Two nice extracts from Doctor Who and the Dæmons, for all you Doctor/Master shippers out there (the viewpoint character is the Master in both cases):

( Read more... )

Five more Who books, of which three are decidedly skippable and two rather good.

( Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons )
( Doctor Who - the Mind of Evil )
( Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos )
( Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon )
( Doctor Who and the Dæmons )

So, on to the Third Doctor books, starting with three Dicks efforts of varying quality, and a good one by Malcolm Hulke; all covering stories first broadcast in 1970.

( 6) Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, by Terrance Dicks )
( 7) Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, by Malcolm Hulke )
( 8) Doctor Who - the Ambassadors of Death, by Terrance Dicks )
( 9) Doctor Who - Inferno, by Terrance Dicks )

( Northern Ireland and Doctor Who )

I've headlined this post by referring to Liz Shaw, but in fact she doesn't come across particularly well on the printed page and, given my childhood memories of the first two of these books, I was surprised by how much I liked Caroline John in the TV role when I watched. I am beginning to spot a pattern where the brainy companions (Zoe and Liz) don't transfer well to the novelisations, whereas the screamy ones (Victoria, Polly and I expect Jo) actually come over rather better.

Having mostly enjoyed the first set of these, I can say that the second set is of the same order of quality.

( Mother Russia: Steven tells a story of the First Doctor in Napoleonic times )

( Helicon Prime: Jamie and the Second Doctor on holiday, solve a mystery )

( Old Soldiers: Brigadier recounts a German adventure with the Third Doctor )

( The Catalyst: Leela and the Fourth Doctor in Edwardian times )

So, try the first of these, and if you like it, experiment with the rest; good performances from the key actors, not so sure about the story in some cases.

Are you a Doctor Who character? Are you concerned about whether you will live to the end of the story, or die a horrible death? Here's a useful indicator: are you played by Geoffrey Palmer?

I had originally planned to do an overall piece on the first two Doctor Whos, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, shortly after I finished getting through all their stories in the summer. But that was a point when energy levels were generally a bit low, and anyway it actually makes more sense to consider them together with Jon Pertwee. Tom Baker's is the first Doctor I can remember watching consistently first time round, so my experience of all of the earlier three was formed first by the Target novelisations, then by Doctor Who magazine (and the Making of Doctor Who and the Jean-Marc Lofficier volumes), then by occasional viewing of surviving series, and only very lately, in the last year or so, by going through them systematically. And in fact the first three made similar numbers of stories (29, 21, 24) and episodes (134, 119, 128), all well behind T Baker but unmatched by any other subsequent Doctor (Davison ties with Troughton for number of stories but is way behind on episodes), so we are comparing like with like to a greater extent than is possible with any other grouping of three Doctors.

( William Hartnell: First Doctor, 1963-1966 )

( Patrick Troughton: Second Doctor, 1966-1969 )

( Jon Pertwee: Third Doctor, 1970-1974 )

I think it will be a while before I do another post like this!

Well, that's it; I have now completed the Jon Pertwee era, as I did the Hartnell era in June and the Troughton era in July. (It will take me a bit longer to get through T Baker and Davison, though I've already seen half of McCoy and almost half of C Baker.) I promised a long post on the first two, but now might do a longer one on the first three. Before I get there, though, the last two Third Doctor stories on my list.

( Day of the Daleks )

( The Mind of Evil )

So there we have it; all 24 of the Third Doctor stories now watched. The Green Death was actually the first Doctor Who story I reviewed here; I started on a relatively high note, and did not finish too badly, considering I had tended to watch the good ones first. A reminder for those of you who care that I have archived all my TV reviews here, and all my other DW reviews here.

Three Classic Who stories to write up, with The Talons of Weng-Chiang decidedly superior, The Monster of Peladon decidedly average, and The Ambassadors of Death decidedly different. (Only two Third Doctor stories left to go now.)

( The Monster of Peladon )

( The Talons of Weng-Chiang )

( The Ambassadors of Death )

So, in summary, one total classic, one interesting (if you can bear to take in all seven episodes) and one for completists only.

Not really the ones I would have chosen to watch during the longueurs of this week's business trip, but they just happened to be the stories I had to hand when doing the last-minute packing.

( The Sea Devils: Third Doctor, Jo, the Master and aquatic reptiles )

( Trial of a Time Lord parts 5-8 (Mindwarp): Sixth Doctor, Peri and Brian Blessed )
( Trial of a Time Lord parts 9-12 (Terror of the Vervoids): Sixth Doctor, Mel and the Vervoids )
( Trial of a Time Lord parts 13-14 (The Ultimate Foe): Sixth Doctor, Mel, the Master and the Matrix )

( The Happiness Patrol: Seventh Doctor, Ace and the Candyman )

So in summary, "Mindwarp" was an unexpected pleasure, The Sea Devils, "Terror of the Vervoids" and The Happiness Patrol all had their strengths and weaknesses, and "The Ultimate Foe" is best forgotten.

