Defending the Historicals by Mekel Rogers 10/4/04
In a sense, every Doctor Who story that doesn't take place in the Gallifreian present is a historical since someone's future is someone else's past. However, for the sake of sanity, let's define a historical as any story that is set on Earth in a time period before the date in which the adventure was aired/released. These adventures can be basically divided into two groups.
The first of these is the "pure historical". These are adventures in which there are absolutely no science fiction elements to the story other than the TARDIS and its crew. The main function of many pure historicals is to immerse the time travelers in a historical society or situation from which they must escape without altering history, or prevent an incorrect version of history from coming into being. Sometimes this concept is treated seriously (Marco Polo, The Aztecs), sometimes with more humor (The Romans, The Highlanders).
The second grouping of stories is the "pseudo historical". These are essentially science fiction stories that take place in a historical setting. Adventures such as: The Time Warrior, Masque of Mandragora, Talons of Weng-Chiang, and The Visitation are examples of this genre.
Over the years there has been much criticism of historical stories by writers and viewers alike. They claim historicals are dull, lacking in mystery, and ultimately pointless since the Doctor cannot change anything.
I disagree.
Historicals have more atmosphere, ambiance, and charm than other stories. There is usually more location work which adds to the production values and believability of the adventure, and the stories come off as far less dated than the futuristic adventures that tried to predict what the 1990s would look like back in 1966.
Historicals show interaction between "real" people rather than poorly realized green blobby monsters and cliched mad scientists. They explore the human condition to help us better understand our own frailties and weaknesses. Most of all, historicals teach us about our past, and how to learn from it.
Ultimately, historicals are not about how the characters change history, they are about how history changes the characters. As such, they address more effectively than any other type of story the most important conflict of all: the conflict with oneself.
Those of you who love historicals are nodding in agreement right now. Those who don't.......to each his own, but please don't dismiss them. Try them again. They are worthy of our attention.
Here are some great places to start:
Marco Polo (pure)
The Aztecs (pure)
The Witch Hunters (pure)
The Romans (pure)
The Crusade (pure)
The Time Warrior (pseudo)
Pyramids of Mars (pseudo)
Masque of Mandragora (pseudo)
Talons of Weng-Chiang (pseudo)
The Visitation (pseudo)
Black Orchid (pure)
The Marian Conspiracy (pure)
The Fires of Vulcan (pure)
What the F***ing F*** is With F***ing Fandom? by John Seavey 12/4/04
A Calm and Rational Article on the Books, the Audios, and the TV Series
So all right, we can take the question as read, since it's the title, and for those of you who don't know what the asterisks are replacing, go ask your mother. (Actually, I'd thank you if you don't.) But it's a question worth asking, with asterisks or without. Why does fandom feel the need to factionalize?
Now of course, I don't mean you. I certainly don't mean you personally, because I know you'd never do such a thing. I'm talking about everyone else, so you should all just calm down and not hold it against me when I basically proceed to castigate all fandom as being a bunch of screaming ninnies who get so caught up in defending their idiosyncratic corner of the series that they personally love that they can't appreciate anything good when it comes their way. That's all fandom except for you.
At first, it was nice and simple. We had the TV series. Everyone knew it, everyone loved it, and there was no divisiveness at all about what was and wasn't proper Doctor Who. Then the second episode aired, and suddenly pandemonium reigned. With each juncture at the history of Doctor Who, be it a new actor, a new companion, a new producer (stand up Gareth Roberts, who tried to invalidate the entire JNT era), or a new medium, everyone has to slag off everyone else's part of Doctor Who as not proper. We get audio fans saying that the books are crap. We get books fans saying that the audios fans are a bunch of suck-ups because they like the series more if it's got actors reading it off. We get book and audio fans who are getting all shirty because the TV series is coming out, and people are getting interested in that like mindless sheep when they could be reading the books/listening to the audios. We get fans, in short, being fans.
Well, stop it. I'm going to articulate the feeling that I think a lot of fans are secretly thinking, and it's this: I'm looking forward to the TV series because I think it'll be good, and because I really enjoy Doctor Who. I'm not looking forward to it for "mainstream respectability", I don't feel bad that they're not openly acknowledging their debt to the audios/books/board-games/Dalek Annuals, I could give a flying toss about what the "long-term future of the series" will be. I like Doctor Who. I've heard rumors that this new TV series will be about it in some way. That's the same reason I like the books, that's the same reason I like the audios, that's the same reason I liked the TV show (except for the Troughton era, which has done nothing for me. I mean, they say it was a real tragedy it was erased, but have you seen The Seeds of Death? Tragedy they didn't erase a part or two from the middle of that -- thing moves like chilled molasses. But I digress.)
The point is -- it is possible, perhaps even desirable, to enjoy all of the series. You can like the books without hating the audios. You can like the audios without hating the new series. It is possible to like both the new series and the old. There is no need to get defensive, angry, or factionalized about Doctor Who because it's all good, because the central concept of a wise traveler who can go anywhere, anytime, and fights monsters using his wit and wisdom instead of a big gun is timeless, versatile, and can support forty more years of story-telling in any medium you care to name. It is possible to love Doctor Who, full stop, because it's all amazingly great stuff!
Except of course for The Ghosts of N-Space. Don't know what they were thinking there.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Thrilled Not Chilled by Andrew Wixon 20/4/04
Oh dear - I scent blood on the wind. Well, maybe not quite, but it seems that even the hallowed halls of the DWRG seem to be on the verge of succumbing to the current epidemic of Pre-New Series Mania. Joe Ford writes a piece about how wonderful it's going to be. Some idiot replies with a thing on why he's worried about it. And Rob Matthews weighs in saying he's sick of hearing about it and isn't really that bothered either way.
Well, sorry, Rob, but your piece really made me think, and that's a rare enough occurence to warrant recording. As far as I know, I have no great insights or revelations to offer on this topic, so don't bother skimming down in search of them - this is just going to be a bit of a ramble on the topic of what the prospect of a new series means to people, and whether it's really as important as all that...
I'm (ahem) in my thirties, and not far off what's apparently the average age for DW fans, according to the most recent poll I read. Dr Who was a live, going concern of a TV show for the first half of my life. So that, for me, is The World As It Should Be. The revival of the series is, if you like, a return to a more correct order of things (ooh, listen to me - I'll be filling central London with crap model dinosaurs next).
And as Rob says in his piece, I will happily stick my hand up and say that for me 'proper' Dr Who is the stuff on the telly. Not that I didn't collect and get excited over the Virgin books, or that I don't collect and love the Big Finish audios, but I suppose that for me they were always a substitute for proper Who. As readers of my collected works on this site (yes, I sound so pompous you're just dying to brain me with a cricket bat, aren't you?) will no doubt have picked up, over the last few years I really became convinced the show was never coming back, so it isn't as if I saw them as just a lifeline or a put-me-on until the good times rolled once more. It's just that if you say the words 'Doctor Who' to me, once I stop fibrillating I think of a TV series - and as a result anything with those words on it that isn't a TV series is never going to be quite up to scratch.
I was going to say that one's attitude to this is probably shaped by one's age and when one came into fandom - if you're under the age of twenty, it's highly unlikely you discovered the show on its original transmission, as a going concern, and as a result you're less likely to perceive the books, etc, as an inferior replacement for the new TV episodes suddenly not being made. But the most eloquently excited person I've yet encountered is Mr Joe Ford - and reading between the lines of Joe's work, I get the impression he's not long out of his teens, so maybe I'm wrong. Joe is also passionate about the BBC books, so it can't be that he's another member of the 'anything-not-on-TV-is-inevitably-second-best' camp.
It occurs to me that, as everyone here is ostensibly a Dr Who fan, by our standards manic euphoria is a perfectly understandable response to news of the revival, and Rob's own indifference is in fact the anomaly. Rob's own reasons for not getting worked up are, well, reasonable - striking a balance between 'bold new style' and 'retro nostalgia' will be hellishly difficult for Rusty and the gang, and parallels with the Star Wars revival are, I suppose, justified.
His point that one new series will never be able to match up to the body of the DW legend is interesting. It may be the case for us fans, but for normal people? I'm not sure. I've heard similar comments made re the Bond franchise - that each new movie inevitably suffers on release because subconsciously we compare it to the best bits of all the previous movies we've seen countless times on Christmas afternoons. But I don't think it's an exact analogy - we're talking about 20 movies in the case of Bond, which are easily digestible and pretty easy to distinguish - unlike DW, which is around 160 mostly movie-length stories, the vast majority of which have never been repeated on a mainstream channel, and almost never in prime time. For the general public, their conception of DW is much vaguer and thus more forgiving than ours. And for a big chunk of the new audience, DW will be a brand new series (maybe that idea of a repeat run trailing the new season is a bad idea after all...). In any case, the Bond franchise is a continuing success, so it can't be that serious a problem for them.
It isn't even as if Rob is the only one with forebodings about the project (I've been known to air a few myself). And he does have sensible things to say about how the perfect, shining new series we're all plotting, shooting and editing in our heads is undoubtedly going to make whatever eventually emerges from Cardiff a bit of a disappointment by comparison (a condition known to me as 'McGann TV movie syndrome', or, in a more recent variant, 'Return of the King-itis').
And yet most of us still get twitchy with each new revelation about Shearman, Collins, reclinations, Cornell, balconies and the colour blue. I doubt we can help it. We're Dr Who fans. We love the thing so much we write these reviews, try to reconcile the UNIT dating, make pilgrimages to lavatories in Tooting Bec, and do other insane fan stuff, because it's coded into our DNA. We treat the return of the TV series as an unalloyed good, a Holy Grail, despite all the good stuff put out in other media since 1990. Why?
Well, several answers occur to me. The obvious one is that 'Dr Who is fundamentally a TV series' and thus its return to TV is, as I mentioned up the page, undoubtedly good news for Dr Who as an ongoing phenomenon. However, this is actually an arguably selfish argument - it's good news for Dr Who, and thus also for the likes of us who fixate upon it, but is the return of the show a good thing objectively - is it good news for British TV, for British culture, for the audiences who will soon (re)discover our programme but couldn't really care less right now?
Rob makes a good point on how the mainstream, overground success of any new series would be a vindication for we long-term fans. 'We were right all along, it is as good as we've always said it was.' If it does come to pass, it'll be sweet - trust me, I was there in 1988 when Remembrance suddenly made the series playground-gossip-worthy again, and it felt good to be the one people turned to to ask their questions about Dalek politics, and express their new-found appreciation of the show. But, once again, this is a fairly selfish reason for wanting the show to come back and getting excited when it does.
In fact the only objective and unselfish reason I can think of for wanting the show to come back is that it's a good show. Not good as in well-written or well-acted or well-directed, because God knows it was never 100% consistent in any of those areas, but morally good. Virtuous, in fact. Hit me if I start saying 'never cruel or cowardly' but I think it's great that there's going to be a show of such warmth and wit and humanism on our screens again, saying important things about compassion and the power of individuals to make a difference, and the dangers of surrendering control of your life to a machine of any kind. These are important things, too seldom said on British TV these days.
I like to think that that's why I, at least, am pleased that the show is breaking out of the book and audio ghetto it's been in, and returning as a mass-audience entertainment. Yet also worried, of course - worried that the new Dr Who won't have the same values and morality bound into it as the old version. We'll have to see.
So no, a new series isn't 'essential', whatever that means - certainly not for us fans, because as Rob points out we have books, CDs, and a dozen other new ways of getting DW into our lives. But at the risk of sounding condescending to a monstrous degree, we shouldn't begrudge the show going back out into the wider mainstream culture where it was originated, even if it does mean losing some of the richness and texture it's acquired over the last decade or so. At worst, Dr Who made millions of people laugh. And at best, it thrilled them, made them feel and think and care. The chance that it might be able to do that all over again is, I hope, at least part of the reason why we're all getting so excited.
