Fans Fiction The New Adventures of Lady C: The Stolen Wellington, part 1 by Samantha Stanley & Harriet Chamberlain

 

The new adventures of Lady C. – A contribution to the stories created by S. Florence

The Stolen Wellington. Part 1 

Written by Samantha Stanley & Harriet Chamberlain

 

Lady Christina de Souza, 98th in line to the throne of England (Thankyou Megan Markle ), not the Queen's favourite relative, owner of the de Souza manor, a fleeting companion of the time travelling alien known as "The Doctor" and notorious jewel thief "The Lucky Cat" had just about recovered from losing her entire family at the battle of canary wharf in 2007, and had just about recovered from not only meeting an alien on a bus, travelling to another planet with him on the bus, but saving the lives of those on the bus with her and the entire planet of Earth whilst losing her prized stolen possession to date, king Athlestan's golden chalice and had just about recovered her father's lost fortune ( thanks to his gambling habit) by stealing whatever she could get her hands on, selling it on the black market and restoring the manor, ( well one room, her bedroom. The rest of the manor was falling apart as all her money and her loot went into the secret vault hidden in the depths of the manors wine cellar and the very expensive and slightly alien tech security measures) it's butler John Cook, his strange cousin and stable hand Hugo Halliwell and his knackered pony Clip-Clop, back to all its former glory thus throwing herself, the aristocratic side of her at least, back into the limelight, back into the public eye and back into the Queen's bad books. No one knew her alter ego and what she had done and sacrificed to bring her family home back from the dead and no one ever would, except John Cook, his cousin Hugo and quite possibly the Queen who eyed her suspiciously whenever she saw her and made constant references to the Maneki Neko, Lady C's calling card, to see if she flinched and revealed her true identity.

Recovering from all that whilst maintaining a Lady like stature took a lot of effort, a few glasses of gin and the odd wild fling with an unsuspecting married member of her social circle, just so she could experience the thrill of excitement that stealing gave her, without having to steal anything as other people's husbands didn't count as she technically wasn't stealing, she was borrowing and she always gave them back!

   It was fair to say that life had settled down considerably since that awful day during the battle when she had lost her parents and younger sister Lady Monica. She had tried to look for them of course but where do you start when there is only an end to a war, and no beginning? It had been 13 years now and she was older, none the wiser but a lot richer and still not in favour by the Queen. She did have a happy life though, or that's what she at least told herself every morning, so imagine her surprise when she had come home one evening after stealing a painting supposedly painted by Van Gogh yet looked alarmingly like an exploding TARDIS, for a client who went by the name of Professor Song, ( Quite obviously made up but as long as she paid up, Lady C didn't care what her clients called themselves, yet she was intrigued to meet the Professor as she was sure the painting must be something to do with the Doctor.) and found her dead sister, Lady Monica Georgia de Souza (named after her father's grandmother) sitting in her dining room, eating her pizza and drinking her beer that had been laid out for her by her butler like he did after every heist, sitting on her chaise lounge as though she hadn't of been dead all this time. In fact, she was very much alive!

   There had been shouting, tears and tantrums, mainly from Hugo who had insisted that Monica was a ghost back from the dead to reclaim her shoe collection he had hoarded the day she had "died" and when he had been sedated by John Cook and taken back to the stable, he shared with Clip Clop (his choice) Monica and Christina had started shouting at each other. "Where have you been? I thought you were dead! Why didn't you come looking for me? Stop drinking all my beer!" This went on until the early hours of the next morning until both women had fallen asleep on the chaise lounge out of pure exhaustion. Cook had woken them at 5am and sent them to bed. It was now 10am, Lady C had been awake for hours, had her breakfast in bed and was reading the newspaper as the headline was screaming at her about an art heist from the London museum. She would stay exactly where she was until Monica came in and apologised for being alive and in the meantime, she googled her, trying as she had so often done before to find some traces of her family but the searches had turned up nothing. This time though she had a different name. Bella Roseau, a secret identity Monica had been using these past 12 years to keep herself hidden. It would seem she had learned something from Christina after all.

   It took Monica a long, long time to get back to sleep once Cook had woken them in the early hours. Obviously being back so late last night, and being dead for so long that 90% of her stuff was in storage and her old room is full of dust, her furniture covered in a cloth hiding Monica expensive style underneath. Being back home was just what she needed at this time, all the stuff that she had been through since changing her name and living off whatever she could get was difficult to her. She had tried her best to be independent for the first time in her life, and since what happened in Canary Wharf, she couldn’t have gone home for a long time even if she wanted to.

   Staying in one of the guest room for the night, Monica lay on her back staring up at the ceiling above her; she had a lot of work to do to make it up to her sister. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, and if it was the other way around, she didn’t think that she would ever forgive Christina. But lucky for Monica, Christina was probably a tiny bit more forgiving…. And I really mean a tiny bit. Monica checked her phone and saw it wasn’t a ridiculous time to get up and go see Christina. Throwing on a silk dressing gown from the suitcase she brought back with her she slipped out the room and walked towards her sister’s room. It’s strange how everything is exactly the same as how they left it but just run down. All the fancy art the family used to collect still filled the walls of the hallway, the massive chandelier above her head still bright, just full of cobwebs. There was only a certain amount of cleaning that Cook could have done and it wasn’t fair to leave him behind to look after it all, but Monica didn’t think that her sister would ever walk away from this place, especially after her family had died, but she did.

   Knocking lightly and pushing open Christina’s bedroom door, she walked in ready to grovel. Monica was so close to walking in jumping onto the bed next to her sister and getting under the duvet like she used to but she stopped herself knowing it wouldn’t be welcome. Not just yet anyway.

   “So…. What would make this a bit better?” Mon went to awkwardly sit on the edge of the bed but instead chose to walk away and sit on the chair on the other side of the room. “I mean, you know I can’t cook. And that hasn’t got any better since I’ve been away. But I could try? Would that help?” Mon took quick notice of Christina scrolling on her phone.    “Anything interesting about me?” Mon questioned, that used to be what she would ask her sister back in the day before everything went wrong, and that was because Mon was used to going out getting completely drunk, making a fool of herself and probably ending up on the front page of some tabloid doing something she probably shouldn’t. Since she had died Mon did spend some time looking online about herself wishing she would relive the life she used to have, but how could she come back from the dead? Christina would probably be able to know, she knew everything. “Anyway, so I was thinking, how much of my stuff you still have? I mean you must have kept some right?” Mon shrugged; Christina did not look impressed. “Are you ok?”

   Trying to ignore her sister wouldn't be an easy task. Monica was far too "In your face" to be placed on a back burner somewhere or ghosted just to prove a point, but it had to be said that although Christina was over the moon that her sister wasn't dead after all, she was furious with her for lying to her and leaving her with the mess of planning her entire family’s funerals.... not something anyone should have to do. Cook helped of course, Hugo didn't but that was Hugo and that was another thing, how she was going to convince him to give Monica back her shoe collection, she did not know, especially as he had grown rather worryingly attached to a bright red pair of Jimmy Choo's in her absence.

