All Our Yesterdays by: Jean Lisette Aroeste and directed by: Marvin Chomsky

 

“All Our Yesterdays” is written by: Jean Lisette Aroeste and is directed by: Marvin Chomsky.  It was filmed under production code 78, was the 23^rd episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 78^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on March 14, 1969.

 

It’s kind of surprising to have quite a strong character piece as the penultimate episode of Star Trek, but “All Our Yesterdays” is an episode that focuses almost exclusively on the relationship between Spock and McCoy being put in a perilous situation.  Star Trek as a series can be accurately described as focusing on the trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in a situation so “All Our Yesterdays” as an episode is one that largely takes Kirk out of the scenario as he is relegated to the B-plot of peril.  The premise of this episode sees the main trio beam down to a planet which is hours away from dying as its star goes supernova and the populace have sent themselves back in time to live out the rest of their lives in a world of their own choice.  The Enterprise crew hasn’t actually come to stop the people from this fate, instead being motivated by attempting to save the entire planet under the belief that the inhabitants don’t know their extinction is coming.  The episode doesn’t go into the timeline breaking implications of sending the entire planet’s population into the past, hand waving it away by the librarian, Mr. Atoz played by Ian Wolfe, preparing them some sort of life in the past, something we see in Kirk’s plot.  Despite that this is a great premise, Kirk being sent into a past where he is accused of witchcraft after saving a woman from being attacked while Spock and McCoy are sent together into the planet’s ice age where there is a woman in exile Zarabeth, played by Mariette Hartley.  The danger of the trio being in the past is that they have not been processed, so they will be slowly dying and degenerating into versions of themselves that would fit into the time period they have been sent.

 

This degeneration means that Spock is going back to a more barbaric vision of the Vulcan people, being sent 5,000 years into the universe’s past with McCoy makes him emotional and specifically aggressive.  Writer Jean Lisette Aroeste sets Spock up romantically with Zarabeth, intentionally paralleling the romance from “This Side of Paradise”, Spock being manipulated by Zarabeth, who desperately does not wish to be lonely anymore.  The episode is clearly going to end in tragedy, the relationship will not last and McCoy is suffering from frostbite so they both need to get out of the ice age.  Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley get some of their best material here, Kelley especially as McCoy is the one who realizes what’s happening to Spock and tries to talk him out of it.  The pair without Kirk are much easier to come to blows creating this great tension and justifies Nimoy’s particular outbursts of emotion.  William Shatner as Kirk is given a weaker plot, mainly information gathering, but it’s still one that really works with who Kirk is as a person: he’s the one who is going to try and save the day, himself, and his crew above all else, willing to sacrifice only when he clearly cannot save others.  He’s the one who is able to get Spock and McCoy out at the last minute as the star is going nova and the planet is going to be destroyed.  He’s also the character given the large amount of the action, even when relegated to a B-plot.

 

Overall, “All Our Yesterdays” as an episode feels like an ending.  Some of this is coming from retrospect, there is technically one episode left but this episode was the last to be aired in what had been this season’s regular Friday night time slot and the show would be on hiatus for nearly three months before the final episode aired, but it as an episode it is almost wholly a reflection on the three characters responsible for driving Star Trek forward.  It’s a character piece that is honestly quite touching, even if there is a weak B-plot and the actual ending is a bit of an anticlimax.  This episode feels like a fitting goodbye to these characters and Jean Lisette Aroeste is clearly a fan turned writer who understands how to express this.  It’s just a bit of a shame that there’s one more episode left that happens to be an episode with an infamous reputation.  8/10.

Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora by: Philip Hinchcliffe

 

Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora was written by Philip Hinchcliffe, based on The Masque of Mandragora by Louis Marks.  It was the 38^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

The Masque of Mandragora is an overlooked Philip Hinchcliffe serial.  One of the few times the Hinchcliffe era really attempted a historical setting (the other two being Pyramids of Mars and The Talons of Weng-Chiang) and it’s quite resplendent in its Italian Renaissance setting.  It’s also one of four serials to be written by Louis Marks who novelized none of his stories, three novelizations falling to Terrance Dicks and Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora falling instead to Philip Hinchcliffe.  This isn’t the only serial Hinchcliffe would adapt for the Target Books range of novelizations but in terms of adapting the story it’s one of the ones that is perhaps difficult to talk to.  While Terrance Dicks famously adapts stories to be close to the story but with his easy to read style, Philip Hinchcliffe shows that there was a clear reason as to why he didn’t really write for the show.  Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora reads almost too straightforward in terms of what happened, making the prose have a tendency to just be glossed over in reading the short novelization.  In its shortness there is almost a paradox to the novel, it took me several days to get through because of how bland Hinchcliffe’s prose is, not helped by The Masque of Mandragora being a story which while having its fair share of action scenes, is more a contemplative piece in many ways.

 

On television the story was propped up by director Rodney Bennett’s use of location shooting in Portmeirion to serve as Renaissance Italy, and sadly Hinchcliffe doesn’t really add much to the descriptions.  There’s a sequence early on in the serial involving orange trees and the way Hinchcliffe translates it makes it feel normal when in the serial we have a beautiful forest and some sparkling dialogue leading into action.  The only thing that really does sparkle is the main dynamic between the Doctor and Sarah Jane, Hinchcliffe clearly being close to Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen through their three years on production.  Hinchcliffe actually does some small additions to the dialogue for the Doctor in particular which makes for a pretty fun addition, especially when putting the bombast of Tom Baker against the villain Hieronymus and the Cult of Demnos.  The events of the story are there and it’s perfectly fine as a novel.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora is essentially an example of why some people are better suited to suggesting ideas to produce instead of writing, something exemplified by Big Finish Productions as they adapted some of his unused ideas with scripts by other people.  It makes a solid story come across as incredibly bland on the whole, making the shortness of a Target novelization feel much longer and honestly leave me with little to actually say about it.  5/10.

