Return to the Web Planet (Big Finish Audio)

The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa go to Vortis, the planet of Menoptera and Zarbi.

I really like The Web Planet. There seem to be a large contingent of fans who like to mock and criticise that story. They are probably the fans who are not into the black and white era anyway. Its true that there are plenty of problems with the production of The Web Planet, but you have to admire the boldness of what the production team were attempting in creating a world without any humanoid inhabitants.

The Web Planet might have been poor in some respects, but it was rich in atmosphere. There was really a sense of being taken to a strange, unearthly planet. Return to the Web Planet is also rich in atmosphere. This time, instead of the creepy, barren lunar landscape, we are treated to a world of dense flora; a vast and unearthly cosmic garden, a suitable habitat for the weird insectoid lifeforms. This atmosphere is created to a large extent through an absolutely magnificent musical score. Of the Big Finish plays I have heard, I think this one has the best music. It is a deeply mystical score, one that takes on into another world. It reminded a little of some of the work of the ambient group, Delerium. This score is included on the CD as a music only track.

Sadly, while the play has a lot of atmosphere it does not have an awful lot else to commend it.

It has been sometimes commented that it is unfortunate that Big Finish has seldom been able to recreate the TARDIS crew in the Davison era. With Janet Fielding, until recently unwilling to perform for Big Finish, a good deal of their Davison plays have been forced to use an hypothetical TARDIS crew of just the Doctor and Nyssa during the supposed gap between Time Flight and Arc of Infinity. This is not helped by the aging apparent in Davison's voice. He simply does not sound like he did when he was the Doctor. His performance has not particularly improved either.

Nyssa is as boring as she ever was. Making this worse, I found it at times difficult to distinguish her voice from that of the female Menoptera character. The Doctor and Nyssa riding Zarbis is a fun idea, but the supporting characters aren't terribly interesting. We have an outcast scientist/ politician type and his dutiful daughter.

On the other hand, Claire Wyatt is great as 'The Speaker For Mother Life.' She puts in a real urgency into her repeated decleration "I am the Speaker for Mother Life!" Its amazing what an actress can do just by repeating one single line.

We get to the conclusion in rather hurry. There is little conflict or narrative depth at work here. Its a story to enjoy for the atmosphere and the music, but not much else.

Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks (Virgin New Adventure)

The Seventh Doctor and Ace tangle with mobsters in 1920s Chicago, while Bernice takes a blood-chilling trip to E-Space.

Don't we all just love Terrance Dicks? It is so tragic that the new generation of Who fans, raised on the new series have never known the pleasure of reading a Terrance Dicks novelisation. I became a Doctor Who fan in between the cancellation of the show in 1989 and the launch of the Virgin New Adventures series, so my first experiences of Doctor Who were for the most part reading Target novelisations borrowed from the library. Dicks was for many years a writer I knew and loved. His magnificent Timewym: Exodus was the first New Adventure I read and it forever coloured my experience of Doctor Who, setting me on course to be a total New Adventure fan.

Dicks stood out from other New Adventure writers like a sore thumb. He wrote fun, old-fashioned Dr. Who stories in the mould of his novelisations, with lots of returning villains and mosters. Nevertheless, despite his Trad leanings, he still had a great feel for the New Adventures Seventh Doctor, with is manipulative and Machiavellian ways and for Ace. However, he dealt with these characters in a rather more light-hearted way and without the heavy angst of other NA writers. In Blood Harvest, Dicks seems to make the violent, gung-ho Ace of the New Adventures into something of a figure of fun.

Blood Harvest is very much a story of two-halves. The first half is a gripping tale of gangsters in 1920s Chicago at the time of the prohibition. The Doctor's schemes lead him to open up an illegal bar and act as a mediator in a turf war between the famous Al Capone and his rivals. This is narrated by the wonderfully film noir private detective, Dekker. This is a delightful period piece. It is only slightly marred by the attempted rape of Ace. Why was this necessary? A rape scene would have worked fine in an NA like Transit, which is a grim and bleak book. Blood Harvest is far too light-hearted for that scene to come across as anything other than tasteless or insensitive.

