So, Clara Then

(originally posted at Mightygodking.com on 3 April 2013.)

Yes, I’m posting about the new Doctor Who. Because if I do have a “thing” on this website, which I’m quite prepared to entertain arguments that I don’t, it’s that I’m the “Doctor Who guy”. And there’s a new half-season on, because the BBC is too cheap to fund more than about six episodes a year right now (I wouldn’t be so annoyed by this if the show wasn’t profitable as well as entertaining and popular and well-made–yes, it has a high production budget, but it makes it back and then some in merchandising.) And the first episode, ‘The Bells of St. John’s', aired last Saturday. So let’s chat about it after the cut.

Top Ten Missing Episodes

(Originally posted to my blog Fraggmented on December 11, 2011.)

For those of you who haven't heard the wonderful news, two more episodes of 1960s-era Doctor Who were recovered today ('Galaxy Four' Episode Three and 'The Underwater Menace' Episode Two), bringing the total of recovered episodes to 36 and reducing the number of missing episodes down to 106. As always, this is a day of rejoicing for Doctor Who fans; as I mentioned in my post over at Mightygodking.com, no other fandom can really understand what it's like to not be able to sit down and watch every episode of their favorite series.

Interestingly enough, one article on the TARDIS Erudotorum cited these episodes as "not on anyone's Top Ten list of episodes to be recovered." Which led me to the interesting question, what exactly would the Top Ten list be? So, I thought, why not give mine? Keeping in mind, of course, that we have to keep it to individual episodes (so no "All of 'Marco Polo'") and also that, suckily enough, we can wish as hard as we want but that won't make it happen. So here are my picks for the most desired recoveries, should a benevolent deity grant our wishes.

10-9. The Invasion, Episodes 1 and 4. This one is the most interesting, even though it's at the bottom of the list, because it's the most likely. Rumors have persisted for years, started by none other than the late Nicholas Courtney, that a private collector has copies of the two missing episodes of this classic late-Troughton story, but that they're holding the BBC over a barrel and demanding an exorbitant fee before they allow the Beeb to "recover" them officially. (Courtney claimed to have actually seen copies of the film, which had picture but no sound. The BBC, as with all missing episodes, has sound but no picture. Any A/V club geek could resolve that problem.) Of course, this one is already "restored", in the form of Doctor Who's only (canonical) animated episodes, but it'd be nice to be able to watch the story as interpreted by the actors and not the creators of "Danger Mouse".

8-6. Power of the Daleks, Episodes 1-3. This is actually one I'd love to have in its entirety, but I'm trying to stick to the "individual episodes only" rule, and I just don't have the space for the full serial. And from the sound of things, to be honest, all the good stuff really happens before the Daleks give up on being cunning manipulators and just start killing people; the first few episodes are filled with tense political intrigue and the Daleks actually being clever and subtle, which is such a twist for them that I'd love to see it. Couple that with Troughton's first three episodes in the role, and I would love to see it come back home.

5. The Tenth Planet, Episode 4. And speaking of "regeneration stories", this is probably a lot of people's Number One missing episode. It's certainly of tremendous symbolic significance; the final appearance of William Hartnell, the first actor to take the role, is a major cultural touchstone among fans of the series. But I suspect, having seen the first three episodes, that it's more interesting as a "religious relic" than as an actual story, which bumps it a bit below everything else on the list.

4. The Massacre, Episode 4. Yes, I know. It does seem a bit odd that I'm actually prioritizing the first appearance of Dodo over the final appearance of Hartnell, but I really want it for all the bits prior to that. This is, by all accounts, a remarkably intense episode, with a shocking and devastating climax to the events in France followed up by a genuinely emotional confrontation between Steven and the Doctor. It would be well worth the small price of Dodo's near-nonsensical introductory sequence to get the scenes preceding it.

3. Mission to the Unknown. This has always sounded like one of the truly fascinating, quirky episodes of the series; a one-part story in an era where six and seven-parters weren't at all unusual, a story that features absolutely nothing of the Doctor, not even a mention, and a story that ends with the nominal hero dying at the hands of the Daleks, the Doctor's arch-enemies, with his dying message lost. I don't think it'll ever have the impact that the original story had (especially when it was followed up on with a four-parter that had nothing to do with 'Mission'...for almost five weeks, fans watched the show with the lurking knowledge in the back of their heads that the Daleks were out there, getting ready to conquer the universe, and the Doctor didn't even know about it.) But I would dearly love to see it.

2. Evil of the Daleks, Episode 7. This is another "Dang, I want every one of the missing episodes of this one!" story. But if you can only have one on the list, then it's got to be Episode 7. Absolutely got to. The Doctor's final gambit against the Dalek Emperor, the revolt of the humanised Daleks, the civil war on Skaro...this was epic stuff, and we've been denied it.

1. The Daleks' Master Plan, Episode 12. And speaking of "epic", this was a freaking twelve-parter. That's almost a whole season, one of the grandest and most ambitious stories ever done in the history of 'Doctor Who'...and the climax, involving the death of a companion (well, possibly, depending on how you count these things) and the destruction of worlds and Daleks melting from existence and great big huge exciting stuff, is gone. Possibly forever. **sniff** Could we have it back, please?

Alien Bodies Revisited

(Originally posted to the Jade Pagoda mailing list on January 9th, 2003.)

I recently decided to re-read Alien Bodies, more or less entirely on a whim; I hadn't read the book since its original release back in 1997, in no small part because I had enjoyed it so much when I first read it. Having come, as it did, after a stretch of books that included 'The Eight Doctors', 'The Bodysnatchers', and 'War of the Daleks', it really single-handedly revitalized my hope for the range, making me believe that there was really something interesting and exciting going on, something that would make the BBC Books just as good as their predecessors. Given that weight, could it really be as good as I remembered it being after years of War-related books and the detonation of the entire plotline after 'The Ancestor Cell'?

The answer was yes. Very much so.

In a lot of ways, I think my enjoyment of the novel was enhanced by the knowledge of the arc. A few bits stood out as being "promises unfulfilled"...the tidbits we did get about the Enemy don't jibe with TAC at all, and we never did find out the full story about the Doctor's body...or about Trask (and isn't it interesting that Trask, an agent for the Celestis, remembers drowning while the Doctor watched...and years later in the range, not one but two characters have drowned while the Doctor watched--Rasputin and Roger Nepath? The fanboy in me geeks out at the thoughts in this...) A few other threads did get followed up, even if I wasn't totally satisfied with the way they finished off. The War, in the end, just got hacked off like a gangrenous limb, which was something of a shame--however, I think an ending was needed by that point, even if I wish it had been handled somewhat differently. Faction Paradox has never been handled as well by anyone else. Qixotl vanished into the ether (and hopefully, please god hopefully so did the review in which I suggested he was Captain Cook from 'Greatest Show In the Galaxy'. Look, he mentioned Golobus...and the Evil From Before the Dawn of Time...Drax was my second guess, honest! I got Tobias Vaughn right in 'Original Sin', by something like 50 pages in! I even figured out that Maggie Walsh was the head of the Initiative! :) )

Still, what stands out in 'Alien Bodies' for me is the way that it wears the Doctor Who universe so well. We get the Krotons showing up, and showing up in such a way that they're actually cleverly used. We get name-checks of planets from the TV series, but so casually, so deftly that they really seem more natural than fanwank, like mentioning Cleveland when doing a TV show set in Pittsburgh. Fanwank is always a dangerous proposition, but Miles uses it as just another tool in his toolbox.

And the language...oh sweet mercy. Marie, the humanoid TARDIS that gets stuck in the form of a 1960s policewoman. The Shift, popping up in the TV listings and the crossword puzzles. The Doctor's line about "Talking with your dementias is the first sign of madness". Jaguar urine as a surveillance device. Dark Sam being "the only person in her class who didn't think homosexuals should be shot". The Raston cybernetic lap-dancers, the "finest dancing machines ever created." So many more...

I know there's been a critical backlash against this book since it was published. I'd like to backlash against the backlash...this book deserves all the praise it got, and should really have been the template of the BBC series even more than it was--and it was the template for a lot of the BBC series. Truly a fine, fine novel.

My Reactions To Matt Smith's Announcement

1. I am, I freely confess, a bit sad. The Wilderness Years have spoiled me more than a little; when a Doctor from the Classic Series leaves the part, it means they do audios instead of videos and we get a couple dozen paperback books about them. When an actor from the New Series leaves, we don't see them anymore. Even for the 50th Anniversary Special, we're only getting two out of three. (Or three out of four, as it turns out.) Things like this make me miss the Missing Adventures even more.

2. That said, it's not too surprising--I was actually a tiny bit surprised to hear that we were getting Smith for Season Eight. Three years has been a pretty standard tenure for the part, with only two actors doing more and two doing less (and one of them involuntarily.) Three years is long enough to show everyone what you can do, let them get used to you, but not so long that they get sick of your mannerisms and feel like the show should end with you. (I do think that Tom Baker stayed too long, to the detriment of the series, despite loving the stories he did while staying too long.)

3. And I think Moffat has one more Doctor in him, but no more. It's a working theory of mine that any showrunner can come up with an idea for the Doctor by emphasizing what hasn't been emphasized in the previous Doctor's tenure...so Davison was vulnerable and young to counter Baker's omnipotent smugness, and Tennant was confident to contrast with Eccleston's survivor guilt. But trying to reverse it again leads to bad results...Colin Baker went against Davison, but in trying to not just make him another Tom, JNT emphasized exactly the wrong things. (McCoy, I think, was mostly a creation of Andrew Cartmel. And he agrees.) So if Moffat stays more than another two to three seasons, I think we're in trouble.

4. I was hoping that we'd get Smith's replacement mid-season this time, at the next Christmas special. But I suppose there are contractual reasons for that. (There might actually be some contractual reasons for his departure, period. Everything up until now has been pointing to him staying for a fourth season. But we'll probably never know.)

5. I really think that the various "who will it be?" speculations are all going to be wrong. Everyone tends to pick "hot" actors right now, especially people that Moffat has just been working with (so this time it's Benedict Cumberbatch, last time it was Darren Nesbitt.) But those people don't want a part like the Doctor; they've just been elevated to the point of big-name Hollywood actor by their previous roles, they're not going to take a part that primarily serves the career purpose of getting you in front of a large audience and letting you show your range. They've done that.

6. So we'll get a relative unknown (as much as I'd like to see them cast a non-white male in the role, I suspect it won't happen under Moffat) and another year or two of Moffat, at least. And frankly, I'm happy about the change. One constant about Doctor Who is that it's always a good time for a change, even if you've been entertained by what's gone before. Exeunt Matt Smith, come back for the Big Finish audios when the license gets rewritten to allow it, and roll on Doctor Twelve. As a lifelong Who fan, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Top Ten Suggestions For the New Assistant

(Originally posted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on May 3rd, 2004. Someone had just posted "Top Ten Outside-the-Box Casting Suggestions for the New Assistant", which I think was shortened for "New Review" link to "Top Ten Suggestions for the New Assistant". I thought this sounded more like actual advice, and so I wrote my top ten suggestions for whoever Rose would turn out to be...)


Although Rose Tyler has not been cast, and as yet remains just an insubstantial wisp in our imaginations, already one person has suggested no less than ten people who could play the part of companion to the new Doctor. Which is nice of him, and all, but I can't help but think it'd be far more valuable to our putative Rose to have a list of suggestions on how to better prepare herself to be the Doctor's assistant. So...

1. Invest in a pair of sensible running shoes. Wear them whenever you leave the TARDIS. It'd probably also be a good idea to take up jogging as a hobby.

2. Talk to a physical therapist about exercises that strengthen the ankle muscles.

3. Practice your delivery of the lines, "But why, Doctor?", "I don't understand, Doctor," and optionally, "I can't believe you've betrayed us to the evil aliens, Doctor!" For the latter, it is recommended that you work with Sophie Aldred to get the exact pitch of shocked indignation.

4. Get some training on resisting hypnosis.

5. Learn how to pick locks. You'll be spending a lot of time in jail cells, and it'll only be longer if you don't know how.

6. In the unlikely event that you possess a stash of Janis thorns, hide them. High explosives are perfectly all right, as he will only express mock indignation at your ownership of them, but Janis thorns are right out.

7. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to kiss him. He probably won't mind, but fans everywhere will try to kill you.

8. If it is at all feasible, purchase a pair of walkie-talkies, splitting them up between the two of you. This simple precaution will pay for itself within the first twenty minutes of your traveling with the Doctor.

9. Do not laugh at the appearance of the Daleks. Yes, we all know they look like salt-shakers. They're also very ill-tempered. In addition, despite their appearance, they can climb stairs... if the budget is high enough. Always check to see how much money the producers have spent on the TARDIS set before running up stairs to escape them. (If they've spent a sufficiently large sum, you may only hear their voices.)

10. Always remember, you are perfectly safe... unless you persist in trying to prove you're better at maths than a race of perfectly logical computer intelligences, to the point of passing up a perfectly good "get out of fiery horrible death" free card in the form of an escape shuttle just so that you can go play with the bomb attached to the steering mechanism. If you do this, you're going to die, and he's not going to come save you.

Review: Mad Dogs and Englishmen

(Sorry for the delay--the long weekend played merry hell with my posting schedule in general. This is being drawn from July 23rd, 2002, on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide, and I have to admit that my opinion of the book has softened considerably since then. I actually liked it much better on re-reading; I think I probably braced for a terrible novel after my frustrations with 'The Blue Angel' and 'Verdigris', and wasn't quite sure how to cope when I got an utterly hilarious romp. And the Doctor's line, "You've got 'lackey' written all over you' is one of the best insults he's ever come up with.)

Well, it was bad... but I certainly can say it was never boring. In point of fact, it was awful, but awful in one of those peculiarly entertaining ways that had me breezing through the novel, all the while entirely certain that the author wasn't pulling off what he thought he was. On the other hand, one thing was fingernails-on-blackboard, chewing-on-tinfoil, slamming-fingers-in-car-door level irritating...

Gallifrey is gone. Wiped from history. The Time Lords are no more. Only four remain of their race.

So why, oh sweet suffering FUCK, why did one of them have to be fucking Iris fucking Wildthyme? Why couldn't she have been retroactively erased from existence? Even if she wasn't, did we have to see her? Wasn't there a "no continuity" rule? Shouldn't Justin have said, "No, no old characters"? Or at least, "no, no gratingly annoying pastiches/parodies of the Doctor who've been in every fucking book you've written for the range"? I know that there will be some who say that her appearance in the book is short. To them, I say: NOT SHORT ENOUGH.

Other than that, the book is cheerfully, enjoyably awful. When the villains of the piece are Noel Coward and his Magical Pinking Shears, the Evil Poodle Empress, and a pastiche of what I can only assume is H.P. Lovecraft on LSD with a bestiality fetish, you can tell you are not dealing with a book that is meant to be taken as anything other than a joke. This is fine, so far as it goes, and so far as you basically then package it up, put it in a nice separate universe well away from the bleak, serious, deep, thought-provoking books on either side of it, and forget it ever happened to the characters you know and love. On that level, I really, really enjoyed Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

Except for the bits with Iris Wildthyme in them.

Faction Paradox and Doctor Who

(Originally posted on Christmas Day 2002, to Jade Pagoda. The book really got into my head, what can I say?)


So, with the Book of the War firmly in my head, I have to wonder how it fits in with Doctor Who? I mean, after all, the Great Houses are the Time Lords, and the timeships are TARDISes...but yet, we don't hear from the Doctor at all. (Except in the entry on Siloportem...)

So, after a spoiler warning, here are my best guesses on where it all fits in.

Spoilers...

















Well, first, it's pretty clear that the whole thing ignores "The Ancestor Cell". Grandfather Paradox is not the Doctor, the Enemy is not the super-evolved ancestor cells of every life form in the universe, the Doctor's TARDIS is still dead, and Gallifrey has not gone boom. Oh, and Faction Paradox isn't a bunch of evil, cackling madmen that want to invade Gallifrey and make it into their new home. (In fact, it's pretty clear that FP have no interest in Gallifrey at all, and are awaiting the end of the War to move in on the winner.) This doesn't mean the two can't be reconciled...well, OK, yes, it does. But if you assume that the Doctor changed the course of future history and unhappened the War completely, it becomes easier to reconcile the two. Still impossible, but easier.

It's equally evident that Lawrence Miles takes his own books (Christmas on a Rational Planet, Alien Bodies, and Interference Books 1 and 2) as canon, and most of the storyarcs after them. Shadows of Avalon is canonical to BotW, as is Taking of Planet 5 (the Shift describes the destruction of Mictlan, claiming that while it hasn't happened yet, it will.) Ordifica is mentioned, and so are a few other things that come straight out of Doctor Who with no disguises needed (Chris Cwej, the Yssgaroth, Compassion, etc). A few more needed cosmetic disguises, but little more (the Caldera is the Eye of Harmony, and Casts are Shaydes...I think.) These things can be picked up on pretty easily.

Other than that...the War King is pretty obviously the Master. I don't think anyone's going to dispute that one. His inaugural address alone, in which he says "I once embraced the bombastic titles I just mentioned, considering myself the ruler of everything that any intelligent creature can comprehend", seems to blatantly hint at it. So apparently, the Master has reformed, and is now spearheading the Gallifreyan war effort. Bizarre.

"Grandfather Halfling", the head of House Halfling, appears to be the City of the Saved's resurrected Doctor. He's half-human, half-"Great House member" (ie, Time Lord), and spends his time passionately crusading for the rights of the downtrodden and trampled. Since we know the Doctor died on Dronid (again mentioned in the appendix, though not by name), it would make sense that, as a half-human, he'd be resurrected in the City of the Saved. Of course, questions still remain about the manner of his death. I think he's also the person who
hallucinated under the influence of Praxis in the Rivera Manuscript, but I have no basis for that in fact. It just seems right. Then again, pretty much anything "seems" right when it comes to placing the Doctor in the center of events, even making him Grandfather Paradox, so that doesn't mean much.

The Imperator Presidency seems to be a reference to Morbius, with his crusade, defeat, and execution, but I wouldn't want to wager money on it. Still, though, it does seem likely.

Other than that, nothing staggering leaps out...of course, I'd love to hear others' conjectures on this.