Thanks to the long flights to and from Cyprus, I was able to catch up with some more Old Who: Castrovalva, Doctor Who and the Silurians, and The Time Monster.

( Castrovalva: the first of Five )

( Doctor Who and the Silurians: Third Doctor, Liz, UNIT and ancient reptiles coming back to life )

( The Time Monster: better than I expected )

Anyway, none of these makes my personal top ten, maybe not even my top twenty, but I quite enjoyed all three.
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I've tended to rather rush through writing up the Pertwee stories I have been watching, as they are much of a muchness, but this is different. I remember back in 1981 when it was re-broadcast, we really wondered why - surely there were other, better Pertwee four-parters out there? The Terrance Dicks novelisation is only average. It seemed as if Carnival of Monsters had been chosen mainly because it followed on in continuity directly after The Three Doctors. Spoiled as we were by the Hinchcliffe and Williams years, Carnival of Monsters did not seem all that special.

I must say that now it does. The 1973 season was probably Pertwee's second best (after his first, the 1970 season) and Carnival of Monsters is surely the best story in it - followed by Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks, which are both OK but not spectacular, and ending with  The Green Death which is also a good one, particularly because it gets rid of Jo. The one thing that lets it down is the visual effects, rather a lot of dodgy CSO being used. But if you can shut your eyes and pretend you are still six during those bits, the rest is fantastic - Robert Holmes at his very best in the script, Michael Wisher in pre-Davros days as the main villain, Ian Marter in pre-Harry Sullivan days as a minor character, a real feeling of several different completely alien cultures (the two classes on Inter Minor and the Lurmans), and an absence of the blatant padding that mars so many Pertwee stories. A special shout to Cheryl Hall, later the girlfriend of Citizen Smith, as showgirl Shirna.

And there's a couple of serious reflections in there too - the MiniScope itself is a futuristic development of the zoo, and gives rise to a rather caricatured discussion of conservation versus entertainment' more seriously, Inter Minor is clearly a communist totalitarian state, threatened to its very foundations by any influence from the outside. Michael Wisher's character Kalik is the conservative brother of the unseen president Zarb. It's nicely observed, although not all conservative backlashes end with the leader of the hardliners being eaten alive by a Drashig. Shame.

Two Third Doctor stories to write up here, neither of them particularly outstanding.

( Colony in Space )

( Death to the Daleks )

I see that both were directed by Michael Briant (who also did The Sea Devils, The Green Death, Revenge of the Cybermen and The Robots of Death); I think I would have guessed if I hadn't known.

1) About Time: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1970-1974, by Laurence Miles and Tat Wood

Though third in chronological sequence, this was the first of the About Time series published, covering precisely the years of Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor, and almost as precisely the years of Barry Letts as producer and Terrance Dicks as script editor. It's a huge change of setting for the show with almost two thirds of the 24 stories - including the whole of the first Pertwee season - set on contemporary Earth with the UNIT team. (Compare precisely one contemporary adventure, plus some odd bits and pieces [including the first ever episode], of the 29 Hartnell stories, and a fairly steady rate of 10-20% for the remainder of the classic series; compare, of course, also 100% of the eighth Doctor's on-screen adventures, and a third of the stories since the 2005 revival.)

Miles and Wood have done a very good job of identifying the roots of each story, literary, political and televisual. It's not yet at the levels of genius that their Volume 2 reached, but there are some glorious moments, including the frightening similarities between Jon Pertwee, Jimmy Saville and Bruce Forsythe. They have also yet to give in to the unfortunate enthusiasm for endnotes which is one of the few really annoying things about later volumes. (The five fairly restrained end-notes here concern Enoch Powell, Oswald Mosley, Sooty and Sweep, the aforementioned Bruce Forsythe, and Catweazle.) There are the usual discursive essays, of which the two best are probably on the importance of the incidental music and on the implied history of UK politics in Doctor Who.

Anyway, I've ordered the more cerebral-looking Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, which Amazon seems to think will be available this coming week, but it has a tough act to follow.

Planet of the Spiders was Jon Pertwee's swan-song as the Doctor, back in 1974. Not as bad as some of the other Pertwee stories I have seen, but as with so many of them it is rather spoiled by the ropey CSO effects, the ineptly chosen cliff-hangers, and the frankly not very scary spiders. Also one of the supporting cast (Jenny Laird, playing Neska) is so wooden in her acting as to suck the life out of any scene she appears in. But the others are good, the Doctor/Sarah Jane chemistry is great (and her grief when the Doctor appears to have died all the more credible), and it's also good to see (in Tommy) a positive and sympathetic portrayal of someone with learning difficulties. Sadly, as so often for this era, Terrance Dicks' novelisation is better.

