A Matter of Time: The Caves of Androzani

ORIGINAL BROADCAST: 16/03/1984

Twenty-six years ago today, Peter Davison starred for the last time as the fifth Doctor in his official tenure as the lead role. He would reprise the role of the Doctor in two charity specials, ‘Dimensions in Time’ and ‘Time Crash’. ‘The Caves of Androzani’ remains Davison's favourite story from his era, and he has said in interviews that if there had been more scripts like, he would have stayed for a fourth season.

The working title of this story was ‘Chain Reaction’. Producer John Nathan-Turner changed the title to ‘The Doctor's Wife’ on his planning board, as he suspected that information was leaking from his office to the fans. The fan press began to report the fake title, confirming his suspicions. This story was the first time former script editor Robert Holmes had written for the series since The Power of Kroll, as Nathan-Turner had been keen to use new writers to the show instead.

The Fifth Doctor's regeneration, like the Fourth Doctor's, features a flashback sequence of his previous companions. However, for this regeneration, it was decided that special recordings of the companions should be used instead of stock footage. This required Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Gerald Flood and Anthony Ainley to return in cameos. As he sees images of these companions, Peter Davison’s last word is ‘Adric’.

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