Saturday, June 02, 2012
Doctor Who – The Idiot’s Lantern
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned sixty fifty-nine years ago today. Not being much of a royalist (having been responsible for a political party debating the monarchy for the first time in centuries), I’d been intending to review an appropriately celebratory Doctor Who story such as Jubilee or Snakedance (in which the Doctor doesn’t enjoy the festivities) or perhaps The Pirate Planet or State of Decay (in which old Queens just keep hanging on). We went to a movie instead. Fortunately, here’s one I prepared earlier; Doctor Who Magazine’s Time Team marked the occasion this week with David Tennant’s The Idiot’s Lantern. And as well as an electric piece of art from Adrian Salmon, they printed a line from me in DWM 448 alongside their main review! So I’m chuffed.
What a shame that William Shatner’s festive cover of God Save the Queen (as sung on Have I Got News For You a week ago) doesn’t seem to be available to buy, and so tragically won’t be the Number One it deserves to be this weekend. Never mind – I’ll just have to put on those jolly carousers the Sex Pistols instead.
The idea of DWM’s Time Team is that – starting right at the beginning of Doctor Who and more than a decade ago in real time – they get four regular reviewers to sit on the couch and watch every story (including, these days, the lovely Mr Will). And to one side, they feature comments sent in by readers. When I get round to sending in one-liners to Time Team, I watch the story to brainstorm a lot of quickie ideas so that, hopefully, that way at least one of them’ll be something no-one else has come up with. The latest issue’s the first for three Doctors that I’ve had comments in two consecutive issues, and a letter about Philip Madoc, too. Coo. A few years ago, I was encouraged to set up a blog printing all of these; well, all right, I need a bit of a prod to get that going, but it’s not going to happen tonight, so I thought I’d leap ahead and publish what I sent in last month (try and spot how much I’ve nicked from Richard’s review on Millennium Dome, Elephant). If you read my usual reviews, this is something very different… Shorter, punchier and – a consequence of trying to keep the word count down – much cattier. Or, at least, not dressing it up. Actually, when I watched this a month ago, I quite enjoyed it, and having not seen it for a few years, some of it seemed quite fresh. But not all of it…
Tonight, Richard and I are watching and greatly enjoying the story that followed The Idiot’s Lantern, The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. It’s the day before its sixth anniversary, for a story full of sixes; it’s time (slightly past time, probably) for the next Time Team… But, mainly, because we’ve just been to see Prometheus, which in no way recalled this story with its sensible black captain, industrial future chic, tepid comments about faith, giant carved face down in the darkness, Cthuliana and Alien feel. Completely different. I’d say what I thought of it, but I suspect someone else’ll be along shortly with something a lot more incisive and insightful than I’d be after one viewing…
What a shame that William Shatner’s festive cover of God Save the Queen (as sung on Have I Got News For You a week ago) doesn’t seem to be available to buy, and so tragically won’t be the Number One it deserves to be this weekend. Never mind – I’ll just have to put on those jolly carousers the Sex Pistols instead.
The idea of DWM’s Time Team is that – starting right at the beginning of Doctor Who and more than a decade ago in real time – they get four regular reviewers to sit on the couch and watch every story (including, these days, the lovely Mr Will). And to one side, they feature comments sent in by readers. When I get round to sending in one-liners to Time Team, I watch the story to brainstorm a lot of quickie ideas so that, hopefully, that way at least one of them’ll be something no-one else has come up with. The latest issue’s the first for three Doctors that I’ve had comments in two consecutive issues, and a letter about Philip Madoc, too. Coo. A few years ago, I was encouraged to set up a blog printing all of these; well, all right, I need a bit of a prod to get that going, but it’s not going to happen tonight, so I thought I’d leap ahead and publish what I sent in last month (try and spot how much I’ve nicked from Richard’s review on Millennium Dome, Elephant). If you read my usual reviews, this is something very different… Shorter, punchier and – a consequence of trying to keep the word count down – much cattier. Or, at least, not dressing it up. Actually, when I watched this a month ago, I quite enjoyed it, and having not seen it for a few years, some of it seemed quite fresh. But not all of it…
The Idiot’s Lantern – Not the Time Team
The tone’s all over the place, it’s hardly original, and the Doctor’s lost the big picture… But Maureen Lipman’s scene-stealing fabulousness makes the most fun villain since the series came back. And showing her frock properly even justifies Doctor Who Confidential!
I’m no royalist, but “Are you suggesting that the Queen does the housework?” is a brilliant way to puncture ’50s sexism. And did you time this Time Team for the Jubilee specially?
It almost gets across the feel of 60 years ago, when TV was rare and the Royals aloof. Before it all just became meaningless, greedy, third-rate celebrities. And TV’s nearly as bad.
They should leave Billie out of half the story more often if it means she concentrates what she has into flashes of pure impishness – taking the mickey out of Eddie and vanishing like a sprite is the best she’s been all season.
Mr Gatiss likes his Autons, doesn’t he? Blank faces, Doctor’s lash-ups needing a quick fix, New Domestic Thing Turns Evil at Evil Signal from Transmitter of Evil… Filling in the rest with dashes of Quatermass and Sapphire and Steel. Still, it’s more original than Night Terrors.
The only bit that doesn’t feel nicked is the family, and that just because it’s not very good – it might name-check Corrie, but can’t do it. And as for Dad… Not as well-rounded and subtle a working-class character as Sam Seeley.
The Wire’s sheer fun but also a real threat – Mr Connolly should be scarier, if anything, a more immediate brutish bully, but his terrible ‘My old man’s a dustman’ schtick makes him just a prat.
Eddie’s fine to start with, deliberately overdoing it like a dad when he marvels that it’s like the TV people are in the room with you. Shame that that’s as underplayed as he gets.
It’s charming but not really threatening – too cosy, save that scene where the Doctor suddenly goes off the deep end. Usually he’s just all teeth and lack of curls, not psychotic.
Tommy seems much younger than he is – not just the actor, but after children in School Reunion and the Fireplace, suddenly this seems an oddly child-populated season. It doesn’t quite suit the horror.
It might be laid on with a trowel in Tommy’s soliloquy, but it’s good to have such an unambiguously Liberal message again – in the Wire and Eddie, the Doctor stands up to bullies, big or small.
In a story from a child’s perspective, I can see the arbitrariness of authority excusing Bishop flashing between violent fascist and trusty Dixon copper, but I still don’t believe it.
I know ‘Feed me’ has been done before, but how Paradise Towers is this? That line, the disembodied villain, the Doctor reversing the interrogation… Towers still seems much fresher and wittier, though I’d take Lipman over Briers any day.
Cosy and horrific; domestic and pomp and circumstance; perhaps the tone’s at its most uncertain when it tries ‘Lovely Fifties nostalgia’ and ‘Things shouldn’t live on beyond their time’ at once. The obvious love of TV while sending up ‘It rots your brain!’ is a fab juxtaposition, though.
Lipman does a great lip-smacking single megalomaniac villain, but there just aren’t enough characters or time to pull off a ‘Florizel Street’ soap – and it doesn’t help that each member of the family appears to be acting in a different series or, in the case of Dad, a school play.
Bizarre that a ‘smaller’ historical seems so much less believable than the more ‘important’ ones – is it because we don’t all know queens (well, not all), but we can all tell when a family isn’t convincing?
The Wire’s probably the most OTT villain since the series came back, while Eddie’s just like every brute who beat you up. He should be the real scary monster. But ‘arch’ beats ‘hammy’ hands down.
I don’t think much of the Doctor being blasé over the whole of London but psychotic losing Rose. Get over yourselves!
Oh, dear, the Doctor’s ‘armed’ and the sonic much too handy. But I forgive this for sending up the psychic with “The King of Belgium, apparently”. A scream!
