Nowadays Ben Aaronovitch is best known as the author of the Rivers Of London novels, following a secret division of the London Met police force who deal with supernatural and otherworldly threats. Before all that, though, the author cut his teeth as a scriptwriter on Doctor Who mostly during the dark, later years prior to its cancellation. Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor heralded a final strike for Doctor Who, with the series finally having the long-threatened axe brought down upon its head. The shift to a comical, pantomime approach didn't help. Neither did ignoring legitimately awesome-sounding ideas like Aaronovitch's Earth Aid, about a race of samurai insectoid aliens. The serial would have seen The Doctor meeting the Metatraxi, an extraterrestrial race who live by a strict code of honour and find themselves in a bit of a pickle when they meet the Time Lord they don't believe in fighting unarmed enemies, after all. Reportedly, the story would also have concerned the politics of humanitarian aid. But of course.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
