Shada is the legendary ‘lost’ masterpiece of Douglas Adams, a story that survived industrial strikes and cancellation to achieve mythical status among science fiction fans. It is a quintessential Adams adventure, deftly balancing high-concept sci-fi—featuring a universe-conquering sphere and a prison planet with the cosy, dusty eccentricity of a Cambridge professor’s study. The narrative captures the Fourth Doctor at his most bohemian and brilliant, offering a witty, intellectual caper that proves some stories are simply too good to remain lost in time.
We wanted the Shada title to do more than just spell a name; we wanted it to encapsulate the ‘Whoniverse.’ The design visualises the central paradox of Doctor Who: futuristic sci-fi concepts grounded in a nostalgic, analogue world.
To capture the essence of ‘wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff,’ we treated the typography as a piece of physical machinery. The letters borrow visual cues from the show’s tactile origins—rocker switches, metal control panels, and glowing oscilloscopes. It’s a typographic tribute to the era when big, clunky tech was the height of sophistication
Long before Hitchhiker’s Guide became a global phenomenon, Douglas Adams was trying to break into the Whoniverse. It wasn’t an instant success; by 1976, he had seen several story ideas rejected, including a film concept called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen (which he famously recycled later for his novel Life, the Universe and Everything).
But talent wins out. After his Hitchhiker’s pilot script impressed editor Anthony Read, Adams was commissioned to write The Pirate Planet. He eventually took the reins as script editor for Season 17 in 1979, penning three iconic serials for Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor:
- The Pirate Planet: The second serial in the massive Key to Time arc.
- City of Death: Written with producer Graham Williams under the pseudonym “David Agnew.”
- Shada: The legendary “lost” episode. Filming was abandoned due to strike action, leaving it unaired until a completed animation was released in 2017.
The “Lost” Legacy Adams was notoriously protective of his Who work. He declined lucrative offers to novelize these stories during his lifetime, and he had a complicated relationship with Shada in particular. He dismissed the script as a “patchwork” and was reportedly furious when the existing footage was released on home media in 1992—rumor has it he only signed the permission forms by accident.
In true Adams fashion, he requested his name be removed from that release and donated his fee entirely to Comic Relief. It wasn’t until 2012 that Shada was finally novelized by Gareth Roberts, followed by James Goss’s adaptations of City of Death and The Pirate Planet soon after.
