On This Day... 17th August

The Dominators moved onto its second instalment today in 1968. 

The Doctor's second heart was only ever mentioned for the first time in Spearhead from Space, and on previous occasions the Doctor had only ever referred to his heart, singular (such as describing the blow he received in The Sensorites). Ian checked him over at the beginning of The Edge of Destruction, and he got a thorough medical in The Wheel in Space - and no one commented on any extra heart.

We might have had the answer here, if Navigator Rago hadn't just assumed that his physiology would be identical to that of Jamie.

Today we remember producer Graham Williams, who died on this day in 1990, aged only 45. Having given up the world of television production he was running a country hotel when he was killed in a shotgun accident.

Williams had helped to devise a new police thriller series which was to be the BBC's answer to The Sweeney. It was called Target and, like the ITV series, it would be made on film rather than video. He suddenly found himself being asked to swap roles with Philip Hinchcliffe, who had been producing Doctor Who for the last three seasons.

Tom Baker was suddenly introduced to Williams as his new boss without warning during filming of Season 14. Unfortunately it was an inauspicious start to what would be a stormy relationship. By their final year together Williams and Baker had both tried to resign and the producer had also come close to sacking his star.

Williams' first idea for the series was to have a linked season - what would become the Key to Time season. However, pre-production on Season 15 was too far advanced and it had to wait until the following year. He hit immediate problems when a Terrance Dicks vampire story was dropped, in case it clashed with a new adaptation of Dracula. The Invisible Enemy was brought forward, and this introduced the popular K9. More problems with strike action and spiralling inflation dogged the end of the season.

As well as K9, Williams also introduced two different incarnations of Romana, the Black and White Guardians, and he brought Davros back from the dead. He also gave us Douglas Adams as script editor and writer. City of Death is never out of the Top 10 of any list of favourite stories.

He decided to leave after Season 17, along with Adams, recommending his Production Unit Manager John Nathan Turner as his replacement (he had previously tried to get him an Associate Producer role but this had been declined).

Their tenure should have concluded with Shada - but more industrial action saw this cancelled. A sad way to bring his time on the show to an end.

He had one further connection with the series, when he wrote the scripts for "The Nightmare Fair", which was due to open Season 23 and see the return of the Celestial Toymaker. The show's hiatus put paid to this, though he did later novelise the story.