Robert Banks Stewart

Robert Banks Stewart is a writer for television.

For Thames Television he contributed scripts to the programmes "Callan", "Special Branch", "The Sweeney" and "Owner Occupied".

He also wrote "The Avengers" scripts "The Master Minds" and "Quick-Quick Slow Death".

In casting about for new writers for "Doctor Who" script editor Robert Holmes invited Stewart to discuss ideas for the programme. After their meeting in early 1974, Stewart devised a storyline for a six-part adventure called "The Secret Of Loch Ness". Stewart felt that the Scotland's legendary Loch Ness Monster would make an ideal basis for a story because there were so few details about the mythical creature. Stewart's Although at first focusing on the Loch Ness Monster itself, Holmes encouraged Stewart to concentrate more on the Zygons, the shape-shifting aliens of the story. As the story evolved, it was known variously as "The Loch", "The Secret Of The Lock", "The Loch Ness Monster", "The Zygons" and finally "Terror of the Zygons". The following year he wrote "The Seeds of Doom" for "Doctor Who", which drew from such sources as the horror serial "The Quatermass Experiment" and the John Wyndham novel "The Day of the Triffids". "The Seeds Of Doom" was Robert Banks Stewart's last credited Doctor Who serial, although a story outline written for the subsequent season would form the basis for Holmes' "The Talons Of Weng-Chiang".

Robert Banks Stewart continued working in television as a writer, script editor and producer, creating "Shoestring" for the BBC in 1978 and following this up with the hit detective drama serioes "Bergerac". He later produced"The Darling Buds Of May" which involved giving Catherine Zeta Jones one of her early TV opportunities.

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