"Divided by! Divided by! Zero. Zero."

Doctor Who fandom and its attendant pseudo academe have long had our own argot. Its uses vary. There are, for example, in-jokes undetectable outside a certain grouping, such as a knowing use of the word “erstwhile”. There are also genuinely useful bits of terminology that cut down on the need for explanations. We all understand instinctively that “missing episodes” are episodes of Doctor Who that were made and shown in the 1960s and for complex reasons of archive retention no longer exist to be viewed. We also understand that the near synonymous term “lost stories” refers to Doctor Who stories that were scripted or proposed or in some way intended to be part of the television series, but which never made it to production in the first place.1

In truth, that latter category contains multiple subgroups of its own, from Shada2 to The Menday Fault3 and every possible development stage in-between. Many of those in-between “lost stories”, themselves ranging from a bunch of serials that would have reached the screen in 1986 had Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell not disliked Doctor Who, to pitches made by established television writers that were abandoned at some point in the writing process, have been produced as audio dramas. It’s an example of one of the in-betweens that I want to have a quick look at today. An in-between which has not ended up as part of what’s probably my personal favourite Big Finish subrange. A lost “lost story” if you like.

The story in question is Project 4G aka Project Zeta-Sigma aka Project Zeta Plus, a synopsis for which was commissioned by script editor Christopher H Bidmead from writers John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch on the 15th August 1980 under the first of those three titles. This was a little over a month after the pair’s earlier serial Meglos had completed recording, and presumably indicates confidence in their work on it. The storyline also inspired sufficient confidence that not only were scripts commissioned on 7th October, but the story was scheduled as the first production of the new recording block, meaning it would be the first full story for Peter Davison’s Doctor, after his momentary, wordless appearance at the end of Logopolis.

By the new year Bidmead had moved on, and the role of script editor was being covered by Antony Root, and by this point whatever confidence the production office had had in the project - now referred to internally as Project Zeta-Sigma - was slowly draining away. On 13th February, Root sent drafts scripts to various BBC design departments, despite being personally unhappy with them. With producer John Nathan-Turner on an extended holiday4 Root sought the advice of Barry Letts. Letts had been Doctor Who’s producer from 1969 to 1974, and remained with the BBC thereafter. In 1980 and 1981 he had been given the title of Executive Producer on Doctor Who, in deference to Nathan-Turner’s relative inexperience, although Letts’ specific duties were vague.5