The Masters of Luxor

The Masters of Luxor is arguably, the ultimate lost story, as it was intended to be the second Doctor Who serial, until it was dropped in favour of Terry Nation's Dalek story. The rest is history. It would be interesting to imagine how the show might have developed differently had Verity Lambert stuck with this story instead of The Daleks, though one might doubt that it would have experienced the same runaway success. This serial has been adapted by Nigel Robinson, author of a number of Target novelisations, as a narrated audio story by Big Finish. The Doctor and Ian Chestertong are voiced by William Russell, while Carol Ann Ford voices both Susan and Barbara. The other characters are voiced by guest actor, Joseph Kloska. I was very keen to listen to this, as the original script was penned by Antony Coburn, the author of the first Doctor Who serial, known to us as An Unearthly Child.

The show was in an embryonic stage when this was originally written and this serial has some religious elements to it, with a lot of discussion about God, souls and the afterlife. Nigel Robinson felt it was necessary to trim them down a bit, but they are still present. The Doctor's final line mentions God, which feels quite striking.

There is action in this story, but it tends to spend more time in conversation and dialogue. This suits the audio medium well. It is quite a cerebral, intellectual story that asks interesting questions. Yet it also has some beautiful descriptions, along with that slightly dreamlike fairytale quality that many Hartnell stories have.

This is a very long story which feels awkward when it has so few characters. It does feel rather padded. I suppose Big Finish felt it was necessary to keep the length for the sake of authenticity, but one is likely to get weary listening to it all in one go. One difficulty I had at times was telling apart the characters. Russell and Ford work hard at distinguishing the voices of the Doctor and Ian and Barbara and Susan, but I still got a little confused occasionally. I also felt uncomfortable with the way the characters came across at times. Ian is really angry and aggressive for much of this. It also felt a little painful, the way Barbara seems to bully the Perfect One. Nevertheless, this is still an audio that is very much worth listening to.

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Despite its title, this serial concerns the Dalek occupation of Earth, rather than the Dalek invasion. In this, it strikes an original note, as there are plenty of films about flying saucer invasions, but very few films about what the flying saucer people do after they've turned up and knocked down the Statue of Liberty and burned down the White House.

There is a very effective sense of bleakness about Dalek Invasion. The characters find themselves in an utterly hostile, yet not unfamiliar environment, harassed at every turn by Robomen, Daleks, flying saucers, hungry dogs, collaborators, crocodiles and spivs. The scenes of a silent London remind me of the 80s Day of the Triffids series. Indeed, the scene where Barbara drives her truck into a group of Daleks is remarkably similar to a scene in Day of the Triffids, where a truck runs over a bunch of triffids. I actually found myself looking at the credits to see if David Maloney had any involvement.

There are two things that are not so effective. The long, lumbering plot with it's grab bag of Terry Nation action sequences and the rather weak direction of Richard Martin. In the rather unworldly atmosphere of the first Dalek serial, Richard Martin worked alright. However, he was much less adept at the more realistic action drama of this story. The fight scenes are simply terrible. This is a story that simply cries out for Douglas Camfield.

The final scene of the departure of Susan is moving, especially for me, as I am one of the few fans of Susan. However, it is hard not to feel Dr. Who's actions were a bit drastic and heavy handed.

The Daleks are perhaps less interesting than they were in the first Dalek sequel. They have become a generic space conquering race, the likes of which we would see rather a lot of in Doctor Who. The obvious difference from later Daleks, however, is their reliance on satellite dishes to move about in the open (in contrast to the city-bound Daleks of the first serial). Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood offer a good explanation for this, arguing that the more familiar space Daleks adapted a number of Skaro city Daleks to boost their forces.

What do we make of the Daleks bizarre plan to turn the Earth into a spaceship? When we considered Inferno, we connected that to that story to the theory that the planet Earth is constructed on a hole in the universe and that beneath lies an entrace into the hellish Yssgaroth universe. I pointed out that in Inferno, the Primord mutants appeared to be under some kind of psychic direction. The Yssgaroth vampires were trying to break out into this universe. I would suggest that something similar is happening in this story. The Daleks are being telepathically manipulated by the Yssgaroth into drilling into the Earth's core. Their Dalek minds are being fooled into thinking that they can turn the Earth into a spaceship, when actually they are breaking out a far more terrible enemy.

Galaxy Four (revisited)

I reviewed Galaxy Four quite a long time ago, but having watched the rediscovered episode three and the new reconstrution on the Aztecs DVD, I thought I ought to write something about it.

The reconstruction on the DVD is very impressive, despite the scarcity of material. It's better than the Loose Canon recon and better than many other recons with far more available photographic material.

I am struck how much this is a story aimed at the kids. Not in the way that today's show aims stuff at children, with dumb laughs and non-stop action, but with a simple plot and simple morals. As I said in my previous review, there is an element of fairytale (not the Disney or Moffat style) in these Hartnell stories.

The recovered episode demonstrates that Stephanie Bidmead's performance as Maaga is less than impressive. As Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood say, she comes across as a "slightly irked school dinner lady," rather than a villain with true menace.

I think the Drahvins are a future offshoot of humanity. Maaga strongly imples that she (unlike her soldiers) is human. That means that this story, like a number of other Hartnell stories is set far into the future. For some reason, the First Doctor seems to end up in the far, far future far more often than his later incarnations.

I think this story would have worked well as a Graham Williams era story. Romana would have been able to fight Maaga, K9 could make Computer Love to the Chumblies and Tom Baker's Doctor would have been completely dismissive of the whole story. Quite a few Graham Williams stories feel like send-ups of the Hartnell era.

I still feel very sorry for the Drahvins who are left to perish with the dying planet. I wish Dr. Who could have found a way to save them.

The Reign of Terror

There is a very significant conversation at the end of The Reign of Terror. Barbara suggests that they might write a letter to Napoleon explaining the futility of his ambitions. Susan replies that if they had, Napoleon would either fail to read it or conclude its writer was mad. This is the strongest statement in Doctor Who of the immutability of history. When Dr. Who says in The Aztecs that you can't change history, one could always retcon that and argue that he means one should not or must not change history. However, Susan's statement at the end of this serial indicate in the strongest terms that history cannot be changed.

While later writers have moved away from the notion of history's immutability, to some extent it does make sense that history does not normally change in the Whoniverse. When Dr. Who arrives on Dulkis, he says that it is a peaceful planet. He assumes a prior knowledge of events on that planet that have not changed. Likewise, when Romana arrives on Tara, she assumes that the outfit she picks will still be in fashion and that Taran fashions have not changed as a freak result of some temporal interference. Yet the immutability of history does present a dilemma in terms of telling historical Doctor Who stories. We see this particularly in The Reign of Terror, in which the writer ends up simply telling a story about a contrived series of perils in which the characters are placed, with only a very superficial reflection on the historical events.

An Unearthly Child was an historical reflection on the inter-TARDIS power struggles, Marco Polo was an epic about the beautiful grandeur of history and The Aztecs was a cosmic drama centered on the inevitability of history. The Reign of Terror, in contrast to these stories, is a collection of historical set pieces, some dark, some comic. I think the tone is more even than the rather overrated Romans, but it feels more drawn out than that flawed story.

