By this point, Rana and the others have arrived by the TARDIS and shocked by the devastation that has killed many thousands already. Sil shows his true colors as he had worked to help bring the Ice Warriors the needed explosives, but when he is refuted by the Ice Warriors' Grand Marshall, he re-aligns with the Doctor to help Magnus. They are able to set off a backup set of explosives at the right point to return Magnus to its original orbit; the Ice Warriors, unprepared for this, are caught in the higher temperatures and die. The virus in the atmosphere is found to have died out as a result of the orbit-shifting, and the group of Salvakians offer their planet's aide to help rebuild Magnus and show them what it is like to be a gender-balanced society again; Sil sees the business opportunity in this and plans to stay to help as well. The Doctor and Peri leave just as Anzor is able to make his way back, cursing the Doctor's name. It was announced in 1985 that Michael Grade, controller of BBC1, had cancelled a number of long-running programmes in order to help fund the launch of a new soap opera named "EastEnders". Of the many programmes that were cancelled, "Doctor Who" was the most high-profile. A campaign was quickly launched by the national press to see about its return and Grade very quickly confirmed that "Doctor Who" would be returning in 1986. Several stories had already been in the planning stages for the 23rd Season of "Doctor Who", three of which were in the middle of being scripted when the announcement was made. Writer Philip Martin, who had seen mild success with his script for "Vengeance on Varos" the previous year, was asked by producer John Nathan-Turner to write a script containing the return of the popular Sil, introduced in that story. He also requested the inclusion of the Ice Warriors, who hadn't been seen in "Doctor Who" since "The Monster of Peladon" in 1974. As the third in production, this script was the least complete at the time of the cancellation, and no director had yet been announced (evidence suggests it might have been Ron Jones, who helmed both of Martin's other scripts for the series). In 1988, Target Books, which had been successfully publishing novelisations of "Doctor Who" stories for many years, saw itself quickly running out of available televised material (although a number of serials remained unadapted, most of these were off-limits due to licensing problems).