The Savage Curtain by: Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann, from a story by: Gene Roddenberry, and directed by: Herschel Daugherty

 

“The Savage Curtain” is written by: Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann, from a story by: Gene Roddenberry, and is directed by: Herschel Daugherty.  It was filmed under production code 77, was the 22^nd episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 77^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on March 7, 1969.

 

Gene Roddenberry’s writer and story credit has filled me with a sense of dread and not since “The Omega Glory” has there been an episode this dire.  “The Savage Curtain” is an episode that once again because Roddenberry is a patriot for the United States of America as the best country in the world which is especially ironic considering this is an episode that went out during the early days of the Nixon administration.  It’s very easy to see where this patriotism came from, President Lyndon B. Johnson was largely seen through his Great Society as incredibly progressive making social change possible in response to the Civil Rights Movement, although Johnson was responsible for invading Vietnam and escalating the Vietnam War something Star Trek was critical towards.  1969 as a year could be historically described as a year where the swinging nature of the 1960s shattered: Richard Nixon taking office brought Republican power as the Republican Party’s base was undergoing a shift that began in 1964 making it the far right at best fascist adjacent party it is today, the anti-war movement was at its peak with Nixon beginning troop withdrawls after several disasters of the previous administration though the war would and essentially leaving Vietnam with many problems the United States had caused, and the fall would see the Manson murders be the culmination of the decade.  The early 1970s would be rocked with political scandal to fuel rightful distrust in a government including Watergate and the publishing of The Pentagon Papers.

 

“The Savage Curtain” as an episode is Roddenberry attempting to make a statement on the nature of good vs. evil by presenting figures from real and fictional history of the Star Trek universe and making them fight for a race of rock creatures in an episode that ends on the exclamation that good and evil are actually similar because they use the same methods when forced to fight.  This barely gets a refutation from Kirk and Spock who are included in the battle because they represent the current society.  It’s also a conclusion that feels fundamentally at odds with Star Trek’s own philosophy: this is a show that has largely refuted the ideas of pure good and evil, creating recurring villains that are largely given inner lives and sympathies in episodes such as “Balance of Terror” and even whenever the Klingons appear.  Using methodology to create similarity in philosophy is also just ridiculous because the methodology of two parties fighting on an essentially barren planet in a conflict they have been conscripted into by a literal higher power, and by having one party made up of people who aren’t really there.  There’s a hint that Roddenberry understands that at the very end, but this episode was also co-written by Arthur Heinemann who very easily could have seen what Roddenberry was proposing and attempted to damage control Roddenberry’s messaging, especially since this was both the third from last episode to enter production and third from last to air.

 

This is a bad message and it compounds with Roddenberry’s patriotism because the main historical figure from actual history is Abraham Lincoln, taken from a projection in Kirk’s mind of one of the great historical figures.  The historical figure from Spock’s mind is the founder of Vulcan society, Surak.  The episode actually opens with Lincoln appearing on the viewscreen and asking to come aboard the Enterprise hence an utterly ridiculous image that perhaps had the most potential to reflect on history.  Lincoln is clearly a historical figure Roddenberry admires, and largely for good reason.  I cannot discount Lincoln’s leadership through the American Civil War and his abolitionist stance, but this is also an episode from 1969 so it very much is ascribing to the Great Man theory of history.  Abraham Lincoln was very much an integral figure in the history of the United States of America and Earth’s history in general, and one of the better presidents, but this is an episode that posits Kirk’s impressions of him would ascribe to the Great Man theory of history.  This is also an aspect of the episode that largely mischaracterizes Kirk, mainly because why would he be interested so much in 19^th century American history.  Spock’s projection at least makes sense for being the mythical figure who started Vulcan society, but Kirk here is just in love with Lincoln, only vaguely mentioning that it’s probably not the real Abraham Lincoln.  Kirk is written with an uncharacteristic lack of curiosity and more as a strategic general so Lincoln can compare him to Grant which again doesn’t feel right for the character.  Yes, he’s a leader and is intelligent but he’s not really a master strategist in terms of fighting a war.

 

The first moment in the episode where you realize something is going to go horribly wrong with the commentary is giving a scene between Lincoln and Uhura, largely because it’s another scene written from a white perspective.  Roddenberry and Heinemann, I’m not certain which but lean towards Roddenberry, have Lincoln refer to Uhura as a term that would be historically accurate but is a racial slur.  The slur is also gendered subtly contributing to the sexualization and exotification of women of color and black women in particular, which actually could have been interesting if it would be used to show Lincoln’s own biases but because this is a very white led show from 1969, the conclusion is essentially sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  Watching the scene you can see Nichelle Nichols holding back emotions at having to claim the slur doesn’t affect her because slurs have no power in the future which is attempting to be optimistic about the future, but ignores the very real power of words in the present.  This is partially because Rodenberry and Heineman are white and are clearly not aware of the systemic natures of bigotry, see other Roddenberry penned episodes like “A Private Little War” and “The Omega Glory”.

 

Overall, “The Savage Curtain” is an episode without a discernable message that an already weak production from director Herschel Daugherty on some very small sets and action that is honestly poorly choreographed (and like many 1960s productions the guest cast is all white including a projection of Genghis Kahn and a very dark Klingon).  Gene Roddenberry proves once again how limited his progressive vision of the future is in writing an episode which is incredibly regressive while philosophically deciding that good and evil are the same actually.  Not since “The Omega Glory” has this episode been that bad and like “The Omega Glory” it’s one where there is a blinding patriotism informs the characterization all while the world around Star Trek had been crashing that patriotism down around it.  One of the worst.  1/10.