The Mysterious Planet was Robert Holmes' swan-song, from 1986. He wrote some of the best stories of the original Doctor Who run; this is not one of them. It's the first segment of the infamous Trial of a Time Lord season, with the action of the main narrative (the Doctor and Peri land on a mysterious planet and must prevent the local bad guys from taking over the universe; also confusingly it may or may not be a far future Earth) frequently interrupted by flashforwards to a courtroom where the Doctor is on trial, the main story being presented as evidence for the prosecution.

The trial sub-plot simply does not work. There appears to be no due procedure that makes any sense; the evidence presented by the Valeyard (at least as far as this story goes) doesn't do much to prove the case (as even the Inquisitor admits). If you simply tune out these deeply embarrassing bits, you are left with a fairly standard story: a couple of decent performances from guest actors, and a couple of very cardboard-looking robots.

Attack of the Graske is an interactive game on the BBC website featuring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, inviting the young viewer to help him prevent the eponymous Graske from ruining a family Christmas (it went on-line immediately after The Christmas Invasion was shown). The logic puzzles are not terribly taxing but Tennant is at his most charming and chummy, and there is a nicely done (if slightly pointless) scene in Victorian England.

Three Old Who stories that I've been watching.

( The Dæmons )

( Resurrection of the Daleks )

( Robot )

In summary, Robot is recommended; the other two really for completists.

Two stories from Old Who which were both better than I had expected.

( Invasion of the Dinosaurs )

( Revelation of the Daleks )

This was the one DVD I bought in London last month. It is, bascially, a standard Pertwee-era adventure; aliens invade Earth; the Master is helping them; the Doctor persuades the Master to change sides and they are defeated.

The best thing about this one is Delgado as the Master. Accept no substitutes! He is the real thing! And the Brigadier is fun as well.

Interesting that the Doctor spends the first episode whining that the military want to blow the Axons out of the sky, whereas in fact as it transpires this was the right idea (if unimplementable).

Jo is useless as usual, and gets put in a position of serious danger by ignoring a direct instruction. The only interesting thing to say about her is that she has perhaps her first semi-romantic moment with the visiting American. (What the American is doing there is not at all clear.)

But in general I rather liked it. I've been a bit sceptical of Bob Baker and Dave Martin's scripts (deeply unimpressed by The Mutants, The Three Doctors and The Sontaran Experiment), but this was a good 'un; directed by Michael Ferguson who also did the rather good Seeds of Death and the underrated War Machines.

19) Doctor Who – the Caves of Androzani, by Terrance Dicks
20) Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin, by Terrance Dicks
21) Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders, by Terrance Dicks
22) Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive, by David Fisher

Four Target novelisations of Doctor Who stories from the original series here. The first two are average Terrance Dicks treatments of two of Robert Holmes’ best scripts, The Deadly Assassin being regarded by many as the Fourth Doctor’s greatest story, and The Caves of Androzani regarded by almost everyone as the Fifth Doctor’s best moment.

But with Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders, Dicks has taken a Third Doctor TV story which by all accounts (I haven’t seen it) was decidedly average and turned it into a cracking good read. It was one of the first of his many many Doctor Who books (and he’s still at it), and for those of us (like me) who occasionally mock the by-the-numbers approach of his later efforts, it’s very much worth re-reading the earlier ones to remind ourselves of how good he was at turning dodgy special effects and occasionally wooden acting into a novel that caught the spirit of what he, as script editor, had no doubt hoped and intended the original TV version to be. (Like The Caves of Androzani, Planet of the Spiders has the Doctor regenerating after an adventure climbing around in caves. But I think that’s a coincidence.)

David Fisher wrote two Doctor Who novels based on his own scripts for the Fourth Doctor stories Creature from the Pit and The Leisure Hive. (He also wrote the original scripts for two Fourth Doctor Key to Time stories, The Stones of Blood and the Androids of Tara, but the novelisations of those were done by – of course – Terrance Dicks.) I remember really enjoying his Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit when it first came out, and Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive is, for the same reasons, also a hilarious read – Fisher has a Douglas Adams-like ability to build in circumstantial detail and hilarious commentary to make you feel that this is a real, zany universe in which the Doctor and Romana are dealing with complex alien societies as well as future technology. I saw the series when it was first broadcast, but missed the last episode for some reason – I see it’s now on DVD, and after reading this I am very much inclined to add that to my collection too.

tijsmans was asking what classic Who he should watch to get up to speed (or, as he put it, to become "a legitimate Who fanboy"). He already has Genesis of the daleks and The Deadly Assassin; my other recommendations to him were as follows.

( recommendations )

Discussion welcome!

Two six-part Doctor Who stories from the distant past to review.

