Having written on the Anthony Ainley thread about JNT, I was thinking about a statement I read once that he was quite possibly the most controversial person ever to be associated with Doctor Who.

On the positive side, he was a good publicity Producer, he did care for the show I think and he should be credited with updating the show in the 80's and turning it around after the ratings fell prior to Tom Baker's departure(And he cast my fave Doc in Davison, but that's a personal thing!) He also is credited for working behind the scenes after the hiatus in 1986 and getting the correct info out to the papers and therefore helping get the show back on the screen.

On the Negative side, where do you start? Making the show a humour-free zone for three years because of Tom Baker's comedic approach. Could he have let Baker revert to his Hinchcliffe persona so he still had some humour in Season 18? And The Caves Of Androzani showed how much better Davison could have been if he'd had that humourous performance throughout his era of the show.

Then you have Anthony Ainley's panto Master, making him play against type. Colin Baker's costume, starting Colin Baker of badly in The Twin Dilemma. Then the real pits of it all, Season 24! Should he have been replaced to keep the show fresh?

There are loads of other things I could add to the above but just want to know everyone else's views on JNT. Was he your fave Producer or(as I suspect) do you think the show went seriously of the rails when he took over?

JNT did a helluva lot for Doctor Who (that it lasted as long as it did is a testament to his dedication, the BBC wanted it pulled in '85) and gets unfairly blamed for a lot of things that really weren't his fault. Yes, he made some bad decisions, but he was fighting against near impossible odds to keep the show on air. I've a lot of respect for JNT.

I agree. If JNT had left around 1983, he would have
probably been as well-regarded as Letts or Williams.
He commissioned a lot of excellent stories like
"Kinda", "Enlightenment", "Revelation" and "Ghost Light".
The whole structure of British TV was changing around
DW in the mid 80s, though, and JNT and his program
were caught in this change, hence the show's problems.
It didn't help that JNT also clashed with his
script editors (most infamously Eric Saward, but
also Bidmead and Cartmel).

I had the great good fortune to meet JNT at a Doctor Who convention in Miami back in the 1980s. I spent 2 or 3 days with him (on and off) and have great admiration for the man.

The Beeb wanted to kill the show. JNT was always struggling to keep the show alive and positioned in decent time slots. Very often his "hand was forced."

He truly loved the show and did the very best he could with it.

Yeah, I met JNT in what would be one of his last (if not last) convention appearence in 2001. Nice guy.

I remember the fire alarm had gone off on the Sunday afternoon so we had all been evacuated outside (fire in the kitchen). I was one of the first ones eventually back in & went into the autographs room to find JNT & Sarah Sutton still sitting at their desk looking bemused as to what had happened.
When the alarm had gone off, everyone including their minders had just legged it leaving those two still sat there wondering where everyone had gone!