Star Wars: Tarkin by: James Luceno

 

Peter Cushing’s performance is one of those elements of Star Wars that doesn’t get discussed in larger circles, people being more interested in how it lays the groundwork for the trilogy with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi often overshadowing Star Wars, for good reason.  Cushing, however, is one of the actors that really ties the original film together, acting as the primary antagonist and as an actor is a guide for Carrie Fisher’s performance in particular.  Tarkin is a novel that expands upon Grand Moff Tarkin as a character leading up to the beginning of the Death Star’s construction after the events of Revenge of the Sith.  This is a novel of two halves, the first being interspersed with flashback’s to Tarkin’s upbringing and first meetings with Senator Palpatine.  It’s these sections where author James Luceno excels at portraying the nature of Tarkin’s family and personhood, focusing on the general ruthlessness and awareness of what he is doing.  There aren’t excuses made and this novel isn’t portraying the character as at all sympathetic, Luceno is portraying a fascist rising the ranks of a democracy in the middle of a fascist takeover.  This is a particularly difficult task after all, one pitfall would be attempts to make Tarkin sympathetic which is avoided by making it very clear that his ambition is both something instilled in the character from his upbringing as well as making them his ambitions.  The man is immediately willing to grab at any piece of power he can while having this gentlemanly attitude towards the galaxy at large: he will stab you in the back but while he do it there will be such a niceness to it that you can’t help but be charmed by the man.  Luceno makes this partially a mask the character is wearing and developing, but not a mask of lies, Tarkin is that manipulative but still develops it over time.

 

Where the back half of the book excels is not the plot, that is actually the weaker aspect of the novel becoming a bit too obsessed with getting the reader to the point of the Death Star being built and as such many of the subplots are particularly shallow, but portraying the trio of Tarkin, Vader, and the Emperor.  The Emperor as a character obviously had a particular image and this novel was published after the prequel trilogy released, but Luceno is interested in characterizing Palpatine as he was in the original trilogy.  This is a character who has won everything and it is almost a clash of genres whenever Palpatine and Tarkin interact, Palpatine is a megalomaniac while Tarkin is a Peter Cushing character.  There is a moment where Tarkin refers to the Emperor by his first name which stood out in particular: it creates a moment of humanization to the evil again without creating sympathy for the devil.  Darth Vader completes the trilogy and it is utterly fascinating to keep the stoic and calm Vader of Star Wars throughout this novel which features quite a bit of scheming to keep the Empire’s power intact.  The fragile situation of the Empire is particularly fascinating, something that would be maintained throughout its rule.

 

Overall, Tarkin works at its best when it is focused in on being a character study, especially in the first half where that’s all it is doing.  The second half suffers by rushing through to the point where Star Wars needs to begin and the Death Star needs to be built and that rush really brings down what could have been a great book to just a pretty good one.  7/10.

The Myth Makers by: Donald Cotton

 

The Myth Makers was written by Donald Cotton, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 97^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

The existing audio for The Myth Makers is one of those underrated Doctor Who soundtracks.  It’s quite the humorous serial, only really getting dark at the very end with the recreation of the sacking of Troy.  Donald Cotton wrote another serial in 1966 and ended his connection with his show until the 1980s when he novelized The Myth Makers.  This novelization was published in 1985, only a year after the show began to be released on VHS so it is in this space where it is still being written for an audience who wouldn’t have the chance to rewatch it had it survived the junkings and not yet essentially for the fans.  Yet Donald Cotton clearly decided to take novelization as writing an original novel, something he pivoted to after leaving radio and television.  The Myth Makers is far closer to a traditionally published historical science fiction novel, deciding to present the Doctor, Steven, and Vicki as seen by the epic poet Homer.  This is posited as a special early draft of the Iliad, told orally revealed in an epilogue to the Doctor at some point in the future.  Homer even takes the role of Cyclops from the television story which does make me imagine the narration as Tutte Lemkow which is a fascinating effect.  This makes for a fascinating novel because it’s reformatted from the events of the serial to be a novel, following largely the Doctor for the first half, Vicki only briefly whenever it’s important to establish the relationship between her and Troilus, and Steven in the second half.

 

There is something heightened about the characterization, especially of Cassandra in an attempt to somehow outdo the camp of the television story, as well as make the Trojan characters in particular filling into the camp sensibilities of the story.  The Doctor is also perfectly characterized and just as stubborn, but if there was one point where this novelization failed it would be on Steven and Vicki in the first half.  Vicki in the second half actually gets some focus with Troilus actually providing romantic interest instead of the last-minute relationship of the serial, and having Homer speculate on her inner life means there is at least some justification, however Cotton decides that Steven and Vicki both need to be characters from modern day Earth instead of the future.  Steven in particular suffers because Cotton doesn’t have access to any novelizations featuring the character as this would be the first, Vicki at least had Doctor Who and the Zarbi and Doctor Who and the Crusaders, but Steven is just generic male companion which would bring down an otherwise perfect book.  9/10.

The Cloud Minders by: Margaret Armen from a story by: David Gerrold and Oliver Crawford and directed by: Jud Taylor

 

“The Cloud Minders” is written by: Margaret Armen, from a story by: David Gerrold and Oliver Crawford, and is directed by: Jud Taylor.  It was filmed under production code 74, was the 21^st episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 76^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on February 28, 1969.

 

“The Cloud Minders” is the definition of a great episode of television that utterly falls apart in the third act.  It’s another episode of Star Trek engaging with social commentary, this time directly looking at slavery and to a lesser extent some of the contemporary myths as to why slavery in the United States of America was justified, presenting them largely as ridiculous and as part of upholding the system.  The premise is that there is a planet in danger of ecological collapse that the Enterprise needs a mineral, zenite, from the planet Ardana.  Standard stuff for Star Trek, Ardana’s main city being Stratos, a floating city in the clouds where the rich and intelligent live while there are miners, the unintelligent Troglytes, on the planet’s surface responsible for mining the zenite.  It’s setting up an obvious class divide based around intelligence, a belief that mirrors contemporary and modern-day racism with the leader on Stratos, Plasus played by Jeff Corey, is insistent that the divide is an objective fact of reality.  This is biting commentary and honestly quite bold for Star Trek to attempt, being explicit for the first two thirds of the episode in pining the problems on the system itself and not just individuals in the system, all through having one person represent that system.  This is assisted by the attempts to present Stratos as literally heavenly and having the first scenes set on the planet be outside of the mines, on the ground with Troglyte revolutionaries because yes there is an attempted revolution occurring, using the Enterprise’s needs in the crossfire.  They are holding the zenite hostage and what shows promise for the episode at this point is that Kirk and Spock are presented the conflict and do not immediately take the side of the upper class.  They immediately criticize the government for not following Federation regulations and set to getting the zenite.

