How thrilling. Cannot wait.

“If I may say so, that’s a typical piece of fan nonsense.” A reply to cherish.

How marvellous. I once asked Terrance if the Doctor and Master are flirting in that swordfight.

So sorry. What an excellent cat.

What joy

To some extent, that’s tapping into contemporary anxieties and stuff like the Manchurian Candidate. There’s a v good radio documentary on all that here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I think Terrance was also v bothered by the idea of mind control / conditioning. It’s a recurrent theme in stuff he writes, and when novelising other people’s stuff he take it very seriously.

That is his opening to The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in which “Through the ruin of a city stalked the ruin of a man.”

To a degree, yes. Also, TV Dr Who doesn’t often let us hear the Doctor’s inner thoughts (there’s brief example in The Moonbase), so we rely on what is said. Terrance and other book authors can add “‘We must stop the Daleks,’ said the Doctor, not feeling they had any hope but that they had to try.”

Absolutely. My favourite example is his opening to Death to the Daleks. On screen, in the opening seconds, a man in space uniform runs along a bit of quarry, is shot with an arrow and dies. Terrance provides a couple of paragraphs giving him a whole life.

In doing so, he clarifies characters’ motivations. That’d really interesting in terms of the Doctor; Steven Moffat once said Terrance is the first writer to address how the Doctor thinks. I have some ideas about this in gestation. More anon.

Yes, he often adds a bit of a character’s perspective. For example, in Revenge he explains the transmat system through Harry’s POV. He likens it to a telephone, but with people not just their voices - a simple analogy, but also conveying the idea of this sci-fi tech being commonplace in the future

Never heard of it

He is poisoned with a deadly poison for which there is no cure, and slumps to the ground. Even if Fleming already planned to bring him back, it is quite a thing to do :)

Yes, although I think - as a driver - the same thing applies. You learn to drive and then there’s a moment when you get it and don’t need to think through each step. A bit like learning a language where there’s a moment when you stop having to translate each phrase.