Best producers the show never had?

In the realms of what if's for the show, there's always the question of which people who worked on the show could've potentially been one of the great show producers, had they been given a shot at the role. Or indeed who could've potentially done a good job of helming a revival of the show.

So who were the potential best likely candidates for the role that we were denied, and why?

I'll start.

David Maloney

Had Mary Whitehouse not succeeded in getting Hinchcliffe shit-canned from the show, I could easily see Hinchcliffe leaving amicably and Maloney becoming his most obvious natural successor.

Maloney had directed some of the best stories of Hinchcliffe's time (Genesis, Assassin, Talons) and so I feel would've continued the tone and feel of the Hinchcliffe seasons well.

The great advantages of Maloney is that he'd worked on the show since the late Troughton era, and understood its format and production, and star appeal, and how to do more with less. And whilst Hinchcliffe was not keen on reusing the Daleks and thought they were passe villains, Maloney seemed to get on very well with Terry Nation (when working on Blakes 7), and I think he understood the Daleks' appeal and that the time was probably righter than ever to push them forward again as the lead heavies after Genesis had given them a renaissance.

Peter Moffatt

In terms of the later Tom Baker era, if there's a good story model for the show to adopt there, then it's probably State of Decay. And partly why it worked so well was down to Peter Moffatt. He'd worked with Lalla Ward beforehand and got on well with her, but he also seemed to be one of the few directors around that time who could handle Tom Baker's rambunctiousness whilst at the same time being sympathetic and easy-going enough to smooth things over with him. It certainly would've been nice if they'd been able to have that rapport long-term or earlier on.

The main advantages of Peter Moffatt were that he was good with crisis management, he'd had plenty of experience as a TV producer prior, he'd shown able to handle a multi-Doctor special well in The Five Doctors, and he saw the value in having older hand writers like Terrance Dicks back in a way that JNT generally didn't.

Peter Grimwade

In a way I tend to think of Full Circle/Logopolis/Kinda/Earthshock as a kind of loose mini-Grimwade era within the JNT era. And I have to say his directing seemed to see the show at its best realization in a long time. There is something hyper-real and urgent about Logopolis and Earthshock that really does make me suspend my disbelief and buy that Earth is in genuine danger for the first time since Inferno.

Of the directors I've listed so far, he seemed the one who most aimed 'high' for the show. He seemed to 'get' the spectacle JNT was going for, but really refined it to an art, he certainly seemed to know how to do more with less, and the man could even get Matthew Waterhouse to act his socks off in Earthshock. I think Saward would've been happier working under him as well as they seemed a bit more on the same page as each other.

Fiona Cumming

Aside from Terrence Dudley, I think Fiona was probably the most likely to have been nominated as JNT's successor by him had he been able to move on from the show earlier when he wanted. She was a few years away from becoming a producer herself on 1988's High Road, and I think outside of Earthshock and Caves, the stories she directed are among the Davison era's best productions that have most stood the test of time, and she seemed to work very well with the cast and with writers.

I think she took time to understand the writers' vision in a way few other directors of the time did. And I like to think had she helmed the show after, say, The Five Doctors, then we would've seen a lot more stories like Enlightenment and a lot less continuity navelgazing.

Terry Nation

I know some might roll their eyes at this, but Terry Nation had made a bit of a name for himself in Hollywood with MacGuyver in the mid 1980's, and given the emphasis on the BBC selling Doctor Who to America, I can think of few stateside candidates better suited to giving the show an American relaunch and maintaining the show's original core appeal with an element of George Lucas-esque showmanship and world-building.

Terry had a good understanding of the Doctor's origins as a bit of an anti-hero and of what made him different to conventional heroes, whilst also knowing what made him a champ too, and he knew how to tell a good, fun pulp sci-fi page-turner. I think he really could've fulfilled a retro sci-fi niche in the late 80's, early 90's.

I do like the idea of David Maloney. He had a good track record as a producer elsewhere:

    The first 3 series of Blakes 7 of which i find 1 & 2 particularly enjoyable.
    John Duttine's Day of the Triffids in 1981.
    The 1981 season of When the Boat Comes In.

The 1981 Day of the Triffids was very good. It definitely stuck with me.

I met Carole Ann Ford a few years ago, and she said she was a big fan of the book and really didn't like the 1960's film version she was in. But she did give Maloney's TV version a lot of credit for getting it much righter.

Blakes' 7 I've still yet to watch properly.

Tanmann wrote:The 1981 Day of the Triffids was very good. It definitely stuck with me.

I met Carole Ann Ford a few years ago, and she said she was a big fan of the book and really didn't like the 1960's film version she was in. But she did give Maloney's TV version a lot of credit for getting it much righter.

Blakes' 7 I've still yet to watch properly.

I envy you meeting CAF. I saw her in the distance at a Convention once but only from the audience.

I don't like the 1960's film much myself. It seems to depart too much from the book. And Howard Keel was wrong for the part.

I can only speak for myself. I felt there was a gradual deterioration in quality each season with B7. I think 1 & 2 are the best. Then Thomas left and Nation became much less involved and so the quality took a dive in season 3 and even more so season 4. Yes there were good stories in the final two seasons but not so much.

But i don't mean to put you off. Others think it maintained its quality while i know of some who prefer the later seasons. B7 is well worth a watch. I think all the episodes are on YouTube at the moment: they certainly were a month ago. I hope you enjoy it if you do give it a go.

stengos wrote:I envy you meeting CAF. I saw her in the distance at a Convention once but only from the audience.

I met her at the 2014 London Film and Comic Con. I've also seen her twice since at other conventions, including one this year in Bedford. So she's still doing appearances.

I can only speak for myself. I felt there was a gradual deterioration in quality each season with B7. I think 1 & 2 are the best. Then Thomas left and Nation became much less involved and so the quality took a dive in season 3 and even more so season 4. Yes there were good stories in the final two seasons but not so much.

But i don't mean to put you off. Others think it maintained its quality while i know of some who prefer the later seasons. B7 is well worth a watch. I think all the episodes are on YouTube at the moment: they certainly were a month ago. I hope you enjoy it if you do give it a go.

I have a bit of a long TV watch-list currently (Rick and Morty, Tripods, The Changes, Misfits of Science), but I'll probably get round to B7 in the end.

I did actually make a curious buy of Series 2 and 3 about ten years ago as I saw they were going cheap in CEX (and I'd been listening to Dalek Empire and was curious to see Gareth Thomas in his prime), but they've mainly sat on the shelf since, as I didn't have Series 1 to really start my marathon on.

Sorry i am drifting off topic ...

Thomas is also very good in a 1976 children's drama he did called Children of the Stones. Its about a small community / town built on the site of some ancient stone works (actually a place called Avebury in england). Thomas is a researcher who arrives to do some tests on the stone circle.

I think it is an excellent drama but i do feel it is let down by the presence of so many child actors in the show. The adult cast is however very good. Basically the younger cast should have been culled early on and the roles of the adults expanded. If it was ever remade i would hope they would rewrite it to focus more on the grown ups. It is still very much worth a view though.

Full episodes are also available on YouTube although Network have released the series on DVD.

Cool, I'll give that a look too. And no worries. Sometimes the most interesting thread discussions lead to interesting digressions.

I've heard Children of the Stones get recommended a lot. I first heard of it infact through Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, in a segment which compared that and The Changes to modern youth TV.