The Wotcha!

Well, that was unfortunate. I was all prepared to start this new thread of the marathon, and then stuff happened. Or rather, it didn't. I don't know why I stalled so badly, but I seem to be getting back up to speed so I'm going to have another try. I've now got all the reviews for The Time Meddler written, so that's five entries ready to go; and that should give me enough time to write some more, especially since the next couple will be the season 2 overview and a comic, which I should be able to get through quickly, before my first audio in this phase.

For the time being I'm going to be aiming for a post roughly twice weekly, but not tying myself down to fixed days. We'll see how that goes. This one doesn't count, really; I am away from the Internet for a couple of weeks over Easter, so I'll start posting as soon as I get back. And who knows, I might have another review or two ready by then, putting me even further ahead; though the priority is to spend time with my family.

So, what's worth saying about the time since I last posted? Since you are probably not so interested in my cosplay at the Jorvik Viking Festival, the main news probably is that I went to a Doctor Who event in Sheffield - my first - and chatted to William Russell, Peter Purves, Frazer Hines, and Lisa Bowerman. I was very nervous and a bit tongue-tied, but Hines - who I met first - was very good at putting me at my ease, so hopefully I didn't come across too badly. Sadly I had dropped my phone down the toilet the night before, and had borrowed my daughter's video camera, which I didn't really know how to use - but fortune was smiling and I ended up with some appropriately black-and-white shots of myself with some of the stars (I forgot to ask Bowerman):

I bought a professional shot of myself with Purves, too:

The other relevant news is that I wrote a Christmas tale starring the sixth Doctor, Peri, and Frobisher, which was a lot of fun (and my first effort at a full story for a Doctor later than William Hartnell's). I'll put that up for you to read too at some point.

Next Time:
In two and a bit weeks: The Watcher.

Turbulence

Sometimes it's easy deciding where to split this marathon into chapters; sometimes, like now, it's blinkin' impossible. I started with the first three serials because I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a full marathon with hundreds of reviews; in hindsight that didn't make sense, but never mind. The next obvious division was between production blocks, after Susan had left and before Vicki joined, though I also put a break in at the end of the first season just to keep it from being too long. Iananbarbara leaving was another clear breakpoint, and that nailed down the start of this run.

But then I hit a problem. Tonally there is no logical dividing line anywhere between Mission to the Unknown and Dodo's arrival, and a split any earlier than Mission is pretty pointless. Every other reason I could come up with to make a division within that span felt wrong; in the end I decided to bite the bullet and just include the whole lot. 29 TV episodes in (nominally) 6 serials, 24 audio episodes in 10 dramas, a measly one novel, about 37 short stories and at least 40 comic stories (for reasons which will become clear when I get there). Something like 150 reviews (assuming Big Finish don't add to that in the meantime), and I'm going to want to do some fiction as well for Vicki and Sara at least (though probably not Katarina, Bret or Oliver). Even at an average of about two substantial posts a week - whic I haven't managed for quite some time - we're talking at least a year and a half!

Hang on to your hats - it's going to be a long and bumpy ride...

Next Time:
The Watcher.

Iananbarbara

I've been doing timeslipped reviews covering the early period of the show for a while now, and will continue to do so for at least as long as William Russell and Carole Ann Ford keep on recording audios; but I've decided that it's past time to draw a line under this era. Ian's Tale will also continue at some point, but I'll just treat that as a timeslip too. So, just as I did when Susan left, I'm going to do a round-up post for our latest two retirees. This post isn't really as I want it, but as I mentioned before the wait is getting to be ridiculous. Hopefully there's still enough in here of interest.

Iananbarbara
I came up with the portmanteau description of the schoolteachers in my very first review for this marathon. Indeed, the very first scene with significant dialogue in the show was their conversation about an unearthly child, and they left the show together; so the connection is obvious. The description is almost a ship - a canon ship, if you count expanded universe material (heck, last year we even got to see their wedding). I knew about shipping before I started this marathon, though not under that title, and not with the mashed together names; since my daughter became a teenager I've been exposed to a lot more. I suppose the proper version would be 'Barbarian', but that's just wrong.

