It would have been Douglas Adam's final hurrah as writer and producer on Doctor Who before he struck out for fame and fortune in the wider world. possibly pursuing an entirely holistic approach to fame with such properties as Hitch-Hikers,Dirk Gently and a myriad brilliant ideas to difficult to peg down.It is true he experienced a series of mixed fortunes but who does not in pursuit of their dreams. Shada was famously derailed by a strike at the BBC. A situation that seemed so very much a part of daily existence back then with trade union activism so much a part of every working man and woman's life. I doubt there is a Doctor Who fan anywhere in this world of space and time enough who is not familiar with the footage of The Doctor and Romanna on a punt on a river in Oxford. The very picture of two wayward Galifreyan children.Oddly, for a story that was never completed and thus never transmitted, those images have become so iconic and representative of that era. just look at Lalla Ward in this story, the foreshadowing that eventually brought us Missy and hugely influenced, I believe, the very next incarnation of The Doctor.
Romanna so deserved the medal The Doctor pinned on her pretty frock, with her fine new red berried bonnet and that heroic joyful smile with a cheeky salute. Oh happy days.
You know, Old Chronotis himself was a real delight. A very worthy foil for The Doctor and Romanna, you could see why he and those two would become chums. If that story had been finished as intended and been transmitted over a six week period all those years ago it would have had so many years to bed down into established continuity. I believe it would not have been the last we saw of Old Chronotis either.The Doctor may even have left a variation on K9 to keep him company in his December years. Maybe all this happened in some parallel plain. Where Tom Baker is still The Doctor...
And speaking of that. What about that endearing coda of a newly filmed piece at the very tail end of the tale.Tom Baker as he is now as The Doctor as he was when, and Lalla Ward as she is now on the other side of that door. Revisiting a console room I never expected to see again and two old chums at ease with each other. As I said before, Happy Days.
