Shada (webcast)

Produced to mark the 40th anniversary of the Doctor Who franchise, Shada was a remounting of the television story of the same name, which was originally planned to end Season 17 in 1980, but abandoned before completion due to industrial action at the BBC. When the TV episode was completed in 2017 and released on bluray, this webcast was titled The Return to Shada.

The original version featured Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, but was rewritten to feature Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, with Lalla Ward and John Leeson returning to voice Romana II and K9 Mark II respectively with their own characters modified to coincide with the continuity established in the Big Finish Productions audio drama range.

Synopsis

Where the Fourth Doctor left off, the Eighth Doctor comes to finish the job. With Romana and K9 by his side, they have to stop the evil Skagra.

Plot

to be added

Cast

Doctor Who - Paul McGann
Romana II - Lalla Ward
K9 - John Leeson
Professor Chronotis - James Fox
Skagra - Andrew Sachs
Chris Parsons - Sean Biggerstaff
Clare Keightley - Susannah Harker
Wilkin - Melvyn Hayes
The Ship - Hannah Gordon
Professor Caldera - Barnaby Edwards
Krarg Commander - Barnaby Edwards
Krarg - Stuart Crossman
Police Constable / Motorist - Stuart Crossman

Crew

Writer - Douglas Adams, Gary Russell (prologue), Nicholas Pegg (additional)
Director - Nicholas Pegg
Producers - Gary Russell, Jason Haigh-Ellery, Kim Plowright, Martin Trickey
Animators - Lee Sullivan, James Goss
Composer - Russell Stone
Sound Designer - Gareth Jenkins
Recording - Alistair Lock
Design Consultant - Lee Binding
Photography of Cambridge - Jeff Carlson
Dedicated to Douglas Adams and Polly James Rocket Adams

References

The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey is the key to Shada.
Chronotis (aka Salyavin) removed the book from the Panopticon Archives to prevent anyone from remembering him.
Quite a bit of tea (with and without milk and sugar) is consumed.
Skagra's ship identifies The Doctor's TARDIS as "a Type 39, possibly Type 40."
K9 states that Skagra's home planet was the planet Dronid.
Romana calls the Time Lord Academy the Time Academy.
The Doctor mentions Owen Chadwick.

Story notes

As an "extra feature" to the webcast, the website created an animated video of Kylie Minogue's song "Can't Get You Out of My Head", with Romana, the Eighth Doctor, Skagra and Krargs dancing to the tune.
The Doctor mentions that "Chronotis and I" spent a weekend with Mary Shelley and Lord Byron at Lake Geneva. Since Chronotis is not present with the Doctor and Mary in AUDIO: Mary's Story one must presume that the Doctor and Mary met Chronotis near Lake Geneva in another visit (perhaps when the Doctor returned her to her normal timeline).

Original website release/broadcast

Episode 1 - 2 May 2003
Episode 2 - 9 May 2003
Episode 3 - 16 May 2003
Episode 4 - 23 May 2003
Episode 5 - 30 May 2003
Episode 6 - 6 June 2003

Myths

to be added

Production errors

Due to the limited animation in the webcast the character images are frequently mirrored, reversing details such as clothing and hairstyles.
Chronotis' smiling mouth frequently extends beyond the boundaries of his face.
At exactly 9:48 into Episode 3, a random blue dot appears in the centre of the screen. It quickly disappears.
The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey is described in dialogue as a "red book," but in the webcast illustrations the book is brown in colour.

Continuity

This webcast attempts to fill in the holes left by the unfinished serial 'Shada'. The Eighth Doctor recalls only the early events of the story. This would suggest that due to the events of TV: The Five Doctors, the fourth Doctor and Romana were left with partial amnesia and the adventure was prevented from concluding the first time around. Romana says she remembers being in stasis for a time, while K-9 states that the Doctor and Romana had left him alone for approximately two hours before returning and abruptly changing destination to Brighton, suggesting that TV: The Leisure Hive takes place immediately after the aborted events of the original Shada and the Doctor and Romana's abduction in The Five Doctors.
Romana is Lord President of Gallifrey. This is in keeping with her character's continuity as featured at the time in the various Big Finish audios. This adventure happens after her years of imprisonment by the Daleks (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element). She is illustrated in Shada looking somewhat more mature than the image used to represent her on the cover of The Apocalypse Element. She has never met the Eighth Doctor before, as she remarks on his new body.
The Doctor mentions events from when he and Romana previously travelled together, including collecting the Key to Time (TV: The Ribos Operation-The Armageddon Factor) and defacing da Vinci's artwork. (TV: City of Death)

CD and other releases

Big Finish released an extended release on CD.
The webcast was included on the 2013 DVD release of the reconstructed TV version of Shada. However, due to resolution limitations, rather than being included as a TV-playable feature, the webcast is accessible via the disc's DVD-R function, with a browser-based viewer supplied for both Mac and PC.
The webcast was included as a TV-playable feature on the bonus disc of the Limited Edition Blu-Ray steelbook for the animated 2017 version of Shada.

Tardis