Time and Tide by: Richard Alan and John Carnell with art by: Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott and letters by: Tom Orzechowski

 

“Time and Tide” is written by: Richard Alan (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings) and John Carnell with art by: Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott, and lettering by: Tom Orzechowski.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 145-146 (January-February 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

Richard Starkings’ voice has been the main constant on the Seventh Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.  He had been the primary editor on the strip and is responsible for the rotating of writers which while successful for the Sixth Doctor has been less so for the Seventh.  “Time and Tide” is the first time Starkings tried his hand at writing the strip for two issues under the pseudonym Richard Alan with John Carnell.  Carnell for his part is not a writer of note.  He gets a co-writer credit for this story and writes the following story, the one issue “Follow that TARDIS!” on his own.  Outside of Doctor Who Magazine Carnell seems to be a staff writer for Marvel UK during this period, but biographical information is scarce.  He shares his name with a science fiction writer and editor who passed away in 1972 and seems to be of less note, now working in his own independent sphere overshadowed by the editor.  In terms of the art, “Time and Tide” is odd not for its artists, Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott are no slouches of course the former doing the art for Garth Ennis’s Punisher MAX issues #13-18 and the latter having his own career with Marvel and DC, but this story has a guest letterer.  Tom Orzechowski is a letterer about as notable for his lettering as Starkings was, only taking these two issues because he was a fan of Doctor Who.  The lettering in this story is different, it’s clearly not the house style in terms of formatting and how Orzechowski portrays dialogue coming from far away which is a very nice touch.

 

It's a shame then, that despite the massive talent behind this story, “Time and Tide” does not really work.  The plot is the Doctor once again stumbling into a situation which is essentially the standard for this period, though this one has the nice little drama of being separated from the TARDIS as it’s swept away in the tide.  This is the planet Tojana which is having all of its land swept away in the tide, the natives don’t have a solution and are resigned to their fate.  That is except one, the Worrier, who at least is willing to entertain the Doctor’s idea to build a boat.  Sadly, that’s where the story ends, with the Doctor allowing this one last person hope on a raft in the ocean.  It’s an ending that Starkings and Carnell want the reader to believe is hopeful, but the art gives something different.  The reader has seen an extinction event and the Doctor just shrugs.  Add that to the natives being aliens while not visually but in terms of characterization are indigenous savages: they want to eat the Doctor and don’t have any technology of necessity while just not looking as the tide is encroaching.  It’s the major event for much of the two parts of the story, outside of some gorgeous art of space and that’s really a problem here.  This race of aliens is very much rooted in colonialist stereotypes of savagery.  It takes up so much of the story that the more interesting idea of a society already past the point of collapse due to a changing climate is just ignored.

 

Overall, at the very least “Time and Tide” has some very pretty art and the talent behind it is genuinely great.  Richard Starkings and John Carnell have at least an idea for a story here, even if what’s on the page doesn’t really work.  We’re leaving the period where they did not have much for the Seventh Doctor and moments have that peak through, though we’re still a few months away from where the Seventh Doctor’s Season 25 characterization can really make it over into the strip.  There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re still in the darkness of a directionless strip.  4/10.

The Best of Both Worlds Part II by: Michael Piller and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” is written by: Michael Piller and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 175, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 75^th episode overall, and was broadcast on September 24, 1990.

 

The Best of Both Worlds was a gamble.  American television generally only became a serialized affair with the rise of services like HBO.  Star Trek is a franchise that thrived particularly on a different type of science fiction, speculative and working around ideas, but Star Trek: The Next Generation only began to work when it embraced the television conventions of the late 1980s.  Still, ending a season on a cliffhanger, only to resolve it in the next season’s premiere episode, is a gamble.  The show was already renewed for a fourth season when “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” entered production, but there was no guarantee that the audience would take to the cliffhanger ending and come back for the thrilling conclusion.  Though from a production standpoint, there was an understanding that a recap would be necessary, that’s how “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” opens.  Ultimately, it’s a gamble that paid off: more people tuned into this episode than the previous one.  Despite the obvious tension and frustration of having to wait between episodes, people were willing to let a cliffhanger hang for far longer than other audiences would wait.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is groundbreaking.  So where does that leave “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”?

