HOWZAT

DT I kept my options open as long as I could!

Your run on Doctor Who saw you bring back plenty of old favourites: K-9, the Master, Davros. Anything you didn’t get round to?

DT We certainly ticked rather more fan-boy boxes than I expected. The second episode I shot had (the 1970s companion) Sarah Jane and K-9 in it. My 10-year-old self melted rather when (the Sarah Jane actress) Elisabeth Sladen came in.

RTD I would have loved to have done a Star Trek crossover. The very first year, we talked about it. Then Star Trek finally went off air. Landing the Tardis on board the Enterprise would have been magnificent. Can you imagine what their script department would have wanted, and what I would have wanted? It would have been the biggest battle.

Times Archive, 1976: Dr Who better than a dog's life for Baker

Although the Doctor is 750 years old, it is the change of personality that keeps us interested

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Didn’t George Lucas try to recruit you, Russell, as a writer for his Star Wars TV series?

RTD He came knocking on every single writer’s door in the whole land. And there are British writers working for him on this Star Wars series. But I’m not allowed to say who. The writers are out there now, at Skywalker Ranch (in California). Yesterday, they were allowed into the props room; they were playing with lightsabers. It’s a lovely job. But I’m not going to do a sci-fi series that’s second-rate compared to Doctor Who (hoots of laughter).

DT Do you feel you want to do something with grown-up people having sex?

RTD Yes. And I’d like to write something like that, too. Boom, boom!

DT Woo-hoo! He can still tell ’em, ladies and gentlemen.

Both of you must have been offered other sci-fi reboots.

RTD Oh, I get those. Someone did ask me about (the 1960s television series) Lost in Space, and that could be brilliant. Obviously, I said no. I’m sorry, I’ve done the best. But Lost in Space did make me think for a moment. If they got that right: a family, a robot, a villain, trapped on a spaceship . . .

DT I’ve been offered a sci-fi thing — that I’m not allowed to discuss.

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