Friday 3 December 2021

On This Day... 3rd December


In 1966, The Power of the Daleks reached its fifth, penultimate, episode, whilst 1977 gave us the second part of The Sun Makers.
Torchwood's first series was still underway, with They Keep Killing Suzie in 2006.
There is a rumour that Russell T Davies is going to resurrect the notion of a Doctor Who Universe, with spin-offs etc., as we had during his time as show-runner. This has arisen because of a company name that has been copyrighted by Bad Wolf Productions - "Whoniverse". Equally, there are those who think there's nothing to this rumour - it's just a name, and the days when the series could sustain a Marvel-like Universe are long gone.
The last time the series had a spin-off, it was Class, whose final episode - The Lost - made its debut on today's date in 2016. This meant we ended with a double cliff-hanger, with a leading character's mind trapped in an alien body, and the appearance of a Weeping Angel. Apparently a second series would have featured an Angel Civil War. The series was stuck in late night slots, with very little promotion - despite an appearance by Peter Capaldi's Doctor in the first episode. It was clear that the BBC just didn't care about it - something which was being mirrored with the parent series at the time.

On today's date in 2019, we lost Donald Tosh. He was the series' third Story Editor, taking over from Dennis Spooner just as Verity Lambert was handing over to John Wiles. It was with Wiles that Tosh mostly worked, and they had complementary views as to what the programme should be like. Like other editors, Tosh was often called upon to rewrite other people's work. A great deal of The Daleks Master Plan is his, and all of The Massacre. He totally reworked The Celestial Toymaker - only for his successor, Gerry Davis, to come along an rewrite his rewrites. Tosh made a cameo appearance in the 50th Anniversary drama An Adventure in Space and Time, as one of the guests at Verity lambert's leaving party. In his later years he worked for English Heritage.

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