Writer's Commentary

Three: December 1969

While researching Who Killed Kennedy I thought it was important to show that continuity reached backwards as well as forwards. For example, The Daemons introduces the TV channel BBC3. Why not use that and incorporate it into earlier stories? Thus BBC3 makes it first appearance in this chapter which is focused on The Ambassadors of Death. When both stories were made, BBC3 was the stuff of fiction. (The channel now exists in Britain, although it is not available to all viewers yet. It's best known as a testing ground for new comedy.)

Another example of this cross-fertilisation comes with the mention of C19, used in Who Killed Kennedy as a shadowy secret service ministry. The government department is first mentioned on screen during Time-Flight, but was transformed by various authors into a more sinister force. Gary Russell's book The Scales of Injustice was the novel that ret-conned C19. His book also provided the sinister character of the man with the lisp who menaces Stevens in WKK. Bex suggested the inclusion of this character. I tried and failed to contact Gary for more information about his character, as our books were being written simultaneously. I think the Glasshouse - a sinister mental hospital used for UNIT soldiers suffering post traumatic stress disorder - was my creation and then incorporated into Gary's book. I recall it being inspired by watching the film A Month in the Country, in which the central characters are shell-shocked veterans of the Great War.

Stevens meets and interviews Isobel Watkins, who talks about her experiences in The Invasion. This is a crucial turning point in the story, as for the first time Stevens learns about the existence of the Doctor. It also picks up the Doctor John Smith alias, first used by Jamie in The Wheel in Space and subsequently adopted by the Third Doctor during Spearhead from Space and The Time Warrior.

Stevens goes for a drink in a pub called the Lord John Russell in Marchmont Street, near Russell Square tube station in London. This was the pub I frequented in the second half of the 1990s while I was working around the corner in Tavistock Place at Egmont Fleetway Ltd. The pub also appears in my Eighth Doctor novel The Domino Effect on page 170.

<< Chapter 2 Commentary

Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Commentary >>