ALAS...
Not every idea actually makes it to production. A lot fall by the wayside, but writers never forget the tales that never made it, and I fondly remember these lost efforts. Well, I'm fond of most of them...
THE LONE WARRIOR
This was submitted to Gary Russell roughly at the same time as Eye of the Scorpion. It didn't float his boat. Even though Erimem got picked up as a companion, the character of Tess in this one was my deliberate attempt at creating a new companion. If you're very naughty I may post the script one day... A STITCH IN TIME
Another that was submitted to Gary Russell at the same time as Eye of the Scorpion and didn't make the grade. Again it was a Sixth Doctor story, this time with Peri. I initially had this in mind as a non Doctor Who sci-fi disaster novel but it always felt like it should be performed rather than read. There are bits of it I do plan to reuse, though. THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKERS
For Doctor Who's 40th anniversary in 2003, Gary Russell offered a bunch of us the chance to submit ideas for a trilogy of returning villains. Initially, The Celestial Toymaker was one of the three but was replaced by Omega (which has one of the best cliffhangers Doctor Who ever had). This was my submission for the Toymaker story. I quite like this one. ENDEAVOUR
This one goes a LONG way back - to early 1988. I was 21 and I wanted to write, so I submitted a 3 part story to my favourite TV show. I haven't read it in two decades and I have the feeling I probably shouldn't. However, Andrew Cartmel's letter of reply was incredibly generous and kind, offering much-needed advice and encouragement, For that kindness, I am still very grateful.
The story was a three parter, set on a submarine in the near future and it came from something I read about toxic waste being dumped on the ocean floor. Other than that, I remember very little about it. THE LAST POWER
When I was young (I was young once, honestly) I was game to give anything a try. I wanted to write, I wanted to write Doctor Who, so for a bit of self-graitification I wrote a multi-Doctor story. And then I heard about The Dark Dimension. And then I heard The Dark Dimension was cancelled. I had no idea why so I pitched mine instead. I got a polite letter back. It was nice of them to be polite and better than the script deserved. It was awful, awful, wretched fanwank. and I am very glad I no longer have a copy of it. (Well, there might be a copy in the loft but that's been invaded by the Eight Legs from Metebelis 3 and I'm not going up there - that's a Doctor Who reference for you non-fans) But, for the sake of completion, and because I'd feel guilty if I brushed it under the carpet, I'm mentioning it. A couple of interesting ideas in it I think but for the most part, utterly risible.
This was submitted to Gary Russell roughly at the same time as Eye of the Scorpion. It didn't float his boat. Even though Erimem got picked up as a companion, the character of Tess in this one was my deliberate attempt at creating a new companion. If you're very naughty I may post the script one day... A STITCH IN TIME
Another that was submitted to Gary Russell at the same time as Eye of the Scorpion and didn't make the grade. Again it was a Sixth Doctor story, this time with Peri. I initially had this in mind as a non Doctor Who sci-fi disaster novel but it always felt like it should be performed rather than read. There are bits of it I do plan to reuse, though. THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKERS
For Doctor Who's 40th anniversary in 2003, Gary Russell offered a bunch of us the chance to submit ideas for a trilogy of returning villains. Initially, The Celestial Toymaker was one of the three but was replaced by Omega (which has one of the best cliffhangers Doctor Who ever had). This was my submission for the Toymaker story. I quite like this one. ENDEAVOUR
This one goes a LONG way back - to early 1988. I was 21 and I wanted to write, so I submitted a 3 part story to my favourite TV show. I haven't read it in two decades and I have the feeling I probably shouldn't. However, Andrew Cartmel's letter of reply was incredibly generous and kind, offering much-needed advice and encouragement, For that kindness, I am still very grateful.
