Professor Zaroff, played by Joseph Furst, was the personification of a mad scientist. His plan, which makes Missy's "Bananas!" scheme in Series 9 look comparatively tame, was to drain the oceans of the Earth into the planetary core and crack the Earth open like an egg, thereby destroying all life on the surface. And Zaroff wanted to do this because, well... killing the human race is the ultimate dream of power for scientists, apparently. Now that's bananas. It took the Second Doctor all of 5 minutes to put a stop to Zaroff's nonsense in 1967's The Underwater Menace. Shortly before Zaroff drowned in his flooded lair, he cemented his place in Doctor Who infamy by screaming, "Nothing in the world can stop me now!". Chortle worthy? Oh, yes. Scary? Not so much.
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
