Dr Who's Greatest Adventure (unproduced theatrical film)
Dr Who's Greatest Adventure was an unproduced film treatment by Milton Subotsky, written around 1985 as a proposed follow-up to the 1960s Dalek films starring Peter Cushing.
Although initially revealed by Subtosky through an interview with the DWB fanzine in 1990, its existence was not widely known until Subotsky's sons, Sergei and Dmitri, brought a copy to a British Film Institute screening of the Dalek films in 2022, after which interviews and DWM 580 revealed many further plot details.
Plot
On the coast of Great Britain, the Doctor's TARDIS materialises, twice, and a different Doctor emerges from each, neither seemingly recognising the other. The first, physically younger Doctor calls himself "a Dr. Who who's all action" while the physically older second one describes himself as "one with brains". They realise they have both been summoned by an unknown third party to investigate a mystery.
The Doctors discover the body of a woman on the beach, mauled in an attack, and discover a nearby secret research facility guarded by the British military. Quickly arrested for trespassing, the Doctors get off lightly by pretending to be marine biologists to their supervisor, Captain Craven. Eventually, they find themselves having to defend the base from a race of giant intelligent crabs who attack the humans.
After the attack, some of the survivors, including Colonel Goode, Lieutenant Parker, a sergeant, scientist Hamish McPhail, and the research leader Sir William Grisedale, team up with the Doctors, although the older Doctor briefly goes by the monicker of "Doctor Gruhgruh" to avoid confusion. They later learn that the extremely high frequencies emitted by the base's plans to develop an underwater radio and radar system have caused genetic mutations in the local crab life.
The younger Doctor goes diving to witness the crabs, accidentally revealing his unearthly nature in the process. The crabs then launch a series of further attacks; against the military on the beach, a group in an inland farmhouse, and even killing Grisedale when he attempts to escape to London.
Both Doctors and the remaining members of the group board a submarine to track the crabs with McPhail's invention, while the older Doctor deduces that the crabs communicate through ultrasonic waves also utilised by the boats. With this knowledge, the invention is modified so the military and the older Doctor can attack the crabs directly, although Parker and McPhail are killed in the process. The additional ultrasonics leave the crabs insane and vulnerable to a coordinated land, air, and sea attack, wiping out all but their enormous leader, nicknamed King Crab. The younger Doctor confronts King Crab directly with a harpoon and defeats it, ending the threat but only barely surviving the encounter.
With their work with the military complete, the Doctors return to their TARDISes and bid a fond farewell, although the younger Doctor jokes that he could have saved the day without his other self's help. After briefly confusing which TARDIS is which, the two dematerialise, onto further adventures.
Production
The script, written by Edward and Valerie Abraham, was actually a reworking of a Guy N. Smith horror film adaptation, based on the 1976 novel, Night of the Crabs. Producer Milton Subotsky bought the film rights to the book in July 1977, with interest from Oscar-nominated director Michael Anderson, and later commissioned the Abrahams to adapt it. By January 1979, the film, since retitled King Crab, was touted to potential production companies, but to no avail. After another rejection in September 1984, Subotsky got the idea to adapt the film into a Doctor Who adventure, following his previous work on the 1960s Dalek films.
That same month, Subotsky's company, Amicus Productions, contacted BBC Enterprises about the film pitch, now under the working title of The Lossiemouth Affair, planning to start production in February 1985. Despite this, it was not until June 1985 that Subotsky finished rewriting the screenplay, gaining the title of Dr Who's Greatest Adventure, and contacted the Abrahams for further suggestions.
Subotsky planned for the Doctor Who theme from the TV series to be used in the film, unlike in the Dalek films, and for an opening caption to set the scene: "Dr. Who is a Time Lord who travels through Time and Space in a machine that looks like an old British police box. Dr. Who takes different human forms and appears whenever needed." However, despite pitching four separate films including Dr Who's Greatest Adventure to film distributor Thorn EMI, all four were rejected in October 1985. By July 1986, Subtosky continued pitching the film to American producers in both its original and Doctor Who versions, but neither were ever made.
Being first publicly revealed through and interview with Subtosky to the DWB fanzine in 1990, he explained how he still had an interest to create the film with an estimated budget of £15 million, or at least attempt to make an animated series out of the show. He detailed how the film would have featured two Doctors: an older version intended as either Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker, and a younger one played by a new actor. Subotsky had previously wanted to cast his own young Doctor for fear the then-current Peter Davison may have left before the film came out, and later due to a personal distaste towards Davison and Colin Baker's portrayals. In the King Crab script, the two Doctors were originally a romantic couple from the University of Cambridge, Cliff and Pat, with Tipp-Ex used to replace Cliff's name with the younger Doctor and Pat's with the older Doctor, referred to as "DW1" and "DW2" throughout. Fifteen new pages were added to the script to show the Doctors arriving.[1]
In January 1991, Subotsky enquired one final time to the BBC about film rights to Doctor Who, indicating his continued interest in getting Dr Who's Greatest Adventure off the ground, but the film never progressed further due to his death on 27 June 1991.