The PDA quick guide by Joe Ford 9/6/04
Haven't got a lot of money? Only dip into the Doctor Who book range when your interest is piqued? Far more interested in the continuing adventures of the 8th Doctor that can go in any direction? Then never fear, here is a thoroughly dispensable (and I say that in case I recommend a book that you loathe!) to what's hot and what's not in the mixed bag that is the Past Doctor Range...
The Devil Goblins from Neptune: A less assured debut for the range than Goth Opera was for the Missing Adventures but this still works on a lot of levels. It is season seven through and through with politics and fights and a heavy presence from UNIT. The 3rd Doctor and Liz are captured well especially the former's longing to be out amongst the stars. Finn Clark rightly points out that the plot is extremely light but it is packed full of incidentals that will pass the time. Stupid title though: 7/10
The Murder Game: More of the same basically, a competent, well-written story that crosses several genres (from murder mystery to alien incursion to techno thriller) and contains a long ignored but potentially fascinating duo (Ben and Polly). It feels like Doctor Who through and through right down to the dodgy looking monsters that plague the cover. There are some very funny bits (the Doctor in drag again!) and the last third is page-turning stuff: 7/10
The Ultimate Treasure: Laden with bland prose, dull puzzles and a predictably boring fifth Doctor this is not a good book. It tries to be surreal and clever but simply reminds of better attempts at this sort of thing (Pyramids of Mars, Death to the Daleks) and features the worst take on Peri until Warmonger. Even the return of an old companion is rubbish: 3/10
Business Unusual: Hmm, it does have the words Gary Russell on the cover and yet manages to remain a bubbly and likable read despite that. Of course it is choking on fanwank and spends too much time setting things up that the TV series should already have sorted. The sixth Doctor is beautifully recreated as a character of fun but his foreknowledge from the trial gives him that edge we expect. It's not great literature but it's entertaining Doctor Who: 7/10
Illegal Alien: My mate thinks this is a great book, doing lots of Who-ey things like putting the Cybermen in London during the blitz. He says that it has a good atmosphere and uses Ace and the Doc effectively. I recommend you read this before you embark on Loving the Alien because it introduces characters and idea that flower in that novel. I never made time for this so Loving was an incoherent mess for me. On my mate's opinion: 8/10
The Roundheads: I should love this. It is a historical in the Smugglers/Highlanders vein, there is some fruity dialogue and colourful characters that Mark Gatiss could write in his sleep and once again gives often ignored companions Polly and Ben a decent role in the action. And yet it drags on a bit, peppered with beautiful prose but unable to create any momentum. And the Doctor is practically ignored, a symptom of the myth that Troughton was hard to capture in print. A little dull to be honest: 5/10
The Face of the Enemy: The first classic of the range and a book that fires on all cylinders. It recreates the Pertwee era seamlessly by overloading the reader with characters that appeared in the first few seasons, takes a trip to the parallel universe in Inferno and has the best ever interpretation of the Master in print. Two of my favourites, Ian and Barbara are given an update (and blissfully married!) and for a Doctor-less novel this works a hell of a lot better than the previous six with him in the range, his influence is ever present through the capabilities of his companions. Add in some gripping action scenes and you're on to a winner. In my unworthy opinion McIntee's best book yet: 9/10
Eye of Heaven: Jim Mortimore takes the easiest route to writing a Doctor Who masterpiece, a book written in the first person narrative from the point of view of savage Leela. Through her eyes we see this epic tale of sea life and aliens come alive with vigour and intensity, it is full of beautiful observations that could not come from any other character. Again, Mortimore's best and one of the best PDA's you're likely to read because it forgets it is Doctor Who and gets on with telling a bloody good story: 10/10
The Witch Hunters: Simple and glorious, a Hartnell historical that plays by the rules and explores a tragic event in history and exploits it for all the drama it can. The prose is nothing special but the story itself is gripping, Susan is used better than ever before and the climax will leave you in tears. Most of the extra characters are disgracefully horrible and act in fashion you would only expect from fascist aliens and it will open your eyes considerably to see just how barbaric the human race could be: 9/10
The Hollow Men: There is one scene in this book that shocked my young mind more than any other. Whilst the story deals with the clever and chilling ideas of homicidal scarecrows and a poisoned water supply it was the very real life hanging of one character, her father discovering her in a police cell, that frightened me. Topping and Day work together seamlessly, their prose is light but evocative, their characters bright and memorable and the threat very real. It is another bloody good book: 8/10
Catastrophea: Argh, and it was going so well! I must admit in my adult years I am not the greatest Terrance Dicks fan which may seem ungrateful considering he lit up my teenage years with all those marvellous Target books. Traditional/light/effortless/shallow... all of these apply to practically every book he has written and this no exception. It's fun and readable but you will have forgotten about within hours of putting it down: 5/10
Mission: Impractical: A huge comedown from McIntee's previous work and a book that has the nerve to tell the readers that it was merely an excuse for the writer to wind down after his earlier, torturously dramatic works. Two fluffy books in a row is mistimed and not even Frobisher, one the best ever companions, can lift the story which is just Oceans' Eleven in space without any of the twists. Insultingly, the prose is childishly simple and the feeling is of a writer that is not trying: 4/10
Zeta Major: The schizophrenic Simon Messingham, capable of brilliance and trash. This leans towards the former and is full of the writer's love of narrative tricks. It is an involving political thriller with some fun continuity and another brutal transformation into a slavering beast for Nyssa (poor cow!). Too many characters and a weak ending knock off a few points: 7/10
Dreams of Empire: Troughton is captured devilishly well, rushing about, improvising, emotional and most of incredibly silly. A season five base under siege story is not first on my list of must-reads but Richards pulls it off with incredible style constructing a story that is filled with shocks. The introduction of some super-cool androids lifts the middle sections and the feeling of desperation in the claustrophobic setting is extremely evocative of the era. Snap it up, 2nd Doctor books of this calibre are quite rare: 8/10
Last Man Running: A scriptwriter turned novelist? Not the most promising of transitions either despite the potential of Chris Boucher writing for Leela again. As you would expect it is crowded with dialogue and light on prose and hindered by some unlikable characters and a Swiss cheese plot. I have the feeling this would have worked well on screen with some charismatic performances: 4/10
Matrix: A fascinating setting, a clever plot, the return of a promising character who proves the ideal adversary for the manipulative seventh Doctor... so why does this book fail to engage? I blame the writing, Perry and Tucker are clearly talented men but it always feels like mixed styles, a fast paced, action based prose style combined with a more reflective, character style. The book switches pace so much and there is quite a bit to concentrate on, it feels a little amateurish all told: 5/10
The Infinity Doctors: Heavy continuity would usually suggest a lazy writer, using old characters and aliens to appease the fans but it is the crux of why this is such a perfect book. Gallifreyan history, Sontaran, Rutans, the Master, the Doctor, all are given a thorough examination in this epic thriller that feels like a proper SF book and not some Who spinoff. The writing is pure Parkin, riding emotions and capturing surroundings with rare beauty. It is so good it doesn't feel the need to confirm which Doctor is present, content with his identity as a whole: 10/10
Salvation: Much underrated and NEEDED as a background filler for Dodo and further examination of Steven, one of the most interesting companions of the bunch. The fact that there is a poignant story of the power of God(s) beneath that is just a bonus. Steve Lyons is rather good at these therapy stories, there is a lot of internal thought in this book but it just serves to flesh out the characters further and mark this out as one of the most thoughtful PDAs: 8/10
The Wages of Sin: Another McIntee work that is passable but pales in comparison with his superlative Face of the Enemy. The first few chapters are terribly written, McIntee strings together all sorts of strange similes and metaphors that distract and annoy and should have been dealt with at the editing stage. Liz and Jo don't really work as a pair but this was a forced restriction and I think everyone aggress this would have worked better as the Hartnell historical it was intended to be. Rasputin is a character I have longed for the Doctor to meet and he is swathed in shades of grey, easily the best thing about this underwhelming effort: 5/10
Deep Blue: Just awful, the words fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough should be enough to put you off. But if you are (strangely) a fan of this horrid trio you will find little chemistry here, just three self-involved ciphers (ahem). As a horror story is fails because it sticks too rigorously to the cliches and despite some nice writing there is little tension or shivers you would expect from such a tale. The cod companion romance hits a new low: 2/10
Players: Enjoyable certainly and terrific fun to see the sixth Doctor rubbing shoulders with some of the great heads of history. Peri is given some room to shop and joke and generally behave like a real person. Much like the EDA Endgame (which also features the Players) it is the shallow way it looks at history that disappoints, reducing the factual events that take place here to little more than a comic strip. I'm not saying Doctor Who shouldn't be fun but this jolly adventuring look at history just isn't my cup of tea: 6/10
Millennium Shock: For a book that was written in three weeks this is a superb achievement and another medal on Richard's uniform. The weapon that targets its victims through technology is rather frightening and leads to a lot of trouble for the beautifully written Harry Sullivan. I hate to keep going on about this but the fourth Doctor gets to drive a tank through the streets of the London! It's twist-a-palooza and considering it's a sequel to a barely remembered Missing Adventure it can hold its head quite high: 8/10
Storm Harvest: The best Tucker/Perry combo of the lot and one that exploits the season 26 atmosphere of real characters in extraordinary circumstances. I think it works better as a book than it would have on screen because we get closer to the characters and the Krill demand spectacular realisation. Seaside Doctor Who stories tend to be a lot of fun (except Deep Blue of course) and this has the added Jaws style effect of the Krill who are bloody scary and worthy of a return visit: 8/10
The Final Sanction: Hardly a barrel of laughs and only five books after Steve Lyons' last effort you might think he would start to lack focus but nothing could be further than the truth. This remains a brutal and at times agonisingly realistic tale of war in space with Lyons' Selachians fleshed out much more effectively than their debut appearance. There is a strong role for Zoe and it is gripping to see the 2nd Doctor in a tale that he would be offensive for him to play the clown. One chapter stands out, told from the dying eyes of a Selachian on the battlefield, it will haunt you: 8/10
City at World's End: Wonderful title for a book that has achieved the infamous status of being loved and loathed in equal measure. I'm in the pro section; Bulis raises his game to produce a book that gets the Hartnell regulars spot on and there are a lot of fun mysteries that propel you forwards for answers. Okay so the big twist is implausible to say the least but remains entirely in character for a society that epitomises corruption: 8/10
Divided Loyalties: Dear Gary Russell, does he really have a clue what he is writing? You would think that somebody so well educated in Doctor Who would understand just what the fans want but instead he writes stories for himself, childish, weighted with continuity and lacking even the slightest familiarity to the regulars he is trying to capture. He uses Adric? Adric! Is it any wonder this book is pants? What's worse he soils the memory of the great Celestial Toymaker. Flashbacks to the Doctor on Gallifrey should be magical but instead complicate the very simple premise of the series: 2/10
Corpse Marker: A decent stab at a sequel for Robots of Death with the survivors from that story effortlessly drawn again so many years later. Poul's Robophobia remains as scary as it was on the telly and his hallucinations provide some top scare moments. What surprises is the ill use of Leela who seems a parody of herself with little of the intelligence she clearly expresses, just acting like a violent monster without any of the light relief seems wildly out of character (after Eye of Heaven I am biased). Still he captures Doc 4 beautifully with lots of funny lines for him. Overall, page turning stuff, plot surprises and textured characters could lead you to think this a Justin Richards book: 7/10
Last of the Gaderene: Some of you will love this. If you like your Doctor Who fiction to feel precisely like it did on the telly then this is the book for you. I personally believe that the novels have the capacity to delve deeper and blatant cliched storytelling is a waste of time. This evokes the Pertwee era beautifully, so well it bores after a few chapters. It's a story we've seen a million times before, UNIT, the Master, stupid Brigadier... Gatiss has an eye for chucklesome dialogue but aside from this there is little of note: 4/10
Tomb of Valdemar: Deliciously dark and layered, this is one of those rare Doctor Who books that starts out terribly (the first few chapters are numbingly bad) but improves tenfold so that at the climax you are enthralled. The characters who at first seem one dimensional show tremendous growth (indeed Miranda Pelham and Huvan are two of the most sympathetic characters I have read) and the book manages to scare simply through atmosphere alone. Messingham's best by miles, the final twist revealing who the narrator is is the icing on the cake: 9/10
Verdigris: A blissful little novel that Margs uses to playfully poke fun at the Doctor Who universe. A certain group of fans think this is the worst depth Doctor Who can plummet to but I think they just don't know how to take the mickey out of themselves. The plot is totally unpredictable and seems to shoot of at random intervals in a new direction, creating what seems to be major complications but Margs wonderfully ties it all up by the simplest of means. Gorgeous characters and very creative: 9/10
Grave Matter: Richards in spook mode and adjusting his direct prose accordingly. There are some wonderful passages in this book, especially the delicious chapter where Peri is assaulted by all number of zombie animals. There's lashings of gothic atmosphere and another bubbly take on the sixth Doctor, if this wasn't so steeped in mood I would be harsher on its traditional nature. Great twists again, Richards is the master of hiding his true intentions: 8/10
Heart of TARDIS: Oh my bloody God. What is this nonsense? Rob Matthews and I will row forever about the Romana on screen and the bitch in these pages... I feel it is truthful rendition, he doesn't. If only that was all that was wrong with this, a book with a plot that barely finds time to begin it prevaricates so long, that wastes the potential magical 2nd and 4th Doctor's meeting, that remains deathly dull throughout despite some humour. Dave Stone sinks to an all time low: 1/10
Prime Time: Hmm, Vengeance on Varos parallels are inevitable but this actually manages to surpass the examination of media-controlled violence. It isn't the best-written book in he world, it is remarkably short and Tucker seems to have trained at the Terrance Dicks School of Writing. But the plot is continually surprising right up to the shock ending and for once the return of the Master is welcome and touches on a homicidal lust the Doctor feels for his enemy. Shame the cover is bloody awful: 7/10
Imperial Moon: Average fare, Bulis achieves the impossible and writes an engaging fifth Doctor but there is little else of note. Some people claim this is has the feel of a genuine Verne-ish adventure but I found the cliches piling up, the ending a damp squib and Turlough's failed romance rather embarrassing: 4/10
Festival of Death: Clever narrative construction and a superb evocation of season seventeen lift this book above its contempories considerably. Newcomer Jonathon Morris has written a clever and involving tale, one that uses time travel ingeniously and for good comic effect as the Doctor arrives and realises he has already been there and saved the day. Fun characters and witty dialogue make this pleasure to read: 9/10
Independence Day: Astonishingly badly written and featuring an ineffectual seventh Doctor. As you would expect from the editor of the New Adventures it features sex and drugs out of context and lacks one character that you can identify with. Even the cover is bollocks: 2/10
King of Terror: Another failure and proof, I think, that Justin Richards (editor) was concentrating far more on the eighth Doctor books of this period. Keith Topping needs some lessons in English literature as some of the punctuation in this book sucks, nothing to do with the story itself but it does distract you. It almost seems to want to contradict established continuity and when you have to go to these lengths to stick to the rules you have to wonder why the author bothered. Oh and it's got Tegan and Turlough in it: 3/10
The Quantum Archangel: Rarely has a book, any book not just a Doctor Who book been this appallingly written. It is confusing and annoying, continuity obsessed and mischaracterised. They keep using Craig Hinton and he never delivers, this is his worst offender yet because it fucks with the sixth Doctor and Mel, tries to drive a wedge between the one companion the Doctor actually got on with in the 80's. Oh and it's a sequel to the The Time Monster. Says it all really: 0/10
Bunker Soldiers: Excellent. Pushing Steven to centre stage again is a bloody good idea and his realistic and no nonsense point of view makes this a refreshingly unpretentious read. Martin Day has come on in leaps and bounds and this is his best yet, a gripping Hartnell historical which takes the simple premise of the TARDIS being out of bounds and a big fight on its way and squeezes all the tension out of it. The first Doctor is magical and perfectly accurate and even Dodo comes off well: 9/10
Rags: Signs that the PDAs are pulling themselves out of their rut and this debut novel by top writer Mick Lewis is exactly the sort of experimental material they should be exploring all the time. This is a nasty book, one that takes the Pertwee era and fills it full of loathing and death and it remains compelling throughout. It is rare for so many people to die for so little reason and the blood weeps from the pages, no wonder there was an outcry from fans for this sort of thing to never happen again. Jo is a bitter, twisted creature of self-loathing, hell she is more fun that way!: 8/10
The Shadow in the Glass: The Brigadier gets to meet Hitler! How fascinating to see these polar opposites together. A delicious documentary style look at the second world war and a breathless action story too. A solo sixth Doctor rocks with new companion Claire and her tragic death at the book's conclusion provides the ultimate lump in the throat moment for the book range. Not only stormingly written and jammed full of twists but written in a hurry to replace a Gary Russell book (phew!): 9/10
Asylum: Underrated, purely because Darvill-Evans manages to write so gorgeously here and fails so spectacularly elsewhere. The locations are captured with rare beauty and the characters given real depth. Because of this there is little plot or development of the story and it does tend to stagnate after a while. Read this in short chunks and let the glorious prose wash over you and forget about the silly pairing of the fourth Doctor with Nyssa: 7/10
Superior Beings: This book is the fifth Doctor. Kind of likable in a friendly uncle sort of way but not somebody you would want to spend any time with for long because he doesn't have anything interesting to say. Nick Walters is a good writer as demonstrated elsewhere but this is not one of his better efforts, the characters act stupidly, especially light headed Peri and the aliens fail to grab you. Maybe the sun got to their heads: 5/10
Byzantium!: Argh! What is this? How can anybody get the Hartnell regulars so totally wrong? The dialogue for Ian and Vicki is so uncharacteristic you have to wonder if Keith Topping has seen any Hartnell Who! The book itself is harmless, occasionally amusing (the Romans are so horrible to each other you have to laugh) and occasionally annoying (so many punctuation mistakes!). It is cliched as hell but goofy fun ruined considerably by 'pen and inks' Ian: 4/10
Bullet Time: Gripping and urgent and muddying the waters when it comes to the death of Sarah Jane Smith, this lacks anything definitively Who-ish to draw in the casual punter. It's more like a Jackie Chan film and McIntee indulges himself with more endless violence. The seventh Doctor's presence is intriguing: 6/10
Psi-ence Fiction: Oh dear. Dialogue heavy, obvious characterisation... it has to be Chris Boucher! There is nothing that annoys me more in horror films/books than stupid kids that do stupid things that get them killed. This book is full of them, all of which are insulting parodies of what adults expect kids to be like. The identity of the baddie is obvious you have to wonder if the twist is whether it isn't him: 2/10
Dying in the Sun: I have never read this book but my dear pal Rob Matthews has. He has regularly led me to believe by his rantings against it that it is like being strung up by your privates over a pool of mercury. I happen to value his opinion enormously so here is my rating: 2/10
Instruments of Darkness: Just when you though it couldn't get any worse... Gary Russell shows up! Actually this is kind of fun for Mr Russell featuring the first appearance of top audio companion Evelyn Smythe. The exploration of her split with the Doctor sort of overshadows the real plot of this story that brings together all sorts of loose ends from old Gary Russell books (Whoopedido!). There is a sweet gay romance somewhere in the dreck and the shock identity of an old companion at the book's climax: 5/10
Relative Dementias: Mark Michalowski I could kiss you all over! Finally a readable book! One that has an honest to God plot! Sympathetic characters! Millions of good twists! I love Scotland to pieces and this draws on the atmosphere of that gorgeous land, it is the perfect place to stage this poignant story of senility. It is the best we have seen of Doc 7 and Ace for ages, they both seem rather refreshing in this writer's capable hands: 8/10
Drift: The sumptuous cover gives way to a slow but thoughtful tale. It does seems a little jarring to have such a heavy military presence in the book, especially when the warmer character moments impress more but the mysterious White Shadow organisation are still a fun innovation. It's another Doctor and Leela book but their presence is rarely felt thanks to the huge supporting cast (although admittedly they are a fine compensation). My mate Matt who hates the books loved this: 6/10
Palace of the Red Sun: Harmless but rather enjoyable simply because it never feels that important. Bulis manages to get the holiday atmosphere just right and the book features some charming characters and ideas. I loved the scenes with the Doctor and the robot and Peri gets to be in charge a lot. The ending is pointlessly dramatic considering the rest of the book doesn't bother with silly things like tension or drama. Still, miles better than much of what has come before for a while: 7/10
Amorality Tale: Good stuff and using the often ignored 3rd Doctor and Sarah combination well. This tale of alien fog has a rather marvellous setting that gets to use all sorts of mindless thugs like Tommy Ramsey and Brick to propel the story onwards full of gang violence. The prose may be simple but the feeling of time running out for the third Doctor leaves a lump in the throat. David Bishop writes a massacre of a climax that will leave you impressed: 8/10
Warmonger: There have been very few Doctor Who books that have gotten everything so very wrong you have to wonder if Terrance Dicks' name alone means he gets a slot in the books because the quality here is being bled away into the eighth Doctor books. Insulting prose, woeful mischaracterization, a prequel of a story that doesn't need one, crappy characters, plod, plod, plodding plot, awful cover... plus (and I know I keep mentioning it) horrid references to rape: 0/10
Ten Little Aliens: A topping little mystery story told in a macho SF environment. God bless Stephen Cole, he can still write at least! At first it appear this is all about atmosphere, having a very Aliens feel (which itself is a masterpiece in atmosphere) but there is a rather clever plot too that manages to surprise with some good character twists. Doc 1 holds his own amongst all the bullies and companions Polly and Ben (in a canonically impossible story... good! About time somebody ignored the rules!) get some healthy development. I love the choose your own adventure chapter, makes you wonder how cool it would have been for the whole book to be like this: 8/10
Combat Rock: Mick Lewis... what do you expect? Blood and guts and death on an inconceivable scale? Of course! Who would you naturally plant into this story of island cannibals? The second Doctor of course... who is beautifully treated to his best interpretation yet, jumpy and embarrassed. The prose is quite beautiful and might blind you into thinking the plot is fast moving but in truth it wobbles along revelling in pain before spewing out twists you didn't know it was setting up. The scenery comes alive: 7/10
The Suns of Caresh: I am biased because the ending to this book sucks, a terribly dull scientific lecture on a planet that is hardly featured to that point. The first two thirds are excellent however, the very involving romance with Simon Haldane (nerd spectacular!) and Troy Game, the gripping crash landing of the TARDIS, the exploration of the creepy alien ship... Paul Saint has assembled some clever SF ideas and whips up an engaging 3rd Doctor tale. Damn that ending otherwise it would be the best since Festival of Death: 7/10
Heritage: Strangely popular for a book that does sod all throughout. Okay so there is the death of Mel sensitively handled but in order to reach this development you have to wade through the first hundred pages of repetitive prose and wretched internal dialogue that reminds of the worst of the New Adventures. For a book that flirts with incest, assassination and killer dolphins this is an extremely dull book that favours its drab and character-less setting over the plot. Oh and the seventh Doctor is waay moody: 2/10
Fear of the Dark: A sweet little horror tale that admittedly hauls the cliches at you full pelt but unlike Deep Blue manages to surprise occasionally with some huge set pieces (the Blood hunter and the ship crashing are both spectacular moments). Tegan is damn likable throughout and the book deals sympathetically with her reintegration into the TARDIS. Loved space bitch Stoker and her almost romance. Above average prose for Baxendale makes this a decent, if predictable read: 7/10
Blue Box: Welcome home Kate Orman! An A list EDA writer provides the best novel in the PDA range for AGES. Gripping told in the journalistic first person style of Chick Peters, it tells of the road trip across America with the sixth Doctor and Peri on the trail of alien technology. Graceful writing and an excellent exploration of the abusive Doc 6/Peri relationship provide good reasons to read this but super bitch Sarah Swan, the best novel baddie for an age, makes it essential: 9/10
Loving the Alien: Incredibly confusing book that makes the mistake of assuming that everybody has read Illegal Alien. Some of us haven't and couldn't give a toss who Cody McBride is. The very intriguing idea of Ace dying before her time is wasted on a novel that tries to do too much and is annoyingly placed in a period where the EDAs were already dealing with alternative universes and the idea transferring to this series feeling like serious overkill. Again the two authors' prose feels clunky and there is a cast of hundreds. Still top marks for the end of episode two: 4/10
Colony of Lies: Inoffensive but hardly memorable: 4/10
Wolfsbane: A book that uses Harry Sullivan better than any other and stands up to repeated readings. Jac Rayner has an eye of detail like no other and fills the book with magical events that dismiss the view that all magic in Who is based on science. Don't stop to think how absurd the baddies are; enjoy the laugh out loud material and the bubbly dialogue. Another superb chapter in the Caught on Earth arc: 9/10
Deadly Reunion: Perfect for capturing the Pertwee era but unlike Last of the Gaderene it bothers to include some genuinely original material, in this case the hundred-page prelude in the Brigadier's past where he comes face to face with the Greek Gods. The second half is an exercise in nostalgia and easily the best thing Terrance Dicks has written in yonks, he actually takes the time to enjoy his characters and includes lots of fun bonuses for fans of the era: 8/10
Empire of Death: Bloody good and achieving the rare position of being the third PDA in a row to stand up to scrutiny, we haven't had that in a while. Finally Nyssa gets to shine in a book where she isn't subjected to torture and we get some fascinating insights into this usually quiet character. A smashing Victorian chiller, one that bothers to concentrate on its characters to create chills, especially the creepy medium James Lees. Queen Victoria makes a top companion: 9/10
Postmodernism in Doctor Who by Mike Morris 13/6/04
Okay, having seen the title I'm pretty sure that there are all of three people reading by now. But what the hell; it's a topic that's been nagging away at me for a while. It comes from a few things; the way that "Post-Modern" is bandied about far too much in the context of Who, the fact that contemporary culture is swimming in postmodernism these days, the upcoming new series which will - inevitably, I think - be taking on a lot of those Post-Modern traits. And I thought there were two big questions worth asking. Firstly: When has Doctor Who been Post-Modern? Second, and maybe more importantly: Should Doctor Who be Post-Modern?
