Qpid by: Ira Steven Behr from a story by: Randee Russell and Ira Steven Behr and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“Qpid” is written by: Ira Steven Behr, from a story by: Randee Russell and Ira Steven Behr, and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 194, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 94^th episode overall, and was broadcast on April 22, 1991.

 

Unable to outshine the premises of “Q Who” and “Deja Q”, “Qpid” is an episode that decides what Star Trek: The Next Generation really needs is a love triangle between Captain Picard, Q, and Vash from “Captain’s Holiday”.  Randee Russell is credited with contributing the story to the episode with Ira Steven Behr, and apparently his only contribution is the love triangle at the center of the episode.  The plot and final script is credited to Ira Steven Behr, a writer responsible for “Captain’s Holiday” and some of the ideas behind “Yesterday’s Enterprise”.  “Qpid” is actually his last contribution to Star Trek: The Next Generation, he had left the writer’s room at the end of the previous season due to feeling creatively unfulfilled.  Michael Piller asked him to come back to write “Qpid” as Piller believed that Behr’s touch would work for this season’s appearance of Q, played by: John de Lancie, and the thought to bring back Vash, played by: Jennifer Hetrick, when this was proposed for the third season as an episode set in Camelot.  The love triangle would have put Picard, Vash, and Q in the roles of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot respectively as an examination of courtly love and to test Picard’s feelings towards the treasure hunter.  In developing the episode, however, the setting of the fantasy changed to Sherwood Forest and the tales of Robin Hood and accommodating this a lot of the genre of the episode changed.  It does allow the rest of the Enterprise crew to become Merry Men, even if Worf declares that is something he is not, and it becomes a test for Picard to go on an adventure so his Robin saves Marion.  Joining the cast on the adventure is stage actor Clive Revill hamming it up as a delightfully evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne.  Of course by the end of the trial Picard passes the test from Q, the rest of the Enterprise crew contribute to the final rescue of their captain and his love, and Vash makes the not so surprising decision to choose Q over Picard (he can offer her far more adventure and treasure, though Picard uses his debt from Q to promise her safety in a touching ending).

 

The actual parody of Robin Hood only takes up the last third of the episode and yet the way Ira Steven Behr scripts the sequences work as well as they do because they don’t overstay their welcome.  They are particularly tight, within the space of five minutes giving each of the Enterprise crew a moment to shine in the comedic shenanigans, the aforementioned Worf declaration being a highlight but Data also gets quite a good one of just being a complete fish out of water in this genre of story.  Cliff Bole directs the episode and it’s clear he is having a lot of fun taking advantage of the location filming allocated to the episode and in parodying classic adventure films.  Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s The Adventures of Robin Hood is visually the clear inspiration as to how the action is filmed and the sets that are used, as are the specific colors used on the Robin Hood costumes in this sequence.  Because it’s only the final act of the episode, this is also a sequence that does not overstay its welcome.  While the original series of Star Trek would do similar parodies, were Star Trek: The Next Generation to do so in the same way it would not work nearly as well.  The subversion of the typical Robin Hood story is that it is Picard in the role of Robin and Vash’s own sense of self-preservation means that both characters are going to act against type.  This is what provides the tension for the sequence, they are both to be executed at noon because Picard did not just let his crew into his confidence.  Picard does not really know how to reconcile his relationship with Vash, her nature as a treasure hunter, and his position as captain of the Enterprise.

 

What elevates “Qpid” is how the first two acts play out as a standard romantic comedy as close to the letter as possible.  The episode opens with Picard incredibly nervous about having to give a speech to a group of archeologists, the end of the pre-credits scene being Vash’s entrance which is played as a lover coming back into Picard’s life.  Both Hetrick and Patrick Stewart play it incredibly well, with loving looks in each other’s eyes and nothing but happiness.  Dramatically this is creating the twist that the danger of the episode is not some big, planet destroying threat of aliens, but Picard having to be emotionally vulnerable enough to fall in love.  The conflict comes from the fact that Picard did not actually tell anybody about his relationship with Vash, Gates McFadden as Crusher getting the best reaction of this mix of subtle jealousy but immense pride that the stiff captain is in fact a human being.  The only thing that undercuts this, and the weakest aspect of the episode, is that the scene of a character reacting to the fact Picard had a romantic interest does repeat perhaps one too many times without actually developing it a little more.  Jonathan Frakes plays Riker’s scene as equally romantic and Data is fortunately not given one.  It’s after this sequence that Behr then twists the expectations by introducing Q, sitting in Picard’s chair in his ready room.  This is framed and performed as the same as the appearance of Vash.  While on the surface and with the conclusion, the love triangle implies Q and Picard are vying for Vash’s affections, Q’s reintroduction heavily implies that it is actually Vash and Q vying for the affections of Picard.  John de Lancie has always played Q as queer coded and while executive producer Rick Berman was quite adamant at keeping LGBTQ characters off Star Trek, a decision that will always remain a black mark on the franchise and a reminder how its progressivism has always been inconsistent, Behr’s script and de Lancie’s performance makes it clear that Q feels a passionate attraction and fascination with Picard.  Q is written as outside of the human concept of love, but de Lancie makes him an ignored lover, elevating the episode to the same level as the last two appearances of the character.  Even the title of Qpid indicates that Q’s role here is that of a god of love and passion.

 

Overall, “Qpid” somehow manages to slip an actual love triangle onto Star Trek: The Next Generation and becomes a near perfect example of how to do a fun episode while still saying a lot about the characters.  Ira Steven Behr is a writer who understands how to layer the subtext of the episode to make the fun Robin Hood pastiche a damning indictment on Picard’s need to let himself go, find love, and accept fluidity in his role and identity.  9/10.