So how exactly does everyone get their face back…? It’s just a bit too easy – ‘Don’t worry, once TV people leave, everything returns to normal’. A more modern take would say ‘TV people do you, move on, and you’re left in a right old mess’.
It’s quite an elaborate revenge on continuity announcers always talking over the credits, isn’t it? If only they were all that cool (and had such killer frocks).
Bizarre fact: this is the episode most likely to be repeated without the “Next Time…” at the end. So it lets the continuity announcers in quicker.
Alex Wilcock
Isle of Dogs
And a few from Richard Flowers
I love the Doctor constructing a video recorder out of spares whilst on the run. A perfectly Doctor Who moment.
Is Tommy gay? I only ask because the script slaps you around the face with the obviousness of it and then pulls the punch.
In spite of the proprietor being vaporised by the Wire, Mr Magpie’s business is going to go from strength to strength, seen to still be in business aboard Starship UK in the Thirty-whatever-ish Century. I guess catering to those early Betamax adopters really paid off!
Tonight, Richard and I are watching and greatly enjoying the story that followed The Idiot’s Lantern, The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. It’s the day before its sixth anniversary, for a story full of sixes; it’s time (slightly past time, probably) for the next Time Team… But, mainly, because we’ve just been to see Prometheus, which in no way recalled this story with its sensible black captain, industrial future chic, tepid comments about faith, giant carved face down in the darkness, Cthuliana and Alien feel. Completely different. I’d say what I thought of it, but I suspect someone else’ll be along shortly with something a lot more incisive and insightful than I’d be after one viewing…
Labels: Cthulhu, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Magazine, History, Republic, Reviews, Richard, The Idiot’s Lantern
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Doctor Who In Some Exciting Adventures With BBC Books
Now that Doctor Who has finished again – and started again, gloriously, with The Sarah Jane Adventures back – perhaps you’re in the mood for more Doctor Who? When I was a lad, the only way to get more (with no spin-off shows, DVDs or BBC3) was to read the thrilling Target Books novelisations, a series so successful they sold over six million books. And not all to me. Many are now selling as talking books for CD and download, and now six have been reprinted and relaunched by BBC Books as actual books (and downloads). Are they worth getting?
Having been much too ill to get to most Doctor Who events in the last year, my first of 2011 was this July, when I managed to haul myself along to Forbidden Planet London for the launch of the BBC Books Classic Reprints line – and I’m very glad I did. With Terrance Dicks, who wrote more of the Target Books than anyone else, Chris Achilleos, whose stylish cover paintings I endlessly redrew, and Carole Ann Ford and Fraser Hines, who played perhaps the ’60s companions of whom the Doctor was fondest, it was a dream line-up from my childhood, and all on good form (despite one of them being as hay-feverish as I was, at which I gave him a little blue pill. No, not that little blue pill). All were enthusiastic about the well-loved old books being back in the shops, though none of them had any idea if more were planned – so I hope they’ve sold well.
The six books have been chosen carefully both for quality and nostalgia value: the first two books written for each of the first three Doctors, all amongst Target’s first printings in the mid-’70s (and two of those originally written in the ’60s, when the range stretched to three rather than climbing past 150), most given different, more exciting names to the TV versions. All were amongst the first to be released on CD, too, each read with verve by talented actors and accompanied by music and sound effects (though later releases have more of each, and more of Nick Briggs doing the monster voices). And, though all these books are too early to feature Sarah Jane Smith, it’s noticeable how resourceful – now we’d say proactive – the Doctor’s women companions are in most of these. No wonder I grew up thinking so highly of Barbara, even Polly, and particularly that Dr Liz Shaw was the business. And she still is. You might also notice that the “monsters” from four of these books have been back in Doctor Who on telly just in the last couple of years, and that you can even get some of their CDs with the action figures. And all were among the first ‘proper’ books I ever read, including the very first. But they’re not merely nostalgic reprints.
Each book has been carefully rejacketed with a stylish design complementing Chris Achilleos’ gorgeous original covers (though the Seal of Rassilon on the back’s a bit much), and they look terrific – though I suspect that the embossed soft covers may not stand up to batterings in the way the cheap old laminated ones did. And each has been given a number of DVD-style extra features: new introductions by today’s writers, and scene-setting notes about the characters, authors and background by Justin Richards and Steve Tribe (most notably on Doctor Who and the Daleks, with its very different opening to the TV version). Even a bit more proof-reading – no longer will I expect Channing to finish a paragraph with the stirring declaration, “We must find the swarm eader!” – and several touches of pedantry. Each has also reproduced the original interior illustrations at their proper size, a relief after the postage stamps in the CD booklets, though they’ve curiously omitted all the captions. So I’ve included below one original, captioned, illustration that was one of my favourites, despite the caption being both unfortunate and a spoiler for the climax (watch out).
It had to be this one. The Doctor’s second ever adventure – the one where he first meets the Daleks, and the reason why the series is still going strong today (you can buy Doctor Who – The Daleks as part of the Doctor Who – The Beginning DVD Box Set). So, it’s the first monster; was the first novelisation (and becomes a different ‘first story’ in that, as you can read); the first feature-film adaptation; the first Target produced as a talking book on CD. And it was first published as Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With the Daleks – which, remarkably, it still is.
It’s difficult to over-praise David Whitaker here: he was script editor on Terry Nation’s original story which catapulted Doctor Who to success; in writing such a great first Doctor Who novel, he’s second only to Terrance Dicks in making the Target books such an incredibly successful series; and, perhaps most of all, he turns a story that’s far more powerful for its design than its words into an improbably terrific novel. On screen, this is a world of strange and brilliant invention, captured in Brian Hodgson and Tristram Cary’s eerie soundscapes and, above all, Ray Cusick’s fantastic designs both for the petrified jungle and metal city that make up the world of Skaro itself, but for creating the Daleks. And yet Mr Whitaker makes the story just as powerful without any of that, not just by giving us Ian’s compelling voice but by devising new elements which were so memorable they became part of the TV series decades later, such as that glass Dalek, or Ian and Barbara falling in love with each other (before we heard about them as a still-young married couple in The Sarah Jane Adventures last year, some grumbled this was just a fan invention; had they never read David Whitaker telling us, back in 1964?). Though these days no new Doctor Who book would include our heroes smoking, even to introduce the Doctor’s “everlasting matches”, and would think twice about making the Doctor such a git.
David Whitaker’s second novel is the most unadulterated work of his we have, and probably the best surviving version of his own rather fine script: Doctor Who – The Crusade was among the stories the BBC threw into a skip, though some of it’s been recovered since (you can buy the Doctor Who – Lost In Time DVD Box Set with two surviving episodes and the soundtracks of the two missing episodes, or a CD of the whole soundtrack with narration to make it easier to follow). It’s certainly the most old-fashioned of the books and an old-fashioned romance to boot, both in the sense of a ripping yarn and the burgeoning love story between Ian and Barbara. It could easily have been a fairly progressive ’60s take on a familiar historical adventure story – in fact, that’s exactly what it is – with a modern even-handedness between Crusaders and Saracens and its heart in the right place (if its terminology isn’t). And it has a very different view of time travel to modern Doctor Who…
Chris Achilleos’ cover is pretty good, if a bit too busy (though I never say no to Julian Glover, who played King Richard), and the book’s illustrated generously by Henry Fox, whose picture of Ian duelling perfectly fits his place as the very definite hero of the novel. Again, and appropriately, this is one that William Russell reads aloud with gravitas for CD. Charlie Higson’s new introduction is merely OK (though you can tell he wasn’t as successful as Russell at relaunching a classic series). Possibly the most striking part of the book today is the Prologue, however, in which David Whitaker’s very authored, almost didactic view of time travel is far closer to predestination than the series has embraced ever since – and in which there’s a famous misprint, kept in for the new edition, that makes Susan’s partner at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth suddenly very disturbing indeed…
Gerry Davis was another Doctor Who script editor, co-creator of the Cybermen and co-author of this story when it was on TV as Doctor Who – The Moonbase; again, the BBC burnt some of it (and again, you can buy the two surviving episodes and the soundtracks of the two missing episodes on the Doctor Who – Lost In Time DVD Box Set, or a CD of the whole soundtrack with narration). And this is the book about which I have the most mixed feelings from this whole selection. With my critical brain switched on, this is clearly less inspired a script and a novel than the other five… But it was the first book I ever bought and the first book I ever read – in fact, the book that made me learn to read – and I can’t help but love it.