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” has a script that is structured entirely as the falling action and resolution to the rising action and climax of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”.  In writing television, two-part episodes are at their best when this structure is followed.  It’s a specifically American way of structuring television, the cut was at the point of highest tension and the cliffhanger resolution is a failure on the side of the Enterprise.  It’s enough to get the ship away, of course, but it does not change the direction of the story.  Michael Piller ended the first part with the big, jaw dropping twist, so “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” is an episode that is the second half to everything that the setup established.  Emotionally this means the episode is a release, which can feel just a little odd after the extreme tension of the previous episode.  This also has a knock on effect that it is the conclusions to the character arcs that have begun.  The climax being the cliffhanger means that essentially Riker’s character arc is concluded immediately: his decision to fire on Picard and the Borg is the man taking proper command of the Enterprise and putting the Federation above the captain he cares for.  There is an argument to be made that this episode then leaves nothing for Riker to grow, but that’s largely untrue.  This is more an example of people expecting further twists with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” when there aren’t any.

 

Piller sticks to his guns and keeps the episode on a track as the Enterprise works directly to stop the Borg, still wishing to save Picard but being understanding of the necessity to sacrifice him if the Borg make it to Earth.  The tension is still there, the chase to Earth and the destruction at the Battle of Wolf 359 continue to escalate the threat of the Borg.  The model work of the destroyed starships is particularly chilling, probably the most impressive model work of the show so far outside of reuse of models used for the films.  Jonathan Frakes as Riker may be leading the episode as captain, he is promoted, but Piller keeps Shelby, played by Elizabeth Dennehy, as part of the action.  She’s the one taking Riker’s role in this episode and Piller keeps writing her as her own character, Riker’s subordinate but not a love interest as a lesser writer might be tempted to do.  Frakes can play the Captain well, Riker deciding to stay on the ship on the end is almost a renewed life, though it’s also clearly signaling the end of his character arc in general.  He has reached a place of satisfaction.  While there are less moments in this episode for the rest of the crew as we are focusing on the falling action, Piller doesn’t neglect them.  The dialogue still is the strongest the supporting cast has been.  This extends beyond the dialogue, there are moments where in particular Michael Dorn and Gates McFadden are giving particularly physical performances that understand how to convey exactly where their characters are going despite Worf and Crusher staying squarely in the support role.  Colm Meany as O’Brien is also given a slightly larger role here, continuing the trend of pulling him slightly out of the background.

 

The performance on which “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” hinges is actually Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan.  In the previous episode while she had a scene with Picard on the eve of battle, she is given a parallel scene with Riker about how far he must be willing to go to win.  It’s one of the episode’s few quiet moments as this is an episode where everything is constantly moving towards the obvious conclusion: separate Picard from Locutus of Borg first by getting him off the cube, and then by disconnecting his mind from the Borg.  There is a small scene early in the episode where we see part of the assimilation process, likely because they hadn’t quite designed the full costume when filming the first episode, but it’s a nice addition to show how little is actually needed from the Borg to assimilate someone.  The updates to the design also highlight subtly more of the body horror and Patrick Stewart’s performance in the episode as Locutus is far more sinister than the taste of the first episode.  Locutus is not a raving and ranting villain, it is instead an incredibly measured performance of this subtle confidence.  The Borg as a collective are an unstoppable force, “Q Who” already established that they are from incredibly far away and work as a collective.  This is cosmic horror and Stewart knows exactly how to play that horror.  Piller’s script is also excellent at knowing when Locutus needs to be quiet: after the kidnapping there’s very little dialogue from Stewart, instead giving his all to a physical performance.  It’s especially difficult as Stewart has to play opposite Brent Spiner who has mastered this type of physical performance.  The way Stewart cracks ever so slightly in the performance is fantastic.  Jean-Luc Picard as a character is hardly defined by his warmth and humanity before this point, but “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” works because in taking away Picard’s humanity it reveals just how much was there underneath.  The few things Locutus says on the Enterprise cuts deep, especially towards Data as a lesser synthetic life form in the eyes of the Borg.

 

While it is impossible to watch this episode without knowing that Picard is going to be fine.  On broadcast, in a time without the Internet leaking plot developments during production, it is presented as a real possibility that Stewart is leaving the show and Frakes is taking over the role with Riker as captain.  What further elevates it is the decision in the end to keep some of the Borg implants for the final scene, adding this commitment from Star Trek: The Next Generation to having lasting consequences for plot developments like this.  The final scene of the episode keeps some of the Borg implants on Picard.  It is almost certain that the next episode will have them removed, but the rhetorical choice is there to not fully remove them.  Cliff Bole’s blocking of this final scene is all building to a final shot that does not read as victory.  The Enterprise crew got lucky, it was Data’s quick thinking and Picard’s humanity that took advantage of a loophole in Borg programming to cause the cube to self-destruct.  Picard is still suffering from his ordeal, that final shot communicates that he was just as much on the precipice as the planet Earth was.  Bole’s direction continues to be excellent as it was in “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”, but it really is that final shot that is a perfect capstone to the episode.

 

Overall, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s fourth season does not open with a surprise, but it does open with a perfect example of how to resolve a cliffhanger.  There is a tendency to think that not attempting to one-up twists is somehow a failing, because with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” you can see where the episode is going.  That’s the point of where the episode has been going and is why the episode works so well.  Michael Piller has crafted a perfect two-part story that ends a season with a bang while understanding that the next season needs to open with the resolution to that bang, despite an ending that indicates that things are not over in more ways than one.  It’s also the best that Star Trek: The Next Generation has looked, Cliff Bole cementing himself as one of the show’s best directors, keeping much of the blocking tight to keep the tension and disguise just how the episode is restricted to the Enterprise.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” takes it’s place as one of the best season openers of the entire franchise and makes The Best of Both Worlds an instant classic piece of television.  10/10.

The Best of Both Worlds Part I by: Michael Piller and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is written by: Michael Piller and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 174, was the 26^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 74^th episode overall, and was broadcast on June 18, 1990.

 

The pre-credits sequence for “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is fascinating.  Rhetorically it is there to put the viewer in a state of anxiety.  While it introduces the first intrigue of the episode: what happened to the colony of New Providence to turn it into a crater, the speed at which this happens is incredibly quick.  It only lasts one minute and 20 seconds.  The impact barely has enough time to process a colony being wiped out as the camera pans over the crater before an immediate cut to the opening credits.  That’s the point, of course.  The sense of dread as the first episode builds to the suspicion of and then confirmation that it is in fact the Borg responsible for the destruction of New Providence.  Much like the pre-credits sequence, this is done relatively quickly, the confirmation coming at about the one-third mark of the episode so the second and third acts can be the Enterprise actively chasing the Borg in a reversal of “Q Who”, a decision that by the end of the episode has grave consequences.  Michael Piller’s script is clear that the Enterprise (and by extension the Federation) choosing to go after the Borg is simultaneously an ignorant decision, but the correct decision.  Nobody else is going to save them and people are already dying.  The Enterprise is going into danger and it is reiterated that there is not enough time before they will find the Borg to upgrade even their defenses properly, much less the weapons.  People are dying.  Any possible advantage against the Borg is necessary.

 

Seeking any possible advantage is Lt. Cmdr. Shelby, played by Elizabeth Dennehy.  Shelby is introduced with Admiral Hanson, played by George Murdock, as one of two experts on the Borg, investigating since the reports back to Starfleet in “Q Who”.  She is introduced as cool, confident, and competent.  A candidate to take the position of first officer as Riker for the third time has been offered a commission as captain of a different ship.  He refuses to take it, his entire arc in this episode is grappling with that decision, but Shelby fully believes the position on the Enteprise is hers.  Despite her qualifications, she is the woman to run into danger, investigating the ruins with Data before the rest of the away team and against Riker’s orders.  This is the wrong decision, she is lucky to not have negative consequences outside of further tension with Riker (she outright tells him she is taking his position).  She still gets invited to the poker game, a game of bluff thematically furthering the idea that Riker is a man who knows exactly how to bluff.  Hanson, on the other hand, is the latest in a long line of Starfleet officials.  He is a representative of the authority behind the Enterprise’s actions.  Physically, he is only present on the Enterprise in the opening act, but his real impact is these periodic updates on where the rest of Starfleet is.  These are further used to build the tension and Murdock plays the roles with this little hint of humanity that the audience believes him to be a real person that cares about the people being sent into battle.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is still an episode of a television show and does not have the budget to actually show many of the updates, so Hanson as a character is integral for creating those stakes.  Murdock keeps the tone intense, the episode slowly spiraling out of the Enterprise’s control.

