Yellow Fever and How to Cure It

Yellow Fever and How to Cure It is an unproduced three-part Doctor Who adventure serial written by Robert Holmes in 1985 for the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown.[1]

Synopsis

The Doctor shows Peri an image of the Statue of Liberty on the TARDIS scanner. Venturing outside, they find out that they are not in the United States of America, but in a collection of miniature landmarks from around the world situated in Singapore. When walking around, they then noticed that statues begin to move and the Doctor realizes that they’re Autons. The travelers investigate and discover that the evil Rani has allied with the Nestene Consciousness when the Doctor previously encountered them before. She plans on creating new Autons with bullets that can bounce off corners and hands that can melt the nose and face of the adversary. However her villainous commitments are not the only thing that are confined, the Master is also in Singapore and is jealous of the Rani’s actions of working with the Nestene as he himself had previously done and wants to take down her plans. The Doctor and Peri for backup on UNIT with the somewhat retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but the fighting task has just begun in a difficult manner.[2][1]

Production

Producer John Nathan-Turner planned on having to film the story on location footage in Singapore while the BBC were featuring the series Tenko.[3] He and production manager Gary Downie went there in October 19, 1984, then when viewing the footage, whereas Holmes started to commission the writing of the first episode for Yellow Fever and how to cure it (also referred as Yellow Fever) on October 26.[3]

Shortly thereafter, Turner asked Holmes to feature the Autons, the Rani, and the Master to make the story interesting, despite the rights and rewrites of the story given, such as The Two Doctors.[3] All three episodes were commissioned on February 6, 1985,[3] and was intended as the third serial of Season 23,[3][4] and was to be directed by Graeme Harper.[3] However, on February 27, 1985, the BBC announced that the production of Doctor Who was to be suspended on a 18 month hiatus until Spring 1986.[3] The story then was rewritten without the Master, but ultimately abandoned due to budget-cost effectiveness and during the show’s suspension.[3] The story would plan to a semi-serial of the sub-season Trial of a Timelord, but the budget would also be too expensive to film at Singapore.[5]

Afterword

Holmes started work on a story for concluding the season replacement, Trial of a Time Lord, called Time Inc on February 4, 1986, but was unable to create the story idea due to Holmes suffering Hepatitis B, and his story was abandoned when Holmes died of a short illness on May 24, 1986, whilst replaced by The Ultimate Foe by Pip and Jane Baker.[6]

Yellow Fever and How to Cure It remains abandoned without any book or audio adaptations. The story's information can be mostly seen in a documentary on the 2008 DVD of Terror of the Vervoids, Doctor Who: The Lost Season.[4]

Notes

• Nicholas Courtney who portrayed the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart would not return to his role of the character in Doctor Who until 5 years later in the Seventh Doctor serial, Battlefield, then The Sarah Jane Adventures episode, Invasion of the Bane.

• The Autons wouldn’t return to Doctor Who until 20 years later in the revived series 2005 episode, Rose, and they would make their final appearance in the 2010 episode, The Pandorica Opens.

References
  1. Doctor Who: The Eighties- book by Virgin Press- Walker, Stephen James; Stammers, Mark; Howe, David J.- retrieved since 1996
  2. Yellow Fever and how to cure it storyline- Galactical.co.uk
  3. A brief history of Doctor Who stories- The Lost Stories (The Sixth Doctor)- Patrick Sullivan, Shannon
  4. Doctor Who: The Lost Season- DVD documentary from Terror of the Vervoids- retrieved October 2008.
  5. Exploring Doctor Who’s Lost Season (The Original Season 23)- Doctor Who- Wholmes, Harbo- YouTube- retrieved December 5, 2019
  6. Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe- Patrick Sullivan, Shannon- retrieved July 26, 2015
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