The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 14 - Vienna, 1913 - Sudden Death Overtime

Production Notes, Vienna 1913, Sudden Death Overtime

Barry Letts, the Producer, leaned back in his chair. His desk was littered with papers, budgets, schedules, loosely sorted into unwieldy piles. Directly in front of him was the revised script for Vienna 1913, a rainbow of coloured pages, thickened with yellow post it notes sticking out of every corner.

Paul Bernard spawled out on the couch, watching Letts.

"So what do you think?" Bernard asked.

Letts leaned way back in his chair, rubbing his temples. He sighed.

"Sixty, maybe sixty-five minutes," Letts said.

"I timed it out the same way. The script is too long." Bernard replied.

"Episode is timed out for twenty-five minutes. Two parter is fifty minutes. It's too long. God damn it."

Lett's sighed.

"Should we have the others in for this meeting? Ian and David?" he asked.

"Tweedledumb and Tweedledee. They only got us into this mess. What do you think, they'll help us dig it out, or end up digging us deeper," Bernard said.

Barry Letts groaned.

"If we leave them out, we're asking for trouble. They'll just go ballistic."

"Stil, I'd rather not," Bernard said. "Neither of them are professionals, they have no production experience. Suppose we do invite them in. Neither of them have a clue, even if we get them to understand the problem. We're going to have to sort it out for ourselves."

"I don't like it."

"We'll call them in when we have it sorted," Bernard said.

Letts thought it over.

"Maybe," he said. "So what do we do?"

"We have to pack sixty, or sixty-five minutes into fifty. What are our options?"

"Lose the goddammed robot," Letts snapped.

"Ian won't go for that, he shut us down over it, remember. We might as well close down the production and give the BBC back their money."

"Lose the goddammed twins," Letts said.

"David will go mental. He's not going to let that happen."

"Cut ten or fifteen minutes out of the script," Letts sighed.

"I tried that, went through it with a bloody marker. A half dozen versions."

"Yes?"

"I expect you did the same thing, Barry?"

"I was up half the night, yes," Letts conceded.

"How'd you do?"

Letts shook his head. It hadn't gone well.

"Hopeless," Paul Bernard said, "you can't cut out ten or fifteen minutes. It becomes an incoherent mess."

"Yes."

"So what's left?"

"You want me to say it?" Barry asked. "We can't take out Ian and David's garbage. We can't cut ten minutes out of the rest and hope of having a coherent story. So if we can't cut back..."

"Add ten more minutes," Bernard said, "we go to three episodes."

"Which means another complete rewrite of the script, which isn't budgeted, shooting new scenes which aren't budgeted. Our first serial, and we've gone completely into the toilet. Meanwhile the rest of the season goes into a cocked hat. It's a debacle," Letts complained, "it's a compete debacle."