( Frontier in Space )

( The Web Planet )

Managed to get through no less than three classic Doctor Who four-parters last weekend, from 1977, 1971 and 1965. One of them I had seen when it was first broadcast; I had read the novelisation of the second; the third was completely new to me. All three are good 'uns; though few fans will put any of them in their personal top ten, they are all pretty good.

( The Face of Evil )
( Terror of the Autons )
( Galaxy Four )

Two 1990s audio plays here, both by long-time BBC producer Barry Letts, both starring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor (18 years after he had stopped playing the TV role) with Elisabeth Sladen and as Sarah Jane Smith and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier.

( The Paradise of Death )

( The Ghosts of N-Space )

Anyway, good to hear the voice of Pertwee in his last performances in the role, and the other two leads seem to be having fun too - the Brigadier actually gets to lead a military operation in both stories. Shame about Jeremy.

Big Finish's series of audio plays featuring the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Doctor Whos have been a roaring success. Unfortunately they cannot do the same for the first four Doctors, with the actors who played 1-3 having shuffled off this mortal coil and #4, the glorious Tom Baker, being famously unwilling to reprise the role. So what they have done is to get four actors who played companions of the first four doctors tell the story of a "missing adventure", with one guest star in each case providing the voice of the chief villain. It's a grand idea, and I liked all of these, though each had small problems which one can overlook.

( Frostfire: Vicki, reminiscing in Carthage, tells the story of her meeting with Jane Austen and the Phoenix )

( Fear of the Daleks: Zoe relates her strange dreams )

( The Blue Tooth: Liz Shaw and the Cybermen )

( The Beautiful People: Romana and the health club )

But anyway, in all cases the fun outweighs the annoyances, and they are all worth adding to your library.

Two Who stories from almost a decade apart to write up.

( Planet of Giants )

( Writing about companions )

( The Time Warrior )

Just in case you are interested: I'm mirroring all my Old Skool Doctor Who reviews to mavic_chen:

First Doctor
Second Doctor
Third Doctor
Fourth Doctor
Fifth Doctor
Seventh Doctor
Eighth Doctor

But NB nothing will appear there that hasn't already appeared here first.

Some time I shall think about how to systematise my reviews of the spinoff novels and audios as well.

Back in 1973, Dalek stories were ( real Dalek stories )

( Jo Grant: not as annoying as usual )

( The women of the Thals )

20) Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters, by Terrance Dicks

A good Robert Holmes script, turned into an average Terrance Dicks novel. I remember seeing this one in 1981 during the "Five Faces of Doctor Who" repeat season; wonder how well it would stand up to re-watching now?

I know you have all been dying to watch my seminar yesterday about the Northern Ireland elections last week. Apparently it is now online here. I haven't yet watched it so I have no idea how embarrassing it is (or not). (Edited to add: Needs to be illustrated with the Powerpoint.)

I misjudged the time of driving back down to Dublin airport so missed my flight, and had to get the first one back this morning. However, this did have the unexpected benefit of an evening chez wwhyte, watching our selection of classic Who episodes: he chose The Ambassadors of Death #1 and The Deadly Assassin #1, I picked The Mind Robber #1 and The Dalek Invasion of Earth #3. I had earlier raided his stash of Target novelisations, for reasons which will become clear in due course.

And eventually caught the early plane this morning without incident, and now going home on the train.
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( Salman Rushdie and Doctor Who )

Alas, one can easily write three times more about one paragraph of Rushdie than about the six episodes of The Mutants. ( The Mutants )

There being so many Doctor Who spinoff novels out there, there is no way that I can read them all; but occasionally I will have an idea for getting hold of several that share a common theme, or have been recommended in the same place, or whatever. Most of them are easy enough to get via second-hand shops or eBay, and some (including one of the four below) have been put online by the authors because they are out of print. I bought/downloaded all four of these because they are the only Doctor Who spinoff novels featuring the First Doctor's somewhat obscure companion Dodo Chaplet. I will probably do another post at some point on Dodo's life and times in the Whoniverse, but each of these books was actually rather good in its own different way, the pluses definitely outweighing the minuses in each case.

4) [Doctor Who] Salvation, by Steve Lyons (.co.uk, .com) ( review )

5) [Doctor Who] Bunker Soldiers, by Martin Day (.co.uk, .com) ( review )

6) [Doctor Who] The Man in the Velvet Mask, by Daniel O'Mahony (.co.uk, .com) ( review )

7) [Doctor Who] Who Killed Kennedy?, by James Stevens and David Bishop (.co.uk, on-line) ( review )

Anyway, all four of these were rather good. More thoughts on Dodo for a later day. But I refuse to discuss whether the First Doctor had only one heart (O'Mahony/Man in the Velvet Mask) or two (Lyons/Salvation).