Now, I read a review on this site, which mentioned Lance Parkin having a cut at this already in DWM, and I haven't read that. Still, Parkin's definition of Post-Modernism (according to whatever review I read) was, erm, not really what Post-Modernism is. Which is understandable, as in SF circles "Post-Modern" seems to have come to mean winks to the audience, overt referencing of other material, and a playful attitude towards the text generally. Now, those things are symptoms of Post-Modernism, yes, but they don't have to be post-modern and they aren't at the core of what it is. The Hinchcliffe era, for example, very obviously references Hammer movies, but not in a post-modern way.
So it's definition time. And again, someone's got there before me. Rob Matthews has discussed this in his review of The Year of Intelligent Tigers (or at least, what he claimed was a review of The Year of Intelligent Tigers), so you should probably go and have a look at that. I'll wait.
Dum-de-dum-de-dum...
Okay. Now, I should probably bow to Rob's superior knowledge in topics like this, but I'm going to put my hand up and say that I don't quite agree with him there either. I have studied theories of modernism and post-modernism, although it was in an architectural context, so this is all open to correction; but essentially I think it's an idea that applies to all areas of culture anyway. Essentially, Rob's right on. Modernism came along, blew most things apart and said that a dogmatic I'm-right-and-everyone-else-is-wrong, there-are-rules-you-know attitude produces nothing of value. Two apparently different ideas can be equally valid, and dialectic and argument should occur to refine them. Again, if you look at nineteenth century English fiction (and given that schools in England and Ireland shove the crap down your throat, it's hard not to), you'll see what things were like beforehand. Read Silas Marner, for example (or on second thoughts don't because it's incredibly boring), and you'll find that it pretty much has two messages; Church of England is better than Presbyterian communes, and being a miser is bad. Now, there's no-one who pops up and says, well, I like being a Presbyterian and sod the CofE. There isn't any discussion. What we're given, essentially, is dogma.
However, when Rob says that Post-Modernism isn't wildly different from Modernism, I have to disagree. Philosophically they are intrinsically opposed. You see, in spite of the "different ideas" line, Modernism (and "Modern" shouldn't be confused with "contemporary", by the way. It was a distinct movement which grew in the early part of the twentieth century) does believe in a real, impartial truth. While two opposing arguments may both be valid, what Modernism holds is that they're facets of a greater truth; essentially, that the truth is Out There and can be arrived at. And the theory goes that we get closer to the truth by discussion and refinement of different ideas, and - generally - by eliminating what is irrelevant and finding what is common between them. If an idea cannot be justified by argument, then it's not an idea, it's a dogma and it's worthless. This is why Modern architecture, for example, tend to be white walls and cubes and simplicity; because Modernism is about removing irrelevancies to arrive at a core of truth.
What frustrates Modern thinkers is that it's a bit difficult to do that in practice. There are so many opinions and arguments in the world, many of which are incredibly difficult to refine or distil, that arriving at the ultimate truth is impossible. So, as Rob says, Modern fiction tends to be a bit depressing, because it's about the argument rather than the product, and the argument's practically impossible to conclude. Dammit, what is the truth? Why can't I work it out? Kafka (ooh I love him) tends to write like this; a main character searching desperately for the centre of a near-incomprehensible world, and just becoming too confused by the profusion of arguments and ideas that he has to negotiate. Just as Modern thinkers, frustratingly, can't really work out what the ultimate, impartial truth is. Still, even if K can't reach it, there is a Castle, Out There. So it isn't quite the nihilism it threatens to be.
Post-Modernism is a reaction to this depressing reality; it simply says that there is no truth, just opinion. There is no right and wrong, so just enjoy the debate. It can be playful and fun because, essentially, the debate doesn't really matter as there's no real answer. So although the arguments are the same, the attitude is different and the philosophy is fundamentally opposed. Post-Modernism was a huge jolt to society generally and remains a predominant philosophy, even if its results are varied. Post-Modern architecture is almost always appalling, for example, while in cinema and television it's a mixed blessing that can go either way, and in literature it's generally a positive thing. Essentially, a post-modern novel can present questions but no answers in a way that Modern novels can't, not without being bloody depressing anyway.
Okay, I'm almost at the point of talking about Doctor Who, honest!
Twentieth-century Modern novels do tend to be a bit depressing, but as I said, they tend to be about the overall argument. Modern architecture, though, is very much about creating a clear, complete entity that works within itself, and it's optimistic and exhilarating and exciting. And going back to literature, some of the most Modern works are centuries old. Folk-tales are incredibly Modern, because they tend to be short, sharp and pared-down (due to them being passed on orally over generations, which means only the important bits survive). They're simple and elegant and within themselves they are perfectly justified. In this century - sorry, the last century - lots of short pulp novels have Modern traits. Whodunnits, for example, which are all about the truth being arrived at through discussion. Or Calvino's Our Ancestors trilogy, which is essentially three modern fairy-tales and is very beautiful.
Doctor Who (hooray!) as seen on television is something quite close to a contemporary fairy-tale. And I'll put my head on the block here and say that it is a fundamentally Modern programme, and that's what makes it so great. It's Modern in it's expression; it tends to be based on speed, simplicity and economy, it's about annunciating ideas clearly, it's about justifying its locations and its plots through its text. More importantly, it's usually Modern in its philosophy. This is about a guy who goes around fighting for what's right; it has very clear moral ideas. Post-Modern thinking holds that there is no right or wrong, there's just opinion, which really is alien to Doctor Who's philosophy. I mean, yes, freedom of expression and all that, and Modernism doesn't mean that people aren't entitled to their viewpoint; but Modernism means that you can say of something that "this is crap", while Post-Modern limits you to "I don't like it." And it's been said about the Doctor that he is a figure who is defined by his courage to say, "You are wrong." Which is a Modern statement.
This means that, for the overwhelming majority of Doctor Who, there's very little Post-Modernism in philosophy or expression. Post-Modern expression is where nods-and-winks come in. Because it's all about enjoying the argument, it assumes a literacy on the part of its audience and uses elements, not as things in themselves, but as signifiers of other arguments. Now, because Doctor Who is about telling convincing stories, it doesn't really do this sort of thing, and apart from a brief period it certainly doesn't go for it wholeheartedly. But there are exceptions.
Carnival of Monsters would be an example. There are numerous little touches, such as Vorg's "our purpose is to amuse, simply to amuse - nothing serious, nothing political", which is a nudge to the audience that this story is a comment on Doctor Who's production. Really, though, it doesn't depend on the audience getting the joke, in much the same way as The Brain of Morbius reworks Frankenstein but doesn't need us to recognise where it comes from. That's Modern, is that, just as Villa Savoye adapts the Parthenon but doesn't expect us to recognise the fact - it wants us to think it's entirely new. It's the difference between reinterpreting and referencing.
Right, I won't mention architecture again. Promise.
Inter Minor, though, is different. Kalik, Orum and Pletrac are obviously there to represent bureaucrats and political wrangling, and the script goes to great effort to make us get the joke. They're grey, to show how boring they are. They're bald, to conform to our archetypical image of bureaucrats. Their dialogue is very overtly like political gobbledygook of our time. What makes this post-modern is that we need to be in on the joke to enjoy it. Viewing Inter Minor without its obvious subtexts, it doesn't make sense. No matter what species we're talking about, important politicians would not be that gormless, and they wouldn't hang around spaceports. Coups are not planned in two minutes, standing around on corners. No one really talks like that. Entire species would not suffer from pattern baldness. Unless you're aware of the joke, Inter Minor is bloody stupid, so great efforts are made to make sure we get it. And another Robert Holmes script, The Sunmakers, works in pretty much the same way. Inter Minor and Pluto aren't supposed to be real environments, just signposts to the real joke.
Anyone who's read my review of The Sunmakers will know what I think of that story, and I'm not wildly keen on the Inter Minor segments of Carnival of Monsters either. Really, it depends on how good the joke is; I don't think the "bureaucracy" joke in Carnival of Monsters is particularly funny, and the "taxman" joke in The Sunmakers is one I fundamentally disagree with. The real damage, though, is that these Post-Modern touches sit awkwardly in a generally Modern series. They're laid on with a trowel, and Post-Modernism does rely on subtlety and skill to work well. In Who, it comes across as self-indulgent, and because the programme works so hard to establish plausibility it's annoying to undercut it like that.
Besides, while we might argue that these things are Post-Modern now, I don't think they were really intended as such at the time. They're just... well, a bit cosy and crap. This also applies to the novels, where a lot of authors think they're being brilliantly Post-Modern, but really they're just being very childishly Post-Modern. Post-Modernism needs to be clever to work, but it's a mistake to think it's inherently clever in itself. In fact, it's often very stupid and annoying.
The only time that the televised series was really, seriously, Post-Modern, was during the Cartmel era. And we see the benefits of someone really understanding what it was all about - but also, I think, what some of the problems are.
In my review of Ghost Light, I've already spoken about this as one of very few Doctor Who stories where the narrative is genuinely Post-Modern. It's full of signifiers and references to a wider debate, and relies on them to work. Reverend Matthews, for example, isn't really supposed to be a character in himself; rather, he's a signifier of the political power of the Church, and we're expected to know that. Really, I've gone about this in my review anyway, but I will say that it's comfortably the most successful example of Post-Modernism in the context of the programme. Still, the Cartmel-era as a whole tends to be far more Post-Modern than the rest of Doctor Who generally. It's there in the way that, say, we know that Commander Millington is there to - at least partly - represent Hitler, and Doctor Judson is supposed to be Alan Turing. And there's the looser attitude to plotting, with the stories being much less linear, much denser, and leaving far more questions unanswered. As a whole, they tend to ask more of the viewer in terms of putting the pieces together. That's Post-Modern, is that.
