenOBrien early in the season for complaining about the way Vicki was being written. This not only immediately turned Creator/WilliamHartnell and Creator/PeterPurves against Wiles, it caused issues that stretched across the entire season, as initial replacement Katerina proved not to be a workable character, then her replacement, Sara Kingdom was limited to one story due to Creator/JeanMarsh not wanting to commit to the series full-time, and then ''her'' replacement, Dodo, proved extremely unpopular with the viewers. Not long afterwards, the BBC executives foisted a mammoth twelve-part story, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E4TheDaleksMasterPlan The Daleks' Master Plan]]" on the production team, and actually getting it made proved extremely stressful for both Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh, with Hartnell's relationship with the two further deteriorating over their insistence on making the show DarkerAndEdgier. Eventually, Wiles decided to fire Hartnell himself, and when firmly told by the BBC that wasn't an option, gave them a "he goes or I go" ultimatum... resulting in the BBC firing Wiles without a second thought, and also leading to Tosh quitting in protest. New producer Creator/InnesLloyd and script editor Gerry Davis were left with the task of picking up the wreckage left behind, and despite getting things back on track, they found that Wiles [[JerkassHasAPoint had been right about one thing]] and that Hartnell's health really wasn't up to the task of working on the show any more. Fortunately, between Hartnell himself becoming cognisant of this fact, Lloyd and Davis handling the situation much more delicately than Wiles had, and the BBC management now being aware how just unwell Hartnell was, all agreed that Hartnell would leave at the start of the next season, with Creator/PatrickTroughton taking over the title role.
* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E7TheCelestialToymaker "The Celestial Toymaker"]] was the studio-bound cheap serial after "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E6TheArk The Ark]]" went over-budget. And it still had problems:
** Most of the difficulties stemmed from the fact that it arose at a time of transition in the production office. Though commissioned by the team of producer Creator/JohnWiles and script editor Donald Tosh, it was ultimately completed by the new team of Creator/InnesLloyd and Gerry Davis. The two sides simply had very different ideas about how the story should proceed.
** All four episodes were in fact written three different times. Brian Hayles had delivered all four original scripts, likely in late 1965. Tosh and Wiles had immediately seen that the scripts could not be practically realised, and thus Tosh rewrote them entirely. By the time he was finished, though, he was no longer script editor. Davis, his replacement, now had to deal with the fact that Tosh had inserted the use of the title characters from a play called ''George and Margaret'' by Gerald Savory without obtaining permission. Since Savory was now Head of Serials, and had the power to veto scripts, he quickly rejected Tosh's approach.
** Davis, therefore, had to tackle the scripts ''again''. These rewrites got Savory's approval, but the old production team were left wondering what had happened to their scripts. Tosh opined that Davis' approach was "much lighter, more pantomime" than his own. The results were no more pleasing to Creator/JohnWiles, who wrote a memo to Savory after he had technically left the production office. In it, he claimed that the central battle of wills between the Doctor and the Toymaker had been downplayed to the benefit of new elements involving a more childish confrontation between the companions and the Toymaker's creations. Ultimately, Wiles would have liked to have seen the entire production halted, since its commissioning producer and script editor had gone — and with them, the original, more adult intent of the story.
** However, the story's problems weren't over even after Davis's script had been recorded. After the transmission of "The Dancing Floor", Creator/TheBBC had to field charges from the estate of Charles Hamilton that the character of Cyril was in fact meant to be Literature/BillyBunter. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that actor Peter Stephens had ad-libbed the line "My friends call me Billy" during recording. Thus the BBC were forced to take a step never taken before or since: they had to have a special continuity announcement at the end of "The Final Test" which declared that the character of Cyril was not meant to be Billy Bunter, but merely a character like him.

* The very first episode, Part One of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild "An Unearthly Child]]", had to be re-recorded, after the initial recording was beset by numerous technical and production errors, including a light problem causing Creator/WilliamRussell (Ian Chesterton)'s face to be hidden in shadow, Ian falling over in the scrapyard and dropping his torch, a camera running into a piece of scenery in the scrapyard, the doors to the TARDIS set falling open when they weren't supposed to, and the studio ceiling being visible in the TARDIS set. The episode also incurred the displeasure of Creator/SydneyNewman for its overly harsh characterisation of the Doctor. He described it as "the worst piece of work I've seen in a long time." Ironically, the full version of the unaired initial recording still exists in the BBC archives, even as 97 episodes that were actually transmitted have been lost.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]": Creator/StevenMoffat was overseeing six episodes of ''Doctor Who'', making three film-length episodes of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and writing ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin2011'', and was stretched too thin and overworked. When filming was due to commence on "Let's Kill Hitler", Moffat's only option was to hand the actors his first draft and hope for the best. Most of the problems people have with the episode (ignoring people who feel TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot due to Hitler being window-dressing or who simply hate the arc it was in or Moffat's writing in general) are things like lazy filler jokes ("She's trying to kill me... plus, she's a woman!") and the lack of anything addressing the brutal finale of the last series, which likely would have been fixed had Moffat had more time to write it.