The second-half is a little odd. The action moves from 1920s Chicago to E-space, where Bernice is investigating the vampires. Bernice comes across very well here. Her portrayal seems rather more realistic than the hard-drinking wise-cracker we see in some other stories. Bernice meets up with Romana, who is portrayed delightfully as an aristocratic snob. I love Romana and I love her as a snooty posh girl. I know some fans feel Dicks has rather caricatured her. I like Bernice's reflection that the while Romana chose to work amongst the nobility of the E-space planet, the Doctor would inevitably have hung out with the peasents. Terrance Dicks gets the left-wing bias of the show.

What we have in the second-half of Blood Harvest, a sequel to State of Decay. This ties into the Missing Adventure, Goth Opera. Blood Harvest is an odd kind of sequel, in that it alters some of the premises of State of Decay. In State of Decay, the village was apparently the only village on the planet, but in Blood Harvest, we learn there are other villages, ruled by other lords, some vampires, some mortals. This is a rather more realistic scenario than the rather half-imagined world of the original serial.

At the climax, events shift to Gallifrey. At this point, Dicks seems to stop taking the story seriously and creates a pastiched sequel to The Five Doctors, with a group of rogue Time Lords attempting to free Borusa from his imprisonment in Rassilon's tomb. This is all rather funny, but its comic tone is a little out of step with the more serious (but still fun) elements in the novel. It certainly is fun to read the Doctor exclaiming 'No, not the mind probe!' Oddly, we see the return of Castellan Spandrell (who also makes an appearance in Goth Opera). We have already seen two of his successors has he come out of retirement, like the sort of aging, gristle heroes played by Clint Eastwood?

I am not terribly happy with the idea of Romana returning to Gallifrey. I know it has become established continuity that she becomes lord president of the Time Lords, but I don't feel this fits her character. She was desperate not to go back to Gallifrey. We saw her develop into a sort of female Doctor and her departure to help the Tharils, however rushed seemed a fitter conclusion to the character. Besides, if she were in E-space its more likely that she might return to the New Series (dream on..).

The Tomb of the Cybermen

The Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria discover the curse of the Cyberman's tomb.

There is something rather cruel about the way fan opinion has shifted on this story. At one time, Tomb of the Cybermen was spoken of with awe as the great lost story that everybody longed to see. Then it was finally discovered in Hong Kong and fans discovered that actually it was really nowhere near as good as they had imagined. In fan circles, it became cool to rubbish and demean this story. Which shows how shallow and fickle we Doctor Who fans can sometimes be. On account of this, my inclination is to be as kind and gentle to this once well-remembered story as possible.

Probably one element that added to the high expectations of the story is the title. It might be a bit of a Dr. Who cliche for stories to be the something of something, but this one is distinctive. The title raises the obvious question in the audience mind, how did the Cybermen come to be entombed and are they going to get out? It is a clever and evocative title.

Shall we get the faults with this serial over with as quickly as possible? I suppose the first thing to mention is the horrendous racial stereotyping. You have Toberman, the strong, mostly silent black servant who saves the day only out of faithfulness for his mistress (incidently, the Cybermen's rectangular mouthes rather reminds me of a Golligwog or the Black and White Minstrel Show!). Then there is Klieg, who seems to be an Israeli Jew and his accomplice, Kaftan, who is probably also intended to be Jewish. I suppose we can also mention the pathetic attempts at American accents. A good deal of the acting from the guest cast is uniformly bad, though Shirley Cooklin is not too bad as Kaftan. The characters are all cliched stereotypes. Some of the science in the story is rather dodgy. The plot is not the strongest.