What shouldn't be forgotten, though, is that a lot of fans don't like the McCoy era. That's obviously a bit of a simplistic point, but it's a valid one. It's not fair to say people as intelligent as Terrence Keenan don't like the McCoy era just because it's different and they're too stupid to get it. Thing is, although I don't agree with Terrence's criticism of The Curse of Fenric, I can see why he might not like it. It can easily be seen as preachy and portentous, and getting away from the principles of storytelling for the sake of storytelling that makes Doctor Who such a joy. Not that this isn't valid, not that I want to fall into that "Doctor Who is all about X or Y" trap (because it's dogma!). Still, a friend of mine hates the era because he describes it as clumsy. "I can see the joins," is the best way he puts it. Because the stories are - deliberately - not completely naturalistic, they can be cliched and not establish the suspension of disbelief that a programme like Doctor Who needs. And something else; when it doesn't quite work, as in Silver Nemesis and Battlefield, it really does go tits-up.
What has remained constant, though, is that the philosophy remains Modern, a choice of right or wrong, sometimes with - in the New Adventures especially - a debate as to why a particular type of action is the right one. The New Adventures are frequently a bit Post-Modern in their expression and their narrative, chiefly because they're largely written by McCoy-era fans. And they're rather more comfortable with it too, because I think Post-Modernism works better in literature. Still, it's not rigorous; I don't think that NA writers were serious students of Post-Modernism in the way that Andrew Cartmel is, and I would still say that a lot of NA's aren't very well written. There are too many cuts, too many brief passages, too much philosophising and not enough basics. Bad Post-Modern theory again, because the writers still thought that Terrance Dick's "wheezing, groaning" joke was what Post-Modern meant.
I think that really, there are only two Who writers who could genuinely claim to be Post-Modern and they're both BBC Books boys. One is Paul Magrs. The other is Lawrence Miles.
And yet, I'm not sure these two are wildly good at using it either. Paul Magrs is by far the more comfortable of the two with it, and his fascinating discussions of "layers of reality" underpin much of his books and are a rare example of Post-Modern thinking sitting beautifully into the overall context of the show. Look at the sideline universe in The Blue Angel; it's gorgeous. Or the device of Sally writing the story that runs alongside the other, and the way that the novel never tells us which reality is real, how to interpret the contradictions, how to make sense of the confusion. In fact we're supposed to enjoy the confusion. And it really is wonderfully challenging.
But even someone as clever as Magrs uses Post-Modernism as a dull excuse for laziness, bad plotting and bad jokes. It comes back to what I find hateful about Post-Modern thinking; nothing's right, nothing's wrong, nothing's good or bad. There's just opinion, criticism has no meaning, nothing really matters. Sometimes I feel like that woman from when Ali G took the piss out of those environmentalists, jumping up and down and shouting "This is serious, you wanker!" But, dammit... this is serious, you wanker. Magrs' outlook can mean that the referencing becomes more important than the reference; that cleverness matters more than heart. It makes some of his work smart-arsed, tedious, and indulgent.
Lawrence Miles is the other candidate, but he's much less comfortable with the implications. Initially, his philosophy appears to be extremely Post-Modern. Look at the lines he comes up with in Interference - that there's no right or wrong, just politics. That there are no absolutes, just the media. That book, like Alien Bodies to a lesser extent, is all about junking Doctor Who's moral absolutes. As witnessed with the Doctor's conversations with Badar in the cell, where he's attacked with the inconsistencies of what he does and what's forced upon us is that the Doctor's moral code is spurious - there is no right, no wrong, no morality.
But us fans weren't happy with this, because it just doesn't feel right within the Doctor Who universe. Dammit, we need that morality. What's far more telling, though, is that Lawrence Miles doesn't like it either. I think that, when fans said how mean it was of Loz to attack the Doctor in this way, they were missing the point a bit. I think Miles wanted the Doctor to find a rationale, a reason, an argument, and that's what the Badar chapters were about - but, to Loz's horror, the best he can do to justify why-Varos-and-not-earth are unconvincing, technobabble conclusions. Badar is the classic Modern thinker, desperate for clear reasons and rules for the Doctor's stories. So when the Doctor comes up with that "there's just politics" line at the end, it's not that the reader is supposed to say "oh great, it makes sense now, there's just politics! Brilliant!" We're clearly supposed to be horrified by this conclusion. Really, Miles isn't celebrating the joy of so many different truths; in fact, he's disgusted that he can't work out what the truth is.
And that ain't Post-Modern. That's Modern.
Okay, now that we've come full circle, I'll conclude. Question 1 was "Has Doctor Who been Post-Modern," and I would say the answer is "Not much." As for "Should Doctor Who be Post-Modern?" Well, I wouldn't say that it can't be Post-Modern... but I would say that it's much better at being Modern.
What makes me worry for the new series is that, these days, contemporary culture (and SF in particular) is firmly gripped by Post-Modern thinking. It's all bloody referencing. And while Post-Modernism can be liberating and marvellous (Spaced, for example, is one of my favourite comedies of all time), I don't think SF does it well. It tends to use it as an excuse for stupid ideas and bad tongue-in-cheek jokes that keep getting spammed to my inbox; they bomb when Buffy gets clever-clever, they're not funny in Smallville, they're boring whenever the latest SF programme decides to do a fucking musical, they're tragically uncomic whenever a new show gives us a bunch of Dawson's Creek teenagers taking on silly villains in a bout of shiny plastic winks. What's happened is that SF believes it can joke its way out of its own laziness, while stonkingly brilliant straightforward films/programmes that treat their subject seriously like Cube and 28 Days Later aren't that common any more. Even more worrying, the slack is filled up with boring sub-Ally McBeal shite about relationships.
The telling point, though, is that 28 Days Later and Cube both found hugely devoted audiences. I think there's a thirst out there for real, Modern storytelling. So lets hope that Doctor Who ignores the nostalgia brigade, the oh-it's-just-a-bit-of-fun theories, and steers clear of all those tacky little traps. I think Modernism was the key to Doctor Who's magic, and if it comes back as a genuinely Modern programme, the audience will reward it.
Rose and how the new series could be so wonderful by Paul Harries 4/7/04
I keep hearing the tabloid papers saying that, in the new series, Rose is going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer type of character, that she will take no nonsense from the enemies and that she and the Doctor are going to have a romance. I'm hoping this is all newspaper speculation, because if this is true, then the series will fail, and fail badly.
Regarding the "Buffy" comparisons, I'm wondering if some people are not willing to take the new series on it's own terms, rather than comparing it to a teen supernatural drama. Are these people so eager to prove that Doctor Who is worth watching, that it has to have the same elements that other programs have (as an aside, the few episodes of "Buffy" I have seen, I found the character of Willow to be more interesting. Shy, intelligent, capable of courage when necessary and very friendly and reliable. She would be a better companion than the morose, spoil and tarty Buffy Summers. This is my humble opinion. Please don't write in.) I know Doctor Who "borrowed" from other sources in the past, but they also paid homage to them.
I am a little concerned about the casting of Billie Piper as Rose, but in all honestly, who else is there? There seems to be so few strong actresses coming through, if you REALLY think about it, as so many of them (or the people casting them) seem to think that being pretty is all they need, as well as appearing to have huge personality disorders. I'm trying not to be worried about the casting, as long as the character is likeable and she has a good bond with Christopher Ecclestone.
Let's make Rose a good female role model, as there are none on TV these days (I'm willing to be corrected). The recent Scream of the Shalka got the character of the companion as close as prefect I've ever seen it. Bored, wanting a change in her life, responding to alien threats in a real manner and jumping at the chance to travel the universe, despite being aware of the dangers, and getting on with and accepting the Doctor. THAT's my idea of a companion.
There seems to be a few people who want everything safe and recognisable. Are we, as TV viewers so cowardly in what we watch? Don't we want some escapism, rather than have all of life's woes and dull points constantly thrown in our faces? I barely watch TV these days because it's all so boring.
I keep hearing the term that "science fiction audiences these days are so sophisticated". What rubbish. Well, the effects these day are, but everything else has gone downhill, from the sloppy plotting, to the beautiful but in my opinion, lazy actors. Which do people really prefer, the Star Wars originals to the prequels? Randall and Hopkirk past or present? The Ray Harryhausen stop motion adventures, with painstaking animation, or the Matrix sequels, with lazy plots compensating for "gee wiz" SFX. I know which audience is more sophisticated, and it's not today's spoon-fed generation. Doctor Who will be compared unfavourably to it's past. I just hope that the new series will be worth remembering in 40 years time. That is always the mark of true quality.
As long as the stories and characters are interesting, as long as the series stays as far away from the soap mentality and is a lot of fun, it will succeed.
The importance of the label "Classic" by Antony Tomlinson 9/8/04
Some people say that it does not matter which Doctor Who stories are regarded as "classics" and which are not - we all find what we like in individual Doctor Who stories (and these stories all have their own merits). Thus, whether "fan opinion" holds a story to have the mythical status of a "classic" or not is not really an important issue (for instance, see Jonathan Martin's review of The Talons of Weng-Chiang).
Unfortunately this is garbage. The question of which stories are regarded as "classic" has huge practical import within the world of Doctor Who. It affects all kinds of things which matter to our enjoyment of the series. For instance, the question of which stories should be regarded as classics has an influence on which are released first on DVD/CD (and possibly which DVD releases see the most effort put into their production). Thus, the reason we can buy a copy of The Curse of Fenric on DVD, and not The Happiness Patrol, is because the former is regarded as a classic. This is true, even though some (myself included) regarded the latter as a far superior (see my list of the Top Ten Seventh Doctor stories).
The notion that certain stories are classics has effects on other releases too. For instance, one could once buy large coffee table books called The Hinchcliffe Years and The Harper Classics. These books chose to look at particular periods of the show in detail, and chose these periods because the stories involved were, at the time, regarded as classics. Had a different set of stories been regarded as classics at that point in time, however, we may instead have seen the release of books called 'The Letts Classics' or the 'The Lambert Years' (which may have been more interesting).
Most importantly, however, the question of which stories are regarded as classics has an effect on new Doctor Who. For instance, in the 1980s, Doctor Who looked back to the Troughton and Pertwee eras as supplying the bulk of Doctor Who's "classics" - stories like The Sea Devils, Tomb of the Cybermen and The Daemons. This prompted programme-makers to try to replicate the monster-filled thrills and themes of that era - leading to the creation of disasters like Warriors of the Deep, Attack of the Cybermen and Battlefield.
In the early 1990s, on the other hand, Remembrance of the Daleks and Ghost Light were regarded as the latest "classics", and these informed writers as to how the New Adventures should be written - dark, politically correct, nerdy and often incoherent sci-fi. In the mid-1990s, however, "fun" Tom Baker stories like City of Death and Shada seemed to be increasingly regarded as classics, and this helped lead to the more light-hearted tone of the Missing Adventures and earlier BBC books (as well as the TV Movie, possibly). By the late 1990s, Hartnell stories like The Crusaders and The Massacre had come to be regarded as "classics", and this led to the increased importance of the historicals (and serious drama in general) in Big Finish's new range of audio plays.
Thus, as a new series rears its head, each fan has reason to push for his own view of what counts as a classic Doctor Who story. For this "common wisdom" as to what is classic must inevitably have an effect on the makers of the new series, as they try to work out what Doctor Who is all about, and what has worked in the past.
At present, of course, a classic is regarded as pretty much anything in Season 7, anything written by Douglas Adams/Robert Holmes (excluding his Second Doctor stories), anything set in the Victorian era and anything which features a speech by the Doctor as to the importance of our tiny human lives. For those of us who find this view of a "classic" restrictive however, we at least have the DWRG to put forward our own views as to what should be regarded as 'classic'.
And perhaps someone out there will listen to our views. Who knows, perhaps this will help prevent new Doctor Who, in whatever format, becoming a stale rehash of stories that are praised beyond their merits, and which offer only one vision of a series which can actually do so much more. Thus, in arguing that some stories are classics and others are not, reviewers are not merely being anally retentive. Rather, they are doing their duty to the series.
Doctor Who as fiction by Rob Matthews 18/8/04
'Spin-off': such a derogatory term. After all, the Earth 'spun off' from the sun, and few of us think any the less of it for that...