Star Wars: The Living Force by: John Jackson Miller

 

A Glup Shitto refers to basically any Star Wars character that would not be recognizable to the mainstream audience.  Star Wars fans may feel incredibly passionate about them, especially if they are characters featured in the expanded universe.  They are not inherently bad characters, they are inherently obscure characters.  There is even an argument to be made that Qui-Gon Jinn could be considered a Glup Shitto as secondary protagonist of exactly one film, one of the much less loved prequels at that.  The Living Force is best described as a tribute to all of the Glup Shitto characters in the background of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, focusing almost entirely on the members of the Jedi Council.  Sure, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi are also here but their roles feel more of a supporting capacity when you take into account that author John Jackson Miller writes for a whopping twelve protagonists in addition to those two.  This is a book that could best be described as for the fans, because coming from my perspective of someone who has seen The Phantom Menace but could only name maybe one or two council members not played by Frank Oz or Samuel L. Jackson it’s essentially reading about original characters.  This isn’t a bad thing, Miller even wraps everything up in a story that does not have much to do with the plot of The Phantom Menace, making The Living Force an exciting chance for pre-Empire worldbuilding within the framework of the rebooted canon.

 

The Jedi are a flawed order, that is something central to the conflict to both the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy.  The Living Force uses that as a starting point for this story; the Council as a whole represent the isolationism of the Order to be a particular problem that will lead to their downfall.  Qui-Gon Jinn as a character is the only one banging the drum that the Council needs to do far more with their position instead of just sitting while the republic slowly becomes more and more bureaucratic.  Miller’s choice of villain for a novel like this is the correct decision to eschew any hints that the Sith exist, outside of a few choice scenes featuring Senator Palpatine which do sadly read a little like the fanservice they are (especially an epilogue scene that directly ties into The Phantom Menace), instead having the Jedi Council facing off between a group of space pirates.  Tonally this harkens back to the many of the science fiction adventure serials that inspired George Lucas to make Star Wars in the first place.  For those following the Star Wars books there are also quite a few direct connections to The High Republic publishing line, though Miller does include enough context that the setting’s connection to that history is made apparent and the parallels between the Jedi then and now form a proper backbone to the argument against the order being isolationist.  The villain of the novel’s final fate is also interesting, the Jedi giving her some leniency and mercy in prison which is an interesting indication that there is something more to the Council in their ability to learn.

 

John Jackson Miller is given a difficult task in writing The Living Force.  This is a novel celebrating 25 years since the premiere of The Phantom Menace and each member of the Jedi Council is supposed to have a part to play.  While the novel certainly has the space to use the twelve characters, they are a bit uneven in their portrayal.  Mace Windu and Yoda are actually given a fair amount of balance in their appearances here, taking up perhaps a bit too much time but nowhere near as much as a lesser author may be tempted to do.  The ten other members at least get one big moment to shine and delve into character more than what The Phantom Menace would allow.  Yaddle’s personality, that is the female member of Yoda’s species, is perhaps the most fun due to Miller using her as a trickster closer to how Yoda was portrayed during his introductory scenes in The Empire Strikes Back.  The most depth of a character for me is the running gag involving Ki-Adi-Mundi and an ice cream vendor.  It’s a philosophical joke about the nature of flavors and the Jedi enjoying basically ice flavor.  There’s a lot of the character’s personality surrounding this running gag and how kind he actually can be.  He is also flirted with at several points through the novel and is portrayed almost as the perfect Jedi, being unable to form an attachment.

 

Overall, The Living Force is a book that’s clearly aimed at longtime fans.  Casual Star Wars viewers, including myself, will struggle just a little bit with remembering who each of the protagonists are as John Jackson Miller juggles a dozen protagonists, most of which falling into the category of Glup Shitto.  There is an admirable effort in making each of them have at least one scene to establish who they are and add something to the central theme of anti-isolationism, however it is a novel that has perhaps too many.  Character work on a whole is particularly strong and the plot is light enough that even with the multitude of protagonists it is fun, but there is some great stuff being held back because of just how many plates are being spun.  7/10.

Delta and the Bannermen by: Malcolm Kohll

 

Delta and the Bannermen was written by: Malcolm Kohll, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 139^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

There was a time where Delta and the Bannermen ranked as my least favorite Doctor Who story.  So much so that I have reviewed the televised story twice and there was some apprehension going into this batch of Target novelizations which includes Malcolm Kohll’s adaptation of his only Doctor Who television story.  Luckily in converting the serial to prose there are several issues that are either fixed or softened slightly in adaptation.  Kohll does take time in the opening act of the story to actually explore the Chimeron/Bannermen conflict as well as add just the tiniest bit of depth to Gavrok as a character.  The genocide is happening because Gavrok and the Bannermen are motivated by greed and profit over the life and environment of planets.  Kohll clearly cares about the impending threat of climate change, the novelization making it slightly clearer as to why Andrew Cartmel would approach him to write for the show.  The political commentary is still skin deep, Gavrok and the Bannermen are still just characterized as evil brutes with no real sense of inner life, but at least the backstory is something.  There is also an epilogue that attempts to explore the fates of the surviving characters, the living Bannermen being transported to prison, Billy and Delta living happily ever after, and Ray taking the motorcycle and heading to the European continent.  At the very least these additions add something to the novelization.

 

Kohll does not seem to have had any experience before or since in terms of writing prose and there is a sense with Delta and the Bannermen that there was a lack of editorial support.  There is a fairly famous typo that slipped through the copy editor, but the novelizations pace is also all over the place.  While some of the additional details are nice, Kohll does write these incredibly short chapters that fluctuate from being a single scene to multiple scenes tied together.  The prologue for instance isn’t a prologue, but a description of the Doctor and Mel in the TARDIS at the start of the story.  The epilogue actually serves as an epilogue as stated above, but that prologue could easily be cut and you would have a stronger book.  There is a sense that Kohll has seen science fiction novels with prologues and epilogues so he includes one of each of them.  It’s particularly odd as Delta and the Bannermen was not published during the experimental phase where novelizations became tests for longer Doctor Who novels.  Kohll also struggles with the different groups of characters.  Hawk and Weismuller are expanded but only in service of adding more comedy to the story, the same can be said with Burton Burton running the holiday camp, but a lot of this humor is outdated.  Burton feels like a parody of neurodivergent people, which I’d like to believe is unintentional from Kohll.

