During production on Doctor Who, many ideas for episodes go really far, and then get scrapped just before filming, only to be replaced by another script. There are hundreds of these for the classic episodes, but after a little research I discovered three Tenth Doctor episodes that actually had a finished script.Title: The 1920s
Writer: Stephen Fry
Characters: The Tenth Doctor, Rose
Episodes: 1
Planned For: Eleventh episode of Series Two, Series Three
Stage Reached: Complete Script
Synopsis: Concerned a popular British legend which turns out to have an extraterrestrial connection.
Notes: Fry had been associated with Doctor Who via his role as the Minister of Chance in the webcast Death Comes To Time before being invited to contribute to the new Doctor Who series' second season. The 1920s setting was inspired by his screenplay for the 2003 feature film Bright Young Things. In development from about June 2005, “The 1920s” was intended to form part of the season's sixth production block. By November, however, it was realised that Fry's script would be too much of a drain on the programme's budget late in the year, and the decision was made to defer it to the 2007 season; it was replaced by Fear Her. However, the script would have to undergo rewrites -- not least to replace Rose Tyler with Martha Jones -- and Fry was now occupied with other commitments. By mid-2006, “The 1920s” was withdrawn from the schedule altogether.
Title: Century House
Writer: Tom MacRae
Characters: The Tenth Doctor, Martha (original version), Donna (revised version)
Episodes: 1
Planned For: Series Three (original version), eighth episode of Series Four (revised version)
Stage Reached: Complete script
Synopsis: While Donna watches with Sylvia at home, the Doctor joins a live broadcast of paranormal reality show Most Haunted. Their target is an old house purportedly haunted by the “Red Widow”. The climax would have involved the house catching fire.
Notes: After writing Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel for Doctor Who's 2006 season, MacRae was commissioned to pen “Century House” for the following year. It wound up not fitting into the schedule for the 2007 season, however, and so it was deferred it until 2008. Because of its almost exclusive focus on the Doctor, it was intended that “Century House” would be made as part of the season's sixth production block, double-banked with Turn Left (Block Seven), which shone the spotlight firmly on Donna Noble. However, executive producer Russell T Davies grew unsatisfied with the premise that he had given MacRae -- of the Doctor appearing on the supernatural documentary programme Most Haunted. He also worried about the season having two comedy-oriented episodes in The Unicorn And The Wasp and “Century House”, especially since these were planned to air consecutively. Finally, in mid-October 2007, it was decided to replace “Century House” with Davies' own script, Midnight.
Title: Nazis (working name)
Writer: Mark Gatiss
Characters: The Tenth Doctor, Donna
Episodes: 1
Planned For: Third episode of Series Four
Stage Reached: Complete script
Synopsis: During the Second World War, a Nazi task force assaults the Natural History Museum in London, which has been overrun by monsters. Later action would have involved the discovery of a secret chamber beneath the museum.
Notes: Gatiss began working on this script around the start of 2006. It was intended to be the third episode of Doctor Who's 2008 season, and some thought was given to filming in the Natural History Museum itself, but executive producer Russell T Davies gradually became concerned about revisiting the World War II period so soon after it was showcased in 2005's The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances. Furthermore, Davies was becoming excited by the possibility of setting an adventure around the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Finally, near the end of April 2007, it was decided to replace Gatiss' script with The Fires Of Pompeii. Later that summer, scripting problems on this episode and Partners In Crime led Davies to consider abandoning The Fires Of Pompeii and reinstating Gatiss' script, but this did not come to pass.
These episodes sound amazing! If you have The Writer's Tale, you can see more on Century House and Nazis by going to the Series Four Breakdown on pages 19 and 20 respectively.
What I would like to see now are script books. If all 3 scripts are completed, they should publish them in script form, or make them into books. Or make them into TV episodes for the future, but I doubt this is something Moffat will bother with.
What are your thoughts on this?
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