Inspirations - Trial of a Time Lord (4)

The third segment of Trial of a Time Lord was written by husband and wife Pip and Jane Baker, who had contributed Mark of the Rani for the previous season. Veteran script writers, they were regarded as safe hands who could deliver workable scripts on time. During the making of their previous story, they had attended all the location filming and were able to make immediate amendments for the director.
This segment is generally referred to as Terror of the Vervoids, although it has also gone under the umbrella title of The Ultimate Foe. These four episodes were made as part of the same recording block as the two episodes which would close the season, and The Ultimate Foe was at one point also the title for all six parts.
The first four episodes had represented a story from the Doctor's past, whilst parts 5 - 8 had represented his present, as it was from Thoros Beta that he was drawn by the Time Lords to the space station for his trial.
The Bakers' segment comprised parts 9 - 12. There were a number of other storylines considered for this slot, including contributions from David Halliwell, PJ  Hammond, Christopher H Bidmead, and Jack Trevor Storey.
Behind the scenes, Eric Saward had finally reached the end of his tether with JNT, and was now working mostly from home, rarely venturing into the production office. As well as having disagreements about many of JNT's decisions, he was unsettled by the failing health of writer Robert Holmes, who had become something of a mentor. Saward favoured the contribution from PJ Hammond, but JNT overruled him in favour of the Bakers.

The main inspiration for this story was the notion of a 'whodunnit' murder mystery, set on a luxury space-liner. This derived from the works of Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976). There is a nod to this in the production itself as we see Professor Lasky (Honor Blackman) reading a copy of Christie's Murder on the Orient Express - a 'whodunnit' murder mystery, set on a luxury train. This was first published in 1934, and featured the Belgian detective Hercules Poirot. At this point in time it had been filmed only once - in 1974 with an all-star cast, featuring Albert Finney as Poirot. Look away now if you haven't read the book, or seen one of the now three adaptations for the screen, but it is atypical of the usual murder mystery in that all of the suspects did it. The other two adaptations are the ITV version with David Suchet (2001), and the Kenneth Brannagh one from 2017.
The Bakers chose not to follow the book's plot in this sense, retaining a single killer to be unmasked.
A Christie-style murder mystery had been attempted on the show once before - Season 19's Black Orchid - but that had maintained the period trappings and involved no science fiction elements.
The space-liner setting, with its captain portrayed by Michael Craig, might have reminded viewers watching at the time of the BBC's dreadful maritime soap Triangle. This attempted to make cross Channel ferries look glamorous. You'd have Kate O'Mara pretending to sunbathe in 30 mile an hour winds under a clearly leaden sky, on her way to a night out in Harwich. It had been Triangle having a production office in Amsterdam which had led to Arc of Infinity being filmed there.
Needless to say, the Bakers had written for it.
The plant monsters are called Vervoids. The name came from "vervain", also known as verbena - a species of flowering herb.

As this segment was an adventure from the Doctor's future, it allowed the new companion to arrive mid-stream as it were, already travelling with the Doctor, though for an unspecified period of time. The character of Mel Bush, played by Bonnie Langford, was never given an introductory story - at least on screen. Langford's casting naturally got fans already losing patience with JNT even more angry. She was predominantly a song and dance personality, from a light entertainment / variety background, and not perceived by the general public as a serious actress. This looked like further proof that JNT was trying to turn the show into light entertainment, inspired by some recent stunt casting on his part. She had been introduced to the press as the new companion at a photo-call on stage, where she was appearing as Peter Pan, and poor overweight Colin Baker had to suffer the ignominy of being trussed up in a flying harness for the event.
This would go into the mix of complaints which Saward finally got off his chest whilst these episodes were being recorded. He gave an interview with Starburst magazine in which all his frustrations were poured out. JNT was naturally furious and threatened to sue, but his boss advised against this, telling him to ignore it.
Next time: the trial eventually ends well for the Doctor, though not for the person playing him, but first there's Dickensian clerks, Time Lord machinations, and a completely new Doctor to be revealed...