Nevertheless, for all its weaknesses this is an effective story because it has atmosphere. It is like a cheesy horror movie that still manages to scare one. There is a real sense of foreboding when the archaeologists explore the tomb. The Cybermen have real menace when they emerge from their tombs covered in slime. The Cybermen are frightening because they share with Mummies and Zombies that sense of body-horror. They are beings that were human, but are now something less than human. And they can make you into one of them. 'You belong to uzzz. You shall become like uzzz.'

For my part, I prefer the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet who were more human and less robotic. These Cybermen are still very effective with the Controller's mechanical voice and their blank expressions. The Controller' costume is great, with his oversized cranium. On the other hand, giving the Cybermen a super-intelligent leader reduces the individual Cybermen to just being heavies. In previous Cybermen, stories, the ordinary Cybermen had more menace. In the later story, The Invasion, the Cybermen came across as useless and brainless zombies.



Tomb of the Cybermen is of course Victoria's first appearance as a companion proper, after her first appearance in Evil of the Daleks. Deborah Watling is not the strongest of actresses, but she endears herself in this. Victoria's reactive chemistry with Kaftan is great; she instantly picks up that Kaftan is up to no good.

Frazer Hines is fun and funny as Jamie, with his usual perfect camaderie with the Doctor. Patrick Troughton is glorious as the Doctor. You can see touches of McCoy's later dark and manipulative Doctor here. He shows great tenderness in the way he comforts Victoria and tells her of how incredible her new life can be.

Trivial point: Notice that Kaftan is wearing sandals. Once you get into the coloured era of Doctor Who, you find that characters in space or the future rarely wear sandals. Later directors seemed to think that in the future, everybody would either wear rubber ankle boots or big knee-high jackboots.

The Armageddon Factor

The Fourth Doctor and the first Romana look for the sixth and last segement of the Key to Time in a warzone.

I think the Key to Time season shows how story arcs don't really suit Doctor Who. Character driven story arcs are fine. The first season with the original TARDIS crew was one long story about the characters. That works. However, plot-driven arcs that span multiple serials or episodes do not work so well. Despite some of the excellent and delightfully witty writing in Season 16, the writers never really made the Key To Time into a convincing or interesting concept. Androids of Tara almost sends up the whole idea of the quest, with the Doctor's indifference to finding it and Romana's remarkably immediate success in finding the fourth segment. The nature of story arcs is that they build up audience expectation and thus require an epic conclusion. The problem is that Doctor Who does not do epic terribly well. The Armageddon Factor makes a brave attempt at a epic finale, but ends up looking just a little too tacky and cheap. Even worse, it gives us a resolution to the Key To Time quest that is a little confusing and unsatisfying.

Armageddon Factor has a wonderful opening, with the scene in the dreadfully melodramatic war movie. This imaginative move suggests good things for the serial and indeed, it does have good ideas. A pointless war to the death, a paranoid general, an enemy fleet controlled by a computer and the Doctor tempted by god-like powers. The script is really excellent with some great lines. Tom and Mary do their customary great job, though its sad to know this is the last performance of Mary Tamm. Of the guest cast, John Woodvine is brilliant as the Marshall and he is ably supported by Davydd Harries as Shapp. Woodvine gives a subtle performance, acting quite woodenly in a way that suits the character. The early scenes set on Atrios create a wonderfully bleak and dystopian atmosphere, reflecting Orwell's 1984. Unfortunately, this is lost as the story progresses and we are left with a lot of sci-fi silliness.

As I said, The Armageddon Factor needed to be epic and here the problem of scale comes in. We have a story set in three locations, the underground city on Atrios, Zeos and the Shadow's HQ (is it a space station or a planet?). Atrios is represented by a lot of grim and dark corridors, Zeos is represented by some brighter, cleaner-looking corridors and the Shadow's HQ is made up of some sinister, cavern-like corridors. Despite its cheapness the Atrios sets work because of the claustrophobic, war-torn atmosphere. Once we move away from Atrios, the cheapness of the sets prevails in the viewer's mind.

