History Trivia / DoctorWhoS17E6Shada

* CreatorBacklash: Creator/DouglasAdams was happy that the story was abandoned, because he thought it was not up to much. In 1992, he accidentally signed away rights for Creator/TheBBC to make a direct-to-video version of it with linking narration by Creator/TomBaker, and was so distressed by this that he declared he would give away every penny of the proceeds he made of it to charity as penance.

* OldShame: To the shock of many fans, Creator/DouglasAdams viewed the story as this, publicly stating that he'd only signed the release to allow the 1992 VHS issue of what was made to go ahead because he hadn't noticed that [[TrickedIntoSigning it had been included in a folder with a bunch of other routine paperwork]].

** Chronotis originally perished in Episode Two, but Creator/DouglasAdams had become fond of the character and decided to bring him back.

* DevelopmentGag: The Creator/BigFinish version stars the Eighth Doctor instead of the Fourth. The story starts when he gets an invitation from Professor Chronotis — he remembers that when he was "all teeth and curls" and he and Romana went punting on the Cam, they were [[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors taken out by a time scoop, kept confined between dimensions for just over two hours]], and delivered back onto the Cam once the crisis was over. But they were supposed to visit Professor Chronotis that day, and neither he nor Romana, now Lady President of Gallifrey, remember why they never visited their friend. This means that in the AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho continuity, the original version of "Shada" never happened.

* TroubledProduction: A minor case for the 2017 release - according to [[http://www.endofthelane.co.uk/Shada-Blog-4.html this crew commentary]], due to technical errors part of the Ship's dialogue during a conversation with the Doctor was lost, requiring director Charles Norton to reconstruct the Ship's side of the scene with alternate lines pulled from elsewhere in the story.
* PosthumousCredit: Denis Carey (Professor Chronotis) and David Brierley (K9) both died several years prior to the 2017 animated reconstruction. Both appear in the animated segments via recycled dialogue from other episodes (K9 only makes short responses to other characters, and Chronotis has a single line taken from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken The Keeper of Traken]]", which Carey played the Keeper in; this was the only unfilmed scene Carey would have had dialogue in, and the rest of Chronotis' lines are given to the Doctor).
** Additionally, due to K9's recycled audio, several conversations involving him required rewrites to give most of his dialogue to other characters.

* UnfinishedEpisode: One of the most famous examples. After industrial action killed the serial, leading to a premature end to Season 17, incoming producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner ordered the footage preserved with an eye toward remounting the story and broadcasting it as part of Season 18. This plan was vetoed by his superiors at the BBC, partly owing to the changes in tone to the programme made by Nathan-Turner himself, and cast changes at the end of Season 18 made a remount impossible after that point. Even so, Nathan-Turner stored the footage, and was eventually able to create the direct-to-video version with Baker's narration, an early instance of JNT leveraging archive material to make ''Doctor Who'' video merchandise.
** After three close attempts to get the story to viewers (the narrated version, the webcast and the novelization), the BBC were, after 38 years, able to get Creator/TomBaker, Creator/LallaWard and all the surviving cast members to reprise their roles in animated sequences to fill in the unfinished scenes.

** The union strike that scuppered the original 1979 production was ''really'' bad timing -- it was resolved less than two weeks later, but many of the other programmes affected by it were key parts of Creator/TheBBC's Christmas schedule and were thus afforded higher priority. When Creator/JohnNathanTurner took over as producer shortly after it was decided by the previous production team that there was no hope of getting "Shada" completed, he considered re-editing it as a Christmas special consisting of two double-length episodes, but this proved to be impossible with the available footage. Before the 1992 VHS release, Nathan-Turner also considered one in 1985 with then-incumbent Doctor Colin Baker providing the links, but nothing came of this.

* GenreKiller: More like episode format killer, but the fact that this is the last serial to have 6 episodes may have coincided with the failed production of this episode. All future serials after season 17 would either be 4, 2, or 3 episodes long.

** According to [[http://www.endofthelane.co.uk/Shada-Blog-1.html Nothing At The End Of The Lane's commentary article]] on the production of the 2017 release, after the idea for a double-length two-parter fell through, Turner reconfigured his Christmas special idea and made plans to make "Shada" a standard four-parter for the 1981 holiday season (this being just after six-part serials were completely abolished), featuring newly-written material to compensate for the required cuts. However, it too was cancelled.

** According to [[http://www.endofthelane.co.uk/Shada-Blog-1.html Nothing At The End Of The Lane's commentary article]] on the production of the 2017 release, there had been plans to turn "Shada" into a four-part adventure to air over the 1981 holiday season (this being just after six-part serials were completely abolished), featuring newly-written material to compensate for the required cuts, but it too was cancelled.

** According to [[http://www.endofthelane.co.uk/Shada-Blog-1.html Nothing At The End Of The Lane's commentary article]] on the production of the 2017 release, there had been plans to turn "Shada" into a four-part adventure to air over the 1981 holiday season, but it too was cancelled.