The Five Doctors by: Terrence Dicks

 

The Five Doctors was written by Terrence Dicks, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 81^st story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

When I took a look at Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, I noted that Terrance Dicks only had two months to novelize his scripts after the television story had finished its broadcast and the book was published.  Somehow there is a novelization that has even less time between broadcast and publication.  The Five Doctors, once again Terrance Dicks adapting his own script for the 20^th anniversary special, released officially on November 24, 1983, one day before the premiere of the television special on November 25, 1983 on the BBC and one day after the world premiere on US television on the actual 20^th anniversary of Doctor Who.  This means that the novelization would have had to have been written shortly after the episode wrapped initial filming at the end of March of that year.  This means that things that were added in post-production, like the archival footage of William Hartnell in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, is not present in the novelization while there are scenes that were never filmed or were filmed differently like the abduction of the Second Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart being in an alley between UNIT buildings instead of just out in the open.

 

It is honestly a miracle The Five Doctors isn’t a total mess of a novelization.  This is at least partially because Terrance Dicks is adapting his own scripts, so he has the knowledge of what his script was intending on television.  It also helps that Dicks adapts it to be breezy and quick, something that works for a novelization of an anniversary special that on television was already a celebration for the fans.  It’s The Five Doctors and it follows that plot incredibly well, converting almost everything that makes the story work in the new medium.  The conversion of the characters allows Dicks to add a couple nice little bits of extra characterization when necessary, like the decision to have much of the scene at the Tomb of Rassilon to be told between Sarah Jane and Tegan, allowing the two companions to comment on the action while sidelined.  There is also this nice added scene to see what Susan actually has been doing since The Dalek Invasion of Earth, though her characterization through the portion adapting the episode itself doesn’t always allow her to act as the character, something Carole Ann Ford had more input in when filming.  The same with the First Doctor who it seems in television appearances not played by William Hartnell has this weird added layer of sexism which somehow feels more out of place and more bold here than in the televised adventure.

 

Overall, The Five Doctors is genuinely one of those great little novelizations that is a very quick read.  There are a couple of additions that help, a couple that hurt the story a little bit, but especially for a book that had to be written and was published before the episode actually aired, it’s a book you’ll have a good time with.  8/10.

Moon Over Soho by: Ben Aaronovitch

Reading the title Moon Over Soho the initial impression for Ben Aaronovitch’s follow-up to Rivers of London would feature werewolves due to the moon in the title and the fantastical world the first installment opened up.  Or that could just be me remembering how The Dresden Files’ second installment also featured werewolves in a twist and became very excited when Aaronovitch didn’t do that.  Instead, we have jazz vampires.  This is certainly something that threw me for a loop initially, but Aaronovitch pulls it off with jazz perhaps being more important here than it was in the first book.  If Rivers of London was a book meant to introduce Peter Grant to the world of magic, than Moon Over Soho is a book meant to really introduce the audience to Peter Grant.  Already established is his father being a jazz musician and an addict, who in Moon Over Soho is a larger supporting character as Peter only has a clue of a version of “Body and Soul” as a piece of evidence in the brutal murders hinted at the end of Rivers of London.  Both his parents are honestly fascinating characters, they clearly care though don’t quite understand the whole magic thing, Aaronovitch justifying this though the idea that those in the government completely being aware of the magic being used but the common people just ignoring it.  It also helps that Peter’s parents, it is revealed near the climax, have had magical encounters that have been in their subconscious throughout their lives, though rationalized as normal occurrences.

 

The rationalization of magic and its use in government means that there are other government official characters, like those working for the Fire Brigade, who appear and have a part to play in Moon Over Soho.  Nightingale also gets some expansion, being revealed to have knowledge of tanks and how magic has been used in tanks, including their weaknesses, which is an aspect I really wish Aaronovitch would have explored more than he really had time for.  That’s mainly the issue with Moon Over Soho, it’s a book that honestly feels restricted to a particular length so Aaronovitch has to decide what to include and what to cut.  There are references to other adventures for Peter, things that would eventually be adapted into the Rivers of London comic series by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel for Titan books, but it would have been nice to see some of these instead of this jumping ahead.  Where Moon Over Soho succeeds most is in Peter Grant’s narration and actual plotline.  Aaronovitch has plotted a very tight mystery around some gruesome deaths, deaths indicating the vampires aren’t feeding on blood so much as the energy and emotions brought about by jazz and music in general.  Peter Grant also has to deal with his romantic interests to the partner of one of the victims, Simone, a young woman whom he immediately finds this intense connection.  It is clear their relationship is doomed to fail, though not necessarily in the way you might think.  Not entirely.  Aaronovitch ends the novel on a dark and melancholy note that makes a lot of the issues that were bringing it down feel almost necessary.

 

Overall, Moon Over Soho is quite an enjoyable little novel, though some of the recurring characters have been sidelined, including Leslie May, for focusing more deeply on Peter as a person and how he is feeling, something that your mileage may vary.  The ending is one that will be sticking with me for a very long time due to how dark yet very fitting it had to be.  Aaronovitch’s prose is still thrilling though I hope the potential for these books to be truly great can be fulfilled in subsequent installments.  7/10.

The King's Demons by: Terence Dudley

 

The King’s Demons was written by Terence Dudley, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 108^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

I envision this review to be the opposite effect of reading The King’s Demons, that is brief and not taking over five hours to read a novelization of a 45 minute story.  This is something that can work, expanding the characters, setting, and even plot, however Terence Dudley doesn’t really do that.  The King’s Demons opens with some extra historical context and only goes downhill from there.  The added scene with Kamelion as King John and the idea of the robot having a conscience is nice, though once the material adapting the episode itself really begins that gets dropped in favor of Dudley overwriting every scene.  This is a novelization that revels in lengthening every description of the clothing our characters are wearing and the setting, but not how the characters are feeling or their actions are motivated.  The weak plot of the Master using the Kamelion android to impersonate King John into not signing Magna Carta doesn’t really get an expanded explanation, though the disguise of Sir Gilles Estram is at least played as a joke here.  Every scene drags for far longer than it needs to and it makes a below average story all the worse.  This is a case of a novelization being redundant when it will take less time and energy to rewatch the television story and less than 250 words for me to really write this review.  2/10.

The Return of the Archons by: Boris Sobelman from a story by: Gene Roddenberry and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“The Return of the Archons” is written by Boris Sobelman, from a story by Gene Roddenberry, and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 22, was the 21^st episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on February 9, 1967.

 

Up front I need to be honest about this episode, this was a very difficult episode for me to get into and it’s because it feels very much at odds with what Star Trek is in a lot of ways.  There is a brilliant piece of speculative fiction here devaluing extreme conformity, but this is an episode that is very confused about how it wants to present these ideas.  Watching it in 2023 rips it from the very important context of early 1967, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War.  This is a time where American propaganda against communism was at an all time high while the anti-war movement was on the rise.  “The Return of the Archons” as an episode fits almost perfectly in stoking fears about communism as well as the fear of conformity that was perceived to have come with it.  This conformity is generally seen as an extension of collectivism, especially with ideas of people working together for the good of the society against the individualism of the American Dream.  It’s an episode about a planet where the people all share a gestalt consciousness controlled by Landru, with the Festival of Red Hour sending the young into a violent and sexual frenzy on the streets.  The computer has to be stopped by a very small resistance of three people, all older gentlemen who are ineffective against the strong forces of an ever expanding hive mind.  This, combined with our protagonist’s almost immediately being driven to take down the computer by any means necessary, reveals much about Gene Roddenberry’s ideas behind the episode.

 

Sobelman’s script and Roddenberry’s ideas are interesting in that this is the first time Star Trek mentions the Prime Directive, stating that the Enterprise crew are not to interfere in the development of other planets with some explicit exceptions.  The way “The Return of the Archons” plays it feels like there is an attempt to satirize American exceptionalism and interference with mention made of the crew of the Archon, a starship that disappeared a century ago and left the computer in charge of this planet.  This could have made “The Return of the Archons” great at exploring the effects of American imperialism and colonialism, but instead it is an episode that almost runs out of time showing the imagery of this society instead of contemplating where Starfleet, and by extension America, has made its mistakes.  The episode also just has some structural problems since all of the material towards this particular reading is done in very quick exposition while the rest of the episode fits very much into the ideas of American exceptionalism and freedom.  Joseph Pevney directs, this being his second episode for the series, and his direction plus the costumes of the episode is something incredibly positive.  Since the society on the surface has an 1800s Earth culture, period costumes are used and it makes the episode visually stand out in a very interesting way.  The action itself is shot very well, despite almost getting in the way of the story.  The episode starts in media res and there isn’t enough time devoted to really showing the audience how we got to that point.  George Takei and DeForest Kelley are the standouts here as they are made ‘of the Body’ in communion with the computer leaving these dopey performances.    The climax of Kirk essentially contradicting the computer into suicide is also a nice touch, but the characterization of Kirk is especially 1960s American.

 

Overall, “The Return of the Archons” while not a bad episode and well-remembered for its iconic imagery (it was an inspiration for The Purge of all things) is an episode with a very many problems, especially in its messaging being very out of line with the rest of Star Trek in a lot of ways has set out to do.  It especially feels weird to be an idea from Gene Roddenberry too.  Structurally there are pacing issues and almost not enough time to explore ideas that would make the messaging far more nuanced than the very simple ideas against conformity and collectivism without examining in any real depth as to why these things could be wrong (the argument presented is a loss of free will but doesn’t factor human empathy into the equation).  The performances, direction, and costumes all go a long way to make it watchable and it isn’t bad per say but it is very messy.  5/10.

Rose by: Russell T. Davies

 

Rose was written by Russell T. Davies, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 168^th story to be novelized by BBC Books.

 

There won’t ever be a time where I don’t think it odd that BBC Books decided to revive the Target novelizations with brand new novelizations for the 21^st century.  Filling in the five missing novelizations make sense, especially since the three Douglas Adams adventures were expanded into full length novels and Eric Saward came back for his two Dalek novelizations (despite their lower quality), but doing novelizations of episodes of the revival means more than anything there would have to be an expansion unless it was of a two-parter, yet none of the novelizations have featured two-parters.  The first batch of four split themselves between two episodes novelized by Doctor Who novelists Jenny T. Colgan and Paul Cornell for The Christmas Invasion and Twice Upon a Time respectively, while the other two brought back Steven Moffat for a novelization of The Day of the Doctor and Russell T. Davies to novelize the story that brought back the revival in Rose.  Now, I wrote a review of the television episode last weekend, noting how it worked as a similarity to Spearhead from Space as a reinvention of the show, and the novelization is almost an apt comparison to how Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion laid the groundwork for the future of the Target novelizations.

 

When writing for the television episode, Russell T. Davies approached Rose specifically for newcomers with minor references to Doctor Who’s past, but in writing the novelization he realizes that the target audience is one of fans and not newcomers.  This means there are several continuity references, both to the past and the future, placed right back into the narrative.  The television script referred to the enemies as the Nestene Consciousness, but Davies also namedrops the Autons multiple times during the novelization and that’s just the beginning.  The references are essentially expansions of television scenes: Rose’s search for the Doctor includes appearances of other incarnations and the scene with Clive includes descriptions of every Doctor plus a couple of potential ‘future’ Doctors.  There are also potentially new adventures for the Ninth Doctor mentioned, explicitly giving him a few weeks in between when he blows up Rose’s job and meets her the next day.  The most intrusive references are genuinely good ones.  First, Clive’s father was one of the soldiers killed during Remembrance of the Daleks which is what inspires his lifelong obsession with the Doctor.  This also means he’s a bit more courageous in protecting his family from the Autons in the final battle, giving him a more sympathetic noble sacrifice.