While the Marshall and Shapp are great, the rest of the cast are rotten. Lalla Ward gives a rather uninspiring performance. It is amazing that she managed to prove her worthiness in the next season. Ian Saynor is simply appalling as the princess' drippy lover, Merak. The Shadow's costume is not bad, but he has the most embarassing evil laugh in the history of the show. His silent servants are given shockingly bad cotumes, complete with sensible lace-up shoes. I suppose there is no reason why an alien moster might not wear lace-ups, as opposed to jackboots or sandals, but it just adds to the overwhelming feeling of cheapness in this story.

The subplot with Princess Astra was clever, but the ending is just too confusing. Did the White Guardian restore balance to the universe instantly when the Key was assembled? Or was the quest pointless? Was the White Guardian really the Black Guardian? We are left without any decent resolution. On the other hand, Tom Baker's speech about having absolute power is a brilliant moment.

The Awakening

The Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough run into those weird people who do historical reenactments.

A lot of Doctor Who stories suffer from the problem of being far too long with loads of padding, but this story has the misfortune of being too rich and deep for just two episodes.

The Awakening could have been a really excellent story, one of the best of the Davison era. It has some great elements. The rural location in an English village and a decaying church is really effective. Its nice to enjoy some English countryside in spring. The Malus idea evokes a strong sense of horror in the style of Stephen King. The idea of ordinary, modern people participating in violent actions is even more horrific. Historical reenactment societies are a bit weird, so a horror story about them is a smart move. Will Chandler is a good character who fits well into the story.

The problem is that these elements are not allowed sufficent time to work. There is a real lack of explanation for too many things. Like the psychic projection met by Tegan. How has an entire village been convinced to take part in an horrendous act of brutality? Why does the Malus bring Will Chandler?

With the shortness of the story, the development of the characters suffers. We never really get a feel for what these people are like and why they do the things they do. Tegan's uncle is the least important part in the story, when really he ought to be central to it.

The image of the Malus emerging from a crack in the church wall is very inspired. The problem is that it is too static to be truly frightening. It is just one example of how this story comes so close to being good, yet fails.

On the plus side, Peter Davison puts in a superb performance. Season 21 was the point at which he really makes the Fifth Doctor his own and loses the weakness of his first season. On the other hand, Mark Strickson and Janet Fielding do not come across too well in this story.

One small point, why does Tegan not think of using one of her high heeled shoes as a weapon? It could help to make a quick getaway as well as any sharp object. There are probably other occasions in the show when she could have used her shoes to fight back. Maybe the BBC was worried that woud be too violent.

State Of Decay

The Fourth Doctor, Romana and Adric discover a coven of vampires in E-Space.

Disconcertingly, after the attempt to break into 'hard science' territory with Full Circle, we are back in Hammer horror territory with a story about old fashioned fanged vampires. This story seems like it is in the wrong season and ought to be a Hinchcliffe-era story (Terrance Dicks originally wrote it to open Season 15, but it got shelved until it was picked up again by the economically-minded John Nathan Turner). What sets it apart from all those Hinchlife Hammer re-workings is its magnificent production values which put the Seventies stories to shame.

I find it remarkable that fans , in general, do not consider this story to be a classic. The usual verdict tends to be that State of Decay is a good story, but not that interesting. In my opinion, it is better than Brain of Morbius, much better than Pyramids of Mars and easily the equal of Horror of Fang Rock (which Dicks hastily wrote to replace this story in Season 15). Like all of the classic stories it has faults, but these do not stand out because of its well-paced narrative and highly effective production.

Terrance Dicks has a reputation as a 'Traditionalist' Doctor Who writer and certainly State of Decay takes many stock elements of Doctor Who- tyrants needing to be overthrown, 'Creature Feature' horror the value of scientific knowlege and ancient evil. This takes the risk of cliche, but Terrance Dicks knows them well enough to make them work. The revelation that the tower is a spaceship is brought out early on in the story. Other Doctor Who writers would probably have made this overly dramatic and brought it out towards the end, under the misguided notion that this is something of great interest to the viewers. State of Decay has a much faster and more exciting pace than the Seventies stories in a similar style. Dicks was a master of his craft.