The standard line is that Iananbarbara teach the Doctor to be a better person, and are then no longer needed. There's truth in that - it's certainly the 'arc' of the first thirteen episodes - but it tends to overemphasise their supporting role. From a modern perspective we think of the show in terms of "the Doctor and his companions", but that idea only really came in with Jon Pertwee; it's not really how the show was set up in the 1960s. What we have at the beginning is an ensemble cast, which only tends to revolve around the Doctor because he's the man with the vehicle. Once Iananbarbara stop being kidnap victims they are part of a group of friends travelling space and time together, each with strengths and weaknesses. They really are so much more than just the people that turn the Doctor into a hero!

Apart from the very first episode, An Unearthly Child - one of the most awesome introductions to a cast ever to open a TV show - my favourite stories to focus on the pair are probably The Time Travellers in books, probably The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance in audio, and... well, TV's difficult because of the way all the cast tend to get separated, and in general focus on the group rather than the couple. Probably The Romans, which has the lovely villa scenes and Ian's determination to find Barbara driving him on when they are separated.

So much for the pair; what about individually?

Barbara
Barbara has been the heart of the TARDIS since the beginning, the emotional core of the team but also holding her own intellectually - and in terms of bravery. She was certainly no "screamer"! Her confrontation with the Doctor in The Brink of Disaster demonstrates all these traits, as she almost singlehandedly creates the family we have been watching for almost two seasons.

On television, I'm going to stick with the crowd and say that the best showcase for Barbara has to be The Aztecs. Audio is harder; she's at a disadvantage in that the viewpoint character is generally someone else, and partly for that reason, I'm going for Farewell, Great Macedon. In books, it's probably The Plotters; for short stories, perhaps The Mother Road.

Ian
Ian, the man of action, is loyal, determined, a fierce fighter though with an ex-military man's sense of humour. Like Barbara he cares deeply for his fellow travellers.

Ian's best moments on TV are spaced throughout his run, making choosing a single showcase story hard. I'm going to be more controversial here and select The Web Planet, which has a good mix of scenes for him. On audio, I'll go for The Rocket Men to highlight the action man, and The Library of Alexandria for his other side; with The Time Museum thrown in to cover his post-TARDIS self. Meanwhile, in books, if I can't have The Time Travellers again I choose Campaign. In short stories we have the lovely Rise and Fall, but he doesn't do much there so I might have to pick the grim The Last Days.

Jacqueline Hill and William Russell
Of course, there are real people behind the fictional faces; and just as Iananbarbara were important to the development of the show's story, Russell and Hill were important to the show's production. They supported William Hartnell, giving him an anchor when he was struggling; but by mid '65 Maureen O'Brien and Peter Purves were able to take on that responsibility. Hill in particular was an acting rock, scarcely putting a foot wrong in her entire run on the show; Russell was not far behind, and, of the two, had the bigger role in covering for Hartnell's slips (which he generally did elegantly). It's telling that when thinking about weaknesses, the one that sprang to mind was the fact that he couldn't fall down for toffee!

William Russell's real name is Russell Enoch, which is why people keep calling him Russ in interviews. He was an action hero before he was Ian, particularly as the star of The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, and indeed was the closest thing Doctor Who had to a leading man, despite not having the title role. Afterwards, he continued to have a busy career - including a brief stint as a regular cast member of Coronation Street, the supposed arch-rival of our show (though I know plenty of people have enjoyed both) - before taking up the audios in a new millennium. My daughter May met him at Comicon last weekend, and said he was lovely; I'm jealous.

It was Russell who decided to leave before Hill, but it seems she didn't take much persuading and the two landed a run working together in theatre. I get the impression that in the US there is more of a divide between actors of stage and screen, whereas here in the UK people switch between the two more freely. For non-theatre-goers (and for casual researchers - like me - who are reliant on Wikipedia and IMDB to find out what people have done), this means that actors who have busy careers can still seem to disappear from the map for long periods. Still, we do know that Hill mostly stopped work to raise her children with her film-director husband, while Russell carried on. We haven't seen the last of Hill, quite - when she took up acting again in 1979 she accepted a final role in the show for which she is best-remembered - but it'll be a while before we see her again. Russell will continue in the timeslipped audio reviews, of course.