   As she sat cautiously on her bed, Christina carried on searching the news feed on her phone in the pretence she was far too busy to be listening to her sister's pitiful attempts at an apology for not being dead, but something caught her eye and very quickly, a devious if not hilarious plan began to form in her mind that would indeed allow Monica to make it up to her on a grand scale.

   Placing her phone on her bed, she sighed heavily, acting wounded and heartbroken as she mentally put the finishing touches to her master plan. Reaching over the night stand, she grabbed a small bell and rang it a few times in an attempt to get Cook to bring her a morning cup of tea. She waited a few seconds, rang it again, huffed impatiently and then bellowed..."COOK......TEA!" at the top of her lungs just as the butler came hurrying through the door carrying a tea tray with a startled looking Hugo behind him carry a breakfast tray and a piece of her toast in his mouth.

   "Sorry mi' Lady, 'ad to stop Hugo nicking yer sausages, yer know what he's like round pork. Morning Miss Monica, brought yer usual, bloody Mary with a twist and a Ryvita"

Placing the trays down and cuffing Hugo round the head so the toast shot from his mouth, Cook left the room dragging his slightly backward cousin with him.

   Christina finally spoke to Monica, trying to sound authoritative yet sounding more like an excited child at Christmas.

   "All your belongings are in storage, by storage I mean in the stable with Clip-Clop. I did try and save some things but Hugo insists you left them to him in your will which we never found and I was too upset to contest it or argue with him, besides, he's been wearing most of your dresses on a daily basis so I doubt you'll want any of it back"

   Taking a sip of tea, she let her plan unravel like a soft coiled ribbon that had gently fallen to the floor.

   "I am going on a job later this evening" She passed her phone to her sister and pointed to the illuminated screen. "As you can see, Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington has resurfaced and its due to go on display for 1 week from tomorrow morning at the London art gallery, meaning it will be taken to the gallery overnight in preparation. I have quite a few contacts interested in this particular piece who are willing to pay a very large sum of money and you my dear undead sister, are going to help me get it.... tonight! I will go over the plans properly with you after breakfast and when we pull this off, you'll be able to restock your wardrobe and more, because you are going to be the one, who steals it for me!"

   There was a distinct smirk on Lady C's face as she unveiled her plans, mostly because of what she had planned for her sister and mostly because the thrill of a pending heist always made her extremely happy. Taking another sip of tea and plucking a sausage off her plate, she relaxed back into her pillows and waited for her sister to come to terms with the fate that awaited her.

 

To be continued…

Who Reviews The End of Time Parts 1 & 2 by SF Cambridge

 

Starring:

The Doctor - David Tennant

The Master - John Simm

Donna Noble - Catherine Tate

Rose Tyler - Billie Piper

Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman

Martha Smith-Jones - Freema Agyeman

Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen

and introducing Matt Smith as the Doctor 

WARNING: IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE, THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD! 

“It is said that in the final days of Planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams. To the west of the north of that world, the human race did gather. In celebration of a pagan rite to banish the cold and the dark. Each and every one of those people had dreamt of the terrible things to come. But they forgot. Because they must. They forgot their nightmares. Of fire and war and insanity. They forgot. Except for one…” 

The End of Time is a 2-part episode depicting the last story of the 10^th Doctor played by David Tennant. In these 2 episodes we see the return of some familiar faces of companions past and present, a glimpse into the Time War on Gallifrey and the much-awaited return of the Master played by John Simm. It’s an emotional journey of regret and refusal as the Doctor takes his TARDIS on one last trip as he travels back and forth through time saving lives and making amends before his impending regeneration.  His was probably the most emotional regeneration I think I’ve seen on Doctor Who and one that caused many a Whovian to break down all over social media as they mourned the loss of David Tennant whilst swearing, they would never watch newcomer Matt Smith step into his shoes and step in he did, gaining nearly as much popularity in the role as his predecessor. 

“He will knock 4 times”, the words of wisdom given to him by Carmen, a woman he met on a bus, the build-up and anticipation we were all waiting for that most of us had put down to something to do with the Master and his rhythm of 4 heartbeat was in fact just Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, trapped in a radiation chamber, tapping the door wanting to come out! It was a hilarious ending to the long-awaited mystery and Wilf’s own fault for going into the chamber in the first place, but it was all so lovingly done with the Doctor angry at Wilf for putting himself in that position in the first place and Wilf so remorseful that he begged the Doctor to leave him in there until in the end, both characters were willing to sacrifice themselves for each other, so very very sweet. 

Wilfred: “No really. Just leave me. I’m an old man, Doctor. I’ve had my time.”

The Doctor: “Well exactly! Look at you. Not remotely important! But me? I could do so much more! So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. Well, it’s not fair! ….. Oh… I’ve lived too long.”

Wilfred: “No. No no please don’t. No no! Please don’t! Please!”

The Doctor: “Wilfred. It’s my honour.” 

“And so, it came to pass that the players took their final places. Making ready the events that were to come. A madman sat in his empire of dust and ashes. Little knowing of the glory he would achieve. While his saviour looked upon the wilderness in the hope of changing his inevitable fate. Far away, the idiots and fools dreamt of a shining new future. A future now doomed to never happen. As Earth rolled onwards into night the people of that world did sleep. And shiver. Somehow knowing the dawn would bring only one thing. The Final Day.”

Even though Bernard Cribbins was undoubtedly the star of the show at that moment in time, it was in fact David Tennant’s show, and a fitting tribute to an actor who really pushed life, warmth and depth into an ancient alien. 

Not forgetting the newly restored Master brought back to life by his coven of wiccan disciples and the DNA stolen from Lucy Saxon’s lips, John Simm once more managed to portray the Master in such a broken way that you almost felt sorry for him as he gained the realisation that it was his much loved Time Lords who played the drumming in his head as a boy that sent him so insanely mad just as a way to locate him in the future in order to bring Gallifrey back from the clutches of the Time War to press on the surface of reality of Earth’s atmosphere. Knowing this would crush the earth and kill every human being on it the Doctor knew that it wasn’t just his time that was ending, it was all time. 

Timothy Dalton’s depiction of Rassillon was a welcome addition to the story and he played the part well, although I could have done without all the spitting he did, but the mystery woman who appeared to Wilf several times by way of visions, urging him to once more be a solider and help the Doctor was far too confusing because it left the viewers wondering who the hell she was without revealing an ounce of information about herself. Was she the Doctor’s mother perhaps? Who knows?! Certainly not us so what was the point to her character? It did however give us the explanation for Carmen’s prophesy at the end of Planet of the Dead. “It is returning. It is returning through the dark. And then Doctor— Oh but then… He will knock four times.” 

The Doctor: “Something is returning.” Don’t you ever listen? That was the prophecy. Not some “one,” some “thing”.

The Master: What is it?

The Doctor: They’re not just bringing back the species. It’s Gallifrey! Right here. Right now.

What I absolutely love about the episodes and in any film or program that I watch, is when they do or say something in a time before, when someone says something of seemingly little importance and then future episodes down the line suddenly bring that back into focus and you realise that it was part of the very fabric of the storyline woven in and out of each episode like a golden thread. Scenes like that, like the one where you suddenly realise that everything leading up to this point was prophesized by a side character in the past and it literally opens up the story to you in ways you couldn’t imagine. The same thing happens in a future episode of Doctor Who starring Matt Smith. It is brilliant writing at it’s best.  When you watch them back, even when you know what’s coming, you start seeing other things of similar importance that you had previously missed. It’s pure magic from the imaginations of magicians. 

I think personally I would have preferred both episodes to have been one long special episode rather than split in 2 parts. I think the story would have flowed better and our anticipation of wanting to know what was coming next would not have been diluted by a week wait and life filtering out part 1 from our minds so that we almost needed a re cap before watching part 2.

The master turning everyone into himself using the medical arch to create the master race seemed a bit insignificant to me and its something the story could have done without as were some of the sub characters brought into the show to give it that comedy edge “SHIMMER!” I get that the Master is deranged but what would remaking the world in his image have achieved in the long run? It just seemed like a sub plot that died before it really got a chance to take hold and develop. 

I did however enjoy Donna’s brief return and I was happy to see she had retained some of her Time Lord powers from her brief interaction with Time Lord DNA. I think her story ended far too soon, it was a sad day when he made her forget everything she had done and sent her back to living her normal boring life. Whilst it obviously saved her life, she was such a great addition to the show that I would have loved to have seen her interact with Missy in future episodes. 

We could have had more Gallifrey, more of an insight into the Time War and how the Time Lords became trapped in their bubble of time, more about where Gallifrey had been hidden, more about the Master and the Doctor as children, I think seeing as these 2 episodes were Doctor 10’s final farewell which is never seen on an impending regeneration, more of his history and the story which brought him to earth in the first place would have been better, but as we’re not saying goodbye to the Doctor only a version of himself, it was to say in all fairness a very good story, if not slightly tongue in cheek. 

My favourite part was towards the end when Donna got married and the Doctor gave her a winning lottery ticket which he brought when borrowing a pound off her father in the past before he died. It was a scene that made me tear up completely, watching the faces of Donna’s grandad and mother crumple when they realised what he had done and even more so when Wilf blew him a kiss goodbye, I had literally gone then. 

Saving Martha and Mickey from a Sontaran and finding out they were married was lovely to see, as was him saving the life of Luke smith, Sarah-Janes Smith’s adopted son and finding Jack Harkness in a space bar and introducing him to Alonzo but I was less than thrilled when he went back to visit Rose Tyler in the days before she first met the doctor in his 9^th regeneration, only because Billie Piper had aged too much to be so young and it showed on screen which kind of took the emphasis of that scene away from its meaning, however it redeemed itself with Odd Sigma singing the doctor to sleep as he took the TARDIS into space and openly declared… “I don’t want to go!”  breaking the hearts of Whovians throughout time and space as he became the long awaited, (my personal opinion) Matt Smith, a man far greater and as far better Doctor, going from the man who regrets, to the man who forgets and starting his journey with the immortal words…” And still not ginger!”

 

Fans Fiction The Mystery of Mayhurst Manor, Part 1 by Sarah Cambridge

The week following Lady C’s discovery of her new Secret ID, The Night Bird, seemed to pass in a blur of phone calls to builders who hadn’t turned up to start the restoration work on the manor, but had received rather an earful of abuse from the not so refined Lady of the manor, who after questioning them several times as to, “Do you know who I am?” It turned out they did not, and so she had fired them before they had even begun which for them, was a blessing in disguise. Having received a large sum of money from the Sovereign grant issued by the Queen herself for the sole purpose of restoration, Lady C had tried in vain to hire the local tradesmen to start working for her asap, but little did she know that not one local tradesman would ever step foot in the manor again, not after the last time they were there when Lady C was away at her majesties pleasure and they were left to the rather unalluring charms of Hugo, John Cook’s very special cousin who had taken a fancy to anything covered in brick dust. This included all the builders, the van they travelled in and a cement mixer, so after one week of continuous advances, numerous vulgar suggestions and the site of Hugo in one of Lady C’s negligees, they could not stand it any longer and had left (run screaming) with the threat of a sexual harassment law suit ringing in Hugo’s ears!  Coincidently, or maybe not, this was the day Hugo left the manor and hopped on a mystery tour bus of London, never to be seen again!

   After several cups of tea and half a bottle of gin, Lady C decided that she’d call one of those places poor people go to when they had no money or means to make any.  A job centre apparently, which she found out after a quick google search. Maybe they could hire some needy and desperate workers to come and restore her beloved manor so she wouldn’t have to bother trawling through the internet in search of something that wasn’t going to be stolen to make her money and hopefully notoriously famous.

   It was a hard and arduous task talking to Janis at the Job centre. She had a very common tone to her voice yet seemed particularly up herself for someone who worked with layabouts all day. After a few questions, mostly about the pay, she did promise to try and get something sorted as soon as Kelly was back at work as she was on leave until a week next Tuesday and it wasn’t really her department as she worked on new claims and had only been at Kelly’s desk borrowing her stapler when the phone had rung so all she could do was take a message and leave it in Kelly’s in tray as her cover, which had been arranged by the job centre, had called in sick.

   Upon asking for the new would be employers name and upon hearing the title, “Lady” instead of Miss or Mrs,  sovereign grant instead of minimum wage, and Manor instead of council flat, Janis, who usually worked on the first floor dealing with the new claims of the recently unemployed and was only borrowing a stapler, suddenly decided to promote herself to Kelly’s position of Job finder general and promised to not only put the ad on the job centre website herself that very second, but would also spend the rest of the day looking through Kelly’s list of unemployed builders until she found a suitable candidate which she would ring with the intention of getting them out to the manor that very next day or her name wasn’t Janis Buckle, (although she pronounced it, B’Ouche, probably in the hopes of impressing the Lady Christina deSouza who she would now tell people down the Dog and Duck, was her new best friend. )

   Lady C thanked her and then tried to hang up, but Janis had intended to chatter on about how her aunt Gladys had once worked for a Lady Brown, Forsyth-Smith and did she know her? She eventually just hung up after her head started to hurt from Janis’ common accent and the withdrawal of gin!

   She would pass the rest of the day away, as it was still only 11am, but visiting her vault and cataloguing what she had left in the way of stolen goods after the Queen had tried to clear her out when the crap of being caught red handed had hit the fan.

   Lady C’s secret vault had lots of other secrets to it such as secrets floors and secret hidey holes that she prayed had remained secret from her majesty as that’s where she kept her most valuable of possessions. The things that were worth the most money to any greedy buying who would pay millions just to say they had possessed it.

   As she wandered through the kitchen and through the cellar door, down the stone steps that led to the basement, she came to a stop outside the secret hidden door of the vault and froze in fear as she heard the familiar sounds of engines grinding to a halt just inside of the vault. It was with a heavy heart and several seconds of heavy breathing to calm herself, that she tapped in the code to open the door and made her way through, her heart sinking into her stomach as she saw the towering looming figure of the Tardis blaring its blue light across the vault as it spun slowly, flashing like the police light it was meant to be.

   The doctor had arrived and no doubt would try to take all her stuff back to their rightful owners as he often did every now and then and usually because taking it in the first place had somehow upset the laws of gravity or time or something else mundane and totally not worth her listening to when he lectured her.

   She was about to start yelling for the Doctor who as she suddenly remembered was now a woman, to show herself and explain how she had managed once more to get passed the highly technical doctor detecting security, she’d had fitted some years ago. Albeit it by the Doctor himself as he was back then, but on agreement that he wouldn’t break in if she didn’t steal anything that was considered alien. As she had not, he or she had no right being there! Before she could utter a word, she spotted what looked like an old man at the end of the vault’s passageway, looking carefully at one the bricks on the wall as he made some muffled puzzled exclamations about it which sounded a lot like Scottish.

   “It’s here, but not over there which makes me think that its just a small disturbance, yet it registered big enough for the Tardis to bring me here herself which is highly unusual”

   “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?” Lady C suddenly shouted, very annoyed that not only had the Doctor turned up unannounced yet again, but that she had brought a weird looking old man with her and was letting him wander about tapping bricks to his hearts content. She strode over to the Tardis and banged on the door still yelling. “Oi, LADY DOCTOR, GET OUT HERE IMMEDIATLY AND TELL ME WHATS GOING ON! I DO NOT APPROVE OF YOU INVITING YOUR FRIENDS INTO THE PRIVACY OF MY SECRET VAULT THANKYOU VERY MUCH! NOW, SHOW YOURSELF WOMAN!”

   The man at the end of the vault spun round as soon as she opened her mouth and rushed towards her, placing his hands gently on the Tardis doors as he looked highly concerned for it after it had been hammered on so ungraciously. “Woah, woah woah, what’s your problem? I’m only looking, you don’t usually hear me down here this time of day Christina, you’re usually still in bed. The Tardis brought me here because of the disturbance in time that seems to be secured within the walls of your vault. Nice locket by the way”, He said rather sharply, raising an eyebrow as he gestured towards a velvet silk lined box that contained the last known piece of jewellery once owned by the late Lady Jane Mayhurst which had disappeared shortly after her death. “I’ll be taking that back with me”

   Lady C listened in disbelief, her head turning from the man with the accusing eyebrows to the wall at the end of the vault and back again, and then started shouting once more. “WHO THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU AND WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?!”

   “I am the Doctor, what’s the matter with you? Why don’t you recognise me?” He stopped to think for a minute, his eyes narrowing as he put the missing pieces of the jigsaw into place in his mind. “Oh, my apologies, have you not seen this face before? I thought the Tardis might have given it away as to who I was though”

   Lady C screwed up her brow in confusion. Today hadn’t started well and wasn’t going to end well by all accounts, but she could probably relax a little knowing the strange man wasn’t a strange man at all, well he was but one she knew and trusted, although not to break into her vault it would seem. “You were a woman last time I saw you which I might add was only a few months ago. Surely you remember that? The wedding, the tiara, you bumbling in on one of my jobs as per usual being all sanctimonious, as per usual?”

   The Doctor shook his head and wandered off back to the brick wall to examine it again, talking casually over his shoulder as he went. “No, not really but then again I don’t tend to visit in terms of linear time lines. Good to know I’ll be a woman someday. I always fancied seeing how that would work out, no I think the last time I saw you was the night I visited you in jail, the first night if I remember and I was wearing that ridiculous bow tie. How long ago was that?”

   “5 years” Lady C replied, almost spitting the words at him as it was and always would be a sore point. It had confused her enough to know the Doctor could change his face when he wanted and confused her further to know he could change sex too, but knowing his visits weren’t in the same order for him as they were for her, added to the confusing and she began to scan the vault for her secret stash of gin. Grabbing the only bottle left from under one of the loose floorboards, she pulled it out and removed a very sticky note attached to it which read, “Soz, I drank yer wine Mrs Yer’Ladyship. I’ll get yer a new bottle from Tesco. Love Hugo” She grimaced slightly knowing Hugo had put his hands on her stuff after probably letting himself into the vault during the Queen’s raid, but beggars could not be choosers at this point so she un capped the gin and took a swig, hoping the slow lull of drunkenness would wash away the stress that the day would no doubt continue to bring.

The Doctor eyed her over his shoulder but for once didn’t remark about her drinking, nor about her time in jail, even though it was he who had put her there. Instead he carried on tapping bricks whilst mumbling to himself about how strange it was.

   Lady C was about to ask him what the hell he was up to when he suddenly jumped backwards and yelled “HA! Found it!” He spun round and grabbed Lady C by the hand and pulled her to him, his eyebrows going crazy with his mixed emotions. “There was a temporal disturbance here, but it was confined to just one brick, but I now know what it is, it’s a doorway probably to another time or dimension or planet maybe, could even be a space craft. I found one just like it in an elevator once, but this one manifested by itself, right here in your vault. Shall we take a look and see where it goes?”

   Lady C was not in the slightest bit excited by the prospect of travelling through dimensional space with an alien. She had been there and done that with him many times before, and whilst it had always been adventurous and thrilling, she had only managed to escape with her life still in tact each time and she had begun to fear the Doctor each time he turned up to whisk her away somewhere new. Today was no exception.

   “Well you can if you want, but I very much doubt I’ll fit through that one brick even though I have lost a lot of weight recently, but if you think you can then be my guest. I’ll wait for you upstairs if its all the same with you?”

   The Doctor looked at her with confusion etched across his face and he totally ignored her request to stay behind and uttered “Nonsense” under his breath and still holding her hand tightly, he moved his other hand through the brick so that it disappeared and the temporal doorway around it began to spread to accommodate his body as he moved further through it.

Lady C was about to protest louder and tried to pull her hand free but before she could utter a single sound, she was stood in a completely different place, surrounded by cold, damp, dark shapes that omitted an awful smell of rotting flesh and worst of all, she had dropped the bottle of gin which was now spilling out all over her vault floor.

   “Where are we?” she whispered, unable to shout abuse at the doctor as the stink had got into her throat and was choking her whilst making her eyes sting. The doctor lifted his sonic screwdriver into the air and let it analyse the surroundings for a moment before he looked at its findings.

   “August 2012, think it’s a Friday although Tuesdays are very much like Fridays in terms of time travel. Norfolk, England. Christina, what was the last thing you thought of just before I pulled you through the doorway?”

   Lady C rolled her eyes and glared through the dark at the doctor, almost wanting to slap him if she thought she wouldn’t miss. “7 bloody years ago, and we’re still on earth? What kind of time travel is that? I could have probably managed that myself if I still had Captain hot stuffs vortex thingy. Hang on, 7 years? Good lord although I was at my best then. Maybe we can go and find me and tell me not to listen to a bloody word you tell me and maybe I wouldn’t have to go to prison!”

   It seemed like a great idea to be honest. Why wouldn’t she want to warn herself about the dismal future she had, but the doctor had other ideas and she uttered a small cry of surprise as his face suddenly became so close to hers, she could feel his breath on her skin. “Do nothing of the sort. If you change things here you have no clue to what kind of future you’ll be going back to, you should know the laws of time by now Christina, now tell me, what was the last thing you thought of?”

   There was anger in his voice and panic too which wasn’t like him but she was too freaked out by how close his face was to hers to start an argument with him at that point, but she would bring it up later and completely ignore him as she always did and send her past self a text message when he wasn’t looking.

   “Erm, about the pendant, I think. Just as you yanked me here against my will, I thought to myself, hide that bloody pendant whilst he’s gone” She had taken to pouting now in the vain attempt to make him feel sorry for her, but she remembered it was dark, so she stopped and whined instead. “There are no living descendants of Lady Mayhurst so what would it matter if I kept the damn thing? She was dead when I took it after all”

   The doctor flashed his sonic once more and checked the data. This time pulling Lady C along with him as he moved toward a stair case that led to a door which hopefully led outside.  “It matters” he growled angrily “because 1, its not yours and 2……” They climbed the staircase and the doctor pushed open the door. There was a surge of heat and a blanket of black smoke welcomed them, almost covering them and surely choking them to death if he hadn’t of slammed the door shut as quickly as he’d opened it on the crumbling wreck of what was once a magnificent building.

   “2…this is Mayhurst Manor and I think it’s on fire!”

To be continued…

Reviews Torchwood: God Among Us #1 by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s not a member of the god-squad just yet.

Torchwood ‘Series 5’ – Aliens Among us introduced us to a new, post-Miracle Day Torchwood 3, and then basically blew up any rulebook we thought we knew. New characters joined, old characters left, new characters were old characters. Old characters came back from the dead. Jack had sex with anything that stayed still long enough – it’s nice to know some things about Torchwood at least stay the same with the passing of time.

What we should presumably call ‘Series 6’ – God Among Us, begins at the funeral of a Torchwood regular.

So – that’s a bit of a bugger then.

Seriously, the opening to Future Pain by James Goss will kick you right in the teeth. Much of the action of this first episode takes place at that funeral, and much like Gwen’s wedding in on-screen Torchwood, there’s also a big alien-hunt/battle to attend to. God – not any god we’ve invented here on this silly little blue marble of a planet, but the god of the Sorvix (from which they fled to Earth and ended up more or less running 21^st century Cardiff), has arrived, looking for its chosen people. Or…well, really any people. It’s a mark of the make-up of new Torchwood that it has people on board these days who can if not exactly deal with its presence here, then at least tackle the impact of that presence in a whole different way to that in which ‘old’ Torchwood would have been forced to do. Future Pain explores some of that, while, did I mention, repeatedly punching you in the face with the death of a much-beloved Torchwood member. Particular fans of that character might well not want to push on through the rest of the set. Do, because without getting appallingly miraculous about the whole thing, the situation’s more complicated than you can possibly imagine at this stage.

The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood, by Guy Adams, is both a bit cool, and a touch ragged round the edges. It brings us into contact with Brent Hayden, right-wing incel-adjacent tin-foil hat-boy conspiracy junkie and Youtube self-realising entity, who wants to get to the bottom of Torchwood (insert, if nothing else, your own jokes here), the takeover of Cardiff by aliens, the Deep State, the Fake News and the Libtardocracy of disinformation and media manipulation.

On the one hand, this is all vaguely pathetic and actively funny, though we never actually discover enough about Brent’s background to understand what has set him on his path of mum’s-basement net-riocrity. On the other hand of course, it doesn’t work so well in a world where the basic premise of our drama is a secret organisation that works above and beyond the government and traditional law enforcement agencies, that deals with alien incursion, and which frequently wipes or messes with the memories of innocent civilians to keep itself the most open secret on the streets of Cardiff.

With Tyler Steele acting as an information-feed for Brent’s online rants, actor Jonny Green gets the chance, as he puts it in the Behind The Scenes interviews on this release, to ‘do the right thing, while still being a bit of a dick about it.’ The rationale for his involvement in the first place feels flimsy though, and so The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood, while an interesting study in how people feel the need to matter, to be the heroes of their own stories, and so to edit their own experiences in a way that puts them forward positively, feels a bit disconnected from any passing storylines – it’s a time out take on Torchwood from a completely right-field angle, enjoyable in and of itself, but only vaaaaaguely to do with the ongoing storyline of God Among Us.

See No Evil, by John Dorney, could be said to be tangential too, inasmuch as there’s not a whoooole lot of God-action, but there is most certainly an entertaining premise – Cardiff has gone suddenly blind. Except it hasn’t really, it’s gone dark. And somewhere in the dark, something is hunting.

It’s a creepy premise, well delivered by breaking the cast up into groups and giving them each a mini-mission, with Jack of all people on humanitarian duties, while other Torchwood and non-Torchwood members go to hunt the hunter. It’s an episode long on character development and interaction, without sacrificing the need for Stuff to be happening to terrify the bejesus out of listeners and act as a spur to all the interaction. We learn interesting things about one leading Torchwood member who’s perplexingly back from the grave, as they get closer to someone else and are called on some self-defence mechanisms they regularly employ. Meanwhile, Jack gets closer to someone entirely else – and reveals a shocking new development in his Torchwood story. Seriously – franchise-alteringly shocking new development, at least potentially.

But that’s by no means the end of the shocks in Dorney’s script, and it ends on an entirely different bombshell, which leads us directly into Night Watch, by Tim Foley. As stories go, that’s creepy in a whole different direction, as a vampiric space-nonce arrives to feed on the dreams of humanity while they sleep – a process which is potentially dangerous to those who are hurting, those who are broken. Torchwood to the rescue – the usually active members get usually active, while one of the newer recruits to the hub is sent on a gentler, more nursemaiding duty to keep the dreamers of Cardiff safe until the break of day. Foley’s script allows for anger to flare between Torchwood members – understandably so given the end of Aliens Among Us – and yet while the threat and the solution are both firmly within Torchwood’s remit, there’s something rather fairytale and magical about the scope of Night Watch. In particular, it allows us as listeners to come full circle from the first episode of this box set, to soften the kick in the teeth dealt us by the funeral and to hope for positive developments in the next box set.

God Among us, Part 1, is a set of four episodes which are loosely connected but which conjur an atmosphere of something immense, something powerful, no longer on the horizon, but not yet entirely ready to manifest whatever destiny it has planned for us. Torchwood always prophesied that the 21^st century would be when everything changed, and that it was ready. On the evidence here, there’s lots of division and dissension in the ranks, but this is a Torchwood that does individually or in small teams all that it can to keep the world turning for one more day. When God is more fully among us, it remains to be heard whether this new Torchwood can cut it.

Beyond The TARDIS SJA: Eye of the Gorgon by Andrew Allen

So here we are then: the first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures.  For those of you keeping score at home, it should be acknowledged right off the bat that this isn’t precisely true: The Sarah Jane Adventures  has delivered a pilot episode, followed by a two part season opener that was bolstered by some guest aliens from parent show Doctor Who. But it’s important to note that Invasion Of The Bane operated very much like a second pilot, and that its style and tone bear very little relation to anything that comes later in the series proper. That opening story is very much what we might have expected from a spin off series that’s largely populated by kids, showing on CBBC: adventures set in a school, coupled with lots of fart gags. What begins in Eye Of The Gorgon – and is continued throughout the rest of The Sarah Jane Adventures until the very last episode – is something altogether more mature, and it’s here that Russell T Davies (and episode writer Gareth Roberts) very much draw a line in the sand: SJA is going to be delivering significantly more meaningful themes, albeit wrapped up in a monster-of-the-week type run-around. 

Since we’re talking about the true DNA of SJA, it’s worth pointing out what the heritage of this story seems to be: quite aside from the fact that killer nuns driving around in hearses might just be the last great joke that Robert Holmes never got around to writing, (compare and contrast to Auton policemen) Eye Of The Gorgon revels in classy old Brit actors guest knocking around in a classy old British stately house (and, yes, killer nuns running around in hearses). This, paired with the treat of having Liz Sladen star in spin-off series teaming up with a bunch of youngsters to save the day, feels very much like a natural progression from, of all things, nothing less than 1970’s funfest The New Avengers. Here, Sarah Jane gets to be John Steed, Maria and Clyde doing the run and tumble stuff that was usually assigned to Gambit, therefore leaving Joanna Lumley’s job of having Purdey looking wide-eyed and getting captured by the villain to Luke. Clyde, by the way, is narratively the victim of a sly joke that hints at the age and attitude of the average resident of the care home: note how often he wordlessly gets handed an empty teacup or is expected to do basic household tasks.

While this episode has lots of fun with a scary taloned thing lurking under a cowl and sneaky references to old Doctor Who monsters (and indeed, old horror movies starring Patrick Troughton), it’s clear that right from the start, The Sarah Jane Adventures is setting its sights on much loftier aims than mere kid’s sci-fi. There are, you see, some evils in this universe that simply cannot be fought: the scene where Maria angrily denounces her parents’ divorce as irrelevant (because Chrissie will always, inescapably, be her mother no matter where she is), will to many kids watching be a lot scarier and upsetting than any number of invading aliens. This is coupled with the nagging realisation that Bea’s (guest star Phyllida Law) encroaching Alzheimer’s is a brutal, banally earthbound villain that will likely not be defeated by the end of the story. It’s these sort of real life preoccupations that set out firmly what sort of focus The Sarah Jane Adventures will preoccupy itself with.  

This happens in all sorts of subtle ways throughout the episode: Sarah Jane’s wordless protection of a saddened Maria – which in turn goes some way to justify Chrissie’s paranoia of her – is a moment that is barely noticed by the other characters (and indeed, if you’re not paying attention, it just looks like simple shifting of the characters to the next location to serve the plot), but crucially, it leads to the episode’s cliff-hanger being well earned: while the average viewer can be fairly certain that the main cast are mostly safe from everlasting death (it would be a very short series otherwise), the supporting characters don’t have that safety net. And so, writer Gareth Roberts is careful to ensure that the victim of the gorgon’s gaze is the one that we are going to be most upset by, and at this early stage of the series, one that is not necessarily guaranteed to survive. It’s a great cliff-hanger, and it’s impossible to tear our eyes away. 

Reviews Torchwood Aliens Among Us, Part 1 by Tony J Fyler

Tony holds up a sign saying ‘Aliens Welcome Here.’

Torchwood on TV arguably hit its peak in its third series, Children of Earth. There, it first really pulled off a series-long arc that worked, combined a massive worldwide threat with the intimacy of personal impact, as human children were sacrificed to alien drug addicts to stop them destroying the world and a personal love story into which every fan bought ended with a tragic death, to which there remains to this day a real-life shrine in Cardiff Bay.

Torchwood Series 4 then had a few jobs to do – most notably, with only two of the original team members left, it had to add new blood to the dynamic, and it chose to do it over an even longer single-arc story, Miracle Day.

Miracle Day was bloated, overlong, with a genius central idea that ultimately was poorly paid off, and the new members of Torchwood failed to charm, as the original team – despite being as inherently charmless a bunch of characters as you could wish to meet – had done.

For the last few years, Torchwood has been in the hands of Big Finish, delivering audio adventures from up and down the arc of Torchwood history, from its Victorian beginnings to the spacefaring far future.

But it’s never dared to do this before.

Torchwood – Aliens Among Us is an official Series 5. It takes us beyond the events of Miracle Day, which of course means it faces many of the same problems Miracle Day did – it’s going to be a long arc, and as Miracle Day did, it retains only two central Torchwooders from the early series – the immortal Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, and the heart of Torchwood Cardiff, Gwen Cooper, played by Eve Myles. There are other elements of consistency, most particularly Gwen’s husband Rhys, but in essence Aliens Among Us faces the Miracle Day challenge – can it build a new central Torchwood team that makes us want to take the long journey of the series arc.

Part 1 is made up of four one-hour episodes, and hopes are raised early, as Changes Everything (Series Five, Part 1, Episode 1 – keep up!) explodes across your mind, with journo and hacker Tyler ‘such a porn name’ Steele being courted to join the team, alongside our two stalwarts and already in-situ newbie Mr Colchester – to all intents and purposes an ex-army bean counter who gets things done. Changes Everything is written by experienced hand James Goss, and wears its post-Brexit social realism proudly, unfolding as a story about refugees coming to Cardiff from other countries – and beyond – and the tensions that such integration brings to the surface. Colchester, played by Paul Clayton, is actually the most successful new addition to the team, as he’s possessed of the acerbic judgment that stops Torchwood ever being too smug, too pleased with itself. He’s a great new anchorweight in the team, and Clayton delivers him with a weary sarcastic realism that makes you instantly want to spend more time in his presence. Steele, less so – he’s young and cocky, and the role he’s aiming to take is perhaps too near the bone, but there’s more to him, and certainly more to his journey, than at first appears on a surface listen. Be warned when you listen – the notion that there’s more going on than there seems to be is absolutely valid, and if one central character sounds unlike themself…well, keep listening.

Episode 2, Aliens and Sex and Chips and Gravy, also by Goss, is a little less successful, mostly because the villain of the piece is so successfully geared to annoy the living daylights out of you. Imagine the hen night from alien hell, for the Bridezilla From Beyond The Stars…and then imagine you’re her chauffeur-cum-bodyguard. There’s a lot of driving around with a spoiled rotten teenage hellion in the back in Episode 2, and while there’s at least some solid story here, and we learn more about the main alien threat in this episode, sometimes the screechy foot-stamping tantrum routine delivered by Sophie Coquohon as ‘Madrigal’ is a little too real to make for enjoyable listening.

But it’s really in the second half of this first box set where things start getting a little pedestrian. Episode 3, Orr, by Juno Dawson, has some great inventive strokes – particularly in terms of a specific threat the aliens bring with them in terms of what they’re actually looking for, and the screamingly obvious parallels with the modern world, where dialogue seems impossible with a group of zealots with a higher purpose, but the addition of Orr as a new Torchwood team member feels a little old hat, inasmuch as listeners who are across the TV sci-fi waterfront will recognise an idea from (among others) an old episode of Red Dwarf, though this is Torchwood, so the idea of Orr is given a modern gritty twist, with overtones of sex trafficking, victim conditioning and the challenge for an established understanding of the world that’s brought by trans-equality and pronouns. To tell you much more than that would spoil the episode’s surprises, which are impressive, but the episode does end on something of a literal damp squib, rather than the big bang it goes out of its way to convince you is coming.

And Episode 4, Superiority Complex by AK Benedict, similarly recycles some fairly old sci-fi ideas, but gives them a suitably Torchwood wash and brush-up. The aliens are properly getting their feet under the table in Cardiff Bay, and open up a sentient hotel that’s ‘aliens-only’ in terms of the guests. There are some highly guessable elements of this episode, but it does rather uncomfortably pose a question of relevance to the Brexiting world in which we find ourselves – if aliens don’t come in ray-guns blazing, but work, and establish their community, and then start establishing exclusionary areas, at what point do you draw the line between immigration and invasion?

Torchwood Aliens Among Us, Part 1 has a lot of potential – there’s much, much more going on already than we see on the surface – the middle episodes bring that screamingly into focus, and perhaps, just perhaps, it’s significant that new cast member Alexandria Riley as Ng is credited, but never explicitly heard to be named in this first box set. There’s a sense of credible continuation from the events of Miracle Day (and the John and Carol Barrowman novel, Exodus Code), there are new characters who appeal immediately, and new characters who feel instinctively like they’re going to have a journey and an arc throughout Aliens Among us. Big Finish, more than Miracle Day ever did, gets our teeth firmly sunk into those characters and their potential journeys, and drags us along for the ride. Yes, there are some recycled ideas along the way – Bridezilla, Orr, Sentient Hotels – but this feels like Torchwood brought bang up to date in the post-Brexit-vote world, with Torchwood rebuilding from more or less scratch. Sure, if you’ve been a fan from (ahem) Day One, you’ll get a lot more from this new version, but it’s also a highly effective jumping-on point for a whole new generation of Torchwood fans.

The Mothership The Daleks, part one

In order for me to give a good and proper account of the Dalek race I’ll have to take it right back to its very beginning, to the first ever appearance on our TV screens way back in December 1963 with William Hartnell, and in the second serial The Daleks.  Back then their appearance was pretty basic.  They had the familiar eye stalk and the sink plunger and also a ray gun which looked like a cylindrical metal tube with outer metal narrow pipes that often reminded me of a basic whisk. 

The Daleks episode was broadcast on 21^st December 1963.  Directed by Christopher Barry, writer Terry Nation, music by Tristram Cary.

The Dalek operators were Robert Jewell, Kevin Manser, Peter Murphy, Michael Summerton and Gerald Taylor.  Voices were provided by Peter Hawkins and David Graham.  The voices of the Daleks were passed through a ring modulator to give them a unique sound like early day synthesizers. 

The Daleks were designed by Raymond Cusick based on the description given by Terry Nation.  There were also four fibreglass and plywood props constructed by Shawcraft Models, and in the early days cardboard cut out Daleks were used to boost their ranks unlike today where the use of CGI can boost up ranks tenfold.

(Raymond Cusick)

The Skaro Daleks as they were classed were silver with blue balls on their skirts; their weaponry was basic, with the standard sink plunger and the gun mount that contains an energy weapon.

http://www.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/dalek/types/1-skaro-daleks/

The other thing to note here are the lights on their dome; they’re not as prominent as they are in their revival during the 9^th incarnation of the Doctor.

In the first series The Daleks the story tells of the Daleks being descendants of the Dals, creatures mutated after the nuclear war between the Dal and Thal races 500 years ago.  The Dals being what the Daleks became.   These Daleks were restricted to their base and flat surfaces where they could only move due to the static electricity.  This species of Dalek was destroyed when their power supply was damaged beyond repair. 

  

In the film Doctor Who and the Daleks, that was released 23^rd August 1965, was written by Milton Subotsky and based on the  tv series, with one slightly differing factor.  The Doctor in the movie was not a Timelord nor was he from Gallifrey.  Instead, Peter Cushing’s version of the Doctor was an eccentric inventor and time traveller whose full name was Doctor Who and that he’d created a time machine that he’d called TARDIS which was a Police Box and he was a human from Earth.  The characters who followed the Doctor were the same as those in the first episode, Susan, Barbara and Ian.  Ian this time however was played by Roy Castle.  What is also interesting to note are the voices provided for the Daleks are the same as those in the tv series, and many of the Dalek operators were the same people from the series also.

For the full breakdown of the movie visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Who_and_the_Daleks

In season two, of the television series, The Dalek Invasion of Earth which was aired November  21^st 1964 saw the Daleks on Earth sometime after 2164.  The TARDIS materialised in London to find the city in ruins and many humans exterminated, those still alive were living like refugees in a nearby Underground Station.  The Daleks had conquered the population by using brainwashed Robomen.

(A Roboman)

Again the Dalek voices were provided by Peter Hawkins and David Graham, and alongside four of the previous Dalek operators were Ken Tyllsen and Nick Evans. 

Director was Richard Martin, writer Terry Nation and music this time by Francis Chagrin.