 

Overall, while there are some improvements to a particularly bad story, Delta and the Bannermen is still one of those stories that just don’t work.  Adding extra details mean that the story is easier to follow, but this is still a story with extreme tonal whiplash from outright camp comedy with silly aliens having a jolly old time to a genocidal invasion.  Fundamentally it is a weak story and no amount of expansion is actually going to save that.  3/10.

Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock by: Terrence Dicks

 

Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock was written by: Terrence Dicks, based on his story Horror of Fang Rock.  It was the 40^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

Horror of Fang Rock is one of those Doctor Who stories that should probably not work as well as it does.  It was written rather quickly by Terrance Dicks after the BBC requested cancellation of The Vampire Mutations.  It’s a testament to Dicks’ skill as a writer that it’s the highlight of its season and one of Tom Baker’s best serials.  Since it’s a Dicks story it was also an easy candidate for novelization, Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock being published less than six months after the television story completed.  While not the quickest turnaround time (The Five Doctors hit the shelves the day before that story was broadcast), six months does mean Dicks has little time to adjust the story before his deadline.  His prose is the usual easy to read style, leaning itself nicely into the gothic horror tone of the original story.  There is a great sense of isolation with the lighthouse setting and some slight expansions of Fang Rock and its legendary beast.

 

Dicks avoids the temptation in adding to the legend of the beast to make it a previous Rutan that somehow made it to Earth, implying in Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock that the Rutans have only just become able to change their appearances.  They have only been intergalactic recently, far less than the Sontarans.  This does create an interesting perspective when Dicks writes a few scenes from the point of view of the Rutan.  It’s basic for characterizing a gestalt entity but it makes an impression when the rest of the novelization suffers from not having sterling performances.  Terrence Dicks does adapt his script well, the characterization is there, but without the cast a lot of the lines that transfer over don’t quite hit as well.

 

Overall, Terrance Dicks clearly understood the story he was adapting when writing Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock, even if there is just a bit of the novel suffering from being a novelization.  His breezy prose is for the best, even enhancing the feeling of isolation while characterization does suffer slightly.  8/10.

The Nth Degree by: Joe Menosky and directed by: Robert Legato

 

“The Nth Degree” is written by: Joe Menosky and is directed by: Robert Legato.  It was produced under production code 193, was the 19^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 93^rd episode overall, and was broadcast on April 1, 1991.

 

2001: A Space Odyssey is a revolutionary piece of science fiction.  Stanley Kubrick defined cinematic science fiction, all during the initial broadcast of Star Trek.  The original series never outright produced an homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it was made up of writers with connections to Arthur C. Clarke and often discussed similar themes.  Star Trek: The Next Generation was produced in a world where the reputation of 2001: A Space Odyssey fully cemented, and yet it took until the back half of the fourth season to cannibalize some of its surface plot elements and visual style with ideas from Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon.  “The Nth Degree” is about the Enterprise encountering an alien race that exists as pure thought, calling other species to them for an exchange of knowledge.  This is done through invading and controlling the mind of Lt. Reginald Barclay, played by Dwight Schultz, giving him fundamental knowledge of the universe.  This develops Barclay into a HAL-9000 figure, integrating himself into the Enterprise computer and controlling the ship.  The explanation of the aliens as peaceful and using Barclay as a conduit is a twist so the episode presents this as horrific, Barclay is losing his humanity.  The buildup to this is the fear that the Enterprise crew cannot take any action because Barclay is simply becoming more intelligent and more socially competent.  He makes a pass at Troi which is brought up as potentially a problem, but that is quickly forgotten and she actually agrees to go on a date with him.  At least there is an attempt to frame it as inappropriate with Troi’s position as counselor, but he still gets the date in the final scene of the episode.

 

The biggest issue with “The Nth Degree” is Schultz’s performance.  This was clearly an issue in “Hollow Pursuits”, Barclay’s introductory episode, where he learned not to retreat into his own fantasies in an episode that calls for a particularly nervous performance, coded as through an anxiety disorder.  Joe Menosky’s script for “The Nth Degree” shifts the anxiety not to something he can control but actively resets his development back to being able to work, though with far less derision from the rest of the crew.  Schultz, however, is tasked with playing Barclay as becoming increasingly confident with his increase in intelligence throughout the episode and he simply doesn’t.  With every line delivery there is this undercurrent of that nervousness that makes the confident dialogue stilted.  It is not helped by Schultz’s physical presence still embodying that anxiety, making himself look small and weak.  When the performance shifts to voiceover in the final act that problem decreases, clearly indicating that it’s the physical presence of Schultz that is making Barclay more awkward than he needs to be.  The pre-credits sequence calls for Barclay to perform in a scene from Cyrano de Bergerac poorly, and it is difficult for a good actor to give an intentionally bad performance, but oddly enough these scenes are somehow some of Schultz’s best work in the episode.  He’s paired on stage with Dr. Crusher and Gates McFadden is clearly drawing on her experience on and off stage.  It’s very possible that director Robert Legato isn’t directing Schultz properly because these weren’t issues in “Hollow Pursuits”.  That’s particularly a shame because there are several moments where the blocking and framing of the episode is particularly excellent.

 

Joe Menosky’s script clearly understands the character of Barclay but writes the character arc as a retread of ground from “Hollow Pursuits”.  In the script there is a lack of external conflict from the rest of the crew, Menosky almost cordoning off Barclay when he becomes too smart so the rest of the cast can sneak in to try and turn off the computer.  Where Menosky’s script does fall particularly flat is in its ending, the reveal of the aliens coming into the story simply because a resolution is needed.  Barclay as a character sits in the role of a potential fan of Star Trek, he is supposed to represent the introverted nerd stereotype which in the mind of the general public and the production staff is the type of person who likes science fiction.  Rhetorically it is sympathetic to this type of person, however, the stereotypes it draws upon for Barclay are of bad people.  Retrospectively, while the writers want the viewer enamored with Barclay’s growth and give him the reward of a romantic date at the end of the episode, it is these elements that are precisely why the character doesn’t work.  Once again, it is at the expense of Deanna Troi, often the female character on the show reduced to the role of potential love interest or even just a simple sex object.

 

Overall, while “The Nth Degree” isn’t a bad episode, it is one that is drawing on two science fiction stories that have been engrained in pop culture and it does try to say something about Barclay as a character, it’s brought down quite a bit by Schultz’s poor performance and inability to have more than a nervous presence and particularly poor direction of the actors.  In far too many ways it retreads the previous Barclay episode without having much new to say on the character.  6/10.

The Massacre by: John Lucarotti

 

The Massacre was written by: John Lucarotti, based on his story of the same name.  It was the 125^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

On television, The Massacre was rewritten several times by Donald Tosh at the behest of producer John Wiles.  This was largely due to production difficulties: there were uncertainties whether William Hartnell could adequately perform the double role of the Doctor and the Abbot of Amboise as well as if the production team could feasibly film the episodes within the typical 90 minute recording blocks.  Hartnell was also given a week off for the second episode of the serial and the initial plans to introduce new companion Anne Chaplet fell through as Wiles and Tosh believed she would have the same issues as Katarina, both characters out of the long distant past.  Tosh would be credited on the fourth installment as cowriter, being responsible for a full-scale rewrite of the entire serial and leaving his position as story editor during production.  When it came to novelizing the story in 1987, John Lucarotti made the decision to go back to the original scripts instead of following the televised story.

 

In using the original scripts, The Massacre immediately improves by involving the Doctor far more actively in events.  Lucarotti enhances the mystery of whether the Abbot and the Doctor are the same person by resolving it earlier.  While the Abbot and the Doctor do not share scenes, the Doctor does impersonate the Abbot to actively attempt to save people.  Lucarotti’s other Doctor Who scripts played up the Doctor as a trickster figure, something that was lacking in the televised version of The Massacre, and reading the novelization makes you feel its absence.  If given this material to work with William Hartnell would have excelled in accentuating how different the Doctor and the Abbot are.  This does mean that the final scenes in the TARDIS are absent, the Doctor does save people, so Steven does not have nearly as much anger, but it’s a clear decision from Lucarotti that understands the character motivations for leaving.  It denies the novelization of one of Hartnell’s best speeches but in its place the story is overall stronger.

 

There’s a sense that Lucarotti is using The Massacre to comment on The Aztecs.  The Aztecs is a story that writes into stone that “You can’t rewrite history, not one line.” and on television The Massacre draws its drama from the Doctor following that to the letter.  The novelization takes almost a delight in making the Doctor an active participant in rewriting history, not so much that the grand scheme of things changes, but enough that the massacre of the Huguenots is less deadly.  It’s still a tragedy, there is still a massacre that in the novelization Lucarotti leaves to the reader to fully embrace the horror of the situation, but the Doctor saves people.  He also comes dangerously close to breaking the laws of time, Lucarotti writing this book from a perspective where Doctor Who has just broadcast its 23^rd season all about the Doctor being put on trial for doing just that.  He even includes a framing device of the Time Lords extracting the Doctor from his timeline to question the events of the story.  It’s an odd framing story, Lucarotti clearly likes the idea of the Time Lords but hasn’t actually seen The War Games or The Trial of a Time Lord, yet it works for the novel.  It’s a literary device to portray the Doctor as an underdog.

 

Overall, The Massacre as a novel ends up becoming one of the strongest examples of how to novelize a story.  Some of it might be the fact that the television story is the story hit most hard by the junkings, no episodes or telesnaps or clips exist and the soundtrack is a poor quality, and reading the novelization is a more consistent exploration of the historic setting and one with a better grasp on the characters.  Lucarotti has always had a unique voice for Doctor Who but The Massacre is his masterpiece.  9/10.

Wolfsbane by: Jacqueline Rayner

 

The BBC Books line of Doctor Who novels have this tendency to create multi-Doctor stories where the pair of Doctors do not interact.  The Colony of Lies was the oddest of these in terms of structure, the Seventh Doctor was almost exclusively in the prologue and epilogue while the rest of the novel was a standard Second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe story.  Heart of TARDIS was Dave Stone’s attempt at a Fourth and Second Doctor novel where the TARDIS teams got close to meeting while Interference: Book Two is its own beast.  Jacqueline Rayner’s Wolfsbane is the most interesting example of this trend.  It is a multi-Doctor story that separates the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane from Harry Sullivan by a couple of years due to a TARDIS malfunction.  Harry finds himself with a different Doctor, one that he has to be convinced is the Doctor while his Doctor and Sarah find his grave.  Now it is important to put this into the context of the Eighth Doctor Adventures at this point: the multiverse is collapsing and it’s clear that the previous Doctors’ timelines are being altered, often with the deaths of companions.  The Doctor Harry meets and spends the novel with is the Eighth Doctor, set during his exile on Earth after the events of The Ancestor Cell, meaning that he is suffering from amnesia at this point.  Rayner plays with exactly what the Eighth Doctor knows, his segments are entirely from Harry’s perspective and he isn’t sure if this mysterious Doctor is at all related to his Doctor.

