Kevin Stoney

I'm sad to hear about the passing of Kevin Stoney. He's really the main force driving both The Dalek's Master Plan and The Invasion. I watched The Invasion fairly recently, and it's his performance that is by far the most memorable, and one that is one of the greats in the entire history of the series. It's an intense, larger-than-life villain in the James Bond mold, and really he was the model of this sort of villain in the show.

Verity

It is especially sad to hear on the 44th anniversary, that Doctor Who's first producer Verity Lambert has passed away. Unlike, say, Star Trek, Doctor Who doesn't have one "creator" -- but her influence is very much still there today, showing up most recently in Human Nature.

It was Verity Lambert, after all, who argued for the first Dalek story with Sydney Newman -- without which it is unlikely Doctor Who would be, well, Doctor Who.

Doctor Who isn't her only work -- her entire
biography is impressive.

The best tribute to her is that the show she helped to create is still going strong four and a half decades along, and that she will be remembered as "Doctor Who's mother" for as long as the concept survives.

As Russell T Davies says: "This is her legacy and we will never forget that."

Craig Hinton

I'm sad and shocked to hear reports about Doctor Who fan and author Craig Hinton's passing. I had met him a couple of times at Gallifrey, and had been involved with some of the same forums online throughout the years as well.

I have positive recollections of the Doctor Who novels he wrote for Virgin, and I believe that his work with Millennial Rites started the rehabilitation trend of both Colin Baker's Doctor and Bonnie Langford's Melanie that continued throughout the novels and audios. And while The Crystal Bucephalus wasn't the only place to foreshadow Gallifrey's destruction, it was certainly one of the most memorable early examples.

I remember that Craig was always straight forward about his work -- he happily pieced together the pieces of Doctor Who mythology, in a fashion that wasn't always fashionable amongst the hard core -- he was the first to describe what he did as "fanwank", after all. But I think that showed how much he enjoyed the mythology and made his work fun for fans to read.

My thoughts go out to all of Craig's friends and family.