A little while ago, Jane (I think) mentioned somewhere (Barbara Barnett interview perhaps) that she was writing some stuff at the time that had involved a certain character, but the actor wasn’t available, so they had to alter it. She said that when S3A was airing though, so it was probably too long ago to have been stuff that would have been for Graham, if we haven’t seen what they were planning yet. I dunno how far in advance the writers plot stuff like this out in detail.
Adam said that they planned out both halves of the Season together back during the Summer.