 

The tone is not only these details, but also the actual production.  Cliff Bole is not a director unfamiliar to Star Trek: The Next Generation.  His work is some that I have praised and with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” there is an intense tightness to the shots and the blocking.  Some of this is the smallness of the sets, when the action shifts to the Borg Cube it is clear there is a limited number of sets, but simple redresses disguise this and enhance the conformity aspect of the Borg.  Much of the action is on the Enterprise, but the real money shots from Bole is that opening crater and the model work of the Enterprise and Borg Cube is excellent.  There’s also clearly been so much work that has gone into remastering the series for high definition.  But Bole is also continuing the trend of moving the camera with the action, even if it’s a simple dialogue scene.  There’s also little character touches like Geordi La Forge evacuating engineering and staying behind ever so slightly, having to roll under the door to get out.  It’s small touches like these and Wesley learning how to play poker (and losing) that help bring a lot of this episode together.

 

Michael Piller’s script is also notable for being quite progressive.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” may be an episode at its core that centers two male characters in Riker and Picard, but it is not one to forget other characters exist.  Through the first two seasons the female characters especially on Star Trek: The Next Generation had the tendency to be written with the same brush, often a sexual one even in scenarios where sexualization is not necessary.  What Piller has done here with Troi, Crusher, and Guinan is give each of them an individual scene, not so much to stand on their own, but at the very least make them people who are written as colleagues, and importantly, friends.  They are not carrying the invisible baggage of telling the two men what is wrong, they are there for advice and Troi and Guinan especially.  Whoopi Goldberg is clearly playing Guinan in conversation with her role in “Q Who”, though here there isn’t the antagonistic force of Q so she is opposite Picard.  Troi is opposite Riker, explicitly being a counselor so he can get to the bottom of his own needs and desires.

 

Riker is the centerpiece of the episode.  His plot, which has been alluded to already, is one of a man coming to terms with who he wants and needs to be.  There is such love and passion for the Enterprise that despite the blood, sweat, and tears shed to become first officer, specifically on this ship.  His ambitions are to become captain, but they have stalled.  This is not in a bad way, to reiterate William Riker is a man who loves the Enterprise and her crew.  He butts heads with Shelby because of that love and is willing to sacrifice himself to the Borg if necessary.  The tragedy of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is that the situation has held him back.  That’s the big twist.  The Borg themselves, a collective that erases individuality to just become another cog in a machine that is ever expanding, but this time they need an individual.  They specifically want Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and after being unable to outrun or trick the Borg into a defeat, Picard is abducted.  Now, I do think discussing the Borg in depth should wait for next week and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” because the commentary of a collective needing an individual feels like post-Cold War commentary on the Soviet Union needing to accept capitalism in the context of a 1990 episode of television (though ironically could also very easily be a metaphor for the unsustainable nature of capitalism that was becoming rapidly apparent after Reagan and Thatcher).  This is because the Borg while ever present a threat and terrifying, they actually aren’t on-screen all that much.  When they are it becomes clear more budget has gone into the designs of the individual bodies of the borg, taking specific inspiration in places from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, but this is a story about people.  Picard is given nearly as much time as Riker, representing a diplomat going into war and that slowly tearing him apart as it really is against his values.  Both Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart play their characters as parallels to one another.