Gareth Roberts – who just ten days ago brought Cyber-chops back to TV in Closing Time – captures the experience of reading in his Introduction, while the fabulous Anneke Wills, who played Polly on TV, is the main reader for this audiobook – with Nick Briggs on the Cybervoices – and is terrific at it. While this may be the weakest of the six books, it might be the strongest of the readings, and all the more so when almost all the voices Anneke does, as she pointed out rather witheringly, are for men. She’s got a lovely voice: quite deep, intimate and reassuring – great for a storyteller, and though not all her accents are spot-on, she does rather a good breathy Troughton, particularly capturing his determination near the end (though they should probably have gone for a second take when she creates a novel colour as a side-effect of a word being split across two lines: “red-
dish coloured lights”). A passage that stands out as really quite threatening is Ralph being stalked by the Cyberman in the food store, aided by the music, even if it doesn’t sustain the mood by being made the end of Disc One. Chris Achilleos’ cover is particularly fine as long as you’re not a Cyber-pedant, with a threatening monster, a thrilling fizz around the Moon and a great Patrick Troughton. The illustrations by Alan Willow are more serviceable than gifted, but I’ve always loved this one of the Cybermen lifting off from the surface of the Moon; but see if you can work out why, in this one instance, it might be better as reprinted, without the original caption I’ve shown here.
When I was five, I fell seriously ill and was hospitalised… Which turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’d just bought my first book – this book – at the school bookshop, and my Mum brought it into the hospital. The various primary school books I’d been meant to be learning to read on had been having precisely zero impact on me through their banal ‘narratives’ of going to school, sometimes by bus, sometimes in the rain; I did that. Why would I want to read about it? But when my Mum, who’s never loved Doctor Who, got half-way through reading Doctor Who and the Cybermen to her little invalid and could stand no more, she did something that changed my life (and, within a couple of months, changed my measurable reading age from ‘off the bottom of the scale’ to more than double my actual age). Thanks, Mum; thanks, Gerry Davis. Bored beyond the call of duty, she told me to read it myself.
I did.
Terrance Dicks, again a former lead writer on Doctor Who, wrote much of the Target range single-handed – ten times as many books as anyone else – and his deceptively simple prose is hard to beat for telling a cracking good story. This one is a cracking good story, from Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln’s script, surprisingly on TV as Doctor Who – The Abominable Snowmen, and sadly this time, the BBC burnt most of it (you can buy the sole surviving episode on the Doctor Who – Lost In Time DVD Box Set, or a CD of the whole narrated soundtrack).
Terrance Dicks’ solid storytelling lifts an already strong script, giving it clarity, pace, and added detail from the vivid opening backstory dream, to actual snow, to making the pyramid’s gloop terrifying instead of stubble-reducing (even if he loses the TV’s meanest but funniest joke). It’s always fired my imagination with horrifying evil, sweeping landscapes and unsettling special effects; perhaps even more than The Evil of the Daleks, if a Doctor Who story were ever to be remade for the big screen as a modern answer to the ’60s movies, this should be it. On a less spectacular budget, David Troughton does a great job in bringing the audiobook to life – to the extent that it might just be my favourite version of the story. I’ve often heard people say that he sounds just like his father and thought it nonsense, because though his voice as he’s got older has gained something of the same husky quality, it’s very much his own. But just this once, the first word the Doctor says is “Marvellous!” and a shiver went down my spine. On that, and tantalising other snatches of dialogue, he’s clearly doing an eerily close impersonation of Pat. For the story itself, perhaps it reaches its peak – unexpectedly – on the third disc of the four, with the plot thickening, Padmasambvha’s appalled realisation and Travers’ horror in the cave, atmospherically read and scored. Chris Achilleos’ cover is an excellent companion piece to his Doctor Who and the Cybermen, with the Earth rather than the Moon, Pat Troughton, a monster and a vignette of Jamie and Victoria. Again, it’s plainly illustrated by Alan Willow. Stephen Baxter takes you back, excitedly, to watching the story – if only we could, too – but he shows us how evocative the book can be. I bought this book, as well, from the racks they used to keep in the St Simon’s RC Primary School entrance hall, with my saved-up 5p tokens on the card from the “Wise Owl Book Club”. Awwhh. And not only does my timing for this piece tie in with a new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, but (I note thanks to Newsround before today’s episode) with the start of the biggest expedition to find the Yeti for half a century – let’s hope they have better luck than Professor Travers, eh?
Terrance Dicks script-edited the original version of this Robert Holmes story, Doctor Who – Spearhead From Space, a terrific tale that’s just been re-released on DVD (as part of the Doctor Who – Mannequin Mania DVD Box Set, labelled a “Special Edition”… But it’s wrong. This book is the special edition), and you can tell that he loves it. Of all his many books, this was his first, and it still shines as perhaps his best. I grew up reading the novels of the Pertwee Doctor first, and was inevitably disappointed when I got to see what I could only think of as the TV adaptations; just this week, the far-inferior TV version of a fantastic book is out on DVD to illustrate that Pertwee gap like no other. But not here. In picking Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion and Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, this series cannily chooses probably the best two Third Doctor books, inspired by probably the best two Third Doctor TV adventures.
Caroline John seems more comfortable with her second CD reading, so she improves on her performance from Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters – it rattles along with great energy. These CDs always lack the Doctor Who theme, and this time the sound effects are a bit disappointing – though the combination of music and sound as Meg confronts the Auton are really quite chilling – so hurrah for Caroline really finding her voice, and doing justice to the massive final battle. Chris Achilleos’ excitable cover has Nick Courtney’s Brigadier (his only appearance in the original range until right at the end), meteorites and a hideous alien monstrosity – one that really doesn’t look great on TV, but for Terrance’s evocative description here has inspired many, many artworks – and here he does the illustrations, too, with the Auton blasting at Ransome, Scobie’s revelation (nothing like that on telly, but a terrifically ominous smile) and that huge, many-tentacled Nestene that’s something between spider, crab and octopus bursting out again of particular note. Russell T Davies writes perhaps the most telling Introduction, growing into a concept of “fandom” and picking out his favourite bit – a chilling moment that’s always been mine, too. And, of course, this story was the one he borrowed from to relaunch Doctor Who, brilliantly, six years ago – not just staging an Auton invasion on a bigger budget, but lifting details directly from this book (“Students, he thought vaguely” – and the bits that Russell didn’t use in Rose, Steven Moffat borrowed for The Eleventh Hour).
The last of these six books – only so far, I hope – for me vies with the other Pertwee novelisation as the best of the six, and was the best of the TV serials on which they were based, too. Ironically, the “Cave Monsters” is an even less appropriate title for the original ‘green scaly rubber people are people too’ story than TV’s Doctor Who and the Silurians (available to buy in the Doctor Who – Beneath the Surface DVD Box Set, and with an atypically spoiler-filled review from me). I’ve even said that this is probably the book that turned me into a Liberal. Malcolm Hulke wrote several of the hugely influential early Doctor Who novelisations, and it’s fair to say that his are probably the most loved.
