Douglas Adams had been submitting stories to the programme for a while before Anthony Read decided to take a gamble.
One of the problems Read's predecessor had encountered was the complexity of Adams' ideas. In many ways they were similar to the first efforts of the Bristol Boys, Baker and Martin, who initially showed a lack of discipline in their writing. Their imaginations did not necessarily align with what was achievable - and affordable - on TV.
Even with Read's guidance, as soon as Graham Williams' boss saw this he demanded that it be scrapped. He particularly disliked the humour and told the producer that Tom Baker would fail to take this seriously and play it for laughs - something which they were trying to reign in.
It was only because there were no replacement scripts at an advanced enough stage that Williams and Read were allowed to continue.
In many ways it's a miracle that Adams was recruited to replace Read only a short time later (though the success of a certain comic sci-fi radio show may have swung the decision).
Unlike Robert Holmes in the previous story, whilst the segment does have a role to play, the Key to Time isn't well integrated into the story.
The Doctor claims that Zanak will be fine in its new permanent location. However, its has been stripped of all of its minerals, and its hollow centre is now filled with the remnants of Callufrax, which have also been entirely drained of mineral resources. Hopefully there's a planet nearby to trade with (and a product someone wants to buy) - except the Captain has suppressed the technology to get them into space, and they don't even know what stars are, let alone how to get there.
Callufrax was described as an icy planetoid - meaning that Zanak's new location must be pretty far from its sun (and yet there's no sign of this throughout the story. We see a bright blue sky and no-one is wrapped up for a wintery climate).
Adams was unhappy with some of the casting, including the Captain.
Some of the performances are a trifle wooden - e.g. "Why? Why? Why, Why? Why?".
There are also some dodgy melodramatic lines - "Bandraginus Five, by every last breath in my body, you'll be avenged".
The trouble with Technobabble is that it is very easy to trip over, verbally. Tom has a couple of fluffs here:
K-9 talks about a power level of 5347.2 on the vantalla cycle scale - to which Tom responds: "543.72?" - and K-9 agrees.
We also have the psychic wavelength of the Mentiads being 338.79 micropars one minute, and 337.98 the next.
There are a couple of gun-fights which depict Kimus and Romana as crack shots. Much has been made of her sheltered background in Time Lord academia, and I can't see anyone outside the Bridge guards being allowed anywhere near a weapon - so where did these marksman skills come from?
Why does the Doctor risk trying to lure the guard away from the aircar in the exact same manner he used before, when he could just have gotten K-9 to stun him?
(And his jelly babies are clearly Liquorice Allsorts).
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