A good deal of Doctor Who fails to generate atmosphere and this is always a big failing. In contrast, State of Decay is dripping from bucketloads of atmosphere. The woodland and the gothic sets both contribute to this, as well as the scripts descriptions of the ancient menace involved. This is the perfect story to watch on a cold, dark winter evening, with a glass of red wine or a pint of ruby ale in one's hand. Thanks for this go to Nathan-Turner's push for strong production values. We see some marvellous camera-work and effective use of location filming, as well as some brilliant sets- the gothic tower and the rebel HQ with its abandoned machinery.

I love the fact that this story ties into the lore of Gallifrey. The idea of the powerful Time Lords having an ancient arch-enemy in the vampires is very inspired. Despite the clear 'Trad' leanings of this story, the Virgin New Adventures have been considerably inspired by it. As I have said on this blog, I am a huge fan of Neil Penswick's The Pit that deals with the theme of horrors from the Gallifreyan Dark Times. It is not made clear in that story whether the Yssgaroth Old Ones are the vampires or some other Lovecraftian extra-dimensional monstrosity. Strangely, when Terrance Dicks himself used this story in his New Adventure novel, Blood Harvest, he re-wrote the background of State of Decay, introducing the idea that there were far more inhabitants of the planet including other vampire lords. I suppose this makes a bit more sense that their being just one village on the planet.

I think that it was a very smart move to leave the Great One largely to the imagination of the viewer. Imagined terrors are always better than clumsy monster props and suits. We could probably have done without the fleeting image on the scanner, though I think the claw emerging from the ground is more effective than some people allow.

The vampires are brilliantly characterised, with the cunning and ambitious Aukon and the more venal Zargo and Camilla. Aukon seems to be the real power amongst The Three Who Rule. He also comes close to stealing the show with Emrys James' camp but chilling performance. Their final disintegration is very convincingly done. The peasents are a little cliched, but they fit perfectly into the pseudo-medieval world of the story.

Tom Baker and Lalla Ward are at their best, with Romana showing genuine terror and the Doctor clearly chilled by the thought of horrors from the Dark Times. There is plenty of humour and Baker's 'St. Crispin's Day' speech is a classic moment. Adric is a little annoying, but it is more interesting to have a companion who does the dirty on the Doctor instead of turning into an instant hero. What makes him work here is that he gets an instant telling-off by Romana. Adric's blaming his brother's death on the Doctor would probably have evoked sympathy from the soft-hearted Fifth Doctor. Adric was a companion for the Fourth Doctor and Romana and needed them to keep him in line. Without them, he became a nuisance.

There is something of an irony in this story in that while it supposedly holds out the value of learning and scientific knowlege, in the end it is the brute fore wielded by an ex-guard and his fellow rebels tha brings down the vampires misrule. The scientific studies of Kalmar are shown to be rather useless.

Two obvious faults with State of Decay stick in my mind. Firstly, what in E-Space is the 'Wasting?' It sounds an intriguing idea, but it is never explained. It reminds me a little of 'The Nothing' from the film NeverEnding Story, a kind of unstopable force of existential decay. What the theologian Karl Barth had in mind when he wrote of the 'Nothingness.' Or maybe some kind of cosmic terror, a vague entity we might see in a H.P. Lovecraft story, like The Colour Out Of Space. Sadly, we never learn anything about what it is meant to be. The second fault, is the bizarre desire of Kalmar to return to earth. There has never been any suggestion in the story that his people are from earth; they are certainly not descendants of the Hydrax crew.

Maybe its because I am a bit of a Goth at heart, but I love this story despite my preference for more 'Rad' elements in Doctor Who.

Full Fathom Five (Big Finish Unbound Audio)

*Spoiler Alert!*

What if the Doctor was a ruthless and cold-blooded swine?

This full-cast audioplay is part of Big Finish's Unbound Adventures series, a set of stories imagining the Doctor Who universe with key canonical notions rejected. This play portrays a Doctor who is prepared to commit cold-blooded murder to achieve his ends.

Part of the thunder of this story is stolen by the fact that the Doctor's ethics have never really been shown to be consistent. The First Doctor lied to his companions in The Daleks and endangered their lives (and then manipulated the Thals to risk their lives to rectify the situation). The Second Doctor wiped out the Macra (after Gridlock we all know the Macra were alien colonialists, but this was never established back then) as well as jumping for joy after blowing up the two Dominators. The Third Doctor aspired to pacifism, but did not seem to have too much difficulty killing alien monsters. The Fourth Doctor kills Solon with poison gas and threatens to blow himself up along with Davros (and allows two human slaves to get killed before releasing Davros). The Sixth Doctor happily dealt out death and violence, accompanied by James Bond style quips. The Seventh Doctor arranged the total destruction of Skaro and shamelessly manipulated Ace. I have absolutely no idea how that stupid Dalek in The Big Bang thought the Doctor would offer it mercy. So the Doctor already seems to believe the end justifies the means. Not that it bothers me too much. I find the pacifist sentiments of thr Third Doctor rather cloying and a bit hypocritical. But then I am a Pertwee-hating McCoy fan.

Full Fathom Five is an exciting drama that will entertain any Dr. Who fan, even if it is a little short. A longer story might have given us a better feel for this strange new Doctor. It might also have cleared up whether the brutality of the Full Fathom Five Doctor is part of his normal personality or a result of this being a later regeneration.

I have to say that the impression I get of this Doctor is that of his being incompetent and second-rate. He has botched a situation with the result of his being stuck on earth. He fails to stop Ruth accompanying him. Most importantly, he sees killing people not as a last resort, but as an only resort. So this new biological technology endangers the human race. Is killing everybody who knows about it really the only way to stop it? Is killing Ruth really the only way to ensure her silence? There is an incredible narrowness to this Doctor's methodology. Worst of all, it is implied that he meets his end at the hands of a girl and a mutant. The Doctor has survived the traps and gloating of Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, mad scientists and Fu Manchu-types. Could he really be defeated that easily. I can't remember the strategy of killing the Doctor every time he regenerates mentioned in any other story. If this is so easy, it is an obvious weakness with the process of regeneration. The Christmas Invasion seems to suggest that this is not so easy; the post-regenerative Tenth Doctor possesses superhuman ability and can regrow a limb.



The Full Fathom Five Doctor is redeemed by David Collings' brilliant performance. He really comes across as vitally Doctorish and brings to life this mysterious character. Despite the seeming incompetence of this Doctor, I do feel like I want to see more of him. I want to see how he would deal with other Doctorish situations.

Collings' brilliant portrayal is supported by a good cast. Particularly notable is Siri O'Neal as the Doctor's earthbound companion, Ruth.

Like the New Adventures, this is for people who like Doctor Who bleak and gritty.

The Power Of Kroll

The Fourth Doctor and Romana meet a giant squid and its green-skinned worshippers.

You know, I actually don't think that this story is half as bad as some fans make out. A lot of fans claim this is one of the worst stories ever, but what is actually so dreadful about it? I just don't see anything too horrendous going on here. I would much rather watch Power of Kroll than some of those dreadful later Pertwee stories, like Death to the Daleks. I mean, even if Power of Kroll is that bad, it is still only four parts, while your typical horrendous Pertwee story is in six.

There certainly are some bad things about this story. Apart from Ranquin, the 'Swampies' are all pretty unconvincing. Philip Madoc is wasted in a minor role, while the part of the base commander that he should have been given is played with corpse-like stiffness by Neil McCarthy. The interior set of the rig looks too small to be convincing and looks appallingly like cardboard. John Leeson is surprisingly dreadful when we finally get to see him in the flesh.

