During the long history of the British science fiction television program Doctor Who, a number of stories were proposed but never fully produced. Below is a list of unmade serials submitted by recognized professionals. Although the BBC intended to produce the serials, they were not made. Many have since been the subjects of features in Doctor Who Magazine or other professional periodicals and books devoted to the television show.
Such serials existed during the tenure of each of the previous twelve incarnations of the Doctor. The reasons for the serials being incomplete include strike action (which caused the partially filmed Shada to be abandoned), actors leaving roles (The Final Game, which was cancelled after Roger Delgado's death), and the series being put on hiatus twice—once in 1985 and again in 1989—causing the serials planned for the following series to be shelved.
The plots of the unmade serials also vary. The theme of a civilization in which women are dominant was proposed twice—for The Hidden Planet and The Prison in Space. In some cases, elements of unmade serials were adapted or were moved from one serial to another; for example, Song of the Space Whale was intended to be the introduction of Vislor Turlough until it was repeatedly set back, causing Mawdryn Undead to be Turlough's first appearance.
Some unused stories have since been adapted for other media. Shada was made into an audio play of the same name, while several unmade serials have been compiled into an audio series released by Big Finish called The Lost Stories.
First Doctor
Submitted for season 1
The Giants
The first serial of the series, The Giants, was originally to be written by C. E. Webber, the first episode being titled "Nothing at the End of the Lane", and would concern the four main characters (at that point named as the Doctor, Cliff, Lola, and Biddy) being shrunk to a "miniature size" and attacked by giant animals.
The serial established the Doctor's original backstory, revealing that the Time Lord had escaped from "his own galaxy" in the year 5733, seeking a perfect society in the past and that he was pursued by agents from his own time who sought to prevent him from stopping their society from coming into being. By May 1963, a storyline for all four parts had been established, and the first two episodes scripted. However, the story was rejected on 10 June 1963 because the story was too thin on characterisation and that the giant monsters would be clichéd and too expensive to produce. Some of the initial opening script was retained for An Unearthly Child when Anthony Coburn was commissioned to write a replacement on 14 June 1963, though details like those about the Doctor's home were removed.
Around early September 1963, the idea was given to Robert Gould to develop, referred to as the "minuscule" storyline, which was anticipated to be the fourth serial of the season, but this story was later dropped from this slot in January 1964 and Gould abandoned work on the story altogether a month later. In March 1964, the story idea was offered to writer Louis Marks and eventually became Planet of Giants.
The Masters of Luxor
The Masters of Luxor, originally titled The Robots, was a six-part story submitted by Anthony Coburn while he was part of the BBC Script Department and considered for the second serial of Season 1, in which the Doctor faces a self-aware robot which is trying to gain a soul. It was rejected by the production team in mid-September 1963 in favour of Terry Nation's first Dalek serial. Titan Books published the unused scripts in August 1992. Edited by John McElroy, the text of Coburn's script was amended to fit in with accepted conventions – for example, consistent use of the name "Susan", rather than the "Suzanne" and "Sue" used by Coburn. It was later adapted by Nigel Robinson for Big Finish's The Lost Stories in August 2012.