Doctor Who Vs. Marple: Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Julia McKenzie made her debut as Jane

Marple in the fourth run of ITV Studio's

Agatha Christie mysteries, succeeding Geraldine McEwan in the title role.

The Queen of Crime's fifteenth crime

novel (which did not actually feature

Marple) was published in the UK in

1934, then issued as The Boomerang

 Clue in America a year later.

The story was first dramatised by LWT

in 1980, and co-starred Joan Hickson

before she began her own definitive

portrayal of Marple for the BBC. A

new TV version (a co-production from Mammoth Screen) debuted on Britbox

in April 2022. This adaptation (which premiered in America in July 2009,

then only aired in the UK two years later) was shown on ITV3 today - it starred Georgia Moffett, Mark Williams, Natalie Dormer, Rik Mayall,

 and fourteen Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Samantha [Jane] Bond (Sylvia here; Julia in A Murder is Announced, 1985; Stella in The Adventure of the Cheap Flat; Narrator of Inside the Mind of Agatha Christie, 100 Years of Poirot and Miss Marple, Agatha Christie's England & The Hollow, 2020) was Mrs. Wormwood in The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane and Enemy of the Bane, then reprised for Big Finish's The Revenge of Wormwood (2023), and also voiced Mother Baroque for The Scapegoat (2009)
• Sean Biggerstaff (Attfield) voiced Chris Parsons for Shada (2003), Snabb/Brother Tangent for The Skull of Sobek, the Ruhk for Time Reef (both 2008), Ross Nicholson for Masters of Earth (2014), Moros for Enemy Lines (2016), Callum Volta for Cold Vengeance (2017), Noah for Jenny 1 (2018), Jenny 2 (2021) and Prism (2022), and David Campbell for After the Daleks
• Richard [David] Briers (Wilson here; Binster in Murder She Said) was the Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers
• Helen [Margaret] Lederer (Marjorie) voiced Patricia Ryder for Death in Blackpool (2009)
• Freddie [Samson Robert Morice] Fox (Savage) was Kid in The Interstellar Song Contest
• Basher Savage (George) voiced Yanikov for Earth Aid (2011)
• Siwan Morris (Florrie) was Maebh's Mum for In The Forest of the Night
• Nicholas Hopkins was also assistant director on Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways
• for Alex Kaye-Besley see Murder is Easy
• for Tom Lucy see At Bertram's Hotel
• for Sean Clayton and Nigel Squibb see The Body in the Library
• for Gavin Walters see A Pocket Full of Rye

Doctor Who Vs. Spooks: Code 9

David Wolstencroft, the American-born TV writer
and creator of the long-running Spooks (2002
to 2011), conceived this spin-off drama series
for BBC Three.
Again produced by Kudos, the six-part thriller
was intended to offer a new, "more maverick
perspective" for a younger audience.

Despite it's origins, the new series held no
character or plot connections to the parent 
programme, and instead focused on the story
of six young MI5 recruits. 

Set in 2012, the show opened in the after-
math of a nuclear attack on the London
Olympics. The subsequent evacuation of the
capital and the South East of England meant
that the government had relocated to
Manchester, and new MI5 agents were now
tasked with preventing further terror
attacks.

Spooks: Code 9 originally aired from August
2008, then was repeated on BBC HD in June
2009, and latterly on Forces TV in February 2018 - it featured Georgia
Moffett (pictured as Kylie), and a total of sixteen other Doctor Who cast
and crew connections:

• Anthony Flanagan (Tom) was Orin Scannell in 42
• Big Finish actor Warren Brown (Luke) voiced Stephen Gibson for Industrial Evolution (2011), Rufus Stone and To'Koth for Signs and Wonders (2014), and Lieutenant Sam Bishop for UNIT: Extinction (2015), UNIT: Shutdown, UNIT: Silenced (both 2016), UNIT: Assembled (2017), UNIT: Cyber Reality and Lady Christina (both 2018) - he was also Jake Willis in Praxeus
• Andrew Knott (Rob) voiced James O'Meara for 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men (2013), and Sean Casey for The White Room (2014)
• Lorraine Burroughs (Simone) was Thalina in The Fires of Pompeii
• Lucinda Dryzek (Alice) was Melissa in School Reunion
• Chris Finch (Conlan) was a Time Lord Soldier in The Day of the Doctor and the Prequel: The Last Day
• Eva Pope (Hamilton) voiced Nia Brusk for Army of Death (2011)
• Darryl Clark (Norris) was Officer Will in Resolution
• Dean Forster was also a stuntman on The Christmas Invasion, New Earth, Smith and Jones, Voyage of the Damned, The Next Doctor, Cold Blood, A Good Man Goes to War, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood
• Crispin Layfield was also the stunt co-ordinator on the revived series (from Smith and Jones to the present)
• sound editor Helen Dickson was foley editor on all thirteen episodes of Series 5, and twelve instalments of The Sarah Jane Adventures
• Matt Wood (VFX supervisor) and Gary Kelly (digital compositor) were both tasked with The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and The Power of Three - Wood also worked on A Town Called Mercy
• line producer Patrick Schweitzer first worked on the revived series as location manager on The Runaway Bride, then was production manager on six stories for Series 3, and produced all of Series 5
• James Moran was writer of The Fires of Pompeii too
• Toby Haynes was also director of The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang, A Christmas Carol, The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon