As you might have guesses by my last post, I am behind the times. News takes a while to reach my delicate ears. I found out that Barry Letts died only by reading Paul Cornell's blog, which I was only reading because a link from Whedonesque told me to go there for something completely unrelated.
So, this means that, to the best of my knowledge, the only living producer from Classic Who is Phillip Hinchcliffe. Derrick Sherwin might be, but he was the producer for exactly one serial (Spearhead from Space) before resigning from the post and letting Barry get a shot at it.
Now, the pacing of the show wasn't exactly stellar whem Mr. Letts was producing, and the switch to color meant that it really didn't hold up as well as it used to. The political subtext, as I stated in an older post, I tended to disagree with but didn't dislike. But still, Barry served as producer for 5 years and managed to not get the show cancelled, and nobody else can stake a similar claim (except RTD, if you count this year's specials as an actual season). On top of that, his last important act as producer was to cast Tom Baker. Of course, for most of his tenure, he was producing a show that really doesn't resemble the show that came before or after his term. The Doctor was for the most part stuck on Earth with a solid base of support and can't fly the TARDIS at all, as opposed to barely being able to fly it.
And yet it's easy to look back on those, the dandy-Doctor days, with considerable nostalgia, and we have Mr. Letts primarily to thank for that.
In other news, please please please tell me that this is not the title that's actually going to appear on-screen for the new series.
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