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Context Trivia / DoctorWhoS17E6Shada

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3* ActingForTwo: David Brierley (K9) also voices the computer.
4* BuryYourArt: Creator/DouglasAdams attempted to do this with the serial. Adams disliked the story, refused to license it for novelization (it eventually got one in 2012, over a decade after his death), and nearly would've had the serial buried completely (barring some clips being recycled for [[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors "The Five Doctors"]]) had he not absentmindedly signed an agreement in 1992 that allowed the BBC to release a reconstruction of it.[[note]]A version of the ''Shada'' story was re-used by Adams in his novel ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'', recycling the main characters and aspects of the plot. The Tom Baker role was re-written as eccentric private detective Dirk Gently.[[/note]]
5* CreatorBacklash: Creator/DouglasAdams was happy that the story was abandoned, because he thought it was not up to much. He only gave the go ahead for Creator/TheBBC to make a direct-to-video version with linking narration by Creator/TomBaker because he hadn't noticed that [[TrickedIntoSigning it had been included in a folder with a bunch of other routine paperwork]]. He 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.
6* 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.
7* FollowTheLeader: Creator/TheBBC decided to finish Shada after the success of the reconstruction of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E3ThePowerOfTheDaleks "The Power of the Daleks"]].
8* MagnumOpusDissonance: Creator/DouglasAdams didn't think very highly of this story; fans however consider it one of his best.
9* TheOriginalDarrin: The Creator/BigFinish version replaces David Brierley with Creator/JohnLeeson as K9; Leeson was the original voice and had returned as K9 from 1980 onward.
10* TheOtherDarrin: Creator/LallaWard (Romana) was the only actor to return for the 2003 Big Finish/webcast version.
11* 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.
12* PromotedFanboy: Daniel Hill (Chris Parsons) reveals that he was a fan of ''Who'' as a boy.
13* RomanceOnTheSet: Daniel Hill, who played Chris Parsons, met his future wife Olivia Bazalgette (she was the production assistant) during the location filming of this story. They married two years later and remain so to this day!
14* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: This story may set the record for the longest time for a TV show episode between start of production and initial airing: '''thirty-eight years'''.
15* 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.
16* 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. Eventually, 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.
17* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
18** 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 Creator/ColinBaker providing the links, but nothing came of this.
19** 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, Nathan-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.
20** Chronotis was originally KilledOffForReal in Episode Two, but Creator/DouglasAdams had become fond of the character and decided to bring him back.
21** The famous scene where the Doctor is chased by the orb while on a bicycle was supposed to take place at night. The fact that it was shot in the daytime implies that it was intended as a day-for-night scene, but all official reconstructions keep the daytime visuals.
22** Head of Drama Graeme [=MacDonald=] suggested a romantic subplot between Romana and Chris, but this was ignored.
23* WorkingTitle: ''Sunburst''.
24* WriteWhatYouKnow: Creator/DouglasAdams chose Cambridge as a setting so he could draw on his experiences as a student at the university.

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