 

The invasion sequence of the Autons is greatly extended, not being restricted allows the Doctor and Rose to face off against some Auton before making their way down to where the Consciousness is, Mickey is duplicated a second time with Rose giving up the Doctor’s plan to the Nestene which feels like a twist mainly for the audience who has seen the episode, and there are sequences with other characters including a brief Donna Noble cameo.  The Donna Noble cameo may have been one step too far, but hey Davies doesn’t know if other stories are going to be adapted.  While Rose’s selfishness and moral nuance is expanded in the novelization as this is from her perspective (outside of the prologue where Wilson is killed on-screen), it’s actually Mickey perhaps best served.  There’s something more of Mickey here as he has several friends with whom he is in a band, they get their own little subplot during the battle fighting off Autons which is cool.  While the relationship between Rose and Mickey is still a little messy, intentionally so, it’s a bit more healthy than on television and based on trust and care.  Davies’ dialogue is great at softening with very slight tweaks to the television scripts too.  His prose is also still as engaging as his prose for Damaged Goods.  Rose is actually quite long, coming in at 190 pages, really pushing the length of a Target novel, but it doesn’t feel its length.

 

Overall, Rose understands what it needs to do to properly expand itself as a novelization from the very tightly plotted television episode.  Davies prose means you can read it in a leisurely afternoon and it draws you in.  While it adds in things from later episodes and brings in ideas that took a while to come up, these work because this is a novel and not a single episode of a series with no guarantee that there is going to be novelizations of the rest of the series, oddly paralleling early Target novels like Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters, and Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon.  9.5/10.

Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos by: Terrance Dicks

 

Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos was written by Terrance Dicks, based on the story The Claws of Axos by Bob Baker and Dave Martin.  It was the 31^st story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

There seems to be a sweet spot in looking at the publication of the Doctor Who Target novelizations.  Go too early and there may be a tendency for them to drag and do weird things since there hadn’t been an established format, but go too late and there’s a large chance it’ll be a Terrance Dicks novelization that feels more workman like or it’s from an author who doesn’t quite know how to novelize, before you get to the very end when they were basically proto-New Adventures novels.  Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos is a candidate for one of the books in that sweet spot in terms of quality.  It’s early enough for Terrance Dicks that there isn’t the fear of Dicks being overworked by the sheer number of books he was writing so there is this great focus on adapting and expanding the television story.  The conversion of the script itself is incredibly faithful to the television story, Dicks really playing up a lot of the over the top aspects of the Axons.  One of the late working titles on the serial was The Vampire from Space and Dicks really is working on that as a model for the story.  His prose is very punchy and comes at you quickly, though not without taking time to expand the characters.

 

It's the character expansion that makes Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos interesting to read.  The abduction of Pigbin Josh in the first episode in particular is wonderful where Dicks gives the character backstory more than just the weird tramp noises of the televised episode.  It helps that Dicks gets into his head so he gets a small backstory, and he’s referred to as Old Josh instead of Pigbin Josh which definitely helps avoid the comedy tramp trope.  There are also two added elements that really help flesh out the story quite well.  First, there is an added introduction to Bill Filer where he meets Jo Grant, creating this little meet cute that really sells the underwritten romance of the rest of the story.  It helps make up for the lack of Katy Manning in a novel, which is incredibly important to do for something like this.  This also has a knock-on effect of Mr. Chinn being fleshed out more as a bureaucrat, Dicks going for the jugular in terms of anti-bureaucracy.  The character just makes the situation worse, more than the Master ever could, due to his greed and ambitions of power, with an added little bit of governmental comeuppance implied by the end.  Second, the Doctor’s betrayal is played far more straight and sinister here, proposing a genocidal assault on Gallifrey in a way that even the Master fears him.  Somehow this doesn’t feel out of character for the Third Doctor while simultaneously feeling like something Jon Pertwee couldn’t have played.  Dicks gets away with it by making the other characters believe it and feel genuinely betrayed while winking to the reader.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos is honestly a near perfect adaptation of one of those Season 8 stories that everyone has seen and remembered.  The characters shine from the page with the Doctor and the Master getting to have some great extra tidbits of characterizations, the underwritten elements being propped up by Dicks, and honestly a pace that breezes by.  It’s a great way to relive a classic in a different way for those who didn’t grow up with the book as well as a trip down memory lane for those who did.  9/10.

The Truth by: Terry Pratchett

 

“At last, like some oracle that speaks once a year, Vimes said, “I don’t trust you Mr. de Worde.  And I’ve just realized why.  It’s not just that you’re going to cause trouble.  Dealing with trouble is my job, it’s what I’m paid for, that’s why they give me an armor allowance.  Butt who are you responsible to?  I have to answer for what I do, although right now I’m damned if I know who to. But you? It seems tot me you can do what the hell you like.” “I suppose I’m answerable tot the truth.” “Oh really? How exactly?...If you tell lies dos the Truth come and smack you in the face? I’m impressed.  Ordinary everyday people like me are responsible to other people.  Vetinari always had—has one eye on the Guilds.  But you . . . you are answerable to the Truth.  Amazing.  What’s it’s address? Does it read the paper?”” – The Truth, p. 175-176.

 

I don’t typically open my reviews with lengthy quotations from the book I am reading, but often Terry Pratchett books has one sequence that it becomes incredibly difficult not to quote due to how it ties into the main theme of the novel.  The Truth is the 25^th Discworld novel, on the original cover it was advertised as such and the first to be published in the 21^st century.  This context is perhaps important along with Pratchett’s history as a journalist, the above quote being one of many musings on the nature of the press.  The main plot is the invention of the printing press leading to the establishment of The Ankh-Morpork Times under William de Worde, a minor noble who doesn’t get along with his noble family.  De Worde is already an interesting character as Pratchett uses him to explore the class aspect of the character, not getting along with his father yet still being a noble.  I’d hesitate to call it naivety, since William de Worde is not a naïve man, he's incredibly intelligent, I’d instead call it privileged.  Certainly there is a lot about equality in the Discworld, often with other races standing in for certain social issues, and William de Worde is a man who has come from private law and therefore understands how to manipulate those around him.  The idea that he is beholden to the truth is correct on the surface, but the sensationalism and investigative journalism warps things and provides something for the world to read.  Despite protestations to the contrary, the climax of The Truth shows that de Worde is still a rich man from privilege, reflecting his father in several ways.  Lord de Worde is only in the final quarter of the book, yet he is genuinely a terrifying presence that reflects the upper class who doesn’t have to worry about the law or the rules that filthy commoners.  William confronts his father himself instead of going to the Watch because that would be something that the lower classes do.

