We’re covering Who’s Thirtieth Anniversary year this time, which means we’re past the halfway mark! Let’s jump on into another New Adventure, and then tune in to Radio 2…
Year 29: 1991 to 1992 - Nightshade
The eighth of the New Adventures novels, this is an early work by someone who’d become a big part of New Who, Mark Gatiss. I recently got to see him in person on stage play Professor Bernard Quatermass, a lifelong ambition for him being a Nigel Kneale megafan, that’s been an influence of his for many years, including this novel. Now not only does this novel feature a distinctly Kneale-esque threat, one that’s very ancient, and very alien, but there’s also a subplot in this story about an actor who played a Quatermass style lead on TV several years before the events of the story. It’s a really touching tribute to the makers of such TV, Gatiss himself said that originally he was inspired by the mental image of, say, Tom Baker being haunted by visions of Nimon, but the concept is used so well in here.
Whilst it is definitely a nostalgia piece, it’s also very in keeping with the style of Doctor Who in its later seasons; it has the Doctor in a particularly dark mood, with the weight of what he’s had to do recently really getting to him. Plus it carries on a trend from the Cartmel years of refusing to sugarcoat or sanitise the past, whilst still acknowledging that it was far more cosmopolitan than it is often depicted as. It even touches on the Doctor's past, one big thread in particular, so whilst not really pushing on the “Cartmel Masterplan”, it certainly touches base with it. This book is an absolute page turner, featuring some of Gatiss’ best writing; whilst Big Finish did do an audio adaptation, I strongly advise tracking down a copy of the original if you can; it even got an online reprint on the Doctor Who website many years ago, so a certain Wayback Machine might be your friend with this one. It’s so worth the effort, if only to spot a shout out to his future League of Gentlemen cohorts. Actually, on that note, obviously Gatiss has written and starred in New Who, and both Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have had parts in it, so we only need Jeremy Dyson to write for it, and we’d have the full set. He’d be good at it too… mind, given my love for Inside No 9, I’d love it if Reece and Steve could be convinced to write an episode!
Year 30: 1992 to 1993 - The Paradise of Death
It’s interesting that, though the show had been off the air and not brought back for a few years by that point, the BBC still did a bunch of stuff to celebrate Who’s thirtieth, including re-uniting Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, Elizabeth Sladen, and Barry Letts for a radio serial. Now I personally think that, bar the Time Warrior, Pertwee’s final season was a bit of a let down, probably because all the regulars were in mourning for the loss of Roger Delgado, so it’s actually good that a while later, the cast got together again for a few last adventures. It’s a hell of a story too, going from odd happenings on Hampstead Heath, to a journey to a full on Flash Gordon style alien world, with a big ol’ dollop of anti-capitalism thrown in for good measure (that’s another one for the “Doctor Who was always woke as f**k” pile!). What I love is that it’s so the sort of thing they would have tried in the Pertwee era if they had anywhere near the budget for it, Letts clearly deciding that an audience’s imagination is the best special effects budget ever, and just going for broke with it.
Now it’s not perfect, some of the dialogue is a bit clunky in that “why are you saying that out loud?” style of audio writing (though the VR aspect of the story, since only one character can view one of the headsets at a time, there’s a reason for them to narrate to the others at points). Also, side character Jeremy can be a bit annoying, though it’s far from a deal breaker. Still, these are nitpicks on an otherwise fun ride, and it’s an interesting one going back to as obviously since then there’s been A LOT more audio only Who. It’s also got a fascinating cast, including a few other Who veterans, Trevor Martin who played the Doctor on stage is in there, and a few young up-and-comers are there, including Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Jane Slavin, who’d later play a companion to the Fourth and Tenth Doctors at Big Finish. Now there was a sequel serial a few years later, The Ghosts of N-Space (that name is interesting, as Barry Letts worked on Season 18 of TV Who, which mentioned N-Space a lot, but it’s given a completely different meaning here), which unfortunately isn’t as strong, partially because the idea of an actual afterlife in the Whoniverse is a somewhat awkward idea… oh, and there are a tonne of dodgy Italian accents too. Still, getting a bit more with Pertwee and Sladen was a treat, I wish the Beeb had done a few more of these with the other Doctors. One question about the serial though… why use the Peter Howell theme, rather than the Delia Derbyshire one? Just a bit incongruous, having the 80s theme for the 70s Doctor…
Next time, it’s more meta with the New Adventures, and I share a glimpse of my film geek origin story…
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