The plot of the novel
sees the Doctor, Romana and K9 landing on the Rock of Judgement which is a
prison where a seemingly dead criminal, Xais, has been resurrected through a
mask worn by a warden on this prison, Margo.
Xais, being a villain wants to take over the galaxy and uses the Nisbitt
gangster brothers and a group of Ogrons to try and accomplish her goals. Throw in a cast of colorful characters and
you pretty much have the novel. Remarking
on the plot it is very traditional for the era and it feels like it could have
been made on TV. The opening scenes in
the TARDIS where the three travelers are playing Monopoly along with the Doctor’s
exit from the TARDIS are filled with comedic dialogue which could have easily
been done on television. That even
bookends the novel very well as you build up to the joke. The plot is not flawless however as while
Xais is a terrifying villain as she can kill you with one glance, her plan is
not developed except that she is going on a crime spree with these gangsters
because crime is romantic and she is a very one note villain which doesn’t help
me remember her much except something that happens near the end of the novel
which I won’t spoil here.
Xais enters the novel by
infecting the security warden Margo through a death mask made out of helicon
which makes Margo suffer as all we know about her is that she is already a very
hardened character. I have no real
comments on her character except that her body is going through a power
struggle once she puts on the mask. The
mask was made by Stokes, who is an artist who has painted the criminals being
sent to execution on the Rock of Judgement.
Stokes is an extremely camp character who in some scenes I like,
especially when he is paired up with Romana, but on other occasions there is
something about him that I just find boring.
Also the running gag that he cannot remember Romana’s name gets old
really quickly and I just can’t stand it.
The Ogrons are also characters used well for the comedy of the story as
they are idiots. This allows the Doctor,
Romana and K9 to easily outwit and manipulate them into doing what they want
which comes in handy when they are inevitably captured. The only other real character of note is
Pyerpoint whose twist you can see coming from a mile away and Spiggot who is
basically Duggen from City of Death.
The Doctor, Romana and K9
are all extremely well written by Gareth Roberts. Roberts obviously understood their dynamic
and why that dynamic worked so well on television without making it too
exaggerated. Romana is never too
egocentric, K9 is always logical and the Doctor is using the façade of an idiot
to look really smart. Every line of dialogue
and action done by these three characters I can see done by Tom Baker, Lalla
Ward and John Leeson which really explains why this novel was chosen to be adapted
into audio by Big Finish. The biggest faults
with the novel is that when its comedy misses, it misses hard and it just makes
you cringe, but still that doesn’t happen that often.
To summarize, The Romance of Crime is a great novel
for you to read if you want a feel for an era of Doctor Who. It knows just when to tone down the comedy to
have moments of dramatic tension. Most
of its characters are on point and it is able to fix some of the era’s
predominant problems which makes it much easier to enjoy as its own
entity. 80/100
No comments:
Post a Comment