DAY OF THE JACKAL

TALKING TIME, TECH AND MYSTERIES IN PART TWO OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH DOCTOR WHO SHOWRUNNER RUSSELL T DAVIES

- DARREN SCOTT

WHEN WE SIT down with Russell T Davies to discuss season one of Doctor Who, we've recently seen the finale - though at the time it's yet to airand we genuinely didn't know who was going to return in it, despite catching some online rumours. "What, so you had no idea it was Sutekh? Those rumours were an absolute fucker. We tried and tried and tried..." he sighs.

So much for "no old monsters" - this story idea has been rattling around with Davies since 1975, when he first saw Tom Baker story "Pyramids Of Mars". "Yes, the greatest monster ever. It's taken this long. I've always had that Sue Tech pun in mind. Did you see that coming...?"

When people started mentioning "Pyramids Of Mars", we thought, surely he can't be talking about Sue's tech...

Exactly what it was! I like to think of Sutekh clinging to the TARDIS thinking, "I know what I'll do, I'll slide in via a pun!" I think having clung to the TARDIS since 1975 that he was probably getting pretty bored.

I mean, ['80s producer] John Nathan-Turner started this. Before his Master puns, they didn't exist in Doctor Who, did they? Once he introduced Neil Toynay [as Master actor Anthony Ainley was credited for episode four of 1982's "Castrovalva"], we all loved that.

Remember there was no other information in those days but we'd scour the Radio Times - and people still do that, it's become part of the language of the show.

In this series we've had bogeymen who are actual bogeys, and now we've got Susan technology played by a woman called Susan Twist. I just love that. Like a show for the modern age, it will get people talking about it. How deliberate is Susan Twist's surname? I literally had it in mind casting her.

So why Sutekh?