Whovember 14: 1989 to 1991

 A major turning point, we are into The Wilderness Years, so as such, I think it appropriate to set my stall out early…

Thanks Randy.  Now then, let’s look at the tail end of Classic Who, and an early gem from where the franchise went next…

Year 27: 1989 to 1990 - Survival

Season 26 is my favourite season of the show ever; it’s sad that classic Who came to an end, but it ended on quite a high, including this serial (whose writer, Rona Munro, is so far the only person to have written for Classic and New Who).  I have talked a bit about the melancholy of this serial before, especially with that touching final monologue, so I’ll focus on a few aspects I didn’t mention then.  For one thing, this is also the last appearance of Anthony Ainley as the Master (well, not counting videogame Destiny of the Doctors…), and it’s a great story for him, allowing him to do some very different things with the part.  Across the eighties, The Master really did far more cartoonish a villain, so it’s good to see him with some more gravitas here, and getting a strong subplot, him desperately trying to hold onto himself.  It’s really a shame that Ainley never did any work with Big Finish before he passed away, as this shows that he really could have delivered something very different and effective with the part given the right story… He’d have done good things with the audio story Master for starters.

But this is also a fine story for Ace, especially for touching on a theme that’s been in most of this season; her sexuality.  Now they’re really not being subtle with this; she so has the hots (or should that be heat?) for Cheetah person Karra (played by Lisa Bowerman who’d have a big role in Big Finish a bit later), and a lot of the dialogue in here has a tonne of double meanings.  Russell T Davies is often credited with bringing a lot of LGBT+ content into the show, but really he was just expanding upon what was already being set up here (in fact there’s a large LGBT+ Who fangroup called Friends of Ace for this very reason).  That’s not the only way this would influence the new series; the focus on the clash on very normal suburbia and the fantastic would be a big part of New Who especially in the Rose years. (In fact, there’s a very minor character in that clip above that it wouldn’t be hard at all to retcon into being Jackie Tyler.)  It does mean that, though it wasn’t the plan at the time, not only does this give a glimpse to where the series would go after it’s time in the wilderness, but being set in contemporary London, with a journey to a savage, desolate world, it makes a great book end with the story that started it all.  And so the Doctor and Ace wandered off into the sunset out of TV… but into a new medium.

Year 28: 1990 to 1991 -Timewyrm: Exodus 

As Virgin publishing had by this point started handling the Target novelisations, still good sellers after so many years, it seemed a natural progression to have them do new original novels too, and so the New Adventures were born, carrying on the story from where the TV series left off.  Now part of the remit was to do stories bigger, more expansive, and more willing to take risks than the TV series would, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.  If you thought the first series of Torchwood had difficulties working out what a more adult take on the material would be like, that’s nothing compared to some of these novels.  But there were some gems in here, and several writers who would shape the new series got their starts writing for Who in here.  Also, I’m not going to sweat too much about whether or not they are “Canon”; for me, a good Doctor Who story is a good Doctor Who story, and this is all that matters.

The one I’m talking about today is the second book of the range published, and it’s a good pair of hands at work; it’s by Terrance Dicks!  It’s a great story, where the Doctor and Ace have to investigate the cause of a change to the timeline leading to the outcome of WWII being changed.  They suspect the time travelling entity the Timewyrm, and it is involved, but there are other forces at work too.  The story does do a good job of following a little thread that had been in the McCoy years, and actually tackling the Nazis directly; what it does that’s smart is that though there is alien interference with Hitler and the Nazis, the story never shifts any of the blame to them.  They did not make Adolf and co evil, they were already like that, they hoped to effectively ride the coattails of the Nazis, use them as their stooges, only to find out that they can’t be controlled so easily.  It’s a smart move, and given the issues with far right groups these days, such as what happened January 6th, a point well made.  It’s just a fun story overall, which never trivialises the crimes of the Third Reich, and makes clear how they sowed the seeds of their own downfall, I strongly suggest tracking down a copy and giving it a go.

Next time, it’s another New Adventure, this time from one of the League of Gentlemen, and though we’re a few years away from Big Finish being a thing, it’s our first listen to audio Who…