The story was a three parter, set on a submarine in the near future and it came from something I read about toxic waste being dumped on the ocean floor. Other than that, I remember very little about it. THE LAST POWER
When I was young (I was young once, honestly) I was game to give anything a try. I wanted to write, I wanted to write Doctor Who, so for a bit of self-graitification I wrote a multi-Doctor story. And then I heard about The Dark Dimension. And then I heard The Dark Dimension was cancelled. I had no idea why so I pitched mine instead. I got a polite letter back. It was nice of them to be polite and better than the script deserved. It was awful, awful, wretched fanwank. and I am very glad I no longer have a copy of it. (Well, there might be a copy in the loft but that's been invaded by the Eight Legs from Metebelis 3 and I'm not going up there - that's a Doctor Who reference for you non-fans) But, for the sake of completion, and because I'd feel guilty if I brushed it under the carpet, I'm mentioning it. A couple of interesting ideas in it I think but for the most part, utterly risible.
A STEP IN PARADISE
TOUCHED BY ETEERNITY
UNWELCOME DISCOVERY
I remember the glee I felt (nom that doesn't mean I started singing and making pop classics sound like show tunes) when I heard that the Star Trek franchise had an open door to spec submissions. I think they also had a three strikes and you're out policy - three failures meant no more chances. So, I started writing up ideas, did three scripts in very different styles. One was a very Star Trek-y moral dilemma aboout a planet's reliance on drug use, a quite ethereal episode about T'Pol's family history on and off of Vulcan, and a full-on war episode, which would be a battle from first scene to last, more or less in real time. And then the open door closed and I was left with three full scripts and nowhere to send them. If there's interest I may put them on line here.
THE SCREAMING PLANET
Mark Wright and Cav Scott (splendid fellows, both of them) invited Claire and I to pitch ideas for Season 7 of Big Finish's Tomorrow People audios. What we came up with was called The Screaming Planet. If memory serves it would have been the third or fourth story of the season. Of all the things that I've worked on that didn't get made, this is the one that saddens me most. Big Finish did brilliant things with The Tomorrow People.
You can read more about what was in store for the Tomorrow People in the seasons Big Finished had planned but were never able to complete in Kenny Smith's rather brilliant The Big Finish Companion Volume 2, which you can get here.
You can read more about what was in store for the Tomorrow People in the seasons Big Finished had planned but were never able to complete in Kenny Smith's rather brilliant The Big Finish Companion Volume 2, which you can get here.
FIGURE OF EIGHT
When Eye of the Scorpion was being recorded I asked Gary Russell if I could have a bash at something else. Well, nothing ventured... he suggested I try a Benny script. Which I did. It was scheduled as 3.4 then dropped, I think, because it was very similar to another story in that run of Benny adventures. The gist of this was a schismed society, with religion and science at each others throats and the planet's weather being equally divided because it had a figure of eight orbit looping around two suns, one of which was hotter than the other. If you're interested you can read a bit more about it in Simon Guerrier's brilliant book, Bernice Summerfield The Inside Story. And if you don't know who Bernice Summerfield is, you're really missing out. She is fabulous. Check her out here.
TERRORIST
A Blake's 7 story I'd started work on around the time Gareth Thomas passed away. I think this really could have been a very good story.
ECHOES
A STITCH IN TIME
KILL OR CURE
Okay, so... I didn't write for BBV until 2022. I bought their videos and CDs but I didn't write any of them. But I did talk to them about it a few times before then.
The first time was in about 1993. I think the third of The Stranger videos had just been released. It was again a Stranger and Miss Brown story, and set in an abandoned house in the country. It had a mystical Tramp and it had living paintings. If I remember correctly, I wrote the Tramp with Jon Pertwee in mind and wrote roles that would have brought Mary Tamm and Frazer Hines to mind when casting. All Doctor Who-ey stuff. I chatted with Bill Baggs about it but nothing came of it and so I lifted bits of it and used them elsewhere .
In 2002, after I'd had some success in getting scripts with Big Finish, I pitched a couple of ideas to BBV for their audio series. The one they seemed to like concerned Zygons and a news crew in the South American jungle during a local coup but after saying he was interested in the story, Nothing came of it though. A pity - I liked a lot that BBV produced. And then in 2022 I finally wrote for BBV - three Erimem audios.