Tragically, Hill died in 1993, of cancer. There is an excellent extra on the DVD of The Chase about Russell and Hill (and their roles in the show), which I can thoroughly recommend.

It's been a fun time travelling with this pair since I started my marathon. Although I think the incoming team is underappreciated, they will be missed.

Next Time:
In a new thread, at last, the beginning of a new strand to the marathon...

Procrastination

From the Latin pro cras: literally leaving stuff "to tomorrow". In case you didn't know.

My school was a comprehensive, but when I first went it had only just changed: all the exercise books still said "Toynbee Secondary Modern" on them. Which, again for those of you who don't know, meant that it had been a working class school occupied by the children who failed their Eleven Plus exam upon leaving primary. This system was basically a social tool for making sure everyone got the right education for their expected role in society, although set up with a slight chance for people to move in order to defuse enough of the resentment. Keeping the masses in their place, in other words.

Anyway, we had a very good headmaster who was looking to cast off the "school for drongos" reputation. (Yeah, class oppression really does promote such thinking, at least here in England.) He was skilled at motivating the existing teachers and at hiring decent new ones, and also came up with some wacky ideas. One of which was to encourage pupils who showed an interest in something.

I'm not just talking about praise and gold stars. No, there were four of us who were interested in learning Latin - not enough to make it worthwhile including in the curriculum - so what he did was to hire a part-time Latin teacher to come in before school started and teach us then. I got my 'O' level Latin, and as a result can spot where quite a few words come from and figure out more spelling than I would have been able to otherwise.

Which reminds me of my daughter, currently at Comicon in London, dressed as Neil Gaiman's Death (one of the Endless). So far she's met William Russell, Bernard Cribbins and Paul McGann, plus Summer Glau (briefly). I'm jealous, but the reason I'm reminded is that tomorrow she will hopefully be meeting that wonderful logophile, Colin Baker.

So. Procrastination, then.

Um.

Back in February, before I went on holiday, the Final Iananbarbara Post (FIP) was half-complete. I've written a lot since then - mostly not for this blog, but even here the published wordcount is over 6,500, none of it intended for publication before the FIP. I came to a firm decision a month or so ago to stop and draw a line under this era.

Since then, the FIP has crept up to maybe three-quarters written. It's pathetic, and I know that this is happening (or rather, not happening) because I am so desperately resisting moving on.

I will be 50 on Thursday, and I have decided to make a public statement. If I have not finished the FIP by then, I will post it as-is. Even if there are still sentences that finish in the middle.

There, Maybe my pride will push me to actually complete it. See you Thursday!

ST23:02 Short Trips, Destination Prague: Room for Improvement

Well then. This is the only story I know of written by American author James A. Moore, though from his biography I see he's a successful novelist and games writer. Despite being published in 2007 it feels like typical 1990s SF, with its emphasis on nano- and bio-tech, posthumanism, and political grunge; there's definitely a millennial feel. Which isn't a criticism, by the way, just an observation. Unfortunately the political aspect suffers a bit from the story's length, in that the parties standing for office are too clean in their divisions, being entirely based on single-issue platforms. This is useful for making clear what everyone stands for in a few words, but lacks nuance and adds a layer of unreality which doesn't fit with the overall grimy street-level tone of the piece.

The prose itself is decent; it's easy to read, with Ian and the Doctor's speech and action coming across as fitting the characters as performed by Williams Russell and Hartnell. The complete absence of Susan and Barbara felt odd, with a particularly flimsy excuse offered for them staying behind in the TARDIS, but this is a minor complaint.

I have more problems with the pacing. After a nice, leisurely amble for most of the running time, the story suddenly becomes so hectic that it decoheres and is quite hard to follow. In addition, the reactions of the local inhabitants to the Doctor's revelation felt both too exaggerated and too confused. In practise this worked like one of the more recent TV episodes, which race by so fast you don't have time to notice the flaws, and I wasn't strongly put off; but it did sour things somewhat when thinking about it afterwards.

