Elton Pope encountered the Doctor as a small boy, and has been looking for him ever since. As an adult, Elton comes across a blog about the Doctor written by a woman named Ursula. She helps Elton connect with other individuals who have an interest in the Doctor, and the result is the formation of a group called LINDA -- ostensibly an investigatory organisation, but really just a small social club. All that changes, though, when LINDA gains a new member in the form of the enigmatic Victor Kennedy. He ruthlessly sets LINDA the task of ensnaring the Doctor: a plan which soon brings Jackie Tyler into Elton's life.

A close association between the world's longest-running science-fiction series and the world's longest-running children's series was perhaps inevitable. From its earliest days, Doctor Who had maintained a strong relationship with the BBC's flagship juvenile variety programme, Blue Peter, which had been on the air since 1958. The two shows first intersected on February 10th, 1964, when Blue Peter covered the donation of two Dalek casings to a Doctor Barnardo's Home. One of their most popular crossovers was a “Design A Monster” competition in 1967; the winners, announced on December 14th of that year, included the Steel Octopus, the Hypnotron, and the Aqwa Man.

With the bond between the programmes reinvigorated following Doctor Who's return to television in 2005, executive producer Russell T Davies and Blue Peter editor Richard Marson soon became determined to replicate the success of the “Design A Monster” contest. This time, however, there would be a twist: the best submission would actually appear -- fully realised -- in a Doctor Who story. Announced on July 19th, 2005, the unprecedented top prize encouraged a pool of submissions bigger than any which Blue Peter had received in the preceding twelve years. As revealed by David Tennant on August 17th, the most impressive of all the monster designs was the Abzorbaloff, created by nine-year-old William Grantham of Colchester, Essex. (Appropriately, Grantham would grow up to become not only an actor but also a writer, director and producer of animated content.)

With a tight production schedule, one episode would involve only minimal appearances by the Doctor and Rose

Meanwhile, Davies had been developing an unusual script for Season Twenty-Eight. The production schedule for the preceding year had been so tight that it had been necessary to overlap the recording dates for two stories -- The Long Game and The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances. This situation was exacerbated for the 2006 season because of the additional need to film a holiday special, The Christmas Invasion. To resolve the problem, Davies decided that one episode should involve only minimal appearances by the Doctor and Rose, and instead focus on other characters.

In 2004, Davies had developed an unused idea for the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, featuring a protagonist whose life had been touched by major events from the programme's history. Davies now felt that this would be an effective foundation for the “Doctor-lite” episode. Originally, work on this concept proceeded under the title “I Love The Doctor” and concerned a female fan of the Doctor's who was essentially stalking him. With Season Twenty-Eight already populated with women in strong supporting roles, however, Davies decided to replace the female stalker with a more benign male protagonist named Elton Pope. He wanted to use Elton and his friends to explore the nurturing environment provided by fandom -- but also how this could be spoilt by domineering, self-important “super-fans”.

Elton's story -- ultimately known as Love & Monsters -- was the last script Davies wrote for Season Twenty-Eight, with work on his first draft under way in December 2005. As such, it was a natural vehicle for the inclusion of the Abzorbaloff -- although Davies was unaware that Grantham had intended the monster to be several metres tall! Another element which influenced Love & Monsters was a letter Davies had received during the summer from popular comedian Peter Kay, who expressed his admiration for the relaunch of Doctor Who. This prompted Davies to invite Kay to play the role of Elton Pope, effectively making him the episode's lead actor. However, Kay felt that Elton was too reminiscent of Eric Gartside, his character in two January 2004 episodes of the soap opera Coronation Street. Kay proposed that he should instead play the Abzorbaloff and its human guise, Victor Kennedy. The actor worked closely with Davies to develop his role, even spending time at the writer's home during the scripting process. Meanwhile, Elton would ultimately be portrayed by Marc Warren, the star of the popular crime drama Hustle.

