JOB OFFER

Douglas’s four episodes were noted for their witty dialogue and clever ideas, which is probably why script editor Anthony Read recommended Douglas as his replacement. This was to be some (much-needed at the time) full-time employment for just over a year. In his notebook, Douglas appears to have written a draft paragraph (below) for the formal BBC job application. The cleaned-up text, once the crossings out have been taken into account, reads: “Though I do have a lot of writing work on my plate at the moment, and quite clearly would like to continue to write, I really need the challenge of a practical job of work to do working with other people and helping to develop other people’s ideas as well as my own.”

Of course, he landed the job successfully and took up the reins in October 1978. However, once he was immersed in the practicality of writing for Dr Who, Hitchhiker’s Guide was also taking off – and the two weren’t compatible. Douglas left the BBC’s permanent role in late 1979 to focus on his own endeavours.

Years later Douglas grew weary of answering fans’ esoteric questions about his time on Doctor Who. ‘The whole point of Doctor Who,’ he joked, ‘is that if you take the second letter of all the episodes over the last twenty years of broadcast and run them together backwards, the original lost city of Atlantis is revealed.’ But Douglas reserved a lot of affection for Tom Baker, the actor playing the role of The Doctor back in his day. They worked together again in 1990 on Douglas’s fantasy documentary about the future of interactive media, Hyperland. In 1995 he said of Baker, ‘He’s one of the world’s great madmen and I thoroughly enjoyed his company, I must say.’