 

As the premise dictates, Harry is doomed to die in Wolfsbane.  Rayner uses this to play with expectations, while the Doctor and Sarah Jane find his grave his actual death only comes at the very end of the novel.  Wolfsbane examines what role Harry Sullivan actually plays as a character.  His function on television was made redundant by the casting of Tom Baker as the Doctor, being initially envisioned as filling any required action with the potential casting of an older Doctor.  In developing the character, however, something interesting happened with Harry, he became the more old-fashioned character.  Rayner in Wolfsbane, by putting him into the 1930s setting, is putting him into essentially the older time that he should fit within.  He was written to make several chauvinist remarks towards Sarah Jane especially and Rayner does not diminish that attitude, but there is also the sense that he is pushing forward into the “modern” times of the 1970s at which Season 12 was produced.  Outside of Harry’s death, Wolfsbane is on one hand a story about a werewolf terrorizing an English village and on the other hand an examination of British myths.  There is a man convinced he is the son of Mordred, intending on taking the throne if/when Edward VIII abdicates, and the search for the Holy Grail.  To add to Harry’s chauvinism is a dryad, portrayed by Rayner as ethereal and as fickle as you would expect from the fair folk.  The choice of entrapment of Harry with a dryad is a deliberate choice made from love, despite separating the TARDIS teams Rayner clearly loves them.

 

Emmeline Neuberger is the novel’s werewolf, Rayner laying out these werewolves as unable to control themselves on the full moon although they can force the shift.  There are connections made between the moon and silver that create the weakness of it, specifically discussing the connection of colors.  Making the werewolf female creates a subtext of the werewolf as a further metaphor for femininity.  This is in addition to being in the explicitly patriarchal society of the 1930s, Emmeline being initially presented as a victim before becoming closer to a full person through the course of the novel due to her interactions with both Doctors, Harry, and Sarah.  The mythic history of Britain is framed by Rayner as masculine and specifically aristocratic.  It is power as subjugation, the villain isn’t actually Mordred even if the magic and supernatural elements of Wolfsbane are explicitly real.  There is the thematic element of a mother scheming to usurp the power as a parallel of Arthurian legend, but Harry Sullivan is not a knight destined to find the Grail, Sarah Jane is not Guinevere, and the Doctor is not Arthur.  That particular parallel does weaken ever so slightly the commentary on gender in Wolfsbane.  Rayner’s plotting is meticulous in how it actually ends with the possibility that this story does not actually happen at all, or happened in a different way, but again that is partially the nature of myths.  There could be a mote of truth, and on some level the reader knows that Terror of the Zygons is going to happen eventually, but for where it stands it is a myth.

 

Overall, Wolfsbane is a novel that works because it’s examining both an aspect of Doctor Who, in this case a companion, and putting them in the context of their archetype and a larger look at British myths and legends.  It plays the supernatural incredibly straight and finds a way to write the story where it feels right that the two Doctors don’t meet in the end.  There’s a lot of this novel about the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry as a team and how they fit while also tackling a larger societal underpinning.  In terms of Rayner’s novel work it’s the strongest novel she’s written.  9/10.

Hunger from the Ends of Time! by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway and lettering by: Annie Halfacree

 

“Hunger from the Ends of Time!” is written by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree.  It was released in The Incredible Hulk Presents issues 2-3 (October 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: Nemesis of the Daleks by Panini Books.

 

The second story to be featured in The Incredible Hulk Presents covers two issues of the magazine.  As such “Hunger from the Ends of Time!” is allowed to develop far more than “Once in a Lifetime”.  Dan Abnett writes a story that feels like a precursor to the New Adventures in terms of setting and supporting characters.  It’s a planet that has been converted into a digital library containing all the galaxy’s knowledge, predating “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” by 19 years, but it is besieged by bookworms.  These bookworms are giant, alien insects that are eating the books.  There is a group of space marines called the Foreign Hazard Duty who have been called to purge the worms, and the Doctor must go into a digital world to stave off the bookworms.  The twist of the story is that the library is storing its catalog in time and not in space, so the bookworms are going to collapse the web of time.  What’s particularly nice is that the Doctor treats the bookworms not as evil, but a problem to be solved, instead of killing them just exiling them back to their proper place at the beginning and end of time.  This is a grab bag of ideas that are going to become integral for several New Adventures, Timewyrm: Revelation, Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible, Love and War, and Birthright come to mind, so it’s interesting to see them all in a comic meant for young children.

 

The story is simple, although the Doctor is characterized as a touch too generic.  Some of this might be because this is meant to be for a general Marvel Comics reading audience and not the readers of Doctor Who Magazine, but it does mean that as a focal character the Seventh Doctor is a touch too boring a character in this story.  It is certainly closer to the Doctor than many of the Seventh Doctor Doctor Who Magazine strips up to this point and far easier to swallow than the characterization in “Once in a Lifetime”, but there should be more to the character at this point.  On the other hand, this strip is ten pages long and drawn entirely by John Ridgway.  Ridgway’s style is unmistakable and helps to elevate some of the ideas which would very easily become generic.  There is a particularly great use of background inks for the scenes set indoors on the planet, making everything evoke a computer even when the scene is set in reality.  The differentiation into the time vortex with the bookworms is also quite well done, Ridgway is the strongest of the artists brought in for The Incredible Hulk Presents and it shows.

 

Overall “Hunger from the Ends of Time!” works best because of its art and the twist of what the bookworms are is at least a little creative.  There is still the issue of the format being five page installments, giving this story two issues allows it to develop more as a story which is then tempered by writing the Doctor as the generic audience point of view character.  It is at least an enjoyable little story and a massive step up from the first installment of The Incredible Hulk Presents.  6/10.