This time, Chris Achilleos pulls out all the stops for his cover, with Silurians, a T-Rex and even volcanoes, going back in time to the book’s prologue, while his illustrations (one rather badly reprinted, but the rest nicely cleaned up) are a superb range: a map; Okdel’s chat show; figures in the dark moving toward Major Barker; a letter from a Chief Constable; and my very favourite, for the chapter Goodbye, Dr Quinn, which is such a brilliant spoiler that you’ll have to buy the book to see it. Terrance Dicks’ Introduction is quite different in tone from all the others; a voice from the time, written for his old friend. Caroline John was terrific as – and very proud of playing – Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, and is a good choice to read her stories on CD, where she’s brilliant again as Liz four decades later (particularly when she comes close to murdering the Doctor in his smugger moments) and has fun with her pompous Doctor and Brigadier voices, but is slightly uncertain as a narrator, though noticeably gaining confidence as she goes along. One of the things that may have thrown her balance was having to do a Scots accent when, like that other fine actor Derek Jacobi on his reading of Doctor Who – The Mind Robber, she comes a cropper with it, and greatly improves in the telling once the character involves departs the story! She’s a pleasure to listen to in the DVD commentary on the TV version of this adventure, too, where (if you skip to Episode 5, the one after where Terrance Dicks sums up the story’s attitude by calling the Doctor “an incorrigible liberal”) she not only involves the other actors in discussing the story’s politics but delightfully fills them in on the extra characterisation each of their roles have in the book: Geoffrey Palmer is particularly amused by his character stiffing another over their old school ties. The CDs, incidentally, offer the original back cover blurb, but these new paperback editions write their own: wisely, in this case, in not reproducing the infamous “…and a 40 ft high Tyrannosaurus Rex, the biggest, most savage mammal which ever trod the earth!”
For more about the Target Book series that was – and, hopefully, the expanding BBC Books Classic Reprint line that is to come – two of the authors here have rather fine features about their novels as part of the DVD range. The War Games DVD has On Target – Malcolm Hulke, while On Target –Terrance Dicks is part of the Peladon Tales DVD box set.
BASED ON THE POPULAR BBC TELEVISION SERIALS
Having been much too ill to get to most Doctor Who events in the last year, my first of 2011 was this July, when I managed to haul myself along to Forbidden Planet London for the launch of the BBC Books Classic Reprints line – and I’m very glad I did. With Terrance Dicks, who wrote more of the Target Books than anyone else, Chris Achilleos, whose stylish cover paintings I endlessly redrew, and Carole Ann Ford and Fraser Hines, who played perhaps the ’60s companions of whom the Doctor was fondest, it was a dream line-up from my childhood, and all on good form (despite one of them being as hay-feverish as I was, at which I gave him a little blue pill. No, not that little blue pill). All were enthusiastic about the well-loved old books being back in the shops, though none of them had any idea if more were planned – so I hope they’ve sold well.
The six books have been chosen carefully both for quality and nostalgia value: the first two books written for each of the first three Doctors, all amongst Target’s first printings in the mid-’70s (and two of those originally written in the ’60s, when the range stretched to three rather than climbing past 150), most given different, more exciting names to the TV versions. All were amongst the first to be released on CD, too, each read with verve by talented actors and accompanied by music and sound effects (though later releases have more of each, and more of Nick Briggs doing the monster voices). And, though all these books are too early to feature Sarah Jane Smith, it’s noticeable how resourceful – now we’d say proactive – the Doctor’s women companions are in most of these. No wonder I grew up thinking so highly of Barbara, even Polly, and particularly that Dr Liz Shaw was the business. And she still is. You might also notice that the “monsters” from four of these books have been back in Doctor Who on telly just in the last couple of years, and that you can even get some of their CDs with the action figures. And all were among the first ‘proper’ books I ever read, including the very first. But they’re not merely nostalgic reprints.
Each book has been carefully rejacketed with a stylish design complementing Chris Achilleos’ gorgeous original covers (though the Seal of Rassilon on the back’s a bit much), and they look terrific – though I suspect that the embossed soft covers may not stand up to batterings in the way the cheap old laminated ones did. And each has been given a number of DVD-style extra features: new introductions by today’s writers, and scene-setting notes about the characters, authors and background by Justin Richards and Steve Tribe (most notably on Doctor Who and the Daleks, with its very different opening to the TV version). Even a bit more proof-reading – no longer will I expect Channing to finish a paragraph with the stirring declaration, “We must find the swarm eader!” – and several touches of pedantry. Each has also reproduced the original interior illustrations at their proper size, a relief after the postage stamps in the CD booklets, though they’ve curiously omitted all the captions. So I’ve included below one original, captioned, illustration that was one of my favourites, despite the caption being both unfortunate and a spoiler for the climax (watch out).
Doctor Who and the Daleks
It had to be this one. The Doctor’s second ever adventure – the one where he first meets the Daleks, and the reason why the series is still going strong today (you can buy Doctor Who – The Daleks as part of the Doctor Who – The Beginning DVD Box Set). So, it’s the first monster; was the first novelisation (and becomes a different ‘first story’ in that, as you can read); the first feature-film adaptation; the first Target produced as a talking book on CD. And it was first published as Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With the Daleks – which, remarkably, it still is.
“I began to feel better. The Doctor had told me the wisest thing to do would be to open my mind and accept what had happened.Author David Whitaker was one of Doctor Who’s founding geniuses; the series’ first lead writer, an excellent scriptwriter (later writing two of the best TV Dalek stories) and, here, the show’s first novelist. This book is still among the best, and almost the only one to use first-person narration, here by Ian Chesterton – one of the reasons why William Russell’s audiobook reading works so well, as he’s not just great at acting the other parts but is here given more to do with his own original role than any other Doctor Who actor. Chris Achilleos’ cover is very striking – not technically a great likeness of William Hartnell, with almost cartoonishly stylised Daleks and TARDIS… And yet that style is gripping, creating one of the most iconic covers in the series. Arnold Schwartzman’s internal illustrations are more detailed and ‘correct’, yet somehow less memorable: give me Mr Achilleos’ eye-catching style, flaming guns and a great picture of the Doctor if not the actor, making him mysterious, dangerous and unforgettable, rather than the neatly executed sketches inside the book that make him sometimes look more like a nice old lady (while if you ever find the ’60s Armada paperback, this is the only Who novel to have two completely different sets of illustrations rather than just different covers: Peter Archer offers a very buff Temmosus being shot, for example, and a memorable glass Dalek). On its first publication back in 1964, Kingsley Amis observed that “the kids should eat it,” while in his 2011 introduction Neil Gaiman, one of those 1964 kids, loves the food machine (I always wanted the shower) and is absolutely right for me about the power of books back in the day, even though I’m a decade younger than he is.
“I did.”
It’s difficult to over-praise David Whitaker here: he was script editor on Terry Nation’s original story which catapulted Doctor Who to success; in writing such a great first Doctor Who novel, he’s second only to Terrance Dicks in making the Target books such an incredibly successful series; and, perhaps most of all, he turns a story that’s far more powerful for its design than its words into an improbably terrific novel. On screen, this is a world of strange and brilliant invention, captured in Brian Hodgson and Tristram Cary’s eerie soundscapes and, above all, Ray Cusick’s fantastic designs both for the petrified jungle and metal city that make up the world of Skaro itself, but for creating the Daleks. And yet Mr Whitaker makes the story just as powerful without any of that, not just by giving us Ian’s compelling voice but by devising new elements which were so memorable they became part of the TV series decades later, such as that glass Dalek, or Ian and Barbara falling in love with each other (before we heard about them as a still-young married couple in The Sarah Jane Adventures last year, some grumbled this was just a fan invention; had they never read David Whitaker telling us, back in 1964?). Though these days no new Doctor Who book would include our heroes smoking, even to introduce the Doctor’s “everlasting matches”, and would think twice about making the Doctor such a git.