 

The episode builds their individual arcs to a climax, culminating in that ending.  The dread, tension, and suspense all boil until we get to the big twist: after being captured Captain Jean-Luc Picard has been assimilated into the Borg as Locutus.  This is a twist that somehow I was unaware of.  I knew about the Borg, I even knew that they were the villains of The Best of Both Worlds, but I did not know about the twist.  It is a twist a genre savvy viewer can see coming, the Borg are clearly inspired by Doctor Who’s Cybermen, a relationship that has become symbiotic.  It’s also a slight lie to say that this boils over, it’s just at a rolling boil after the away team where basically every main character who hasn’t had a moment to shine yet does so, including Crusher with a phaser, discovers this.  They are only saved by a perfectly timed transporter.  You would think that’s the end.  But no, that’s a twist.  The cliffhanger has to be the inflection point, the point where everything the episode builds to has to change.  There has been one plot thread I have left out.  The Borg continually advance their technology whenever attacked, so the Enterprise has been developing a Hail Mary weapon, something they hope not to use.  The inflection point is acting Captain William Riker deciding, after being begged not to because there’s still a slim chance for Crusher to save Picard if retrieved, to fire.  The music quotes Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War”, and the episode cuts to a To Be Continued caption.  It physically dropped my jaw.  It is a brilliant climax that is the culmination of Riker needing to listen to himself and choose.  Did he choose correctly? That’s discussion for when I actually see “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”.

 

Overall, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” at its core is a gamble.  It’s a season finale that ends on a cliffhanger and while CBS and Paramount Pictures had already started work on the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there still was that chance that it would not work.  It’s also currently riding this tightrope, as setup it’s brilliant.  Every aspect of the production slots into place to tell a story driven by where the characters have been going over the course of this entire season, and for Riker and Picard even earlier.  The script and direction both are building tension and every performance is on the top of their game, but it could all come crashing down with the potential for a poor second half.  Yet, it’s also the statement of a show that has fully found its identity and voice after the first two very rocky seasons and a third season that is very strong, but arguably lacking a mission statement as to its identity.  This is that mission statement and it is a perfect one.  10/10.

Bottom 5 Episodes of Season 3:

5. Booby Trap

4. A Matter of Perspective

3. Transfigurations

2. The High Ground

1. The Price

Bottom 10 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far:

10. The Price

9. The Schizoid Man

8. Too Short a Season

7. Shades of Gray

6. Home Soil

5. Justice

4. Up the Long Ladder

3. Angel One

2. The Child

1. Code of Honor

Top 5 Episodes of Season 3:

5. Deja Q

4. The Offspring

3. Yesterday's Enterprise

2. The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

1. Sarek

Top 10 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far...

10. The Survivors

9. The Enemy

8. Deja Q

7. Q Who

6. Elementary Dear Data

5.The Offspring

4. Yesterday's Enterprise

3. The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

2. Sarek

1. The Measure of a Man

Echoes of the Mogor! by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

“Echoes of the Mogor!” is written by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway, and lettering by: Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 143-144 (November-December 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

It’s incredibly refreshing to see John Ridgway return to the art for Doctor Who Magazine, entering the rotation of artists until 1992 which is quite surprising.  His use of shadows on “Echoes of the Mogor!” are of particular note, giving the strip back a lot of atmosphere and a tone that it had moved away from since he left the strip.  He is also doing his own inks for this story which is a particular interest because they are quite heavy.  This is a story taking place on a base that has been under siege for some time and from the first panel there really is a sense of isolation.  The shadows are closing on a lone survivor on the planet Mekrom.  Those first few pages are brilliant, the best material for the Seventh Doctor comic strip even sustaining it when the Doctor enters the narrative.  Dan Abnett’s script characterizes the Doctor as inherently curious about what he’s doing.  There’s a dead body and no signs of life, the reader also lacking information because we don’t quite see what kills this man, mostly.  Some of it is a bit too obvious of an almost reptilian monster, but it is a fantastic opening.  It builds until the emergency relief team arrives and the story immediately has this sense of being compressed.  Dan Abnett has two issues to tell his story, but is clearly framing it to be a typical four part Doctor Who story with the tone shifting at the halfway point from horror science fiction to military science fiction.

