I see we had a small asteroid come within 46,000 km of the Earth yesterday (not clear if that takes into account the Earth’s 6,000 km radius). Well done Project Spaceguard for picking it up.
From the Heart of Europe
Books, politics, languages and life
Shannon Sullivan has a website that’s good on the production history (and pre-production struggles) of Who stories, for example:
http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4g.html (Pyramids of Mars)
http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4l.html (Seeds of Doom)
http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4n.html (The Hand of Fear)
(Still haven’t worked out how to make links go blue in LJ comments).
A website devoted to unmade stories has more detail on Lewis Greifer’s unmade storyline for Pyramids of Mars:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/thebatgranny/bak.htm#pom
(along with some other quite extraordinary suggestions pitched over the years)
But even by the standards of Who crises, it’s extraordinary how fast Seeds of Doom was put together. According to the info-text on the DVD, the production team hadn’t finally decided to abandon the six-part Hand of Fear until the last week of September ’75, when Philip Hinchcliffe came back from a fortnight’s holiday.
After a week’s brainstorming, Robert Banks Stewart got the formal commission for Seeds of Doom on 30 September, and delivered Episode 1 a mere two days later (2 October), with Episodes 2 and 3 within a week (7 October & 8 October), and Episodes 4-6 on 20 October. By 30 October they were on location in Dorset, shooting the exteriors for Chase’s estate.
It’s amazing how many of the best loved Who stories were delivered under very tight pressure. (As well as some not so loved…)