Hinchcliffe's agent and contacts from his time as a script editor won him the position as the new producer of the BBC's "Doctor Who". In Spring 1974, at the age of 29, he was approached by the corporation's head of serials to take his first full production job, initially trailing and then succeeding long-serving producer Barry Letts. Although he trailed Letts on Tom Baker's first story, "Robot", he was first credited on "The Ark in Space". Throughout his first year he was mostly producing scripts that had been commissioned by the previous production team prior to their departure.