 

The Truth isn’t all class analysis, however, a lot of it is an examination of the news in general, drawing on perhaps the most famous case of investigative journalism, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s investigations into the Watergate scandal.  This is a Discworld book full of references to that particular scandal if you’re familiar with the history.  The invention of the printing press also allows Pratchett to expand on the rise of the 24 hour news cycle as well as the internet which would have just begun to become the force we know it as today at the time Pratchett was writing The Truth.  There are several diversions into the sensational stories and the rise of tabloids.  There are two mercenaries hired to take down the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork who make up perhaps the weakest portion of the book and the only thing that’s stopping this from being perfect.  Mainly because the plot is something that doesn’t really get going until the Patrician’s dog is brought into the picture and the double act of Pin and Tulip doesn’t ever actually work as well as some of Pratchett’s other double acts.  Far more interesting is the hiring for the times of several dwarfs who own the printing press, a vampire teetotaler photographer, and Sacharissa Cripslock (the daughter of de Worde’s original engraver when the paper was a small newsletter).  This means that the two primary villains are simply overshadowed by everyone else involved.

 

Overall, The Truth has some of Pratchett’s absolute best lines and ideas that’s only really let down by one plot not quite working.  There are fascinating parallels to the current state of journalism and where its failings are coming from a genuine place of love.  All of the protagonists while sadly only being focused on here deserved a second book plus extended sections with the Watch characters only add to what makes the book work.  9/10.

The End of the World by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Euros Lyn

 

“The End of the World” stars Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Zoe Wannamaker as Cassandra, Yasmin Bannerman as Jabe, and Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Euros Lyn with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 2 April 2005 on BBC One.

 

The second episode of the revival of Doctor Who was always going to be a difficult task, just as difficult as bringing the show back.  With the way “Rose” is setup as fully set on modern day Earth, dealing with an alien invasion, the second episode has to sell to the audience the premise of time travel with either the aliens of the universe or a historical setting.  Russell T. Davies slotted himself to pen the second episode, allocating it and the following episode to the second production block, writing a tale that by necessity used the budget primarily on makeup and effects for the aliens, contrasting the more human Autons in “Rose”.  Davies had the title “The End of the World” in the original pitch document for the series as the second episode, leaving the episode with an almost perfect premise for the second episode.  The Doctor takes Rose on her first proper trip in the TARDIS, 5 billion years into the future on the day the Earth is to be destroyed and alien representatives from several corporations and interest groups coming to watch the destruction.  There is nobody left on the planet, humanity having spread throughout the stars, and it’s essentially a tourist attraction closing down which is this beautiful idea of the rich enjoying the spectacle of a planet’s destruction.  The premise helps ground the audience in the setting before future episodes can go into different directions with planets, paralleling the final three episodes of An Unearthly Child which take the initial TARDIS team far back into the past to introduce the time travel concept with a similar grounding.

 

“The End of the World” however does fail in the fact that many of its alien designs are wasted on a single episode, mainly being in the background shots for the entire episode and having no lines of dialogue.  This sadly will become a trend with the revival of Doctor Who where great designs and ideas will be relegated to one episode which sadly means there isn’t as much time for them to make an impact on the audience, unlike the classic show as the serialized format meant aliens and monsters would have multiple appearances built in.  There’s actually a lot stuffed into “The End of the World” done very well in terms of worldbuilding, Davies’ script being a wry indictment of the rich and powerful gathering for the spectacle, though that is largely used for the setting and the villain reveal of the episode.  Sadly Davies doesn’t use it to the fullest due to the 45 minute episode length meaning time by necessity had to be devoted to Rose’s development as a character.  This is the episode where Rose has to become acclimatized to time travel and Billie Piper honestly steals the show in this episode, taking the material and genuinely running with it.  Rose is allowed to deal with the fear and uncertainty, a very human reaction to be taken aback by the aliens and then questioning everything about her situation.  The choice to travel was made on an impulse leaving her mother and boyfriend behind, both traumatized.  Murray Gold’s score is also perfect as underscore.  Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler appears for one small, but crucial scene where Rose gets to call her mother and just have a normal conversation.  These little conversations and moments are beautiful and necessary, but they are sadly at the expense of the worldbuilding that is also integral to Doctor Who with the first episode to suffer from 45-minute syndrome.  45-minute syndrome is an informal term coined by Doctor Who YouTubers including Stuart Hardy to describe the main issue of the non-serialized revival to not live up to the potential of the premise due to a lack of time.

 

While Rose certainly isn’t on her own in the episode, there are large sequences where we are focusing on the Doctor discovering what is going wrong on Platform One, being paired with Jabe, a tree from the Forest of Cheem played by Yasmin Bannerman.  The mystery is simple and has a simple solution that fits incredibly well, it’s guest Lady Cassandra, the last human played by Zoe Wannamaker, killing the guests in a money making scheme also rooted in her anti-alien racism/xenophobia, but this allows the audience something important.  Davies is allowed to establish the Doctor is on his own in the universe, the Time Lords are dead.  The words Time Lord are only spoken three times in the episode, keeping the Doctor still mysterious to the general audience and those not familiar with classic Doctor Who as well as not revealing exactly how they died so all viewers can have that mystery to follow.  Eccleston also gives this genuine sadness to his performance as the Doctor while masking it in humor.  Bannerman also clearly has the potential to be a companion in the role of Jabe, though sadly she perishes, but Bannerman would appear in Big Finish Productions as New Adventures companion Roz Forrestor.  Wannamaker as the villainous Cassandra is also a villain with a lot of potential that sadly isn’t quite explored to the character’s fullest potential.  Partially due to the restrictions on the computer generated effects that give her four minutes of screen time, though Wannamaker is camp which helps.  Leaving all of these things on the table means that with “The End of the World” there is a lot to be desired.  Euros Lyn was the director assigned to this second production block and his direction work is great.  Much of the episode is shot on location and the blending of sets, models, and CGI environments, while lower budget and aging in some aspects, still look amazing.  Lyn uses a mix of practical and computer generated imagery incredibly well and would return for several episodes, becoming one of the prolific directors of this era of the show.