* The Monks Trilogy (Series 10), a mid-season 3-part storyline, suffered a truly sad case of this. Creator/StevenMoffat's mother took deathly ill as he was working on the scripts for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis "Extremis"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E7ThePyramidAtTheEndOfTheWorld "The Pyramid at the End of the World"]]. While he managed to get "Extremis" into shooting shape, with only days left before filming was to start on the two episodes and no hope of pushing back production to later, the exhausted Moffat was not able to revise "Pyramid"'s script with co-writer Peter Harness; Moffat typed up the final draft of "Pyramid" ''at his mother's hospital bedside''. She ultimately succumbed to her illness.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]": Creator/StevenMoffat was overseeing six episodes of ''Doctor Who'', making three film-length episodes of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and writing ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin'', and was stretched too thin and overworked. When filming was due to commence on "Let's Kill Hitler", Moffat's only option was to hand the actors his first draft and hope for the best. Most of the problems people have with the episode (ignoring people who feel TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot due to Hitler being window-dressing or who simply hate the arc it was in or Moffat's writing in general) are things like lazy filler jokes ("She's trying to kill me... plus, she's a woman!") and the lack of anything addressing the brutal finale of the last series, which likely would have been fixed had Moffat had more time to write it.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E1WarriorsOfTheDeep Warriors of the Deep]]": UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher announced an election and all the studio space was given to the coverage, meaning this serial lost two weeks of valuable production time, and thus most scenes were shot in one take and much of it was not even rehearsed. There were many rewrites, partially to Bowdlerise/remove political subtext that might influence the election, and partially due to Ian Levine, a meddling PromotedFanboy obsessed with preventing {{Series Continuity Error}}s.[[note]]Though at least some of Levine's concerns seem to have been justified, considering that writer Johnny Byrne was initially oblivious to the fact that the Silurians were ''originally from Earth'' and wrote them as just a bunch of generic invaders who intended to wipe out humanity ForTheEvulz.[[/note]] The Myrka costume was completed only half an hour before filming and the paint and glue on it weren't dry — it visibly smears on the sets as it staggers around, the actors inside the costume being light-headed from the fumes — so the director had ''begged'' to be allowed to ditch it. Creator/PeterDavison had NoStuntDouble and got tossed into an ice-cold pool of water (after being assured that it was warm) because the BBC didn't have the budget to afford warm water. Byrne wanted the base to be dark and the sets had been built with that in mind, but BBC studio engineers insisted on lighting it as if it was on the surface of the Sun, in line with regulations intended for chat shows. In the end, this story deeply stained ''Doctor Who'''s reputation, and BBC execs used the FightSceneFailure of the Myrka sequence as grounds to cancel the show.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]": Creator/StevenMoffat was overseeing six episodes of ''Doctor Who'', making three film-length episodes of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and writing ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin'', and was stretched too thin and overworked. When filming was due to commence on "Let's Kill Hitler", Moffat's only option was to hand the actors his first draft and hope for the best. Most of the problems people have with the episode (ignoring people who feel TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot due to Hitler being window-dressing despite that being the point of the episode, or who simply hate the arc it was in or Moffat's writing in general) are things like lazy filler jokes ("She's trying to kill me... plus, she's a woman!") and the lack of anything addressing the brutal finale of the last series, which likely would have been fixed had Moffat had more time to write it.

** In 2021 when Creator/NoelClarke was accused of sexual harassment it was revealed he had engaged in this behaviour on set. Creator/JohnBarrowman's habit of flashing may also have contributed to the feeling of discomfort that Christopher Eccleston had on set.

* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace "Spearhead from Space"]] was derailed when the video camera operators went on strike, leading producer Derrick Sherwin to make the whole thing on film instead. This made the whole thing very expensive, which was bad enough even before Sherwin and Peter Bryant were suddenly sent to rescue a disastrous German TV production mid-shoot. Creator/BarryLetts took over at the last minute, got it done, and got handed the producer job for the Creator/JonPertwee era as a result. (The film production unwittingly meant the serial could be released in HD in the distant future, which no other classic serial can ever be due to quirks of the usual VideoInsideFilmOutside production.)