For the most part, The Reign of Terror is lacking in meaningful reflection on the fascinating subject matter it covers. On the surface it might appear to be heavily biased against the French Revolution (being an ultraconservative monarchist, that should not really bother me!). However, the revolutionary side is given its say in Leon, villain though he is. Barbara later offers some sympathy for Leon and his revolutionary comrades. Her comments are interesting because they raise difficulties with the historical Doctor Who genre. Frequently in historicals, the TARDIS crew take sides as a matter of convenience with little regard to the right or wrongs of each party. This self-serving tendency comes across as particularly manipulative in The Time Meddler, where the crew effectively enlist the locals to ensure the conquest of their own nation.

The Reign of Terror is the first story in which we see Dr. Who's mischievous nature coming out. Throughout this serial, he seems to delight in meddling for its own sake. This is facilitated by his impersonating a revolutionary official, the first incident of Dr. Who adopting the guise of a person in authority, something that would become a regular part of his modus operandi.

It is unfortunate that Susan was so ill served by writers, but it in this story that she gets her worst scripting. She spends nearly all of the story either ill or whining and crying. She is so pathetic that she refuses to try to escape the guillotine because she is terrified of rats. Bizarrely, Barbara just accepts this. I'm sure I'm not the only viewer who wants to see Barbara slap the girl and tell her she will die if she doesn't start acting sensibly.



The Reign of Terror is not the most impressive of the Hartnell historicals, but it is a worthy landmark in the development of the show and paved the way for more sophisticated historicals such as The Massacre and The Gun Fighters. It is also the more enjoyable for the fact that here the characters are forced to rely on their wits, while in the current series, every problem is solved with some mysterious piece of technology or just the wave of a the sonic screwdriver.

TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 1: William Hartnell, by Phil Sandifer

You may have enjoyed reading TARDIS Eruditorum, the blog of Dr Phil Sandifer. The first two volumes of his blog archives are now available in print, covering the First Doctor and Second Doctor eras respectively. We may hope that the next volumes will soon find themselves in print.

TARDIS Eruditorum attempts to chart the development of Doctor Who as a cultural text from An Unearthly Child to the BBC Wales series. I did wonder at one time whether this project was really worthwhile after the very exhaustive About Time, by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles. However, Sandifer offers analysis of the Doctor Who stories that is a good deal more thoughtful and rather less hurried than that of the About Time books.

Sandifer began his Doctor Who project after graduating with his PhD and finding that job opportunities in his chosen field were rather scarce. I can identify with Sandifer, as I also gained a PhD and then found it to have limited currency in the employment market. Thankfully, I found an alternative career working with drug users and alcoholics.

The blog is written in a somewhat intellectual style. Occasionally, Sandifer loses me, but this tends to be when he gets into discussion with fellow intellectuals in the comment section. He also writes from a strongly left of centre position. Sometimes his socialism can be irritating, but I'm happy to read writers who don't share my conservatism.

That you can read the TARDIS Eruditorum blog for free rather raises the question of why one would want to buy a printed copy. I have no regrets about buying the book and plan to buy future volumes. The book contains some great bonus material, including fascinating essays and some reviews of spin-off material not covered on the blog.


In dealing with the Hartnell material, Sandifer charts the appearance in the show of those things that make the series Doctor Who as we know it- the Doctor's need for companions and his discovery that there are monsters that must be fought. He has a lot to say about what he calls the 'Problem of Susan' (named from the interesting but problematic short story by Neil Gaiman). By this he means textual difficulties inherent in Susan's character which ultimately resulted in her complete disappearance from the show. This ties into wider difficulties connected to the sexuality of female companions in Doctor Who.

Sandifer makes a powerful case that there are no pre-Unearthly Child adventures. He argues that the character we see in that first serial is utterly unequipped to be the Doctor. It is only his interaction with Ian and Barbara that make him into the heroic figure we see in later stories. This was argued on the blog, but is given further exploration in an essay on the Doctor's travels before Totters Lane. I tend to agree with Sandifer on this, though this is problematic for me because I view The Infinity Doctors as a pre-Unearthly Child story (and not an Unbound story). I think Sandifer's thesis of an unheroic older Hartnell is not incompatible with him being a bit more adventurous in the days when he was the younger Hartnell Doctor that I believe we see in The Infinity Doctors. Sandifer has not yet covered The Infinity Doctors, so we shall have to wait to see his view of how that story fits into the Doctor Who mythos.

I very much enjoyed Sandifer's discussion of The Web Planet, seeing it not as a disaster, but as one of the high points of the show. He sees in that serial a delightful exploration of just how weird and unearthly Doctor Who can get. He also joins the chorus of those of us who love the much maligned The Gunfighters. He finds much value in the Dalek spin-off material of the Sixties, arguing that it enables us to imagine the grandeur of the Doctor Who universe beyond the confines of the screen.

In an interesting bonus essay, Sandifer considers the question of whether William Hartnell was a bigot. He condemns two stories in particular for their racial subtext, The Ark and The Celestial Toymaker. It's hard to argue with Sandifer's condemnation of the racism of The Celestial Toymaker. He is appalled that the Celestial Toymaker has been re-used several times by Big Finish. I understand his anger, but I also understand why the character has returned. There is a such a strong sense of nostalgia about Michael Gough's Toymaker. He also cuts a very striking visual image. Yes, it might be racist to have a baddie looking like a Chinese Mandarin, but it is an undeniably impressive costume choice.

Maybe it's because I'm a right-wing bastard, but The Ark is very dear to me. I do think that The Ark can be defended against Sandifer's Post-Colonialist criticisms. Sandifer's reading rests upon the assumption that the Monoid's negative qualities are inherent in their nature and are not a result of their treatment by the humans. I think the Monoid tyranny can be seen as generated by the intolerance and stupidity of the Guardians, an hypothesis that the Doctor seems to allude to in that story. Like it or not, The Ark seems to reflect reality to some degree, as colonialism was often replaced by hideously corrupt and brutal dictatorships. I have heard people who once condemned Ian Smith as a racist bigot admit that in hindsight his opposition to majority rule in Rhodesia made sense.

Sandifer feels so strongly about The Celestial Toymaker and The Ark that he wants to exclude them from the canon of Doctor Who stories. This is unsurprising, as he has argued on his blog against the idea of a 'Whoniverse,' that is, a single unified fictional universe in which all Doctor Who stories take place. He seems to favour instead a canon in the artistic sense of an anthology of recognised texts. This is not my philosophy. Seeing Doctor Who as a unified fictional universe is an important part of how I consume and enjoy Doctor Who. I prefer a canon that is inclusive of as many texts as possible, including more problematic material like that of the Sixties TV Comic. This raises the question of what I would do with Doctor Who stories that contain racism or sexism. For me the answer to that is to regard such texts as unrealiable narrations of the events. Every story is true, but the details may not be accurate. Racially problematic materials can be seen in the same way as zips on the Silurian costumes or Ace remembering Paradise Towers.