 

The genre shift of “Echoes of the Mogor!” becomes apparent that Abnett is using his influences, mainly Alien and Aliens on his sleeve, naming so many of his characters after actors, characters, and crew of those films that it almost becomes distracting.  While the relief team is in ¾ of the story, the biggest problem is the fact they are all references, not characters.  They are short hand for archetype and given no real understanding because we are moving at a breakneck pace to get to the big twist of the story.  The twist is in the title, the monsters are phantom echoes given form  because they are the dead native inhabitants, the sheer numbers and time since their deaths has amplified what they are.  It’s psychic warfare, which Abnett almost feels as if there’s going to be something more but he’s run out of time so the emergency team leaves since there wasn’t a murder and nobody to help.  The Doctor follows suit.  That’s where the story becomes a letdown because with even a third issue there could be a little more depth to the characters and a little more plot to explore to get something great.  Abnett does show promise, it is his early work and he does return to both the strip and to books and audio drama so it isn’t the last we’ll see of him.

 

Overall, “Echoes of the Mogor!” isn’t bad, it’s just a story that doesn’t quite reach its potential.  John Ridgway’s art does a lot of the heavy lifting to paste over how quickly the story actually goes which is the biggest problem.  The characters are weak while Dan Abnett is playing with some fantastic ideas, there just isn’t enough time to stop holding the story back from being great.  6/10.

Transfigurations by: René Echevarria and directed by: Tom Benko

 

“Transfigurations” is written by: René Echevarria and is directed by: Tom Benko.  It was produced under production code 173, was the 25^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 73^rd episode overall, and was broadcast on June 4, 1990.

 

“Transfigurations” is an episode with little going for it.  I will be the first to sing the praises and need of a filler episode in a season of television, it’s part of what makes the medium great.  But “Transfigurations” is an episode that were it more memorably bad it would be a prime example of poor filler.  The premise of the episode is the Enterprise crew coming upon a crashed ship with one survivor, an amnesiac dubbed John Doe, played by Mark LaMura.  This survivor displays a healing factor and begins emitting energy, the mystery of the episode being exactly where John Doe comes from and if he is going to be a danger to himself and others.  There is a moment where John Doe undergoes a resurrection after some time in stasis, something that while not quite commented on but René Echevarria’s script through the first two acts reads as a take on the Christian Passion narrative.  This is strengthened by Doe’s backstory being as a unique member of his species, mutating beyond their physical forms into beings of energy and leaving behind the petty squabbles of their current life.  The episode ends with John undergoing an ascension into the stars.  It’s a Passion narrative mixed with ideas that I am most familiar with from the 1972 Doctor Who serial The Mutants, though that serial was far more interested in the effects of colonialism and empire on society while “Transfigurations” doesn’t really have a central thesis.  René Echevarria has written a script that has a concept to explore, but does not know exactly what further to say on the concept outside of a need for death and rebirth, in the spiritual and societal sense, to grow.  The growth is almost transhumanist, becoming beings of energy that can heal the sick and injured and the implication if interfacing with higher dimensions.  This is certainly something Star Trek has done before, it’s an idea that Gene Roddenberry loved in the 1960s and this episode does it again here with at least an attempt to structure the episode like a piece of television from 1990.

 

The issue with “Transfigurations” outside of not actually saying anything about the trajectory of humanity through John Doe as a character is structural.  Echevarria foregoes the A-plot/B-plot structure after the first act.  The pre-credits scene is actually a really nice character beat for Geordi La Forge being once again not great, but at least a development for his lack of confidence.  LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn as Worf have really fun chemistry together and the episode leads you to believe that connecting Geordi and John Doe’s minds to save Doe has done something to Geordi.  He becomes more confident in flirting and starting a relationship with a woman he’s got a crush on, but then it goes absolutely nowhere.  After the episode’s first act the plotline is dropped to shift the focus on John Doe.  Shifting to John Doe shouldn’t be a problem in terms of the plot, the mystery out of his existence does give some nice scenes with Dr. Crusher early on and Echevarria is clearly trying to do something with the episode, even if it doesn’t come across.  Part of the structural issue is introducing Doe’s people only in the third act.  “Transfigurations” lacks the time to explore the Zalkonian society with the twist that John Doe was on the run: he has a death sentence from his people and the charges aren’t explained to the Enterprise crew.  The crime is just natural evolution which feels like a statement on something, but there isn’t enough development given to that as an idea.  The Mutants has a similar problem of the native aliens who are mutating being shot on site because the culture sees it as a death sentence and the mutation is into something visibly monstrous, not just emitting energy and healing people. Echevarria wants to say something about humanity fearing the different and the other, but not actually saying anything.  It doesn’t help that Tom Benko in the director’s seat is just a generic television director. It’s shot perfectly fine, but it almost feels like a reversion to earlier days for the show with little flair.

