Inspirations - Mawdryn Undead

Only a couple of stories after cutting the companion complement down to two with Adric's demise, JNT informed Eric Saward that he wanted another male companion in the series. The "Overcrowded TARDIS" would be avoided, however, as it was intended that Nyssa would be written out in the story immediately following the new companion's introduction. Nyssa had a complicated history, having only been intended for just the one story - The Keeper of Traken. The decision to keep her on was only taken late in the day. As such, the character did not belong to the BBC, but to her creator - Johnny Byrne. Companions were usually created by the Producer and Script Editor and the BBC did not have to pay for their on-going use, whereas Nyssa earned Byrne £50 every time she appeared.
JNT had originally planned to exit Nyssa early on, but Peter Davison fought for her retention and so it was Adric who got the chop.
Originally, the story which was to have introduced the new companion was to have been the one generally known as "The Song of the Space Whale", to be written by Pat Mills and John Wagner. Mills had written for the Doctor Who Weekly comic strip as well as being well known for his work on 2000 AD. Various attempts were made to get this story produced over subsequent years, with Mills persevering after Wagner dropped out, but it never made it to the screen. It did eventually get a release on audio from Big Finish as "The Song of the Megaptera" as part of their "lost stories" strand, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri.
The story involved a community of people living inside a vast space creature, and the new companion would be one of their number.
When this story collapsed, JNT then informed Saward that the new male companion should be a public school-boy, and that he should be tying to kill the Doctor. He had decided to bring back the Guardians from Season 16 - the Key to Time season. The Black Guardian would recruit the school-boy - to be named Turlough - in his efforts to destroy the Doctor in revenge for him failing to gain the Key. There had been two trilogies over the previous seasons - the E-Space one in Season 18, and the Doctor / Master Regenerations one which bridged Seasons 18 and 19 - and these had proved popular.

As this was the 20th Anniversary year, JNT thought it might be a nice idea to bring back an element from the very beginnings of the series. With a school setting, the obvious candidate was Coal Hill School's science teacher Ian Chesterton - to be played once again by William Russell. Unfortunately he was otherwise engaged and unable to participate. The second choice was Harry Sullivan, as played by Ian Marter. It was felt that, of all the previous companions, his character could believably have gone into teaching. Unfortunately he too was unavailable.
The third choice was Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and Nicholas Courtney could make himself available. The notion that the Brigadier might become a relatively junior staff member - teaching Mathematics of all things - of a public school on retirement from UNIT was unlikely to say the least, but this is what JNT decided. Courtney only found out that he had been third choice for this story many years later, much to his dismay.
The actor chosen to play Turlough was Mark Strickson. He had been offered a long-running role in the medical soap Angels, but really wanted the job on Doctor Who which he'd heard about instead. As such, he went to see JNT in person prior to the usual casting process commencing, and managed to talk his way into the role. JNT insisted that he dye his blond hair red, so that he did not look too similar to Peter Davison in long shots - despite Davison always wearing his beige costume, and Turlough always wearing his black school uniform. JNT had initially wanted him to shave his hair off, and Strickson said that would be fine - so long as he got paid for loss of earnings whilst he waited for it to grow back on leaving the series. The money-conscious Producer then went for the hair dye option.

The writer commissioned for this story was Peter Grimwade, whose first scripts for the show had been the overly ambitious and poorly realised Time-Flight. This time he was promised a better budget. Already a director on the show before becoming a writer, he always wanted to direct his own work but was never permitted to do so. It was from Grimwade that the public school setting had come, as he had attended one and hated it (so a lot of Turlough's complaints about school life derive from the author himself).
Grimwade also came up with the idea of a story split across two time zones. Selecting a recent one which the TARDIS crew trapped in 1983 would identify, the earlier time period was specified as 1977, with the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations being a prominent event. This, as you are no doubt aware, led to all manner of continuity problems as many believed that the UNIT stories took place in an unspecified "near future", probably the 1980's. In Pyramids of Mars, Sarah had stated that she came from 1980. How then could the Brigadier be retired by 1977? The new series has categorically placed the UNIT stories around the dates of transmission, though I'm sure Chris Chibnall will have a plan to screw that up as well.
One of Grimwade's loves was opera, and he uses as inspiration Wagner's Der Fliegende Hollander - The Flying Dutchman, premiered in Dresden in 1843. It is based on the legend of a cursed ship which is never allowed to come into port, and spends eternity sailing the high seas. The story is supposed to have been born in the 17th Century, originating from sailors of the Dutch East India Company. Ever since, sailors have claimed to have seen the vessel around the Cape of Good Hope, glowing with a ghostly light. Over time, the story evolved to have the ship able to come into port once every 7 years, when the captain could attempt to lift the curse if he could find a woman to fall in love with him. Everyone is more familiar with aspects of this legend thanks to its incorporation into the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.

Mawdryn and his crew of Kastron scientists (their race never referred to on screen) were cast out of their society because they experimented on themselves using stolen Time Lord technology, which made them immortal. They are able to make planet-fall every 5 years, when one of their number can leave to seek a solution to their condition. They all now just want to die.
Mawdryn, by the way, was said to be a Welsh word for "Undead", making the title "Undead Undead", but this is not the case. Grimwade used an amalgam of two Welsh words - Marw (dead) and Dyn (man).
Grimwade had worked on the BBC's adaptation of John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979). This features an ex-spy who is now living and working in a less than senior role at a boys' public school. His pride and joy is his car, and there is a pupil nicknamed 'Jumbo'. The Brigadier is an ex-secretive military operative, who is now living and working in a less than senior role at a boys' public school. His pride and joy is his car, and there is a pupil nicknamed 'Hippo'.
Coincidence? I think not.
Next time: more Wagnerian operatic influences, plus a whole lot of Norse mythology. First the TARDIS, and then Nyssa, break up with the Doctor...