Old Doctor Who - Part 4

[Norton Canes]

I've just been watching Timelash for the first time. Thought it was meant to be shit. It's great. Bit where the guy gets zapped and he turns into a skeleton and it falls over and goes THUNK on the floor. That's good telly

Been watching the first couple of episodes of The Two Doctors and got the final one lined up for tonight, so I guess Timelash could be next on the list...

[purlieu]

RIP Desolation Thread.

[Norton Canes]

Hey, 2 Docs (1 capsule?) wasn't that bad. The scenes where Dastari threatens to carve up the 2nd Doctor were great. Jacqueline Peirce is perfect as Chessene, the Sontarans make for decent agitators, Shockeye is of course a gruesomely glorious creation and Oscar and Anita provide fine comic relief. In fact... in fact it's mostly only the scenes in which Colin Baker appears that are awful. Hmm.

[Malcy]

The music in it is pretty good as well.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

The Two Doctors is fine if you accept that it was just an excuse for the cast and crew to have a lovely Spanish holiday and don't worry too much about the story.

[Replies From View]

Colin Baker's costume is less shit in it, if I recall correctly.

[purlieu]

I really, really hate The Two Doctors. Not even Pat can save it. Although he gives it a good go.

[JamesTC]

I love The Two Doctors. I even own The Two Doctors action figure set.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

The Two Doctors might not be as awful if it was less than nine hours long. I'll say one thing in favour about the omniscient drama-killing 7th Doctor, at least his foreknowledge means he doesn't spend an hour and a half wandering about an empty space station hoping to bump into the plot.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

I've just been watching Timelash for the first time. Thought it was meant to be shit. It's great. Bit where the guy gets zapped and he turns into a skeleton and it falls over and goes THUNK on the floor. That's good telly.

Yeah, Timelash is utter crap but really fun. It should be Doctor Who's version of The Room. There ought to be cinema screenings where everyone comes wearing tinsel and chants along with all of Paul Darrow's lines.

[purlieu]

Kursaal by Peter Anghelides

Doctor Who and the Space Werewolves. The Doctor and Sam land on a planet, find some bodies that have (obviously) been killed by Space Werewolves, spend a long time not working out what's going on, join up with a band of eco-terrorists-freedom-fighter-types, get arrested, help defeat some Space Werewolves, leave, return in the future when Kursaal has finally been turned into a holiday planet where it turns out Sam's been infected and is turning into the leader of the Space Werewolves, the Doctor blows up the Space Werewolf base, saving Sam in the process, and every secondary character dies over the course of the book. An utterly pedestrian runaround, with two dimensional characters, some fairly poor humour, and crap, unconvincing villains in the form of the Jax. The book is literally only of note because it's the first EDA where Sam plays an active part in the plot rather than just fancying the Doctor.

Next time on Doctor Who... Justin Richards, so it should hopefully at least be somewhat decent.

[A Hat Like That]

Yeah, its a solid run around but not much more than that. Remember liking the time jump.

Next one up I enjoyed. Think I may still own it somewhere.

[purlieu]

Option Lock by Justin Richards

I find it very difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is that I think works and what doesn't when it comes to writing. Obviously plot, characters, humour, etc. are important, but the actual language used is just as necessary to make a good book. Something immediately clear in this book, which was just a joy to read. Wonderfully descriptive prose that managed to be incredibly detailed and evocative and yet snappy and fun at the same time. The first EDA I've read in a day since that first horrible one.

It's actually the sort of story I think would have worked well as the TV Movie: it's fairly trad and very recognisably Doctor Who, but on a scale which would have required a bigger budget than the original series had. The first act is nicely spooky, with the Doctor and Sam landing at an old manor house with halls that are lined with paintings that give people the shivers and historical records mentioning a chapel that has seemingly disappeared. Throw in a chap standing in the fountain in the middle of the night and the house's owner meeting with important politicians and it's all very early '70s in style. The move towards an international conspiracy at government and military level is a successful ramping up of events. The downside is the middle of the book, where Richards puts his techno-thriller hat on and we get a very, very long section with a very detailed description of an ex-Soviet state and the US being forced into nuclear strikes on each other. It all seems very well researched, and it would probably have been much swifter and more exciting on screen - a great centrepiece for a potential movie - but as the reason behind it all (forcing the US to show their hand and use their secret anti-nuke weapon) was so obvious that, sadly, the whole section felt incredibly tedious.
Thankfully, the rest of the plot really is very successful and, despite being quite convoluted, manages to tie itself together really well, and there's lots of great atmosphere throughout the book, as well as plenty of decent humour. The Doctor is very well portrayed, and even Sam feels like a proper character, having a believable relationship with the Doctor and playing some important parts of the plot. There are nice little bits of wordplay, with each chapter being named after a phrase in the last sentence of the previous chapter, and many times when the action shifts from one place to another a similar technique is used, being very suggestive of a director choosing to end one scene with feet running down stairs and open another with the same action in a different location. It really does feel like it was written for the screen.

So yeah, the middle lets it down a bit, but otherwise a really enjoyable story. Doesn't break any boundaries, but this kind of tale should be the standard your basic book should be at, rather than an obvious standout!

Next time on Doctor Who The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield... Kate Orman, hooray!

[A Hat Like That]

It feels, at times, like a non-Who script that Richards adapted. But I think the alien in it and how that ties it all together works really nicely.

[JamesTC]

The Evil of the Daleks animation is lovely. Up there with the best of them.

The story itself is good but feels padded in all the wrong places. I would have much preferred additional episodes

Spoiler alert

on Skaro

[close]

.

[Malcy]

The Evil of the Daleks animation is lovely. Up there with the best of them.

The story itself is good but feels padded in all the wrong places. I would have much preferred additional episodes

Spoiler alert

on Skaro

[close]

.

Didn't realise it was out. Thought I had pre-ordered it but hadn't.

[daf]

Reminded me of the job Cosgrove Hall did on The Invasion - good stuff!

[purlieu]

Walking to Babylon by Kate Orman

There was nothing to do but float here, and wait for death. Clarence closed his eyes.
A few minutes later, one of God's yellow drones skimmed up to him. Clarence opened his eyes again, surprised.
"Who the fuck did that?" said God.

I thought it was about time Benny had her own time travel story!
A fabulous book. Two People from the Worldsphere create a time travel path and go back to ancient Babylon. Benny is brought in to try and get them back before it's deemed necessary to blow up the path and thus Babylon with it. It's the kind of book that requires fairly extensive knowledge of the People - not only The Also People, but their appearances in the Benny books - but having that knowledge makes it a very satisfying read. Away from a number of back-references to The Also People events, the characters of God and Clarence are very important to the book. And, of course, the time travel breaks the People's treaty with the Time Lords in several ways. Which turns out to be the point: two People are trying to provoke a war between the People and the Time Lords. I wonder how many people reading at the time wondered whether this was actually an intentional tie-in to the Gallifreyan war mentioned in Alien Bodies. The only downside is that, without the Doctor Who license, the Time Lords are always referred to as "you know who" or "the enemies", which never reads well.
The Worldsphere stuff is all a lot of fun, but the real gold is the time Benny spends in Babylon with Edwardian linguist John Lafayette who accidentally found himself on the path and back in time. It remains almost entirely 'pure' historical for much of the book, with the two of them exploring the city and its culture and trying to track down the rogue People. Their relationship is really wonderful, a huge fondness and attraction (leading to a shag, of course) without them really falling in love. The kind of book that lets you wallow in the highly detailed atmosphere of its setting and just enjoy exploring it with the main characters. In many ways, it echoed The Also People, in that the overall plot often seemed secondary to the being there. And then, a very subtle hint at potential Worldsphere plots to come, right near the end.
Really marvellous, my favourite Benny book so far.

Next time on Doctor Who... ugh, another first time novelist. These never work.

[daf]

The audio of that is a treat - and features Lis Sladen!

[purlieu]

Yeah, I noticed the early Benny ones have plenty of Who alumni in them, which should be fun. That said, I'm trying to work out how Orman's wonderfully detailed descriptions of Babylon would translate to audio. I suppose I'll tell later in the year.


Longest Day by Michael Collier

First-time novelists always seem to come to their books with way too many ideas. I kind of understand this - terrified they'd never get another chance, writers throw everything they've got at their first book - but given that Michael Collier is a pseudonym of EDA range editor Stephen Cole, I'm slightly baffled as to why he seems to have done the same thing here.
There are loads of great ideas here: a planet with a huge number of fractured time frames, used as a dumping ground for prisoners, the infirm, toxic waste and such, which is falling apart leading to all sorts of strange time phenomena on the surface such as a man existing in 60 incarnations, rapid ageing and deageing, people caught in time loops; a monitoring station on a moon designed to keep the time zones on the planet in order, that turns out to be a repurposed ancient ship; an ancient race of aliens seeking out time travel to reverse the effects of a war they found themselves caught in the middle of and almost wiped out in the process; rebels trying to get prisoners to fight the corrupt government of the entire Thannos system; Sam being separated from the Doctor for pretty much the entire book; the Time Trees from Genocide return.
The problem is not just that none of these elements are allowed to breathe, but that they could easily have been had half the book not been taken up with really dull, plodding action sequences. Convincing, exciting action is very hard to write, and Cole, at this point, cannot write it. Chapter after chapter of rebels vs. soldiers, big aggressive aliens after galactic domination vs. the Doctor, gunfights and technobabble. And almost everybody dies, to the extent that some plot strands are effectively completely pointless. Almost no characters are likeable, although a chap who bounces around gleefully shouting "I've got metal legs!" is a lot of fun.
But yeah, lots of good ideas, totally squandered.
Still, the Sam is Missing arc starts now. Hopefully that means she won't be in it, because she was a pain in the arse through most of this book as well.

