Living in Serendip

[judgefloyd]

This is another topic which could easily go with the new series.  I've put it here because we won't know how much of the new series applies to it for a long time. 
What am I talking about?  Serendipity of course.
  Tom Baker famously said that the creation of his scarf was a happy accident.  I thought of this topic whilst listening to the commentary on The Leisure Hive.  The seasoned professionals doing the commentary were rubbishing the Brighton Beach beginning; it clashes with the rest of the show, it's too long, nothing happens except that the Doctor snores and K9 explodes on proximity to salt water.  Fair enough, I thought, they know more than I do.  Yet, I still really really like the Brighton Beach intro.  I reckon it works brilliantly, although it's not supposed to.
  So - you all know more about Dr Who than I do.  When did everything go very wrong and yet go very right? What accidents, of any kinds, lead to happy outcomes?

well?

[Accord Every Access]

John Normington as Morgus in 'The Caves of Androzani' is probably the most famous Who moment of something that was wrong but worked so well. His Shakespearian asides were not scripted, instead he looked to the camera by mistake to say those lines.

[Rory Pond]

If Lewis Greifer hadn't relocated from the UK and thus become unavailable to do the rewrites on the last script he submitted to the BBC, we would have been deprived of an additional Robert Holmes story in the form of "Pyramids of Mars." (Although credited to the pseudonymous 'Stephen Harris,' the script was finished by Holmes in his capacity as story editor, with some additional material suggested by director Paddy Russell and producer Philip Hinchcliffe.)

[judgefloyd]

woah, almost missing Pyramids of Mars?  That's one massive piece of serendipity there!