IMPORTANT: Attention Doctor Who & Douglas Adams Fans

I’ve just noticed that BBC7 – the British radio station that simulcasts on an Internet stream – recently re-aired the Doctor Who episode series “Shada”.

Shada was originally a never made six episode series from 1980 when Tom Baker was starring as the fourth Doctor. And who wrote many of the episodes starring Tom Baker (including this Shada)? Why none other than the late great Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame. Shada was actually Douglas’s last contribution to the Doctor Who TV universe. And finally on New Years Day 2006, it saw (heard) the light (sounds) of day in the shape of made for radio drama aired world wide on BBC7. And this week it was rebroadcast – DON’T MISS IT!!! One word of warning, the plot has been transposed to take place during the eighth incarnation of the Doctor – Paul McGann. Oh – and K9 is there too! 🙂 It’s funny, Shada Episode One starts with The Doctor (McGann) giving with a brief description of the scenes from The Five Doctors when he was in a different incarnation (Baker). It’s just strange. (I guess you had to be there….)

Parts of this episode were filmed with Tom Baker but it was never completed. In fact, if you’ve seen the movie “The Five Doctors” all of the Tom Baker scenes in that movie were original footage made for the Shada episode. “Shada” was first aired over the Christmas holidays last year.

I know it is late notice but today and tomorrow, you can go to BBC7’s “Listen Again” page and scroll down to the 7th Dimension section at 18:00 to see the listing for Shada. It requires Real Player, but you can just click the “Listen Again” link or icon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/sunday/

On Sunday, you can still cheat and listen to the show by connecting directly to the RAM file any time right up till 11:59:59pm London time. Shortly after that, the second episode in the Shada series will be found at that link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/sunday/rams/0000.ram

If you’ve stumbled on this post after this date and have missed the first episode, send me an email. I’ll commiserate with you. Or you can check out the online comic version of Shada that was written for the now defunct Cult BBC pages. You need to have Flash to enjoy the visual and audio extravaganza: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/one/index.shtml

You can also read more about the episode plot here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/shada/plot.shtml

Favorite Quote: “Tea?” “Yes please.” “Milk?” “Yes” “One lump or two?” “Two please.” “Sugar?” “What???”

BBC7’sEpisode Summary:

DOCTOR WHO: SHADAWritten by Douglas Adams. Directed by Nicholas Pegg. Produced by Big Finish Productions.
Saturday December 10 at 8pm

The good Doctor made a comeback to TV in 2005. But this Douglas Adams adventure has made a comeback on radio instead! Starring Paul McGann, Susannah Harker and Edward Fox.
The Doctor has a spot of unfinished business. Reunited with his old friends Romana and K9, he answers a summons from Professor Chronotis, a retired Time Lord now living the academic life in a Cambridge college.

But the Doctor isn’t the only visitor to Cambridge. Somewhere in the city is the sinister alien Skagra, who is intent on stealing an ancient and mysterious book brought to Earth by the Professor many years before.

What is Skagra’s diabolical masterplan? And who or what is the mysterious Shada? To discover the truth, the Doctor and his friends must embark on a perilous journey that will take them from the cloisters of Cambridge to the farthest reaches of deep space, risking deadly encounters with a sentient spaceship, the monstrous Krargs, and an ancient Time Lord criminal called Salyavin. As the Doctor soon discovers, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance…