As she left the TARDIS with the synthesiser, Vicki's mind was whirring.
Without Barbara fuelling the sense of urgency she had calmed down a
little, feeling under less pressure; and she wanted to know why. After
all, Ian was still in deadly peril, wasn't he?
She was surprised to find that she really couldn't believe it. She had
been forcing herself to keep rushing, following Barbara's direction,
while her subconscious rebelled. Okay; she would still move quickly in
case her subconscious was wrong, but she would also get back to thinking
about what was making her feel otherwise.
First thought: Ian didn't look sick. He'd said he was sick, and he couldn't get up; but there could be other reasons for that. Like mind control. She'd experienced that all too recently, with the Animus on Vortis. Just the memory of that horrible, horrible entity controlling her body like a puppet made her shudder.
Let's go with that thought for a while. Perhaps whatever creature lives
on this planet - Tyron, the Doctor had called it - works differently.
Perhaps it can control speech more easily than movement? So it could
stop Ian from running away by paralysing his legs, but not make him
walk? And it could have affected the Doctor too!
Now, that was worrying. She didn't want Ian to be dying, and she didn't
want the Doctor to have been responsible for what he said. So, this
might be just a wish fulfilment theory, something she'd made up so that
she could believe everything was fundamentally fine. After all, an alien
menace was something they could fight! Not like... well, not like
death. And betrayal.
Of course. It all came back to Dido, didn't it? And before. She had lost
one entire family, all her friends; why wouldn't she be desperate about
the possibility of losing what she had in the TARDIS? That didn't mean
her feeling was wrong, but she couldn't trust it. Vicki picked up the
pace.
Strange; she had expected to see Barbara before now. Could she have made
it all the way back to Ian already? It didn't seem very likely.
"Barbara?" she called. "Are you there?"
After a few seconds, she heard an answering cry, not far distant. A
minute or so later she found the teacher lying in the shade of a stone.
Hmm, she thought, lying in the shade of a stone. Like the others. And all at once my theory seems a lot less paranoid. Still, maybe it would be possible to test it out.
"Barbara, what are you doing? There's no time to waste!"
"I'm sorry, Vicki; I'm just so tired. I don't know what's wrong with me."
Okay, here goes. "Like that time when we were on our way to Rome, and you just had to stop for a rest?"
Barbara just looked at her with a puzzled expression. Drat! thought
Vicki. I was hoping she'd say 'yes', and I'd have known she was lying,
since she didn't come to Rome with me.
Still, there was something odd in her not saying anything. Vicki
looked more closely; there was a tension around Barbara's mouth, as if
she were forcing herself to keep it shut. "Is something the matter?"
"Nnnnng."
That settled it - there was definitely some sort of battle going on
inside Barbara's head. Did it mean the theory was right about Ian, too?
There was no way Vicki could get the bio-analyser to him on her own
anyway; all she could do was hope she'd figured it out properly.
Trying to make the controlling monster believe she was fooled was
probably a lost cause, now, but there was also no harm in trying. "I'd
better go and see if there's anything I can do for Ian," she said. She
picked up the medical kit - it supported her story, and might come in
handy - and ran off towards him.
Now all she had to do was think of a way to get them all out of this mess...
Next Time:
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 4
Friday 30 November 2012
Wednesday 28 November 2012
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 2
Barbara couldn't help getting irritated at the way Vicki kept on about
her pet theory. She had to admit there were strange things going on, and
maybe there was some kind of malign psychic influence at work,
affecting the Doctor's judgement and making Ian step in poisoned leaves
or something. It wouldn't be the first time! But their focus had to be
on saving Ian. Still, she was sorry she snapped at the girl.
When they got back to the TARDIS, Barbara headed straight for the place she had last seen the bio-analyser. She felt a chill as she saw the empty space on the shelf.
"Vicki, it's not here! The bio-analyser's missing!"
"Hm? Oh, the Doctor's been using it in an experiment. He was showing me some of the results yesterday; I know where it is." She trotted off down the corridor.
Barbara felt a twinge of jealousy. Oh, the girl was young, inexperienced - naïve, even - but she knew so much more about future technology. Not as much as the Doctor, of course, but then who did? She had struck up a rapport with the old man almost instantly; his betrayal by the lake had obviously hit her hard. Barbara needed to be a little more understanding. It wouldn't help Ian to hurt the girl further.
While Vicki was gone she busied herself collecting a few medical supplies, just in case - and especially gloves, since it would do no good for them to get poisoned while treating Ian. She was triple-checking the kit when she heard Vicki call.
"Ooh, give me a hand with this, Barbara, it's heavy!" she saw the girl staggering along with the analyser. It was portable but bulky, and Vicki was barely coping on her own. Barbara rushed to help, and together they manhandled it out of the TARDIS. Barbara took most of the weight as they set off back to Ian; she was frustrated at how slow they were. Would he still be alive when they got there? Please let it be so!
After about ten minutes Vicki suddenly stopped. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed.
"Vicki, what's wrong?"
"We forgot the synthesiser unit! Without it we can diagnose the problem, but we can't produce an antitoxin!" She looked into Barbara's eyes. "Can you manage it on your own? Just for a bit?"
Barbara smiled, encouragingly. "Don't worry about me. I'll cope." Inside, her heart sank at the prospect of trying to carry the analyser through the long grass without help, but if she had to do it then she would.
"Right. I'll fetch the unit and catch you up." Vicki hurried back towards the ship. Barbara picked up the analyser again, and set off as fast as she dared in the opposite direction.
It wasn't long before her back and arms were aching. She had to pause frequently, and each time she looked behind her, with hope; but there was no sign of Vicki. After about a quarter of an hour Barbara simply had to take a proper break. There was a stone nearby, so she carefully put down the analyser and leaned on it, working out the kinks. Something was niggling at the back of her mind; but she was so tired, too tired to focus. Then, as she sank down, she realised what it was: both the Doctor and Ian, when she had last seen them, had been lying against one of the stones. As she was now. She started, but couldn't make herself get up; so she tried to call to Vicki, but what she said wasn't what she'd meant.
"That's three." It was hurried, urgent, oddly pronounced; and she realised it had the same intonation as if she had actually called Vicki's name, as she had intended. It sounded like...
It sounded like Ian. Ian, when he had been lying there, slumped against the stone, speaking so strangely. Barbara cursed herself for not listening, for being so wound up in her worries that she pushed Vicki's conjectures away. Then she felt a ray of hope: did this mean that Ian wasn't poisoned? She couldn't be sure. I've got to get myself moving, she decided; and she must have to tried to vocalise the thought, because something similar came out of her mouth. "I've got to get this Mouth working," she said.
To Barbara's amazement she suddenly heard the voice of the Doctor. "No, no, my dear Barbara, that's not the way to do it. You have to relax, settle into its psyche, lead it gently until it says what you want. Don't bludgeon its own words into the shape you desire! That's almost fleshlike in it's crudity!"
"Huh. Easy for you to say, Doctor." Barbara's heart skipped; that was Ian! He was still alive! "Your Mouth sat down within your influence quite willingly, and you had the best part of an hour to take control before you had to interact with its fellows at all. Barbara and I had to extend ourselves just to catch ours, and I immediately had to come up with something to send the others away. I doubt you could have done more than 'crude bludgeoning' in the circumstances, and I even managed to fiddle with the Mouth-mind's perceptions to make it act more normally. Which is pretty impressive in my book. Still, he's right about one thing, Barbara."
"What's that?" Barbara hadn't meant to say it, but it had slipped out. Her relief that Ian wasn't going to die had distracted her from the invader in her mind.
"You'll need something better to deal with the last one. It's already suspicious, and-"
"Barbara? Are you there?" That was Vicki's voice, from somewhere nearby.
"What am I going to do?" said both versions of Barbara. The other voices were gone. "Don't worry," they muttered, "I'll think of something."
Together, they called out to Vicki.
Next Time:
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 3
When they got back to the TARDIS, Barbara headed straight for the place she had last seen the bio-analyser. She felt a chill as she saw the empty space on the shelf.
"Vicki, it's not here! The bio-analyser's missing!"
"Hm? Oh, the Doctor's been using it in an experiment. He was showing me some of the results yesterday; I know where it is." She trotted off down the corridor.
Barbara felt a twinge of jealousy. Oh, the girl was young, inexperienced - naïve, even - but she knew so much more about future technology. Not as much as the Doctor, of course, but then who did? She had struck up a rapport with the old man almost instantly; his betrayal by the lake had obviously hit her hard. Barbara needed to be a little more understanding. It wouldn't help Ian to hurt the girl further.
While Vicki was gone she busied herself collecting a few medical supplies, just in case - and especially gloves, since it would do no good for them to get poisoned while treating Ian. She was triple-checking the kit when she heard Vicki call.
"Ooh, give me a hand with this, Barbara, it's heavy!" she saw the girl staggering along with the analyser. It was portable but bulky, and Vicki was barely coping on her own. Barbara rushed to help, and together they manhandled it out of the TARDIS. Barbara took most of the weight as they set off back to Ian; she was frustrated at how slow they were. Would he still be alive when they got there? Please let it be so!
After about ten minutes Vicki suddenly stopped. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed.
"Vicki, what's wrong?"
"We forgot the synthesiser unit! Without it we can diagnose the problem, but we can't produce an antitoxin!" She looked into Barbara's eyes. "Can you manage it on your own? Just for a bit?"
Barbara smiled, encouragingly. "Don't worry about me. I'll cope." Inside, her heart sank at the prospect of trying to carry the analyser through the long grass without help, but if she had to do it then she would.
"Right. I'll fetch the unit and catch you up." Vicki hurried back towards the ship. Barbara picked up the analyser again, and set off as fast as she dared in the opposite direction.
It wasn't long before her back and arms were aching. She had to pause frequently, and each time she looked behind her, with hope; but there was no sign of Vicki. After about a quarter of an hour Barbara simply had to take a proper break. There was a stone nearby, so she carefully put down the analyser and leaned on it, working out the kinks. Something was niggling at the back of her mind; but she was so tired, too tired to focus. Then, as she sank down, she realised what it was: both the Doctor and Ian, when she had last seen them, had been lying against one of the stones. As she was now. She started, but couldn't make herself get up; so she tried to call to Vicki, but what she said wasn't what she'd meant.
"That's three." It was hurried, urgent, oddly pronounced; and she realised it had the same intonation as if she had actually called Vicki's name, as she had intended. It sounded like...
It sounded like Ian. Ian, when he had been lying there, slumped against the stone, speaking so strangely. Barbara cursed herself for not listening, for being so wound up in her worries that she pushed Vicki's conjectures away. Then she felt a ray of hope: did this mean that Ian wasn't poisoned? She couldn't be sure. I've got to get myself moving, she decided; and she must have to tried to vocalise the thought, because something similar came out of her mouth. "I've got to get this Mouth working," she said.
To Barbara's amazement she suddenly heard the voice of the Doctor. "No, no, my dear Barbara, that's not the way to do it. You have to relax, settle into its psyche, lead it gently until it says what you want. Don't bludgeon its own words into the shape you desire! That's almost fleshlike in it's crudity!"
"Huh. Easy for you to say, Doctor." Barbara's heart skipped; that was Ian! He was still alive! "Your Mouth sat down within your influence quite willingly, and you had the best part of an hour to take control before you had to interact with its fellows at all. Barbara and I had to extend ourselves just to catch ours, and I immediately had to come up with something to send the others away. I doubt you could have done more than 'crude bludgeoning' in the circumstances, and I even managed to fiddle with the Mouth-mind's perceptions to make it act more normally. Which is pretty impressive in my book. Still, he's right about one thing, Barbara."
"What's that?" Barbara hadn't meant to say it, but it had slipped out. Her relief that Ian wasn't going to die had distracted her from the invader in her mind.
"You'll need something better to deal with the last one. It's already suspicious, and-"
"Barbara? Are you there?" That was Vicki's voice, from somewhere nearby.
"What am I going to do?" said both versions of Barbara. The other voices were gone. "Don't worry," they muttered, "I'll think of something."
Together, they called out to Vicki.
Next Time:
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 3
Monday 26 November 2012
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 1 (reprise)
Now that she wasn't being cut to pieces, the feeling of the grass
against Vicki's legs was a welcome distraction; she found she was
calming down, a little. Neither she nor Barbara said much as they walked
along. Ian still seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood, and was hanging
back. It was odd; she could understand his anger at the Doctor - it
echoed her own grief - but now he seemed to be avoiding her and Barbara
as well.
Then she heard him call. "Hang on, you two! Something's gone into my foot." Turning, Vicki saw him propping himself up against one of the standing stones, desperately trying to get his shoe off. She glanced at Barbara, who was looking concerned; and they both hurried back. Even before they got there he had slumped down, and was sitting with his back to the stone, holding his foot. "That's torn it," he said. "Quite a bit of poison's got in there."
Barbara moved forward, and Vicki hung back - her friend had the right to be first by his side. But Ian stopped her when she went to take a look at his foot.
"Stay clear, Barbara - it's no good, I'm not worth bothering with. Unless you're able to analyse the poison. And it could be spread by contact, so might get you."
"No!" cried Barbara. Even from behind Vicki could see the tenseness of her shoulders, the way she strained to go to him even though what he said made sense. "There must be something we can do?"
There was an odd look on Ian's face, not at all what Vicki would have expected in these circumstances. "Sorry, Barbara, you've got to reach the TARDIS for the bio-analyser, right now."
Of course! thought Vicki. Not only could that identify the poison, it should be able to synthesise an antidote - if they could get it here in time. Ian was trying to get up, but couldn't manage it. "'kay, it's happening. I can't move my legs." His words were starting to slur.
Barbara nodded. "Right, I'm going. Do you want Vicki to stay with you?"
"I don't need her here! Just get on your way, Barbara, for Heaven's sake! Get me help!"
"Alright then. We'll be back as soon as we can." Barbara leaned forward and lowered her voice, though Vicki could still make out the words as she attempted to bully Ian into staying alive until they returned. It was good psychology; she hoped it would be enough.
Something was niggling, though, as they ran for the ship, Ian's cries echoing in their ears. The phrases he had used were awkward, and gave her the same sense of wrongness she'd got when listening to the Doctor's ranting. Well, not quite the same - the Doctor's speech patterns had been closer to normal - but neither of them had sounded right. She mentioned it to Barbara.
"Well, of course Ian didn't sound the same! He's been poisoned!"
And that was that. Vicki could see there was no sense in pursuing the subject right now, but she thought about it as they ran. It was more than just the voices, she realised; Ian's expression didn't look as if it was being warped by delirium, but more as if he were experiencing events... differently.
She was still trying to figure it out when they got back to the TARDIS.
Next Time:
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 2
Then she heard him call. "Hang on, you two! Something's gone into my foot." Turning, Vicki saw him propping himself up against one of the standing stones, desperately trying to get his shoe off. She glanced at Barbara, who was looking concerned; and they both hurried back. Even before they got there he had slumped down, and was sitting with his back to the stone, holding his foot. "That's torn it," he said. "Quite a bit of poison's got in there."
Barbara moved forward, and Vicki hung back - her friend had the right to be first by his side. But Ian stopped her when she went to take a look at his foot.
"Stay clear, Barbara - it's no good, I'm not worth bothering with. Unless you're able to analyse the poison. And it could be spread by contact, so might get you."
"No!" cried Barbara. Even from behind Vicki could see the tenseness of her shoulders, the way she strained to go to him even though what he said made sense. "There must be something we can do?"
There was an odd look on Ian's face, not at all what Vicki would have expected in these circumstances. "Sorry, Barbara, you've got to reach the TARDIS for the bio-analyser, right now."
Of course! thought Vicki. Not only could that identify the poison, it should be able to synthesise an antidote - if they could get it here in time. Ian was trying to get up, but couldn't manage it. "'kay, it's happening. I can't move my legs." His words were starting to slur.
Barbara nodded. "Right, I'm going. Do you want Vicki to stay with you?"
"I don't need her here! Just get on your way, Barbara, for Heaven's sake! Get me help!"
"Alright then. We'll be back as soon as we can." Barbara leaned forward and lowered her voice, though Vicki could still make out the words as she attempted to bully Ian into staying alive until they returned. It was good psychology; she hoped it would be enough.
Something was niggling, though, as they ran for the ship, Ian's cries echoing in their ears. The phrases he had used were awkward, and gave her the same sense of wrongness she'd got when listening to the Doctor's ranting. Well, not quite the same - the Doctor's speech patterns had been closer to normal - but neither of them had sounded right. She mentioned it to Barbara.
"Well, of course Ian didn't sound the same! He's been poisoned!"
And that was that. Vicki could see there was no sense in pursuing the subject right now, but she thought about it as they ran. It was more than just the voices, she realised; Ian's expression didn't look as if it was being warped by delirium, but more as if he were experiencing events... differently.
She was still trying to figure it out when they got back to the TARDIS.
Next Time:
The Talking Stones of Tyron, scene 2
Friday 23 November 2012
DWM 181, Brief Encounter: Echoes of Future Past, by John Summerfield
I commented last time on the shortness of Urrozdinee; this one is half as long. But then, being a Brief Encounter, it's a different beast. Like The Wright Way to Start the Day?
it's a vignette rather than an adventure, and that means there's more
room to breathe in this two-page story than there was in Mark Gatiss'
four-pager. On the other hand, for the first time in these reviews, we
have two different incarnations of the Doctor meeting.
Breaking the First Law of Time
In production terms, there was a time when the Doctor would only meet his past and future selves on important anniversaries. That changed with The Two Doctors, and while multi-Doctor stories remained unusual - even after the end of the TV series in 1989 and the explosion of stories in other media - it seemed as if there no longer needed to be an excuse to bring them together.
This is a particularly significant pairing: the early first Doctor and the last, the seventh, both known for being mysterious and manipulative. Their eras bookend the series, and are explicitly linked by Remembrance of the Daleks. The illustrations support this, with a black-and-white first Doctor and a colour seventh on opposite sides of the text. I've not been very complimentary about Paul Vyse's artwork in the past but this time he does a great job, particularly with Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, who looks suitably intense.
One of the problems I had with the continuity of Remembrance was that it implied the first Doctor knew of the Daleks and prepared in advance to deal with them. This quite neatly resolves that particular issue. Having said that, it would make sense for this to happen to the seventh before his televised return to Totter's Lane; but he is wearing his brown jacket from later series 26, and there is talk of him "preparing for the end". The latter can be justified following the events of The Fires of Vulcan, Red, and Dragonfire, as he prepares to take on a more proactive role; the former - while of no consequence for an ordinary person - jars more. Still, this is the best place for him. We are kept at a distance, but his reaction on hearing Susan's name mentioned is touching.
Still, this is a first Doctor marathon, so what of him? The setting is I.M. Foreman's yard in the winter of 1962-3, before the events of Time and Relative; and this story has an affinity with that one, although it doesn't quite match up. The Doctor can't really remember who he is or where he came from, but this is not a punishment for exiles by the Time Lords; rather, it is a result of trying to operate a TARDIS belonging to someone else. Still, perhaps Susan was confused in the novella about the cause of the block on her memories. Again, it can be reconciled. It is harder to make it fit with prior travels, but that is true of Kim Newman's explanation too; in both cases we can say it took a while to catch up with them.
Hardest of all to figure out is another passage:
So, I've said a lot about continuity, but what about the writing? This is actually rather good. It partly avoids the need to characterise the first Doctor recognisably since he is in the grip of the mind problems caused by the TARDIS, and is the more fearful version from the start of the show anyway; and the seventh is shown from a distance. Despite the continuity issues above, I like it.
Windows on the Past
In the children's bedroom sits a whole pile of DWM issues I have not yet read. While I was casting about for something to review here, I realised that - thanks to my birthday present - I don't have to save up the pocket money to pay for them!
This issue is from 1991, and it's a fascinating glimpse into the past. The first thing to note is how different the balance of content is from a modern issue: in 52 pages (including covers) there are two prose stories, three comic strips of a page or more, and three shorter cartoons (my favourite being 'Auton at C&A'). There are similarities too, of course: we have a poster, news, letters, interviews and an 'archive section' covering a story in detail (in this case, Spearhead from Space).
The news and letters give a great impression of the different mood of fandom at the time. There is a definite sense of doom and gloom, with lots of complaints about how the BBC had treated the show and a report on an attempt to sue the corporation over it! There was some optimism, too: Timewyrm: Revelation was showing promise for the nascent Virgin New Adventures line, it looked like a TV Movie could possibly be out in time for the 30th Anniversary, and narration had been recorded for the soundtracks of three missing stories - including Tomb of the Cybermen! I felt a twinge of sadness reading the reports of conventions with Jon Pertwee being particularly prominent; but overall the present is a much better time to be a fan of Doctor Who.
Published:
Date: 25th December 1991
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
The beginning of the second episode, The Talking Stones of Tyron; and as usual it will open with a reprise - of sorts...
Breaking the First Law of Time
In production terms, there was a time when the Doctor would only meet his past and future selves on important anniversaries. That changed with The Two Doctors, and while multi-Doctor stories remained unusual - even after the end of the TV series in 1989 and the explosion of stories in other media - it seemed as if there no longer needed to be an excuse to bring them together.
This is a particularly significant pairing: the early first Doctor and the last, the seventh, both known for being mysterious and manipulative. Their eras bookend the series, and are explicitly linked by Remembrance of the Daleks. The illustrations support this, with a black-and-white first Doctor and a colour seventh on opposite sides of the text. I've not been very complimentary about Paul Vyse's artwork in the past but this time he does a great job, particularly with Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, who looks suitably intense.
One of the problems I had with the continuity of Remembrance was that it implied the first Doctor knew of the Daleks and prepared in advance to deal with them. This quite neatly resolves that particular issue. Having said that, it would make sense for this to happen to the seventh before his televised return to Totter's Lane; but he is wearing his brown jacket from later series 26, and there is talk of him "preparing for the end". The latter can be justified following the events of The Fires of Vulcan, Red, and Dragonfire, as he prepares to take on a more proactive role; the former - while of no consequence for an ordinary person - jars more. Still, this is the best place for him. We are kept at a distance, but his reaction on hearing Susan's name mentioned is touching.
Still, this is a first Doctor marathon, so what of him? The setting is I.M. Foreman's yard in the winter of 1962-3, before the events of Time and Relative; and this story has an affinity with that one, although it doesn't quite match up. The Doctor can't really remember who he is or where he came from, but this is not a punishment for exiles by the Time Lords; rather, it is a result of trying to operate a TARDIS belonging to someone else. Still, perhaps Susan was confused in the novella about the cause of the block on her memories. Again, it can be reconciled. It is harder to make it fit with prior travels, but that is true of Kim Newman's explanation too; in both cases we can say it took a while to catch up with them.
Hardest of all to figure out is another passage:
Strange, though, how he had suddenly developed such an emotional bond with [Susan]. Natural enough, he supposed, after so many years of solitary wandering.I'm sorry, but what? OK, so there's no real reason why this couldn't be so, but it's a fairly extreme case of the 'TV plus this story' canon syndrome I mentioned last time. (I should note that the story goes on to emphasise that she is nevertheless his actual grand-daughter, so it is not a Terrance Dicks-style reinterpretation of their original relationship; but it still seems a bizarre couple of sentences.) I prefer to ignore this.
So, I've said a lot about continuity, but what about the writing? This is actually rather good. It partly avoids the need to characterise the first Doctor recognisably since he is in the grip of the mind problems caused by the TARDIS, and is the more fearful version from the start of the show anyway; and the seventh is shown from a distance. Despite the continuity issues above, I like it.
Windows on the Past
In the children's bedroom sits a whole pile of DWM issues I have not yet read. While I was casting about for something to review here, I realised that - thanks to my birthday present - I don't have to save up the pocket money to pay for them!
This issue is from 1991, and it's a fascinating glimpse into the past. The first thing to note is how different the balance of content is from a modern issue: in 52 pages (including covers) there are two prose stories, three comic strips of a page or more, and three shorter cartoons (my favourite being 'Auton at C&A'). There are similarities too, of course: we have a poster, news, letters, interviews and an 'archive section' covering a story in detail (in this case, Spearhead from Space).
The news and letters give a great impression of the different mood of fandom at the time. There is a definite sense of doom and gloom, with lots of complaints about how the BBC had treated the show and a report on an attempt to sue the corporation over it! There was some optimism, too: Timewyrm: Revelation was showing promise for the nascent Virgin New Adventures line, it looked like a TV Movie could possibly be out in time for the 30th Anniversary, and narration had been recorded for the soundtracks of three missing stories - including Tomb of the Cybermen! I felt a twinge of sadness reading the reports of conventions with Jon Pertwee being particularly prominent; but overall the present is a much better time to be a fan of Doctor Who.
Published:
Date: 25th December 1991
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
The beginning of the second episode, The Talking Stones of Tyron; and as usual it will open with a reprise - of sorts...
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Doctor Who Yearbook 1995: Urrozdinee, by Mark Gatiss
This four-page story is, I believe, Mark Gatiss' only published work for
the first Doctor. The TARDIS Index File isn't very helpful in checking
this since the page on Gatiss only lists his longer works plus televised spoofs, forcing me to rely on my spreadsheet (which gathers information from various sources, but is far from complete).
There are full-colour illustrations on every page; Alistair Hughes provides all of them except for the first, which is a photo taken during the filming of Marco Polo. Unfortunately they are mostly lifeless, and do little to add to the story (although having said that, they are still quite a bit better than the artwork accompanying Who Discovered America? and Rennigan's Record, reviewed earlier). The exception is the picture of the Eminence trying on his gown, which I thought was well done. I note that this is the only image not to feature Susan and the Doctor; so it may be that Hughes' efforts to capture their features (which he does successfully) cramped his style.
The illustrations mean that the story is only around 2,500 words (based on a quick line count). By way of comparison, Dialogue Disasters is about 3,900, and only half a story; so Gatiss hasn't much room for manoeuvre here. His prose is appropriately spare, and he manages to conjure up a society with baroque politics and bizarre architecture very quickly. He gets in a reminder that the TARDIS at this point can change it's form, and his penchant for grim humour comes through, too. I love the fact that they have a Minister of Poverty, a Minister of Disease, and a Minister of Death; and the climax of Urrozdinee's tale is also blackly comic.
Not that this is a dark story. On the contrary, it's a tourist's eye view of a moment in the future politics of Earth, and as such quite light and inconsequential. I have marked it down for that, I think, which is a little unfair; but it's the way my mind works. Similarly, I had unfortunately been spoiled and knew about the reveal at the end, so I've no idea if I would have worked it out. This is a shame, and again costs the story points through no fault of its own.
What of the Doctor and Susan, then? They are well characterised; but before I say much more, a brief aside.
Doctor Who: The Early Adventures, part 1
As I mentioned in my review of Frayed, several people have argued - eloquently - that the Doctor shouldn't have had adventures before An Unearthly Child. I'm in two minds. Certainly he shouldn't be "Doctorish", to coin a phrase, since the arc of the first thirteen episodes is, basically, him becoming the Doctor; but on the other hand, as we learn later, part of his motivation for going into exile is that he wants to see the universe properly, to interact with it. So that's what he should be doing - but cautiously, like a tourist rather than an adventurer.
Most of what happens with the time travellers here fits that. I particularly like the Wizard of Oz moment when they go up to a great door and a hatch opens, someone pokes their head out and tells them to go away. There is another point when they have to get away and the Doctor does something a bit "adventurish"; but as soon as their escape is complete he comments that "that's quite enough adventure for a while", so Gatiss can be let off the hook for that!
Unfortunately, we immediately hit the old problem of an author writing for a canon consisting of the TV stories plus this one. The Doctor continues, adding that it's time to put down some roots, and comments that he has a place in mind if the Ship can make it. There are rather too many stories where he makes this decision - Quinnis and Bide-a-Wee, to name a couple of others - and the obvious intention is that he is thinking of 1960s London. However, this needn't be the case. Perhaps he wants to make roots in the Fourth Universe? Or perhaps it's just a case of it taking a few tries to get there? Whatever, it can be made to work. And that's good enough.
Published:
Date: September 1994
ISBN: 1-85400-357-7
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
Just to make the gap between episodes a week, I'll take a peek into Days of Future Past.
There are full-colour illustrations on every page; Alistair Hughes provides all of them except for the first, which is a photo taken during the filming of Marco Polo. Unfortunately they are mostly lifeless, and do little to add to the story (although having said that, they are still quite a bit better than the artwork accompanying Who Discovered America? and Rennigan's Record, reviewed earlier). The exception is the picture of the Eminence trying on his gown, which I thought was well done. I note that this is the only image not to feature Susan and the Doctor; so it may be that Hughes' efforts to capture their features (which he does successfully) cramped his style.
The illustrations mean that the story is only around 2,500 words (based on a quick line count). By way of comparison, Dialogue Disasters is about 3,900, and only half a story; so Gatiss hasn't much room for manoeuvre here. His prose is appropriately spare, and he manages to conjure up a society with baroque politics and bizarre architecture very quickly. He gets in a reminder that the TARDIS at this point can change it's form, and his penchant for grim humour comes through, too. I love the fact that they have a Minister of Poverty, a Minister of Disease, and a Minister of Death; and the climax of Urrozdinee's tale is also blackly comic.
Not that this is a dark story. On the contrary, it's a tourist's eye view of a moment in the future politics of Earth, and as such quite light and inconsequential. I have marked it down for that, I think, which is a little unfair; but it's the way my mind works. Similarly, I had unfortunately been spoiled and knew about the reveal at the end, so I've no idea if I would have worked it out. This is a shame, and again costs the story points through no fault of its own.
What of the Doctor and Susan, then? They are well characterised; but before I say much more, a brief aside.
Doctor Who: The Early Adventures, part 1
As I mentioned in my review of Frayed, several people have argued - eloquently - that the Doctor shouldn't have had adventures before An Unearthly Child. I'm in two minds. Certainly he shouldn't be "Doctorish", to coin a phrase, since the arc of the first thirteen episodes is, basically, him becoming the Doctor; but on the other hand, as we learn later, part of his motivation for going into exile is that he wants to see the universe properly, to interact with it. So that's what he should be doing - but cautiously, like a tourist rather than an adventurer.
Most of what happens with the time travellers here fits that. I particularly like the Wizard of Oz moment when they go up to a great door and a hatch opens, someone pokes their head out and tells them to go away. There is another point when they have to get away and the Doctor does something a bit "adventurish"; but as soon as their escape is complete he comments that "that's quite enough adventure for a while", so Gatiss can be let off the hook for that!
Unfortunately, we immediately hit the old problem of an author writing for a canon consisting of the TV stories plus this one. The Doctor continues, adding that it's time to put down some roots, and comments that he has a place in mind if the Ship can make it. There are rather too many stories where he makes this decision - Quinnis and Bide-a-Wee, to name a couple of others - and the obvious intention is that he is thinking of 1960s London. However, this needn't be the case. Perhaps he wants to make roots in the Fourth Universe? Or perhaps it's just a case of it taking a few tries to get there? Whatever, it can be made to work. And that's good enough.
Published:
Date: September 1994
ISBN: 1-85400-357-7
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
Just to make the gap between episodes a week, I'll take a peek into Days of Future Past.
Monday 19 November 2012
Dialogue Disasters, scene 5 (conclusion)
Ian was furious. He quickly gathered up their things, not looking at the
object of his anger; then hurried after Barbara. When he caught up,
Barbara was holding Vicki by the shoulders and listening to her as she
let off steam.
"You don't understand - I've got to go back! Something's controlling the Doctor - he would never behave like that otherwise!"
Barbara was being calm and reasonable, back to her usual self. "Vicki, you don't know him like Ian and I do. Did I ever explain how we first came to be travelling with him? He kidnapped us, took us out of our own time because he was afraid of what would happen if he let us go once we'd seen the inside of the TARDIS. Since then he's said some appalling things, deliberately put us in danger to satisfy his curiosity -"
"But that's not the Doctor I know! He's kind, and wise, not..." She trailed off.
Ian decided to step in. "Vicki, Barbara's right. He used to be different, a much harder person to like. We thought he'd changed, mellowed; but then we'd thought that before. Just before he threatened to throw us off the ship." He shook his head. "I don't know. I believed it was going to stick this time, but you never can tell with the Doctor."
"Stop it! Now you're making fun of him! Didn't you listen? It was his voice but those weren't his words. Well, they were, but he wouldn't say them in that way. Oh, I don't know. I'm so confused." She sat down, elbows on knees and chin in hands.
Barbara squatted beside her. "I know it's hard to believe, when someone you care about does something like this. But it's not always aliens at fault; sometimes it's just that people are flawed, that they don't always think clearly. If we give him time to consider, I'm sure he'll see what he's done. Come with us for now, and if the Doctor hasn't turned up by mid-afternoon we'll come back for him. How about that?"
Vicki looked into Barbara's kind, gentle face and smiled, sadly. Then she nodded.
They set off for the ship. Barbara hung back a little, so that she could have a quiet word with Ian. "I'm going to kill that man," she said.
"You'll have to stand in line," Ian replied.
Soon they were down in the valley again, and as they started making their way through the longer grass Vicki stopped. "Ouch!" she said. "These blades are sharp."
Ian gestured to his bag. "I've brought our clothes - do you want to get your leggings and boots back on?"
Vicki paused, uncertain. "My swimming costume's still wet. I don't want to get everything else wet too."
"Tell you what," said Barbara, taking charge. "Ian, you stay here; Vicki, let's go behind that stone and change. OK?"
They divided up the clothes and the pair left Ian looking tactfully in the opposite direction. He decided his trunks were dry enough, and pulled his trousers on over them. As he put his socks on he decided Vicki was right: his feet were scratched from less than a minute walking in the long grass. Then, just on the edge of hearing, some of the girls' conversation reached him.
"-can be pretty dull at times." That was Barbara.
"But he means well."
"Oh, yes. And he's very reliable."
"That's a good thing, isn't it?"
"I suppose so. And yet, I keep thinking-"
The wind changed. Ian could make out no more, until he heard Vicki giggle; and soon after the others appeared, dressed for walking again.
Barbara must have seen the expression on his face, for she stopped suddenly, before striding up to him and taking his arm. "Don't worry," she said, "whatever happens we'll see it through. Together."
Will we? he thought. But he nodded, and they set off again.
Ian let Barbara and Vicki do most of the talking. He was good at hiding his feelings, much of the time even from himself; but right now everything was too raw, and he didn't trust himself to say much. His vision had narrowed; he could see the grass-covered ground in front of him, and little else. "Careful, Ian," said Barbara, sounding concerned as she steered him around one of the stones.
How he hated those stones! Everywhere you looked, there they were, pinning the landscape to the planet. How many had they passed already? How many more before they got back to the ship? He took it out on the next one as they passed, giving it a swift kick - stupidly, because it hurt his toes and did nothing to the stone. Ruefully he lifted his foot, and noticed that something was pressing into his other sole, making it sore to stand on. Barbara and Vicki were a little way ahead, now, so he called to them. "Hang on, you two - something's got into my shoe." They turned and started back.
Ian leaned against the stone and levered off his shoe, shaking it out. As usual the stones were tiny, far too small to be as uncomfortable as they undoubtedly were. He was a bit tired, so sat down to put the shoe back on again. "That's got it," he said, a little more cheerfully. "Quite a bit of soil had got in there."
Barbara, who had walked back beside Vicki, took an extra step forward. She had an odd look on her face, as if she were worried about something. "Let me take a look," she said.
"See here, Barbara, it's just earth - it's not worth bothering with. Unless you're going to analyse the soil type! And it'll be spread far and wide now, I can tell you!"
"No! There must be something we can do?" She looked horrified; behind her, Vicki wore a similar expression.
Ian was starting to feel irritated. "Sorry, Barbara, I'm not the greatest target for your jiving and your high jinks right now." He started to get up - and found he couldn't. "Hey - what's happening? I can't move my legs!"
Barbara nodded. "Right, I'm going. Do you want Vicki to stay with you?"
"I don't understand. Just give me a hand, Barbara, for Heaven's sake! Get me up!"
"Alright then. We'll be back as soon as we can. Hang on, Ian! You're not going to die on me. Do you hear? You are not. Going. To die! I...I forbid it!" He could see the determination on her face, the battle not to cry. What was going on?
They turned and ran, towards the distant TARDIS. Ian struggled, but couldn't lift himself. He called after them. "Barbara! Vicki! Come back! Barbara! BARBARAAA!"
His words were lost on the breeze.
Next Time:
As the music cuts in we see the title of the second episode, The Talking Stones of Tyron; but there should be a gap between episodes, surely? So I'll insert something out of sequence. What shall it be, what shall it be...
I know! What about Urrozdinee? Yes, let's go there.
"You don't understand - I've got to go back! Something's controlling the Doctor - he would never behave like that otherwise!"
Barbara was being calm and reasonable, back to her usual self. "Vicki, you don't know him like Ian and I do. Did I ever explain how we first came to be travelling with him? He kidnapped us, took us out of our own time because he was afraid of what would happen if he let us go once we'd seen the inside of the TARDIS. Since then he's said some appalling things, deliberately put us in danger to satisfy his curiosity -"
"But that's not the Doctor I know! He's kind, and wise, not..." She trailed off.
Ian decided to step in. "Vicki, Barbara's right. He used to be different, a much harder person to like. We thought he'd changed, mellowed; but then we'd thought that before. Just before he threatened to throw us off the ship." He shook his head. "I don't know. I believed it was going to stick this time, but you never can tell with the Doctor."
"Stop it! Now you're making fun of him! Didn't you listen? It was his voice but those weren't his words. Well, they were, but he wouldn't say them in that way. Oh, I don't know. I'm so confused." She sat down, elbows on knees and chin in hands.
Barbara squatted beside her. "I know it's hard to believe, when someone you care about does something like this. But it's not always aliens at fault; sometimes it's just that people are flawed, that they don't always think clearly. If we give him time to consider, I'm sure he'll see what he's done. Come with us for now, and if the Doctor hasn't turned up by mid-afternoon we'll come back for him. How about that?"
Vicki looked into Barbara's kind, gentle face and smiled, sadly. Then she nodded.
They set off for the ship. Barbara hung back a little, so that she could have a quiet word with Ian. "I'm going to kill that man," she said.
"You'll have to stand in line," Ian replied.
Soon they were down in the valley again, and as they started making their way through the longer grass Vicki stopped. "Ouch!" she said. "These blades are sharp."
Ian gestured to his bag. "I've brought our clothes - do you want to get your leggings and boots back on?"
Vicki paused, uncertain. "My swimming costume's still wet. I don't want to get everything else wet too."
"Tell you what," said Barbara, taking charge. "Ian, you stay here; Vicki, let's go behind that stone and change. OK?"
They divided up the clothes and the pair left Ian looking tactfully in the opposite direction. He decided his trunks were dry enough, and pulled his trousers on over them. As he put his socks on he decided Vicki was right: his feet were scratched from less than a minute walking in the long grass. Then, just on the edge of hearing, some of the girls' conversation reached him.
"-can be pretty dull at times." That was Barbara.
"But he means well."
"Oh, yes. And he's very reliable."
"That's a good thing, isn't it?"
"I suppose so. And yet, I keep thinking-"
The wind changed. Ian could make out no more, until he heard Vicki giggle; and soon after the others appeared, dressed for walking again.
Barbara must have seen the expression on his face, for she stopped suddenly, before striding up to him and taking his arm. "Don't worry," she said, "whatever happens we'll see it through. Together."
Will we? he thought. But he nodded, and they set off again.
Ian let Barbara and Vicki do most of the talking. He was good at hiding his feelings, much of the time even from himself; but right now everything was too raw, and he didn't trust himself to say much. His vision had narrowed; he could see the grass-covered ground in front of him, and little else. "Careful, Ian," said Barbara, sounding concerned as she steered him around one of the stones.
How he hated those stones! Everywhere you looked, there they were, pinning the landscape to the planet. How many had they passed already? How many more before they got back to the ship? He took it out on the next one as they passed, giving it a swift kick - stupidly, because it hurt his toes and did nothing to the stone. Ruefully he lifted his foot, and noticed that something was pressing into his other sole, making it sore to stand on. Barbara and Vicki were a little way ahead, now, so he called to them. "Hang on, you two - something's got into my shoe." They turned and started back.
Ian leaned against the stone and levered off his shoe, shaking it out. As usual the stones were tiny, far too small to be as uncomfortable as they undoubtedly were. He was a bit tired, so sat down to put the shoe back on again. "That's got it," he said, a little more cheerfully. "Quite a bit of soil had got in there."
Barbara, who had walked back beside Vicki, took an extra step forward. She had an odd look on her face, as if she were worried about something. "Let me take a look," she said.
"See here, Barbara, it's just earth - it's not worth bothering with. Unless you're going to analyse the soil type! And it'll be spread far and wide now, I can tell you!"
"No! There must be something we can do?" She looked horrified; behind her, Vicki wore a similar expression.
Ian was starting to feel irritated. "Sorry, Barbara, I'm not the greatest target for your jiving and your high jinks right now." He started to get up - and found he couldn't. "Hey - what's happening? I can't move my legs!"
Barbara nodded. "Right, I'm going. Do you want Vicki to stay with you?"
"I don't understand. Just give me a hand, Barbara, for Heaven's sake! Get me up!"
"Alright then. We'll be back as soon as we can. Hang on, Ian! You're not going to die on me. Do you hear? You are not. Going. To die! I...I forbid it!" He could see the determination on her face, the battle not to cry. What was going on?
They turned and ran, towards the distant TARDIS. Ian struggled, but couldn't lift himself. He called after them. "Barbara! Vicki! Come back! Barbara! BARBARAAA!"
His words were lost on the breeze.
Next Time:
As the music cuts in we see the title of the second episode, The Talking Stones of Tyron; but there should be a gap between episodes, surely? So I'll insert something out of sequence. What shall it be, what shall it be...
I know! What about Urrozdinee? Yes, let's go there.
Friday 16 November 2012
Dialogue Disasters, scene 4
Barbara kept an eye on Ian as they walked up the hill. He was obviously
tense, and was walking at an almost funereal pace, delaying their return
to the picnic site. She didn't want to say anything while they were
with Vicki; but the girl was unusually quiet, and Barbara wondered if
she might have noticed the change in Ian's manner too.
Was she worrying about nothing? It was an aspect of her personality that came to the fore all too frequently, she knew; her mother had commented on it often enough. "I wish you could just relax," she'd say. It did happen, sometimes - after a week or so in the villa near Rome, for example - but it just wasn't something that came easily to her.
Tyron had seemed so promising when they first arrived, and in truth there still wasn't anything wrong with the world; but perhaps they brought their own troubles with them. She remembered first stepping out of the TARDIS into the warm air, smelling the perfume of the flowers and listening to the chittering of the insects. There were no birds, but the smaller creatures made just as much noise, creating a pleasant backdrop of sound.
The TARDIS had landed at the edge of a wood, in a broad, grassy valley. "It's beautiful!" Vicki had exclaimed, turning slowly round and round. "Everything's so bright and fresh!"
Ian was more focused on the feature that did the most to make the landscape look alien. "Doctor, look at the stones. There's a pattern to how they are arranged, but I can't quite figure it out."
"Indeed. Definitely a sign of intelligent life, I would say. We should investigate further."
Of course, they had. The stones were regular, about five feet high and almost as broad at their widest point. They had oval bases, tapering to a curved peak a hand's breadth across. Barbara was reminded of gravestones, but it didn't feel like a cemetery; and the stones were free of markings other than those caused by erosion from the wind and rain. The arrangement was puzzling; there were no straight lines, but each seemed to be about twelve yards from its nearest neighbours. As she looked around, she noticed an isolated hill not too far away.
"Ian," she called, "why don't we climb that hill? We might get a better sense of the pattern from a higher vantage point."
"Good idea. Doctor! Vicki!"
And so they had gone together, walking through the long blue-green grass, like a perfectly normal family on a day out in the country. Vicki chatted excitedly, Ian had a spring in his step, the Doctor kept stopping to examine things; all was well. The hill was steeper than it had looked from a distance, and higher, too; but with some huffing and puffing from the Doctor they made their way to the top, and looked down on the valley below.
"Sunflowers!" exclaimed Barbara, suddenly. The others looked at her. "The stones are like the seeds of a sunflower, arranged in opposing spirals."
"Of course!" Ian looked as if he were kicking himself for not thinking of it. "Based on the Fibonacci sequence. the number of spirals in a sunflower winding in each direction always matches a pair of consecutive numbers in the sequence - 13 and 21, for instance. Here the lower number is" - he paused to count - "34, so the higher must be-"
"55," interposed Vicki. "I remember Fibonacci; we covered that when I was six, I think. After the first two numbers, 1 and 2, each is the sum of the previous two in the sequence. So it goes 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55..."
"Thank you, Vicki, that's impressive." Ian looked both amused and surprised.
"There's another neat thing about it. As you go up the sequence, the fraction you get from pairs of numbers - 34/55ths with these stones, for example - gets closer and closer to the Golden Ratio. Which crops up in all sorts of places. You can find it in art, music, nature..."
"Yes, yes, thank you, child." The Doctor, as usual, was impatient with people explaining what he already knew; Barbara had been quite enjoying the reminder, since her maths was a bit rusty. "That's all very good, but does it explain why these stones are as they are, hmm?"
Barbara was getting a little bored with the focus on the stones. "Perhaps we could let you mull that over, Doctor, while we took a bit more of a look around? It's a lovely day, and it seems a shame to waste it."
Vicki was instantly energised. "Yes, let's explore!" She took another look around, this time paying more attention to the landscape than the stones. "Isn't that a lake over there, around the bend in the valley? I think I can see the light reflecting on water." She turned to Barbara. "Can we go for a swim? Please?"
So it had been decided, and they had all traipsed back to the ship to pick up some supplies before heading off for the lake. Barbara had hesitated when Ian suggested a picnic - they hadn't had much luck with them on previous trips - but Ian was logical and Vicki enthusiastic, so she quickly gave in.
And now, here they were, wet but warm; almost back at their picnic spot. She hoped she'd dialled the right codes on the food machine.
The Doctor was still reading, but he put his book down and sat up when he saw the others coming. "Chesterton, my boy, is something the matter?"
"Well, I-" Ian began, but the Doctor didn't give him a chance to continue as he turned to Vicki.
"Goodness, child, look at you, all soaking wet. You need to put on something dry, before you catch your death of cold."
Vicki smiled indulgently. "I'm fine, Doctor. It's a lovely warm day, and in this sun I'll be dry in no time."
The Doctor's mood darkened. "You'll do as you're told, young lady, and no more arguing with your elders! Honestly, I don't know what your father taught you, but it certainly wasn't how to behave!"
Vicki looked as if she'd been slapped; Ian stepped in to defend her. "Doctor, you can't-"
"Oh, do shut up, Chessington! It's quite clear to me that what she needs is some proper discipline. You and Miss Wright have been using the death of her father on Dido as an excuse to indulge poor behaviour for far too long. She should be over that by now, but she's spoilt; soon she'll be complaining because there are no animals on Tyron large enough for her to saddle with a stupid nickname."
With a cry, Vicki turned and ran off, face in her hands. Barbara glared at the old man. "You've gone too far this time, Doctor. I'm going after her, but don't think I'm just going to let this lie."
As she set off, she heard Ian behind her. "I don't care what you say to me, but that's no way to treat a young girl. We're going back to the ship; think about what you've said, and when you're ready to behave like a human being again and apologise to Vicki come and join us. Not before. Understand?"
And then they were gone, leaving the old man to his thoughts.
Next Time:
The final scene of this episode.
Was she worrying about nothing? It was an aspect of her personality that came to the fore all too frequently, she knew; her mother had commented on it often enough. "I wish you could just relax," she'd say. It did happen, sometimes - after a week or so in the villa near Rome, for example - but it just wasn't something that came easily to her.
Tyron had seemed so promising when they first arrived, and in truth there still wasn't anything wrong with the world; but perhaps they brought their own troubles with them. She remembered first stepping out of the TARDIS into the warm air, smelling the perfume of the flowers and listening to the chittering of the insects. There were no birds, but the smaller creatures made just as much noise, creating a pleasant backdrop of sound.
The TARDIS had landed at the edge of a wood, in a broad, grassy valley. "It's beautiful!" Vicki had exclaimed, turning slowly round and round. "Everything's so bright and fresh!"
Ian was more focused on the feature that did the most to make the landscape look alien. "Doctor, look at the stones. There's a pattern to how they are arranged, but I can't quite figure it out."
"Indeed. Definitely a sign of intelligent life, I would say. We should investigate further."
Of course, they had. The stones were regular, about five feet high and almost as broad at their widest point. They had oval bases, tapering to a curved peak a hand's breadth across. Barbara was reminded of gravestones, but it didn't feel like a cemetery; and the stones were free of markings other than those caused by erosion from the wind and rain. The arrangement was puzzling; there were no straight lines, but each seemed to be about twelve yards from its nearest neighbours. As she looked around, she noticed an isolated hill not too far away.
"Ian," she called, "why don't we climb that hill? We might get a better sense of the pattern from a higher vantage point."
"Good idea. Doctor! Vicki!"
And so they had gone together, walking through the long blue-green grass, like a perfectly normal family on a day out in the country. Vicki chatted excitedly, Ian had a spring in his step, the Doctor kept stopping to examine things; all was well. The hill was steeper than it had looked from a distance, and higher, too; but with some huffing and puffing from the Doctor they made their way to the top, and looked down on the valley below.
"Sunflowers!" exclaimed Barbara, suddenly. The others looked at her. "The stones are like the seeds of a sunflower, arranged in opposing spirals."
"Of course!" Ian looked as if he were kicking himself for not thinking of it. "Based on the Fibonacci sequence. the number of spirals in a sunflower winding in each direction always matches a pair of consecutive numbers in the sequence - 13 and 21, for instance. Here the lower number is" - he paused to count - "34, so the higher must be-"
"55," interposed Vicki. "I remember Fibonacci; we covered that when I was six, I think. After the first two numbers, 1 and 2, each is the sum of the previous two in the sequence. So it goes 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55..."
"Thank you, Vicki, that's impressive." Ian looked both amused and surprised.
"There's another neat thing about it. As you go up the sequence, the fraction you get from pairs of numbers - 34/55ths with these stones, for example - gets closer and closer to the Golden Ratio. Which crops up in all sorts of places. You can find it in art, music, nature..."
"Yes, yes, thank you, child." The Doctor, as usual, was impatient with people explaining what he already knew; Barbara had been quite enjoying the reminder, since her maths was a bit rusty. "That's all very good, but does it explain why these stones are as they are, hmm?"
Barbara was getting a little bored with the focus on the stones. "Perhaps we could let you mull that over, Doctor, while we took a bit more of a look around? It's a lovely day, and it seems a shame to waste it."
Vicki was instantly energised. "Yes, let's explore!" She took another look around, this time paying more attention to the landscape than the stones. "Isn't that a lake over there, around the bend in the valley? I think I can see the light reflecting on water." She turned to Barbara. "Can we go for a swim? Please?"
So it had been decided, and they had all traipsed back to the ship to pick up some supplies before heading off for the lake. Barbara had hesitated when Ian suggested a picnic - they hadn't had much luck with them on previous trips - but Ian was logical and Vicki enthusiastic, so she quickly gave in.
And now, here they were, wet but warm; almost back at their picnic spot. She hoped she'd dialled the right codes on the food machine.
The Doctor was still reading, but he put his book down and sat up when he saw the others coming. "Chesterton, my boy, is something the matter?"
"Well, I-" Ian began, but the Doctor didn't give him a chance to continue as he turned to Vicki.
"Goodness, child, look at you, all soaking wet. You need to put on something dry, before you catch your death of cold."
Vicki smiled indulgently. "I'm fine, Doctor. It's a lovely warm day, and in this sun I'll be dry in no time."
The Doctor's mood darkened. "You'll do as you're told, young lady, and no more arguing with your elders! Honestly, I don't know what your father taught you, but it certainly wasn't how to behave!"
Vicki looked as if she'd been slapped; Ian stepped in to defend her. "Doctor, you can't-"
"Oh, do shut up, Chessington! It's quite clear to me that what she needs is some proper discipline. You and Miss Wright have been using the death of her father on Dido as an excuse to indulge poor behaviour for far too long. She should be over that by now, but she's spoilt; soon she'll be complaining because there are no animals on Tyron large enough for her to saddle with a stupid nickname."
With a cry, Vicki turned and ran off, face in her hands. Barbara glared at the old man. "You've gone too far this time, Doctor. I'm going after her, but don't think I'm just going to let this lie."
As she set off, she heard Ian behind her. "I don't care what you say to me, but that's no way to treat a young girl. We're going back to the ship; think about what you've said, and when you're ready to behave like a human being again and apologise to Vicki come and join us. Not before. Understand?"
And then they were gone, leaving the old man to his thoughts.
Next Time:
The final scene of this episode.
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Dialogue Disasters, scene 3
As they chatted, Vicki noticed Barbara's attention kept drifting up the
bank. She knew why, but it was still distracting. Eventually, she turned
round in the water and looked for herself. Ian was lying on his side,
talking to the Doctor. Vicki was too far away to hear the conversation,
but they seemed relaxed.
"I'm sorry," said Barbara, "I didn't mean to do that. It was very rude of me."
Vicki turned back, a knowing half-smile on her face. She liked Barbara, even though she was so hopelessly old-fashioned. The teacher didn't really have much of a sense of adventure, though. Not like the Doctor. The race had been fun, but it was starting to get a bit boring in the lake, just talking. Time to liven things up.
"Hey, Barbara, why don't we play a trick on Ian? Call him down here to help us out, and then pull him in!"
Barbara wasn't convinced. "Oh, I don't know if that's a very good idea..."
"He's still in his trunks, isn't he? I bet he'll laugh about it afterwards. Oh, come on, Barbara! Please?" Vicki could tell that she was wavering. "He's probably had enough of a break anyway; perhaps we could race him too?"
Barbara hesitated. "It seems a shame to disturb him now he's settled, though," she said; but just then Ian stood up. That did it. Barbara quickly agreed, and they signalled for Ian to come back down.
Vicki thought he looked a bit serious as he approached, as if something were troubling him. She wondered if perhaps now wasn't the time for a prank; but it was too late to talk to Barbara about it.
"What can I do for you ladies?" Ian was smiling now; but Vicki had spotted the moment when he decided he wasn't going to share his thoughts with them.
"Why thank you, kind sir," replied Barbara. "If you would be so good as to lend us a hand...?" She raised her arm; Ian swept an imaginary hat from his head and bowed, theatrically. He reached down to her.
As soon as he had a firm grip, Barbara pulled. Ian staggered, but managed to brace himself, his feet right on the edge. "Oh, no you don't!" he said, tugging on her arm with all his strength.
"Vicki, help me!" said Barbara, and the girl moved at last. No time for indecision now. She reached up and grabbed Ian by the ankle, as Barbara was being lifted from the water. It was enough: his foot skidded, and all three of them tumbled noisily back into the lake.
They rose to the surface spluttering and laughing. "Hoo, I needed that," said Ian. He took Barbara's hand, under the water; and suddenly Vicki felt like a gooseberry. "I think I've had enough of swimming for now," she announced. "I'll just go and see what the Doctor's doing."
For a second Vicki thought Ian was going to say something; he had an odd, thoughtful look on his face. But he just nodded. Barbara noticed it as well, and made a point of examining her other hand.
"Goodness, look at those wrinkles! I think it's time for me to get out, too." She looked at Ian. "Coming?"
"Well, we wouldn't want to let the food bars go cold, would we?"
They clambered out of the water.
Next Time:
Scene 4.
"I'm sorry," said Barbara, "I didn't mean to do that. It was very rude of me."
Vicki turned back, a knowing half-smile on her face. She liked Barbara, even though she was so hopelessly old-fashioned. The teacher didn't really have much of a sense of adventure, though. Not like the Doctor. The race had been fun, but it was starting to get a bit boring in the lake, just talking. Time to liven things up.
"Hey, Barbara, why don't we play a trick on Ian? Call him down here to help us out, and then pull him in!"
Barbara wasn't convinced. "Oh, I don't know if that's a very good idea..."
"He's still in his trunks, isn't he? I bet he'll laugh about it afterwards. Oh, come on, Barbara! Please?" Vicki could tell that she was wavering. "He's probably had enough of a break anyway; perhaps we could race him too?"
Barbara hesitated. "It seems a shame to disturb him now he's settled, though," she said; but just then Ian stood up. That did it. Barbara quickly agreed, and they signalled for Ian to come back down.
Vicki thought he looked a bit serious as he approached, as if something were troubling him. She wondered if perhaps now wasn't the time for a prank; but it was too late to talk to Barbara about it.
"What can I do for you ladies?" Ian was smiling now; but Vicki had spotted the moment when he decided he wasn't going to share his thoughts with them.
"Why thank you, kind sir," replied Barbara. "If you would be so good as to lend us a hand...?" She raised her arm; Ian swept an imaginary hat from his head and bowed, theatrically. He reached down to her.
As soon as he had a firm grip, Barbara pulled. Ian staggered, but managed to brace himself, his feet right on the edge. "Oh, no you don't!" he said, tugging on her arm with all his strength.
"Vicki, help me!" said Barbara, and the girl moved at last. No time for indecision now. She reached up and grabbed Ian by the ankle, as Barbara was being lifted from the water. It was enough: his foot skidded, and all three of them tumbled noisily back into the lake.
They rose to the surface spluttering and laughing. "Hoo, I needed that," said Ian. He took Barbara's hand, under the water; and suddenly Vicki felt like a gooseberry. "I think I've had enough of swimming for now," she announced. "I'll just go and see what the Doctor's doing."
For a second Vicki thought Ian was going to say something; he had an odd, thoughtful look on his face. But he just nodded. Barbara noticed it as well, and made a point of examining her other hand.
"Goodness, look at those wrinkles! I think it's time for me to get out, too." She looked at Ian. "Coming?"
"Well, we wouldn't want to let the food bars go cold, would we?"
They clambered out of the water.
Next Time:
Scene 4.
Monday 12 November 2012
Dialogue Disasters, scene 2
Ian spread out his towel and lay down next to the Doctor, just far enough away to be out of the shade. He glanced across at the old man: despite the warmth he was still wearing his waistcoat and cravat, though he had at least hung his jacket over the stone behind him. The Doctor didn't look up from his reading, and Ian's gaze swung back to Barbara, who was performing a leisurely backstroke close to a patch of reeds.
"Don't stay out in the sun too long, my boy. This star produces a lot more ultraviolet rays than you are used to."
Ian turned; the Doctor still had his nose in his book. "Thank you, Doctor, but the cream from the TARDIS seems to be doing the trick - and it's stayed on amazingly well, I must say."
"Well, as I said, you need to apply the counteragent to remove it. But it pays to be cautious, hm?"
The younger man nodded; it was the easiest response. Then he heard a commotion, and turned back to the lake to see Barbara and Vicki playfighting, before racing off at speed. He felt a pang of envy. The Doctor spoke again.
"They are more comfortable in the water than you, are they not?"
"Yes, they are," replied Ian, ruefully. "I've never been much of one for swimming. 'Not my bag', as some of my students used to say."
"You stayed in as long as you did because of her, didn't you?"
Ian sighed. He didn't really want to be having this conversation right now. "Yes, Doctor. Because of Barbara."
"Have you spoken to her, like I said? Have you discussed things properly?"
"Yes! We've talked about it several times now, in fact. I may be a slow mover when it comes to matters of the heart, but I do get there eventually. And - well, there's a reason I took my time."
The Doctor was silent; perhaps, for once, he was going to be tactful and not pursue the subject. More likely his attention was still mostly on his book. Ian watched the girls talking by the bank, and wondered what they were saying.
"You're getting lazy, Chesterton. Soon Miss Wright will notice that you're not really the athlete you pretend. You're not up to snuff; and what will hold her attention when she realises it, hm? You don't think your personality could interest her for long, do you? You're as stolid, dependable, and exciting as a block of wood."
Ian swung round, jaw clenched, and stared in amazement. The old man was lying there, book still open, as if he'd just been passing the time of day. "Doctor!" he called - but couldn't think of anything else to add.
The Doctor looked up. "What is it, my boy? I was just thinking that sometimes things are not discussed in time, important things; and that can cause regret later. But that's all dealt with now, isn't it? Everything's been said that needs to be?"
"Oh, yes, I think quite enough's been said, thank you so very much." Ian couldn't bring himself to continue and stood up, taking a few steps away from the stone.
Was the Doctor right? Were his hopes for the future based on an illusion, an impossible dream based on nothing more than the fact that he and Barbara had been thrown together when they were kidnapped? No! He was sure that wasn't the case.
"Ian!" He looked down to the lake, where Barbara was standing, chest-deep in water, by the bank. "Give us a hand, would you?" Floating beside her, Vicki gave a cheery wave.
They could get out of there easily, he thought; she just wants to see you in action. Physical action. Is that all I am to her, then? Some sort of friendly body? There's more to it than that, much more. I'm sure of it. Aren't I?
He set off down the slope towards her.
Next Time:
Scene 3.
"Don't stay out in the sun too long, my boy. This star produces a lot more ultraviolet rays than you are used to."
Ian turned; the Doctor still had his nose in his book. "Thank you, Doctor, but the cream from the TARDIS seems to be doing the trick - and it's stayed on amazingly well, I must say."
"Well, as I said, you need to apply the counteragent to remove it. But it pays to be cautious, hm?"
The younger man nodded; it was the easiest response. Then he heard a commotion, and turned back to the lake to see Barbara and Vicki playfighting, before racing off at speed. He felt a pang of envy. The Doctor spoke again.
"They are more comfortable in the water than you, are they not?"
"Yes, they are," replied Ian, ruefully. "I've never been much of one for swimming. 'Not my bag', as some of my students used to say."
"You stayed in as long as you did because of her, didn't you?"
Ian sighed. He didn't really want to be having this conversation right now. "Yes, Doctor. Because of Barbara."
"Have you spoken to her, like I said? Have you discussed things properly?"
"Yes! We've talked about it several times now, in fact. I may be a slow mover when it comes to matters of the heart, but I do get there eventually. And - well, there's a reason I took my time."
The Doctor was silent; perhaps, for once, he was going to be tactful and not pursue the subject. More likely his attention was still mostly on his book. Ian watched the girls talking by the bank, and wondered what they were saying.
"You're getting lazy, Chesterton. Soon Miss Wright will notice that you're not really the athlete you pretend. You're not up to snuff; and what will hold her attention when she realises it, hm? You don't think your personality could interest her for long, do you? You're as stolid, dependable, and exciting as a block of wood."
Ian swung round, jaw clenched, and stared in amazement. The old man was lying there, book still open, as if he'd just been passing the time of day. "Doctor!" he called - but couldn't think of anything else to add.
The Doctor looked up. "What is it, my boy? I was just thinking that sometimes things are not discussed in time, important things; and that can cause regret later. But that's all dealt with now, isn't it? Everything's been said that needs to be?"
"Oh, yes, I think quite enough's been said, thank you so very much." Ian couldn't bring himself to continue and stood up, taking a few steps away from the stone.
Was the Doctor right? Were his hopes for the future based on an illusion, an impossible dream based on nothing more than the fact that he and Barbara had been thrown together when they were kidnapped? No! He was sure that wasn't the case.
"Ian!" He looked down to the lake, where Barbara was standing, chest-deep in water, by the bank. "Give us a hand, would you?" Floating beside her, Vicki gave a cheery wave.
They could get out of there easily, he thought; she just wants to see you in action. Physical action. Is that all I am to her, then? Some sort of friendly body? There's more to it than that, much more. I'm sure of it. Aren't I?
He set off down the slope towards her.
Next Time:
Scene 3.
Friday 9 November 2012
Dialogue Disasters, scene 1
Barbara swam leisurely through the warm water, luxuriating in the feeling as it enveloped her, lifting her up in body and spirit. Ian was just climbing out, his wet back glistening in the yellow-white light of Tyron's sun; she watched him, surreptitiously, as he towelled his hair and strolled up the bank towards the Doctor, who lay reading in the shadow of a standing stone.
This is perfect, she thought, and wondered when the trouble would start. She was chiding herself for worrying unnecessarily when something erupted from the lake, noisily, showering her with water and momentarily blinding her.
"Got you!" cried a familiar voice, as Vicki's face swam into vague focus.
