Shada (Doctor Who)

For the Arabic emphasis sign, see Shadda; for the village in Azerbaijan, see Şada.

109 – Shada
Doctor Who serial
Shada, the prison planetoid of the Time Lords
Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companion David Brierley (K-9 Mk. II)
Others Christopher Neame — Skagra Denis Carey — Professor Chronotis Daniel Hill — Chris Parsons Victoria Burgoyne — Clare Keightley Gerald Campion — Wilkin Derek Pollitt — Dr Caldera John Hallet — Police Constable David Strong — Passenger Shirley Dixon — Voice of the Ship James Coombes — Voice of the Krargs James Muir, Lionel Sansby, Derek Suthern, Reg Woods — Krargs
Production
Directed by	Pennant Roberts (original)
Written by	Douglas Adams
Script editor	Douglas Adams
Produced by	Graham Williams (original) John Nathan-Turner (video)
Executive producer(s)	none
Production code	5M
Series	Season 17
Running time	Never completed (original) 6 episodes, 25 minutes each (intended)
First broadcast	Untelevised (original)
Chronology
← Preceded by The Horns of Nimon Followed by → The Leisure Hive

Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season (Season 17), but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming. In 1992, its recorded footage was released on video using linking narration by Tom Baker to complete the story.

Shada is also the title of the remake, an audio play produced by Big Finish Productions and webcast 2 May - 6 June 2003 on BBCi. The audio play was also broadcast on digital radio station BBC 7, on 10 December 2005 (as a 2½-hour omnibus), and was repeated in six parts as the opening story to the Eighth Doctor's summer season which began on 16 July 2006.

Synopsis

The story revolves around the lost planet Shada, on which the Time Lords built a prison for defeated would-be conquerors of the universe. Skagra, an up-and-coming would-be conqueror of the universe, needs the assistance of one of the prison's inmates, but finds that nobody knows where Shada is anymore except one aged Time Lord who has retired to Earth, where he is masquerading as a professor at St. Cedd's College, Cambridge (the story features some on-location filming in Cambridge, all of which was completed before the strike). Luckily for the fate of the universe, Skagra's attempt to force the information out of Professor Chronotis coincides with a visit by the professor's old friend the Doctor (and this is where the story really begins).

Continuity

• In an unfilmed scene in Episode Five, a listing of prisoners kept on Shada was to have included a Dalek, a Cyberman and a Zygon. Instead of these, aliens bearing resemblance to Ice Warriors were seen.
• In 1983, clips from Shada were used in The Five Doctors, the 20th anniversary special. Tom Baker, the fourth actor to play the Doctor, had declined to appear in the special, and the plot was reworked to explain the events in the clips.

• For the Big Finish version, Tom Baker was originally approached to reprise the role of the Doctor, but declined. The Eighth Doctor was then substituted and the story reworked accordingly.

• Although working from the original Adams script, portions of the Big Finish version were reworked by Gary Russell to make the story fit into Doctor Who continuity. This included a new introduction, and a new explanation for the Fourth Doctor and Romana being "taken out of time" during the events of The Five Doctors. In addition to this, Romana is referred to as Madam President by Skagra in Episode Five, in Episode Six it is Romana using her Presidential powers who decides that Chronotis should be allowed to return to Cambridge, and when the policeman enters Chronotis' room, the Doctor can be heard talking about a "terrible way to see in the New Year" in a possible reference to his first adventure.

• When the character of Skagra is investigating the Doctor, clips from three other Big Finish productions can be heard, exclusively on the CD version: The Fires of Vulcan, The Marian Conspiracy and Phantasmagoria. The original television version would have featured clips from The Pirate Planet, The Power of Kroll, Creature from the Pit, The Androids of Tara, Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death. The webcast features outlines of the first eight Doctors' faces.

Production

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Big Finish version (2003)

Cast

• The Doctor — Paul McGann
• Romana — Lalla Ward
• Voice of K-9 — John Leeson
• Skagra — Andrew Sachs
• Chris Parsons — Sean Biggerstaff
• Clare Keightley — Susannah Harker
• Wilkin — Melvyn Hayes
• Professor Caldera — Barnaby Edwards
• Motorist/Constable — Stuart Crossman
• Professor Chronotis — James Fox
• The Ship — Hannah Gordon
• Think Tank Voice — Nicholas Pegg

In 2003, the BBC commissioned Big Finish Productions to remake Shada as an audio play which was then webcast[1] in six episodic segments, accompanied by limited Flash animation, on the BBC website using illustrations provided by comic strip artist Lee Sullivan. The play starred Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana.

Lalla Ward (Romana) is the only actor to appear in both the original television version and the subsequent Big Finish remake.

Outside references

In Episode Two of the webcast version, when Chris is in his lab showing Clare the book, a vending machine-like object in the background is labelled "Nutrimat", a reference to a similar device in Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Two other references are a sequence where Skagra steals a Ford Prefect and when images of Hitchhiker's Guide characters appear as inmates on Shada itself.

The battered space helmet which the Doctor adapts in Episode Six of the webcast bears the serial number NCC-1701D - the registration ident of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In print

File:Doctor Who and Shada.jpg

The unofficial novelisation by Paul Scoones

Elements of the story were reused by Adams for his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in particular the character of Professor Chronotis who possesses a time machine. Adams did not allow Shada, or any of his other Doctor Who stories, to be novelised by Target Books. It is, therefore, one of only five serials from the 1963-89 series not to be novelised (along with Adams' other stories The Pirate Planet and City Of Death and the two Eric Saward-scripted Dalek stories, Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation Of The Daleks). A fan group in New Zealand, however, did publish an unofficial adaptation in 1989, later republishing it as an online eBook titled Doctor Who and Shada.

Broadcast and VHS release

• Shada's video release featured linking narration by Tom Baker and was accompanied by a facsimile of a version of Douglas Adams's script (except in North America). The release was discontinued in the UK in 1996, although it remained in print in the United States until 2004.

• The webcast version remains available from the BBC Doctor Who "classic series" website, and an expanded audio-only version is available for purchase on CD from Big Finish. This expanded version was the one broadcast on BBC7.

References

1. Howe, Stammer, Walker (1994). Doctor Who: The Seventies. Virgin Books.

External links

• Shada at BBC Online
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Reviews

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Fan novelisation

• Doctor Who and Shada ebook
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Webcast

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• Shada webcast on the BBC website
• Big Finish Productions - Shada
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