 

Overall, “The End of the World” is not a perfect episode.  It’s an episode that I am genuinely conflicted on.  There are individual scenes, especially with Eccleston and Piper together and separate moving their characters forward, that are genuinely brilliant.  The setup is perfect, the plot is simple enough to be done in a 45-minute episode, but the problem comes with the fact that Davies’ script neglects some genuinely important worldbuilding elements and any character that isn’t slated to die, leaving several with either a name or species name at best.  The climax of the episode is also quite messy, with the danger just feeling weird with the Doctor having to jump through giant fans.  It’s an episode that does what it needs to do, but leaves the viewer wanting something despite elements that should come together perfectly.  6/10.

The Mind of Evil by: Terrance Dicks

 

The Mind of Evil was written by Terrance Dicks, based on the story of the same name by Don Houghton.  It was the 96^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

There’s always some sadness when you come to a novelization of a story that you adore and find that it is a rare case where the book doesn’t quite do it the justice it deserves.  The Mind of Evil has always been a story that has been overlooked, one of the very few Jon Pertwee television stories not to be novelized in the 1970s along with The Ambassadors of Death, Inferno, and The Time Monster, all provide by Terrance Dicks which should be the perfect choice, and for Inferno was, as he was script editor for the era.  The Mind of Evil, however, on television is a six episode serial that wastes absolutely none of its time in getting going and there is very little in terms of plot points which can be jettisoned, meaning that the novelization process would be a difficult one.  Dicks is at his best when he’s able to take a four-part story and expand on the characters while keeping the integrity of the script.  This is especially present in early novelizations like Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion or even Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, but for The Mind of Evil there is no real way to facilitate this expansion beyond a little bit for the character of Barnham.

Dicks also is genuinely struggling with the pace of The Mind of Evil.  The sense is that Dicks really wants to get to the scenes where the Doctor and the Master are on screen together since that’s where he really can flex his character writing muscles, but for The Mind of Evil there aren’t as many scenes.  The Master, while not off-screen, is more reserved than in Terror of the Autons so Dicks doesn’t really get the chance to allow that dynamic to shine.  Whenever the Doctor and the Master meet the book just picks up and there is this great energy, heck it’s even there in the depiction of the Master’s introduction.  Since much of the story is dealing with the global peace conference, Terrance Dicks kind of shows his limited cultural knowledge in simplifying a lot of the political context and cutting out the Cantonese dialogue completely, though luckily he does not attempt to fake it, instead just stating the characters are not speaking English.  The climax with the Thunderbolt being stolen and recovered does pick things up especially, beginning with the prison escape which while missing the direction of Timothy Combe and HAVOC, has genuinely great bits in it with those added character moments for the Brigadier, the Doctor, Jo, and even Sergeant Benton getting one.

 

Overall, The Mind of Evil is sadly a mid-tier Target novelization simply because it gets the job done without showing the passion and ideas that the best adaptations would do.  Terrance Dicks’ adaptation is easy enough to read despite dragging in the middle, but it feels lacking without the production behind it.  6/10.

Rose by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Keith Boak

 

“Rose” stars Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, and Mark Benton as Clive.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Keith Boak with Elwen Rowlands as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 26 March 2005 on BBC One.

 

The road to bringing back Doctor Who was something of a long road with several false starts.  The 1989 hiatus wasn’t announced as a cancellation, the fear of repeating the 18 month 1985 cancellation.  As early as 1993 with the 30^th anniversary Children in Need special Dimensions in Time the idea that the show might come back was a possibility, with discussions for a television movie as early as 1989 before the show was taken off air.  The movie would materialize in 1996 under Philip Segal which would be yet another false start due to low ratings in North America, it being aired initially against an event episode of the sitcom Rosanne.  Scriptwriter Russell T. Davies had already found success in writing the drama Queer as Folk for BBC rival Channel 4, but Doctor Who would tempt him as repeats in the late 1990s as well as Comic Relief special The Curse of Fatal Death and the BBC2 Doctor Who night brought some interest.  The early 2000s saw several Doctor Who webcasts of original stories featuring Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Paul McGann in Death Comes to Time, Real Time, and Shada respectively plus the official Ninth Doctor Richard E. Grant in 2003’s Scream of the Shalka.  Head of Drama for BBC Wales Julie Gardner working with Russell T. Davies on Casanova would culminate in a formal approach in 2003, with the announcement just in time for the 40^th anniversary of the show, sadly leaving the Shalka Doctor relegated to a one off.  Early 2004 saw development and casting with Hugh Grant and Bill Nighy approached for the role, but on March 20, 2004 Christopher Eccleston was announced in the role and two months later Billie Piper would be cast as Rose Tyler.  Filming began in July 2004 with the first block consisting of the first, fourth, and fifth episodes of the series under director Keith Boak.