Of late, a combination of factors have conspired to get me mulling over the subject of Who fiction.
Firstly, fan reaction to news of the upcoming TV series reinforced an existing belief of mine that very few of us find the books we've been reading since the demise of the original show to be a wholly satisfactory form for Doctor Who; it's plain enough to me that if we did consider the New/Missing Adventures and the BBC Eighth- and Past Doctor books as being of equal merit to the TV series, the announcement of new Who on television would not have occasioned the pants-wetting euphoria that it has. May be naive of me, us fans being what we are, but I must admit to being taken aback by the sheer pitch of that euphoria, and how easily fans appeared to forget that Doctor Who had still been with us in other media from more or less the moment the original TV series was 'rested' anyway. I think I had a sudden realisation - perhaps a mistaken one - that when we were all saying not so long back how wonderful the books were, and how they could do stuff and go places that the TV series couldn't, and how both they and the Big Finish audio plays had produced some of the best Doctor Who stories there are and spoiled us for any future TV series - it suddenly appeared to me that I was the only one who'd actually meant that stuff; everyone else was just making the best of what they saw as a bad deal. Additionally I thought it was unfair that the new TV series would most likely be credited with 'revolutionising' Doctor Who, when in fact it's been quietly evolving for a decade and a half, something which deserves a bit of recognition.
When I attempted to point this out on the site, I was genuinely surprised to discover shortly afterward that someone had - apparently - taken my championing of the books as some kind of anti-every other media statement. Now, it most definitely wasn't that - it was, rather, an attempt to point out that we shouldn't be so blinded by the television screen as to forget that oodles of great Doctor Who stories have been produced away from it.
Listen, I'd love the new television series to be a success. Because I love Doctor Who. And in fact, cover versions of Spearhead From Space, resurrected Daleks and Billie Piper aside, I think it's going to be great. There are so many talented people involved that it's damn near got to be. I have expressed some pessimistic views about its chances of gaining that success, though, and it's been brought to my attention lately that some of the people who read my little rant misread it somewhat; my objective beliefs about what I saw as the probable fate of the series were interpreted as a desire on my part to see it fail. So to clarify - I don't wish that at all. But I do think it's likely to happen. I've always thought Doctor Who is fantastic, but the general public never really has. Why should that suddenly change now? (much as we'd like it to!)
Since my argument was misread that way, however - and by more than one reader -, I got the impression that there must be a certain amount of hostility out there in fandom towards people valuing the books 'too much' - my argument that they should be valued as much as the TV series appeared to be taken as a suggestion they were better than the TV series, my defence of one thing interpreted as an attack on another. I do tend to ramble on, of course, so I can see how a skim-read might have produced some fearful misinterpretations... still, and though I hate to look this arrogant, I did work damn hard at making myself clear on that piece, and I honestly believe that anyone who read it with an objective eye would be able to see what I was getting at. I do think fans too strongly covet a mainstream 'stamp of approval'. That doesn't mean I would not like Doctor Who to achieve mainstream success again - it'd be nice to get these stories for (almost) free for a change, and to get back into that format after so long -, it's just that I don't think it matters either way: the stories will go on regardless and that for me is what matters most.
Next Andrew Wixon posted a thoughtful and highly persuasive response to said rant, in which, as part of his setting-out of terms, he stated that as Doctor Who was to his mind first and foremost a television series, new Who stories in any other media were inevitably a less exciting prospect than new Who stories on TV. I don't agree with Andrew, but I respect his opinion, and suspect it may be quite representative.
(well, obviously, since his unequivocal statement about the superiority of TV Who provoked zero response on the site; yet my argument that fans should give the books the same credit as the TV series was taken as some form of 'TV-or-books?!!' ultimatum)
Additionally, I've recently been having a couple of e-mail chats with a fella who's just embarked upon Who fiction, and during the course of our discussions he's displayed some hostility towards the idea of people saying that Doctor Who 'grew up' in the books - again, positive comment on the book ranges being taken almost instinctively as attacks on the TV series. This got me thinking too - it does seem to me that us fans have a strong capacity for creating unnecessary structures of opposition - an 'If you're for this, you're against that' mindset which isn't conducive to good debate.
Then, most recent of all, after I brought the subject up again on the site, (I know, I know, dog with a bone - but, you know, we are all here to discuss these things, and there's nothing more frustrating than having your position misunderstood by people who people who appear to in fact agree with you)... and shortly afterward Mike Morris has had some wise and wonderful things to say to me about it. As usual when Mike Morris says wise and wonderful things, I was prompted to get my thinking cap back on and refine my ideas on the subject that bit more.
It occurs to me that as fans, so far as I'm aware anyway, we don't often examine what Who fiction is, or can be; what parameters it operates within and what it can and can't do. We have a sense of its aims and limits but we rarely voice them - typically the matter will only come up when there's a complaint of the 'This violence/swearing/representation of homosexuality would never have happened in the TV series' type. Course, that's an indicator of a fundamental belief about these books: that their function is essentially to replicate the TV series.
This raises some issues. Coz, you know, books and television are different.
So, just to make myself clear once more, and outline my position in coming to these books: I don't believe there's any innately superior form of Doctor Who. I grew up with it as a television series - bits and pieces of Full Circle, The Keeper of Traken and Castrovalva are amongst my very earliest memories actually -, but lost my obsessive interest in it probably about a year or two after the final series aired, having entered adolescence, become all moody, and gotten into other things. Rediscovering it in my early twenties, my interest was triggered first by nostalgia, then by the realisation that the show was just too damn good to be thought about in merely nostalgic terms; and that I in fact identified with it far more profoundly as an adult than I ever had as a kid. Finally, the discovery that it was still going in the form of books - and, I found later, audio plays - ensured my continuing interest in the thing as an ongoing property. To me the most important story in Doctor Who is always the next one - and for as long as I've been a fan, there's always been a plentiful supply of 'next ones' to choose from.
I say 'the next one' because for me one of the greatest things Doctor Who has going for it is the enormous potential bound up in its really very simple concept - a mysterious alien man exploring time and space and helping people and places change forthe better.
For clarity, let's discuss this at first purely in terms of the television series: (yes, I'll concede that in terms of inception and chronology that is the 'prime' Doctor Who, it's where the property was born - Jesus, can I say this again: Who on television is brilliant)
I've just mentioned the concept. A massively important supporting factor in its successful realisation is the sheer individuality, what some would term 'eccentricity', that comes into play. Doctor Who not only has a strong and resilient central idea, but also a strong sense of its own personality. This comes through in writing, casting and in performance, and is to my mind what makes it great. As you may infer, I like Doctor Who because I like storytelling. But the storytelling I like is the kind that surprises me - unpredictable, individual non-formulaic storytelling; not boring reassuring whodunnits, or dramas where middle class people sitting about in living rooms moaning about nowt. I like stories that are one of a kind, that don't play it safe and predictable, and that play by their own rules. I like to see stories that I feel I haven't seen before - and even if the series itself doesn't always live up to its own grand potential, even if it does steal ideas from other texts left, right and centre, it still displays far, far more invention than a comfortable ninety per cent of the other shows on TV put together. At its very best it stimulates the imagination and - borrowing Andrew's phrase - makes people think and care. The 'caring' part is just as important as the thinking - the best Doctor Who stories have a real, considered and fundamentally empathetic sense of compassionate morality which nothing else on British television comes close to matching. And, vitally important, the show has a sense of humour, a sense of fun, and is able to laugh at itself. The combination of these things puts it in quite a different class from any of the other sci-fi/fantasy shows that tend to get cited as its peers - that humility being one of its most attractive qualities.
That's the TV series. You know, in a nutshell. From one perspective. So what particular qualities do Doctor Who books need to have? And what makes them worthwhile?
Well, first of all, just to to be successful as Doctor Who they need to emulate all the qualities mentioned above - all except the acting of course; in this case the 'writing' factor swells in importance by comparison with collaborative product like television. These books need to have a personality, a tone recognisable as that of the TV series. This itself is by no means a big constraint, however, since that is one very big and ever-evolving personality, one which encompasses stories as disparate as The Chase, The Curse of Fenric, The Stones of Blood, The Caves of Androzani, The Three Doctors and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. At its best Who is adventurous and outward-looking too, its horizons free to expand whatever new form it takes. There are limits, but generally we only know what these are when a story crosses them. And even then it's not clear-cut, since what one fan will see as stepping over the mark, another may not see as a transgression at all! But certainly you couldn't ditch the show's moral impulse or its questioning attitude. All Doctor Who stories are at root morality plays. The Doctor must go into a bad or compromised situation and change it for the better, or at least try to. That's about as basic an essentialist view I can come up with.
Obviously, books have an ability to tell the imaginative off-the-wall stories in which Who specialises without the budget limitations that can impede their realisation on screen. A Who novel can be larger in scale, more expansive than a Who television serial. This extends the number of characters and locales used, to depth of characterisation, to a freer treatment of time, and so on.
Next, the ability to go into a lot more detail, and to make use of the fact that, unlike a one-shot television story where any complicated plot details need to be continually clarified or restated - for example, with week-long breaks between episodes, something in the manner of contrived plot summary or info dump will often be necessary -, a book can rely on the reader's ability to flip about, skip back and re-read bits at will. It's freed up to tell more complex and involved stories.
Additionally, there's the implied age of readership. No longer a TV show aimed specifically at a 'family audience', Doctor Who fiction can make use of a wider and more adult frame of reference - identification points for readers who in most cases are not children anymore. Well, at least in not in the age sense, hoho. This shouldn't be taken as cart blanche for a bunch of sex, drink and swearing, but the occasional mention of such things does help make a narrative world believable to an adult reader. It prevents the sense of campiness that can arise from a kids's show studiously attempting to ignore them.
There's a point to be made on this issue. Some complain about pretentious attempts to be 'adult' - in the negative sense of trying to be 'cooler and harder' than you actually are, I think - and, fair enough, in retrospect the glee taken by some of the NA writers in Bernice Summerfield's binge-drinking suggests a distinctly adolescent idea of what constitutes being 'adult'. But it's worth bearing in mind, considering that objections to this sort of thing are essentially objections to gratuity, that it would be just as gratuitous to deliberately ignore these elements of life when you no longer have to. I don't have any problem with a character in a Doctor Who novel saying 'Shit!' or something, for example, because plainly and simply, that is something that people say. And it is in fact the television series that's going out of its way in avoiding having people say things like that - but that avoidance is a custom we're so, erm, accustomed to that we don't really notice it. Generally it seems to me that objections to swearing etc. in Who novels are based at root on an argument that 'I wouldn't like this to have happened in a Saturday teatime kids' show'. This again reflecting a basic belief that Who books are a replacement for a TV series and hence shouldn't cross the limits that TV series would have had to work within.
However, this implies that a 'continuation' of Doctor Who in other media should replicate not only the basic character of the show, but also the constraints placed on it by timeslots, pre-watershed broadcasting regulations and so on. That it should be a kids show in the form of a book. This can in fact work, but even in its finest form - like David Whitaker's lovingly crafted reinventions of TV stories as true children's literature -, this model would be unsatisfactory.
Unsatisfactory - that needs clarifying: better to say I would find it unsatisfactory. I need to feel that a book is addressing the me who's here right now, not a younger version of myself. But I don't think I'm alone amongst Doctor Who readers in that, and it's a fair enough assumption to work with.
In my own opinion what really makes Who fiction worthwhile is its ability to free that great basic concept I mentioned from its 'kid show' shackles. There is afer all nothing innately childlike in this concept - it's not a story about children, like the Famous Five or Harry Potter series, and its philosophical oulook is flexible and rigorously intelligent rather than preachy and domineering. It can, in short, be written as well for a specifically adult audience as a family one. On these terms original Who fiction is innately a 'niche' product because it's something actively sought out and paid for by people with a genuine love for Doctor Who, not something chanced upon and watched in varying levels of absorption by a mixture of fans and people who just happen to have tuned in. Unless you're actually ashamed of your love for Doctor Who, this 'niche' aspect is not a negative point. Theoretically, Who fiction is for adults - this by default; all the children who watched the show in its original run are grown up by now -, and need not compromise on anything for the sake of the kids.
