Campaign (unreleased novel)

Campaign was an unpublished novel by Jim Mortimore, intended to be released as part of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. The story would have featured the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Susan meeting Alexander the Great. An Alexander the Great historical featuring the First Doctor was first floated in 1964 as a television story, and the premise would eventually be realised in 2010 in audio form with Farewell, Great Macedon.

Although Campaign had been commissioned and announced, it was cancelled at the last minute; the publisher rejected Mortimore's submitted draft, which differed greatly from the story he had pitched. Rather than the conventional historical story he had promised, the finished Campaign was set inside the TARDIS in the apparent aftermath of the time-travellers' meeting with Alexander (who fathered a child with Susan). It was also an experimental piece, rendering the collapse of Time the characters were experiencing through the style and backstory changing from chapter to chapter, and sometimes paragraph to paragraph.

Moreover, the final chapter revealed that none of the events of the story had actually taken place in the real world, but were actually a highly advanced virtual reality game the Doctor and his companions played within the TARDIS. A similar twist was used for the Doctor Who Magazine comic story Happy Deathday with the Eighth Doctor.

Behind the scenes

• Mortimore later self-published his rejected draft of Campaign, with a subtitle of An Adventure in Time and Space, with the proceeds going to charity. However, as that release was unlicensed, it is outside the scope of this wiki.