Dr Who 'Shada' Audio Commentary

Shada is a story from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by the series' script editor Douglas Adams, it was intended as the final serial of the 1979–80 season (season 17) but was never originally completed, owing to strike action at the BBC during studio recording.

The BBC released a completed version of Shada in 2017, with missing dialogue newly recorded by the original cast, using the same audio equipment employed in the initial shoot, and animated by the team that undertook the reconstruction of the 1966 serial The Power of the Daleks.[2][3] This version was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2017, and broadcast on American television in 2018.

A new version with enhanced animation and split into six episodes was released on 20 December 2021, as part of a Season 17 Blu-ray boxset.[4][5]

Previous attempts to present the story include a narrated reconstruction for BBC Video; a re-imagined audio play by Big Finish Productions, also offered with basic Flash imagery on BBCi and the BBC's Doctor Who website; and a novelisation by Gareth Roberts, based on the latest shooting scripts, with the author's own additions.[6]

Synopsis
The Fourth Doctor answers a distress signal from Professor Chronotis, a Time Lord posing as a professor at St Cedd's College, Cambridge who lent a Gallifreyan tome to his student Chris Parsons. The Doctor retrieves the book while Chronotis dies after his mind is extracted by the sphere of a mad scientist named Skagra, living long enough to warn Romana, K9, and Parsons of them and Shada. The Doctor locates Skagra's cloaked spacecraft, only for his companions to be captured while Skagra has his sphere extract the Doctor's mind to decode the book before taking Romana in the TARDIS to his carrier ship and Krarg creations. But the Doctor survives his ordeal with his mind intact and has the ship's computer release Chris and K9 and take them to a space station Skagra previously occupied. The group finds Skagra's discarded colleagues and learn he is after a Time Lord named Salyavin.

Back on Earth, Clare Keightley accidentally revives Chronotis whose chambers are revealed as a TARDIS, the Professor explaining the book is a key to the prison planet Shada where Salyavin is held. Chronotis and Clare repair the TARDIS to reach Skagra's carrier, saving the Doctor and Chris after Skagra decodes the book and reveals his intent to absorb Salyavin's mind and use its telepathy to unite all life into a single Universal Mind.

The group reaches Shada as Skagra releases the prisoners, and Chronotis is revealed as Salyavin with Skagra extracting his mind and turning the prisoners and Chris into his thralls. Reminded that the Universal Mind contains a copy of his brain, the Doctor builds a telepathy helmet to wrest control from Skagra while the Krarg are destroyed. Skagra ends up a prisoner in his own ship while the Doctor returns the restored prisoners to Shada and parts ways with Chronotis, musing over Chronotis' exploits being exaggerated while expecting a similar treatment within two centuries.

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