Reunion brings Chrístõ back to Victorian Britain. I really wanted to place a scene around the Crystal Palace, which is such a wonderful building it deserves to get into a story. I was quite surprised to discover, when I researched it, that it MOVED. It was only ever a temporary structure in Hyde Park before being moved to Syddenham Hill, near the modern location of Crystal Palace football club. THAT gave me the opportunity to have a man to man conversation between Londoner, Terry, Northerner, Sammie, and Chrístõ who is neither. I made Terry a Chelsea fan for no good reason except that, at the time of writing they were premiership champions for the first time ever in their history and it would cheer a fan from the late 1960s to know that. Sammie, I made a follower of Wigan Athletic, who at the very WEEK in which I wrote this were in the top three of the Premiership, but they slipped down later. Chrístõ, of course, supports Preston North End, for no reason at all except that they ARE a team with a long, proud history, a founder member of the Football League, and it is a bit of a joke on Christopher Eccleston, the only actor to play The Doctor who ever expressed an interest in a team – Manchester United.

The Reunion, of course, is with Elizabeth Garrett, now Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman doctor in Britain and Chrístõ’s first love interest, though a brief one. When they stopped for tea in the Crystal Palace he and Elizabeth form a temporary couple, and that allows Bo and Sammie to become one, noted by Cassie who sees the possibility in the future.

The scene with the alien woman, speaking in her alien language in the hospital is, of course, slightly flawed. ALL of his companions heard her speaking in alien, but in fact, even Elizabeth had been in the TARDIS when it was disguised as Chrístõ’s Charing Cross lodging house in the first Theta Sigma story. So really they should all have had the language translated. For dramatic purposes, I needed to overlook that point and have Chrístõ the only one able to understand her.

One point not to be missed about that scene, is that SAMMIE is the one who pulls Chrístõ back into the window, aided by Terry. He is beginning to prove himself an able second officer aboard the TARDIS. Later, when the others think they have seen Epsilon in the streets of Victorian London, Chrístõ acknowledges him as the one who can protect his other friends most ably. Sammie has his role in the TARDIS.

As for Epsilon….. This was just a cameo appearance, just to remind readers that he IS still around. The complicated issue of the Dimensional Recognition Device HAS been mentioned elsewhere, in a couple of Unfinished Business stories. Chrístõ is the designer of the device, and, he thinks, the only TARDIS owner who can override it. But Epsilon is as clever as he is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Garrett_Anderson

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WandersonE.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace