The twenty-sixth season of Britishscience fiction television series Doctor Who began on 9 September 1989 with the serial Battlefield, after a regular series of four serials was broadcast finishing with Survival which was the final episode of Doctor Who to air before a 16-year absence from episodic television following its cancellation.
Nicholas Courtney returned to play Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in Battlefield. He first appeared with the Second Doctor in 1968 in The Web of Fear before becoming a recurring character throughout the Second Doctor to the Fifth Doctor and last appearing in The Five Doctors. Anthony Ainley returned to play The Master in Survival, having last appeared in The Ultimate Foe. This was Ainley's final television appearance in the role, though he portrayed the Master one last time in the 1997 computer gameDestiny of the Doctors.
Continuing on from Season 25, Season 26 continued script editor Andrew Cartmel's move to push the series towards a darker approach, focusing this time more on Ace's personal life as well as The Doctor's past and manipulations. This season was broadcast on Wednesdays.
Broadcast
The entire season was broadcast from 6 September to 6 December 1989. The Curse of Fenric was originally intended to be aired before Ghost Light, but was subsequently rescheduled.
Initial planning work had begun on Season 27, intended for the end of 1990, in mid-1989 with Andrew Cartmel and a group of regular writers, including Ben Aaronovitch, Ian Briggs and Marc Platt, discussing potential story ideas. One of the major intentions was to have been the departure of Ace halfway through, which would have seen the character taken to Gallifrey to become a Time Lord. This would also have seen the subsequent introduction of a new companion, planned as an "aristocratic cat burglar". The cancellation of the series meant that no detailed work was undertaken beyond these initial ideas:
Earth Aid by Ben Aaronovitch: Intended to feature a new monster called the "Metatraxi", a race of samurai-like insect warriors, this was planned as a story concerning the politics of humanitarian aid. The only significant detail was the idea of the opening, which would have featured Ace as the captain of a starship.
Thin Ice by Marc Platt: Planned as the serial that would see the departure of Ace, this was to see the return of theIce Warriors and be set in London in 1968.
The third serial was planned as the introduction of the new companion, who would have come across the Doctor in the midst of robbing a country house.
The fourth and final serial was tentatively to be Alixion, by then-newcomer Robin Mukherjee. It would have featured the Doctor playing a series of deadly games on an asteroid, and would have likely led to the Seventh Doctor's regeneration and Sylvester McCoy's departure.
The proposed Season 27 serials, with the exception of Alixion, have been commissioned by Big Finish as part of its range of audio adventures. Although the first series of Doctor Whos return in 2005 is the 27th full series of the show, the production team officially restarted the series numbering from scratch. This was mainly due to the 16-year gap between Season 26 and the new series.
