Doctor Who: Season 26B

By 1995, Doctor Who was experiencing a wave of popularity it had not seen since the Tom Baker era, with Richard Griffiths in the title role since 1991. The show had been impressively saved by Producer Ian Fraser and Script Editor Ben Aaronovitch who both took over in 1991 and left after the 30th Anniversary The Champion of Time aired in 1993.  The reigns of the show were passed onto Producer Stephen Garwood and Script Editor Colin Brake who decided to make the show a lot like Doctor Who's American Rival: Star Trek.Due to Garwood and Brake making the show like Star Trek the show's popularity grew immensely with Griffiths' incarnation rivalling Pertwee and Baker, however Griffiths had announced his departure after the conclusion of Season 31 and the Eighth Doctor's final season was now in development. Garwood and Brake now had a big question to answer: Who would play the Ninth Doctor? Many actors were considered including Rowan Atkinson, Robert Lindsay, Ian Richardson, Ti

  Season 31 saw Doctor Who’s success grow more and more with it competing against Star Trek and Garwood and Brake not focusing too much on Earth, however Season 32 would be the end of the TARDIS team and Garwood and Brake would have to search for a new companion and a new Doctor for 1996. Before the season started, Richard Griffiths, Lisa Bowerman and Samuel West all decided to leave as they all felt there time was up and all good things must come to end. This season would continue to focus more on alien worlds as Doctor Who continued to compete with Star Trek, Garwood and Brake decided this as they thought it’d be good for Doctor Who to be more like Sci-Fi instead mostly focusing on Earth. This season writers included Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss, Nicholas Briggs, Kate Orman, Marc Platt, Russell T Davies and former script editor Ben Aaronovitch. The Lupum Ruins By Paul Cornell Aired: 22nd July - 5th August This story would see the Doctor, Bernice and David land outside the Ruins of Lup

  By 1993, Doctor Who was luring back the general public with Richard Griffiths being hugely popular with the general public but now Doctor Who had a TV rival from America pulling in British audiences: Star Trek, the new producer Stephen Garwood and script editor Colin Brake had a lot of work to do to set up their new era and try a make Doctor Who more like Star Trek. Garwood and Brake decided that Doctor Who would start to focus more on alien worlds as they were competing with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager which would start the following year, apart from change of setting of stories nothing really changed with Doctor Who apart from a budget increase and increase of stories from 6-7. This season would see more Sci-fi like stories, Gary Russell would write a story which would see the return of Peladon, Russell T Davies would write a story about the Nazis winning the Second World War, Kate Orman would write a story where democracy fails

  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 downhi