* Season 3 was the first instance of production issues stretching across most, if not all of the season. The show's original producer, Creator/VerityLambert stood down at the start of the season and was replaced by Creator/JohnWiles, which rapidly turned into a case of TyrantTakesTheHelm when he fired Creator/MaureenOBrien early in the season for complaining about the way Vicki was being written. This not only immediately turned Creator/WilliamHartnell and Creator/PeterPurves against Wiles, it caused issues that stretched across the entire season, as initial replacement Katerina proved not to be a workable character, then her replacement, Sara Kingdom was limited to one story due to Creator/JeanMarsh not wanting to commit to the series full-time, and then ''her'' replacement, Dodo, proved extremely unpopular with the viewers. Not long afterwards, the BBC executives foisted a mammoth twelve-part story, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E4TheDaleksMasterPlan The Daleks' Master Plan]]" on the production team, and actually getting it made proved extremely stressful for both Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh, with Hartnell's relationship with the two further deteriorating over their insistence on making the show DarkerAndEdgier. Eventually, Wiles decided to fire Hartnell himself, and when firmly told by the BBC that wasn't an option, gave them a "he goes or I go" ultimatum... resulting in the BBC firing Wiles without a second thought, and also leading to Tosh quitting in protest. New producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Gerry Davis were left with the task of picking up the wreckage left behind, and despite getting things back on track, they found that Wiles [[JerkassHasAPoint had been right about one thing]] and that Hartnell's health really wasn't up to the task of working on the show any more. Fortunately, between Hartnell himself becoming cognisant of this fact, Lloyd and Davis handling the situation much more delicately than Wiles had, and the BBC management now being aware how just unwell Hartnell was, all agreed that Hartnell would leave at the start of the next season, with Creator/PatrickTroughton taking over the title role.

** Most of the difficulties stemmed from the fact that it arose at a time of transition in the production office. Though commissioned by the team of producer Creator/JohnWiles and script editor Donald Tosh, it was ultimately completed by the new team of Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis. The two sides simply had very different ideas about how the story should proceed.

* Season 5 had serious problems with the scripts thanks to some poor production decisions. Producer Peter Bryant and script editor Victor Pemberton had developed a habit of sinking lots of time, effort and money into various script ideas and then abandoning them halfway through, forcing various last-ditch efforts. Much got hastily reordered and even shoved back a season ([[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators "The Dominators"]] had been planned for Season 5 but was such a disaster it was edited down into five episodes and shoved into Season 6), which upset Creator/PatrickTroughton as it meant the material was under-rehearsed, eventually striking up a deal with the producers that for Season 6 he (and the rest of the cast) would only work on one story at a time. In order to churn out competent entertainment quickly, the producers decided to focus on StrictlyFormula Base Under Siege plots using recycled monsters, which Troughton found boring and repetitive, and at the beginning of Season 6 he announced his intention to quit the role — just after these problems had been extinguished, too.

* Season 3 was the first instance of production issues stretching across most, if not all of the season. The show's original producer, Creator/VerityLambert stood down at the start of the season and was replaced by John Wiles, which rapidly turned into a case of TyrantTakesTheHelm when he fired Creator/MaureenOBrien early in the season for complaining about the way Vicki was being written. This not only immediately turned Creator/WilliamHartnell and Creator/PeterPurves against Wiles, it caused issues that stretched across the entire season, as initial replacement Katerina proved not to be a workable character, then her replacement, Sara Kingdom was limited to one story due to Creator/JeanMarsh not wanting to commit to the series full-time, and then ''her'' replacement, Dodo, proved extremely unpopular with the viewers. Not long afterwards, the BBC executives foisted a mammoth twelve-part story, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E4TheDaleksMasterPlan The Daleks' Master Plan]]" on the production team, and actually getting it made proved extremely stressful for both Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh, with Hartnell's relationship with the two further deteriorating over their insistence on making the show DarkerAndEdgier. Eventually, Wiles decided to fire Hartnell himself, and when firmly told by the BBC that wasn't an option, gave them a "he goes or I go" ultimatum... resulting in the BBC firing Wiles without a second thought, and also leading to Tosh quitting in protest. New producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Gerry Davis were left with the task of picking up the wreckage left behind, and despite getting things back on track, they found that Wiles [[JerkassHasAPoint had been right about one thing]] and that Hartnell's health really wasn't up to the task of working on the show any more. Fortunately, between Hartnell himself becoming cognisant of this fact, Lloyd and Davis handling the situation much more delicately than Wiles had, and the BBC management now being aware how just unwell Hartnell was, all agreed that Hartnell would leave at the start of the next season, with Creator/PatrickTroughton taking over the title role.

** Most of the difficulties stemmed from the fact that it arose at a time of transition in the production office. Though commissioned by the team of producer John Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh, it was ultimately completed by the new team of Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis. The two sides simply had very different ideas about how the story should proceed.

** Davis, therefore, had to tackle the scripts ''again''. These rewrites got Savory's approval, but the old production team were left wondering what had happened to their scripts. Tosh opined that Davis' approach was "much lighter, more pantomime" than his own. The results were no more pleasing to John Wiles, who wrote a memo to Savory after he had technically left the production office. In it, he claimed that the central battle of wills between the Doctor and the Toymaker had been downplayed to the benefit of new elements involving a more childish confrontation between the companions and the Toymaker's creations. Ultimately, Wiles would have liked to have seen the entire production halted, since its commissioning producer and script editor had gone — and with them, the original, more adult intent of the story.