1964 Earth Dalek Warriors

The Daleks in this episode had extended plungers and disks on their backs.  This enabled them to venture beyond Skaro, and to glide on all road surfaces and not just inside buildings with smooth flooring and static electricity.  They also had wider bumpers to navigate the external terrains, rather like bumper cars.

 

In the 1966 film the title was similar to the episode aside from the date losing at least 16 years.   Daleks Invasion Earth 2150AD. 

The Dalek space ship was different to how it is today but again this was a film based loosely on Terry Nation’s story of The Daleks.  Again this saw Peter Cushing reprising his role as the eccentric time traveller the Doctor in his travel machine TARDIS that was the old Police box.  This time he travelled with his granddaughter Susan (Roberta Tovey), Louise (Jill Curzon) and London Special Constable Tom Campbell (Bernard Cribbins). 

The film was released on 5^th August 1966 and written by Terry Nation, Milton Subotsky and David Whitaker.

What’s interesting to note is that the Robomen look slightly more menacing in their get up, than those in the actual series.  The ones in the series look like an early idea of the Cybermen.

(movie roboform)

In the TV series episode The Dalek Invasion of Earth 2164 we saw different hierarchy of the Dalek race.  Out on the streets rather like the drone army, we saw the Earth Dalek, onboard the Dalek ship however another position was held by the Dalek Saucer Command, these Daleks were like the standard Dalek but for the black dome and black and silver strips on their skirts but still with the blue balls. 

The other thing to note about the Daleks in the movie was the replacement of the sink plunger to a metal grabber.  This gave them more of a robotic look than the regular Dalek we’d seen before. 

http://www.daryljoyce.co.uk/media/12508/doctor-who-related-2150-ad-1.jpg

(onboard ship Dalek 1964)

Another of the Daleks from this episode was the original Supreme Black Dalek, whose function was to take control of the Earth based operation.  This Dalek had only a band of silver around its weapon arms and the grill panel near the dome, the rest was black with the blue balls. These Daleks did not appear in any other episode.  (1964 Dalek below)

In 1965 saw another change in the Daleks, this time reverting back to those from 1963, the silver with blue balls on their skirts.  Their sink plungers and ray guns were still the same and their dome lights were only slightly raised.  But this time their midriff featured vertical slatted strips of metal that were the solar power that enabled them to travel anywhere, and were able to follow the Doctor wherever he went.  Even through time!

 These Daleks appeared in the The Chase (1965), Mission to the Unknown (1965), The Dalek’s Master Plan (1965),

When the 1^st Doctor regenerated into the 2^nd incarnation, we’d already seen 5 changes in Dalek.  As the series advanced the changes began to take more shape.

As Patrick Troughton took the role of the Doctor, we saw these Daleks appear again in The Power of the Daleks (1966).  These were the modified movie version Daleks, they had fully operating flame throwers that were built by Raymond Cusick.

In the 1967 episode The Evil of the Daleks, the cyborg had changed again.  This time their dome was black and they took orders only from the Dalek Emperor, a different version again to the 9^th Incarnation of the Doctor.

In 1972 the Daleks appeared as grey Dalek warriors, this time with black balls instead of the familiar blue, they still retained their vertical slats on their midriff, and the sucker and ray gun weapons were still the same.  Again the lights on either side of the dome were small and roundish.

These were the Daleks I remembered from my youth.

These Daleks appeared in Day of the Daleks (1972), Frontier in Space (1973), Planet of the Daleks (1973).  For those who can remember watching Doctor Who on the old black and white TV’s, may remember the day when viewing the episode Day of the Daleks in colour, and from behind the sofa.

With the regeneration of the 3^rd Doctor to the 4^th incarnation, we next saw them again in Genesis of the Daleks, and met the scariest creature of all.  Davros!

The 4th Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan are transported to Skaro to thwart Davros' plans of creating a master race of metal creatures that will spread outside of Skaro and dominate time and space in the universe, but he fails. 

Skaro is war torn after a thousand year war has left the planet a waste ground, its ecology ruined by nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.  The Kaleds are in power over the Thals and Mutos.  Mutos are the not pure race, ravaged by war and the chemicals on the landscape they are often rounded up to move the radioactive components into a missile which will be launched at the Kaled Dome.  The Thals have Sarah Jane Smith as prisoner. 

The Thals and the Kaleds are at war.  In this series the Kaleds are shown for what they will be in the future, once their cells are scraped back and chemically altered and pity and compassion removed.  They are revealed as something horrific growing in tanks.  The Doctor sees for himself these creatures as he’s shown by Ronson what the man’s future will be like.  It’s then that the Doctor knows what he must destroy!

(illustration by Daryl Joyce)

Terry Nation grew up in World War II and it is quite easy to see that his influence of the Daleks and especially Davros were taken from this era.  Davros is depicted as Hitler and wants a pure master race.  The Daleks his minions, like the Nazi's who eradicated anyone who wasn't in agreement with their plans.  Plus if you weren't a Dalek and you couldn't be used by them, then you were instantly exterminated, those who were experimented on were exterminated much later when they were no longer required.

Genesis of the Daleks is possibly the most horrific of all the stories within the Dalek history, as it mirrors the Second World War and the genocide of those who were not 'pure race.' 

In one part of the episode the Doctor’s mission had been to halt the proceedings of the master race of Daleks, but it also posed some moral dilemmas for the Doctor.  In a “Have I the right?” scene, it questioned how different it would make the Doctor in wiping one race from existence.  It would make him no better than the Daleks for causing mass genocide of one race of aliens.  One way of thinking was to keep the Daleks alive and to gain support from other races who up until that time may not have been allies of the Timelords.  But it was a risky choice to make. 

The Doctor has learnt that the Thals and Mutos are preparing to detonate explosives that will seal the Daleks inside the bunker and have little time to escape.  The Doctor returns to destroy the Kaled mutants but a Dalek has inadvertently completed the circuit and destroys the room.  Harry, The Doctor and Sarah escape just before the explosives detonate.

In the bunker Davros is the only one still alive after the Daleks have killed everyone.  They have also started the production line going totally against their creator’s wishes.  As he realises that the Daleks are able to think for themselves, he attempts to destroy the bunker but is shot by a Dalek. 

Genesis of the Daleks had six weekly parts from 8 March to 12 April 1975.

In the next Issue we’ll be looking at the Daleks from 1972 onwards and how much more they have changed over the years. In the 3^rd Issue we’ll be looking at their complete change in the RTD years and onto the Moffat years.   

Until then folks....Be safe

Resource for the article came from:

http://www.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk

Wikipedia for all manner of Doctor Who information

Doctor Who hardback book by Mark Campbell

ISBN 978-1-904048-74-9 Published by Pocket Essentials

BFI Doctor Who by Kim Newman softback book

ISBN 1-84457-090-8 Published by BFI Publishing

Use of photos courtesy of Google images

http://www.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk

http://www.daryljoyce.co.uk