Other aspects of the story are a mixed bag. Its nice to see a really enormous monster being attempted in Doctor Who. While the Kroll moster is well designed, the effects used to create it are utterly unconvincing. It is still fun to watch it grabbing people with its tentacles though.

Mary Tamm puts in a good performance as Romana. She gets some good lines, put on the whole her role is handled dreadfully by Robert Holmes in this. She plays no effectve part and ends up as a standard damsel-in-distress. Again, the story is partially redeemed by the brilliant lines given to the Doctor and Tom Baker's performance.

As mentioned above, Ranquin is the only one of the 'Swampies', who gets to shine. He is a total and believable fanatic. His eventual demise in the tentacles of Kroll is well played. Glyn Owen puts in a weirdly bland performance as the gun-runner, Rohm-Dutt. Very disappointing because he is a cool character with a cool name.

There is some interesting politics in this story, with themes of colonialism and racism, but these are not terribly subtle and have been dealt with before in Dr. Who.

The location work is highly effective, with the Norfolk marshes giving the impression of an hostile environment in which one could easily drown in wet mud. The sight of the TARDIS cloaked in overgrown reeds is quite eerie.

Unlike the previous story, The Androids of Tara, the Key To Time story arc actually plays a significant role in the story. Robert Holmes was at least taking the story arc seriously, if David Fisher was not.

I can't be the only one reminded by this story of Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu.

Love and War, by Paul Cornell (Virgin New Adventure)

The Seventh Doctor takes his manipulation too far and finally loses the trust of Ace.

Love and War is the definitive New Adventures novel, where the themes and directions of the series really take shape. Paul Cornell was undoubtedly the best writer of the Virgin New Adventures stable. Love and War occupies a pivotal place in the series in that it gives us Ace's break with the Doctor and the entrance of Bernice Summerfield.

Love and War takes that great theme of Season 26, that of the Seventh Doctor/ Ace relationship and takes it beyond the television show. In Love and War, the Doctor pushes Ace to the limit until the point where she rejects his Machiavellian scheming and apparent lack of concern for her feelings. The novel gives us an apparent climax in Ace's emotional journey. It is a story of personal tragedy.

Here we have the Doctor as Time's Champion, the lonely genius who manipulates good and evil to achieve his objectives. He is detached from the feelings of others, yet desperate to avoid loneliness and desperate for the understanding of Ace. This is not the story for those who want an angst-free Doctor, but Cornell captures the Seventh Doctor perfectly. It is almost an indirect sequel to the Curse of Fenric. It also takes cues from the Seventh Doctor of Delta and the Bannermen, with his cool detatchment from the relationships of others.

Bernice is given a good introduction and is sold to us as a character with an instant chemistry with the Doctor. The book does not, however, spend much time developing her character. She sinks into the background quite quickly.

I am a fan and I am not ashamed of it. I like continuity references. Paul Cornell and other New Adventure writers have been cursed for their 'fanwank', but I resent this charge. We like to see other stories referred to. It creates a sense of the reality of the Doctor Who universe. I appreciate seeing Draconians, references to the Dalek War, IMC and Abslom Daak the Dalek killer.

The presence of New Age Travellers/Crusties is a nostalgic touch. The reference to 80s and early 90s culture is one of the pleasures of reading New Adventures novels today. The presence of Puterspace, a virtual reality world is also a nostalgic cyberpunk element.

We might expect the Doctor, a wandering rogue to be very close in attitude to the Travellers, but instead we find him taking a suspicious view of them, seeing them as dangerous and somewhat parasitic.

Portraying a sexual relationship is something that could never really be done in the television series. This is an interesting element and it is portrayed with some brilliant prose. It is a little hard to believe Ace would really fall so wholeheartedly for a man as obviously unreliable and inconsistent as Jan (does she really expect him to remain faithful to her?). Perhaps being in the TARDIS with the Doctor makes the companions long for human relationships and take them wear they can.