"Oh, have you indeed?" Barbara ducked beneath the surface where she could see more clearly again, and tried to grab the girl's legs; Vicki twisted out of her grasp and struck out for the shore. If it's a race you want, thought the teacher, I might surprise you; and she started after, feeling her muscles warm to the challenge as she picked up the rhythm of the crawl, one, two, breathe, one, two, breathe...
Barbara was gaining, but she was only the merest fraction swifter than her quarry. Vicki's foot was almost in reach, but the bank was coming up fast. She put on a last burst of speed and called out in triumph as she grabbed hold - just as Vicki's outstretched hand touched the side, and she, too, proclaimed victory.
"Well that was close," said the orphan. "You almost caught me then."
"'Almost'? I think you'll find you're the one who was almost fast enough."
Vicki paused for a second, then smiled knowingly. "Oh, I get it! You can't admit you came second when you're trying to impress Ian."
"I don't know what you mean," replied Barbara - unconvincingly.
"Really? I saw you watching him a few minutes ago."
"I was not!" Barbara felt her face flush. "I was just thinking. That's all."
Vicki smiled again, quietly, but decided to go easy on her. "Anyway, you're a fast swimmer for someone your age."
Barbara laughed, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject. "Thank you. I think. You're quick, too, and your technique is excellent. Have you been practising long?"
"Since I was a baby, of course." She noticed Barbara's expression. "Haven't you?"
"No, it was a little later than that for me."
Vicki looked faintly puzzled. "How strange." She lay back against the bank, feet moving gently to keep her in place. "This reminds me of the tanks back in Liddell Towers. It's the warmth, I think."
"Yes, there are hot springs underneath, extruding water heated by volcanic activity -"
"I know, Barbara. Ian already gave me the lecture."
"Sorry."
"It's just that all this is here without anyone to build it! No pipes, no plastic - not even a hypocaust. It feels - oh, I don't know. Pure, I suppose." She grinned. "Isn't it wonderful!"
Barbara laughed, feeling relaxed again. "It certainly is."
Next Time:
Scene 2.
This is perfect, she thought, and wondered when the trouble would start. She was chiding herself for worrying unnecessarily when something erupted from the lake, noisily, showering her with water and momentarily blinding her.
"Got you!" cried a familiar voice, as Vicki's face swam into vague focus.
"Oh, have you indeed?" Barbara ducked beneath the surface where she could see more clearly again, and tried to grab the girl's legs; Vicki twisted out of her grasp and struck out for the shore. If it's a race you want, thought the teacher, I might surprise you; and she started after, feeling her muscles warm to the challenge as she picked up the rhythm of the crawl, one, two, breathe, one, two, breathe...
Barbara was gaining, but she was only the merest fraction swifter than her quarry. Vicki's foot was almost in reach, but the bank was coming up fast. She put on a last burst of speed and called out in triumph as she grabbed hold - just as Vicki's outstretched hand touched the side, and she, too, proclaimed victory.
"Well that was close," said the orphan. "You almost caught me then."
"'Almost'? I think you'll find you're the one who was almost fast enough."
Vicki paused for a second, then smiled knowingly. "Oh, I get it! You can't admit you came second when you're trying to impress Ian."
"I don't know what you mean," replied Barbara - unconvincingly.
"Really? I saw you watching him a few minutes ago."
"I was not!" Barbara felt her face flush. "I was just thinking. That's all."
Vicki smiled again, quietly, but decided to go easy on her. "Anyway, you're a fast swimmer for someone your age."
Barbara laughed, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject. "Thank you. I think. You're quick, too, and your technique is excellent. Have you been practising long?"
"Since I was a baby, of course." She noticed Barbara's expression. "Haven't you?"
"No, it was a little later than that for me."
Vicki looked faintly puzzled. "How strange." She lay back against the bank, feet moving gently to keep her in place. "This reminds me of the tanks back in Liddell Towers. It's the warmth, I think."
"Yes, there are hot springs underneath, extruding water heated by volcanic activity -"
"I know, Barbara. Ian already gave me the lecture."
"Sorry."
"It's just that all this is here without anyone to build it! No pipes, no plastic - not even a hypocaust. It feels - oh, I don't know. Pure, I suppose." She grinned. "Isn't it wonderful!"
Barbara laughed, feeling relaxed again. "It certainly is."
Next Time:
Scene 2.
Wednesday 7 November 2012
CC6.02: The Rocket Men
We've met John Dorney before in this marathon, wearing his actor hat in The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance and Farewell, Great Macedon!;
but this is the first time we've hit one of the stories he's written.
He is actually the author of my favourite Companion Chronicle, Solitaire;
though as a full-cast two-hander I always feel that hardly counts, so
he may have to console himself with the fact that it's also one of only
eight 10/10 audios I've heard so far (out of about 200).
This one, though not quite up there, is still very good; and again the production suits the script. As long-time readers will know I'm a bit of a William Russell fan, and he's on good form here. There's a lot of emotion in his reading, which is appropriate to the underlying theme of the story as well as the action-packed nature of the narrative. Gus Brown as Ashman is a well-chosen foil, suitably nasty and with a distinct voice. I am renewing my determination to find out what an audio director actually does beyond the obvious, but the prolific Lisa Bowerman certainly gets a lot right - and congrats on the recent Benny anniversary, Ms. Bowerman! The sound design is excellent, modern yet appropriate to the story. If it had tried to match the style of the Republic serials where the rocket men originated I think it would have spoiled the mood.
Ah yes, the Republic serials. I've not seen King of the Rocket Men or its sequels, but I have seen the Disney film The Rocketeer, adapted from the comic of the same name (which is almost a tribute to the serials). The clever thing Dorney has done is to take all the pulpy trappings of the original, place it in a Golden Age SF setting - and then treat it completely seriously. This is not a pastiche, despite what a summary of the plot might indicate, and it's all the more original for that.
This is also one of the releases with an 'extra' - in this case an interview with the author, which was great for finding out how he went about writing it. Learning of the missing framing sequence (set after Barbara's death) and how this wouldn't fly with Cardiff was enlightening - I can see how it would have worked with this story, but to be honest it isn't needed anyway. I was also happy to find that he didn't have a story until he had the emotional hook, since this is something I often find myself; and to learn of his love for the experimental nature of this period of the show (in particular The Web Planet, which I hope I have boosted a little in my recent reviews).
Changing Formats
I liked the cover of this one - but since I only own it as a download I don't get to see it that often, or in a particularly high resolution. As I'm writing this it's the last day of the digital switchover for television in the UK. A couple of weeks ago some friends who were upgrading to a touch-screen edition of the Kindle gave us their old one, so we now have another electronic entertainment device to fight over. Technology rolls on.
Meanwhile, in our house, we don't have unlimited space (though it's still much bigger than the house I grew up in). Because of the way my mind works, one of the ways I tackle this is by being as ruthlessly organised as my health and family will allow; and one of the areas this has worked best is in collecting together all our audiovisual stuff. We have two alcoves in the lounge, either side of the fireplace, and have allocated the largest to this purpose. It houses the equipment (TV, hifi, Isaac's Gamecube, a few odds and ends); a small number of cassettes, videos, and LPs; and a large number of discs. All of my Doctor Who material is now in two huge cases (holding over 500 discs each), with the inlays, in chronological order from the Doctor's viewpoint. But there is also an increasing number of stories that I only own in digital format (the most recent being Voyage to Venus), and this change loses something that previous format changes haven't: the physical cover or inlay.
Some of my friends bemoaned the move to CD because they loved the physicality of vinyl. I didn't feel the same, but was sad to see the large record sleeves go. In fact, one of the few LPs I've kept - Anthony Phillips' Private Parts and Pieces II, Back to the Pavilion - I also have on CD, and I retain the original purely for the cover, by the wonderful Peter Cross. These things matter to me. Not as much as the actual content, but they matter.
I mention this because I have realised that the ideal Big Finish story combination for me would be download-only audio plus full booklet. If they started including a (printable-quality) PDF of the booklet with the download, I would be a happy man.
And our cupboard space would thank them too.
Published:
Date: August 2011
ISBN: 1-84435-581-5
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
Some more of my own fiction, for once being posted in its correct chronological position. This is probably going to be a two-part story; it's designed to go just before The Crusade, and I'll be releasing it in short chunks (about a page at a time). So join me for the first scene of the first episode, which is titled Dialogue Disasters (in honour of Cornell, Day and Topping's Discontinuity Guide) - although it may be a while before the reason becomes clear...
This one, though not quite up there, is still very good; and again the production suits the script. As long-time readers will know I'm a bit of a William Russell fan, and he's on good form here. There's a lot of emotion in his reading, which is appropriate to the underlying theme of the story as well as the action-packed nature of the narrative. Gus Brown as Ashman is a well-chosen foil, suitably nasty and with a distinct voice. I am renewing my determination to find out what an audio director actually does beyond the obvious, but the prolific Lisa Bowerman certainly gets a lot right - and congrats on the recent Benny anniversary, Ms. Bowerman! The sound design is excellent, modern yet appropriate to the story. If it had tried to match the style of the Republic serials where the rocket men originated I think it would have spoiled the mood.
Ah yes, the Republic serials. I've not seen King of the Rocket Men or its sequels, but I have seen the Disney film The Rocketeer, adapted from the comic of the same name (which is almost a tribute to the serials). The clever thing Dorney has done is to take all the pulpy trappings of the original, place it in a Golden Age SF setting - and then treat it completely seriously. This is not a pastiche, despite what a summary of the plot might indicate, and it's all the more original for that.
This is also one of the releases with an 'extra' - in this case an interview with the author, which was great for finding out how he went about writing it. Learning of the missing framing sequence (set after Barbara's death) and how this wouldn't fly with Cardiff was enlightening - I can see how it would have worked with this story, but to be honest it isn't needed anyway. I was also happy to find that he didn't have a story until he had the emotional hook, since this is something I often find myself; and to learn of his love for the experimental nature of this period of the show (in particular The Web Planet, which I hope I have boosted a little in my recent reviews).
Changing Formats
I liked the cover of this one - but since I only own it as a download I don't get to see it that often, or in a particularly high resolution. As I'm writing this it's the last day of the digital switchover for television in the UK. A couple of weeks ago some friends who were upgrading to a touch-screen edition of the Kindle gave us their old one, so we now have another electronic entertainment device to fight over. Technology rolls on.
Meanwhile, in our house, we don't have unlimited space (though it's still much bigger than the house I grew up in). Because of the way my mind works, one of the ways I tackle this is by being as ruthlessly organised as my health and family will allow; and one of the areas this has worked best is in collecting together all our audiovisual stuff. We have two alcoves in the lounge, either side of the fireplace, and have allocated the largest to this purpose. It houses the equipment (TV, hifi, Isaac's Gamecube, a few odds and ends); a small number of cassettes, videos, and LPs; and a large number of discs. All of my Doctor Who material is now in two huge cases (holding over 500 discs each), with the inlays, in chronological order from the Doctor's viewpoint. But there is also an increasing number of stories that I only own in digital format (the most recent being Voyage to Venus), and this change loses something that previous format changes haven't: the physical cover or inlay.