 

The first crack in the episode is that the class divide by intelligence has an actual reason that is not due to systemic oppression, but because of an odorless gas that affects the brain through prolonged exposure removing the intelligence from the Troglytes.  This is apparent from the Troglyte servant Vanna, played by Charlene Polite, being intelligent and one of the leaders of the rebellion.  Vanna later in the episode is derided for being ungrateful for what the cloud city of Stratos gave her, reflecting the idea of the white man’s burden in the sphere of colonial powers directly.  It’s also a stroke of genius (and slight padding for the episode) to have Vanna mistrust Kirk throughout when a solution of filter masks to avoid the effects of the gas are suggested.  This is where the episode begins to fall behind, partially due to the need of Star Trek to wrap up a conflict in a nice 50 minute package, as it suggests the centuries of oppression can be undone by a simple solution while still showing Plasus in power and unwilling to see the equality of the Troglytes.  The episode ends with an almost glib comment that he will continue, though one reading could be of an understanding that the quest for equality would still be ongoing despite the masks.  The third act also decides at points to be sympathetic to Plasus as an oppressor and Kirk directly chiding the Troglytes for their resistance.  There’s a sequence of Kirk trapping himself, Vanna, and Plasus in a cave to show the existence of the gas which is an odd plan to lead to the end of the episode when it would also be possible to beam the trio up to the Enterprise for mediation.

 

“The Cloud Minders” as an episode title also doesn’t make much sense, according to Google a minder is essentially a bodyguard so apparently this is about people who protect the clouds in what is a clear attempt to reference the sky city setting, but it’s kind of non-sensical.  The script itself has also clearly undergone several drafts.  David Gerrold and Oliver Crawford are credited with story by credits, Gerrold’s influence being the strongest in terms of the outline of the plot while Crawford feels at least partially responsible for the commentary, but the actual script was by Margaret Armen.  Armen had previously penned two episodes, both plagued with problems in retrospect on being contradictory in terms of their messaging.  This is an episode where there is a beautiful woman as a character just there to be a sex object and someone for Spock to talk to, Spock being characterized in places as more human in a very odd way that feels like Armen’s influence.  While I do not wish to blame Armen without any proof of what she is responsible for in comparison to Gerrold or Crawford, but it is telling that this is her strongest episode and it’s the only one not coming from one of her own story ideas.

 

Overall, despite a third act that falls apart, “The Cloud Minders” is one of the rare third season episodes of Star Trek that manages to work incredibly well.  The biting nature of the first two thirds of the episode being so strong is really what makes it work, and after the commentary of “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, doing an episode like this which looks at the system as a whole as a form of oppression (even if it fails in the end) is the logical next step.  7/10.

The Way to Eden by: Arthur Heinemann from a story by: Michael Richards and Arthur Heinemann and directed by: David Alexander

 

“The Way to Eden” is written by: Arthur Heinemann, from a story by: Michael Richards (a pseudonym for D.C. Fontana) and Arthur Heinemann, and is directed by: David Alexander.  It was filmed under production code 75, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 75^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on February 21, 1969.

 

There’s something fascinating about media’s attempts to show generational divides and you would think Star Trek with its largely progressive messaging would have done this more than once in its initial run, but that was only saved for an episode near the end of the third season.  “The Way to Eden” is one of those episodes taking an idea submitted by D.C. Fontana and then altering it so much from the original proposal that Fontana requested to be credited by her pseudonym Michael Richards while Arthur Heinemann rewrote the outline and script for the episode.  “The Way to Eden” is an attempt by Star Trek to engage with the counterculture of the 1960s which despite everything the show has attempted in progressing television, it seems to have great contempt for it while also paying lip service to the basic ideas of wishing for peace, love, and understanding in the end.  Most of the issues here are down to Heinemann who previously scripted “Wink of an Eye” and as with the previous episode “The Way to Eden” struggles in terms of providing any characterization for the group of hippies.  Instead Heinemann is focusing on how the space hippies of the episode are on paper intelligent, but have no real motivation outside of some generic authority bad before hypocritically following a central leader who leads them to their doom.

 

Heinemann struggles with providing an actual drama for the 50-minute runtime of the episode, much of the episode being devoted to musical numbers about finding Eden and sticking it to some sort of man (but not really).  There is a moment where their plan is to take over the Enterprise and shout Herbert at Kirk as some sort of idea of authority.  They’re also ready to just outright kill the crew on the Enterprise to get to Eden for reasons that aren’t defined at all, the episode wants them to be intelligent enough to understand this.  Some of the drama is also having the hippies deny that one of them is a carrier of a deadly disease because technology is apparently responsible for the disease, so it shouldn’t be a problem.  A better writer would use this as a commentary on how humanity has a tendency to create many of its own problems, largely due to society’s obsession with money and profit, but Heinemann isn’t interested in attempting any sort of messaging.  Heinemann just wants to write an episode with hippies and songs and a conclusion of them all essentially dead by their Eden being a poison.  The most charitable reading on the ending is what would be a great one against those who are obsessed with the return to traditionalism, however, because it is hippies that are the ones wanting to “return to tradition” which is just a gross misunderstanding of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s.  On the production side, this being an episode of the third season of Star Trek it is greatly affected by the slashed budget of the season and that shows.  David Alexander is directing the episode and he is clearly trying his best to bring emotion out of the actors, but he’s also dealing with an episode whose costume design is particularly lacking.  The design of the space hippies are essentially dressed in rags with died hair and prosthetics to imply something, I’m not entirely sure if they’re supposed to be aliens or just humans into body modification.  The script implies that the episode is about humans, but the prosthetics around the ears and the particularly bad wigs indicate the hippies are aliens.

