Russell T Davies’ rejected Doctor Who script from the 1980s has finally been realized by Big Finish as a full-cast audio that reveals the roots of the 2005 reboot. “The Mind of the Hodiac” was Davies’ first foray into writing Doctor Who, and contains the seeds of his hugely successful vision for the show. Davies rediscovered the script for part one, and the detailed breakdown of part two back in 2020, and his friend Scott Handcock set to work with Big Finish, adapting it for an audio medium.
Davies originally submitted the speculative script story in 1985, two decades prior to the show’s return, while Colin Baker was the Sixth Doctor. It’s Baker who takes on the role of the Doctor in this adaptation, alongside Bonnie Langford as his companion Mel. Interestingly, it also stars T’Nia Miller, who many fans on social media have tipped for Doctor Who's Fourteenth Doctor.
"The Mind of the Hodiac" combines the conventions of 1980s Doctor Who with Davies' more modern vision for the series. Structurally, "The Mind of the Hodiac" is reminiscent of the Eric Saward/John Nathan-Turner era of the show. There are long scenes of the Doctor in the TARDIS with Mel as they discuss literature and follow the trail of a strange alien signal. Like those late '80s stories, the script seems more interested in the ing characters than the Doctor and his companion. Unlike those stories, however, he inflects these characters with relatable humanity that grounds them in the contemporary reality of the 1980s. It was this element that prompted the BBC script department to advise Davies to write more realistic television about "a man and his mortgage." Ironically, it was this realism and humanity that would define Russell T Davies' era of Doctor Who.
When Davies was promoting Doctor Who season 1, episode 7 "The Long Game," he recalled that the story was based on a rejected idea he'd submitted to the Doctor Who production office during the 1980s. On rediscovering the script in 2020, he itted that he had mised and the submitted script was called "The Mind of the Hodiac" instead. However, "Hodiac" contains the core idea of that season 1 episode. Rather than skewering the world of news media as he would do in 2005, in 1985 Davies instead turned his satirical gaze towards the stock market. The Hodiac of the title is a nefarious alien force that is manipulating the markets to fund his attempts to live longer, and his quest across the galaxy. He's essentially the combination of the writhing Jagrafess and Simon Pegg's Editor from this Christopher Eccleston Doctor Who story. There's even an undercover operative sent in to investigate the Hodiac's scheme, who fares better than Suki in "The Long Game."
The human family at the centre of the story, the Maitlands, are reminiscent of the Tylers. There's an absent patriarch, the mother is trying her best to raise her kids while her daughter dreams of something better. The strength and love of a family unit in the face of extraterrestrial threats is the backbone of the Davies era from the Tylers to the Joneses to the Nobles. This grounding in family and reality began with the Maitlands, created by Russell T Davies in the mid-80s, on “an electric typewriter in a bedsit in Roath, Cardiff.” As Davies prepares to return to the show, "The Mind of the Hodiac" is a welcome reminder of his skills as Doctor Who showrunner.