Planet of Giants by: Terrance Dicks

 

Planet of Giants was written by: Terrance Dicks, based on the story of the same name by Louis Marks.  It was the 151^st story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

The publishers behind the Doctor Who novelizations left Planet of Giants as the final novelization for the First Doctor as they thought there was not engaging enough when the possibility of novelizing it came up before.  This is ironic as the televised serial was originally commissioned and filmed as four episodes before being edited down to three episodes before broadcast.  This novelization was written essentially to fill in one of the last remaining gaps in the novelizations in 1990, after Doctor Who had been cancelled and giving it to Terrance Dicks was the default.  Despite only working on four serials of the 1960s (all 1968-1969), Dicks had become the default for novelizing these stories and at this point in his career he is just going through the motions of adapting the television story to the page.  As Planet of Giants is a serial that remains entirely in the BBC’s archive, there is no real imagination from Dicks having to fill in potential gaps.  He did have access to the original four part scripts and there are a few minor scenes reinstated to the novelization that do help the flow of the story slightly more than the version seen on television.  Outside of this and adding the occasional name to flesh out a character, Planet of Giants is incredibly faithful to the televised script.

 

The stronger points of Louis Marks’ original script do come through, as it is Dicks novelizing he is true to the characterizations of the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan.  The First Doctor is especially warm under Dicks’ pen, despite being a Doctor he only wrote for in The Five Doctors and in that leaned on a fan perception of the character.  This is likely changed due to having access to the original scripts, and possibly copies of the original episodes at his disposal when novelizing this story.  He also does not resist the temptation to do an effective lead in to The Dalek Invasion of Earth which means the novel ends on a subtle cliffhanger.  There also isn’t a temptation of shying away from the environmental message of the original story, especially since the problems of pesticides hadn’t actually gotten better by the time Planet of Giants was published in 1990.

 

Overall, Planet of Giants has little to differentiate itself from the televised story and as such falls into many of the same trappings of being a bit of a slow story, despite a short page count.  The couple of reinsertions are nice, but the story is best in the early chapters where the TARDIS team are discovering their predicament.  Barbara is still secretive of being poisoned for no real reason and the back half is still quite a bit of a drag as the TARDIS team lack a lot of the conflicts necessary to work.  6/10.

Identity Crisis by: Brannon Braga from a story by: Timothy DeHaas and directed by: Winrich Kolbe

 

“Identity Crisis” is written by: Brannon Braga, from a story by: Timothy DeHaas, and is directed by: Winrich Kolbe.  It was produced under production code 192, was the 18^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 92^nd episode overall, and was broadcast on March 25, 1991.

After “Galaxy’s Child” was a failure for Geordi LaForge, it’s nice that “Identity Crisis” proves that he can carry an episode of the show on his own.  This is an episode playing on the idea of horrors coming from the past to catch up with the present, in this episode it is members of an away mission disappearing after five years have passed.  Much of the first act of the episode is establishing the relationship between Geordi and Lieutenant Commander Susanna Leijten, played by Maryann Plunkett.  Brannon Braga is credited with the final script for the episode, and he decides that what Geordi LaForge needs is to have a healthy relationship with a female coworker that is not rooted in romance.  This is a breath of fresh air after “Galaxy’s Child”, Susanna even confiding her own romantic troubles with Geordi in the way that friends do.  For any other main cast member on Star Trek: The Next Generation this would be a normal episode, but Geordi has this trouble of being stuck in the role of either romantic failure when he is given focus in an episode or being relegated to the guy that fixes the Enterprise.

 

Braga gives Geordi a life outside of his standard duties and breaks down those relationships to make a horror episode that under the surface is about losing one’s identity through an exterior, encroaching force.  The big twist is that the away team disappearing is mutating into alien life forms that took five years to gestate within their hosts.  As aliens the parasites are unthinking and uncaring, the infection is a natural part of their life cycle and there is no agency in whom they infect.  “Identity Crisis” has its roots in a different type of science fiction story, one of an illness from space.  This type of story was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s as humanity was first leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and the fear of bringing back a space born virus was very real.  One of the earliest pieces of televised science fiction, The Quatermass Experiment, dealt with this exact problem in a contemporary setting.  Star Trek has done similar premises before as far back as the original series with episodes like “The Naked Time” and “Miri”, the former being an early highlight of the show.

 

While Star Trek: The Next Generation has done space illness episodes before, “The Naked Time” was poorly remade into “The Naked Now”, “Identity Crisis” is unique in the fact that this is very much an episode made with the 1991 audience in mind.  Timothy DeHaas is credited as providing the initial story outline for “Identity Crisis”, though Braga rewrote to focus on Geordi as a character.  It wears its influences prominently on its sleeve: the general premise has its similarities to 1979’s Alien and 1982’s The Thing, though with less sexual imagery and less emphasis on paranoia.  Exploring a slow loss of humanity is clearly inspired by David Cronenberg’s film version of The Fly while the mutated Geordi being able to become invisible and being likened to a hunter has clear links to 1987’s Predator.  “Identity Crisis” is a grab bag of plot points and ideas from popular and cult science fiction and horror films from essentially the last decade.  It’s those aspects of the episode that indicate its origins from a science fiction fan and not a seasoned television writer, but between it being a solid science fiction premise and Brannon Braga’s rewrites there is genuinely effective body horror here.  Michael Westmore is responsible for the costume and makeup effects on the mutated Geordi LaForge, leaning into the color blue as an aesthetic choice is particularly interesting as it is a shade that looks particularly alien.  Westmore has been with Star Trek: The Next Generation since its beginning and his work is often quite fantastic, but “Identity Crisis” is an episode that visually creates a challenge.  It helps that director Winrich Kolbe shoots much of the mutated Geordi from either high or low angles, depending on where the mutation is.  The early stages lean particularly heavy into creating disfigurement, there is a moment where the fingers fuse together.  It’s especially horrific for an episode of syndicated network television that cannot show much blood and gore while getting the episode through standards and practices.

 

Overall, what makes “Identity Crisis” work so well is both being effective at telling a body horror story from a production perspective and giving a standard character focus to a character who only two episodes earlier was treated particularly poorly.  It’s clear that the cast is having a lot of fun with the material and getting to play a script structured like celebrated horror films from the time while the makeup team is pushing as far as they can.  This is not going to be lauded for breaking the mold for Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it is another in the category of very enjoyable episodes that define the standard for a good episode.  7/10.