 

Overall, “The Way to Eden” is easily among the weakest of Star Trek’s episodes and like many of the weak episodes, it’s one where things could have easily gone differently had the writer been interested in actually saying something with the premise.  There’s barely 20 minutes of material stretched to 50 with inane musical numbers and very little to actually say about its premise.  2/10.

The Sun Eater: Howling Dark by: Christopher Ruocchio

 

When I took a look at Empire of Silence I discussed many of the influences in terms of science fiction and media in general which I don’t think would be nearly as effective when looking at Howling Dark, the sequel.  Empire of Silence was a sprawling epic looking over a large section of Hadrian Marlowe’s life while Howling Dark sees author Christopher Ruocchio honing in on looking at who Hadrian is as a person exploring the universe largely as a mercenary.  Much of the novel is spent worldbuilding the universe, the Cielcin especially get an exploration with Hadrian and a Cielcin high priest/scholar Tanaran having this fascinating arc.  The novel excels at this centering of Hadrian as a character and by writing a novel where less time passes for Hadrian so instead of covering several decades, we are only looking at a particularly short period of time.  To accomplish this Ruocchio has to accomplish a writing trick to avoid taking the pace down to a near standstill and making Howling Dark feel sluggish.  It does take Ruocchio a while to make the pace work as well as Empire of Silence did, the opening chapters do become dangerously close to become a slog, partially because of how much of the early portions feel as if they are in Hadrian’s head in terms of following exactly what he is doing.  This perhaps indicates that in early stages of writing Ruocchio was intending to follow the pacing of Empire of Silence with Howling Dark.  There are also sequences in the novel where some of the flow of the narrative is interrupted so Ruocchio can get Hadrian to a place where he needs to be for where the plot is going.  Now The Sun Eater as a series has the framing of Hadrian writing his own memoirs, largely as the final moments of each installment so far and some at the beginning, so these issues with the flow could be a deliberate choice on the part of Ruocchio as presenting Hadrian as at least partially unreliable as a narrator of his own story.

 

This idea of Hadrian being unreliable is something that becomes apparent with the back half of the novel, this being where Ruocchio really kicks his writing into high gear and surpassing even the first installment of the novel.  The idea here is Hadrian Marlowe on the precipice of a fall in terms of what he is becoming.  The idea of the Ship of Theseus is present throughout the novel, much of the metaphor being applied to the universe as a whole (mainly the Cielcin and humanity) and to Hadrian as a person.  Ruocchio connects Hadrian as a character to Theseus, one of the Ancient Greek heroes who while not one to die a tragic death, has several stories to highlight the worse aspects as a character.  Hadrian compares himself to Theseus, specifically through the ship metaphor and Theseus’ most popular myth of slaying the Minotaur and navigating the Labyrinth.  This is an apt metaphor for Hadrian’s character arc, ending with Hadrian essentially at his most powerful but at some very interesting costs.  This is a book that sees Hadrian push away those he thought (and those who were) friends because those friends made one bad choice under pressure.  Hadrian as a character is leaning heavily into the prideful mindset, something worthy of a Greek hero and a Greek tragedy.  Hadrian’s romance with Valka in the novel is also in line with this thinking, Valka being a clear match for Hadrian and one to make him move past Cat’s death in Empire of Silence.  Ruocchio is also excellent at realizing the characters other than Hadrian despite being in the first person perspective, largely because the worldbuilding is intent on showing how much of the universe is harsh.

 

The Cielcin in Empire of Silence are largely off-screen as it were, but in Howling Dark much of the novel is spent among them and Hadrian’s attempts at a treaty where it is revealed that while humanity is an imperialist empire throughout the universe, this does not mean the Cielcin are innocent.  They are equally as harsh in terms of society, much of the translation of their language being inadequate, the novel building to a more accurate translation leading to a final reveal about exactly what they want with humanity.  Ruocchio is clear in making this a morally gray conflict where there are no heroes but there certainly are villains.  This makes Hadrian being on the precipice of falling such a compelling character despite the obvious villainy in his future.  There is much talk of identity and existence in three dimensions as Ruocchio also adds other forms of life in a fascinating sequence in the middle of the novel where Hadrian like a Greek hero essentially seeks an oracle.

 

Overall, Howling Dark is certainly a worthy if very different follow-up to Empire of Silence.  Like with Empire of Silence this review can hardly cover the depth of what is a very large novel, but what Ruocchio has done is further his science fiction epic by bringing in specific ideas from fantasy, Clarke’s law being invoked at several points.  It ends as if everything is about to fall apart in the best way possible as Hadrian has risen high and has left those behind him with some of his own humanity, both literally and figuratively.  9/10.

Requiem for Methuselah by: Jerome Bixby and directed by: Murray Golden

 

“Requiem for Methuselah” is written by: Jerome Bixby and is directed by: Murray Golden.  It was filmed under production code 76, was the 19^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 74^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on February 14, 1969.

 

Forbidden Planet is often touted as a science fiction take on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and as a film its influence is one of the major factors on why science fiction of the late 1950s and the 1960s is the way it is.  It is very likely that without Forbidden Planet being successful, Star Trek would never have been made, or if it had it would have been made in a very different way.  Jerome Bixby’s final episode of Star Trek is an explicit take on The Tempest nestled near the end of the third season.  “Requiem for Methuselah” sets itself up to be another budget saver of an episode, at least in terms of cast being limited to William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley from the main cast (with very brief appearances from James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols) and guests James Daly and Louise Sorel as the Prospero and Miranda figures in the episode.  And drawing on Forbidden Planet for inspiration is a robot essentially taking the Ariel/Caliban role.  Bixby’s script is fascinating because as a writer adapting elements of The Tempest, and let’s be clear it is largely just elements and scenarios from Shakespeare instead of a proper adaptation, he ends up overdoing it in terms of what is being drawn on.  Instead of a shipwreck, the Enterprise is battling an illness and stumbles upon a planet at random that would has the mineral that can be processed as antidote, though Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are not suffering the illness.  Bixby’s script fails to make the plague ship plot relevant after the first act of the episode, largely giving lip service to mention it and having Flint, the Prospero analogue, initially be unwilling to give the crew the mineral.  Director Murray Golden paces the scenes in a particularly slow fashion which contributes to the competing plotlines clash when they really should work better than they do.

