#warriors gate

It was a characteristically grey Lancashire morning when I met up with the lovely Stephen Gallagher, who was speaking that afternoon at the university in Preston.  After a nice wander around the campus shooting the breeze and taking getting photographical, we found ourselves in the audience of a talk about the science behind Doctor Who.  I’m fairly sure that the target demographic was considerably younger than Stephen and myself, mind, as the young chap of about 6 or so was excitedly whispering the names of all the monsters on the Doctor Who quiz sheet we had all been given.

(I swear we’d have aced the quiz too, even without the young gentleman inadvertently feeding us all the answers.)

I’m not normally one given to egregious displays of fangirl behaviour, but  I must admit that I was so pleased that this gentleman agreed to be a part of this project, as he wrote the fascinating, beautiful departure stories for two of my very favourite companions : Warrior’s Gate, which sees Romana’s farewell, with K-9 in tow, and Terminus, where Nyssa says goodbye to the TARDIS.  Both of these stories see our heroines departing in order to go on to bigger and better things, where they feel they will be able to affect significant positive change, to do something meaningful with their lives.  It’s always heartwarming to see companions get the farewell that they deserve, and these two serials served their departing companions admirably.  He’s been quite busy since as well, writing for a number of shows as well as novels (including the novelizations of his two Doctor Who stories, albeit under the pseudonym John Lydecker, for some reason) and two short story collections, as well as directing, creating and writing for The Eleventh Hour, both in its UK and US incarnations, and serving as co-executive producer on The Forgotten.  And he’s delightful company to boot.  You can keep up with his many adventures on his blog, and I highly encourage you do.  What a wonderful fellow!