Like many of the Virgin New Adventures, Love and War looks to H.P. Lovecraft for influence. The Hoothi are fungoid, like Lovecraft's Mi-Go, they are an ancient menace like his Old Ones and are worshipped by human cultists. They are an effective Doctor Who monster. It is perhaps a little awkward that it is never properly explained how Ace's old friend Julian came to be in their power.

The Invasion

The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe give the newly formed UNIT a helping hand dealing with the Cybermen.

Throughout the Patrick Troughton era, there are hints of what we would get in Season 7 under John Pertwee. Under Troughton, we see more monsters, more scientists, more alien invasions and more near future and contemporary settings. However, more than any of the other Troughton stories, The Invasion stands out as a prototype for the earthbound Pertwee stories. We have the near future setting, the return of Lethbridge-Stewart, the first appearance of UNIT, Benton, an alien menace, scientists, gadgetry, a dastardly tycoon and military leaders turning out to be helping the bad guys. All the vital ingredients of the earthbound Pertwee stories are present. The temptation is to evaluate it purely in terms of what the show would become rather than as a story in itself.

Two episodes of this story have been lost from the BBC archives. Thankfully, these have been reconstructed by animation for the DVD release. These animations are really quite effective, though they slip up by putting Zoe in the wrong outfit. The Invasion is a little long, but it is not too padded, compared to other Sixties and Seventies stories. The story has something of a difficulty with scale. We see a Cyberman invasion that consists of just a few Cybermen in London who do not do very much. There is a UNIT military action that rescues a significant character that takes place offscreen. We have a space battle that is created using a bit of stock footage. Still, the story does the best with what it has. Despite the limitations of what we are shown, somehow The Invasion manages to capture an epic, movie feel.

Troughton is in top form in this story, dominating every scene. One interesting thing to note is how well he gets on with the Brigadier. There is not a hint of the tension between the Third Doctor and Lethbridge-Stewart. It seems that the humble, self-effacing (but ultimately rather anarchic) Second Doctor got on much better with the Brigadier than the arrogant, haughty, but still more conservative Third Doctor.



Wendy Padbury is also marvellous as Zoe. I like the fact that as well as doing her usual clever clogs stuff, she gets to dress up in fashionable clothes and act girly. It makes something of a change for the character. This is helped along by pseudocompanion, Isobel Watkins. I love her trendy cocknified received pronunciation. It is a shame she did not become a regular, because she gets on so well with Zoe and Jamie. In fact for a few minutes, the show seems to morph into Scooby Doo with the Brigadier talking about 'those crazy kids.' Jamie, Zoe and Isobel bear a striking resemblance to Shaggy, Velma and Daphne. All we are missing is Fred and that dog! Perhaps if Zoe had been introduced to the TARDIS when Ben and Polly were around the comparison would be more apt, though what this would make the Doctor does not bear thinking about too much!

UNIT in this story seem to have pretty impressive resources at their disposal and are able to carry out effective covert operations. They are a far cry from the Dad's Army we would see in the later Pertwee years. It might be nice to see more of Benton in this story, but their are too many other prominent non-regulars for John Levene to really get the chance to shine.

Kevin Stoney is incredible as the villainous Tobias Vaughan. Although he at times rages like every other Dr. Who megalomaniac, a good deal of the time he maintains a calm demeanour. Particularly impressive is his amusement at Zoe's destruction of his computer. Stoney also shows a great chemistry with Troughton in the scenes they have together. It has been asked why a genius like Vaughan would put so much trust in the hilariously incompetent Packer. Presumably, Packer's skills had never before been sufficently tested.



The Cyberman are a bit of a let down in this story. They act like zombies, showing no real intelligence. They seem to take their orders from a computer. Their metal faces looking strangely happy. Their vulnerability of the week is to artificially induced fear.

I think it is clear that this story is not mean to be set in the Sixties. The computer technology is more advanced and there seems to be peace with Russia. The story is specifically stated by the Brigadier to have taken place four years after Web of Fear which was set in 1975, according to Professor Travers. This is clear evidence that the UNIT stories have an 80s rather than a 70s setting.