Unfinished Episode / Doctor Who

Given its decades-long history, it should come as no surprise that Doctor Who has had plenty of unmade stories. A more comprehensive overview can be found at Wikipedia.

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First Doctor (William Hartnell) era

Season 1

• "Nothing at the End of the Lane" by C. Webber. The intended first episode saw the Doctor and his companions (originally named Biddy, Lola and Cliff) being shrunk to a "miniature size" and attacked by giant animals. The episode would have revealed that the Doctor had escaped from "his own galaxy" in the year 5733, seeking a perfect society in the past, and that he was pursued by agents from his own time who sought to prevent him from stopping their society from coming into being.
• "The Masters of Luxor", originally titled "The Robots", by Anthony Coburn. The TARDIS is drawn by a signal to one of the moons of Luxor. There, they discover the world is dominated by robots led by the Perfect One. The Perfect One has been experimenting on people to discover the secret of life, and kidnaps Barbara and Susan; he plans to use them as test subjects before draining their life force. The Doctor and Ian escape to the wilderness, where they find and reawaken Tabon, the scientist who invented the Perfect One. Tabon confronts the Perfect One, sending the robots out of control. The robots kill Tabon and destroy the Perfect One while the time travellers escape in the TARDIS. A scriptbook was published in 1992, and an audio adaptation starring William Russell and Carole Ann Ford was released by Big Finish Productions in 2012. The episode titles for the serial were:

  1. "The Cannibal Flower"
  2. "The Mockery of a Man"
  3. "A Light on the Dead Planet"
  4. "Tabon of Luxor"
  5. "An Infinity of Surprises"
  6. "The Flower Blooms" (originally "The Flower in Bloom")

• "Britain 408 AD" by Malcolm Hulke. Involved the departure of the Romans from Britain around the start of the fifth century in the midst of clashes against the Celts and the Saxons, culminating with the time travellers fleeing the indigenous savages back to the safety of the TARDIS. David Whitaker asked Hulke to revise his original storyline, feeling that the plot — with its many opposing factions — was too complicated, and also that the serial's conclusion echoed that of "An Unearthly Child" too closely.
• "The Hidden Planet" by Malcolm Hulke. The TARDIS lands on “the Tenth Planet”, a world identical to the Earth but whose orbit around the Sun is diametrically opposite to our planet's, and which has therefore gone undetected. This world is very much like Earth, but there are subtle differences: four-leaf clovers are plentiful, for example, and glass refracts oddly. Most notably, women are the dominant sex while men struggle for equality. The leader of the planet is Barbara's double, and Barbara is kidnapped by rebels. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Susan and Ian are embroiled in the struggle for male suffrage.
• "The Red Fort" by Terry Nation. The time travellers become embroiled in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when Indian troops rose up against the colonial officers of the British East India Company. Presumably, the assault on the Red Fort — a Moghul palace in Delhi — on May 11th, 1857 would have featured prominently.
• "Farewell Great Macedon" by Moris Farhi. The TARDIS materialises amidst the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, where the Doctor and his companions meet Alexander the Great. Four members of Alexander's retinue, however, are plotting to murder the king and his successors so that one of their number, Seleucus, can ascend to the throne and allow them to return to their homeland. The conspirators try to frame the time travellers, but the Doctor and Ian succeed in a series of trials and Alexander's bodyguard, Ptolemy, proves their innocence. However, history cannot be changed, and despite the Doctor's efforts to save the king's life by having Ian build an iron lung, Alexander dies while Ptolemy helps the companions escape to the TARDIS. The first episode would have explained the time travellers' ability to understand other languages by showing them hooked up to a computer which teaches them Ancient Greek. A scriptbook was released in 2009, and an audio adaptation starring William Russell and Carole Ann Ford was released by Big Finish Productions in 2010. The episode titles were:

  1. "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon"
  2. "The Wrath of the Greatest Grecian of Them All!" or "O, Son! My Son!"
  3. "A Man Must Die"
  4. "The World Lies Dead at Your Feet"
  5. "In the Arena"
  6. "Farewell, Great Macedon!"

• "The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance" by Moris Farhi. On an alien planet, a man named Rhythm woos Barbara. She is unaware, however, that her rejection of his advances mean that Rhythm is now sentenced to die. It was decided that the subject matter was unsuitable for Doctor Who and it was rejected. An audio adaptation was released by Big Finish Productions in 2010.
• "The Living Planet" by Alan Wakeman. The TARDIS lands on a planet whose surface is largely covered with a pattern of small, edible hexagonal structures. The travellers are attacked by flying metallic fish which also surround the TARDIS. The Doctor fears that the mysterious Palladins have finally caught up to himself and Susan (here named Suzanne), but they are saved when long stems extend out from the hexagons, spearing the animals. They realise that the fish are part of the planet's bizarre ecosystem. Drawn by a strange, maddening sound, they discover a series of holes, down which Suzanne becomes trapped. Ian ventures into a hole to rescue her, and they deduce that the entire planet is a gigantic living organism — the hexagons are like skin cells and the holes permit respiration. The planet tries to absorb the TARDIS, but its alien construction is incompatible and the planet is forced to release it, allowing the travellers to escape. Wakeman used ideas for the programme's backstory developed by Anthony Coburn but ultimately discarded, in which Suzanne is really an alien princess named Findooclare and she and the Doctor are being pursued by the mysterious Palladins. Wakeman's planned episode titles were "Airfish", "What Eats What?", "The Living Planet", and "Just in Time". The story was deemed to be too sophisticated for the intended child audience and abandoned. In 2005, following Doctor Who's successful return to television, Wakeman unsuccessfully offered "The Living Planet" to Russell T Davies.

Season 2

• "The Dark Planet" by Brian Hayles. The TARDIS lands on the planet Numir, whose sun has been extinguished. The people of Numir have become divided into two factions: the surface-dwelling Light people and the subterranean Shadow people. The Doctor, Barbara and the TARDIS are captured by the Shadow people, but rescued by Teelss and the Light people using a powerful laser weapon. However, the time travellers discover that the Light people are fanatics who intend to launch a “sun bomb”: an artificial sun which will eradicate the Shadow people. But the Shadow people have snuck into the city by hiding in the TARDIS. Seizing control of the laser weapon, they destroy the sun bomb. The time travellers escape in the TARDIS, even as Numir is destroyed in the conflagration. Dennis Spooner feared that it hewed too closely to "The Hidden Planet". An audio adaptation was released by Big Finish Productions in 2013. The intended episode titles were:

  1. "The City of Silence"
  2. "The Shadow People"
  3. "The Doomed Planet"
  4. "The Caves of Night"
  5. "The Sun Bomb"
  6. "Invasion by Darkness"

• "The Slide" by Victor Pemberton. A sentient form of mud emerges from a fissure and begins to take over the minds of British townsfolk. David Whitaker rejected it, feeling that it was a "stewpot" of earlier Doctor Who science-fiction ideas with a hint of Quatermass. Pemberton later retooled it as "Fury from the Deep".

Season 3

• "The Face of God" by John Wiles. In space, a massive countenance materialises in front of the TARDIS; the being claims to be God, but this is eventually revealed to be a hoax.
• "The Space Trap" by Robert Holmes. The Doctor and his three companions arriving on an uninhabited planet to discover a space craft controlled by robots while its human occupants lie in suspended animation waiting for the additional crew members needed to once again operate their crashed ship. The Doctor and his companions are taken captive and trained up by the robots as the replacement crew members; however, only three additional crew members are required, so the member of the Doctor's party that proves least useful is to be callously killed off by the human crew.
• "The Son of Doctor Who" by William Hartnell. The Doctor encounters his evil time-travelling son, to whom he bears an uncanny physical resemblance. Hartnell was interested in playing characters other than the Doctor. As a mechanism for achieving this, he suggested that he could also play the Doctor's son, who would be an adversary for the Doctor. This does not appear to have been seriously pursued.

Season 4

• "The Herdsman of Aquarius" by Donald Cotton, aka "The Herdsman of Venus". Involved the revelation that the Loch Ness Monster was a type of cattle bred by Aquarian (or Venusian) farmers.
• "The Hounds of Time" by Brian Hayles. A scientist named Melloris has dispatched robotic hunters to capture humans from throughout Earth's history and bring them to his laboratory on the planet Terrin. Amongst those kidnapped are Ben and Polly, but the Doctor pursues them to Terrin and confronts Melloris. He discovers that Terrin's warlord, Vartan, is studying mankind in order to determine the optimal point in history to invade and make Earth a vassal of Terrin. The controlling computer now identifies 1970 as the crucial year. Having second thoughts, Melloris tries to stop Vartan but is killed. However, Ben and Polly escape from the trap, and the Doctor sabotages the computer with a logical paradox, depriving Vartan of the power he needs to launch the invasion.

Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) era

Season 4 (continued)

• "The Ants" by Roger Dixon. The TARDIS brings the Doctor and his companions to the Nevada Desert, where they discover they have been shrunk to a tenth of an inch in height. To make matters worse, they learn that the local ants have been made super-intelligent by atomic bomb tests and plan to take over the Earth.
• "Bar Kochbar" by Roger Dixon. In early 2nd century Palestine, the Doctor and his companions become involved with the efforts of the Jewish leader Bar Kokhba to organise an army against the Romans.
• "The Big Store" by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke. The TARDIS lands in a department store in 1973 London. The store has been taken over by two species of aliens — one, a master race, is identified only by numbers, while the members of the faceless slave race are named with letters. The latter are being transformed into duplicates of the humans which have been abducted onto the aliens' spacecraft to maintain the charade at the store, while the unprocessed members pose as mannequins. The master aliens intend to colonise the Earth, subjugating humanity by releasing a new strain of bubonic plague. The Doctor convinces the aliens to leave the Earth in peace. Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis liked the story, but they decided that an airport would be a better setting, so it became "The Faceless Ones".
• "The Imps" by William Imms. An interplanetary passenger liner lands at a remote spaceport on Earth, bearing with it imp-like creatures who can become intangible, and alien spores. They cause an aggressive form of vegetation to spring up around the spaceport and attack the humans within. The story was rushed into production when it was decided that "The Underwater Menace" could not be suitably realised on the show's budget. Imms completed draft scripts and some rewrites before falling ill in November. Then it had to be rewritten to accomodate Jamie. With the writer too sick to do the necessary work, "The Underwater Menace" was resurrected in its spot in the schedule. Imms later used elements of the story for his Sixth Doctor choose-your-own-adventure book, Mission to Venus, published in 1986.
• "The Mutant" by Barry Letts. Concerned a race of creatures which underwent dramatic mutations, like a caterpillar evolving into a butterfly, over the span of their lifetimes.
• "The New Machines" by Roger Dixon. A race of people created powerful robots, but were subsequently wiped out. The robots have now become so advanced that they are, in turn, able to create a new race of people. They fear that these new humans will dominate them, and see the arrival of the Doctor on their planet as confirmation of their fears.
• "The Return of the Neanderthal" by Roger Dixon. The TARDIS lands on the planet Terunda, where the Doctor learns that the highly-advanced Terundans have nurtured a Neanderthal culture. Some of the Neanderthals now wish to return to Earth, and the Terundans ask for the Doctor's help to facilitate this. The Doctor is reluctant because the Neanderthals are telepathic and he is suspicious of their motives, but the Terundans assure him that the Neanderthals are conditioned such that they will all die should any one of them commit an act of violence. However, once arriving on an island on 2016 Earth, the Neanderthals reveal that they intend to use their telepathy to force the humans to do their dirty work for them. They take over the island, and only the Doctor and his companions — shielded from the Neanderthal telepathy thanks to Terundan technology — are safe. They are cornered on a cliff edge by the Neanderthals, but one of the Neanderthals has been befriended by Jamie. She is injured trying to save them and, in a fit of rage, shoots her leader. This triggers the Terundan conditioning, and all the Neanderthals die.
• "The Sleepwalkers" by Roger Dixon. The TARDIS lands on far-future Earth, where a great conflict has reduced the world's populace to only a few hundred, living in isolated communities ignorant of each others' existence. One such community is made up of quarrelling Elders and young people who are dependent upon robots for their subsistence; however, these robots have recently stopped functioning. The Doctor realises that the robots are powered by hydroelectricity, and uses a fire and some silver iodine powder to bring about a rainstorm. This solves the problem, but also attracts the attention of another community, whose more warlike denizens attack. The Doctor is finally forced to modify some robots for use as weapons. Pacified, the attackers soon agree to work together with the Elders and their younger counterparts. However, before the Doctor can deactivate all the modified robots, two of them manage to construct a primitive TARDIS and escape.
• "Twin World" by Roger Dixon. On a planet in a binary star system, every birth produces twins who are the polar opposites of one another. The power of the ruling twins is governed by the prominence in the sky of the planet's two suns. As the Doctor arrives, the sun related to the evil twin is about to enter a prolonged period of ascendancy, and the good people of the world fear that by the time this period ends, their planet may be doomed. The Doctor saves the day with the use of a simple invention. This story was also proposed for Season 5.

Season 5

• "The King's Bedtime Story" by Roger Dixon. The Doctor and his companions are forced to perpetually enact the King's favourite story without changing any aspect of it.
• "Operation Werewolf" by Douglas Camfield and Robert Kitts. The TARDIS lands in Normandy, France on June 1st, 1944 — five days before D-Day. The Doctor discovers that the Nazis are developing a way to teleport troops across the English Channel: the so-called “Operation Werewolf”. To stop the Nazis, the Doctor allies himself with the Resistance — including Fergus McCrimmon, a descendant of Jamie's — but must first uncover the traitors within.
• "The Queen of Time" by Brian Hayles. The TARDIS is captured by Hecuba, the Queen of Time, brethren of the Celestial Toymaker, who has romantic designs on the Doctor. She challenges him to a series of contests against figures from history (including Copernicus and Nostradramus) while her servants, Snap and Drag, bedevil Jamie and Victoria with a variety of time-themed perils (such as being trapped inside a giant hourglass). The companions survive the last of these challenges and save the Doctor from being trapped for eternity in a time loop. Hecuba threatens to destroy the TARDIS in her Grand Chronometer — the source of her power — but has not reckoned with the time machine's invulnerability. The Grand Chronometer grinds to a halt, giving the Doctor the chance to trap Hecuba in her own time loop even as he and his friends make their escape. A Big Finish adaptation was released in 2013.

Season 6

• "The Aliens in the Blood" by Robert Holmes. In the 22nd century, the Outer Space Commission Of Control (OSCOC) controls the flow of traffic in the spacelanes. OSCOC is located on an island in the Indian Ocean, and its staff — led by Dean Thawne — are in frequent conflict with the primitive natives. The TARDIS materialises on the island in the midst of a rash of sabotage which has resulted in the loss of many Earth spaceships. Although the natives are suspected, it transpires that the culprits are actually mutant “Mark II” humans, who have infiltrated OSCOC. These mutants have gained the power of ESP but are cold and emotionless, and now intend world conquest. The Doctor defeats the mutants by constructing a device which broadcasts along their psychic wavelength and burns out their superhuman abilities. Terrance Dicks was wary of the proposal, feeling that OSCOC bore similarities to the eponymous facility in "The Wheel in Space". He was also concerned that Holmes' proposal that the Mark II Humans be distinguished by a physical feature like an extra-long thumb was reminiscent of the TV series The Invaders. In 1977, Holmes adapted it into a standalone radio serial.
• "The Dreamspinner" by Paul Wheeler. Involved a person with the power to make others believe that their dreams are real.
• "The Eye in Space" by Victor Pemberton. Concerned an omniscient octopoid eye in space which drew things toward it.
• "The Harvesters", aka "The Vampire Planet", by William Imms. The Masters pilot a purple planet into the solar system and despatch their Roboes to invade Earth. The Doctor defeats the Masters by frightening them with film of nuclear explosions.
• "The Laird of McCrimmon" by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. A possessed Jamie pilots the TARDIS to 1746 Scotland and his ancestral home, Castle McCrimmon. There, he finds the current Laird, Sir James, is on his deathbed. Yeti appear and surround the castle while the local villagers fall under the influence of the Great Intelligence; the only person who seems to be immune is a girl named Fiona, with whom Jamie falls in love. The Great Intelligence wants to inhabit Jamie's body and become the Laird once Sir James dies. However, the Intelligence is defeated by the Doctor, and Jamie decides to stay behind and become Laird himself. This was intended to write Jamie out when it was thought that Frazer Hines was leaving. It was abandoned due to a legal dispute with the writers.
• "The Prison in Space" aka "The Amazons", "The Female of the Species", "The Lady Killers", "The Masters of Zenos", "More Deadly Than the Male", "The Revolutionaries", or "The Strange Suffragettes", by Dick Sharples. The TARDIS materialises on a planet where women have ruled for the past five centuries; they have disenfranchised men, banned war, and developed a way to extend their lifespans so that procreation is no longer imperative. The Doctor and Jamie are arrested and sentenced by President Babs to a prison satellite controlled by the Dolly Guards. They quickly recruit their cellmates — Albert, Garth and Mervyn — into helping them foment a resistance movement. Meanwhile, Babs brainwashes Zoe and sends her to the satellite as an ostensible ambassador. Once there, though, Zoe betrays the Doctor and Jamie, and they and their collaborators are put on a rocket destined for a remote planet. However, prior to her conditioning, Zoe told other women about the way males and females coexist on Earth, and this incites a revolution against Babs. The newly enlightened women rescue the Doctor; Jamie frees Zoe from her brainwashing by spanking her. It has been suggested that the script's blatant misogyny was a strong factor in the decision to abandon it, since it was literally the only script they had ready to go and, unusually for the show, Sharples was an established television writer of some repute. An audio adaptation (starring Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury) was released by Big Finish Productions in 2010, and a scriptbook was also released in 2011.
• "The Rosemariners", aka "The Rosicrutians", by Donald Tosh. The TARDIS materialises on an Earth space station, which has been virtually abandoned as a result of subterfuge by Rugosa, leader of the Rosemariners, whose spaceship, the Rosemarinus, is nearby. The Rosemariners are using a venom secreted by their special roses to brainwash people. It transpires that the Rosemarinus is actually a prison ship; Rugosa was an inmate who managed to overthrow the wardens. He now plans an invasion of Earth, but the Doctor manages to inject Rugosa with the venom, thereby incapacitating him and returning control of the Rosemarinus to the wardens. The idea came from research Tosh was doing while planning his own rose garden, while the title was a variant of Rosicrucian, a secret religious society which flourished in the seventeenth century. Many of the character names were derived from rose-related terminology, such as Rugosa (from rosa rugosa, an oriental type of rose). An audio adaptation was released in 2012.
• "The Stones of Darkness" by Brian Hayles. Visiting Stonehenge, the time travellers are astonished to see a man materialise in its midst. They track him to nearby Darkhill Manor, where they meet Professor Storp and his assistant Reana. The man from Stonehenge is introduced as another associate, Alvec. However, the Doctor's suspicions are aroused when Jamie watches a tramp who had broken into the Manor vanish from Stonehenge and later reappear as yet another aide named Ganis. With the help of European Security agent Bennett, the Doctor discovers that Storp and his friends are aliens who have turned Stonehenge into a transporter. They plan to use the technology to covertly replace four soldiers who have control of their countries' respective nuclear arsenals, laying waste to the Earth and paving the way for Storp's planet to invade. With Bennett's help, the Doctor banishes Storp and his cronies back to their own world, and then locks the arrival point at Stonehenge inside a forcefield to prevent their return.

Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) era

Season 7

• "The Circles of Power" by Brian Hayles. A new communications satellite, designed by Sir Walter Llewellyn, is launched to link computers across Europe and America. However, it has been sabotaged by a radical scientist named Tilverton, who believes his inventions are being suppressed by commercial concerns. This precipitates an escalating number of computer-related incidents across the globe — including the release of robotic “sensorspheres” which can induce amnesia in any person not wearing a special pendant. The pendant actually denotes membership in the Circles of Powers, a secret cabal led by Llewellyn and which has made a pawn of Tilverton. The Doctor discovers that Llewellyn plans to use the global chaos to ignite a third World War, and stops the evacuation of Government officials which would have triggered this stage of the plan. An orbital missile destroys the satellite, and when the Doctor inverts the sensorspheres' programming, the robots wipe the minds of Llewellyn and his co-conspirators.
• "The Mists of Madness" by Brian Wright. The Doctor discovers an artificially-created human community.

Season 8

• "The Hollow Men" by Brian Hayles. Following the death of his wife from heart disease, the wealthy Sherman P. Rayburn is determined to set up an institute to propel advances in medical science. However, his investments in this project have depleted his financial resources, and the government refuses to assist him. Enraged, Rayburn turns to a discovery made by one of his scientists, Professor Martin, who has found a way to turn a rabbit into a “negative” which can pass through normal, “positive” materials. Rayburn forces Martin to use the procedure to create a squad of commandos with which he can raid government treasuries. UNIT is helpless to stop them until, during their final assault on the Bank of England, the Doctor convinces the commandos that Rayburn has concealed the truth from them: the procedure is irreversible. The shadow squad turns on Rayburn and destroys him.
• "The Spare-Part People", aka "The Brain Drain" or "The Labyrinth", by Jon Pertwee and Reed de Rouen. The Doctor poses as Cambridge don Dr. John Madden to investigate a spate of celebrity disappearances. He is kidnapped by mummy-like beings who take him to Antarctica, where a hidden civilisation exists. There the Doctor participates in brutal games and combats a monster which dwells in a labyrinth.

Season 9

• "The Brain-Dead" by Brian Hayles. The Ice Warriors, led by Commander Kulvis, plan to invade modern-day Earth using a weapon called the "Z" beam, which is capable of freezing anything it touches to absolute zero. In particular, the Ice Warriors can use it to freeze a human brain, turning the afflicted individual into a subservient Brain-Dead. The Ice Warriors hijack a communications satellite and use it to take over the crew of its receiving station, whom they set to work constructing a giant "Z" beam transmitter. They plan to use the satellite network to broadcast the "Z" beam around the world, enslaving mankind and adjusting the Earth's climate to something suitable for Martian habitation. Realising that metals are extremely conductive at absolute zero, the Doctor overloads the "Z" beam transmitter just at the point of broadcast, destroying the Ice Warriors and the Brain-Dead. The inclusion of the Ice Warriors led to the creation of "The Curse of Peladon".
• "The Shape of Terror" by Brian Hayles. A rescue team led by Commander Hallett is summoned to research station Pi Delta 6 on the planet Medusa Centaurus. Hallett arrives to find the station deserted, and his security officer, Garford, believes it has been attacked by pirates. Indeed, when the TARDIS brings the Doctor and Jo to Pi Delta 6, Garford accuses them of being associated with the pirates. In fact, the station has fallen victim to the Energid, a shapeshifting protoplasmic entity which can absorb people's brains. The Energid wishes to merge with the Doctor, but when the Energid attempts the fusion, the Doctor manages to rally the minds of those whom the Energid had previously consumed, and the creature is destroyed. The idea of an Agatha Christie-style mystery was attractive and was incorporated into "The Curse of Peladon".

Season 11

• "The Final Game" by Robert Sloman. The Doctor and the Master are revealed to be two aspects of the same person: the Master representing the "id" (instinctual needs and desires) and the Doctor the "ego" (conscious perception of and adaptation to reality). The Master ultimately perishes in an explosion which saves the lives of the Doctor and others; it remains unclear if this was a final act of redemption on the villain's part. This was created in response to Roger Delgado's desire for the Master to be written out of the series because his attachment to the programme was making it difficult for him to find other work. This story only got as far as a single conversation between Sloman and Barry Letts before Delgado's untimely death. That said, given Doctor Who's love of the Joker Immunity trope, it's highly unlikely that this kind of change would've stuck, especially considering the Master's popularity as a character.

Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) era

Season 12

• "Space Station" by Christopher Langley. Apparently set on a far-future space station during a period when mankind is no longer living on Earth.
• "The Sea of Fear" by Brian Hayles. The TARDIS lands on an island where the ape-like Simiads and the amphibious Zelons are at war. The conflict is being provoked by technicians from Research Inc under the command of Director Korbyn. Research Inc has travelled back in time from Earth City in the far future in order to determine which of the two races is an ancestor of Man. Once this is known, any denizens of Earth City who manifest the other race's lineage will be purged under the orders of the Great Leader. But the Great Leader knows that he is of Simiad strain and has planted an agent, Dr. Rojel, amongst the Research Inc staff to tip the scales against the Zelons. However, the Doctor discovers that pollution from the Research Inc facility is having a degenerative effect on the Simiads — which Korbyn tries to cover up by activing a self-destruct mechanism. The Doctor stops him by using the TARDIS to scramble the signal, and reveals that the Simiads and Zelons are actually two forms of the same race.
• Douglas Adams submitted an idea involving a spaceship called the "B" Ark leaving Earth with the affluent but useless members of society aboard. This idea was later used in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Season 13

• "The Angarath" by Eric Pringle. Concerned a race of people offering human sacrifices to sentient rocks.
• "The Eyes of Nemesis" by Brian Hayles. On an alien planet, an old beggar named Lakdem is pursued by Myrron androids, but is immune to their destructive weaponry. The TARDIS materialises, and the Doctor is captured by the Myrron commander, Torr. Sarah takes Lakdem back to the TARDIS, where he sheds his skin to become a younger man. Together, they rescue the Doctor and Lakdem sets the coordinates to take the TARDIS to his planet of origin, the secret world of Oinos. There, he reveals that he is also an android: one of Thirteen Watchers created by Death and infused with awesome power to wander the universe and observe its progress. However, Torr has tracked the TARDIS to Oinos and reveals that he serves the Celestial Toymaker, who desires Death's power for himself. The Doctor challenges the Toymaker, and the distraction allows Lakdem to accelerate time around the Myrrons, destroying them utterly.
• "Fires of the Starmind" by Marc Platt. Information in the Time Lord libraries is stored on photons. A sentient star uses this as a means of invading Gallifrey. Robert Holmes felt the story lacked action and drama, and was in need of a proper antagonist.
• "The Menday Fault" by David Wiltshire. The Doctor and Sarah Jane join the crew of the Thor, an experimental nuclear submarine attempting to set a new depth record by entering the Fault of Menday in the Bermuda Triangle. The Fault turns out to be a passageway to a subterranean world, and the Thor is captured by a race called the Suranians, led by Zorr. The Suranians' world is lit by a glowing cloud of gas that is beginning to fade, and so Zorr wants to use the Polaris missiles aboard the Thor to invade the surface world. He threatens Sarah's life to force the Doctor's cooperation, but she is saved by Nephus, a merman-like Trelw. Nephus' people are being mind-controlled by the Suranians, but the Doctor manages to destroy the transmitter, inciting a rebellion. Nephus kills Zorr, and the Thor is able to the return to the surface world.
• "The Nightmare Planet" by Dennis Spooner. Concerned a planet where the populace is unknowingly subjugated with drugs in their food and water. Misdeeds are punished with the temporary suppression of the drugs, which causes the people to see terrible monsters all around them. Robert Holmes was unhappy with the drugs element and it was dropped.

Season 14

• "The Dreamers of Phados" by Chris Boucher. Set on a colony ship which has been home to a civilisation spanning many generations.
• "The Lost Legion" by Douglas Camfield. An isolated North African outpost of the French Foreign Legion becomes the focal point of a confrontation between the Skarkel and the Khoorians, two factions of an alien race. At the story's conclusion, the last of the aliens shoots Sarah Jane as it dies, and she expires in the Doctor's arms. The Legionnaires build a funeral pyre for Sarah, which burns as the TARDIS dematerialises.
• "The Mentor Conspiracy" by Chris Boucher. Set on a colony ship which has been home to a civilisation spanning many generations.

Season 15

• "Killers of the Dark", aka "The Killer Cats of Geng Singh",^note This "alternate" title was invented by Graham Williams at a fan convention when he was unable to remember what the title actually was by David Weir. Concerned a race of cat people native to Gallifrey. The story was abandoned because it was far too ambitious to ever realise on the show's budget, with a scene involving a giant stadium full of cat people often cited.
• "The Krikkitmen" by Douglas Adams. Two million years ago, the inhabitants of the planet Krikkit built a race of androids called the Krikkitmen to wipe out all life in the universe. They were stopped by the Time Lords, who trapped Krikkit within a temporal prison. Now, however, a group of Krikkitmen which escaped the Time Lords' sentence are trying to reassemble the components of a key which can free Krikkit — components of which happen to resemble elements of the Earth game of cricket, itself actually a reflection of the ancient war. The Doctor and Sarah stumble upon this plot when they see the Krikkitmen steal the Ashes during a test match at Lords. They then travel to the planet Bethselamin to foil the next step in the Krikkitmen's quest. Largely recycled into Adams' third Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, Life, the Universe and Everything, although a novelisation by James Goss (substituting Sarah Jane with Romana, to match Goss' earlier adaptations of "The Pirate Planet" and "City of Death") was released in 2018.

Season 16, aka "The Key to Time"

• "Shield of Zarak", aka "The Doppelgangers" or "Shield of Zareg", by Ted Lewis. Dealt with the notion that legendary heroes might, in reality, have been the antithesis of the way history would ultimately portray them. Apparently, the specific example planned was to have the Doctor and Romana encounter Robin Hood in their search for the fourth segment of the Key to Time, only to discover that the alleged hero was actually a blackhearted villain. Lewis was unfamiliar with Doctor Who and it was clear that the scripts needed work. He had also begun a descent into alcoholism amidst marital difficulties, and was drunk when he met with Graham Williams and Anthony Read to discuss the script.

Season 17

• "The Doomsday Contract", aka "Shylock", by John Lloyd. While vacationing on Cimmerian II, the Doctor is summoned before the Altribunal of Coelare Coelum, an intergalactic court. He has been called as a witness in a millennia-old case in which the Plenum Trust Corporation (whose Executive Vice President, Smilax, is an old friend) is opposing the purchase of the Earth by Cosmegalon and its unscrupulous owner, Jugend Bruisa. Plenum had been testing the Spondilas Chamber — an incredibly powerful device capable of polymorphing matter — when Cosmegalon bought the Earth via dubious means. Now Smilax fears that Chamber falling into Bruisa's hands. In court, the Doctor gives evidence that the Earth is home to intelligent life, which by law would nullify Cosmegalon's ownership. He is sent to Earth to retrieve a human as proof. Arriving in mediaeval Yorkshire, the Doctor is prevented from completing his task by the monstrous Children of Pyxis, who have been despatched by Cosmegalon. Fortunately, he is saved from death by the timely intervention of Smilax, and does manage to spirit away the Spondilas Chamber. Nonetheless, with the Doctor having seemingly failed, the court rules in Cosmegalon's favour. However, the Doctor tricks Bruisa and the Children of Pyxis into travelling to modern-day Earth near a missile base, where their ship is annihilated. When it became clear that Lloyd's commitments to Not the Nine O'Clock News were going to prevent him from finishing the script, Douglas Adams indicated to Lloyd that he would commission Allan Prior to finish the scripts, although this does not appear to have been seriously pursued. An audio adaptation was released by Big Finish in 2021.
• "Erinella", aka "Dragons of Fear", by Pennant Roberts. The Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive on the planet Erinella. There, the Doctor is immediately arrested and accused of poisoning a local noble. Indeed, everyone seems to recognise him, despite the fact that he's never been to Erinella before. Romana and K9 retreat to the woods where they meet Og, the keeper of Erinella's dragons. Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers that the true murderer is a Queen who is scheming to control all of Erinella. Moreover, he has accidentally arrived on the planet later than he was meant to. He escapes and travels back in time to set in motion the events that he has already witnessed. Romana convinces Og to send the dragons against the Queen, while the Doctor tricks her into confessing her crimes.
• "The Tearing of the Veil" by Alan Drury. An evil force pursues the TARDIS to a Victorian vicarage, where the vicar's widow is being defrauded by phoney spiritualists. As supernatural phenomena grip the vicarage, the con artists are killed off one by one. Even K9 is apparently torn apart by a poltergeist, while much of the Doctor's life force is drained from him, turning him into a disinterested crank wandering about in his nightgown.
• "Valley of the Lost" by Philip Hinchcliffe. The Doctor and Romana travel to the jungles of Brazil, where they come upon a Luron scout ship which crashlanded in 1870. The vessel emits a bubble of time which has kept the surroundings preserved as they were then — including a lost city of gold, inhabited by Maygor savages who worship the only Luron survivor, Godrin, as their deity. Godrin convinces the Doctor to bring him to London, but once there uses modern technology to send a signal to the Luron fleet to commence an invasion of Earth. The Doctor and Romana manage to infiltrate the Luron mothership and take control of its power source. Faced with destruction, the Lurons agree to abandon their invasion. Hinchcliffe had earlier submitted the idea when Graham Williams was producer, with Leela as the companion, and this earlier version was adapted by Big Finish Productions as an audio drama starring Tom Baker and Louise Jameson in 2012.
• Douglas Adams pitched an idea that saw the Doctor, fed up with constantly saving the universe, goes into retirement, but is constantly summoned back from seclusion to resolve various troubles.
• Famously, "Shada" was only partly finished due to a production strike terminating its filming, and so never aired, making it the only example in the show's history of a story that had to be abandoned midway through shooting. It later became a Recycled Script when Douglas Adams used some of the ideas and characters as the basis of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The episode has seen multiple adaptations: The existing footage was released with linking narration by Tom Baker by BBC Video in 1992, BBCi and Big Finish released a webcast featuring the Eighth Doctor, Romana and K9 in 2003, with an audio release later that year with additional scenes, Gareth Roberts novelised it based on the television scripts in 2012 and animation was also used to fill in the unfilmed scenes in 2017.

Season 18

• "Into the Comet" by James Follett. Involved monsters attacking a race of beings who live inside Halley's Comet, unaware that there is anything beyond it.
• "The Psychonauts" by David Fisher. The Doctor battles the Nephilim, creatures who travel through time in sleeping units shaped like sarcophagi.
• "Sealed Orders" by Christopher Priest. A political thriller set on Gallifrey in which the Doctor is seemingly ordered to kill Romana by the Time Lords. A complex plot involving time paradoxes would result in the appearance of a second Doctor (who dies) and lead to Romana's departure; it also involved the idea of time running into itself, resulting in one TARDIS existing inside another.
• John Brosnan, who at the time was writing for genre magazine Starburst and would later pen more than a dozen novels, pitched an idea where the Doctor lands at BBC Television Centre, where he meets Tom Baker and the two work together to combat a threat.

Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) era

Season 19

• "Project Zeta-Sigma" aka "Project '4G'", "Project Zeta Plus", "Zeta Plus One" or "Incident on Zeta Minor", originally planned to be the Fifth Doctor's first full story but replaced with "Castrovalva". Two hostile planets are verging on war after one planet — that of the Doves — establishes an impregnable defence shield. In retaliation, the planet of the Hawks threatens to fire a super-missile which will destroy their solar system's sun and annihilate both worlds. This maneuver is advocated by Sergo, the Hawks' chief scientist, who secretly wants to use the political instability to allow the Hawk scientists to become the new ruling power. The Doctor is too late to prevent the Hawks' missile from being launched, but convinces both planets to fire their entire nuclear arsenals after it, in the hope of destroying the missile. These melt in proximity to the sun, but the missile fails to detonate anyway. It turns out that this was the Doctor's plan all along, and by engineering the destruction of the Hawks' and Doves' nuclear stockpiles, he has incited a new concordance between the two peoples.
• "Genesis of the Cybermen" by Gerry Davis. The Doctor and his companion "Felicity" arrive on the planet Mondas, Earth's twin orbiting on the opposite side of the Sun. While the Doctor works on a piece of TARDIS equipment, Felicity encounters the gentle Prince Sylvan. Sylvan accidentally activates the TARDIS, sending him, the Doctor and Felicity fifty years into the future. There, Sylvan's brother, Dega, is now king and has used the Doctor's device to begin turning his people into Cybermen. He has constructed a space fleet with which he intends to invade the mineral-rich Earth, and plans to kill any unconverted Mondans with cyanide gas. Felicity appeals to Dega's partly-Cybernised wife, Queen Meta, and she shoots her husband dead — only to be killed by Dega's chief of staff, Krail. In the confusion, Sylvan and a band of Mondan rebels flee in the spaceships to Earth; the massive concussion of take-off knocks Mondas out of its orbit into deep space, setting up the events of "The Tenth Planet".
• "The Enemy Within" by Christopher Priest. Concerned a monster at the heart of the TARDIS which embodies the Doctor's deepest fears. The story featured characters called Timewrights, and ended with Adric's demise. This advanced far enough in development that oblique references to something sinister deep within the TARDIS were included in "Castrovalva" and remain in the finished story.

Season 20

• "The Song of the Space-Whale", aka "The Space-Whale", by Pat Mills and John Wagner. The TARDIS is captured by Captain Greeg of the spaceship Orkas when the Doctor interferes with his attempts to hunt a massive Ghaleen — a "space whale" with the ability to travel in time. Also on the Orkas are Krakos, an alien Tuthon who wants to steal the orb which powers the Ghaleen's time travel, and Rina, who believes that a community of castaways is living in the belly of the Ghaleen, and who has stowed away aboard Greeg's vessel in the hope of rescuing them. In fact, the castaways have constructed a "raft-ship" which would permit them to escape, but their leader, Waldron, has not disclosed the fact that the device works, because he believes that by remaining within the Ghaleen, they are living a life safe from the outside universe. Krakos succeeds in seizing the orb, however, causing temporal energy — which induces "time necrosis" — to flood out of the Ghaleen. The Doctor uses the raft-ship to reverse the damage, and Krakos is killed trying to escape the Ghaleen's belly. The castaways are rescued, but Waldron has been inside the Ghaleen for so long that when he attempts to leave, he dies of time necrosis. Greeg is overthrown by his second-in-command, Stennar, and the Ghaleen is allowed to return to its pod. Mills submitted this to the production office several times, and it was variously considered for the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Doctors; it would eventually be adapted in 2010 by Big Finish as a Sixth Doctor story with Peri, under the title "The Song of Megaptera".
• "The Six Doctors" by Robert Holmes. The Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Doctors (with their companions, including Jamie and Tegan) are drawn to the planet Maladoom, where they meet the First Doctor and Susan. They are trapped by the Master, who is working for the Cybermen. The Cybermen want to isolate the genetic component which permits Time Lords to travel freely in time and space; they will incorporate this factor into their own biology and conquer the Time Vortex. The Doctors manage to escape, but the First Doctor and Susan are really cyborgs created by the Cybermen. The other Doctors manage to destroy the duplicates and discover that it is the Master's TARDIS which has brought them to Maladoom. It is now operating out of control and threatens the universe, but the Doctors are able to deactivate it and return to their proper places in the timeline. Holmes had trouble adding the list of things required for the special and dropped out. He reused the idea of the villains trying to steal the Doctor's genetic code for "The Two Doctors".

Season 21

• "The Children of Seth", aka "Manpower", "Manwatch" and "May Time", by Christopher Bailey. Adapted by Big Finish as an audio drama in 2011 (although this version is set in Season 20).
• "The Dark Samurai" by Andrew Smith. Set in Japan in the early nineteenth century. Although not adapted as a Lost Story, Smith used a very similar idea for a First Doctor audio drama in 2018, "The Barbarian and the Samurai".
• "The Elite" by Barbara Clegg. The TARDIS lands in a city embroiled in a protracted war. Most of the population is very young, and has been bred for intelligence to give them a strategic advantage. Appalled, the Doctor is branded a war criminal but saved by the twelve-year-old General Aubron. They join forces with savages on the surface of the planet who turn out to be people banished from the city because they were not sufficiently intelligent. Together, they assault the bunker of the ruling High Priest. The High Priest turns out to be a Dalek who crashlanded on the planet centuries earlier, and who has been manipulating the society to elevate them to the point where they will make it possible for the Dalek to return to Skaro. Adapted by Big Finish in 2011.
• "Hex" by Peter Ling and Hazel Adair. The Earth's most brilliant minds are being kidnapped, and the Doctor traces the disappearances to the planet Hexagora. Confronting Queen Zafia, the Doctor learns that Hexagora is spiralling away from its sun, and the Hexagoran civilisation risks destruction. She claims that the kidnappings are intended to provide them with the brainpower to find a solution to the dilemma. The Doctor offers to help move the Hexagorans to an uninhabited planet, but Zafia will agree to this plan only if the Doctor agrees to a “marriage of state”. However, Peri discovers that the Hexagorans are actually bee-like creatures who are transforming themselves into clones of the kidnapped humans. Their plan is to infiltrate Earth, but Zafia will first absorb all of the Doctor's knowledge when they are married. A renegade Hexagoran named Jezz sets fire to the Hexagoran hives, and the Doctor and Peri grimly rescue the abducted humans while Hexagora burns. Adapted by Big Finish under the title "Hexagora" in 2011.
• "Nightmare Country" by Stephen Gallagher. The Doctor agrees to let a race of beings called the Engineers make some repairs to the TARDIS. In return, he offers himself as a test subject for a Reality Simulator, constructed by a Master Engineer called Konis. The simulation is intended to be benign, but the Doctor finds himself amnesiac on a graveyard-like world overrun by the sinister Vodyani. In the TARDIS, Tegan and Turlough learn that the Reality Simulator actually generates a genuine alternate reality. Tegan enters the Simulator and frees the Doctor, but the Vodyani have found a way out of the machine as well. It transpires that the Vodyani were accidentally created by the mind of Konis' apprentice, Volos, who is now merging with the Vodyani leader. Volos sacrifices himself to stop the Vodyani, and Konis destroys the Reality Simulator. Adapted by Big Finish in 2019.
• "The Place Where All Times Meet" by Colin Davis. People from different periods in history find themselves able to move between times in the English countryside.
• "The Rogue TARDIS" by Barbara Clegg. The Time Lords ask the Doctor to find a missing Time Lord named Ajon. Locating Ajon's TARDIS, the Doctor discovers it transformed into a nightmare world where cause follows effect. Eventually, it emerges that Ajon is half-human and, in response to the suppression of his human characteristics, has regenerated into a computer which is corrupting his TARDIS. The Doctor induces Ajon to regenerate again, ending the terror.
• "The SCI" by William Emms. Involved the people of the planet Alden falling under mental domination.
• "The Underworld" by Barbara Clegg. In Ancient Greece, the Doctor learns that many young women have recently perished from snake bites. Instead of having them buried, however, a medicine man named Herm has encouraged the population to send their bodies by barge down the river Styx. With the help of a musician named Orfeo whose girlfriend, Erdiss, is one of the victims, the Doctor convinces Herm to confess the truth: the girls are not dead but have been drugged, and have been conveyed to a hidden underground city. There, the Doctor confronts aliens called the Hadeans, who have been kidnapping women because their own female population has been made infertile. The Doctor counsels the Hadeans on a genetic solution to their problem.
• "Warmongers" by Marc Platt and Jeremy Bentham. The Sontarans and the Rutans battle each other in England during the Blitz.

Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) era

Season 22

• "Cat's Cradle" by Marc Platt. The TARDIS is turned inside-out, forcing the Doctor to navigate through an alien landscape in order to restore his time machine. Later adapted by Platt as a New Adventures novel under the title "Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible" for the Seventh Doctor and Ace.
• "The First Sontarans" by Andrew Smith. Involved the Mary Celeste, and would elaborate on the Sontaran-Rutan war. It was scrapped due to the Sontarans already being used in "The Two Doctors". Eventually adapted by Big Finish in 2012.
• "The Guardians of Prophecy", aka "The Place of Serenity", by Johnny Byrne. The Doctor and Peri arrive on the planet Serenity, which is part of the same Benign Union that once counted Traken as a member. Serenity is ruled by the aristocratic Elect, assisted by a mighty computer known as Prophecy. The Doctor is accused of stealing relics from the vaults of the Elect, but the true culprits are Auga, recorder to the court, and Mura, commander of the Guard. Aided by the mercenary Ebbko, who has kidnapped Peri, they have sabotaged Prophecy's power supply and used the relics to gain access to the tomb of Malador, the immortal creator of the Melkur. Auga and Mura hope that Malador will help them overthrow the Elect, but Malador has his own plans and kills them. Peri escapes only with Ebbko's aid. Malador is actually Prophecy's evil counterpart; once he has repaired their mutual power supply, he will transmit a signal that will corrupt all the worlds touched by Melkur. The Doctor manages to destroy the power supply, however, creating a dimensional fracture which consumes Malador.
• "Volvok", aka "Strange Encounter", by Ian Marter. Involved hospital overcrowding.

The original Season 23

Prior to the series' hiatus in 1985, a whole series was planned, presumably intended to air in the first half of 1986. The first six stories have been confirmed as being the intended order. Following the hiatus, it was decided to scrap the entire plan in favour of what became "The Trial of a Time Lord". Novelisations of "The Nightmare Fair", "The Ultimate Evil" and "Mission to Magnus" were released in 1989-1990 by Target Books. "The Nightmare Fair", "Mission to Magnus" and "In the Hollows of Time" were later adapted by Big Finish in 2009, and "The Ultimate Evil" followed suit in 2019 (having originally fallen victim to rights issues with the writer); "The Children of January" fell through due to the writer's other commitments, and not enough exists of "Yellow Fever and How to Cure It" to justify an adaptation.

• "The Nightmare Fair", aka "Arcade", by Graham Williams. Vacationing at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the Doctor and Peri meet a young man named Kevin whose brother has vanished, and learn of a spate of recent disappearances from the funfair. Investigating, they discover that the culprit is the Doctor's old foe, the Celestial Toymaker, who is studying humans to help him design a deadly video game. This video game, which is about to be distributed around the world, sees the player battle deadly monsters which can come to life and exit the game. The Doctor agrees to playtest the video game, while Peri and Kevin work with the Toymaker's menagerie of alien prisoners to construct a device which will distract the Toymaker at a critical moment, freeing the Doctor. The Doctor then rewires a piece of the Toymaker's own equipment to trap the immortal being for all time in a forcefield powered by his own thoughts.
• "The Ultimate Evil" by Wally K. Daly. The continents of Tranquela and Ameliora have been at peace for fifty years. However, a Salakan arms dealer called the Dwarf Mordant has entered into an alliance with Escoval, second in line for the Tranquelan throne, to foment war so that Escoval can overthrow his ruler, Abatan. The Dwarf Mordant is blanketing the planet with rays that induce fits of rage in the populace. Arriving on Tranquela, the Doctor is overcome by the Dwarf Mordant's influence and attacks his old friends, scientists Ravlos and Kareelya. Peri meets Abatan's disconsolate son, Locas, who murdered his lover, Mariana, during a fit of rage. Ravlos and Kareelya have invented a helmet which protects the wearer from the Dwarf Mordant's rays, and use this to save the Doctor. Peri and Locas uncover Escoval's treachery. The Doctor traces the Dwarf Mordant's transmissions to his spaceship and forces him to train a peace ray on the planet, while Abatan executes Escoval and Locas learns that Mariana survived her apparent death.
• "Mission to Magnus", aka "Planet of Storms", by Philip Martin. The Doctor is lured to the planet Magnus Epsilon by Anzor, a Time Lord who used to bully him at the Academy. The planet has been ravaged by a virus which is fatal to any male exposed to sunlight. However, Zandusia, ruler of Magnus Epsilon, believes that the neighboring planet Salvak has found a cure and plans an invasion. She petitions the Time Lords to travel back in time and prevent the virus from ever being released. When Anzor refuses, Zandusia tries to steal the secrets of time travel. Meanwhile, the Doctor's old enemy Sil is on Magnus Epsilon, apparently in Zandusia's employ. The Doctor lays a trap for Zandusia in Anzor's TARDIS, but the other Time Lord is caught in it, and is locked into a slow course back to the origin of the universe. Peri joins forces with a runaway boy named Vion to rescue the Doctor. Together, they investigate ice tunnels and discover that Sil is really working with the Ice Warriors, led by Ice Lord Vedikael, who set off a series of explosions to change the tilt of the planet's axis. This will make Magnus Epsilon an arctic world suitable for the Ice Warriors, and Sil will profit by selling cold weather gear to the natives. However, when the Ice Warriors decide to eliminate Sil now that his usefulness is at an end, he reveals the existence of back-up explosives. The Doctor sets these off, restoring Magnus Epsilon's orientation. The Ice Warriors are killed by the return of the heat, and the Salvakans arrive to offer to help rebuild the planet.
• "Yellow Fever and How to Cure It" by Robert Holmes. The Master and the Rani are in Singapore, disguised as street performers, and working with the Autons. The Doctor also runs into the Brigadier, who is on holiday. This serial did not get far enough into development before being scrapped to say that all of these elements would have made it in; had it been made, the story could have featured any or none of them. While internal BBC documentation confirms that Pip and Jane Baker gave permission to use the Rani, it's unlikely the planned location filming in Singapore would have gone ahead, as the multiple problems caused by filming in Spain for "The Two Doctors" resulted in overseas shoots being ruled out for future seasons.
• "In the Hollows of Time" by Christopher H. Bidmead. The Doctor and Peri have been on holiday, visiting old friend Reverend Foxwell in the sleepy English village of Hollowdean. During their stay, their memories become hazy. Piecing together events they recall a mysterious chauffeur, who is not what he seems, and Foxwell's experiments that could alter the nature of reality. Huge sand creatures have been sighted on the dunes, and many of the locals are devoted to a leader known as "Professor Stream".
• "The Children of January" by Michael Feeney Callan. Not much is known about this one except for a brief summary by the writer:
  I wrote a two-parter called "The Children of January". It was to be a season closer, not a series termination. But The BBC decided in mid-season that the show had run its course and, in the middle eighties, I think they were right. But I loved my episode, which was delivered late in 1985. I created a race of runaway proto-humans called the Z'ros, sort of 'human bees', of which I still have the fondest nightmares. "The Children of January", incidentally, refers to renegade outcasts of a dawning "parallel universe" civilisation that was abandoned.
• "Doomwraiths" by Philip Martin. Millennia ago, the Doomwraiths seeded the Earth with their own genetic code in order to save their dying species. Now the Doomwraiths have reemerged to discover that life on Earth did not evolve to their design. The Doctor and Peri must stop the Doomwraiths from recovering their genetic code and destroying the human race.
• "Iceberg", aka "Flipback", by David Banks. In 2006, human scientists in Antarctica race to construct a device which will undo an imminent reversal of the Earth's magnetic field. However, the Cybermen are also present in Antarctica and are plotting to sabotage the device, giving them the opportunity to conquer the planet in the confusion caused by the reversal. The device is activated prematurely, crippling the Cybermen, and giving the Doctor the opportunity to stop the Cyber forces. Later adapted by Banks as a New Adventures novel with the Seventh Doctor.
• "Gallifrey" by Pip and Jane Baker. May have involved the destruction of Gallifrey.
• "Meltdown", aka "Power Play", by Gary Hopkins. The Doctor is reunited with Victoria, who is now campaiging against nuclear waste. Adapted by Big Finish in 2012, under the title "Power Play" as the original title was deemed to be insensitive as recording took place around the time of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.
• "Point of Entry" by Barbara Clegg. In England around 1590, the Doctor and Peri meet Christopher Marlowe, who is writing The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Marlowe has been assisted by a Spaniard named Velez, who claims to be an immortal alchemist. Investigating, the Doctor learns that Velez has been possessed by an Omn — a member of the Omnim, a race whose conscience was preserved in an asteroid when their planet was destroyed. Part of this asteroid became a meteorite which fell to Earth in South America, where the Omn inspired the legend of the Aztec god Quetzacoatl. Velez acquires a knife made from the meteorite which can inspire rage in anyone nearby, and which will allow him to bring the remaining Omnim to Earth. The Doctor discovers that the Omnim are suspectible to sound at a certain frequency, and with Marlowe's help succeeds in destroying the Omn and the knife, averting the invasion. Adapted by Big Finish in 2010.
• "Space Sargasso" by Philip Martin. The TARDIS is drawn to an area of space filled with wrecked ships. A creature called the Engineer, who is in thrall to the Master, is using parts from the vessels to construct an immense warship.
• "Valley of Shadows" by Philip Martin. While visiting an excavation in Egypt, Peri is seemingly crushed to death. To save her, the Doctor embarks on a journey to the Egyptian underworld. He finds himself in ancient Egypt, where the Pharoah Akhenaton rules with the aid of alien power.

