The Trial of a Time Lord

Notes

• Although each of the separate segments has been given a name by the fans, based upon working titles, the story is only ever credited on screen as The Trial of a Time Lord. This leads to the single story being 14 episodes long, making it the longest ever Doctor Who story (although technically The Key to Time story arc from Season 16 is longer, it is always presented on screen as six separate stories).See: Doctor Who story title controversy
• Many fans have attempted to draw an analogy between the Doctor's trial and the programme itself which, at the time, was under threat of cancellation (although the BBC has on many occasions denied that this was the case).
• Producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward drew inspiration from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol; in that the Doctor sees evidence from the past, present and future.
• A frequently used in-joke throughout this serial is that during the showing of the evidence, the Doctor interjects with protests about the overly violent nature of the scenes. Violent scenes were a frequent criticism of the previous season.
• The opening shot of the TARDIS arriving at the space station was the most expensive effects shot in the series' history at the time, costing more than £8,000 for a forty-five second model sequence using the most advanced motion-controlled camera available.
• A decade after the story first aired, special effects footage of the TARDIS arriving at the space station, taken from the opening moments of episode one, was used in television promotions for the 1996 FOX Network television movie, Enemy Within.
• The story is notorious for having 11 of the 13 cliffhanger endings to the episodes fade out on a close-up of Colin Baker's face. The two exceptions are episode 3, which has a character firing a crossbow in the Doctor's direction, and episode 9 which ends with the Vervoids emerging from their pods.
• Features guest appearances by Joan Sims, Tony Selby, Honor Blackman, Brian Blessed and Christopher Ryan. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.