Adams sent the script for the HHGG pilot radio programme to the Doctor Who production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write The Pirate Planet (see below). He had also previously attempted to submit a potential movie script, called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, which later became his novel Life, the Universe and Everything (which in turn became the third Hitchhikers Guide radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its seventeenth season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three Doctor Who serials starring Tom Baker as the Doctor: The Pirate Planet (the second serial in the Key To Time arc, in Season 16) City of Death (with producer Graham Williams, from an original storyline by writer David Fisher. It was transmitted under the pseudonym David Agnew) Shada (only partially filmed; not televised due to production industry disputes) The episodes authored by Adams are some of the few that have not been novelised as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them, and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay.[24] Shada was later novelised by Gareth Roberts in 2012. Adams was also known to allow in-jokes from The Hitchhikers Guide to appear in the Doctor Who stories he wrote and other stories on which he served as Script Editor. Subsequent writers have also inserted Hitchhikers references, even as recently as 2013. Conversely, at least one reference to Doctor Who was worked into a Hitchhikers novel. In Life, the Universe and Everything, two characters travel in time and land on the pitch at Lords Cricket Ground. The reaction of the radio commentators to their sudden appearance is very similar to the reactions of commentators in a scene in the eighth episode of the 1965–66-story The Daleks Master Plan, which has the Doctors TARDIS materialise on the pitch at Lords. Elements of Shada and City of Death were reused in Adamss later novel Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency, in particular the character of Professor Chronotis. Big Finish Productions eventually remade Shada as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBC website in 2003, and subsequently released as a two-CD set later that year. An omnibus edition of this version was broadcast on the digital radio station BBC7 on 10 December 2005. In the Doctor Who 2012 Christmas episode The Snowmen, writer Steven Moffat was inspired by a storyline that Adams pitched called The Doctor Retires.[25] When he was at school he wrote and performed a play called Doctor Which.[26]
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 03:40:00 +0000
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