Douglas's (
Douglas Adams) enormous talent was immediately
apparent to me as soon as I saw his first scripts for
Guía del autoestopista galáctico (1981), which is what led
me to commission him. It was not always easy to see what would work on
screen, but I knew there was enough there, if I could shape it
correctly. He had that amazing imagination, firing off in all
directions, some of which were right for
Doctor Who (1963) and
some of which were following quite different conventions - the jokiness
of the series at the time was always a very fine line which had to be
walked with great care, and Douglas was naturally inclined to leap all
over it, given half a chance. The big problem was that Douglas seemed to have absolutely no idea of shape and
form for narrative drama; and, despite all the sci-fi effects,
Doctor Who (1963) is essentially about telling stories within
a proper, conventional dramatic structure. No matter how brilliant the
imaginative ideas, the basic rules of drama still apply. When this is
forgotten, the series fails.