Trivia / Doctor Who S23 E3 "Terror of the Vervoids"

• Dawson Casting: The role of Sarah Lasky was written for a woman in her forties, but was played by Honor Blackman, who was 60 at the time of taping.
• Executive Meddling: The ending of the third episode was supposed to be a model shot of the Hyperion III flying towards the Black Hole of Tartarus. John Nathan-Turner thought that all episodes of the "Trial" season should end on a close-up on the Doctor's face however (even though the first episode memorably avoided that), and had the episode re-edited to end on a shot of the Doctor looking vaguely annoyed at Lasky. Fortunately, the special edition cut of this story (found in the Collection Blu-ray release) re-edits both scenes, and properly ends Part Three with the cliffhanger moment rather than a shot of the Doctor's face.
• First Appearance: Of Mel Bush. Although not her first meeting with the Doctor (which, due to the circumstances of Colin Baker's departure from the show, was never depicted on-screen).
• Reality Subtext: In Mel's first scene, she is putting the Doctor through an excercise and healthy eating routine, telling the Doctor "it's your waistline I'm concerned about". Colin Baker was struggling with weight gain at the time, later discovered to be the product of diabetes, and appeared noticeably more rotund this season than he had in Season 22.
• Uncredited Role: Because Eric Saward walked out on the show following a spat with John Nathan-Turner over the planned ending to "The Ultimate Foe", Nathan-Turner had to perform script editing duties on this serial himself (as was also the case with Part Two of "The Ultimate Foe"). Because BBC guidelines prevented Nathan-Turner from taking credit as both script editor and producer, the former position goes unlisted in the closing credits. Andrew Cartmel would eventually be hired to fill the void left by Saward starting with the next season's opener.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Amongst those considered for Commodore Travers was Patrick Stewart.
  • Jim Broadbent, Martin Jarvis and Donald Sumpter were considered for Doland.
• Working Title: The Ultimate Foe (which later got used for the following story) and The Vervoids (which was the serial's internal production title before the novelization added the "Terror of" prefix, which got carried over to home media releases).

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