Nomansland Fort was a desolate hulk in the middle of the Solent when it was used for scenes from The Sea Devils in 1972. Now it is a rich man’s retreat, a luxury hotel with swimming pools and top class restaurant.

I have wanted to do some kind of story featuring the luxury hotel fort ever since I used the still rather primitive St. Helen’s Fort in a Torchwood story. The problem was thinking up a plot. I didn’t want it to be Sea Devils again.

The idea of some variation of Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ in which people are lured to a remote lighthouse and killed one by one was attractive. But how to do something original on that particular theme? It has been done many times before.

I then thought about a story I wrote way back in the late 1980s for a creative writing class I was taking at the time. The story was called Jem and was about a pop star who died of a drugs overdose after falling prey to the curse of rock and roll. The story was told in flashback by the star’s former manager while he was looking at a ‘Jem’ doll on his desk.

Now, anyone with a long memory for ideas that came and went might remember that there WAS a doll called ‘Jem’ in the 1980s. Jem and the Holograms was a series of twelve inch dolls in pop star clothes with guitars, microphones, a stage, a boyfriend for Jem, and even a rival band, the Misfits, that could be collected if you had more money than sense. Yes, ok, I did, and I had the whole set. They came with videos of Jem’s cartoon adventures. The cartoon also came on TV, but it failed to set the world alight. The cartoons were not very well made, the plots lame even for Saturday morning TV viewing, and the dolls didn’t have the pull of better known brands like Barbie. But they were fun while they lasted.

So, the fort, a classic story genre, and a pop star doll. I had the elements.

Then I decided to save on a bit of introduction to new characters by bringing back Tony and Angela who The Doctor and friends met in my earlier story, The Dromcarr Banshee. Tony is a theatre impresario, a little like Andrew Lloyd Webber, but definitely NOT Webber. That immediately gave me a way into the story. Tony and Angela were able to introduce the other guests, all connected to show-business in some way, and it is they who put the story together afterwards when their friends start being attacked. The parts of the doll found with each victim draw it all together.

The Doctor, Rory and Amy are pretty much just witnesses to events up until the point where The Doctor catches Fallon in his invisible suit and his plan unfolds. And that was all they were meant to be. In the first draft of the story I missed the important point that they were there for that reason. Several readers pointed out the omission, even though they enjoyed the story. I promised an amendment. These lines sort it all out.

“So why are WE here?” Rory asked. “We didn’t have anything to do with what happened to her. My mum BOUGHT her second album, the one that ‘bombed’. She liked it. We... never did anything to hurt her.”

“That’s a very good point,” The Doctor answered. He turned to Fallon and raised an eyebrow questioningly. “You sent the invitation to me? That’s actually quite a clever thing to do. I’m not in very many people’s address books.”

“You’re in Torchwood’s address book,” he explained. “I... needed a witness... somebody who would understand why it was done. Somebody who would...”

“Somebody who would catch you,” The Doctor said in a softer tone. “You knew what you were doing was wrong. You wanted to be caught once you had finished. Getting away with it was never part of your plan.”

Fallon again didn’t need to say anything. His expression spoke volumes.

http://www.rockjem.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Land_Fort
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468609/Man-island-fit-Bond-villain-sale--4-million.html

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

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sea_Devils