The first time was in about 1993. I think the third of The Stranger videos had just been released. It was again a Stranger and Miss Brown story, and set in an abandoned house in the country. It had a mystical Tramp and it had living paintings. If I remember correctly, I wrote the Tramp with Jon Pertwee in mind and wrote roles that would have brought Mary Tamm and Frazer Hines to mind when casting. All Doctor Who-ey stuff. I chatted with Bill Baggs about it but nothing came of it and so I lifted bits of it and used them elsewhere .
In 2002, after I'd had some success in getting scripts with Big Finish, I pitched a couple of ideas to BBV for their audio series. The one they seemed to like concerned Zygons and a news crew in the South American jungle during a local coup but after saying he was interested in the story, Nothing came of it though. A pity - I liked a lot that BBV produced. And then in 2022 I finally wrote for BBV - three Erimem audios.
CABOT and McKINLAY
Imagine The X-Files if it was made by Hammer, filled with British character actors and full of a very British sense of humour, which would be unavoidable because it was written for Tom Baker as Cabot and Louise Lombard as McKinlay. It was in development for a while and I did a lot of rewriting (interestingly, at one point turning the hour long episodes to half hour) but alas it didn't happen. i would really like to go back and look at it as an audio series one day.
KING HARRY
This was a movie (possibly TV movie) script I wrote, which was actually rather good. It got some traction and it made some progress to the point of us beginning to discuss casting the lead actor (I'm an optimist so I suggested Michael Caine or Michael Gambon for Harry) before it all came to a stop. This was a very serious piece and I'm really proud of it.
THE POINT OF NO RETURN
This was a sci-fi version of a classic historical story I wrote some time ago for radio. I was going to go into some detail about it here but it's recently got a bit of traction again (Yay me!) so I'll keep my trap shut for now. I'm really very fond of this story and of the way it worked in this different setting. WIth luck it will be moved from this section before long.
NEW SOAP OPERA
I did about five weeks' work on a new daytime soap opera for British TV. I was one of a group of writers brought in and probably because I was the oldest (and the only one with experience of being an editor - plus the guy who brought me in had to jump ship when the show he'd been on got a new series) in the end I was pretty much leading the writing on this and we mapped out long term storylines as well as did scripts for a bunch of episodes. And then it got cancelled. Shame. I did learn on this project that when it comes to TV, an awful lot of the stuff that gets written never goes anywhere. The best thing from that is to enjoy the writing, learn what you can and reuse anything you can later.
I'm an atheist, but I was raised Catholic, so I remember a lot about the whole schtick even if I don't believe any of it. However, it's really good for horror stories. Let's face it, Frankenstein and Dracula would both be a lot weaker without the religious aspects to them. And so, we went into religion heavily for Bad Blood, which started life as a movie script.
The movie got some interest back in the late 90s, with somebody at a production company giving a push with his bosses. It got some discussion, some alterations but ultimately it was considered too long, too expensive, too controversial in content (as the saying goes, it may not have played in the Mid-West... although I actually think it was very respectful to religion) and so it got canned.
ME TOO
This was a play I wrote with my niece, Chloe (who is also a writer, though she focuses on telly at the moment). It was a play we only had 3 days to write (we found out very late about a competition), so it was never as polished as we'd have liked, so it didn't win the competition we entered it for. I think we made it to the last cut and I'm pretty pleased with what we did in just 3 days. If we'd had time to work it and polish it, I think this would have been great.
SAPPHIRE & STEEL
Back when Big Finish were doing Sapphire & Steel audios, I had the chance to pitch an idea. These ideas never went anywhere - I think the series stopped not long after I sent these, so I don't know if they were ever considered. I quite liked them, though. One was set in the Imperial War Museum and the other - I think better - idea was set in a hospital which was once upon a time an asylum... I think that one could have been something really unsettling. It would also have been the absolute joy of my life to have written for the legend that was David Warner. He was a fabulous actor. I believed him in every role he good. Hero or villain, he made it real. A really great actor.