I'd a have a more collaborative writing room, where a strong series of inter-connecting events are all treated as stand-alone episodes.
And the Next Time teasers are always post credits.
Episode 01: Fear of the DaleksDalek Invasion, with the mysterious Dalek War Lord at the head. A militant extremist of the New Paradigm, he comes to power by damning the impure Children of Davros. He's introduced in a pre-title sequence where he executes a group of impure Daleks. Under his leadership, with his innovative thinking, the Daleks succeed in their invasion. The Doctor, travelling alone, retreats to the shadows.
Episode 02: Reign of the DaleksDystopian Dalek future. The ones who fight back are always found, always punished. Eventually, when even death isn't enough to quell incursions, rebels are punished by being transformed into Dalek mutants, which causes some dismay among the ranks. In the end, the War Lord is revealed to be a surviving degradation from the Time War, who stole the identity of a normal Dalek general (he was amonst those being executed in the opening of part 1).
It pleads that it only wanted what was best for the Daleks, that it saw the only thing they feared more that "the other" were Daleks like him, the "off-kilter", almost indistinguishable enemy. But The Doctor uses this revelation to cause mass-hysteria and mis-trust amongst the Dalek populous. They cannot trust what the Warlord say. How can they tell which of them are the pure Daleks, and which are the filthy degradations, waiting to pounce. The whole city bursts into a Dalek on Dalek murder frenzy.
The Doctor gloats that a society built on the shoulders of fear and paranoia, will always tear itself apart. After the fighting has stopped, and the human rebels have captured/destroyed the straggler Daleks, the Doctor makes his leave, but the Warlord escapes and chases him into the vortex. As a result of the attack, the TARDIS, Doctor and Warlord are all separated in the vortex.
Episode 03: The Gladiators of Shada (extra long 1hr15min episode. No intro.)
The Doctor lands in Shada, which since the fall of the Time Lords, has been converted into a pocket universe for blood sport. The Doctor gets captured, and is mortally wounded by a team member when he blocks their attack on an enemy player. He's cast aside and taken in by the opposing team. He can't regenerate as Shada still contains an anti-regen field. For a moment he seems resigned to drift away, but gains a second wind at the brink of death, deciding there was no way he was going out like this.
Act 3 is a high octane rebellious escape sequence, as he rouses his fellow prisoners to tear down oppressors and escape this hell. They meet resistance, including some who'd prefer to maintain their Gladiatorial life-style, but all are over-come, and he staggers and rages his way to victory. As the ship he and his friend Gladiators leaves the pocket universe, the Doctor goes off to sleep, saying he needs to find a quiet corner to die in. He visibly stops breathing, his whole body becomes a black silhouette surrounded by white light, and he changes.
Crew-members include, Talking Dinosaur, Lila; a dark girl shrouded in ghostly tattered clothes, an Ood, a smaller member or the Fisher King species. That might be it. Other smaller roles.
Episode 04: Stranger in the Midst (New opening with no TARDIS and a view of a space vortex.)
The Doctor failed to explain the regeneration to her friends, and in an erratic post-regeneration state, is unable to properly covey the situation. They all react differently, but eventually decide its best to stick the stranger in the isolation cell and deal with them later. Through some external conflict; space pirates and/or the hazards of navigating space, an escaped Doctor aids the crew and eventually regains their trust. Although younger, and of a lighter, more mellow disposition, she's still the Doctor. Now all she needs, is to find her TARDIS.
Episode 05: Encounters of a Bazaar Kind (I'm not sorry!)
After the group focus of previous episodes, this one focuses on a pit-stop story, where the Doctor and one of her friends explore an alien bazaar mainly to window shop and all the crazy looking bricka-brack and get wrapped up in a secret plot of giant alien bugs who are running the market to acquire the ancient tablet of... Schmebulonx. I dunno, a cult of giant bugs and stuff. That's fun right?
Episode 06: When you Wish Upon a StarThe ship is drawn into a cosmic solar event, and when the Doctor and co. awake, they find them selves in a surreal fantasy world surrounded by child-like imagery. Their host, Cindy Playtime, sets up puzzles and tasks for them to complete playfully taunting them as they manage to stumble through the death traps. Eventually they escape and she throws a tantrum and cries. The group on just manages to escape in the ship and flee the blast radius of the star by the skin of their necks, but sustains enough damage that they have to crash land.
Having sustained critical damage, they are forced to make a crash landing. And ending scene shows Cindy in tears, desperately apologizing to her father. He tells her to turn around, and upon doing so, he un-clips her head and removed the AA-batteries from the back, and chucks the lifeless remains into a furnace, commenting that maybe the next one will do better.
Episode 07: ShipwreckedAfter the more bombastic and fantastical stories, this one goes for a character focused vibe. While initially the groups attitude is discordant, the Doctor tries to get them to embrace events that have lead them here. That they should make the most of their bad situation. Just enjoy being where they are. This rampant optimism is initially met with immense scrutiny, but after exploring the beautiful island, and working together to find food and build shelter, they all come round to the Doctor's accepting attitude.
This leads to the centre piece where the characters open up about some of their history, even some of the more guarded ones. It eventually comes round to the Doctor, who despite her preaching is a little more reluctant to share. She eventually recounts the war, and the loss of her planet. The others are a little lost for words. There's an air of "OK, you win in the bagge department."