The loophole in this theory would seem to be that the TV show did not talk down to the kids anyway - if, for example, the children in the audience didn't specifically understand the 'certain kindnesses' that Count Grendel had shown to whatsername, they'd at least have had an inkling that it was something to do with kissing (which is true!); and even if they didn't specifically wonder which one of Marco and Guiliano got on top, they'd at least have got that they were bestest bestest friends (which is true!).
Nevertheless, the books have been able to go more deeply into matters only represented symbolically on screen. Ian Briggs had to represent Doctor Judson's homosexuality via a cripple metaphor in The Curse of Fenric (not as offensive as it sounds), whereas in The Turing Test Alan Turing's could be discussed outright. Companion characters couldn't have 'romances' on screen because that's what they always came out as - forced, icky stuff; also because the direction was generally geared toward telling action-adventures stories, and was rarely tuned to emotional nuance. Whereas, because emotional depth can be woven more easily and subtly into a written narrative, sex, relationships and randiness can be layered into the books without their being intrusive or awkward.
I say can be; let me just acknowledge that very often these things are awkward and intrusive, depending on the skill of the writer. Steve Cole, for example, has an ability to make S&M and prostitution seem like a perfectly routine component of a Doctor Who story, and Kate Orman can perfectly (under)write romantic longing. Whereas Terrance Dicks's rape references make us curl up in embarrassment, and Russell T Davies having Chris Cwej hump a bloke just feels like wish fulfilment.
However, though the constraints on book-Who are less constrictive than those on TV-Who, it's clear that constraints do remain in place. Largely these are determined by marketing factors, as well as loyalty to certain consensus-views of the TV series.
Mike Morris pointed out to me that he sees the Who books more as 'an extrapolation of The TV series than an independent extension of it', and it's easy to see what he means - the Virgin New Adventures, for example, were clearly aimed at an audience who'd enjoyed the Seventh Doctor and Ace on television, and who were keen on Andrew Cartmel's particular approach to script-editing the show. Hence the bulk of that range was made up of bigger-scale reworkings and remakes of elements from the latter couple of television seasons. If the 'Cartmel vision' seemed to become distorted during this process, it's probably because it wasn't a particularly meticulous vision in the first place. The spirit of those latter seasons was more or less adhered to throughout the entire run, though as is wont to happen, the series managed to develop a particular tone of its own too, one that won it fervent admirers and blood-spittin' haters (and even occasionally people who actually judged them objectively, book by book). What's interesting there is that the general paradigm was informed not by the full corpus of televised Doctor Who, but by a particular era of the show - that being the most recent one.
The BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures, by contrast, have had a far less narrowly focused Who-view to draw on. Though technically a spin-off range from the BBC co-produced telemovie, the EDAs felt no need at all to derive a particular storytelling model from that failed effort (thank God!). Instead the EDAs were charged with maintaining the spirit of TV Doctor Who as a whole; with the most recent televised seasons having ended nearly a decade before, it was no longer a matter of directly following on from a recently interrupted TV series. The McCoy years had melded into the same amorphous 'past' as the Jon Pertwee years or the Graham Williams era, and were finally regarded as just one facet of Who's existence on TV. Paul McGann's face and the resurrected Pertwee-era logo were kept in order, I suppose, to main a sort of 'brand identity' for the property, but the format was loosened up somewhat from that of the New Adventures, and more obviously embraced the sheer variety manifest across the history of the TV series.
Doctor Who in book form, like Doctor Who on television, all too rarely lives up to its potential. I don't mean that as some big diss, it's just something that seems self-evident to me. Finn Clark's amusing description of the novel line as a sausage machine sounds about right, but I think the ratio of superb to average is more or less the same as it was with televised Who. Just to be clear though, you should bear in mind that when I'm discussing the qualities of the books, I am talking about the best ones - my subject here is after all what makes for successful Who fiction.
It should be evident from the discussion above that I see the books as operating very much within limits determined by consensus views of the TV series - as the man said, extrapolation; the implication would be that they are, then, a 'subsiduary' form of Who. The fact that the EDAs were forced to cling to the tiniest, scraggiest shred of TV Who to come along in the nineties (the McGann telemovie), and then build their house on barely any foundations at all, would seem to reinforce this.
But Mike Morris nudged me towards a clarification - he agreed with Andrew Wixon that TV was really Who's natural element, and pointed out that while he would cite, say, Caves of Androzani as great televsion, he would not cite Alien Bodies as great literature.
Then I realised - no, of course Who books, even at their best, are not great literature: what they are is great fiction. Just as - taking some of my own hobbyhorses as examples - the output of Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse and Elmore Leonard can be seen as great fiction without necessarily being great literature too.
The Doctor Who books are a form of genre fiction - not specifically the science fiction genre, mind you; rather 'Doctor Who' forms its own particular genre, with its own conventions.
What marks out the variety of fiction to which Doctor Who belongs from literature itself, is the very placing of those aforementioned limitations. Actually, this harks back to a different disagreement me and Mike Morris had about the distinction between art and storytelling re: Kinda & Snakedance. To expand on that a little here, it's my belief that art - in this context literature - is something one-off that creates, and operates according to, its own particular rules. By contrast, each book-format Doctor Who story, like each Sherlock Holmes or Jeeves story, is basically a link in a chain of stories about that character, each of those stories revolving around a completely fixed nexus of motifs and conventions - that is, operating according to rules that are already in place. Not that I'm so closeminded as to say storytelling can't also become 'art' (I think the difference I had with Mr M was more about terminology, to be honest) - just that we think some sausages are tastier than others.
Stability is the hallmark of genre and serial fiction.
The motifs and conventions of the Sherlock Holmes stories are 221b Baker Street, mysteries (obviously!) clues, references to monographs, tobacco in slippers, first-person narrative by Doctor Watson and so forth. Those of the PG Wodehouse stories are terrifying aunts, the prospect of engagement to some pestilence in female form, the Drones club, Jeeves getting his own way etc. In Doctor Who, it's the TARDIS, the Doctor, moral dilemmas, the farthest reaches of time and space, monsters, a compassionate impulse. It's a broader canvas certainly, but no less fixed.
But these constraints are, IMO, a good thing. Fixity is a lie, but an irrestistibly beautiful one. That the particular fixed-points of Who fiction are derived from the television series does not especially matter to the books themselves. What matters is that writers working within these limits can produce fiction as great as The Blue Angel, The Year of Intelligent Tigers, The Turing Test, The Crooked World and Eye of Heaven. They don't do it that often, but they've done it enough to prove how superb and satisfying DW fiction can be. The TV series has, if you like, birthed a child that's now all grown-up and self-sufficient. I think it would be perfectly possible at this point in time for a person to love Doctor Who without ever having seen the television series. And were it not so important to fan consensus that all Who stories, whatever their media, must conform to a greater continuity, a 'canon', it would certainly be possible for Doctor Who fiction to exist completely independently of the TV series.
So, though I accept that that wouldn't be commercially viable at present, and that in the range as it stands the 'extrapolation' function remains a major one (because that's probably what the majority of fans want), I do believe that original Doctor Who books - at their best - are a perfectly valid brand of fiction in their own right. As was the case with the TV series this is not due to the basic remit, but rather to the talent of the people contributing along the way.
Can Doctor Who ever be done as honest-to-goodness literature? It's possible but - some of my own wild claims to the contrary notwithstanding - I don't think it's been done yet. Even the most superb of the BBC-endorsed/published novels have at bottom 'just' been magnificent genre fiction.
But interestingly, though perhaps unsurprisingly given what I was saying about commercial dictates, the Who books that have gotten closest to being genuinely 'literary' are the unofficial, independently-published ones: Jim Mortimore's Campaign and Lawrence Miles' This Town Will Never Let Us Go; both using the iconography and lore of Doctor Who in the service of original visions. But even then I think the Booker Prize is some way off.
Really though there's no actual need for Doctor Who to attempt to prove itself as literature. In my opinion, however, it has proven itself to be truly - if not consistently - great fiction.
Reality in Doctor Who by Joe Ford 13/9/04
I feel I have been something of a hypocrite and feel the need to correct myself. Before you do anything go and read Mike Morris' review of Deadline, I only read it this morning and already it is one of my favourite reviews on this site. You see Mike has this strange ability to make you look at Doctor Who in unexpected ways, that I accepted a long time ago when he began challenging much of the Doctor Who output I love but one thing I realised today is that Mike, the intellectual old bastard, has made me look at myself in a new light and about why I enjoy the show so much. That's a pretty profound opening for what I hope is a stimulating trip into the realms of reality in Doctor Who...
Mike says in his review that he feels Doctor Who should be able to go anywhere and do anything it chooses to, that there are no limits. I genuinely thought I shared his sentiments and indeed have mentioned as much in several of my reviews. I thought I was an extremely tolerant and flexible person when it came to the Doctor Who format, that I could accept The Happiness Patrol, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, The Crooked World and basically whatever it can throw at me no matter how oddball or scary.
But then as Mike so rightly points out I have also mentioned there are places that Doctor Who shouldn't go, such as the mock paedophile scene in Deadline and the woman having her baby "scraped" from her womb in Warlock. How on Earth can I champion the show's ultimate format and tuck away this nasty, violent side too? The answer is I can't... but let me try and explain why before I might have wanted to...
Let's take a look at Doctor Who on the telly... just how often could you say the show approached actual realism? Where you sit up in horror at the grotesque reminder of the evils of the world the way you might when a prostitute is viciously raped or a woman is attacked in her home by a masked stranger and brutally murdered (both come from various episodes of Cracker)? I think you'll find the answer is not many and the reason is because Doctor Who doesn't deal with reality as we know and when it does show violence it is always snuggled around with a good dollop of fantasy to make the experience less harrowing.
One of the more graphic examples of violence in Doctor Who comes in The Brain of Morbius when Solon pulls out his pistol and shoots Condo in the stomach, with blood splattering results. It sounds horrible doesn't it but when I watching it I am fully aware that it simulated violence and totally unbelievable. How often do you find mad scientists on storm lashed planets turning on their Neanderthal-ish servant who has turned violent because the arm his master took away from him is going to be used in a hotch potch body for a ranting brain in a glass? It's blatantly absurd, the entire situation so when Solon exposes his pistol and pulls the trigger you are fully aware that the fantasy element is wound up so tight it makes the violence... comfortable. Not acceptable, or easy to watch, but comfortable.
And there are loads more examples... Jobel being stabbed to death with a hypodermic needle in Revelation, disgusting yes but made comfortable by the fact that he is a fat, bald chauvinist and his executioner is equally over the top... as he descends the steps he hams up his death for every last second before his toupe falls off. The violence is once again snuggled away by the fantasy. Warlock being strangled to death in Pyramids of Mars is paralysingly well directed but as soon as you realise it is at the hands of a six-foot robotic mummy it loses its gravity somewhat.
Of course there have been moments in Doctor Who where all the fantasy is stripped aside and reality is thrown in your face full force but it is very rare. As I mentioned in my Mind of Evil review there is a terrifying gunfight between the UNIT and Mailer's thugs that stung me when I first saw it... after all it is not difficult to imagine something like this taking place in a prison near you. The lack of music, the close contact shooting, the dying screams... it's all very vivid and yet as brutal and as startling as it was it still didn't bother me as much as those moments from Deadline and Warlock.