The Trial of a Time Lord

• "Attack of the Mind" by David Halliwell. At the Doctor's trial for meddling, the Valeyard presents evidence from the future to show that the Doctor will not learn the error of his ways. The TARDIS is lured to the planet Fred, where tunnels are being excavated by the rodent-like natives who are plagued by vivid mirages. The Doctor and Mel are captured by the Freds, but the Doctor is freed by the lemurine Penelopeans, beings who now dwell within their own imagination. The Freds are hunting for their control centre to prevent them from returning to corporeal form; the hallucinations are the Penelopeans' defense system. The Doctor agrees to bring a Fred back in time so that the Penelopeans can devise a form of protection against them. However, he is recaptured by the Freds, who complete their excavation. In fact, the Penelopeans are homicidal beings who retreated into their own minds so that they would not wipe themselves out. They have been toying with the Freds— a peaceful race— out of boredom. The Doctor and Mel escape to the TARDIS as war breaks out between the Penelopeans and the Freds. The Valeyard explains that the intervention of the High Council would be required to deal with the consequences of the Doctor's meddling.
• "Pinacotheca", aka "The Last Adventure", by Christopher H. Bidmead. The latest evidence in the Doctor's trial by the Time Lords is his investigation of Pinacotheca, a planet which serves as a museum of key times and places in the history of the universe. It was rejected by Eric Saward for being "boring" and replaced by "Terror of the Vervoids". It exists as finished scripts, but so far Bidmead has not released it in any form.
• "Paradise 5", aka "End of Term", by P.J. Hammond. The nine moons of the planet Paradise form a vast holiday complex. The Doctor's evidence at his trial depicts his adventure on Paradise Five, where he suspects something is very wrong. Mel poses as a hostess and befriends Lorelei, an assistant to the sinister Gabriel who runs Paradise Five. With the help of holidaymakers Tapp and Aht, they realise that people are disappearing, and nobody has booked their time on the pleasure world themselves; rather, the trips are always last-minute surprises. Investigating one of the collection ships which ferries people away from Paradise Five, the Doctor discovers that it is a slave vessel, with angelic aliens kidnapping the holidaymakers. Gabriel uncovers Mel's ruse and Lorelei reveals herself as one of the alien slavers in disguise. The Doctor, Mel, Tapp and Aht are trapped on the ship. But Aht, a scientist, deduces that the aliens are vulnerable to elevated temperatures, and Mel organises everyone into an aerobics routine to generate body heat. The aliens are unable to hold their form, allowing the prisoners to escape to the shuttle port, where they are able to alert the authorities. The Valeyard accuses the Doctor of failure, because he was unable to uncover the identity of Gabriel's mysterious business partner. Adapted by Big Finish in 2010, but with all the Trial elements removed and Mel replaced with Peri to better fit with the other Lost Stories.
• "Time Inc." by Robert Holmes. It is revealed that the Valeyard was in fact the Doctor's final incarnation. The finale then opened with the Master saving the Doctor from the quicksand while the Valeyard kidnapped Glitz. The Doctor encountered Popplewick again, who led him into a trap baited with an illusory Mel. Popplewick, too, was revealed as a construct of "JJ Chambers"— who, in turn, was unmasked as the Valeyard. While news reached the courtroom of the High Council's mass resignation, the Master warned that the Valeyard had materialised his TARDIS around a time vent in the Matrix. If the vent were to be opened for too long, there would be catastrophic ramifications for the space-time continuum. The Valeyard — shown to be a pitiable old man afraid of dying— planned to use this threat to force the Time Lords to grant him the Doctor's remaining regenerations. The Master revealed that he was hired by the High Council to murder the Doctor in exchange for a pardon, but had now decided not to follow through. The Doctor bluffed his way into the Valeyard's TARDIS just as the Valeyard opened the time vent door. Struggling, the Doctor and the Valeyard plunged into the time vent while the Master had Glitz seal the door, saving the universe but trapping the Doctor for all eternity. The story was the planned two-episode finale to the Trial. As Holmes' health failed, the script was completed by script editor Eric Saward, but the ending was vetoed by producer John Nathan-Turner for both being too bleak and an invitation for the BBC to end the programme. Long-brewing acrimony between Saward and Nathan-Turner caused the former to resign and withdraw the use of the final episode, forcing Nathan-Turner to have Pip and Jane Baker put together a new episode 14 at the last minute using the already secured cast and locations but with no knowledge of the Saward finale (which coincidentally ended up bearing several parallels to the finished version anyway; as the BBC's lawyers monitored Nathan-Turner to ensure that he divulged nothing of the Saward script, the parallels didn't cause any issues for the team).

Season 24

• "Mind of the Hodiac" by Russell T Davies. Deep in space, the mysterious Hodiac is organising a run on the Galactic Stock Exchange to raise money to hire mercenaries. On Earth, the Maitland family is plagued by psychic events. And linking these events together is the Sixth Doctor's coat. This was Davies's first Doctor Who script, with a complete script for the first 45-minute episode and about eight pages of notes for the concluding part, and he thought that it must have been among his submissions to the Doctor Who production office in the late 80s. It was written in 1986 with the Sixth Doctor and Mel in mind, although Davies wondered if it might have been written in the interregum between Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy; in a 2020 tweet, Davies stated that Andrew Cartmel liked the script and held onto it for consideration, but ultimately wasn't able to do anything with it before the show's initial cancellation in 1989. An audio adaptation for the Sixth Doctor and Mel, with Scott Handcock writing the second episode from Davies's scene breakdown, was released by Big Finish in 2022.

Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) era

Season 25

• "Transit" by Ben Aaronovitch. In the future, a system of transportation portals spans the solar system, but now seems to have opened a gateway to Hell. Later adapted by Aaronovitch as a New Adventures novel.

Season 26

• "Alixion" by Robin Mukherjee. The giant beetles of the planet Alixion, led by their Queen, produce an intelligence-boosting elixir. However, the Doctor discovers that this is because the Abbot of a human monastery on Alixion is feeding people to the beetles. The Abbot now intends to see what happens when the beetles consume a Time Lord.
• "Avatar" by David A. McIntee. In 1927 Arkham, Massachusetts, aliens with the ability to possess and reanimate cadavers plan to clone the fossilised remains of a Silurian god. This story is one of four claimed to have been considered for a Season 28 that would've aired in the second half of 1991, indicating that the writing team were interested in revisiting the concept with a potential Eighth Doctor.
• "Illegal Alien" by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker. The Doctor and Ace confront the Cybermen in World War II London. Later adapted by Perry and Tucker as a Past Doctor Adventures novel.
• "Lungbarrow" by Marc Platt. The Doctor confronts his bizarre family of cousins at Lungbarrow, his sentient ancestral home in South Gallifrey. John Nathan-Turner felt that it revealed too much about the Doctor, so Platt changed the focus to Ace, kept the haunted house setting and turned it into "Ghost Light". Later adapted by Platt as a New Adventures novel.
• "Shrine" by Marc Platt. In 1820 Russia, the Doctor and Ace arrive at the home of Alexei Semyonovitch. A race of stone-headed aliens arrive searching for their God-King, who has been reincarnated as a serf.

The Unfinished Season 27 and Beyond(?)

Had the series not been cancelled in 1989, script-editor Andrew Cartmel had plans for a Season 27, intended to air in the second half of 1990, that would've concluded what was known as "The Cartmel Masterplan", a Myth Arc spanning Seasons 25 and 26 that subtly explored the Doctor's origins as a means of adding a sense of mystery back into the show and reinvigorating the fandom. As Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred's contracts with the BBC were due to expire in 1990, this season would've been their last; while Ace's departure had already been planned out prior to the show's cancellation, the Seventh Doctor's wasn't. As a result, there's no concrete evidence regarding which story was meant to be his swan song. With the full involvement of Cartmel plus writers Marc Platt and Ben Aaronovitch, Big Finish adapted the never-completed 1990 season for the Lost Stories series of Doctor Who audio plays in 2011.

One can presume that the series was also meant to extend beyond Season 27 depending on the circumstances, and indeed some sources claim that a Season 28 was also concretely planned out for 1991. The amount of stories was actually enough to fill three potential seasons; had all of them been approved, it could've filled the whole block of 1990-1992 (though given the amount of abandoned scripts elsewhere on this page, the possibility of the BBC greenlighting every script the writers came up with was slim even if the show was successful enough to air into 1990 and beyond). That said, the claims of a planned Season 28 are not as concretely verified as the statements regarding Season 27, and the stories claimed to have been under consideration for a 1991 season are also understood to have been planned with the 1990 season in mind.