 

“Rose” opens the revival of Doctor Who with Russell T. Davies as showrunner and scriptwriter of eight of the thirteen episode series order.  The episode was designed to be a complete reboot and retooling of the show for the 21^st century, doing away with the 25 minute serial format, instead taking inspiration from shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer for 45 minute, monster of the week drama.  Doctor Who is also not a typical reboot, with the original 26 seasons and TV Movie not being ignored, Christopher Eccleston being announced as the Ninth Doctor and eventually through archival footage and images this would be confirmed on screen.  Davies would stay in the role of showrunner until 2010, though in 2023 he is coming back for the 60^th anniversary and beyond with three specials featuring David Tennant before a full fourteenth series of the revival with Ncuti Gatwa in the role is announced essentially making Davies the modern day Barry Letts, reviving the show for a new audience and coming back years later to bring in another new era.  Reviving Doctor Who is a difficult task.  Before “Rose” and the revival there are arguably four points that could be considered as starting points, only two of which were successful for the longevity of the show.  An Unearthly Child, specifically its first episode, is a perfect example of how to setup a show by revealing the science fiction elements over halfway through the episode while Spearhead from Space opens with science fiction elements but is largely focused on new companion Liz Shaw as the two main successes for opening the show to a new audience.  Time and the Rani and The TV Movie on the other hand open with a hasty regeneration plus a script that has not really been edited and an extended prologue leading to a regeneration, both decisions that in the case of the former were recovered from once Andrew Cartmel was allowed to do his job and the later led to the show not being revived.  “Rose” manages to avoid these later pitfalls by taking broad inspiration largely from “An Unearthly Child” and Spearhead from Space.

 

The episode opens with the title sequence, one of the few times the revival will forgo the pre-title sequence, and it is largely a reimagining of the Fourth Doctor’s sequence rendered in CGI with the TARDIS catapulting through the time vortex to a genuinely great orchestral reworking of the theme by Murray Gold before the opening shot of the episode takes an orbital image of Earth before zooming in on London where we follow Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, through her normal day.  Davies’ script here does an excellent job at quickly communicating to the audience who Rose is and establishing normalcy before the inciting incident of Rose being menaced by Autons in the basement of her job can bring in the first alien element.  The Doctor saves her and blows up the shop to flex the increased effects budget before the action is allowed to slow down for much of the middle of the episode.  Davies makes the right call in keeping the focus on Rose as we’re able to see her interact with her mother Jackie, played by Camille Coduri, and boyfriend Mickey Smith, played by Noel Clarke.  The audience learns about the Doctor through her eyes and investigations on the internet, leading her to well meaning conspiracy theorist Clive, played by Mark Benton, before Mickey is replaced by an Auton duplicate.  This is the halfway point of the episode where the Doctor really enters the picture, saving Rose again and showing her the TARDIS before they locate the base of the Nestene Consciousness under the London Eye as Autons invade London, Rose knocking a vial of anti-plastic to defeat the Nestene.

 

What makes “Rose” work is the large strokes of the plot are very simple and not bogged down in continuity.  While the Nestene and Autons are returning villains, Davies’ script at no point explicitly references events of Spearhead from Space or Terror of the Autons and there really is no need to.  Boak’s direction at the climax is essentially an updated version of the Spearhead from Space climax using more angles than available for a 1970 television production, but that isn’t a problem as mannequins coming to life and breaking through their shop displays will always be a frightening action sequence.  Eccleston’s performance as the Doctor is also effortlessly charming, with Davies setting the Ninth Doctor as a more distant portrayal of the character.  While there is an attempt to make him more alien, Davies sets the character up as very close to being human, just a distant human who has gone through trauma.  There are references to what will be revealed as the Time War as a mystery and thrust for the main story arc of the first series, an arc that is focused on what has happened to the Doctor before the series and how Rose becoming a companion will affect him and not the simple arc word style of arc that will become popular.  Yes, this series does get arc words in the next episode, but they honestly feel more like a late addition just to facilitate the climax of the series finale.  Eccleston’s Doctor being distant also helps preserve the mystery and make each introduction to the world of Doctor Who hit harder, especially reveals like the TARDIS interior and its ability to travel through space and later time.  That isn’t to say the episode is perfect, the realization of the Auton duplicate of Mickey and Mickey’s capture are two sequences that really feel out of place, added for comedic effect in an episode that is genuinely going for a more dramatic, even horrific, tone.  There are also moments where you can tell the episode was made in 2005, Davies script having Rose use genuine slang and language from the time that helps to make her feel real but also reflect oddly on how much the show has changed since the initial revival.

 

Overall, “Rose” may not be a perfect pilot episode, but it is an episode that out of the gate allowed the revival of Doctor Who to be a success.  Eccleston and Piper are the ones to carry the episode with Davies grounding things on Earth which is the correct decision for the first episode in particular.  The character writing is an extension of the growth that the final few years of the original run and spin-off novels throughout the 1990s were done bringing the show into the modern age in a near perfect first episode.  It’s also an episode that is smart in not playing all of its cards at once, allowing new viewers the perfect entry point which is something fans of the show, old and new, have a tendency to forget.  8/10.

Time Bomb by: Jamie Delano with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Time Bomb is written by Jamie Delano with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 114-116 (June-August 1986) and are reprinted in their original form in Doctor Who: The World Shapers by Panini Books.

 

Jamie Delano is a name familiar to comic fans for his work on Hellblazer for DC Comics/Vertigo starting in 1989, but in 1986 he provided two stories for Doctor Who Magazine during the Sixth Doctor’s run.  Time Bomb is the first and it’s quite a simple story, with the Doctor and Frobisher being jostled by a time cannon in the TARDIS catapulting them throughout time.  Frobisher gets in trouble, the Doctor rescues him, and throughout all of this time gets messed up leading to intelligent reptiles who are not Silurians taking over the world.  Delano is allocated three issues to tell this story, cramming it into about 24 pages incredibly well, though there is an overreliance on dialogue and narration to tell the story.  Peri is at a baseball game which is a smart decision since there really isn’t a whole lot of time to tell the story so Delano really needs to get things going.  What’s interesting is that Delano isn’t really trying to say anything interesting outside of having genuine fun exploring the science fiction concepts of a time bomb and the danger.

