As you may know I named this blog in honour of the planet Red Rocket Rising in the Steve Lyons Eighth Doctor  story Blood of the Daleks. That’s the story of this blog, but where did Steve Lyons get the name from for the story? Is it a reference to the first single by the band BeForU?

Red Rocket Rising

I asked Steve Lyons where the name came from – the following gives a fascinating insight into the creative mind:

Red Rocket Rising was inspired by a line in, I think, ‘Boom Town’. The Doctor mentions a planet called Woman Wept, so named because of the shape of one of its continents.

I liked the idea of a world being named for what its settlers saw as they approached it – so, I started thinking about my planet perhaps having a big red spot on it, and what sort of shapes the settlers might have seen in that spot.

I thought of a rocket, liked the alliteration with ‘red’ and went from there.

Simple yet fascinating!