Doctor Who and the Crusaders
David Whitaker’s second novel is the most unadulterated work of his we have, and probably the best surviving version of his own rather fine script: Doctor Who – The Crusade was among the stories the BBC threw into a skip, though some of it’s been recovered since (you can buy the Doctor Who – Lost In Time DVD Box Set with two surviving episodes and the soundtracks of the two missing episodes, or a CD of the whole soundtrack with narration to make it easier to follow). It’s certainly the most old-fashioned of the books and an old-fashioned romance to boot, both in the sense of a ripping yarn and the burgeoning love story between Ian and Barbara. It could easily have been a fairly progressive ’60s take on a familiar historical adventure story – in fact, that’s exactly what it is – with a modern even-handedness between Crusaders and Saracens and its heart in the right place (if its terminology isn’t). And it has a very different view of time travel to modern Doctor Who…
“‘Poor Sir Ian,’ he repeated. ‘What dreadful anguish and despair you must be suffering now.’”The TARDIS crew land in Palestine amid the Crusades, and are caught up trying to survive the plotting on both sides; the most interesting characters here are the two leaders, Richard and Saladin, each very differently drawn but each displaying a mixture of dangerousness, nobility and moral ambiguity, and the best lines and the most gripping parts of the story are when these two are involved. Unfortunately, not wanting to get too involved in history, the story weakens towards the end when both Richard and Saladin’s parts have to reduce in favour of a key warlord serving under each of them, men who are fictional, potentially disposable, and – not to put too fine a point on it – utter bastards. So the latter part of the book both reads less lyrically and seems less ‘important’. And readers who grew up in the ’80s might enjoy a character called Thatcher performing some 12th-Century privatisations.
Chris Achilleos’ cover is pretty good, if a bit too busy (though I never say no to Julian Glover, who played King Richard), and the book’s illustrated generously by Henry Fox, whose picture of Ian duelling perfectly fits his place as the very definite hero of the novel. Again, and appropriately, this is one that William Russell reads aloud with gravitas for CD. Charlie Higson’s new introduction is merely OK (though you can tell he wasn’t as successful as Russell at relaunching a classic series). Possibly the most striking part of the book today is the Prologue, however, in which David Whitaker’s very authored, almost didactic view of time travel is far closer to predestination than the series has embraced ever since – and in which there’s a famous misprint, kept in for the new edition, that makes Susan’s partner at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth suddenly very disturbing indeed…
Doctor Who and the Cybermen
Gerry Davis was another Doctor Who script editor, co-creator of the Cybermen and co-author of this story when it was on TV as Doctor Who – The Moonbase; again, the BBC burnt some of it (and again, you can buy the two surviving episodes and the soundtracks of the two missing episodes on the Doctor Who – Lost In Time DVD Box Set, or a CD of the whole soundtrack with narration). And this is the book about which I have the most mixed feelings from this whole selection. With my critical brain switched on, this is clearly less inspired a script and a novel than the other five… But it was the first book I ever bought and the first book I ever read – in fact, the book that made me learn to read – and I can’t help but love it.
“‘Here’s our holy water,’ said Polly, holding up the small bottle of nail varnish remover. ‘I’m going to do an experiment… Voilà cocktail Polly!’”The first Cyberman story so pleased the Doctor Who production team that they did it again right away – and this is it, with a lot less inspiration, but a far better part for the Doctor (including Patrick Troughton’s most defining ‘mission statement’). And Gerry Davis carries the plot along well with his functional but endearing prose, making the TARDIS a ship in a stormy sea, making her crew memorable throughout (particularly Polly, asking pointed questions about the Doctor’s qualifications and weaponising Clarins to stop any sexist comments dead in their tracks), making the Cybermen less B-Movie than they were on TV and making a right mess of their history, though also with the first outing for the iconic Prologue: The Creation of the Cybermen. The Doctor starts off here with the TARDIS out of control and finishes by slipping away quietly, which feels exactly like the way things should be. And the next story, though not the next book, was absolutely brilliant – if the book misses one thing, it’s ending with a giant claw.
Gareth Roberts – who just ten days ago brought Cyber-chops back to TV in Closing Time – captures the experience of reading in his Introduction, while the fabulous Anneke Wills, who played Polly on TV, is the main reader for this audiobook – with Nick Briggs on the Cybervoices – and is terrific at it. While this may be the weakest of the six books, it might be the strongest of the readings, and all the more so when almost all the voices Anneke does, as she pointed out rather witheringly, are for men. She’s got a lovely voice: quite deep, intimate and reassuring – great for a storyteller, and though not all her accents are spot-on, she does rather a good breathy Troughton, particularly capturing his determination near the end (though they should probably have gone for a second take when she creates a novel colour as a side-effect of a word being split across two lines: “red-
dish coloured lights”). A passage that stands out as really quite threatening is Ralph being stalked by the Cyberman in the food store, aided by the music, even if it doesn’t sustain the mood by being made the end of Disc One. Chris Achilleos’ cover is particularly fine as long as you’re not a Cyber-pedant, with a threatening monster, a thrilling fizz around the Moon and a great Patrick Troughton. The illustrations by Alan Willow are more serviceable than gifted, but I’ve always loved this one of the Cybermen lifting off from the surface of the Moon; but see if you can work out why, in this one instance, it might be better as reprinted, without the original caption I’ve shown here.
When I was five, I fell seriously ill and was hospitalised… Which turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’d just bought my first book – this book – at the school bookshop, and my Mum brought it into the hospital. The various primary school books I’d been meant to be learning to read on had been having precisely zero impact on me through their banal ‘narratives’ of going to school, sometimes by bus, sometimes in the rain; I did that. Why would I want to read about it? But when my Mum, who’s never loved Doctor Who, got half-way through reading Doctor Who and the Cybermen to her little invalid and could stand no more, she did something that changed my life (and, within a couple of months, changed my measurable reading age from ‘off the bottom of the scale’ to more than double my actual age). Thanks, Mum; thanks, Gerry Davis. Bored beyond the call of duty, she told me to read it myself.
I did.
Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen
Terrance Dicks, again a former lead writer on Doctor Who, wrote much of the Target range single-handed – ten times as many books as anyone else – and his deceptively simple prose is hard to beat for telling a cracking good story. This one is a cracking good story, from Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln’s script, surprisingly on TV as Doctor Who – The Abominable Snowmen, and sadly this time, the BBC burnt most of it (you can buy the sole surviving episode on the Doctor Who – Lost In Time DVD Box Set, or a CD of the whole narrated soundtrack).
“A vision of the cave on the mountain filled the Master’s mind. The glutinous living mass still seeped from the pyramid. More and more and more… it filled the cave… it was filling the tunnel. When would it stop? How much territory would it cover? ‘You said only the Mountain for your Experiment,’ shrieked Padmasambvha. ‘If you do not stop, you will cover the planet. You have lied to me… tricked me.’ The sound of hellish cosmic laughter seemed to fill his ears. The old Master slumped in his chair. In an appalled whisper, he said, ‘I have brought the world to its end!’”The Doctor is commanding, Jamie heroic, and Victoria – not always one of the most memorable companions on screen – vividly naughty. No wonder I liked her; the ‘prim Victorian lady’ is the one who leads the prim monks into temptation and explores all the interesting places (the story has an interesting take on faith, treating Buddhism with respect not for the last time in Who, but also showing up superstitious misogyny – perhaps it’s an appropriately split response when one of the key characters spends most of his time arguing with himself in something eerily between schizophrenia and prayer). And Victoria is certainly more appealing than the typical ‘lost British explorer’ who, refreshingly, is a bit of a git. Like the other Second Doctor book in this line-up, it’s often called a ‘base under siege’ plot – but it’s really rather more interesting than that. It’s a ghost story, and as for the purpose of a siege… I suspect one of the reasons it was such a strong childhood favourite of mine, too, is that I liked my Doctor Who scary. I started watching in the early Tom Baker Years, of cold science and gothic horror, and this book and the next two below have something in common that struck a chord: they are almost the only three Doctor Who stories in which someone is so terrified that they lose their reason. Scary enough to turn you into a dribbling wreck? I want to read that! So here, particularly, what Travers discovers on the mountain and the effect it has on him is easily the closest to Lovecraftian cosmic horror in all of Doctor Who. Oh, and watch out, retrospective readers: not for the only time in the ’60s, one of the main characters in this story is the Master, but not the Master.
Terrance Dicks’ solid storytelling lifts an already strong script, giving it clarity, pace, and added detail from the vivid opening backstory dream, to actual snow, to making the pyramid’s gloop terrifying instead of stubble-reducing (even if he loses the TV’s meanest but funniest joke). It’s always fired my imagination with horrifying evil, sweeping landscapes and unsettling special effects; perhaps even more than The Evil of the Daleks, if a Doctor Who story were ever to be remade for the big screen as a modern answer to the ’60s movies, this should be it. On a less spectacular budget, David Troughton does a great job in bringing the audiobook to life – to the extent that it might just be my favourite version of the story. I’ve often heard people say that he sounds just like his father and thought it nonsense, because though his voice as he’s got older has gained something of the same husky quality, it’s very much his own. But just this once, the first word the Doctor says is “Marvellous!” and a shiver went down my spine. On that, and tantalising other snatches of dialogue, he’s clearly doing an eerily close impersonation of Pat. For the story itself, perhaps it reaches its peak – unexpectedly – on the third disc of the four, with the plot thickening, Padmasambvha’s appalled realisation and Travers’ horror in the cave, atmospherically read and scored. Chris Achilleos’ cover is an excellent companion piece to his Doctor Who and the Cybermen, with the Earth rather than the Moon, Pat Troughton, a monster and a vignette of Jamie and Victoria. Again, it’s plainly illustrated by Alan Willow. Stephen Baxter takes you back, excitedly, to watching the story – if only we could, too – but he shows us how evocative the book can be. I bought this book, as well, from the racks they used to keep in the St Simon’s RC Primary School entrance hall, with my saved-up 5p tokens on the card from the “Wise Owl Book Club”. Awwhh. And not only does my timing for this piece tie in with a new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, but (I note thanks to Newsround before today’s episode) with the start of the biggest expedition to find the Yeti for half a century – let’s hope they have better luck than Professor Travers, eh?
Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion
Terrance Dicks script-edited the original version of this Robert Holmes story, Doctor Who – Spearhead From Space, a terrific tale that’s just been re-released on DVD (as part of the Doctor Who – Mannequin Mania DVD Box Set, labelled a “Special Edition”… But it’s wrong. This book is the special edition), and you can tell that he loves it. Of all his many books, this was his first, and it still shines as perhaps his best. I grew up reading the novels of the Pertwee Doctor first, and was inevitably disappointed when I got to see what I could only think of as the TV adaptations; just this week, the far-inferior TV version of a fantastic book is out on DVD to illustrate that Pertwee gap like no other. But not here. In picking Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion and Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, this series cannily chooses probably the best two Third Doctor books, inspired by probably the best two Third Doctor TV adventures.
“‘We are the Nestenes. We have been colonising other planets for a thousand million years. Now we have come to take Earth.’That always gave me a thrill of horror when I was a boy, but there are many other memorable moments: the extended Prologue with the Doctor’s trial; the nurse’s down-to-Earth “pure terror” at Dr Lomax; “Now I don’t know whether that makes me a doctor, a vet or a raving lunatic, but as far as I’m concerned those are the facts”; “…and there were no fingernails”; “A sizzling bolt of energy whizzed past Ransome’s head”; the Nestene itself, so perfectly described that readers and artists knew exactly what it looked like, and could forget what they’d seen on TV; a stunning tour-de-force action sequence taking the Auton invasion from the high street, to ordinary people, to orders going mysteriously wrong and ending in “a curious pointing gesture” on Whitehall. Like the similarly outstanding novel of Remembrance of the Daleks, it makes even the series’ most lavish action sequences seem broader, bigger-budget, and more compelling. On screen, Channing is an excellent performance by a top guest star, and the Autons impressive – but on the page, his “burning eyes” are far more charismatic, and the Autons far more odd. There are certainly things about the TV version that the book lacks – superb direction, three outstanding leads (particularly the Brigadier), the music, memorable sound design for the Autons (shame it’s not used in the audiobook), making the word “facsimile” scary before Yuppies did, Liz being hilariously embarrassed by the Doctor in Madame Tussauds, the much-copied Auton invasion itself – and it’s probably right to lose the visual pun of a ‘hand-gun’ for the book. But great as the TV serial is, this book still tops it.
“‘But what’s going to happen to us—to Man?’ The full horror of it suddenly came over Hibbert. ‘You’ll destroy us.’
“Channing’s voice was soothing. ‘Not you, Hibbert. You are our ally. You have helped us.’
“Hibbert said dully: ‘And you… you’re not human.’
“‘I am part of the whole, Hibbert. Nestenes have no individual existence. This body is merely a container, Hibbert. You should know that. You made me.’
“And Channing smiled a terrible smile.”
Caroline John seems more comfortable with her second CD reading, so she improves on her performance from Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters – it rattles along with great energy. These CDs always lack the Doctor Who theme, and this time the sound effects are a bit disappointing – though the combination of music and sound as Meg confronts the Auton are really quite chilling – so hurrah for Caroline really finding her voice, and doing justice to the massive final battle. Chris Achilleos’ excitable cover has Nick Courtney’s Brigadier (his only appearance in the original range until right at the end), meteorites and a hideous alien monstrosity – one that really doesn’t look great on TV, but for Terrance’s evocative description here has inspired many, many artworks – and here he does the illustrations, too, with the Auton blasting at Ransome, Scobie’s revelation (nothing like that on telly, but a terrifically ominous smile) and that huge, many-tentacled Nestene that’s something between spider, crab and octopus bursting out again of particular note. Russell T Davies writes perhaps the most telling Introduction, growing into a concept of “fandom” and picking out his favourite bit – a chilling moment that’s always been mine, too. And, of course, this story was the one he borrowed from to relaunch Doctor Who, brilliantly, six years ago – not just staging an Auton invasion on a bigger budget, but lifting details directly from this book (“Students, he thought vaguely” – and the bits that Russell didn’t use in Rose, Steven Moffat borrowed for The Eleventh Hour).
Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters
The last of these six books – only so far, I hope – for me vies with the other Pertwee novelisation as the best of the six, and was the best of the TV serials on which they were based, too. Ironically, the “Cave Monsters” is an even less appropriate title for the original ‘green scaly rubber people are people too’ story than TV’s Doctor Who and the Silurians (available to buy in the Doctor Who – Beneath the Surface DVD Box Set, and with an atypically spoiler-filled review from me). I’ve even said that this is probably the book that turned me into a Liberal. Malcolm Hulke wrote several of the hugely influential early Doctor Who novelisations, and it’s fair to say that his are probably the most loved.
“She realised how terribly fond she was of Dr Quinn, even if she had started to doubt whether he was at all fond of her.”Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters is one of the series’ most passionate moral fables, and the one closest to my heart – literally, indeed, on the day I bought my first copy, as pictures of little curly blond me clasping it excitedly to my little bosom on the way home from Blackpool will testify. It ranges from a terrifyingly apocalyptic sequence in which the population of London start dropping from plague, through off-kilter office romance and spy drama, to making the viewer take the viewpoint of a reptile person who’s slept for 65 million years and is none too impressed with their planet now being overrun with ape-descended upstarts (and “reptile people” is a far simpler, more accurate name than “Silurians”; Millennium has an excellent theory on how Dr Quinn may have named them, and suggests the alternative Prehistoric Indigenous Xenomorphs Interred Entire Species). There are few Doctor Who stories about which I have such a wealth of feeling and which have had such profound effects on me, and Malcolm Hulke’s prose and extraordinary boldness in reworking his own original script had almost as much to do with that as the central story: of all of these novels, even including the first, it’s the one that makes the most striking changes, discarding much of the plot in favour of adding much greater depth to the characters and drawing the reader into their lives, fears and ambitions. So it really doesn’t matter that, on top of some scientific howlers that you can ignore for the sake of the parable, he adds a particular political one in the book. The fatal flaws in the characters are far more interesting than the minor factual ones. I’ve raved about how the TV version of this story was why Doctor Who was brilliant in 1970, and recommended the novel for “Bloggers’ Summer Reading” in 2008 (with tongue in cheek only in how I was writing, and not what I was writing about).
This time, Chris Achilleos pulls out all the stops for his cover, with Silurians, a T-Rex and even volcanoes, going back in time to the book’s prologue, while his illustrations (one rather badly reprinted, but the rest nicely cleaned up) are a superb range: a map; Okdel’s chat show; figures in the dark moving toward Major Barker; a letter from a Chief Constable; and my very favourite, for the chapter Goodbye, Dr Quinn, which is such a brilliant spoiler that you’ll have to buy the book to see it. Terrance Dicks’ Introduction is quite different in tone from all the others; a voice from the time, written for his old friend. Caroline John was terrific as – and very proud of playing – Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, and is a good choice to read her stories on CD, where she’s brilliant again as Liz four decades later (particularly when she comes close to murdering the Doctor in his smugger moments) and has fun with her pompous Doctor and Brigadier voices, but is slightly uncertain as a narrator, though noticeably gaining confidence as she goes along. One of the things that may have thrown her balance was having to do a Scots accent when, like that other fine actor Derek Jacobi on his reading of Doctor Who – The Mind Robber, she comes a cropper with it, and greatly improves in the telling once the character involves departs the story! She’s a pleasure to listen to in the DVD commentary on the TV version of this adventure, too, where (if you skip to Episode 5, the one after where Terrance Dicks sums up the story’s attitude by calling the Doctor “an incorrigible liberal”) she not only involves the other actors in discussing the story’s politics but delightfully fills them in on the extra characterisation each of their roles have in the book: Geoffrey Palmer is particularly amused by his character stiffing another over their old school ties. The CDs, incidentally, offer the original back cover blurb, but these new paperback editions write their own: wisely, in this case, in not reproducing the infamous “…and a 40 ft high Tyrannosaurus Rex, the biggest, most savage mammal which ever trod the earth!”
For more about the Target Book series that was – and, hopefully, the expanding BBC Books Classic Reprint line that is to come – two of the authors here have rather fine features about their novels as part of the DVD range. The War Games DVD has On Target – Malcolm Hulke, while On Target –Terrance Dicks is part of the Peladon Tales DVD box set.
Labels: Books, Cthulhu, Daleks, Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee, Julian Glover, Patrick Troughton, Personal, Pictures, Reviews, Sarah Jane Smith, The Brigadier, Tibet, William Hartnell
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Pretty Pictures – and Pretty Intelligent
Welcome to February, a little belatedly as I was utterly shattered yesterday, and to ease you into the new month I’ve prepared a selection of links to sites with pretty pictures – each of which will also insidiously get your brain working. Well, I hope they’ll do so for me, anyway, as I’m still knackered and have a great many things I want to write. Marvel, then, at Jodrell Bank’s pick of the night sky for February, a fabulous Douglas Adams pastiche, several comic strips and something not at all safe for work. Hope it cheers and wakes you up. And, in at least one case, gets you up (not the Pope, then). I might do this again – it’s more fun than reorganising my entire sidebar of outdated links, isn’t it?
Jodrell Bank’s monthly astronomy update for what to look out for in the night sky. February’s particularly good for Mars and Italian scooters, apparently. Just such a shame President Obama’s decided we’re only going to look at it all from down here. Meanwhile, Douglas Adams famously imagined a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while lying back in a field in Innsbruck and looking at the stars…
The absurdly gifted Andrew Orton used to have a website full of ‘movie posters’ for Doctor Who stories, some of them very eye-catching and several still saved on my hard drive long after he abandoned them. These days, rather than manipulating simple images in Photoshop (or whatever), he builds CGI Doctor Who and other models to do marvellous things with them. I particularly enjoyed his pastiche of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, mixed in with the first Doctor Who story on which Douglas Adams was credited as script editor. My suspicion is that, unlike the ‘real’ computer graphics of the fabulous 1981 TV series, Andrew has used real computer graphics.
And now onto the pictures that don’t move about a lot, but which might bear some relation to Oolon Coluphid. There were these two blokes down the pub… And they probably shouldn’t be viewed by those of a religiously sensitive disposition. I’m with the barmaid (hi, Jennie!).
More blasphemy. Tut. And more on the Unspeakable Pope later (who’s not a pretty picture). A century ago, writer HP Lovecraft decided that horror had become too familiar and, thus, not frightening. He created an unnameable, unspeakable, sometimes unreadable new universe of cosmic horror, stories where the scary things were only glimpsed, weren’t explained, and crushed the investigator like a bug to finish – in the more reassuring tales. Today, what’s new has become old, and many-tentacled, unpronounceable Lovecraftian abominations have become as much a cliché as Dracula was to him. The cuddly cartoon mass-mutilation of the Unspeakable Vault (Of Doom) would, then, have been a pain in the neck to Mr Lovecraft, as the more recognisably “Lovecraftian” something is, the less it is like anything Mr Lovecraft was trying to do. It does, however, make me laugh very improperly.
Adam and Andy are a middle-aged gay couple who’ve been together for ever, where one works terribly hard and the other’s lazy, and where neither is as svelte as they used to be. It’s just like another sci-fi link, as obviously they’re in a completely different world to my life. They have a dog, not an elephant! Thanks to the very gorgeous Alex Foster for putting me on to their strip some time ago, too.
This one does what it says on the disclaimer page. Yes, the artist of these cartoons started off wanting to make fantasy porn, but found it all too funny. As a result, she goes where the mood takes her and some of the strips, regretfully, are safe for work. Don’t worry – there’ll be more cock jokes along very soon. A tip: if, like me, you start reading and then want to read the whole thing, while each of the strips is funny on its own, many of them build up to punchlines – one might call them climaxes – over several instalments. If you like the first few you read and want to carry on, you really are best off clicking on the “START” page and going on from there, as reading a joke backwards is noticeably less funny.
This one also started off as porn and is often funny, but it’s not a cartoon, it’s a porn star’s very engaging blog about his life in the recession. His headline pic on his Big Shoe Diaries is naked, partially obscured by a “Will Fuck For Food” sign; the background to his Twitter account, on which at present he’s fully clothed, is him surrounded by his books. Come on, you like him already, don’t you? Some pages are indeed safe for work, but you’re probably safer assuming they’re not: though he frequently discusses his visits to art galleries and museums, ‘I went there for the art’ may not stand up to close examination when it doesn’t go down well with your system administrator. Look out, too, for mentions of his friend Conner Habib, who is funny, an academic and another very hot films chap. Do you get many of those? Anyway, Colby was recommended to me by a friend in one of those late-night wide-ranging Doctor Who, food and porn online discussions one has, as someone who’s funny, intelligent, and also very sexy, not plucked to within an inch of his life, and looking like he’s enjoying himself. And after a few days of looking at the pictures, you might start reading what he has to say, too.