Next time on The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield... Dave Stone will no doubt be providing more evidence of how much better the Benny books are than the EDAs.

[daf]

(...) really dull, plodding action sequences. (...) Chapter after chapter of rebels vs. soldiers, big aggressive aliens after galactic domination vs. the Doctor, gunfights and technobabble. And almost everybody dies, to the extent that some plot strands are effectively completely pointless. Almost no characters are likeable

Haha - Sounds bloody awful!

[Jerzy Bondov]

Latest in Bondov's weird Doctor Who opinions (I'm filling in a load of my Classic Who gaps while I've got a free 6 months of BritBox): Arc of Infinity is rubbish but it's saved by Colin Baker. He's loads of fun and I can see why the Doctor decided to regenerate into him. Colin Baker fucking rules quite frankly. While I've got this BritBox I'm going to watch his episode of Blake's 7, where he supposedly hams it up and hogs his scenes so much that Paul Darrow decided to get his own back when he did Timelash.

[purlieu]

Next time on The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield... Dave Stone will no doubt be providing more evidence of how much better the Benny books are than the EDAs.

Oh God it's a sequel to Sky Pirates.

[daf]

Arc of Infinity is rubbish but it's saved by Colin Baker. He's loads of fun and I can see why the Doctor decided to regenerate into him. Colin Baker fucking rules quite frankly. While I've got this BritBox I'm going to watch his episode of Blake's 7, where he supposedly hams it up and hogs his scenes so much that Paul Darrow decided to get his own back when he did Timelash.

I'm currently in the middle of the Big Finish 'Lost Season 23' stories - which are (mostly) a solid gold treat - the Elizabethan historical 'Point of Entry' by Barabara Clegg being a highlight : particularly the bit where Peri has to go around impersonating the Queen!

[A Hat Like That]

Longest Day.
Longest Read. Am I right?

[purlieu]

Yes, for a story with so many ideas packed into it, it was a fucking slog.

[purlieu]

Oblivion by Dave Stone

Whatever danger she was currently in was not hallucinatory. It was, so far as reality could be inferred, completely real.
"You're the one behind all this," she growled at the alien creature. "You've been doing something to my mind. Well I'm here to tell you that it hasn't worked. You won't get anything from me."
Said alien creature seemed a little taken aback. "Is not!" it squeaked vehemently. "Is lovely Sgloomi Po what is name and is friend! Is on same side as Roz-type person and is not nasty-bugger want to do horrible thing. Is on same side."
"Yeah, right," said Roz. "Prove it."

Well, that was... something.
Actually, the first half was pretty good. The main cast of Sky Pirates! return, only set in our universe(ish) rather than The System, so it's actually readable. There appears to be a multiversal collapse, realities winking out of existence, each one replacing the current. Sgloomi Po - who, despite hir absurd dialogue occasionally being grating, is an absolute joy for the most part ("Is roar. Is tentacular, fibrillating and distinctly unconvincing roar.") - recruits Benny, Jason, Chris and a young Roz to help, managing to bring together than NA family and cause huge amounts of stress in the process (Benny and Jason are at each other's throats; Chris is torn up about meeting a Roz who won't even know who he is). The intelligent, helpful Time Lord known as the Doctor isn't brought on board because Virgin lost the license. Meanwhile, on Earth, the remaining crew of the Schirron Dream are experiencing each increasingly bizarre reality as it tears through the universe, including one where they appear to be in a film noir thriller, one where they're in a Sherlock Holmes story, and one where they're basically in 1984. It's weird and daft and colourful and a lot of fun.
And then the second half of the book happens and it turns into unreadable sludge. As the multiverse approaches collapse and things become fundamentally abstract, Dave Stone's prose becomes so fractured and surreal and nonsensical that it makes reading more than a chapter at a time an absolute chore. The sort of stuff where you can basically skim read pages at a time and get the idea, because it's ultimately just lots of weirdness that goes nowhere. The reveal that it's all a big trick to get them all in the same place in order that they can all be put into their own personal hells so their minds can be used to create an actual alternate reality where a man we've barely met can become immortal even though that reality is indescribable and impossible for the human mind to even comprehend is... well, a bit crap really.
So, there was a lot of potential there, but it all ended up being ludicrously pretentious crap in the end. Still, a couple more hints at what Jason is doing at the minute, as well as a rather sinister passage about how the Old Gods, Elementals, Immortals and such are too busy preparing for "some imminent Big War" that I'm hoping is at least vaguely hinting towards the same thing the People and Knights of Jeneve plots are also hinting at.

Next time on the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield... Justin Richards is back, so hopefully something straight-forward at least.

[mjwilson]

Not a bad cover, by the usual standards.

[purlieu]

Indeed, it's a good one, although it totally spoils the return of Roz.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Chalk me up as someone who found the latter half of the book confusingly disappointing and a bit depressing. After the wild ideas and scope of Sky Pirates! it was a somewhat deflating read. The trope of characters trapped in their own personal hells is also a well-worn trope that Stone goes back to multiple times.