Douglas Adams and the exterminated Doctor Who adventure

This recounts the unfinished 1979 Doctor Who story Shada, written by Douglas Adams and filmed largely in Cambridge with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana. Set around the university, the plot places the Doctor, Romana and retired Time Lord Professor Chronotis against the alien Skagra, who seeks the secrets of the prison planet Shada. Though Adams was a former St John’s College student, permission to shoot there was denied, so crews used Emmanuel and Clare and local spots like Grantchester Meadow; production paperwork and on-location anecdotes survive, including Tom Baker’s difficulty punting on the Cam and being tended by a college porter.

Studio strike action at the BBC halted the planned studio shoots for the end of season 17, with locked and chained studio doors preventing completion and actors already contracted elsewhere, so the story was abandoned in its original form. Fragments later resurfaced: some footage was incorporated into the 1983 anniversary The Five Doctors, and in 2017 Baker and Ward recorded missing lines while animation filled the gaps to create a finished Shada release. Contributors to the Cambridge shoots and memorabilia from design and schedule sheets have kept the myth and local interest alive.