 

If we’re being honest, Nature of the Beast! was a story that made me stop reading these for being quite boring so bringing in Delano to do something almost off the wall is the perfect antidote to that.  John Ridgway is clearly also having a lot of fun with drawing the dinosaurs and aliens.  There’s also this robot that he’s clearly having fun with.  Delano is also having so much fun writing the character of Frobisher since he’s kind of in the damsel in distress companion role which has been memory holed as a thing that happened a lot in the television show despite being more complex than that on screen.  Frobisher’s sarcasm and just being a penguin means that the emotions in Ridgway’s art can be more exaggerated than the human characters without breaking the realistic (occasionally traced from promotional photos) style that Ridgway adheres to and had become the standard of Doctor Who Magazine in terms of style for the mid to late 1980s before the 1990s brought more stylization to the comic strip.

 

Time Bomb may be a strip that isn’t exactly for everybody as Doctor Who Magazine has moved away from the overarching plot of Steve Parkhouse’s time on the strip (and the reason The Tides of Time is all one collection), but as an individual story it does fill a niche the television show wasn’t really filling at the time of the hiatus and allows the Sixth Doctor a much kinder portrayal.  Frobisher is incredibly creatively used and Delano’s script goes as crazy as he is able to in three issues for a very fun time.  7/10.

Court Martial by: Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos, from a story by: Don M. Mankiewicz, and directed by: Marc Daniels

 

“Court Martial” is written by Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carbatsos, from a story by Don M. Mankiewicz, and is directed by Marc Daniels.  It was filmed under production code 15, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on February 2, 1967.

 

There is something interesting about older pieces of television that set up their leading men as characters with little flaws.  The leading man in a story is often meant to be a paragon of their respective story, something that Star Trek has been keen to avoid in the way it portrays Captain James T. Kirk.  “The Enemy Within” is a perfect example of an early episode that examines Kirk’s flaws by extracting them into a different person and “Miri” does an excellent job of seeing him begin to break under extreme pressure (despite being more of a mixed bag episode).  “Court Martial”, however, stands out in putting Kirk into the mold of the perfect leading man with impeccable judgement who could never do anything wrong.  The plot obviously involves the court martial of Captain Kirk for the death of Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney during an ion storm with the record showing only a yellow alert and not the emergency red alert which would allow Kirk to jettison the pod which he did.  This is all recorded in the computer banks of the Enterprise which cannot be at fault.  The episode’s plot thrust is unraveling the mystery through a sequence of courtroom scenes where writers Don M. Mankieweicz and Steven W. Carabatsos have Spock and McCoy adamant that Kirk is a good man who could never have made the mistake or had the lapse in judgement to lead to the death of Finney.

 

There is an issue with the way “Court Martial” is presented.  The episode opens in media res, the Enterprise already being on Starbase 11 for repairs from the ion storm and Finney already dead.  This means that all we learn about Finney is from the characters themselves during the court martial itself, his daughter played by Alice Rawlings convinced Kirk is responsible because they apparently hated each other.  There is this brilliant detail that in Kirk’s adherence to the rules, a mistake by Finney reported by Kirk to Starfleet led to Finney being kept in a lower position.  The problem with this comes from the fact that all of this information is communicated second hand through exposition instead of allowing Finney to be a living, breathing character.  The viewer is already primed to know that Kirk wouldn’t have endangered the man’s life while the episode itself is trying its hardest to communicate that as a distinct possibility.  Combine this with the fact that the information isn’t really shown to us, it makes the first third of the episode quite the slog to get through.  Kirk does have some excellent scenes with the prosecutor, an ex-girlfriend Areel Shaw, played by Joan Marshall, who is perhaps the most fleshed out of the Kirk love interests so far.  Shaw is allowed to have a character of her own and there is a genuine sense that Mankiewicz and Carabatsos have written her to have her own life and personality outside of being a love interest.

 

The actual court martial sequence is particularly fun with Percy Rodriguez’s Commodore Stone providing a clipped and harsh judge while guest star Elisha Cook Jr. as defending attorney Samuel T. Cogley is a delight in every scene.  Cook Jr. gives Cogley this utterly eccentric and over the top reliance on physical books over technology that makes “Court Martial” feel like it is going for a man vs. machine plot that sadly doesn’t become nearly as fleshed out as it could be, but his legal speeches and defense of Kirk, despite many adlibs, are great.  The direction from Marc Daniels is also incredibly interesting to watch, formatting the computer footage from three distinct angles doing an excellent job to mimic what security cameras could actually be shooting.  The final third also includes a tense reveal that Finney is alive and a great action set piece in the engine rooms where Kirk of course saves the day, outside of a very odd cut in the middle of the sequence as it’s clear while tense there are portions that ran long and had to be deleted for time.  Finney is played by Richard Webb who plays the man as utterly unhinged which while making the events of the episode clearly undercut, does lead to some great action.  Oddly enough, while this episode is focused on Kirk, it’s the performances from everyone who isn’t William Shatner that makes it work.

 

Overall, “Court Martial” is an episode that while clearly meant to be a bottle episode for budgetary reasons, isn’t nearly as effective as it could be due to having a trial plot that really needs the viewer to see the relationship that calls into question Kirk’s competency instead of leaving things just to be right at the end.  It’s a good episode, but it’s a very messy episode when split into its three story acts.  7/10.

The Stormlight Archive: Oathbringer by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Middle book syndrome is a thing that often happens with trilogies.  The middle book of a trilogy has to continue the story and character but often authors struggle to create a story that creates a climax.  Oathbringer is essentially the middle book of The Stormlight Archive’s first sequence of five novels and often critics have found it to be the weakest installment of The Stormlight Archive which is an assessment I completely disagree with.  It is not a book that leaves the reader unsatisfied, just with more questions than answers as the sequence shifts away from keeping the plot threads nearly as separate as The Way of Kings or Words of Radiance had been.  There is still the characteristic changing of the points of view, expanding the points of view to an even longer list, with Dalinar, Shallan, Kaladin, and Adolin being the four major recurring points of view, but the plotlines are less distinct in terms of individual threads.  Instead the individual character threads are more of a subplot that is resolved before the end of the main plot and the true climax of the story can actually begin.  Brandon Sanderson writes climaxes in sequences coined Sanderlanches by fans due to the increase in pace and sheer events that happen and Oathbringer is perhaps his longest Sanderlance, beginning nearly 400 pages before the end of the novel with an event that changes the trajectory of The Stormlight Archive forever.

