I think that John Wiles and Donald Tosh did leave Dodo with a character, but aspects of it were either vetoed by Gerald Savory or didn't have Innes Lloyd or Gerry Davis's interest. Lloyd said in an interview that Jackie Lane didn't convince, physically, as a teenager; his introduction of Polly showed he wasn't interested in the granddaughter-substitute model anyway.
Maybe "no-one had bothered to think of a *workable* character for" would be more accurate. But I think it's fair to say that no-one really tried to make sure that Dodo worked. Jackie Lane gives it her all, here and in The Savages (and even as evil!Dodo in the War Machines) when she has something to work with, so it's not her fault, but everyone else has to take some responsibility.
It's typical of the hapless Wiles-Tosh era - great ideas, bad at managing them. I'm sure that Dodo would have been developed properly had Wiles and Tosh stayed and had they been able to manage their boss (and actors) successfully, but they didn't and couldn't. One of the most writerly regimes thus gives way to one of the most managerial, more cautious, more competent (once the Wiles-Tosh commissions were out of the way) but less artistically ambitious.
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