 

Overall, “Transfigurations” commits the biggest crime of having nothing to actually say about what it is putting on-screen.  It’s not offensively bad, but it commits to being almost uninterested in the premise and story it sets out to tell.  It’s 45 minutes of filling time with something that reads as if Gene Roddenberry put his hand back into the scripting process but Echevarria came back halfway through and wrote out most of his worst written qualities.  This is an episode of Star Trek that has been done before, likely will be done again better, and just exists as a poorly thought out episode of television.  4/10.

Fear of the Dark by: Trevor Baxendale

 

It’s a standard setup at its core.  A moon tucked away in a corner of space, an expedition of archeologists with ulterior motives, and the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa finding themselves there.  The moon of Akoshemon is desolate and quiet.  A madman in suspended animation, rich deposits of lexium, and something waiting in the dark.  This type of prose is the effect Trevor Baxendale has in writing Fear of the Dark, a novel that is lauded among Doctor Who fans for good reason, Baxendale provides the setup for a gripping horror novel.  Fear of the Dark works because Baxendale presents a type of Doctor Who story that we have said before, it roots itself directly in the Fifth Doctor’s television era by having a supporting cast of almost entirely soldiers.  At its core it’s in the same line as Kinda and Snakedance, though not taking cues from Buddhism, instead going into a more American style of horror.  To bring up the works of H.P. Lovecraft in relation to Fear of the Dark feels almost too obvious, but Baxendale excels at making the reader’s skin crawl because the Dark is just that, it’s a concept and not exactly something with a consistent physical form.  There is this implication in the end that while it is defeated, and defeated through quite simple means, it is really only one aspect of something bigger that is still out there.

 

Baxendale connects the Dark as a creature of void to Nyssa over Tegan which is particularly important, connecting Tegan to it would be obvious.  The Dark would feel like just another aspect of the Mara and this novel a midquel between Kinda and Snakedance.  But making it Nyssa adds quite a lot to the narrative and her character, as the television show essentially forgot the tragedy of her character after Castrovalva.  She was a companion who wasn’t supposed to stick around, but the few moments Baxendale spends here connects the Dark to her father.  The Master is not in Fear of the Dark, but the Dark as seen from one angle represents the inhuman acts the Master has done to Nyssa and her father.  Tegan, for her part, is equally portrayed as human.  Baxendale follows the trick of Paul Cornell and Justin Richards in their Missing Adventures novels by having Tegan as point of view.  She is both a scared woman, terrified that her mind might be next but she also can’t just leave.  Baxendale sets Fear of the Dark quite close to Arc of Infinity, Tegan has just rejoined the TARDIS and desperately wants to prove that she has improved with her time away.  She’s also the one to see half the crew of miners masquerading as archeologists as people.  She is the audience surrogate character, a role Baxendale uses well without ever sacrificing her characterization.

 

Where Fear of the Dark excels as well is subverting science fiction tropes.  The supporting cast are space marines and one madman who has stared into the cosmic horror of the Dark and come out addicted.  The madman is one who slowly unravels after being awoken from suspended animation and his addictive personality is subverted as being a problem before he sees the Dark.  The miners are all given their own little backstories and needs for the money, they are acting out of greed but it is a greed from the standpoint of a society in the late stages of capitalism.  The biggest, toughest man on the team is just desperate to get home to the six year old daughter that saved his life in the end.  He is named Bunny because he really would just be a big softie at heart.  But everybody in Fear of the Dark falls victim to their own greed in the end as the horror unfolds.  The actual plot of the novel is a careful unraveling, opening in media res but not during the height of the horror.  It only starts where the tension is just starting to form, the prose is already priming the reader not to be relaxed.  There is a cave in that is one of the inciting incidents, mainly to keep the Doctor and company on the moon, and Baxendale integrating flashbacks to get to that point is a stroke of genius, even if they are flashbacks that don’t have too much to tell.  It’s also important where Baxendale decides to end the novel, he keeps it abrupt in the particular style so that the tension and the horror is released but not released enough to let it sink in.  Everybody aboard the TARDIS sleeps with the lights on because despite everything there is still something in the dark.

