‘This is my favourite kind of jazz, straight blowing.’
Doctor Who faced, rather than celebrated, its twenty-fifth birthday with a reduced episode count, an even further reduced budget and with a question mark hanging over its very existence.
Silver Nemesis was the official anniversary story, a curious, thematically complex mix of Cybermen, sorcery, jazz and chess, with the Doctor facing off against fugitive Nazis against a backdrop of then contemporary England in all its opulence and decay.
This Black Archive looks at the story’s uniquely troubled production circumstances, and how a creatively united production team overcame the odds to achieve significant creative renewal, and pointed the way to its as yet unimagined far future.
