The Mists of Madness (unproduced TV story)

✅ The Mists of Madness was an unproduced story written by Brian Wright for Season 7. It was submitted on 9 May 1969 and was commissioned by script editor Terrance Dicks. Wright was unable to write it so the story was abandoned and replaced by Inferno.

The script involved a colony of artificially-made humans who believed mankind had lost their way. They aimed to steal an experimental weapon from a demonstration that UNIT were attending, and use it enslave humanity. Within the story, the Doctor would have successfully repaired the TARDIS console, and the final confrontation between him and the leader of the colony would have taken place on prehistoric Earth. The possibility of the Silurians playing a role in this sequence was considered but quickly abandoned.

Writer Don Houghton initially thought his story Inferno was a sequel to The Mists of Madness, and scenes of the TARDIS being taken for a test flight were rewritten after he learned that it had been cancelled.