Mike said something that really hit home, that explained to me why I could accept one but not the other:
"These things are more guidelines that naturally emerge from the fundamental of the character. Who is the Doctor? Well, ultimately he's someone who goes around fighting evil. We think murder is evil, so naturally the Doctor doesn't do it. This is because he has a respect for life, so he detests killing, so obviously he detests war. Which means he is a pacifist, which means he doesn't carry a gun, and that he doesn't go around thumping people. These aren't impartial rules, formed for their own sake; they are logical extrapolations of the character. However, they aren't hard-and-fast. If the Doctor really, really has to, he will kill someone, but he won't like doing it and he'll only do it as the last resort. Like anyone, he's a complex character, not a collection of abstractions. The Eighth Doctor will boot someone in the ribs because he's passionate, and because he's angry, and because it's a momentary urge of feeling."It was the last comment that really got me and the moment and me in Timeless when the Doctor loses his temper and cracks Basalt's ribs is another example of Doctor Who touching on reality. But throughout Timeless we see what slimy creep Basalt is and you really want something bad to happen to him so when the Doctor treats us all to that we have been waiting for no matter how shocking or brutal it is it seems much more tasteful than Deadline's stab at reality.
It all comes down to personal taste and what frightens you more, being kicked in the ribs would hurt you but it wouldn't really affect you for long. What Mike made me realise about Martin Bannister in Deadline is that his portrayal genuinely scared me. I can think of nothing more painful that reaching the end of you life with little to show for it, to be alienated from your family, to know that something so huge has been missing that it has screwed up your entire life. The reason I felt so uncomfortable with Deadline is because I am terrified of the mere possibility that I could turn out like Martin Bannister, where a simple moment of kindness to a child could be construed as a sexual act, where what people see as your greatest achievement in life is an embarrassment to you... God, how frightening is that folks?
And it's the same with Warlock... I have a lovely Scottish terrier called Jaime and he means the world to me... the thought of him being abused and tortured like the poor animals of that book chills me to the bone. Or one of my best friends having their baby "scraped" from the womb... I have come to realise that the moments of reality in Doctor Who that hit home, that populate your own nightmares, are the ones that I cannot handle.
I believe I am being a little naive to think that I can hide away in Doctor Who and all its comfortable simulated violence, a replacement world for the horrifying one I live in. Rapes, murders, miserable old men in retirement homes... these things exist and I now realise for Doctor Who to be truly unique reality should penetrate the Who universe. I don't like them, I don't like to hear about them, but tucking your head under the covers isn't going to make them go away. Perhaps the ultimate expression of reality in Doctor Who would see a man doing perverse, disgusting acts and actually getting away with it. As much as we all enjoy a soppy ending (oh shut up you at the back... I know you wept at the end of Love Actually!) it would be very brave to see vicious acts unpunished. Now I have come around to thinking this way the possibilities are endless!
It could be said that Deadline and Warlock are the pioneers of new Doctor Who, stories that have dared to strike back at cosy Doctor Who with a universe that is so frightening it lingers in the mind long after you've finished it. It's the same universe we live in now. It is a fresh, bold way of looking at a show we have enjoyed for forty years (well some of us came to it late) and it is thrilling to discover that Doctor Who can still shock and terrify me as much as it ever did. Personally I hope the new series has a turn at reality Who and doesn't smother all its violent acts in fantasy, I have a feeling an episode or two with genuine human terrors would do the series some good.
Thanks Mike for clearing up this long held debate in my head. I still don't like the stories in question but I can appreciate them and their contribution to the Doctor Who universe on a whole other level now.
And I've finally discovered a reality show I can stomach...
The Buffy Factor by Terrence Keenan 19/9/04
Doctor Who has always been like the Blob, when it comes to the stories it tells. Who has always been able to dive into different genres/conventions/areas, and run them through the Who sprocket holes. A look over 40 years has seen Who visit Farce, Hard Sci-fi, Fantasy, Magic Realism, Gothic Horror, Splattergore, old-fashioned Thrillers, Satire, etc. etc.
Who also is not afraid of raiding specific movies, TV shows, literature as well. It is one of the benefits of having no "defined" Who type of story.
So, what does have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
It is inevitable that Who will take on some Buffy-like traits. Either because the writers creating the new episodes are fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or because the creative team will try to replicate in some way the "sucess" that Buffy has enjoyed. If new Who had come back to a regular series in the mid 1990's, you probably would have seen a connection to the big sci-fi hit of that time, The X-Files.
Many Who fans are Buffy fans, and when the new series was first announced, lots of them came out and said "It should be like Buffy."
But what about people like me who aren't? Who'd rather put a foot through their TV then subject themselves to the Buffy phenomenon?
Knowing that the new Who is going to have some sort of Buffy factor in it, I decided to suck it up and watch a large segment of the show (not just an episode or two) just to see if there was anything remotely good about the show.
Before I go on, I should say that I watch very little TV these days, except for baseball and the Simpsons. I'm also not a huge sci-fi fan either. And fantasy does nothing for me. So the idea of watching Buffy was a big slog for me, but with the determination of a true observer, I did what I needed to do.
So what did I learn?
Buffy does two thing well. The first is a mix of the mundane and the fantastical. The show manages to give a good balance between Buffy's normal life (High School, College, Dating, Friends/relationships) and her alter-ego's Heroic exploits. Personally, I went through the Hell of high school once and have little desire to revisit it again in my entertainment exploits, but Buffy does deserve kudoes for creating the right balance between worlds.
Buffy's other strong point is the Season Long arc. The creative team have made the effort to develop arcs that include character and plot development, and resolve in a satisfying and right fashion. They don't cheat on the endings. Doctor Who's attemps at arcs, in it's myriad of formats have mostly been disappointing, and in a couple of occasions, properly awful.
On the negative side:
The show has an obsession with Pop Culture references. Most of the episodes had usually three to five unfunny in-jokes or meaningless references to Pop Culture. To be honest, I'm to the point where I never want to hear another Pop Culture reference again.
The general idea of a world of Magic/Demons/Vampires and other occult bushwa. It does nothing for me, period, and mainly gets me angry. One of the things I got from my very first watchings of Who was that the show had a very skeptical, rational bent, which is something I related to instantly, being a skepitc meself. There was a recent trend in Who books that showed Magic to work, as well as delve into other New Age silliness with the Doctor giving a wink and a nod of approval. Frankly, it drove me crazy and is something that new Who should avoid like the plague.
But the biggest sin is the characterization of the villains. The characterization of the regulars in Buffy is all right, for the most part, despite lots of soap opera leanings and a bit too much angst for my tastes. The villains, however, are all cut from the same cloth. Look pretty, be sarcastic (without being funny) and most of all, be predicitble. Professor Zaroffs with good fashion tastes. I found them all to be annoying as piss, with the tie for worst being the "Evil Trio" and the Bimbo Goddess.
Now, I know that Buffy fans will no doubt won't agree with my assessment, and that is all right. You're allowed to disagree, just realize that it's nothing personal about you; it's just that I think Buffy sucks elephant schlong.
In terms of how Buffy might affect the New Who series, I do hope that it only takes the two good points about Buffy I mentioned and jettisons the rest.
One last point. It would be disturbing for a wonderfully British thing like Doctor Who to be influenced by a crappy American product like Buffy. And this is coming from a free born man of the USA. Among the big reason of why I loved Who in the first place was that it was British, and kept its Britishness throughout its long years.
And I hope that New Who will too.
The Eighth Doctor's companions by Joe Ford 4/10/04
It took two rather different but similarly themed voices to make me write this review and after Finn Clark's and Rob Matthews' recent dismissal of the regular line up of the 8th Doctor, Fitz and Trix as stale and painful. It got me thinking of all the companions the 8th Doctor has travelled with, the only Doctor to have fully manufactured companions by fans, for fans and just how effective they eventually turned out to be. For the record I disagree with these two powerhouse reviewers thoroughly, it only takes a look at the last three EDAs and their skilful use of character dynamics that make the latest team the most interesting and burgeoningly successful regular team yet. But that's for later in this review...
Stories: TV Movie only
Profession: Doctor
Appearance: Shoulder length auburn hair, blue eyes, tall and slim. Has a nice line in Scully-like overcoats!
Would be most likely to say: "Great I finally meet the right guy and he's from another planet!"
Effectiveness: 80%
Why...?: Like so few aspects of the TV Movie here was a definitively Who-ish character to befriend the Doctor, almost so normal in her outlook that she HAD to be dragged into the periless depths of his adventures. Admittedly she did kill him by performing major surgery that went horribly wrong but then she didn't know he was an alien and it did get rid of Sylvester McCoy's ham so let's not be too hard. Here was a woman who was going through some serious personal troubles, her boyfriend just leaving her so the attachment to the (admittedly) gorgeous new Doctor was inevitable. Caught up in a whirlwind of drama they even share a smooch, which is practically uncommented on these days but the ultimate sacrilege at the time (oh GROW UP!). Replete with a great sense of humour and a generosity of spirit she was the sort of woman you would want to travel the galaxy with and the Doctor's boyish plea with her to come with him at the end is all the more heartbreaking when she says no. It's a real shame she never got a second appearance... it would be an absolute joy if the 8th Doctor could meet up with her in The Gallifrey Chronicles, the final EDA, so we (and she) can see how far he has come from those naive beginnings.
Stories: The Eight Doctors - Interference (26 books)
Profession: Eternal do-gooder... there is no cause to small that this woman will not support!
Appearance: Short cropped blond hair, small diminutive build, lots of disapproving frowns! Generally wears annoying themed T-shirts for Gay Pride or Greenpeace or whatever cause she is into this week... not realising people who support these things don't actually prove it with their causal wear.
Would be most likely to say: "How dare the Doctor treat me like a child!"
Effectiveness: 30% (Most effective: Vampire Science, Seeing I, Interference. Least Effective: Beltempest, Demontage)
Why...?: I will admit Sam Jones did have a few supporters, if you pop over to Outpost Gallifrey every decade or so there will be a thread that bemoans "What was wrong with Sam Jones anyway?" where the thread starter has bravely put themselves in front of a firing squad by suggesting she was likable, rounded character. Erm, no, or at least not in this regular reader's eyes. I cannot think of a more annoying character spec than angst ridden teenager who uses the Doctor's adventures to grow up in... geez it was bad enough with Ace but now we have to go through all over again except without the charm of Sophie Aldred's performance as salvation. The biggest problem with Sam was her stubborn headedness, I could predict early in a book where she would differ in opinion to the Doctor and get all moralistic and betray him because of her firm beliefs. Sometimes her pre-pubescent personality would emerge and she would get all girlie over the (admittedly) succulent eighth Doctor, to the point of actually kissing him and running away for three books (and years!) rather than confronting her feelings like a rational adult and causing all sorts of problems.
It's rather a shame really because when Sam was written as a person rather than a set of morals she still was very interesting but at least she was bearable. Like Trix later in the range she was introduced with very little background information or personality. Unlike Trix this never really changed and the New Adventures fans were driven from the books in their droves as they were forced to endure 20-odd books of this smug, self satisfied cow who would bizarrely be chummy with the Doctor in one book (with some especially annoying escape attempt plans... who the hell memorises and numbers all the different escape attempts!!!?) and despises him in the next. This eternal inconsistency was finally rectified with the introduction of Fitz who Sam could actually have a genuine relationship with... but even that was sidelined in all but two books, as she shied away from his company most of the time and took the piss out of him the rest. A shame, an awkward romance could have spiced up her character a bit but in the end she was a failed experiment, one that never truly had a chance of working out, her explosive emotions mark her out as a drama queen but there was rarely any intelligence to balance it out.
Stories: The Taint - The Gallifrey Chronicles (a massive 49 books!)
Occupation: Garden shop assistant.
Appearance: Scruffy, stubbly, tramp-ish look. Wears a lot of jeans and T-shirts... the eternal LAD.
Would be most likely to say: "Is she single?"
Effectiveness: 90% (Most Effective: pick a story... but especially Frontier Worlds, Vanishing Point, Anachrophobia, Time Zero, Timeless, Halflife and The Tomorrow Windows. Least Effective: Fitz is pretty much writer proof but he is practically ignored in: The Shadows of Avalon, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Trading Futures and Camera Obscura)
Why...?: It should have been AWFUL. As an idea nestling in my sick brain the thought of the gentle eighth Doctor travelling with a right lad who would lust after the girls and rarely take care of his personal hygiene it would never, ever work. The fact is Fitz is one of THE most popular companions the Doctor has ever befriended and I absolutely l