When Doctor Who fans refer to “lost stories”, they mean one of two things. Usually, they're talking about the episodes which were purged from the BBC Archives during the 1970s, and for which only the soundtrack now exists.

But sometimes, they mean the stories that -- for one reason or another -- never even made it into the recording studio. Some of these were just one-off submissions that were quickly dismissed by the Doctor Who production office of the time. Others enjoyed considerable development until they were finally derailed at the last minute.

It is, of course, difficult to discuss these “unmade stories” in great detail, because often very little documentation remains (or even existed in the first place), especially for those ideas which were immediately discarded. However, we'll use a simple colour code to give you some idea of just how far advanced each proposal was before it finally ended up on the Doctor Who scrap heap:

• Stories with a red banner are those which were never seriously considered by the production office. They were either unsolicited proposals which were never pursued, or ideas developed with a writer but then quickly discarded.


• Stories with a blue banner underwent a degree of nurturing and development by the production office. They made it to the storyline stage and were viewed as having potential for an appreciable period of time.


• Stories with a green banner are those which the production office had every intention of making. These stories had partial or even full scripts written. They may have appeared on a season schedule, had a director assigned, and even had some potential casting undertaken.

Obviously, these three categories are somewhat subjective, but bear in mind that they are merely intended to serve as general guidelines to put these “lost” stories in some perspective. Also, note that stories about which nothing is known -- beyond the name of an author -- will usually not even merit an entry.