Night Terrors by: Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor from a story by: Shari Goodhartz and directed by: Les Landau

 

“Night Terrors” is written by: Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor, from a story by: Shari Goodhartz, and is directed by: Les Landau.  It was produced under production code 191, was the 17^h episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 91^st episode overall, and was broadcast on March 18, 1991.

 

The quirks of the 26 episode season means sometimes there’s an episode of a show where because the episode count needs to be filled the premise is something just a little off.  “Night Terrors” is one such episode from the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation that decides what the show really needs is a haunted starship story in the middle of March.  There’s a lost art to episodes like this because looking at it it’s a fairly standard episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and network television.  Because the current streaming model of television does not allow for more than 10 episodes in a season if the show is lucky, typically now being limited to six to eight episodes, there is no reason to write a random episode where a starship is found with a dead crew and haunted by ghosts.  Okay, so it isn’t a case of real ghosts, the episode builds to the twist that the phenomenon is entirely natural and due to the binary star system, the Brattain (or possibly Brittain as is written on the model), the Enterprise, and a third unseen ship that has a psychic crew reaching out for help.  The reaching out for help is not working for this crew because humanity is not psychic, instead the psychic emissions are disrupting the sleep of both crews.  This has led the crew of the Brittain to massacre each other; the aftermath of the massacre is the opening of the episode which Les Landau shoots quite atmospherically.  It’s a dark opening for the episode and the lighting is intentionally kept low so the viewer can fill in the gaps of how awful the situation is.  The script after the pre-credits lingers on how empty the Brittain is and the morgue is a set used for multiple scenes in the episode as a constant reminder of the death even before the haunting begins.

 

The haunting itself is through sleep deprivation, the episode taking place over the course of at least a few days as the crew of the Enterprise fall asleep without entering REM.  This creates paranoia and anger even before hallucinations begin.  The best hallucination is Dr. Crusher’s: she sees the corpses under their shrouds sit up straight.  It’s small but Gates McFadden plays it perfectly, using her own logic and assumptions about the situation to bring Crusher back to reality.  There’s also a hallucination of Riker’s bed being full of snakes, which is quite funny for me because that is a recurring nightmare of mine which I am certain has no deeper meaning at all.  The paranoia among the crew fares slightly less well for “Night Terrors”, mainly because it is almost entirely rooted outside of the main cast.  The best scenes of paranoia are between Miles and Keiko O’Brien early in the episode, Miles becoming jealous and accusing his wife of infidelity which is a bit over the top considering both O’Briens are relatively minor characters, but they are characters we know and have spent time with this season.  The rest of the paranoid characters are day players, and they don’t really get the time necessary to get the audience to care about them, only serving a function in the plot.  The buildup to the reveal of what is causing the paranoia and subsequent resolution of the episode also leaves some to be desired.  Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor’s script simply lacks the dramatic tension and energy in the climax, it’s just the main cast figuring out that there is a third ship stopped, the psychic wavelength that Troi is tuned into coming from the ship, and using an influx of hydrogen to save both ships.  The final lines ordering Picard to go to sleep are good and witty, but the climax of the episode does just run out of steam.

 

Atypically for an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is that “Night Terrors” is actually quite a good showcase for Deanna Troi.  Because of the focus on horror, Douglas and Taylor use Troi as one of two characters largely unaffected by the paranoia and hallucinations while awake, however, when she sleeps, she finds herself in dreams that are not her own.  Marina Sirtis is actually given material dealing with Troi’s empathic abilities.  She spends much of the episode while awake attempting to communicate with the one survivor of the Brittain, a Betazoid science officer.  In terms of material, it is not particularly deep, but this is a series that has often sidelined Troi and its other female characters as well as reducing them to their gender.  This episode is particularly good for Troi by making her be a counselor and active in the actual resolution (it’s Troi and Crusher who work out what is going on) and it’s clear Sirtis is enjoying the material.  Her best scene is saving Worf from a suicide attempt due to his lost Klingon honor, emotions being pushed to their limits from the lack of deep sleep.  It’s a scene that just kind of flies by and both Sirtis and Michael Dorn play it so well it ends up the best scene of the episode.  Even her dreamscape has Troi as an active participant, fitted into a flying harness and acting on a greenscreen in a genuinely good attempt at making an atmospheric dreamscape on a 1991 television budget.  The dream sequences could be paced better, but the attempt to do something surreal like a dreamscape is laudable and giving the material to Sirtis does take advantage of what she’s been doing with Troi even when the show hasn’t been serving her well.

 

Overall, “Night Terrors” has the potential for greatness that it never quite reaches due to a couple of the production decisions that keep the main cast as entirely rational and not really knowing how to structure the climax.  The episode excels at being a ghost story in the trappings of a science fiction television show and actually showcasing Star Trek: The Next Generation’s female characters without reducing them to their status as female characters.  7/10.

The Colony of Lies by: Colin Brake

 

There’s a part of me that believes The Colony of Lies only came about because Colin Brake realized that every time Doctor Who attempted a space western it utterly failed.  The Space Pirates is a mostly missing serial that couches itself in western imagery and tropes while dealing with mining.  The Colony of Lies boasts a cover of the Second Doctor overlooking a town from the Wild West, right in front of a crashed spaceship.  Westerns as a genre come out of America’s manifest destiny, an aspect of colonialism and imperialism creating the imperative of expansion across the country by force.  The history is an inherently bloody one, something the genre has been reckoning with since the 1970s.  The Colony of Lies proposes that humanity’s expansion into space is going to follow the same path of bloody conquest.  This is a novel where the title gives away the twist, the colony setting that does in fact take nostalgic inspiration from the western genre for its level of technology and aesthetic and as such is built on lies.  While the colonists’ story is that they were invaded, reality is that humanity are of course the invaders and displacers of the native population.

