Those of you who follow the Talking Pictures TV channel will be aware that they have been showing episodes of Doomwatch on Friday nights at 9pm. We've already seen the two that everyone remembers - The Plastic Eaters, written by the show's creators Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis, and Day of the Rat, written by Terence Dudley. The show has many Doctor Who connections.
This Friday, 7th February, sees the broadcast of Re-entry Forbidden, which was originally shown in March 1970.
I mention this because the episode shared a set with The Ambassadors of Death. With the advent of colour, the BBC's design departments elected to make some savings by sharing props, costumes and sets across several productions - provided that there was a suitable gap between broadcasts, and minor changes made to disguise their re-use.
Scenic Design spotted that the producers of Doomwatch and Doctor Who were both going to be featuring a space capsule around the same time, and so Barry Letts and Dudley agreed to share the set with the costs split across their respective budgets.
Thus Doomwatch's "Sunfire" rocket returned a few weeks later as Doctor Who's "Mars Probe 7" / "Recovery 7" - director Michael Ferguson reusing a reused set.
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