The twenty-fourth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 7 September with Sylvester McCoy 's first story Time and the Rani , and ended with Dragonfire. Colin Baker was originally due to reprise his role as the Sixth Doctor prior to his dismissal at the request of Michael Grade , who said that a 24th season would only happen if a new actor took the title role. Baker offered to do the entirety of the season and leave the show at its conclusion, but he was only allowed to film a single four-part story ending in his character's demise.
He declined, as he did not want to miss out on other work in the meantime a decision he would later regret. A new logo for the series was introduced with this season along with a new opening credits sequence that moved away from the "starfield" motif introduced in As with the opening sequence from the Sixth Doctor era, the Seventh Doctor's opening does not use a static image of the Doctor, but rather one with limited animation : the image of the Doctor starts as a scowl, then fades to a wink followed by a smile.
Episode four mistakenly uses an early version of this sequence, which gives the Doctor's face a shadowy look which producer John Nathan-Turner felt was not prominent enough. Keff McCulloch arranged the new opening theme. It was used until the end of the regular run of the series. The new theme arrangement marked the first time since the First Doctor 's era that the theme's "middle eight" section was regularly heard during the opening credits the previous two arrangements used the middle eight during the closing credits only.
The departure of Bonnie Langford saw plans to introduce a new companion. However, owing to Langford being undecided as to when she would actually leave the show, producer John Nathan-Turner asked writers Malcolm Kohll and Ian Briggs to formulate characters that could be used as potential companions.
Kohll designed a character in his script, titled The Flight of the Chimeron eventually to take shape as Delta and the Bannermen , called Ray. Initially, it appeared that The Flight of the Chimeron would be the final serial of the season, which would see Ray leave with the Doctor. However, by the time it came to production and scheduling for the season, Kohll's serial had been swapped in the running order with Ian Briggs' which became Dragonfire , and led to Briggs' creation, who eventually became Ace, taking Mel's place with the Doctor.
