Interview of Mizugi Kenjitsu, typed up without permission by Chris Rednour

[Excerpt Begins]

We got word that with the transition of the long running Doctor we'd be seeing three new companions. Nyssa was perfect as she was, a sultry alien woman. Tegan was problematical. Airline Hostess just wasn't interesting as a profession, Takeshi Akimoto felt that keeping with the idea of a skimpy we could change Tegan into a nurse, and make her more integral to the stories.

But the worse problem was with the one they called "Adric". He was a whiny snot nose brat who was blatantly unappealing to anyone in our target audience - sane rational adults who like sexy stories of women traveling around in space and time. However Akimoto had noticed a large portion of the women audience for the books had been clamoring for the inclusion of a strong male character into the new books again. Most of the previous men like that astronaut guy [Steven -c] were strong silent types.

Akimoto claimed the fans wanted something more. Personally I think it was his then wife who was pressuring him to include a good male character, but who knows maybe he was onto something...

We decided that we'd create a new character to take the place of Adric. Who we came up with was "Yakuza Joe" a former Yakuza assassin trying to go straight. And he proved to be popular. We even made enough money for Akimoto to cover his gambling debts and pay off his three mistresses to keep them quiet.

And we thought we were set. The average Doctor Who companion lasted three series, meaning we had a bountiful future of Yakuza Joe stories in our future.

And then we got word. The BBC had killed Adric. The bastards! We had a problem, what to do with Joe. Could we kill him? Could we keep him and just split the stories between the three remaining characters. A call to Akimoto as he was on vacation in Hong Kong came back with the drunken word "Kill him off, I'm divorcing my wife!"

And so I looked at the story, "Earthshag" the and concocted the story; the last Cyberman decides to rebuild his race by stealing the sexual energy of the Planet Earth. Eventually Joe would give his live overloading the sexual drainer and save everyone heroicly. It was a touching moment and we all thought it worked well. We were worried how the fans would react, but we had another problem: what to do about Turlough...

[end excerpt]