Season 30

**Season 30** of *Doctor Who* ran between 3 July 1993 and 27 November 1993. It starred Richard Griffiths as the Eighth Doctor, Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield & Samuel West as David Lyons. The season opened with *Conflict of the Daleks* and concluded with *The Fateful Election.*

This season specially marked the thirteeth anniversary of *Doctor Who* and was followed by the 30th Anniversary Special, *The Champion of Time*.

 Overview

By 1993, Doctor Who was rising in popularity and the general public were taking interest in the show for the first time in many years, Griffiths’ Doctor was extremely popular among fans and the Fraser and Aaronovitch era was highly praised, however 1993 was a special year for Doctor Who as it was 30 years since the show began and Fraser and Aaronovitch would make this season their last.

In 1993, Jonathan Powell left as controller of BBC1 and Alan Yentob took over, Yentob didn’t resent Doctor Who unlike Grade and Powell and instead saw the importance of the show and gave it his full support. Even though Doctor Who had just reached a high point at the end of the last season Ian Fraser and Ben Aaronovitch announced that they would not stay on for Season 31, they said that now was the right time to leave and they didn’t want to over stay their welcome on the show, they said they’d pretty much rescued the show from the mess it was and they didn’t want to be responsible for it going downhill again.

Due to it being the 30th Anniversary year, the BBC made three audio dramas these were ‘The Universe Paradox’, ‘Warriors of War’ and ‘The Paradise of Death’ starring Richard Griffiths and Lisa Bowerman and Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney, along with this more new merchandise was made including badges, card games and the resurrection of the Doctor Who annual.

This season was seen by Fraser as a test, it starts off with a companion introduction story as well as the last chapter in the Dalek civil war arc, a psychological thriller inside the TARDIS, an alternate universe with the Silurians, a living god from the time of the ancient Aztecs, a prequel to Battlefield, a political story on Gallifrey and the 30th Anniversary special.

This season would feature regular and new writers to write these stories: Colin Brake would write the first story introducing the new companion and ending the Dalek Civil War, Marc Platt would write the story completely set inside the TARDIS, Jim Mortimore would write the Alternate Silurian Earth story, Kate Orman would write the third story, Script Editor Ben Aaronovitch would write the prequel to his Season 26 story and newcomer Russell T Davies would write the finale of the season before Ben Aaronovitch would write the 30th.

The 30th Anniversary was the biggest problem Fraser and Aaronovitch were facing due to story ideas and former Doctors returning, the most obvious story being passed around as a potential 30th Anniversary special was ‘The Dark Dimension’ which would’ve been set in an alternate timeline, where the Fourth Doctor never survived his deadly fall in Part 4 of Logopolis, thus meaning Doctors 5, 6, 7 & 8 never existed. The story would be cantered around an older Fourth Doctor, the Brigadier & Bernice and the new companion trying to fix the universe as well as defeating whoever caused history to go wrong. This special, had it gone any further, would’ve been written by Adrian Rigelsford but it would’ve been to expensive to film and Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker refused to return unless they were given a bigger role with Tom Baker being given most of the screen time, Destination: Holocaust was also suggested which would’ve been written by David Roden and would’ve seen the Doctor reuniting with the Brigadier and facing the Cybermen but Fraser wasn’t particularly favourable of it, other ideas that were suggested were ‘Ascend from Darkness’ and ‘The Eyes of Death’. What was eventually decided upon was a story about Daleks attacking the Doctor’s timeline and Doctors 3-8 trying to restore the timelines, originally the story had a variety of different titles which were ‘Time’s Champion’, ‘The Darkness of Time’, ‘The Champion of Time’ and ‘The Lords of Gallifrey’, Fraser eventually decided that ‘The Champion of Time’ would be the better title for the 30th.

This season would see the introduction of a new companion as Fraser thought there would be a lot of potential for that sort of thing and so Aaronovitch asked Colin Brake to write the Dalek story involving the introduction of a new companion, in the end Brake and Aaronovitch created the character of Sergeant David Lyons and soon Samuel West was given the job.

## Cast

* The Doctor - Richard Griffiths
* Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
* David Lyons - Samuel West

## Aliens and enemies

* The Daleks
* The TARDIS Entity
* The Silurians
* The Sea Devils
* Huitzilin
* Morgaine
* The Destroyer
* Arkadian

## Adaptations and merchandising

### Home media

#### VHS

* Conflict of the Daleks
* The Terror Inside
* Blood Heat
* The Left-Handed Hummingbird
* The Battle of Merlin
* The Fateful Election
* The Champion of Time

### Novels

* Conflict of the Daleks
* The Terror Inside
* Blood Heat
* The Left-Handed Hummingbird
* The Battle of Merlin
* The Fateful Election
* The Champion of Time