I actually reviewed a few of them on Associated Content a couple of years ago, but until now I’ve yet to discuss them in any detail on this blog.Īs I recounted in my review of the serial “Kinda,” when I was eight or nine years old some of the earliest Doctor Who stories I saw were the Peter Davison ones. Platt then wrote the novel Lungbarrow, an expanded version of the unproduced television story.I’ve mentioned in the past how much I enjoy the Doctor Who audio plays produced by Big Finish. Platt's initial contribution to this range, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, featured a cameo from the House of Lungbarrow and Satthralope. ( DWM 305) The general structure of Gallifreyan society developed in Lungbarrow was described in Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background, which influenced the lore of the Virgin New Adventures. The House of Lungbarrow was going to be named dropped in Ghost Light, but Sylvester McCoy changed the line at the eleventh hour. Platt pitched this to John Nathan-Turner, who liked the idea but thought it was better to be built up to for a later season, leading to Platt instead running with an alternate story which would come to be Ghost Light. A scene-by-scene breakdown was developed, with the story being a three-parter set entirely in the House.

This led to Lungbarrow becoming a key part of the Cartmel Masterplan, and Platt went ahead with developing a version of the story for the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Cartmel and Aaronovitch hadn't figured out how the Other would become the Doctor, prompting Platt to remember his idea of looms from Lungbarrow. The plot involved the Doctor getting caught in a murder mystery involving his family at the House of Lungbarrow.įollowing Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch enjoying Platt's script for Shrine, they talked with Platt about their idea of the Other. Gallifreyan society was composed of Families composed of set numbers of Cousins. The story concluded that the Time Lords were infertile and required genetic banks known as looms to reproduce. Having found following Fires of the Starmind that his vision of Gallifrey differed from the direction taken by the television series, Platt did not submit the script.

Lungbarrow was a story by Marc Platt which was written during his period of submitting numerous stories to the Doctor Who production office. Daryl Joyce's illustration of the television Lungbarrow.

Doctor Who by Marc Platt