The next day a rescue ship respond to the beacon (that the Doctor set up). At first she's a little dismayed by how readily everyone eagerly casts aside the everything they had built over the past few days, but chippers up when she see's two of them holding hands as they re-board the ship.
Episode 08: Planet of RevolutionThe ship is towed to the nearest planet for repair. While awaiting repairs, The Doctor and co are caught in the middle of two extremist groups, the "Submission to Nature" and the "Industrial Agers", with a star-crossed set of lovers caught in the middle. There's also some vague plot to resurrect the Goddess of the planet who will smite the wrong-does.
While the Doctor and friends split and try their hardest to understand the plight, they both just see the ugliness of the extremism. The STN burn books and buildings ritualistically, disregarding the progression of man, when the IAs construct non-stop, cosuming the land and eco-system around them. Despite attempt to ease tension, to get both sides to see that there is no Man/Nature, and they're all part of the same big interconnected system, a war erupts.
There's also this weird fungus weapon the STN use that transforms people into trees, which will be important later.
Episode 09: Planet of EquilibriumAfter attempts to end the fighting, with the help of the star-crossed lovers, the Doctor escapes, and puts all her faith into resurrecting this God, which she suspects to be the conciousness of the planet. They succeed and a giant green ethereal woman appears over the battle-field. She simply says "I am very disappointed in all of you" and sinks back into the ground.
The leader of the STN climbs to the top of a hill over-looking the worn-torn land, and funguses themselves into a tree.
The Doctor and co depart, with the city left in talks, with the lovers now serving as go-between for the two factions. However, over an eerie ending montage seen from the perspective of STN tree, we see the city rise to prosperity, only to fall into war once more. Fighting. Explosions. Nukes. Mass death. A shot of a barran land with one last tree slowly dying.
Then a leaf springs to life. Field of foliage slowly fade in. Bird song is heard. Bitter-sweet end.
Episode 10: Spirit of DegradationThe crew land on a planet that worships the spirit of degradation, with is actually the Dalek Warlord's surviving conciousness caught in the Time Vortex, who's manipulating the locals create a new body for himself and build a new Dalek army. There's deception, bargaining, eventually it all comes to a pass, and the Warlord is allegedly destroyed by the instability of his corporeal form (although he managed to survive by transferring his conciousness to the hard-drive of a space-freighter.)
The Doctor's TARDIS tracker has finally locked onto a signal. Excitedly, she tells her friends about all the adventure they'll have once they find it, but most of them decline, saying they've had enough fighting for one life, with varying degrees of reluctance. Put-out but accepting of their decision, the Doctor parts ways, although at the last second, Lila of them decides to join her.
Episode 11: Extra-terrestrial ExcavationAfter hitching a ride on a Space Freighter, they're find the site where the TARDIS allegedly resides. They end up having to go deeper under-ground to find it through a tunnel entrance with a warning sign they can't read that looks like its been written in crayon. Traversing dangerous tunnels, and the and the local creepy crawlers that inhabit them, it's the characters vs. nature and the danger of isolation, rather than an inherently malicious force.
Despite some close calls, including near drowning, they make it to the light at the end of the tunnel... but it isn't the TARDIS. Cindy says hello, as the screen is englufed in white.
Episode 12: Play Fighting (1hr long special)
The Father of Cindy reveals himself as the Toymaker, whom he created to bring more joy and child-like fun to his play. By entering the tunnels and making it to the end, the Doctor has agreed to take part in his little game (the sign at the entrance was a contract). If the Doctor wins, she will be returned to her TARDIS
While playing the game, Cindy taunts Lila that the Doctor won't survive this because he daddy is too clever. But Lila soon sees that this isn't the same girl as before, which triggers some repressed memories in Cindy.
Towards the end, Cindy remembers all of her sisters that her father discarded, confronts and attacks him, but is struck down. After beating the Toymaker and berating him for the way he selfishly creates and mistreats life, he is cast into the furnace to die by his own daughter. Cindy full-fills their end of the bargain, and opens a portal to the Doctor's TARDIS. She's invited to join them but decides to go her own way.
In the furnace, the Toymaker laughs that he would never have a furnace that would harm him should he ever end up inside it himself. While trying to find purchase to climb out, he here something whisper "father". He soon finds himself surrounded by a deformed mass of all his discarded daughters, scream in agony around him, all encroaching and clawing out to reach him. The sight even terrifies the Toymaker's ancient soul.
The Doctor discovers the TARDIS in pieces from years of neglect, lying in a scrap-heap on a small planetoid. After paying the local owner of the lot with some diamonds from the TARDIS draws (to which he screams "Kids we're going to Disney World... the one that's literally a whole planet!!!") the Doctor and Lila set to work rebuilding the TARDIS using scrap from the yard, set to the tune of "My Back Pages"
The episode ends with a credit sequence finally featuring the TARDIS.
Might have got a little too into that ... looking back at it, I'd probably get fired too for the budget alone >.>
I think it originally came from a forum thread where people proposed different locales of exile for the Third Doctor. My two favourites at the time were Skaro: the Third Doctor holed up with a caravan of Thals near the barren Ocean of Ooze while the Emperor was assisted by the Master from the Dalek City; and Vortis: the Third Doctor encounters and nurses a human Pathfinders-like expedition back to health as they quest across the planet solving ongoing problems between the Menoptera and the Zarbi. I remember thinking, "What would Doctor Who in general have looked like if The Web Planet was one of the few surviving early stories and the new series had wanted to do a 'back to basics' callback to the sixties?" and extrapolated from there.
