Hi Murph, Roger had to go away to London on a business trip. I think that in real life Louis Edmonds was doing a play. I believe there was something he was involved in in Dec. 68-Jan. 69 which was the period he was away.
Yes, of course, in real life he would have flown back and been on hand. They should have thrown something in the script about Roger being stuck in the UK for x y or z reason, but so far as I know, they just pretended he did not exist. Wait till you see how the writers handle the situation when he comes back, too.
Sometimes the gap between DS-land and reality seemed so wide, it might as well have been the Atlantic Ocean.
Gothick