 

Flint and Rayna as Prospero and Miranda doesn’t entirely work, largely because Flint instead of being a protective father is attempting to be a protective lover.  The big twist of the episode is that Rayna, who falls in love with Kirk, is an android who doesn’t know she is an android.  The climax of the episode is a genuinely emotional one of an android becoming human, Bixby clearly drawing upon the myth of Pygmalion in addition to The Tempest, with Rayna as Galatea dying upon gaining humanity which feels slightly drawn on Shaw’s Pygmalion in a way without understanding the ending of Shaw’s Pygmalion.  It doesn’t help that Rayna is given as much characterization as the typical female character on Star Trek though with intelligence that she briefly shows when introduced to the crew.  It is James Daly as Flint which is an interesting and layered performance.  The reason the title refers to Methuselah is that another of the episode’s twists is the fact that Flint is an immortal, living his life as Johannes Brahms and Leonardo da Vinci among other historical figures.  His wish to have retreated from the universe due to the expansion and colonialism of humanity is a fascinating idea, if slightly underdeveloped as the Federation is not meant to be viewed as a colonizing force.  There is a sympathy to his desire for a relationship, and the episode clearly understands the problems a relationship would pose, leading to the tragic ending and the necessity for Rayna to make her own choice.  Killing Rayna undercuts the ending, largely because this is Star Trek which loves to kill off love interests for tragedy.

 

Overall, “Requiem for Methuselah” is a mash of several different stories and it is because of that it suffers and is held back, yet as an episode it is still a largely compelling piece of drama.  Not having an alien to fight and attempting to focus on the characters is what makes it largely work and be one of the stronger episodes of the third season of the show.  This one probably would have flourished under a different director and maybe another draft.  6/10.

Anachrophobia by: Jonathan Morris

 

Let’s talk about the Time War.  While its aftermath is the motivator for the Doctor in the revived series of Doctor Who, it was far from just an idea in the mind of Russell T. Davies.  The Eighth Doctor Adventures and their use of Faction Paradox with the War in Heaven has as much influence on the revival’s depiction of the Time War as the Virgin New Adventures had on the portrayal of the Doctor and the tone (and the rise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).  This series of reviews on the Eighth Doctor Adventures have been going on and off for several years now, Anachrophobia being the most like a story from the revived series.  It is the first of two novels for the range by Jonathan Morris, his second novel overall after Festival of Death which was a wonderful debut.  Anachrophobia is interesting because of how many layers Morris puts in this one.  On the surface, it’s a fairly standard base under siege tale with the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji being separated from the TARDIS at a military base in the middle of a temporal conflict.  The temporal conflict is the first layer to really peel back as much of the novel is dealing with how this conflict functions and the advancements in the war between the Plutocrats and Defaulters.  Morris naming his factions after terms dealing with wealth and money adds its own layer to the novel.  Rhetorically it’s a conflict of the scrappy underdog resistance going up against a large, colonizing force.  Time in this instance is in the place of material wealth, and the inciting incident sees the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji mistaken for Plutocrats.  While not made explicit, Morris is examining the universe post-destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords in a way that hasn’t quite been done since The Ancestor Cell destroyed the planet.

 

The Doctor is the centerpiece of Anachrophobia.  While Morris refrains from giving the reader much from his point of view, the way Fitz and Anji see him is particularly important.  The Doctor is no longer the Doctor and is tempted throughout the novel with moments where he can gain power.  The power would allow him to reset the universe to his own making.  While Morris doesn’t mention the Time Lords by name, instead reflecting on the events of The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and the loss of his second heart.  There is an argument to be made that Fitz and Anji are going through their own journey losing faith in the Doctor as was the case with the companions of the late 1980s and 1990s, the ending of the novel having the Doctor make the right choice in the end but Morris is particular in how great the temptation was.  Outside of that piece of temptation Anachrophobia is also one of those novels steeped in surrealism, the cover being one that calls to mind City of Death and the Clock People as featured in the novel are a terrifying threat.  The Clock People are unknowable, there is a possibility of them being part of Faction Paradox, but the Faction doesn’t actually get a mention in and where Morris leaves things vague enough that the novel becomes almost Lovecraftian because of what the Clock People represent.  While the named characters are incredibly well characterized and Morris is using his naming techniques to make them stick in memory, the trick being pulled is that you don’t actually know much about them.

 

Anachrophobia is a novel almost designed to leave a brief impression in the reader, and that’s what makes it work so incredibly well.  It’s one of those novels that I can easily see myself returning to and reassessing depending on my own personal headspace and the context in which I am reading it.  It’s a novel of far too many layers to be fully dissected on a single read.  Morris writes a novel that wishes to reflect on the basics of Doctor Who (and the back to basics approach) while deciding to throw them out and push the range forward into new territory as practically the last five or six novels in the range have attempted (and often succeeded in doing so).  8/10.

The Aztecs by: John Lucarotti

 

The Aztecs was written by John Lucarotti, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 88^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

It seems that all three of John Lucarotti’s novelizations were intent on the chance to enhance things that 1960s television wouldn’t allow.  In the televised version of The Aztecs, Lucarotti’s scripts were written specifically to reflect the research Lucarotti had done into Aztec culture but simplified for a 1960s white, British audience.  The Aztecs in print is a novelization that, at least partially due to being published in 1984 as the VHS range was beginning and reruns were beginning to occur, there is a sense that Lucarotti isn’t just attempting to recreate the story but add some depth for the reader.  It is interesting to note that the original televised story does not mention Aztec gods outside of Tlaloc, the god responsible for rain, but the novelization sees Lucarotti delighting in taking moments to explore the Aztec religions and gods.  There is also this added sense that Lucarotti’s understanding of the conquest and destruction of Aztec civilization to be more accurate to the television story fully scapegoating the human sacrifice element as the reason for this aspect of history.  The prose itself is also quite interesting, as it feels quite different from the television scripts despite hitting all of the same beats and containing much of the same dialogue.