• "Earth Aid", aka "Bad Destination",^note "Bad Destination" was Cartmel's preferred title, but "Earth Aid" was the invention of a Doctor Who Magazine article in the mid-90s; Big Finish's adaptation used this title as it was what people were used to by Ben Aaronovitch. Ace poses as the captain of a spaceship in a conflict against the Metatraxi, alien insectoid creatures with a Samurai-like code of honour.
• "Thin Ice", aka "Ice Time",^note "Thin Ice" was the intended title, with "Ice Time" being a DWM invention, and the intended title for Big Finish's audio version; however, Marc Platt disliked the new title and requested the original be used by Marc Platt. The Doctor wants to enroll Ace at the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey, but she must pass a final test to gain admission. In 1960's England, parts of the armour of an infamous Ice Lord have inadvertently become incorporated into a display at the London Dungeon. Elsewhere, another Ice Warrior awaits the revival of his longtime rival. The Doctor and Ace find an unlikely ally in a hippie named Cunningham with underworld connections; when his pregnant wife gives birth, the Doctor delivers the baby girl, called Raine, and becomes her godfather. Having succeeded in her audition, Ace leaves the Doctor to stay on Gallifrey, where they both hope that she will become a force for change in Time Lord society, dispelling the lethargy that has burdened it for millennia.
• "Crime of the Century", aka "Action at a Distance",^note As above, "Action" was Cartmel's planned title, and "Crime" was the invention of DWM by Andrew Cartmel. In the present day, the Doctor's goddaughter Raine Cunningham has grown up to become a burglar and a safe cracker, even as her father— once an East End crime boss— is trying to go straight.
• "Hostage" by Neil Penswick. Elite soldiers pursue shapeshifting criminals Butler and Swarfe, who have stolen advanced weapons technology and brought it to a jungle planet where the Time Lords once fought a race called the Scaroth (any relation to the identically-named antagonist from "City of Death" is unknown). The story was later adapted into the New Adventures novel The Pit in 1993. "Hostage" is one of four unproduced Seventh Doctor stories claimed to have been considered for Season 28 in addition to Season 27.
• "Night Thoughts" by Edward Young. University academics are trapped at a remote house in the winter, not realising that there is a murderer in their midst. Young submitted the storyline to Big Finish several years before they started the Lost Stories and it was produced as part of their main range, revised to include audio original companion Hex.
• "School for Glory" by Tony Etchells. A story of alien possession set in the British trenches of World War I and at an academy located in an English country house. Appears to have been the basis for the New Adventures novel Human Nature and its subsequent adaptation in the revival series. This story is another one claimed to have been considered for Season 28.
• "Network" by Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt. The story would've featured the return of the Rani, who would be posing as the vice chancellor of an Earth university, and would feature the Doctor combating "a biological computer virus" (likely of the Rani's creation) attempting to infect all the world's computers. Brigadier Winifred Bambera and Sam Tollinger would've also had supporting roles in this episode. The idea of the Rani posing as a university vice chancellor would later be reused in the Big Finish story "The Rani Elite". While some sources suggest that this would be a Seventh Doctor story, others claim that it was created with a hypothetical Eighth Doctor^note prior to the actual Eighth Doctor's creation for the 1996 TV movie in mind, implying that either the story was also considered for a Season 28 or the writing team planned at one point for the Seventh Doctor to regenerate partway through his final season (as had previously been the case for the First and Fifth Doctors) rather than at the end.

The original 30th anniversary special: The Dark Dimension

A planned Darker and Edgier Made-for-TV Movie that would've aired in 1993 to commemorate the show's 30th anniversary, The Dark Dimension was a highly ambitious attempt to both celebrate the legacy of Doctor Who and renew public interest in the franchise following its decline and de-facto cancellation in the 80's. Written by Adrian Rigelsford, the film's story would've featured the Seventh Doctor being killed off by a monster made entirely from "chronal energy" that ends up razing the Earth and almost all life on it to ashes; a group of survivors would find the Doctor's body and avenge him by attempting to throw the monster back into the Time Vortex to kill it, only to send it back in time instead to the 1930's. There, the monster kills and disguises itself as the human scientist Hawkspur (played by Rik Mayall), who would go on to become a member of the Pharos Project decades later, and takes advantage of this by preventing the Fourth Doctor's fatal fall at the end of "Logopolis", thus altering history by ensuring that he never regenerated. This fixed point in history changed, the creature would take advantage of the imbalance by manipulating world events from behind the scenes to make itself the ruler of Earth, with a horde of monsters at its bidding, leading a much older Four (played by a returning Tom Baker, who by that point was much more welcoming about the idea of reprising his most famous role— some accounts state that this special was first conceived entirely because Baker asked the BBC if he could reappear as the Doctor) to join forces with his past and future selves, as well as his own universe's versions of the Brigadier and Ace, to defeat the creature and Set Right What Once Went Wrong.

As mentioned before, the story would've been hugely ambitious, featuring appearances from redesigned Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, and robot yeti, with the press department emphasizing a new, grotesque-looking "Cybercommander" (designed by the folks at Henson's Creature Workshop) and the return of the Special Weapons Dalek in a sleeker look fit for the 90's. However, despite being billed as a multi-Doctor episode, the primary focus was on Tom Baker (in part due to him still being the most famous Doctor among fans), with the other incarnations in minor roles.

Ultimately, The Dark Dimension was cancelled. The production was an absolute omnishambles— it was produced by BBC Enterprises, a merchandising division that had no experience in producing drama television at all, let alone an effects-heavy direct-to-video feature film, resulting in a wildly miscalculated budget. They also immediately alienated most of the actors who'd played the Doctor by sending them scripts directly and assuming they'd agree to appear (in insultingly small roles compared to Tom Baker) without going through their agents or even asking them first. (Colin Baker recalls telling planned director Graeme Harper "I'm fond of you Graeme, and I love you deeply, but there is no way any of us are going to do "The Dark Dimension"!") They attempted to rewrite and restructure the special, and begged a cash injection from BBC Drama, but it ultimately turned out to be impossible to produce and was scrapped in favour of the "Dimensions in Time" charity special. The writer, Adrian Rigelsford, was later exposed as a habitual fraudster, starting with inaccurate and invented "behind the scenes" information in books on cult TV programmes, then inventing an entire "final interview" with Stanley Kubrick, and his career culminated in imprisonment for stealing thousands of photographs from a press archive and selling them. The script, meanwhile, has never been produced, by Big Finish or anyone — at least one Big Finish producer has said it's because the script is actually "awful", but it is likely that Rigelsford's legal history and the bad blood behind the production are also factors. Finally, the fans took matters into their own hands and produced the animated Lost in the Dark Dimension.

Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) era

Series 1

• Paul Abbott was approached to write a script, "The New Team", involving the revelation that the Doctor had been manipulating Rose's life in order to turn her into the ideal companion. Abbott's commitments to Shameless led to it being abandoned.

Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) era

Series 2

• "The 1920s" by Stephen Fry. Concerned a popular British legend which turns out to have an extraterrestrial connection. Pushed back to Series 3 when it was determined to be impractical to realise on the remaining budget (it was replaced with the deliberately low-cost "Fear Her"), and ultimately dropped altogether when Fry's other commitments meant he had no time to perform the necessary rewrites.

Series 3

• "Century House" by Tom MacRae. While Martha watches at home the Doctor joins a live broadcast of Most Haunted, who are investigating an old house purportedly haunted by the "Red Widow" akin to the infamous BBC Mockumentary Ghostwatch. The climax would have involved the house catching fire. The episode was re-proposed for Series 4 with Donna and Sylvia being the ones watching at home, but was felt to have too many similarities with other episodes in the season, so it was replaced with "Midnight".

Series 4

• "The Suicide Exhibition" by Mark Gatiss. During the Second World War, a Nazi task force assaults the Natural History Museum in London, which has been overrun by monsters. Later action would have involved the discovery of a secret chamber beneath the museum.
• The 2008 Christmas Special, by Russell T. Davies. On Christmas Eve, an alien creature attaches itself to J. K. Rowling. Suddenly, the real world is replaced by a magical Harry Potter-esque reality influenced by the writer's own imagination. The Doctor must battle witches and wizards to reach Rowling and put the world to rights.
• "A Midwinter's Tale" by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford. A grandmother (Helen Mirren) is trapped in a posh hotel with her unruly family. Wishing that they'd all just disappear, she storms out of their suite to fetch some ice, only to find the corridors deserted. Returning to her rooms, she discovers that her family has indeed disappeared — but so has all of humanity. Finally, she comes upon the TARDIS and the Doctor. Investigating, they discover eight-legged centaur-like creatures abroad in London. It transpires that aliens from another dimension, the Shi'ar, have frozen time on Earth in order to hold a festival celebrating the marriage of their queen. The life of the grandmother's family becomes endangered, culminating in a race through secret tunnels beneath Buckingham Palace.

Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) era

Series 5

• Gareth Roberts wrote an episode where the Doctor teamed up with a disgraced Sontaran warrior named Strom.

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