Some of my friends bemoaned the move to CD because they loved the physicality of vinyl. I didn't feel the same, but was sad to see the large record sleeves go. In fact, one of the few LPs I've kept - Anthony Phillips' Private Parts and Pieces II, Back to the Pavilion - I also have on CD, and I retain the original purely for the cover, by the wonderful Peter Cross. These things matter to me. Not as much as the actual content, but they matter.
I mention this because I have realised that the ideal Big Finish story combination for me would be download-only audio plus full booklet. If they started including a (printable-quality) PDF of the booklet with the download, I would be a happy man.
And our cupboard space would thank them too.
Published:
Date: August 2011
ISBN: 1-84435-581-5
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
Some more of my own fiction, for once being posted in its correct chronological position. This is probably going to be a two-part story; it's designed to go just before The Crusade, and I'll be releasing it in short chunks (about a page at a time). So join me for the first scene of the first episode, which is titled Dialogue Disasters (in honour of Cornell, Day and Topping's Discontinuity Guide) - although it may be a while before the reason becomes clear...
Monday 5 November 2012
Episode CC6.02b: The Fall
There is more in the way of spoilers in this review; I would recommend listening before reading on, if you have the opportunity.
So what we have in the most advanced timeline for the early part of this episode is, quite literally, a fall. You can plummet a long way through the atmosphere of a gas giant and it could get quite boring to listen to; so most of the action is in the other timeline, but with frequent switches to short snippets of the drop. This makes sense, but unfortunately John Dorney's way of marking the changeover - the repeating word structure trick, which worked so well last time - starts to feel a bit artificial with overuse.
It's all building up, though, to a great reveal that could never be achieved on TV. There's an "eh? What have I missed here?" moment in the falling timeline, which is soon explained in the other; and it completely changes how we imagine the events of the first episode. I like this sort of thing, and it makes me look forward to listening to the story all over again with the new image in my mind. A Sixth Sense moment, if you will. It really makes me glad I decided to review this fresh, too, as this is one I will definitely react to differently on subsequent listenings.
Dorney's not finished with authorial tricks though. Steven Moffat's Who is famed for the amount of timeline-crossing which goes on, but here it happens literally. The strand which has been explaining what our heroes have done since the TARDIS arrived in the Jobis system reaches the beginning of the first episode - and then jumps ahead into the 'future'! We get to see some of the wrap-up while Iananbarbara are still in peril. It's a brave move, but he gets the timing right - any sooner and I would have felt cheated out of the excitement that would have lost its edge, any later and it wouldn't have been worth it.
As for the resolution of Iananbarbara's crisis, it was one of those moments that I really should have seen coming. There's a 'smoking gun' in the first episode that I picked up on at the time, thinking that it would become important later; but by the time we got there I'd forgotten about it again. Would I have done so if I wasn't treating this like a TV serial, if I had listened to both episodes in one sitting? I'll never know.
Hm, have I even mentioned Vicki yet? This is the only audio play with this TARDIS team (so far), and our youngest star is very much in the background. With a crowded TARDIS and a two-parter there isn't really enough space for everyone; on TV it was, unusually, Ian who had the least to do in both Inside the Spaceship and The Rescue, but here he and Barbara had to take centre stage. Ah, well; I've got a couple of Maureen O'Brien Companion Chronicles coming up early next year.
I've said a lot about the script and little about the production. Since that applies equally to both episodes you'll have to wait until the next time...
Rating:
7/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 6.02 as a whole.
So what we have in the most advanced timeline for the early part of this episode is, quite literally, a fall. You can plummet a long way through the atmosphere of a gas giant and it could get quite boring to listen to; so most of the action is in the other timeline, but with frequent switches to short snippets of the drop. This makes sense, but unfortunately John Dorney's way of marking the changeover - the repeating word structure trick, which worked so well last time - starts to feel a bit artificial with overuse.
It's all building up, though, to a great reveal that could never be achieved on TV. There's an "eh? What have I missed here?" moment in the falling timeline, which is soon explained in the other; and it completely changes how we imagine the events of the first episode. I like this sort of thing, and it makes me look forward to listening to the story all over again with the new image in my mind. A Sixth Sense moment, if you will. It really makes me glad I decided to review this fresh, too, as this is one I will definitely react to differently on subsequent listenings.
Dorney's not finished with authorial tricks though. Steven Moffat's Who is famed for the amount of timeline-crossing which goes on, but here it happens literally. The strand which has been explaining what our heroes have done since the TARDIS arrived in the Jobis system reaches the beginning of the first episode - and then jumps ahead into the 'future'! We get to see some of the wrap-up while Iananbarbara are still in peril. It's a brave move, but he gets the timing right - any sooner and I would have felt cheated out of the excitement that would have lost its edge, any later and it wouldn't have been worth it.
As for the resolution of Iananbarbara's crisis, it was one of those moments that I really should have seen coming. There's a 'smoking gun' in the first episode that I picked up on at the time, thinking that it would become important later; but by the time we got there I'd forgotten about it again. Would I have done so if I wasn't treating this like a TV serial, if I had listened to both episodes in one sitting? I'll never know.
Hm, have I even mentioned Vicki yet? This is the only audio play with this TARDIS team (so far), and our youngest star is very much in the background. With a crowded TARDIS and a two-parter there isn't really enough space for everyone; on TV it was, unusually, Ian who had the least to do in both Inside the Spaceship and The Rescue, but here he and Barbara had to take centre stage. Ah, well; I've got a couple of Maureen O'Brien Companion Chronicles coming up early next year.
I've said a lot about the script and little about the production. Since that applies equally to both episodes you'll have to wait until the next time...
Rating:
7/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 6.02 as a whole.
Friday 2 November 2012
Episode CC6.02a: Assault on Platform Five
Okay, the official episode title (I have discovered) is actually The Rocket Men,
but if I can avoid names that match both an episode and the whole
serial then I will. So since I only have this on download subscription
and it was hard to find, I'm pretending that I didn't know.
I've had this quite a while - since before I reviewed Quinnis, in fact - and have managed to put off listening to it until now, so that I could get a fresh perspective. It's a tricky decision to make, as there are advantages both ways: once it has had time to settle I can offer a more matured, better thought-out view; whereas reviewing straight after my first experience benefits from the excitement of a new story. Since there are very few stories that are still new to me, I've decided to grab them when I can.
From the opening line I could tell that this was going to focus on Iananbarbara's relationship. It's another take on Ian coming to a realisation about his feelings for Barbara, which, as a follower of expanded universe print material, I have already seen happen. More than once. So basically, it's a bit late in the day - though if you only pay attention to audio and TV it's a case of "about time"! How to reconcile the two? You could say that Ian, as narrator, is attributing more to this moment than was the case at the time. Or perhaps this was a point when the depth of his feeling - or rather, his understanding of it - expanded. I like the second idea better, but whichever you go for it's not irreconcilable with the stories that have built this up over a longer period like The Time Travellers, Roman Cutaway and The Eleventh Tiger. And the trigger for this realisation is certainly believable!
There's no real framing sequence; it's just Ian telling the story to the listener. This means that the second actor (Gus Brown as Ashman) is simply a different voice in the narrative, something I've complained about in the past. Writing this review I realise that it is a feature of the Companion Chronicles I've since grown accustomed to hearing. There's still no logical in-story reason for it - no space for the other speaker - but it no longer bothers me.
Having said there's no framing sequence, the plot is still divided into two timelines. Unusually we begin right in the middle of the action, with Ian, Barbara and Vicki being held captive by Ashman and his rocket men. The second timeline shows how they got to this point (though it still hasn't caught up by the end of the episode, so this device will presumably continue next episode). Writer John Dorney has a lot of fun with the transitions, presenting us with echoes and repetitions in the dialogue that mark the boundaries. They are supported by sometimes-subtle differences in the soundscape, but it's still an interesting and novel way of marking the change. As an example:
And speaking of cliffhangers, this episode ends on a doozy: this isn't just hanging from the cliff, it's throwing yourself right over! Waiting a day to listen to the second part will require some willpower...
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
The Fall.
I've had this quite a while - since before I reviewed Quinnis, in fact - and have managed to put off listening to it until now, so that I could get a fresh perspective. It's a tricky decision to make, as there are advantages both ways: once it has had time to settle I can offer a more matured, better thought-out view; whereas reviewing straight after my first experience benefits from the excitement of a new story. Since there are very few stories that are still new to me, I've decided to grab them when I can.
From the opening line I could tell that this was going to focus on Iananbarbara's relationship. It's another take on Ian coming to a realisation about his feelings for Barbara, which, as a follower of expanded universe print material, I have already seen happen. More than once. So basically, it's a bit late in the day - though if you only pay attention to audio and TV it's a case of "about time"! How to reconcile the two? You could say that Ian, as narrator, is attributing more to this moment than was the case at the time. Or perhaps this was a point when the depth of his feeling - or rather, his understanding of it - expanded. I like the second idea better, but whichever you go for it's not irreconcilable with the stories that have built this up over a longer period like The Time Travellers, Roman Cutaway and The Eleventh Tiger. And the trigger for this realisation is certainly believable!
There's no real framing sequence; it's just Ian telling the story to the listener. This means that the second actor (Gus Brown as Ashman) is simply a different voice in the narrative, something I've complained about in the past. Writing this review I realise that it is a feature of the Companion Chronicles I've since grown accustomed to hearing. There's still no logical in-story reason for it - no space for the other speaker - but it no longer bothers me.
Having said there's no framing sequence, the plot is still divided into two timelines. Unusually we begin right in the middle of the action, with Ian, Barbara and Vicki being held captive by Ashman and his rocket men. The second timeline shows how they got to this point (though it still hasn't caught up by the end of the episode, so this device will presumably continue next episode). Writer John Dorney has a lot of fun with the transitions, presenting us with echoes and repetitions in the dialogue that mark the boundaries. They are supported by sometimes-subtle differences in the soundscape, but it's still an interesting and novel way of marking the change. As an example:
Ian narrating in the 'past': We should have remembered that with the Doctor, it was always best to take things one day at a time.The first episode has the responsibility of setting up the action, showing us the people and locations our heroes are going to be interacting with. This is harder on radio than television, and can slow things down; but starting in the middle and then looking back allows that introduction to have the space it needs without us metaphorically looking at our watches. Instead, we're thinking "how did they get from there to here?", in a kind of inversion of the way that cliffhangers hold our interest between episodes.
Ashman, speaking in the 'present': "I'll take one of you at a time."
And speaking of cliffhangers, this episode ends on a doozy: this isn't just hanging from the cliff, it's throwing yourself right over! Waiting a day to listen to the second part will require some willpower...
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
The Fall.
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