 

Lucarotti is writing with the knowledge that by this point people reading these novelizations are most likely people who are actively watching Doctor Who on television, and there are decisions in the prose that reflect this.  What stood out to me was that despite doing an excellent job of characterizing the TARDIS team, the main characters don’t actually get much physical description when they are introduced.  The Aztec characters are afforded more description, especially since it is clear Lucarotti is working off his scripts and not the televised story, adding descriptors to the supporting cast as a way for the reader to realize just who they are.  Each supporting character is given at least some expansion to their backstory: the relationship between Ixta and his father is greatly expanded upon while the manipulations of Tlotoxl are made more insidious.  Cameca and the Doctor’s relationship is also expanded upon with the Doctor sharing in the reflections of falling in love, something made somehow slightly more explicit.  Ian is also quite well served by the novelization, being given his own reflections on Barbara’s decisions without taking away from Barbara being the center of the book.  This is still Barbara’s story after all, and the translation of what is one of her finest outings works quite well in novel form.  Lucarotti is also just a different voice from the usual Terrance Dicks fare and clearly has talent for writing these novels.

 

Overall, The Aztecs is an early example of a 1980s novelization for Doctor Who that while not actively changing much about the televised story adds interesting character depth and comes from an author who has the potential to be a novelist in his own right.  9/10.

Drift by: Simon A. Forward

 

Simon A. Forward’s debut novel Drift is a Doctor Who novel that has left me utterly confused as to how I feel about it.  Forward is a writer I was at least familiar with due to his Big Finish contributions with The Sandman which I have a soft spot for and Dreamtime which is one of the weaker entries in the Big Finish catalogue.  Drift as a novel is quite dense, it uses the full 288 page count afforded to the BBC Books line of novels and the size of the font is quite small meaning a larger word count.  The cover is one of the examples of Black Sheep’s better designs, the TARDIS in a snowy landscape is somehow quite evocative in its simplicity and once you begin reading Drift you begin to understand exactly why that cover works.  The harsh New England winter is the aspect of Drift that works to its fullest extent, Forward manages to portray the weather as ever consuming and ever advancing.  The snow is disorienting and Forward sets it up as the main threat of the novel.  Plus, there’s the general isolation of the setting of a snowstorm that manages to work, however a good idea for a villain does not make a particularly good novel.  This is a premise that should work, snowy settings work throughout the work of H.P. Lovecraft and especially in John Carpenter’s The Thing, both pieces of media that it is clear Forward is inspired by.  The revelations about the blizzards indicate it is some sort of a being from outside of the normal dimension, again a great idea for a novel and with the correct writer it could really have worked.  Simon A. Forward as a writer feels often as if he is trying to hard to make this feel like a piece of Doctor Who fiction that he experienced when he was a child.

 

Drift like many of the Past Doctor Adventures uses the TARDIS team of the Fourth Doctor and Leela, with Forward taking the time to pepper in several references to The Face of Evil and The Robots of Death.  This is essentially to establish where in the Fourth Doctor’s timeline the novel is supposed to take place over doing anything to advance the characters of the Fourth Doctor and Leela.  Leela as a character comes out of Drift better than the Doctor, Forward setting certain scenes from her perspective where he is able to engage in essentially a writing exercise for how to write for a character like Leela.  The noble savage hunter archetype is how Forward writes the character, reflective on the events of The Face of Evil especially since this is a novel where the threat is something bigger than her comprehension.  She also gets the usual fish out of water interactions with the supporting cast, largely a crew of Americans written to be over the top in their Americanness.  The Doctor on the other hand is one of those characters that is honestly difficult to get completely right, Tom Baker as an actor is like Patrick Troughton who is difficult to capture.  Troughton largely due to elusiveness, Baker due to the unpredictability of the character even from the era that Forward is writing from.  Forward just grasps on eccentricity and goes to the way Robert Banks Stewart wrote the character for The Seeds of Doom in terms of harshness and tries melding them, but that doesn’t quite work since The Seeds of Doom works because the eccentricity is especially dialed down into seriousness from the outset because of the threat.  Forward uses this as a mesh here and that just doesn’t mesh nicely.

 

Overall, Drift has some nice ideas and Forward is promising as a novelist, whenever he is describing the setting and actually dealing with the extradimensional threat it is interesting but underutilized.  It’s a novel that just never comes together by making some of its characters over the top in a way to make them one-dimensional.  4/10.

The Lights of Zetar by: Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis and directed by: Herb Kenwith

 

“The Lights of Zetar” is written by: Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis and is directed by: Herb Kenwith.  It was filmed under production code 73, was the 18^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 73^rd episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on January 31, 1969.

 

It’s incredibly strange that this episode of Star Trek has essentially the burning of the Library of Alexandria on a much larger scale as both a central event and basically a footnote.  Okay Star Trek takes place in the future and it’s clear that the knowledge has also been backed up in other places and the episode ends with the resolution to rebuild but casually including the destruction of a planet sized library in “The Lights of Zetar” perhaps encapsulates why the episode has me quite split.  The destruction of a planet is a narrative event that should be given some weight and seeing it as a footnote indicates writers Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis both haven’t fully examined the implications of their script.  Especially apparent is the fact that the planet doesn’t appear on-screen and is largely a background detail of the destination the Enterprise is enroute to.  The episode’s plot is literally about mysterious lights that chase the Enterprise and begin affecting young Lt. Mira Romaine, played by Jan Shutan, assigned to Memory Alpha, the library planet of the Federation destroyed at some point during the episode.  Much of the runtime is dedicated to running away from the lights and slowly discovering what they are, the fact that they are alive is only revealed in the back third and the first mention of Zetar is in the last ten minutes of the episode.

