Programme writer (A Life in the Day of a Doctor Who Production)

The Programme writer worked on Doctor Who by 2003 and was tasked with scripting the Doctor Who Fortieth Anniversary Special. To his dismay, the Director was so upset with some elements of the script that he tore the manuscript apart. (NOTVALID: A Life in the Day of a Doctor Who Production)

Behind the scenes

 * In 1987, when the satirical story A Life in the Day of a Doctor Who Production, it stood to reason to presume that 2003 would see the release of a big-scale Doctor Who anniversary special. In real life, however, by 2003, the main Doctor Who series had been cancelled; writers of the two non-TV Doctor Who stories with a claim to being the real-life 40th anniversary special were, respectively, Paul Cornell (writer of Scream of the Shalka) and the joint pair of Gary Russell and Alan Barnes (who cowrote Zagreus). Although the Programme writer in the 1987 story does vaguely resemble Cornell, this can only be a coincidence, as Cornell had yet to publish his first licensed Doctor Who story at the time.