JONATHAN MORRIS describes the earliest stages in the evolution of a Doctor Who story.

from top: Maaga (Stephanie Bidmead) in Galaxy 4 (1965), Alpha Centauri in The Curse of Peladon (1972); ‘Rusty’ from Into the Dalek (2014).

Above: This document, compiled by the Doctor Who production office in 1965, listed the titles of the first 13 stories.

Where does a Doctor Who story begin?

More often than not, it starts with the producer and script editor (aka story editor) or, since the series resumed production in 2003, with the head writer (aka showrunner). It may seem surprising that stories don’t usually start with the writer pitching an idea, but those occasions have been few and far between. The normal process has always been, and continues to be, that a writer is approached to write for the series, given a brief, and invited in for a meeting with the producer/script editor/showrunner to discuss it.

The brief can be anything from a non-specific request for a story set in the past, or a story that will include a ‘proper dilemma’ for the Doctor and his companion (eg Kill the Moon, 2014), to an extensive shopping list such as the one given to Peter Grimwade in 1983. For the story that would become Planet of Fire (1984), he was asked to write out the companions Turlough and Kamelion, to write in the new companion Peri, to bring back the Master and to incorporate specific locations in Lanzarote in a story set both on Earth and an alien planet.

It’s then up to the writer to come up with something, either before the meeting or during it. For example, in 2006 the showrunner, Russell T Davies, sent writer Gareth Roberts  a one-word email: “Shakespeare”.