 

This twist is nestled; the aliens turn out to not actually be aliens but another group of humans who have been genetically engineered away from humanity.  It’s this secondary twist that undercuts Brake’s major themes examining imperialism.  It cuts out half of the imperialism from the text itself in favor of bioengineering ideas.  Perhaps this is something that was fitting for commentary in the early 2000s, there’s even an argument to be made that in the present.  This is a post-9/11 novel after all, and the bioengineering is for creating super soldiers just as in reality the United States is invading Iraq.  The way The Colony of Lies reads, however, is as if Brake pivoted when the world changed.  It’s certainly not the worst potential pivot, there is a story to be told there, but Brake does not give enough material nor enough characterization to the supporting characters to make it all.

 

Brake is one of the few novelists to characterize the Second Doctor particularly well.  This incarnation of the Doctor in the novel feels as if he is on the run with a unique morality.  The Enemy of the World feels particularly important for Brake’s characterization of the Doctor, throughout the novel he positions himself as the outsider who isn’t going to immediately side with one person.  That’s how Brake facilitates the nestled twist, the Doctor not committing to one side being necessarily good or bad.  This is also technically a novel featuring the Seventh Doctor, he and Ace appearing in the prologue and epilogue, but the best scene is this brief interaction between the Second and Seventh Doctors.  The Doctor is referred to as the Stranger giving the reader the idea that the Doctor has become something completely different by his seventh incarnation, while his second is too terrified to act for fear the Time Lords may finally catch up with him.  It does not stop him of course, but it does enough to make him terrified.  Brake is also quite good at exploring Jamie and Zoe as both highly insecure.  Jamie is particularly well served as there are scenes from his perspective where the reader really understands just how intelligent he is despite his leaps in logic.  He is insecure about if he ever will go back and is slightly horrified on how technology and weapons of war in particular will evolve.  Zoe is paralleled with him as the always logical one but equally insecure in expanding her horizons because this is forward in history for her, she is terrified at the threats the universe face (Brake references several Dalek stories in particular).

 

Overall, The Colony of Lies has fantastic commentary at its center, however Colin Brake’s prose is unable to focus on exactly one commentary to make.  Paralleling itself with Colony in Space, the ideas are there and they are fantastic, even if the secondary twist goes one step too far to weaken the entire story.  The regulars are characterized well even if the supporting characters are almost entirely bland, though the alien race is a cool concept if executed poorly.  It’s actually at its best when it is being a space western, proving that Doctor Who actually can do space westerns in the right circumstances.   6/10.

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void by: Tim Lebbon

 

Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void is clearly meant to be the first part of a bigger story, however it was published the year after the Walt Disney Company bought Lucasfilm.  While it would take more time for the expanded universe to be declared non-canon and rebranded as Legends, Tim Lebbon’s Star Wars novel is presented as the first installment in what was clearly intended to be a larger multimedia project.  There was a comic book written by legendary writer John Ostrander and included in the published version is an additional short story also from Ostrander, however Dawn of the Jedi was clearly meant to be a larger multimedia project that never quite materialized.  In retrospect, it laid groundwork for a different multimedia event with The High Republic starting in 2021.  While there is a desire to separate what could have been from what is, Into the Void is a novel where the missing potential of a larger exploration is a detriment to the novel.  Tim Lebbon does tell a complete story in the novel, flashing back between two events in the life of Je’daii Ranger Lanoree Brock.  The first being her upbringing and induction into the Je’daii Order with her brother as well has his apparent death and the second her mission to find him before he can complete a sacred rite that would obliterate their planet, Tython.  The obvious conclusion is that the Je’daii Order will eventually become the Jedi Order, as the timeline in the front of the book places this over 25,000 years before the original film.

 

Where Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Light succeeds is in the worldbuilding of this early galaxy.  Lebbon establishes Tython, its system, and the galaxy at large in a far more primitive state than what would be expected.  The production design of the original trilogy (and to a lesser extent the prequels) established the technological advancement of the galaxy as a mix of old and new, while this novel skews towards the old.  There is space travel, however the novel itself does not actually leave the Tython system.  Aesthetically the novel shares more in common with high fantasy, the mysteries of the Force being treated like a magic system in the same vein as popular fantasy of the 2010s.  While the Je’daii are not treated as mages, the use of ranger in Lanoree’s title is important, there is a sense of learning one’s magical abilities in harnessing the force and the idea of it as a chosen talent, Dalien’s inability to access the force and jealousy of his sister is the driving factor of the novel’s conflict as much as disenchantment with Je’daii teachings.  In terms of weaponry, gone are lightsabers and in their place are specially forged swords.  There is still the sense of Lanoree as a guardian but the rigid morality of the Dark Side as something to be shunned as a Jedi is gone here.  Lebbon indicates that rift being created by the end of the novel, however the Je’daii are meant to each be balancing the light and the dark within themselves.

 

Tim Lebbon as a writer, however, is the root of this novel’s problems.  In terms of prose, Into the Light is a particularly dry novel, Lebbon’s style flipping back and forth between the present and past narratives without any real sense of growth from Lanoree as a character.  Perhaps this is a remnant of this being the first part of a planned trilogy, however, it actively makes the past and present narratives feel far more similar than they are.  This is a disadvantage to the premise of the novel as already 25,000 years before Star Wars as it muddles its own internal timeline quite a bit.  The actual plot of the novel is also taking a backseat to the worldbuilding.  The most interesting sections are those describing Lanoree’s training or the way she operates within the galaxy, while her actual mission to find her brother is fine.  Lebbon attempts pathos and there are moments where emotionally Lanoree’s response to the revelation her brother may be alive is moving, but they are particularly brief.  The plot is just one event leading to the next event without vague emotional resonance when the exploration of the world is not happening.

 

Overall, there is potential in Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void, but through a combination of being cut off before any sequels could even be outlined and Tim Lebbon’s own weak prose is at best mediocre.  Despite its short length, the thin plot is still dragged out quite a bit with admittedly particularly strong worldbuilding.  4/10.