For Season 17, John Lloyd, a frequent collaborator with script editor Douglas Adams, adapted material from his unpublished science fiction story "GiGax" and in October 1978 submitted "Shylock", a four-part serial written in Adams' light-hearted style. After providing a second draft of the storyline to modify parts of the script to avoid issues such as the rules involving child actors, Lloyd was forced to focus on his commitments as producer of "Not the Nine O'Clock News". Williams was still interested enough in the storyline that he made plans to involved writer Allan Prior to work on the scripts. The storyline was commissioned on 7 February 1979 and a script list dated 29 June 1979 links Lloyd and Prior to the project. Lloyd officially agreed to another writer taking on his story on 25 August 1979. In the story, the Doctor is subpoenaed to appear in court when a corporation tries to buy Earth in order to obtain a matter-transmutation device. Big Finish Productions has announced an audio adaptation of this story, written by Nev Fountain for their Lost Stories range, due to be released in November 2021.