Short stories are a very tricky medium to get right, and even though I have made a number of negative comments this is still a slightly above-average example. The set-up and ideas are a lot of fun, the wordsmithery is good, and it doesn't outstay its welcome. I didn't 'get' the title to start with, but it fits well in retrospect.

This story really could go anywhere during Ian, Barbara and Susan's travels after they've all settled down a bit, so I think I'll put it between two stories of a different stripe. Perhaps just after The Reign Makers.

Why Does the TARDIS Return to Earth So Often?
Since we seem to have some space, I just want to say a little about a topic that has been bugging me lately: why do they keep revisiting Earth? The Doctor has affection for our world, sure, and during the periods when he has some control over his destination that is a good enough reason; but when he doesn't, his feelings aren't relevant.

(I should make it clear that I'm not talking about artistic, production or marketing decisions. Extradiegetically - to insert a posh word I've learned from reading Doctor Who blogs - it makes perfect sense. Want to include history lessons? Or make use of the BBC's expertise in period costume drama? Or avoid putting off people who can't relate to the Zogs of planet Zog? Or just save money by using locations that are actually on the planet you're trying to represent? Pick Earth! No, I'm talking diegesis here: in-story explanations. And hoping I'm using the big words correctly.)

So, what do we know? As confirmed by the ship herself, the TARDIS takes the Doctor where he needs to go. All well and good, but why is that so often somewhere (and somewhen) on Earth? Despite the second Doctor's comment that the Earth seems more vulnerable than other worlds, there are a hundred million worlds in just one galaxy named in one recent episode (which actually means it was probably well below average size based on current estimates, but what the heck); and there are more than a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. You can't tell me that Earth is more than 10,000,000,000,000,000 times as vulnerable as the average world! Can you?

There has to be a better explanation; and perhaps I discarded the Doctor's feelings too soon, because the TARDIS is a far from objective arbiter of where he needs to go. "Need", itself, is a subjective word, and I can certainly see her paying as much attention to the Doctor's needs as to the universe's. Add in Susan, Earth-lover extraordinaire, and I don't think I need to say any more.

So I won't.

Published:
Date: June 2007
ISBN: 1-84435-253-6

Rating:
6.5/10

Next Time:
A look back at Iananbarbara.

CC7.10 The Library of Alexandria

This has been my favourite audio for quite a while - since I heard A Death in the Family sometime last year - and probably scrapes into my top five Companion Chronicles to date. Even though the second episode suited me less, I find that barely affects my overall enjoyment of the story as a whole, something I've observed before.

So, onto a few more general points I didn't mention in the episode reviews. Let's start with chronology. Ian refers to their old friend Alexander and also tells us that this is only weeks after his travels with Cook during Transit of Venus, so it has to be very soon after The Reign of Terror (as well as later than Farewell, Great Macedon, which supports my placement of that story during season one rather than in the 1964 summer break). There's not much leeway, but I'd rather not make this the first serial of the break just because that would be three historicals in a row. (It's a thing of mine.) Still, there are stories that don't take up vast stretches of the travellers' time and would fit - Rise and Fall, for instance. So I'm going to put it after that and before City at World's End, thereby breaking up a solid run of SF stories. Perfect.

Next, a cultural point: there is something quite horrific about book-burning. I don't know how specific this is to my background - whether it's common among everyone in literate cultures, a Western Middle-Class hangup, or something even more focused - but it's quite visceral. And the Doctor (as written by Simon Guerrier, at least) shares that view. This is what makes the destruction of the library so affecting, far more so than the deaths (which, let's face it, are commonplace in Doctor Who). It ought to be the deaths. But it isn't.

Extras next, then. I was looking forward to listening to people talking about this story, and wondered if we were going to get Simon Guerrier's writerly thoughts; William Russell and Susan Franklyn's opinions of the story (positive, I suspect, based on Russell's performance); or something else. So I was a little disappointed that there was just Toby Hrycek-Robinson's music. Not that the music's bad, or boring - I happily listened to it again my second time through - but I wanted to hear people's thoughts, darn it.