 

Writer Shari Lewis is more well known for her work as a children’s entertainer, creating the puppet Lamb Chop, Tarcher being her husband, and you can tell neither of them are actually writers for narrative television.  “The Lights of Zetar” is an episode whose pace is incredibly slow, even for the standards of 1960s television.  This is helpful for the initial setup of the episode where Tarcher and Lewis build up the character of Romaine and her budding romance with Scotty.  Not only does this allow Shutan the chance to establish herself as the character, it also immediately gets the audience on her side since we already know and like Scotty.  For his part, James Doohan is also aiding by being the standout performance of the episode, having a lot of meat in the script by playing lovestruck and intensifying his Scottish accent to match.  Doohan is also quite strong when the material lacks in the episode’s second act: once Romaine is in sickbay there is this extended conflict with McCoy about Romaine being uncooperative for no particular reason, but Doohan and DeForest Kelley are playing it quite well as the writing are keeping Romaine as a character squarely in the framework of a female character in the 1960s.  The construction of the episode largely falls apart here, Tarcher and Lewis neglecting to establish a proper structure for an A-plot and a B-plot, so the episode is just one extended plot that is attempting to sustain momentum but almost immediately becomes sluggish.

 

The plot is also one that ends in an anti-climax, after discovering the lights are the survivors of the planet Zetar in the form of energy and need a host the thrust becomes just to destroy them because they want Romaine’s body and she rightly doesn’t wish to give them up.  Romaine is thrown into a pressure chamber, the pressure is increased, and the lights are destroyed.  It’s another example of things in the episode just kind of happening without any real connective tissue or motivation to the characters.  It’s also clear that the director of this episode, Herb Kenwith, is trying to make something interesting in the material.  Much of the episode is shot from angles rarely used on Star Trek, the captain’s chair and navigation panels being shot head on is certainly a choice, and there is an almost cinematic zoom into Romaine’s eye at multiple points in the episode that goes further to add to the atmosphere than anything the script is doing.  The first act of the episode is also the most successful because it’s where our characters get some particularly nice character moments.  George Takei and Walter Koenig get a nice little back and forth as Sulu and Chekov, Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel gets a good one-liner, and Nichelle Nichols is always wonderful as Uhura, but this doesn’t save the episode.

 

Overall, “The Lights of Zetar” has a good idea to explore but due to being from entertainers and not scriptwriters the episode becomes largely unfocused.  Much of the episode’s problems are due to the writers not knowing how to structure an hour long episode of television and not providing much interest in terms of what the episode could be doing.  It’s just another in an increasingly large line of middling episodes of Star Trek.  4/10.

The ABC Murders by: Agatha Christie

 

“The Final Problem” is the short story written to end Sherlock Holmes before bringing him back when Arthur Conan Doyle’s fans demanded it, introducing the world to Professor James Moriarty.  Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christies are authors with very different styles, but Christie owes her early success with the Hercule Poirot novels by following the Holmes/Watson format Conan Doyle established throughout the Sherlock Holmes stories.  As such, while reading The ABC Murders I could not help but find interesting was how this novel felt as if it was following in the footsteps of “The Final Problem” being one last story in the previous model of storytelling to move the character of Poirot largely away from the specific Holmesian dynamic between Poirot and Hastings.  While Hastings would appear in two further novels (Dumb Witness and Curtain), The ABC Murders feels like Christie writing one last hurrah for the format.  It is narrated once again by Hastings with several diversions to other characters “reconstructed” based on recollections given to Hastings, and Hastings has a role to play in the resolution of discovering the murderer.  There is also a character built up throughout the novel to essentially be a Moriarty figure of someone who could potentially beat Poirot, communicating through a series of notes announcing the murders.  This is where the comparisons to “The Final Problem” essentially end, outside of the novel opening with a sequence of Poirot and Hastings reminiscing while discussing gray hairs and hair dye giving me the initial impression that perhaps Christie intended this book to be set quite late in the detective’s career.

 

The ABC Murders actually feels more in line with a thriller instead of a typical murder mystery.  The killer is a serial killer with a fixation on killing people with alliterative names going through the alphabet from ‘A’, going so far as to choosing victims from places also beginning with the corresponding letter of the alphabet, while leaving an ABC railway guide at the scene of the crime.  There are classic serial killer notes sent to Poirot, the first of which being the inciting incident and initially dismissed by Hastings and Inspector Japp as practical jokes until a murder happens.  Christie’s prose is masterful at lulling the reader into the false sense of security despite murder being in the title, thinking that maybe it is just a false letter and the murders are going to be something completely different.  The way the chapters are broken down in this novel assist in building the tension, they’re quite short which makes the reader feel as if things are always moving while the characters aren’t actually making any real progress.  What makes The ABC Murders work is the bafflement of the characters, Poirot included, and the working with Scotland Yard.  Several police officers fulfill the role in the trope common in detective fiction of the bumbler, but never for comedic effect by Christie, generally adding to the tension.  Since this is a murder mystery, I won’t spoil the ending, but it is kind of a shame that this one has only been adapted a handful of times because it’s one of those twists Christie understands how to execute.  It’s on the level of And Then There Were None, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and Murder on the Orient Express in terms of how it works so well as a twist.

 

Overall, while The ABC Murders moves away from traditional detective fiction into thriller, this allows Agatha Christie to really dig deep and make this a mystery that stands out above many of her others.  It’s a classic which works because the genre is flexible and Christie is showing maturity as a writer, making her own strides with the genre all within the period where she will be writing some of the novels she is most well known for.  The best statement of its quality is that I initially wasn’t intending to review it but found that by the 1/3 point I had to get my thoughts on exactly what was being done here in comparison to other pieces of detective fiction and the growth of Hercule Poirot.  10/10.