For me, the most welcome addition in the book was the essay on whether Doctor Who is the name of the titular character. Yet I was irritated by one statement. Sandifer says "The problem is that there are no dedicated fans advocating for his name being Doctor Who." I am a dedicated fan and I have argued on this blog that his name really is Doctor Who. Maybe I should start referring to the character as such, though this could cause confusion as to whether I am referring to the character or the show.

His glorious essay on The Chase has to be read to be believed. Who could imagine that this silly story was about deconstructing the narrative essence of Doctor Who? That's much more interesting than saying it's 'silly but fun.'

I would heartily recommend Doctor Who fans to buy this book and also the second volume that is now available.

The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, by Morris Farhi (Big Finish Lost Story)

The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance is the second story in the Big Finish First Doctor box set. It is an unused story that has been adapted as a talking book by Nigel Robinson. It is narrated by Carole Ann Ford, with additional voice acting by John Dorney and Helen Goldwyn.

Don't you just love that title, The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance? It sounds so beautiful, so elegant and rather mystical. It's a title that really captures the feel of the story. This is definitely a story about beauty, about love, but it is a story with a gentle sadness and a sense of tragedy to it. It is simply plotted, but it is both effectively realized and imaginatively conceived.

This story is a good deal shorter than most Doctor Who stories. It also has a strikingly different narrative structure to other stories at the time. While other First Doctor stories have the TARDIS crew exploring a new world at the beginning, this story is set after the crew have already got to know the new world and are thinking of leaving. We also see the Doctor departing from conventions of the time and giving a very proud guided tour of his ship.

The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance is about a perfect world in which people live in perfect aesthetic harmony. Yet these people are only able to fall in love once. Unrequited love inevitably leads to a tragic death. One of the inhabitants of this world has the misfortune to fall in love with Barbara, who is unable to return his affection. It has something of a fairy tale quality (by which I don't mean Matt Smith pretending to be Mary Poppins! That Moffat stuff has nothing to do with proper fairy tales). This is a far cry from the science fiction of later stories. The story is also very heavy in metaphor, which reminds me a little of the Seventh Doctor era.

Carole Ann Ford does a marvellous job of evoking Jacqueline Hill and conceiving Barbara. Yet she is also able to re-create the energy and immature passion of Susan. I love the way she leaps to the conclusion that Barbara must stay or else. John Dorney is very good as Rhythm, although if you listen to this after Farewell, Great Macedon, you will inevitable be reminded of Alexander the Great.

This beautiful but bittersweet little story is the perfect follow-up to the grand epic tragedy of Farewell, Great Macedon.

Farewell, Great Macedon, by Morris Farhi (Big Finish Lost Story)

Farewell, Great Macedon is an audio story based on an unused script that was written at the time Marco Polo was broadcast. It is narrated by William Russell and Carole Anne Ford, with additional voice acting from John Dorney as Alexander the Great. This story was included in Big Finish's First Doctor box set. This script has been adapted by Nigel Robinson, a wise choice given the many Target novelizations he has written.

I am amazed at the ambition and vision of Big Finish in setting out to create a six-part Hartnell historical in the absence of the lead actor himself. Farewell, Great Macedon is a triumph in its success in capturing the feel and tone of this genre. Listening to it feels so much like the sensation of listening to the reconstruction of a wiped serial, except without the pain of staring at unmoving photos.

There is a sense of inevitable sadness in listening to William Russell and Carole Ann Ford perform with the absence of William Hartnell and Jacqueline Hill. Yet they do so quite admirably. The presence of the Hartnell Doctor seems to fill this whole work, not just through Russell's delightful imitation of Hartnell, but also through the way the dialogue captures his eccentricity. His dismissal of the suggestion that the TARDIS crew are in heaven because he does not know the way there is lovely. The moment where he walks enthusiastically over hot coals is very memorable. I laughed my head off when the Doctor shows a little half-heartedness at the notion of sacrificing himself for Ian.

Perhaps the story struggles to capture Barbara as effectively as it does the First Doctor. Carole Ann Ford tries hard to imitate Jacqueline Hill, but she is not so easily impersonated as Hartnell. Yet despite her manifest absence, Barbara has some wonderful moments throughout the story. Her knowledge of history makes her place in this story a tragic one. Knowing full well that the death of Alexander is imminent, she cannot bear to remain in Babylon.

John Dorney is suitably impressive as Alexander of Macedon. While he is portrayed as a man given to wine and strong in his temper, he is also portrayed as visionary and a humanist who longs to unite mankind in peace and brotherhood. His death is presented as a tragedy. Perhaps the story makes a little too much of this tragedy. Alexander created the largest empire known to the ancient near east. It is remarkable that he achieved so much, rather than that he did not achieve more. Furthermore, Alexander made a lasting impact on history through the spread of Hellenistic civilization.

I did find one moment in the story irritating from an historical point of view. This was when Ian offered a rather simple argument against slavery and Alexander and two of his generals offer agreement. Really? There whole society was built around the idea that their is a fundamental difference between freemen and slaves and they just drop it after hearing one argument from a foreigner? I was disappointed at the writer's failure to empathize with those he is writing about.

The plotting of this story, even by the standards of the Hartnell era is a little simplistic. The TARDIS crew arrive, meet Alexander, murders happen and the team find themselves accused. There is a certain sense of deja vu in hearing the regulars get accused of another murder and this is made worse by the fact that we see it coming from the first episode. I also find it hard to believe that so much lengthy dialogue would be included in a televised story, particularly the huge chunks of speech we get at the end. Yet this does not all detract from the beauty and nobility of the story and its dialogue. This is historical Doctor Who done beautifully.

What is especially fascinating is how the story deals with history and whether it can be changed. Following the lead of The Aztecs, Farewell, Great Macedon states in no uncertain terms that history can never be changed. Yet surprisingly, this does not deter the Doctor from interfering. The Doctor feels a sense of duty to help Alexander, even knowing that it is pointless if history decrees his death. I think this is a very elegant approach and helps to explain how time works in Doctor Who. It has often been pointed out that the Doctor does not seem to afraid to meddle in future human history or on alien worlds. But is he really working against the history of those events? We need not assume that if the Doctor cannot change history, he should be deterred from getting involved in it. If his interventions work toward the flow of history, so much the better, if his interventions fail, it does not matter; he cannot alter the course of history. If he cannot change history, he can do no harm by interfering.

This story is a worthy recreation of a lost era.

The Sensorites

Although a lot of fans hate The Sensorites, claiming it is a sleep-inducing plodder, I absolutely love it. It is one of those stories that I will defend whatever critics say.

The Sensorites has an element of nostalgia for me. The novelization was among the first Doctor Who books that I read at the age of nine. Like most I read, it was in the beautiful WH Allen hardback edition, borrowed from the local library. What is more I read it during my first holiday in France. I remember sitting outside my parents' caravan in the sunshine of Brittany, reading about the City Administrator's treachery, about Ian getting poisoned and the Doctor being given a stylish black cloak as a reward. It was all very charming stuff and I thoroughly enjoyed it then. Watching the DVD twenty-two years later, I still love this story.

Part of why I like this story is because it is very gentle. The story is about 'alien monsters' but they turn out to be relatively friendly. There is only one onscreen death and the villains are treated with mercy at the end. This contrasts with the morbid sadism of the Hinchliffe era and the pointless violence of the Saward era. The story is also quite radical for its time in that it has humans as the villains.

The most common complaint against The Sensorites is its slow pace. This is a charge that could be levelled against most Hartnell stories. Perhaps this is more noticeable with this serial because of its low level of violence. Another complaint is the round feet of the Sensorites themselves. I don't get this complaint at all; the point of the round feet is that they are not human. I think the Sensorite costumes are very effective.

Being one of the few fans of Susan, I particularly like the way this story, unlike the others of Season 1, makes good use of the character. She is given impressive telepathic powers, reflecting her ethereal alien quality and for once, she gets to stand up to her grandfather. It is sad that other writers could not do more with Susan. Notable also, is Susan's delightful line about her planet having a sky like a burnt orange and silver leaves on the trees. That line was used so hauntingly in the New Series.

The Sensorites should be regarded as one of the most creative and interesting stories of the Hartnell era.

Dr Who and the Daleks Cadet Sweet Cigarettes

Sweet cigarettes were one of those things that my mother disapproved of. She thought they encouraged smoking. I always enjoyed them when I got the chance to eat them, but it was a guilty pleasure. I vaguely remember the days when sweet cigarette packets contained a picture card, though this was a dying genre. Cool kids in the 80s ate Milky Ways and Smarties, not sweet cigarettes.

In 1964 Cadet Sweet Cigarettes issued a set of picture cards which told a rather epic story entitled 'Dr Who and the Daleks.' This was not, as its title might suggest, an adaptation of the second Doctor Who serial, but was in fact an original story involving the Daleks (with their egg-headed Emperor) and the Voord.

Some of the artwork on these cards is really beautiful. There are some very impressive space battles and some lovely Sci-Fi landscapes. The Voord look far more impressive in this story than they do in The Keys of Marinus. However, Dr Who bears little resemblance to William Hartnell. We could speculate that this is an unknown incarnation of the Doctor, but there is enough superficial resemblance to Hartnell to suggest that the artist has just done a bad job with the likeness. The Doctor's facial appearance actually varies from one picture to another, showing a terrible lack of consistency.

The prose text that accompanies the pictures is written in surprisingly bad grammar. It comes across like a story written by a nine-year old. Yet the epic scale of this story and its puzzling relation to continuity make it rather fascinating. There is no sign of the TARDIS and the Doctor is seen wearing a spacesuit for much of it. The Doctor is far more physically active than the Hartnell Doctor, which suggests this might be a younger version of the First Doctor. The Doctor Who- Complete Adventures website argues that this is a pre-Unearthly Child story in which the Doctor is on a mission for the Time Lords (perhaps with a Time Ring). If the Doctor's memories of this incident were erased, this would account for his later ignorance of Daleks and Voord.

Part of the story involves Earth in the future. It also features Marinus. This creates a problem if we embrace the claim of The World Shapers strip, that Marinus is the same planet as Mondas and the Voord are proto-Cybermen. We could always resolve this with the usual solution that the Marinus here is a 'New Marinus.'

The last surprise that the story leaves us with is the Doctor making peace with the Dalek Emperor and sharing a victory toast with the Daleks. This is quite disconcerting given that the Daleks are generally seen as the Doctor's deadliest enemies.

Image credits: Hello, I'm the Doctor

Mission for Duh

From the Doctor Who 1967 Annual

As odd as that might seem, the 1967 Annual was my first experience of Doctor Who (barring ten minutes of being terrified by Curse of Fenric). Unlike many of my school friends, I had not watched the last two seasons of Doctor Who and had no interest or knowledge of the show.

During a Cub Scout holiday in 1990, I came across a dusty old copy of the 1967 Doctor Who Annual in the youth hostel in which we were staying. I was not particularly enjoying the holiday and this strange old book was the highlight of it for me. The annual seemed like the most amazing thing ever. Being very keen on carnivorous plants, I was particularly blown away by the comic strip, Mission for Duh. This relic of another era sold me on Doctor Who. It was 1990 and the show was cancelled, but I began reading Target novelization after Target novelization.

Mission for Duh might have really shoddy artwork, but it's such a lovely piece of Sixties kitsch. I love 'throwaway' stories like this and I resent anyone who tries to exclude them from the canon of Doctor Who. It's wonderful to think that Dr. Who had all kinds of adventures that never made it to the screen. The planet Birr and its Verdant inhabitants may never get mentioned outside of the 1967 Annual, but in my mind their part of the Doctor Who universe.

Stories like these raise interesting questions of continuity. In Mission for Duh and the rest of the stories in the annual, the First Doctor is travelling on his own. This is hard to fit into the apparently seamless narrative of the First Doctor televised stories. However, there are a number of places where it could fit. It could be set in between The Dalek Masterplan and The Massacre after the First Doctor has left the Death Zone in The Five Doctors. Alternatively, it could be set during The War Machines, before the Doctor returns to collect Dodo. The TV Comic stories featuring John and Gillian would also take place during this unseen gap.

The Keys of Marinus

There are some Doctor Who stories which get less interesting or enjoyable with every viewing. The Ark in Space comes into this category for me. It's a rather dull story once you have seen it a couple of times. In contrast, The Keys of Marinus becomes more enjoyable with every viewing. Each time I watch it, I get something new out of it. I did not care much for The Keys of Marinus on first viewing, but since then I have come to love it. Yes, the production values are very low in this story, but it still has a simple charm that does not fail to entertain. The Keys of Marinus reveals Terry Nation's main skill as a writer; he is brilliant at filling a story with exciting events. There is no shortage of tension or excitement as he takes the characters on a roller-coaster ride from one danger to another.

At the time of The Keys of Marinus, the format of Doctor Who was still in a state of flux. The Doctor was still not that likable and Barbara and Ian were the main characters. The loose-structured nature of this story, with it's episodic narrative makes a strong contrast with later serials, but it reflected the experimental nature of Doctor Who at this time.

Remember the Chrystal Maze? That program had different zones, an Aztec Zone, an Industrial Revolution Zone, a Medieval Zone and a Futuristic Zone. This serial likewise puts people the main characters into similarly diverse settings. And like the participants in The Chrystal Maze, they have to hunt for keys.

The first episode has a few problems, most caused by the small size of the sets. The cast do their best, but they are clearly struggling to make it convincing. This is not helped by the remarkably large number of fluffs from William Hartnell.

The Velvet Web's sets are a little cheap-looking as well, but this episode uses them better. The premise of things not looking like what they are is very cleverly done, with different points of view shots. The brains in the jars are very well conceived and their voices are highly effective. It is just unfortunate that their final scene is ruined by Jacqueline Hill's inability to break the glass.

There is a nice eeriness to the Screaming Jungle and this is backed up by a real sense of urgency. Unfortunately, this is a really cheap looking episode, with the dreadful idol and the laboratory that appears to be in a garden shed.

The next episode is more effective, mainly because of the great acting from Vasor, the trapper. I must admit, I am a bit in two minds about the scene where he appears to threaten Barbara with rape; it is a children's show after all. There is something a little worrying about the way that Barbara is repeatedly threatened with rape in the Hartnell era, though I suppose it is sadly true to life.

The ice warriors (what else do you call them?) look as cheap as the rest of the story but they are hilarious. The moment when they are stuck on the wrong side of the chasm is hilarious. I recently watched the Eisenstein's Russian classic, Alexander Nevsky. Every time I saw the Teutonic Knights, I kept thinking of the ice warriors in The Keys of Marinus and it made me crack up.

From the snows of the mountains, we are brought into a murder mystery in the more modern environment of Millennius. There is plenty of suspense and tension in this. I love the way Hartnell conveys frustration as Ian's plight becomes more desperate. I also really enjoyed the performance of Fiona Walker as Kala, which is especially impressive, given that it was her first role.

The conclusion is rather clumsy. Having a villain who only appears in the final episode can sometimes work, but in this story it does not. The Voord also appear to have changed their nature. In the first episode, they appear to be humans or humanoids in wetsuits. Now they are described as 'creatures' and Yartek their leader seems unable to remove his mask while disguised as Arbitan. That said, Yartek's pretence at being Arbitan is hilarious and not a little camp. Coming across as Fu Manchu in a rubber suit, he is one of the sillier Doctor Who villains.

As with a lot of other serials, Susan does not come across well in this, as she goes into a screaming fit at the slightest provocation. She is slightly redeemed in the fourth episode when she summons the courage to crawl across the deep chasm on a fragile pole of ice. I love Susan. She was such a great character, but if only she had been given a better deal by the writers.

Sabetha and Altos are interesting in the pseudo-companion like role they take on. They might have worked a little better if their background had been fleshed out a bit more. Their romance is suddenly sprung on us at the end. Sabetha is rather bland, though I do like the way she is so prim and proper. Altos is just a little bit too camp and definitely needed a longer tunic.

One piece of Doctor Who lore that deserves to be discussed here is The World Shapers comic strip, by Grant Morrison and John Ridgway. This remarkable story revealed that Marinus is Mondas and that the Cybermen were originally the Voord! A lot of fans are unwilling to consider this story canon, as it has Jamie McCrimmon dying an horrible death. Yet there do seem to be some good reasons for thinking that Marinus really might well be Mondas. The only reason identified in The World Shapers is the physical similarity between the Voord and the Cybermen. Both have handlebar like appendages on their helmets. There are other reasons. Marinus is an earth-like planet inhabited by near humans. It could easily be Earth's twin planet. There is also the stuff about computers controlling people's behavior. The episode The Screaming Jungle gives hints that Marinus might be threatened with environmental problems. Perhaps the ice creatures are cybernetic proto-Cybermen. As one of them screams, they cannot be robots. Personally, I am very keen on this theory as it seems to enlarge the importance of an otherwise throwaway story.

The War Machines

"Doctor Who is required."

There you go. It's there in the script. In the canon. He really is called Dr. Who. You would think all those silly fans who insist he's called 'The Doctor' would just shut up. That line is one of a number of reasons for loving this story.

The War Machines feels very different from what has gone before. For the first time since Planet of the Giants, we have a story entirely set on contemporary Earth. We have some elements that would become a standard feature, Dr. Who working with an establishment figure, a military presence and a renegade computer seeking to control people. The War Machines is a template for much that would come later. Personally, this is not the kind of Doctor Who I like. I very much prefer the more fantastical Hartnell material, as well as the historical serials, but I do enjoy the freshness of this story and the sense of departure in it. Added to this, The War Machines gives us to new companions who are very different to previous companions, being trendy twenty-something adults (Barbara and Ian are probably in their twenties, but they don't feel trendy in any sense). The stories that follow show them taking to TARDIS travel with an enthusiasm that contrasts very strongly with Ian and Barbara. In this, they are a also templates for the later direction of the show.


I don't care much for stories with computers as villains. Part of this is down to the fact that they make boring bad guys, but also it seems inconceivable. Computers do not have a will or a consciousness. They are not persons. A computer simply processes the information it is given. A computer is no more likely to try to take over the world than your kettle. This makes me inclined to favour the fan theory that WOTAN is in fact a Dalek plot. Is it only a coincidence that the Daleks are active on Earth at this time? The whole WOTAN business does have a very Dalek feel to it.

The War Machines themselves are a little awkward, but they are visually interesting. The real problem with them lies in the fact that we only ever see one at a time, thus reducing their impact.

William Hartnell gives an energetic and engaging performance. His illness is not at all apparent here. He has perhaps lost something of the edge that characterised his earlier performances and has settled into being a kindly grandfather figure. Yet he is still delightful to watch.

Dodo's supporters are thin on the ground, but I still love her. Her characterization is paper thin, but she is so cheerful and pleasant. The sincerity in Jackie Lane's performance contrasts very strongly with the very knowing approach taken by Maureen O'Brien. Sadly, Dodo is not the last companion to be given a clumsy departure.

Ben and Polly are an instant hit. They are both well characterized and distinct. Ben quickly develops a great rapport with Dr. Who. Polly is also a strong personality. It is perhaps a little disappointing that she seems so meek and timid when a nightclub patron approaches her with immoral intentions. This highlights the way her character would frequently be inconsistently portrayed, with her being sassy, confident and sarcastic one minute and then whimpering with terror a few minutes later. Tragically, this is the only completely surviving story to feature this pair.

The War Machines is a light and enjoyable story at the tail end of the Hartnell era. While it is far from perfect, it deserves to be appreciated.

The Time Meddler

Douglas Camfield is regarded as one of the greatest of Doctor Who's directors and rightly so. What strikes the viewer of The Time Meddler is that it appears to be largely filmed on location, unlike most other Hartnell stories. This is an illusion, however, for this story was filmed entirely in studio. The appearance of lush location filming is achieved through the realistic sets, the moving sky effect and the generous use of stock footage. The Time Meddler's strong visual impact is a testimony to Camfield's brilliance, a brilliance let down only by some clumsy fight scenes.

The Time Meddler is hugely important in setting the direction of later stories. For the first time, we see one of the Doctor's own people and discover that the TARDIS is not unique. In this serial, historical and science fiction elements are mixed for the first time, something that caused a lot of confusion for many viewers at the time. This was a significant innovation for Doctor Who. What is perhaps unfortunate is the fact that this innovation came to be seen as the essential way for Doctor Who to deal with historical themes. Thus, true historicals came to be rejected in the Troughton era. The Doctor Who pseudo-historical has become a predictable genre, with the only real variation being whether the interfering being is a good alien or a bad alien and a lack of any real interest in the historical elements themselves.

The Time Meddler also altered the way in which time worked in Doctor Who. Barring the wobbling of The Space Museum, the show's logic had assumed that the course of history could not be altered. It was not merely objectionable, but impossible. Here in this story, we see a being like the Doctor attempting to alter history and the Doctor appears to believe that he could succeed. In my opinion this was a mistake. While Big Finish have gone to town on stories about altered timelines and the new series has followed suit, such notions appear very infrequently in classic Doctor Who. It has been pointed out by fans that the Doctor appears inconsistent in viewing earth's history as sacred, but freely interfering in the destiny of alien worlds and future human societies. I would argue that the Doctor's willingness to interfere in alien worlds actually supports the idea that history cannot be altered. The reason that the Doctor has no fear of toppling Helen A's tyranny on Terra Alpha is because he knows he cannot change history and his success is already a part of history. If he is unaware of the future of Terra Alpha (and in general, the Doctor shows a limited awareness of future human history), then he can at least try, knowing that he cannot alter history. This flys in the face of the accepted understanding of Pyramids of Mars (I have my own theory to explain the desolate Earth in 1980), but it makes sense of a good deal of classic Doctor Who. The Time Meddler can be blamed for the unfortunate idea that history could be altered at any moment.