Initially, Davies intended to weave a variety of events from Doctor Who history into Elton's life. At an early stage, for instance, his mother died after being attacked by a plastic Auton daffodil, as depicted in the 1971 serial Terror Of The Autons. The LINDA moniker reused a gag which Davies had originally conceived almost two decades earlier for the children's series Why Don't You...?; in that case, the first letter had stood for Liverpool rather than London. With the episode's main character now a man, Davies decided to add a significant role for Jackie Tyler. He felt this was an important addition to the season, given that she would be leaving the series at the end of the year alongside her on-screen daughter, Billie Piper. This development came as a pleasant surprise to Camille Coduri, who had assumed that her involvement with Doctor Who had finished with the completion of the season finale, Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday, in January 2006.

Love & Monsters was intentionally constructed to avoid extensive effects requirements

Love & Monsters was always meant to be made at the end of the Season Twenty-Eight production schedule. As such, it was intentionally constructed to avoid extensive special effects requirements, given that time and money would likely be running out. Originally, Love & Monsters was paired with Fear Her to comprise the year's sixth and final recording block. Subsequently, Fear Her was brought forward to form part of Block Four, with Love & Monsters on its own as Block Six under Dan Zeff, directing his only episode of Doctor Who. Recording would take place alongside Block Five -- a practice known as “double-banking” -- which consisted of The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit.

Filming got under way on March 19th and 20th, when The Pop Factory -- a media complex in Porth -- hosted the scenes in Elton's bedroom. Work in Cardiff on the 21st began at Llandaff Fields, for material in the park where Elton first met Ursula. Cast and crew then moved to Heol Pentwyn Road to record the flashback sequences in and around Elton's childhood home. March 22nd was a busy day encompassing several Cardiff locations, and started off in frustrating fashion. Elton's discovery of the TARDIS in a disused part of Woolwich, prior to his encounter with the Hoix, was meant to be taped in an area of the Cardiff Docks which had not recently seen much use. The night before, however, a ship had docked nearby and the resulting activity was very much in evidence. Thinking quickly, first assistant director Susie Liggat instead suggested the use of Cargo Road, a nearby pathway which ran alongside a row of suitably decaying warehouses. Later the same day, Elton's first glimpse of Jackie came at St David's Market, the Auton attack from 2005's Rose was replicated at The Hayes, and other street scenes were completed on King Edward VII Avenue.

A similarly hectic March 23rd was also based in Cardiff, with Zeff first shooting the flashback of Elton's mother waving goodbye on the grounds of St Peter's Sports & Social Club. He moved on to various scenes involving Elton and Jackie at the Maelfa Shopping Centre, Helen Place, and the Wash Inn laundrette. March 24th was the only day on which the production was confined to Doctor Who's regular studio space, Unit Q2 in Newport, and marked the final use of the sets for Jackie's apartment.

March 26th saw cameras rolling at Jacob's Antique Centre in Cardiff, which stood in for the LINDA meeting place and its environs. With Doctor Who having already been renewed for Season Twenty-Nine in 2007, Davies took the opportunity to start planting the seeds for its umbrella story arc, specifying the creation of a fake edition of the Daily Telegraph with a headline revealing the soaring popularity of a politician named Saxon...

March 27th was spent at Taff Street and Garth Street in Cardiff, the site of the climactic confrontation with the Abzorbaloff. Work there concluded the following day, after which Zeff recorded the opening sequence involving the Hoix on the Newport Docks, before returning to Jacob's Antiques. Cast and crew stayed there through March 31st, when the material in Jackie Tyler's bathroom was also recorded at the same location. Although some effects and pick-up shots remained to be completed for The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, this day effectively brought an end to production on Season Twenty-Eight.

Still to be filmed, however, was Gareth Roberts' TARDISode for Love & Monsters; this work took place on April 8th at BBC Broadcasting House in Cardiff. Fifty-eight seconds in length, it featured Victor Kennedy browsing the LINDA website and using it to locate the group's meeting place, before “abzorbing” his secretary. Kennedy was kept out of sight throughout, disguising the fact that Dean Harris was standing in for Kay. As usual, the TARDISode was made available one week before Love & Monsters itself aired. This occurred on June 17th when, for the second Saturday in a row, a celebrity edition of the quiz show Weakest Link was scheduled immediately before Doctor Who.

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #14, 9th November 2006, “Episode 10: Love & Monsters” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #53, 2016, “Story 175: Love & Monsters”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Inside Story by Gary Russell (2006), BBC Books.