I caught up with Rob Ellis, the writer of Episode 9 of the audio adventure series 'Return to the Planet of the Dinosaurs' looking back on his thoughts into writing this story.
This is what he had to say.
1. How versatile was the story
in your mind?
Answer: The storyline idea
was actually pretty solid when I wrote it. I knew what the template for the
story was so it was just working out what I could do with it. I knew I was
using dinosaurs and that time was being interfered with, and so I asked myself
“how could I get dinosaurs into modern day London and link it with time
interference” and I very quickly got the idea of having time portals (time
fissures) appear over the city which they would come through, and so then I had
to figure out how time was being messed about with and why, and that’s when I
got the idea for the rogue Time Lord plot. So really the plot details just all
fell into place once I understood the basic plan of the story.
2. What stories inspired you
when developing the story?
Answer: ‘Invasion of the
Dinosaurs’, a story which I really enjoy, was a big influence in the writing.
In many ways the atmosphere at the beginning is very similar: the Doctor and companion
arrive on Earth to find it desolate and abandoned and dinosaurs roaming around,
and time being messed with, and whilst the plots for both are completely
different, the foundations from that story are there. At the same time, where
the time fissures are concerned, there are elements of the ITV sci-fi series
‘Primeval’ in there, in which anomalies open and prehistoric creatures come
through and terrorise modern day. There’s also some of ‘The Five Doctors’ in
there as well, as at the end with the rogue Time Lord Leddinon wanting to
become the ultimate ruler of time and immortal, is in some ways similar to
President Borusa who wants Rassilon’s gift of immortality to live forever, and
has gone power-mad and insane.
3. What’s your favourite kind
of story that you like to enjoy?
Answer: Definitely the more
‘traditional’ types of stories. Stories which are ‘base under siege’ with
monsters is a very clichéd format in Doctor Who these days but it’s a strong
foundation that works.
4. Why dinosaurs?
Answer: They’re just interesting
and great creatures to use as monsters, as well as a fascinating subject in
general. As mentioned earlier, ‘Primeval’ was a big inspiration as the whole
concept of the show is time portals, called anomalies, and prehistoric
creatures coming through from all sorts of different times and places and so I
tried to put in as many different species as I could where possible, and I was
happy with the end result.
5. In this episode you
introduce to us a new rouge time lord, how did you come up with the development
for this character?
Answer: Well, I knew that I
wanted time fissures to be the reason the dinosaurs were in central London,
brought on by the time disturbance, and I just had the thought of “what if a
rogue Time Lord was behind this?” and so I pretty much developed the character
and his back-story from that. The name though, Leddinon, I was never all that
happy with. It’s OK, but I tried to think of famous Time Lord names like
Borusa, Rassilon, Kelner, Romana and just tried to work with those. ‘Leddinon’
has definitely grown on me since seeing it more and more in the script, but
when making it up it was literally experimenting with various syllables and
seeing how they sounded together.
6. How does your episode relate
to other episodes that have gone on in the series so far?
Answer: I think it relates
to previous episodes in terms of the types of characters used. Group Captain
Gilmore is one of the main characters in this story and, continuity wise, the
second time we’ve seen him, which is similar in a way to the first story ‘Being
Human’ where the Doctor meets up with Jago and Litefoot again and has to
explain his regeneration and so forth, so I think the nostalgia aspect of it is
what relates best.
7. Do you see your rouge time
lord making a return in a later Audio Adventures story?
Answer: Too soon to say,
really. I mean, he was vaporised at the end of the episode but I like the idea
of him. I think there is a potential story out there somewhere for him to be
resurrected, but for the foreseeable future I would doubt it.
8. Did you enjoy your
experience? Would you want to write more stories for later series?
Answer: I did enjoy the
experience. Dan was easy to communicate with as if ever I had any problems or
queries I could just message him and he’d answer then as best as he could. My
favourite part was writing the script once I knew exactly what was going to
happen so I rarely got stuck, and then of course the anticipation of hearing
the final episode once the script was submitted was exciting. I would certainly
write more stories if I could if I was asked.