The Time Meddler is very much dominated by the two conflicting personalities of the Doctor and the Monk. The Monk is an highly unusual villain in being rather likable and it is hard not to feel a lot of sympathy for him. This is very much enhanced by how unlikable the Doctor comes across in this story. He shakes with rage at the Monk's activity and comes across as a bit of a bully. It is interesting to note just how violent the Doctor is here, brawling and hitting people with clubs. While we are used to liking the Doctor, I rather find the Doctor's meanness in this story very enjoyable.

It is rather striking how manipulative the Doctor and companions come across in this story. They appear to the Saxons as allies, helping them deal with the 'Viking spy.' Yet in reality they are trying to ensure that these people are invaded by Vikings, an event in which they might suffer. The story does not deal with this moral tension at all.

I don't care much for the companions in The Time Meddler. Steven's first appearance as companion proper has him coming across as very thick and obstinate. I have never liked Vicky, but here she comes across as especially bossy and irritating. While we get a good performance from Alethea Charlton's Edith, the Saxon characters are uninteresting and the Vikings very unimpressive. These historical elements of the story lack any real interest in themselves. Yet whatever its faults, The Time Meddler was an important landmark in the history of Doctor Who and is visually quite delightful.

Quinnis, by Marc Platt (Big Finish Companion Chronicle)

This is the first of the companion chronicles that I have heard. I found it quite easy to listen to. The narrated format probably makes for an easier listening experience than a lot of the Big Finish full-cast audio dramas.

You know what, Quinnis is the first Marc Platt story that I have ever actually enjoyed. While I am a big Seventh Doctor fan, I don't think much of Ghost Light. A lot of fans rave about Spare Parts, but that story did not impress me much at all. However, Quinnis worked fine for me. It was not a big heavy epic story, but a nice easy story with just a hint of darkness. It is also really interesting to get a pre-Unearthly Child story in which Susan and her grandfather are travelling alone.

Quinnis, located in the 'Fourth Universe' was mentioned in Edge of Destruction. Platt takes this throw-away line and builds a quite vivid world. Quinnis is wonderfully described, with a town built on a series of viaducts leading nowhere. The monstrous bird-like Shrazers feel quite nightmarish, like something from folklore. There is a real fairytale quality to this story that reflects both the First and Seventh Doctor era. The Shrazers operate as much on a level of metaphor as reality.

I am one of Susan's rare fans. A lot of fans really dislike the poor girl, but the fact that she is the Doctor's granddaughter makes her really special. For all the limitations of Carole Ann Ford's acting ability, she did give Susan a delightfully ethereal quality that suited her well. Here Carole Ann Ford does a great job of reprising her old role and also providing an adequate, if not brilliant impression of Hartnell's Doctor. Susan is characterized as desperately lonely for companionship and it is this that gets her into trouble. It is also this incident that leads the Doctor to believe that Susan needs a more structured and disciplined life (though that is a little at odds with his contempt for the school in An Unearthly Child).

Alongside Carole Ann Ford is her real-life daughter, Tara-Louise Kaye, who plays a girl that Susan befriends. This girl turns out to be more than she seems. Kaye plays this role very well, giving the character a really disturbing edge, while still allowing the listener the possibility of sympathizing with her.

While the Doctor is far from heroic in this story, he is a much more sympathetic than the sinister Machiavellian scoundrel we saw in An Unearthly Child. This is perhaps a little disappointing. On the other hand, it is lovely to hear him blustering his way out of trouble.

For me this was a lovely introduction to the Companion Chronicles and a fantastic Big Finish production.

The Infinity Doctors, by Lance Parkin (BBC novel)

'The Doctor closed his eyes. This was her, there was no possible cause to doubt that now. She had lived so much longer than him, lived at his Family home for countless generations. She had tutored his grandfather and his father. She had been there at his birth. She had nursed him, taught him, danced with him, loved him, borne his children.'

Aesthetically, I rather wish this had been the last Doctor Who novel ever written. This novel shows us the Doctor on his own planet, shows him choosing wandering over a contented life on that planet, it shows the Doctor's great strengths and desire for justice, yet it also shows us the woman he loves who bore his children; it is the ultimate glimpse into his personal life. This is a Doctor that we can relate to and also a Doctor that we can celebrate and delight in.

The Infinity Doctors is unique among Doctor Who novels in that it is never made clear which Doctor is the protagonist. His close-cropped hair sets him apart from all of the Doctors except Ecclestone. His dialogue suggests the Eighth Doctor, but his oval-shaped face could suggest a younger Hartnell Doctor. I personally dislike the notion that the Morbius faces were pre-Hartnell incarnations so I don't accept the notion that this is an unknown older incarnation. It has been suggested that this is novel is set on a resurrected Gallifrey after the closure of the BBC novels, but the presence of Hedin and the apparent friendship between the Doctor and the Master (the Magistrate) does not support this idea. I prefer to see this Doctor as a pre-Unearthly Child First Doctor before his exile from Gallifrey. This Doctor is not the rebellious student some have imagined, but rather a respected academic who serves on the High Council.

One of the clever feats of this book is the way it puts together everything we have ever been told about the Time Lords. Every Time Lord story is referenced in some way. Lance Parkin admitted that a consequence of this was that inevitably these details contradict different stories in different ways. The story of the Time Lords was never written with continuity in mind and this book does not try to give us a story that fits into any watertight continuity. It is tempting to see this as an 'Elseworld' or 'Unbound Adventure' in which the Doctor has given up travelling and gone home to Gallifrey, but this was not Parkin's intention and I think this detracts from the beauty of what The Infinity Doctors achieves. The Doctor in this novel really is the Doctor.

One of the things I love about this novel is the way it restores grandeur and nobility to Gallifrey. The Gallifrey we see here is an imperfect society (we see crime and squalor in Low Town), but it is not the cynical totalitarian regime of The Deadly Assasin. This Gallifrey is a place of beauty and grandeur, but even more importantly, it is a place in which the Doctor is respected and loved. This actually fits in better with what we know of the Doctor then the Holmseian vision. The Hartnell Doctor really did hope to return home to his world of silver trees and burnt orange skies. He would never have wanted to return to the degeneracy and corruption of the Deadly Assassin Gallifrey. Readers know how much I detest the BBC Wales series, but one of the things they did right was to throw out the Holmes cynicism and to make Gallifrey seem like a wonderful place that was tragically lost. The Time Lords of this Gallifrey are not he god-like figures of The War Games or the Lawrence Miles books. They are also conscious of their own temporality. They are well aware that Gallifrey will not last for all eternity.

The plot of The Infinity Doctors is not the strongest we have read, but it is exciting. Incredibly, this novel offers us a reworking of The Three Doctors that is much better than the original. How this incident fits in with the Pertwee story I can't say, but it's very good. We also get to learn a good deal about the history of the Sontaran/ Rutan war, with the Doctor involved in negotiations between the two races. We are promised that one day the two peoples will be at peace.

She was wearing a loose-flowing gown in ivory silk and lace, with bare shoulders, gathered at the waist by a wide belt. Her long blonde hair was held up by a gold clasp, and swept down to the small of her back. She wore a necklace of white flowers, and held a feather fan. She was his height, a little taller as her feet were bare, and he was wearing shoes.

In this novel we meet the Doctor's wife, not the TARDIS and not that cardboard tart River Song, but the woman who bore his children. This is the same character as Patience who Parkin introduced in Cold Fusion. She was shot dead, but brought back to life in Omega's universe. This lady is definitely somebody we can imagine being the Doctor's wife. She is mysterious and ethereal, like a woman in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. That the Doctor had several children supports the notion that he might have had more than one grandchild, hence the possibility of John and Gillian being canon. It is difficult not to suspect that Parkin has something of a foot fetish; the Doctor's wife is barefoot and the other female character, Larna is barefoot for most of the book.

This is a book that blew me away with its beauty, its depth and by its delight in the details of the show. If you read any Doctor Who novel, read this one.

The Crusade

The novelisation of this story, Dr. Who and the Crusaders was in my school library. I really enjoyed reading it at the age of ten, though it was a little more difficult to understand than other Target novels, for instance The Horns of Nimon. As with so many children, a story about knights had instant appeal. The novelisation contained an interesting piece of dialogue, in which the Doctor explained that the TARDIS crew can never change history. Once they land, they are instantly involved in the flow of history. This is how I understand time in Doctor Who. Whatever planet the TARDIS lands on, it's crew don't work against history but perform their allotted role. So when the Doctor goes to Terra Alpha, in The Happiness Patrol, he does not alter history by overthrowing Helen A. The downfall of Helen A was a part of history, the Doctor simply took his place in the tide of history and brought it about. This does not mean that there is no free-will. The Doctor's knowledge of the future is not exhaustive, so he simply does what seems right in the situation, knowing that history will play itself out. That's not how most fans and Doctor Who writers view history in Doctor Who, but I think this makes sense of a lot of stories. As regards The Crusade, if history were not immutable, then the Doctor would surely have been concerned that his involvement in the politics of the court of Richard the Lionheart could alter history. However, he knows that history is immutable and so nothing he does will alter the outcome of history.

Anyway, enough about that. What about the televised serial?

If any story deserved to survive the great wipe-out, The Crusade definitely did. Possibly of all the lost episodes, I think I would most like to see the episodes 2 and 4 of this one rediscovered. The two surviving episodes of this serial reveal just how strong it was, both visually and in the performances. Douglas Camfield is rightly regarded as one of the greatest of Doctor Who directors and in The Crusade he is at his strongest. The Crusade does not attempt to mimic a big movie production, instead what we get is a very theatrical, stagey production that relies on first class acting and exquisite dialogue. It's a very 'talky' story (which is why the audio recordings of the lost episodes work so well without narration), but with such a superb script this works fine. The Crusade tries to hard to be a Shakespeare play and succeeds.

I am a fan who rather likes The Web Planet, yet even I will admit the enormous contrast in quality between this serial and the story prior to it. Perhaps the comparison is not altogether fair. The Crusade was working with familiar historical territory and had access to stock costumes, while The Web Planet required the realisation of an utterly alien world from scratch. Yet one can imagine that Douglas Camfield would have injected some much stronger direction into that serial. The Web Planet suffers not just from the difficulties of realisation, but also from some very clumsy scenes and rather lacklustre performances (though I will always love Roslyn De Winter's plummy voice!).

The Crusade has some remarkably adult features. The regulars are put through some quite terrifying experiences! It's quite disturbing to see Barbara threatened with rape and torture. It must have been quite traumatic for her, having one bloke after another wanting to molest her. It's interesting that younger companions in Doctor Who are never faced with the same level of physical violence that Barbara was so often faced with. One cannot imagine Jo Grant or Zoe ever being threatened with rape. I suppose this is due to those characters being child-identification figures. Maybe the loss of a mature companion, along with the historicals resulted in a certain lack of realism in Doctor Who.

While the villain is an Arab and the Doctor, Ian and Vicky join with the Crusaders, the story avoids taking sides. Richard the Lionheart is not portrayed as a saint and Saladin is given a sympathetic treatment. The Crusades genuinely come across in this serial as the brutal affair that they were.

Together, Julian Glover as Richard and Jean Marsh as Joanna give an absolutely brilliant performance. There is a real subtlety to their work and there is a definite hint of incest in their brother and sister relationship. Odd that Jean Marsh would go on to play Morgaine who also had a dodgy relationship with her brother. The regulars also give some great performances, especially Hartnell, who delivers his delightful lines with such passion. Jacqueline Hill is just so adorable. Perhaps Ian's part in the story is a little dull. Ian does come across here, even more so than other stories, as a bit of a square-jawed hero type.

I have no doubt that if The Crusade were recovered it would go down as one of the greatest of Doctor Who stories.

The Smugglers

The Doctor : "You are now travelling through time and space."

Ben : "Yes, well, make sure I get back by tea-time!"

Animated reconstruction courtesy of DrWhoAnimator.

Perhaps a good deal of charm in watching this story today is that they don't make anything resembling this these days. Historical adventures are pretty much a dead genre. There are historical dramas with lots of emotion and serious themes, but historical adventures with lots of swashbuckling, black-hearted villains and hidden treasure are a thing of the past. I have never actually seen any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but the impression I get is that they are more in the realm of fantasy than historical action adventure. Perhaps it is a little surprising that this jolly pirate story was followed in the same season by The Highlanders, which is essentially another pirate story. While this story is on the surface a more light-hearted story than The Highlanders, it is apparent that the Troughton story is treated as more of a comedy, particularly in the lead actor's performance. While The Highlanders is enjoyable, the comedy feels out of place in such a dark story, while in The Smugglers, is able to tell an exciting adventure, not quite a comedy, but with a keen sense of fun.

The most obvious difference between The Smugglers and The Highlanders is that the latter provides a swashbuckling pirate adventure that arises from its historical setting, while the former makes no real use of it's historical location (other than the frequency of smuggling in that era). The Smugglers would not have looked out of place in the Colin Baker, with a change of setting to a far future space colony and the pirates as thuggish Sawardian types. It has to be said that the 17th century offers an awful lot of missed potential for historical stories, with events like the Civil War, the Monmouth Rebellion and the Glorious Revolution. One of the really sad things today is the lack of awareness of this period. Our schools teach kids about the Nazis and Henry VIII, but seem to miss out on this much more fascinating period of English history. Likewise film and television producers are fixated with the Tudors and seem to forget about the far more interesting Stuarts.

Obviously we don't know quite what this looked like, as no episodes survive. Nevertheless, given the BBC's talent for producing great historical drama, we can imagine that this looked quite fantastic. Judging from the audio recordings, most of the performances are pretty impressive.

This is the first story with Ben and Polly as companions proper. I love the way that the Doctor explodes with rage when he finds them aboard; there is something adorable about the way the Furst Doctor lost his temper. After they have left the TARDIS it becomes clear that he is coming to accept the arrival of young strays as routine.

Ben and Polly are a glorious companion team. It's tragic that they have only one completed story in the archives. Ben is tough and heroic, but not in the rather stiff Dan Dare mode of Ian Chesterton. As much as I love the original TARDIS team of Season 1, the cockney sailor is a good deal more fun than Ian. Polly is simply delightful. Her Received Pronunciation makes her seem as though she is from another world. Oh for the days when middle class girls spoke properly! Regrettably, the writers were never very consistent in their portrayal of Polly, even within the same story. One moment she is bold, confident and resourceful; another moment she is whimpering at the sight of a rat, as she does here.

One difficulty of this story is how little Ben and Polly seem to take it seriously. They adjust remarkably easily to the realisation that they have been transported to the 17th century. Then when locked in a dungeon, having been accused of murder, Polly talks about how much fun she is having! We could look to the philosopher Baudrillard and say something very postmodern about this. We might suppose that if a person from the Sixties who was used to watching swashbuckling ITC historical adventures were to be transported to the 17th century and placed in the midst of vicious pirates, she might indeed treat this as only a virtual reality equivalent of what she was used to seeing on the television or in the cinema.

There is no complex characterisation here, but we do get a wonderful cast of characters, the vicious Cherub, Longbottom, the creepy church warden, the corrupt squire and the remarkably heroic taxman, Blake. These people are so colourful!

This is not deep and educational like The Massacre or full of emotional drama like The Aztecs, but it is a wonderfully fun escapist adventure story. I doubt that any future Doctor Who producer will ever make anything like this.

The Savages

Animated recon courtesy of DrWhoAnimator.

It would not be unfair to call The Savages a rather obscure story. No episodes exist in the archive and unlike some missing stories, such as Marco Polo or The Massacre, it has no great reputation. Perhaps its lack of a monster has caused it to drop from the collective memory of fandom. Its main significance is seen to lie in the departure of Steven.

Doctor Who began in An Unearthly Child with a story about cavemen. Here we get another First Doctor story featuring cave people, yet the change in the Doctor's attitude and values is enormous. Back in his first adventure, he showed complete contempt for the lives of the primitive humans he encountered. Here he values the savage humans as equals and is outraged by the injustices perpetrated against them. It is great to listen to the Doctor's condemnation of Jano's regime.

This is the First Doctor's third visit to the very far future, the others being The Web Planet (humanity has made its presence known in another galaxy) and The Ark. The Hartnell era seems particularly suited to dealing with the very far future, as it gave these stories a somewhat ethereal, dreamy atmosphere. We are no longer in the era of spaceships and robots, but an era in which humanity is living on an altogether, higher almost mythic plane of existence.

Delightfully, this is a story in which nobody dies. Sadly, there are altogether too many Doctor Who stories with high body counts. There is something ugly about the way writers would inject large numbers of onscreen deaths into stories. Despite the sadness of Steven's departure, the ending of The Savages is very upbeat and positive. There is the promise of peace and new hopes. Like The Ark, two groups previously hostile are forced to come together and live with each other. other. It is remarkable how little we see of this in later stories. In future, the villains would tend to die grisly deaths and the monsters would all be blown up. This Doctor is not fighting against terrible things that have bred in dark corners, but is knocking together the heads of warring parties and teaching them a better way.

For the first time, we see the Doctor acquiring a reputation outside of his own people. The inhabitants of the city know of the Doctor's travels, though not his name. This is quite interesting in terms of background. The Elders seem unaware that the Doctor would be against their activities, so it suggests that the Doctor had been travelling in this time before he was joined by Susan, before he called himself the Doctor and before his attitude mellowed in Season 1. Contrary to this notion, we are told in Carnival of Monsters that the Doctor had campaigned against miniscopes before his travels, a fact that sits awkwardly with the coolness of the Doctor in Season 1. I like to imagine that the youthful Doctor went on his crusade against miniscopes to impress a girl.

One thing that makes little sense is the lack of concern by the Elders about the welfare of the Savages. I know that the Elders think the Savages are subhuman scum, but they do depend on them to propel their civilization. Given the way the Savages are treated, their is the possibility that these people could end up dying out in the wilderness. I would have expected the Elders to show more concern about maintaining their feeding stock.

As with An Unearthly Child, we get a cave girl skipping about in her bare feet. As I have suggested before, it would have been more realistic for Leela to have gone barefoot. Even in the Middle Ages, Leela's boots would have stood out as exceptionally well made.

It's hard to judge the quality of The Savages by what is left of it, but I would have been happier had Doctor Who writers had stuck more closely to the values and spirit of this story. You don't need a scary monster to make a beautiful science fantasy story.

The Myth Makers

"If you take notice of them, I think you'll find they're doing more talking than fighting."

Animated reconstruction courtesy of DrWhoAnimator.

To say that The Myth Makers is irreverent would be a bit of an understatement. This serial is a complete send-up of the ancient story of the fall of Troy. The heroes of the ancient legend are made into a laughing stock and to cap it all, it has the Doctor providing Odysseus with the plan of building a wooden horse. The Myth Makers is hilariously funny. It is blessed with one of the wittiest scripts in Doctor Who, with almost every line getting a laugh from me, especially the continued ridicule of Cassandra ("Oh go and feed the sacred snakes or something"). Comedy stories in Doctor Who are always a little problematic because you have to believe in the fictional world you are watching. If you can't take it seriously, you can't believe in it. Perhaps it is difficult to imagine both The Myth Makers and The Massacre taking place in the same universe, even if the two stories are separated by over two thousand years. Nevertheless, there is enough violence and brutality in this story to remind one that this is history, even if it is being handled in a less than serious fashion.

Cassandra, by Evelyn De Morgan

The non-regulars give some very enjoyable performances in this story, of particularly note is the cynical King Priam and the thuggish Odysseus. Everyone seems to be really enjoying the story. Perhaps the big letdown is Adrienne Hill as Katarina. For somebody who is about to be introduced as a companion, she makes no impact whatsoever.

The Doctor is used highly effectively in this story. Here he is ensnared by his own cleverness, pretending to be Zeus, then finding himself unable to prove his own credentials. His protracted rage against his captor and tormentor Odysseus is quite amusing. Steven also gets a few good moments, particularly his hilarious interplay with Paris.

Maureen O'Brien is especially strong in this story. I have never really liked her performances; there was always a sense that she was not taking the stories all that seriously. That this is a comedy enables her to offer a characteristically knowing performance. Her relationship with Troilus is not at all convincing and is a typically rushed Doctor Who romance, but I don't think it is meant to be taken all that seriously.

Interestingly, the Doctor has no concern that Vicky will be unable to communicate with Troilus after the departure of the TARDIS. This would indicate that, contrary to the BBC Wales series, the ability of the Doctor and companions to communicate with non-English speakers has nothing to do with any 'TARDIS translation circuit." It would seem that it is an almost supernatural ability that the Doctor bestows on his companions and is acquired permanently, not temporarily.

It is quite tragic that so little footage of The Myth Makers is available.