I mentioned the film Agora. This is largely about belief, and has a very different take on the destruction; but Hypatia - the key (local) figure in both works - is pretty consistently presented between the two. Again, in the film, she considers the solar-centric model of the universe - why is that always the go-to example of how the ancients missed opportunities to Get It Right? I'm sure there must be plenty of other theories that would fit the bill. Still, it's a very powerful one, and when pitching Hypatia as the rationalist it offers good ammunition.

I can't help wondering what the historial Hypatia was really like. I do hope she didn't get too screwed up when she was kidnapped by the Rani.

Published:
Date: April 2013
ISBN: 1-78178-084-8

Rating:
9.5/10

Next Time:
Room for Improvement.

CC7.10b The Library of Alexandria, Episode 2: The Pathway to the Stars

[No spoilers to begin with...]

After the splendid first episode, I almost failed my will roll to resist listening to The Library of Alexandria's conclusion straight away. I still had to do the dog walking and cooking, things I much prefer in the company of an audio; so instead I relistened to the Companion Chronicle that I obliquely referenced towards the end of my last review. The following day I made some quick notes of my thoughts on the story so far, in order to preserve some of my first-time freshness, and then put this one on at the first opportunity.

In some ways it was a pleasant surprise, in others not. To deal with the negatives first, this has two problems which it shares with many other stories. One is that it is more of a large-scale action piece, which suits my personal taste less well than the small-scale, atmospheric, character-driven first part. There's nothing much anyone can do about that - other people prefer the action, and I wouldn't deprive them of it. Another is simply that this is the conclusion, and nine times out of ten I find the set-up more enjoyable in any performed medium (though it's not so stark in books and comics). I've not yet been able to figure out why.

[...but minor spoilers from now until the subtopic.]

One surprise was the moment when Susan Franklyn took over the story. I'm used to there being either a single narrator (as with most Companion Chronicles) or two in conversation (The Suffering, for example), but this bends the standard idea of framing in an odd direction. it's not completely frameless because Hypatia, like Ian, refers to events after the adventure's conclusion; but since they go their separate ways at the end we actually have two frames. I believe this is the first time this has happened, and it felt quite disorientating. It made perfect sense - Ian wasn't around, whereas Hypatia could describe the events that happened when she was off with the Doctor - but the novelty gave me pause. Still, I recovered quickly, and won't be quite so thrown next time.

The soundscape during the destruction of the library offers a decent (though not perfect) impression of the large-scale catastrophe, conjuring up images that would have been tricky in the 1960s (though possible with modern CGI). All the travellers' reactions are spot on, too; but perhaps unsurprisingly, my favourite part of the episode was the dénouement, where we got a few final scenes of quiet character-based moments. Hypatia's emotional wobble and the way it was handled was a little compressed, perhaps; but not enough to spoil it. I also enjoyed the later revelation concerning the Doctor's lesson, and the return to the TARDIS, both of which considered the issue of changing history and used the topic in new ways. Small moments, but hardly unimportant. And then there's Hypatia's conversation with Ian concerning Barbara.

A Confused Chronology, part 12: When Do You Know?
So, let me return to the Iananbarbara relationship angle raised last time. All of fandom "knows" that the teachers became a couple during their time with the Doctor - and so do the expanded universe writers, given how much time they spend on the subject. The only argument is at what point this happened - "when do we know?", to paraphrase Ian's line from The Rocket Men. On TV, of course, it was deliberately kept ambiguous; but it's been made explicit in several books, audios and comics since.

The trouble comes when putting them all together into a single chronology. Ian finally recognises his feelings in multiple stories set during their time with Vicki, which is tricky enough, but both of them openly acknowledge it in The Time Travellers - before Vicki joins. The Library of Alexandria is unique (so far) in that it concentrates on Barbara's feelings for Ian rather than vice versa, and happily can be made to fit with any of the others.

There are so many tangled paths here. The stories are being written out of order, across different media, and then experienced by me in an order which is chronological neither by publication nor in-story timeline. In addition, relationships can have times when they move backwards rather than forwards. With a little bit of massaging I think they can be made to fit reasonably well.

Rating:
7.5/10

Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 7.10 as a whole.