 

This moment defines the trajectory of Kaladin’s arc for the remainder of the series, as well as changes the political landscape of Roshar forever.  He fails to save someone, really the first time this has happened since Tien, and as a character he becomes incredibly conflicted.  Much of Oathbringer in Kaladin’s narration foreshadows the stating of the Fourth Ideal and reading it back you can really feel that some readers convinced themselves it had to happen during this novel, but it is incredibly important that he doesn’t.  Kaladin has undergone much growth through these past three books yet still has more to grow.  As a character it is clear that if he were on Earth he would be diagnosed with some sort of depression and it’s really in Oathbringer that Sanderson begins to understand how to write a character with that particular mental illness.  He has to deal with the fact that the world goes on with all the joy and sorrow that comes with.  When we meet him in Oathbringer he goes back to his childhood home which has been ravaged by the Everstorm, something that terrifies him as there is the fear his parents will be dead, but instead they are alive, well, and Kaladin has a newborn brother.  It is this little slice of pure joy in the middle of a novel whose point is that while a battle is won the war may be lost with Odium, the equal and opposite of Honor, being alive, well, and thriving while chaos reigns.  Kaladin also realizes what it means to really be a leader, something he has exceled at in The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, but not to the point of really understanding the injustices and systemic issues of lighteyes society.  Now that he is a lighteyes, and there is a sequence where he is part of a different lighteyes fighting force, he has to really learn about society and the structures that should be dismantled.  Sanderson sadly has moved slightly away from this class consciousness in the face of a larger threat, however, with Moash really being the only character to represent this and he’s an outright villain.  While I am sympathetic to Moash and his actions, this is a case of writing a villain whose motivations and goals are genuinely good, though there may be a redemption arc in his future.

 

Oathbringer also gives Adolin Kholin quite a bit of time to shine, his arc focusing on the fallout from murdering Sadeas in cold blood at the end of Words of Radiance.  It’s clear that this is the act that would be keeping him from becoming a Knight Radiant, plus the use of a Shardblade which as the world now knows is made of dead spren, killed when the previous order of Knights Radiant betrayed their bonds.  Adolin, however, seems to be the only character wielding a dead Shardblade that attempts to treat it with respect, especially after an encounter with its corpse outside of the Cognitive Realm.  Yes, this is a book where the larger Cosmere mechanics begin to come into play, a large part of the later book introducing the characters and reader once again to Shadesmar (though Shallan briefly slipped through in The Way of Kings) as well as eagle eyed readers recognizing characters from Warbreaker to make an appearance.  Adolin and Renarin’s relationship is also fascinating here as Renarin attempts to live up to the ideals of a Radiant despite something important being revealed by the end of Oathbringer that may be keeping him from fully fulfilling those duties.  Oathbringer also brings Jasnah Kholin back after the reports of her death had been greatly exaggerated at the end of Words of Radiance.  Adolin’s plot goes hand in hand with Shallan’s: Shallan and Adolin are betrothed and the climax of the plot is the eventual marriage, the final major event of the novel which parallels its opening.  Shallan also feels as if she is losing her place, Veil becoming more prominent and Radiant emerging from her past setting her character up as a system with dissociative identity disorder, aided by Lightweaving meaning each alter looks different.  Now I am no expert on dissociative identity disorder but Sanderson treats Veil and Radiant as their own people, Veil being the one to really have attraction to Kaladin.  Yes Sanderson does tackle some romantic tension and that’s perhaps the weakest aspect of the book, mainly because it’s quite sad.  Heck Shallan excels when she’s working once again with Jasnah Kholin.

 

Finally, we come to Dalinar who gets the bulk of the point of view chapters for Oathbringer as well as the flashback chapters.  Oathbringer’s flashback chapters are perhaps the most devastating as the reader gets to see just how monstrous the Blackthorn was in his younger days as well as the deal that he made.  The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance are written in such a way that the reader doesn’t quite realize that Adolin and Renarin don’t actually make mention of their mother, and while this may have been an oversight on the part of Sanderson, in Oatthbringer that is rectified.  The flashback devotes so much time to establishing the relationship between Dalinar and Evie, with Dalinar always being stoic and emotionally detached.  Since Dalinar is much older in the main sequence the flashbacks go through the course of thirty years or so and he has to learn really how to be a father and emote as a human being.  This is paralleled in the main sequence dealing with ideas of the man who cannot let go, even as his memory of his wife is ripped away from him in exchange for the pain taken away from the Nightwatcher.  The flashbacks leave him a broken man and Oathbringer proper, both the book itself and the writing of the in universe book that gives the novel its title, puts him back together.  His journey is one of accepting his choices and pain on a path to personal redemption.  Sanderson importantly doesn’t give Dalinar the redemption in this book, explicitly making the acknowledgment of wrongs placed squarely on himself and not the influence of Odium as the first steps to that redemption.  There’s also the parallelism of personal healing coming from the wedding that opens the novel, with Dalinar and Navani being married by the Stormfather.

 

Oathbringer is a novel that is all about forming and breaking bonds, exploring what oaths and bonds do to people and make them change.  While the climax is perhaps Sanderson’s longest, it isn’t the most explosive one he has written, it is one of the most emotionally effective at understanding what The Stormlight Archive is at the 25% mark of the series overall and the 50% mark of the first sequence.  The characters are amazing and while the plots aren’t quite as distinct, instead bleeding things together and weaving in and out of characters’ journeys, it continues the high quality the series is known for.  9.5/10.