This particular recommendation is dedicated to Tower Hamlets Council.
In much less wholesome porn news, the Australian legislature are officially a bunch of wankers. They’ve based a new law on mainstream pornography’s somewhat inflated view of breasts, and decided that all pictures of women with relatively small breasts are akin to child pornography. Were all their campaigns funded by the cosmetic surgery industry? ‘Women – buy those implants now or you aren’t a real woman’ isn’t the sort of message you expect an actual law to be sneering, is it? Strangely, they don’t appear to have banned pictures of men with small penises. That sort of porn’s absolutely fine, too, but presumably the Australian Parliament were too busy watching the big boobs to keep their minds on lower matters… Oh, but I’m wrong! It seems female ejaculation is “abhorrent”, too. That’s a law that sounds like it was made by HP Lovecraft, and about as in touch with the real world.
By now, you’ve probably heard about Pope Rottweiler’s latest medieval threats. So I’ll just comment through the medium of Twitter…
I tweeted last night:
Ex-Nazi to visit UK, demand special rights, charge taxpayers £20m for privilege & make gays 2nd class. It’s political incorrectness gone mad!
Then added my simple Liberal message, with a link to the National Secular Society’s petition against paying for him – he’s not in any sense a pretty picture, but he does make a good poster when you click to see all the signatories:
Don’t ban Pope but don’t keep quiet & don’t pay for his tour of hate (sign here)
I joined Twitter less than a week ago, and an evil old bigot telling us how to live our lives and demanding money and laws in his favour has had by far the biggest Twitterbag amongst the people I’m following. Who knew?
Update: Gosh. Thanks, Colby!
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February By Night
Jodrell Bank’s monthly astronomy update for what to look out for in the night sky. February’s particularly good for Mars and Italian scooters, apparently. Just such a shame President Obama’s decided we’re only going to look at it all from down here. Meanwhile, Douglas Adams famously imagined a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while lying back in a field in Innsbruck and looking at the stars…
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Daleks
The absurdly gifted Andrew Orton used to have a website full of ‘movie posters’ for Doctor Who stories, some of them very eye-catching and several still saved on my hard drive long after he abandoned them. These days, rather than manipulating simple images in Photoshop (or whatever), he builds CGI Doctor Who and other models to do marvellous things with them. I particularly enjoyed his pastiche of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, mixed in with the first Doctor Who story on which Douglas Adams was credited as script editor. My suspicion is that, unlike the ‘real’ computer graphics of the fabulous 1981 TV series, Andrew has used real computer graphics.
Jesus and Mo
And now onto the pictures that don’t move about a lot, but which might bear some relation to Oolon Coluphid. There were these two blokes down the pub… And they probably shouldn’t be viewed by those of a religiously sensitive disposition. I’m with the barmaid (hi, Jennie!).
Unspeakable Vault (Of Doom)
More blasphemy. Tut. And more on the Unspeakable Pope later (who’s not a pretty picture). A century ago, writer HP Lovecraft decided that horror had become too familiar and, thus, not frightening. He created an unnameable, unspeakable, sometimes unreadable new universe of cosmic horror, stories where the scary things were only glimpsed, weren’t explained, and crushed the investigator like a bug to finish – in the more reassuring tales. Today, what’s new has become old, and many-tentacled, unpronounceable Lovecraftian abominations have become as much a cliché as Dracula was to him. The cuddly cartoon mass-mutilation of the Unspeakable Vault (Of Doom) would, then, have been a pain in the neck to Mr Lovecraft, as the more recognisably “Lovecraftian” something is, the less it is like anything Mr Lovecraft was trying to do. It does, however, make me laugh very improperly.
Adam and Andy
Adam and Andy are a middle-aged gay couple who’ve been together for ever, where one works terribly hard and the other’s lazy, and where neither is as svelte as they used to be. It’s just like another sci-fi link, as obviously they’re in a completely different world to my life. They have a dog, not an elephant! Thanks to the very gorgeous Alex Foster for putting me on to their strip some time ago, too.
Oglaf.com
This one does what it says on the disclaimer page. Yes, the artist of these cartoons started off wanting to make fantasy porn, but found it all too funny. As a result, she goes where the mood takes her and some of the strips, regretfully, are safe for work. Don’t worry – there’ll be more cock jokes along very soon. A tip: if, like me, you start reading and then want to read the whole thing, while each of the strips is funny on its own, many of them build up to punchlines – one might call them climaxes – over several instalments. If you like the first few you read and want to carry on, you really are best off clicking on the “START” page and going on from there, as reading a joke backwards is noticeably less funny.
The Internet is for Porn (and I’m for Colby Keller)
This one also started off as porn and is often funny, but it’s not a cartoon, it’s a porn star’s very engaging blog about his life in the recession. His headline pic on his Big Shoe Diaries is naked, partially obscured by a “Will Fuck For Food” sign; the background to his Twitter account, on which at present he’s fully clothed, is him surrounded by his books. Come on, you like him already, don’t you? Some pages are indeed safe for work, but you’re probably safer assuming they’re not: though he frequently discusses his visits to art galleries and museums, ‘I went there for the art’ may not stand up to close examination when it doesn’t go down well with your system administrator. Look out, too, for mentions of his friend Conner Habib, who is funny, an academic and another very hot films chap. Do you get many of those? Anyway, Colby was recommended to me by a friend in one of those late-night wide-ranging Doctor Who, food and porn online discussions one has, as someone who’s funny, intelligent, and also very sexy, not plucked to within an inch of his life, and looking like he’s enjoying himself. And after a few days of looking at the pictures, you might start reading what he has to say, too.
This particular recommendation is dedicated to Tower Hamlets Council.
In much less wholesome porn news, the Australian legislature are officially a bunch of wankers. They’ve based a new law on mainstream pornography’s somewhat inflated view of breasts, and decided that all pictures of women with relatively small breasts are akin to child pornography. Were all their campaigns funded by the cosmetic surgery industry? ‘Women – buy those implants now or you aren’t a real woman’ isn’t the sort of message you expect an actual law to be sneering, is it? Strangely, they don’t appear to have banned pictures of men with small penises. That sort of porn’s absolutely fine, too, but presumably the Australian Parliament were too busy watching the big boobs to keep their minds on lower matters… Oh, but I’m wrong! It seems female ejaculation is “abhorrent”, too. That’s a law that sounds like it was made by HP Lovecraft, and about as in touch with the real world.
Pay For Pope? Nope
By now, you’ve probably heard about Pope Rottweiler’s latest medieval threats. So I’ll just comment through the medium of Twitter…
I tweeted last night:
Ex-Nazi to visit UK, demand special rights, charge taxpayers £20m for privilege & make gays 2nd class. It’s political incorrectness gone mad!
Then added my simple Liberal message, with a link to the National Secular Society’s petition against paying for him – he’s not in any sense a pretty picture, but he does make a good poster when you click to see all the signatories:
Don’t ban Pope but don’t keep quiet & don’t pay for his tour of hate (sign here)
I joined Twitter less than a week ago, and an evil old bigot telling us how to live our lives and demanding money and laws in his favour has had by far the biggest Twitterbag amongst the people I’m following. Who knew?
- The talented Paul Cornell is religious
- The lovely Owen Blacker is sweary
- The cheery James Moran works for the tourist board
- The handsome David Ames is subtle
- And the gorgeous Will Howells was where I spotted the news and still spot-on.
Update: Gosh. Thanks, Colby!
Labels: Bigotry, Blogs, Comedy, Comics, Cthulhu, Daleks, Doctor Who, Douglas Adams, Gay, Jodrell Bank, Meddling In Things That Are Nobody's Business But Your Own, Pictures, Religion, Sex, Twitter
