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Robert Banks Stewart, the greatly-respected writer and creator of the Zygons, has died at the age of 84.
Stewart is perhaps best known as the creator of Bergerac and Shoestrong, but Doctor Who fans will admire him most for creating the Zygons and Krynoids in Terror of the Zygons and The Seeds of Doom, both of which are now remembered as truly classic Fourth Doctor adventures. It is, of course, testament to his genius that the Zygons were not only in the most recent series of Doctor Who, but also in arguably the most important tale of recent times, The Day of the Doctor.
Born in Edinburgh in July 1931, his Scottish heritage certainly influenced his screenwriting; both David Tennant and John Barrowman recalled how excited they were to see the Doctor in Scotland, the former especially keen to bring back the Zygons in his time as the Tenth Doctor. It’s partly what led Steven Moffat to resurrect the monster for the show’s 50th anniversary special.
On the strength of Terror of the Zygons, Robert was invited back to script a six-episode finale to Season 13. The Seeds of Doom introduced the world to the Krynoid, an all-consuming vegetable (which, despite never returning to television, has cropped up in other media, including the short story collection, Tales of Trenzalore), and rounded off one of the strongest runs of Doctor Who ever seen. He said of Terror of the Zygons:
“I’m not good at doing things which are set in outer space, and I said I’d rather do one that was set on Earth. I suggested I do one about the Loch Ness monster, where we find out it’s really an alien, and there’s an underground river which leads from Loch Ness to the sea, that no one knows about.
There were also aliens, and I thought the guy who is the Laird should be another space alien – I thought it was a nice idea, the Highland Laird, wearing his kilt and drinking his malt whisky, but is from outer space. It was a lot of fun.
We couldn’t go to Scotland to shoot it, so in the end we went down to West Sussex. They managed to do a decent job of it, making it look like Scotland.
Back in those days, there was no CGI (computer generated imagery) or anything like that – they had to use puppets and stop-motion animation, and I think it was okay for the time.”
He was to write a third story, The Foe From The Future, but this ultimately fell through (althought Big Finish did eventually adapt the tale).
Having previously worked as a journalist, is scripting career included episodes of The Avengers, Knight Errant Limited, Ghost Squad, and Adam Adamant Lives!. Following Doctor Who, he continued as a writer, script editor, and producer, creating the massively-popular shows, Bergerac and Shoestrong, starring John Nettles and Trevor Eve respectively. Louise Jameson also starred in Bergerac, and paid tribute to the writer on Twitter.
Bergerac kept me sane in the 80s. So much to be grateful for. RIP the very dear Robert Banks Stewart. I' ve really had enough of this week
— Louise Jameson (@Lou_Jameson) January 15, 2016
He also produced Lovejoy, Hannay, and The Darling Buds of May.
At the age of 81, he released the novel, The Hurricane’s Tail, a political thriller that introduced Detective Sergeant Harper Buchanan; the book was originally meant as a television series, but executives were resistant to the idea, which he attributed to ageism. Last year, Miwk published his autobiography, To Put You in the Picture. His last television worok was 2001-03’s My Uncle Silas, starring Albert Finney.
Robert Banks Stewart died on Thursday of cancer, and is survived by his three sons and a daughter.
Our thoughts are, of course, with his friends and family.
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