 

Overall, Fear of the Dark is the best thing Trevor Baxendale ever wrote.  It’s some of the best cosmic horror Doctor Who has done, bringing characters to the forefront.  It reads far closer to a Missing Adventure, putting our characters at as much of their limit with a supporting cast that are all subversions of well worn tropes at this point.  It’s one of the few Fifth Doctor Past Doctor Adventures to really succeed at capturing the era while maintaining a depth of storytelling.  10/10.

Planet of the Dead by: John Freeman with art by: Lee Sullivan and letters by: Zed

 

“Planet of the Dead” is written by: John Freeman with art by: Lee Sullivan, and lettering by: Zed (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings).  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 141-142 (September-October 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

There is an argument to be made that “Planet of the Dead” is Doctor Who Magazine’s attempt at a 25^th anniversary story.  It was released in two installments leading up to the anniversary, directly attempts a tie in to Remembrance of the Daleks by mentioning the Doctor having an appointment on Skaro, and saying something about where the Doctor is as a character.  There are certainly still lingering issues: the Doctor doesn’t actually do anything to enter into the plot, just stumbling into an underground tomb on a planet where he wants to fish but John Freeman at the very least captures this happy go lucky version of the Seventh Doctor that is recognizable as a version of the Seventh Doctor.  By attempting a tie in to Remembrance of the Daleks there’s clearly an awareness from Freeman of this being a Doctor Who story with some idea for where the strip should go.  For near the entirety of the Seventh Doctor’s run so far there has been a great problem of writers really not wanting to write Doctor Who, but to connect as many Marvel UK properties together.  The only big exceptions to this were “A Cold Day in Hell” and “Culture Shock”, though Freeman here does create an alien species that he could use in these crossovers, but not without connecting it to a story about the Doctor’s regrets.  The title “Planet of the Dead” is a reflection of the visions of dead companions that the Doctor is shown in an attempt to free the shapeshifting alien race off this planet.  That’s the plot and by the time we get to the conclusion of the story where the Doctor at the last minute realizes, the strength of Freeman’s script comes to the forefront.  The plot is a simple idea and sustains two issues by switching tactics halfway through, not only do other companions appear as celebrations for the anniversary but each of the previous Doctors appear.  Freeman is quite good at characterizing each of the six earlier Doctors, not enough in depth as some of them (mainly the Second, Third, and Fifth Doctors), but they’re still recognizably them from the dialogue.

 

It's particularly nice to examine the Seventh Doctor as coming from two incarnations of loss, including comics continuity of the death of Jamie McCrimmon on top of Adric and Peri.  Frobisher is also implied to have died by his presence here.  Peri is acknowledged to have lived, but her exit in The Trial of a Time Lord is very much one of a spiritual death.  The Doctor is portrayed as having a continual heaviness put upon him because of the deaths.  There’s almost a pseudo-revival characterization of traveling alone being a particularly bad thing which is interesting considering there won’t be a return to a regular companion for two years, after the show has been cancelled on television.  Now obviously some of the companion visions are a bit weak, Katarina and Sara Kingdom seem to be from a version of The Daleks’ Master Plan where they knew each other, but Adric is particularly served well by acknowledging his death as the death of a child.  This also is the first contribution from Lee Sullivan on art duties, his style blending realism and stylization that is going to develop over literal decades of contributions to the strip and other Doctor Who Magazine submissions.

 

Overall, “Planet of the Dead” while a little atypical for an anniversary story works as an examination of who the Doctor is and where he has been.  It is kind of a shame that this didn’t immediately usher in a closer continuity with the television show because it is perhaps the second story to have the Doctor characterized as the Seventh Doctor, but alas there’s still more to come.  7/10.