Who Reviews The Shadow of Weng-Chiang by DJ Forrest

 

 Djak is avoiding being filleted by Mr Sin

I don’t recall watching the Talons of Weng Chiang, so I have no knowledge of who Magnus Greel was nor his robotic sidekick Mr Sin. All I do have is the knowledge of it happening during the Fourth Doctor era. One of the interesting things being that, for a family show, I don’t suppose much of Mr Sin’s actions were covered in quite as gory technicolour as the books do. So, trekking through this novel was quite an eye opener and I had to remind myself that I was reading a Who novel, and not some sick and twisted horror novel for adults only. 

There have been many robotic characters throughout films where just by a simple tilt of the head, and the darkness behind the eyes, that can completely freak you out. Mr Sin is no different, and for someone who, as I stated earlier, has no prior knowledge of this homunculus creature, then I was about to get a real taster of what happens when a robot goes rogue. 

The story picks up on Earth, and Romana II and the Doctor (4^th) are in search of another segment of the Key to Time and pick up readings on their gizmo that puts them in Shanghai in the 1930s. It’s during the conflict between the Chinese and the Japanese and how much the latter wanted to expand its empire by sending its forces into China, so lots of spies working on both fronts, and double agents working on both and so much going on that you tend to lose what it is you’re searching for. 

Author David A. McIntee, certainly knows his history, and for the first part of the story, fills in the backstory of the Japanese advances into Manchuria, which fills out enough about Hsien-Ko, the lead character, who is building something in the mountains, using Dragon Path compasses, in order to fulfil a promise to her father. 

When the Doctor and Romana II arrive with K-9, they stumble into what looks to be an Arms deal on the docks. Their gizmo for detecting high levels of chronon energy spikes each time they come into contact with certain people, especially those with these little compasses around their necks, and Hsien-Ko. Curious about this woman, they investigate further, but Hsein-Ko is one step ahead of them, as she recognises the Doctor, and assumes that since their last meeting, that Romana is Leela. 

Naturally, I’m going to have to read or watch the Talons of Weng-Chiang to know what that story was. 

Mr Sin appears at Hsein-Ko’s side, and she’s somewhat connected to the robot – she can see where he is at any given time, and can send him to do her bidding. This little Chinese pygmy homunculus comes complete with a sharp knife that he doesn’t mind wielding, and because he has a pig’s brain, weirdly, when his circuits go a little haywire, he becomes a blood sniffing, butcher, for want of a better word, and goes in search of human flesh. It’s a little macabre after that, and I’m pretty certain that this would never become a Who episode – just from the actions of Mr Sin. 

There are interesting characters throughout and I did warm a little to Mr Woo, despite his actions in the club he owns, where he secretly listens in to conversations in each booth. He looks after Romana also, and together they team up with the Doctor and help save the day, eventually, after much toing and froing and avoiding Mr Sin. There are some chapters that keep you on the edge of your seat and there was many a night I’d be reading a couple of chapters before giving in to sleep. 

David McIntee is no stranger to sci fi, having written for Doctor Who, and Star Trek, writing books, comics, audios including for Big Finish. The Shadow of Weng-Chiang is one of the Virgin Missing Adventures stories, of which he has written three. New Adventures he’s written three from ’93 – ’95 and for Past Doctor Adventures covering ’98 – 2004 and an Eighth Doctor Adventure in 1999. I need to look out for more adventures by McIntee, they are extremely interesting, and made up for the novel I struggled with and gave up on. 

Anyone heard of Taint? 

If you get a chance to read this novel, have a squiz at the introduction to the story, as it’s extremely light hearted view of the author, and for this reason alone, I warmed to him straight away.

 

 

Who Reviews The Pirate Planet by Matt Rabjohns

The second segment of the Key to Time season was the first involvement of the legendary Douglas Adams in the show. And it's a crying shame he didn't go on to have a far larger involvement with the show than he did actually. His grasp of whimsical and imaginative writing really was absolutely incredible. Just look at The Pirate Planet, and you will see what I mean clearly enough.

The story has a grand scale, and the main plot line is an inventive and horrifying one. A script about a manipulated space pirate going through space just to suck planets clean of their energy just to keep a thoroughly evil and wizened old Queen alive is brilliantly contrived, and the tightness of the plotting has to be applauded very much here.

And the story is littered with so many larger than life characters. First and foremost is the wonderful Bruce Purchase as the half machine Captain, who is ever so slightly deranged and mad but held under the thumb of the ruthless Queen Xanxia. He is blustering, arrogant and yet at times restrained and quietly menacing. Bruce manages to make the character more than just the run of the mill cardboard cut-out villain. In fact, he is one of the most memorable and excellent villains of Tom's later years. He is loud, abrasive yet deeply disturbing and this makes him one of the most interesting villains on the show for a long while.

But a part play with even more subtlety, so much so that for most of the story you may even think she is not that important, is the turn that Rosalind Lloyd gives as Queen Xanxia. She is calmly and quietly in the background for most of the story, but when it is revealed that she is indeed the main evil doer and the Captain is merely controlled by her secretly her true colours are seen. She plays the wicked Queen with a restraint that makes her Queen one of the most quietly simmering brews of evil we've had on the show.

The story is also memorable for K9's wonderful battle with the Captain's Polyphase Avatron. The Captain has many layers to his character, he can kill a person for almost nothing at all, but he gets livid and upset almost like a child when his robot parrot is returned to him, having been defeated by K9 in a fierce laser beam fight.

The Mentiads are written well within the story, and their backstory is indeed a thoroughly interesting and well thought out plotline. That whole planets have died to give them their mental abilities is a ghoulish and dark segment of the story telling that is handled very well by the cast and the director, Pennant Roberts.

Indeed, the scale of the space hopping planet is quite a horrific one when you stop to think about it. A planet that is hollow that can jump through space like a spider to suck other planets dry is a deeply troubling prospect indeed. It gives the story an added dose of bite that perhaps makes it the single most ambitious story of the Key to Time season. It is bold and yet written perfectly.

Tom Baker and Mary Tamm already seem to get on like a house on fire as the Doctor and Romana because they both just share such wonderful screen charisma together. They are totally amazing to watch. And the fourth Doctor of these later seasons is more comical, but still not to the story detracting heights of season seventeen, here the comedy is still more restrained and therefore more believable as well.

It is quite easy to see why Douglas Adams would go on to be such a celebrated and gifted writer. His first story for Doctor Who is jam packed with so many brilliant ideas, and the plot comes together seamlessly and makes this story yet another firm success in a season that is highly engaging and highly memorable because every story has a firm backbone and they are all entertaining and diverting in their own special way.

This story also contains one of Tom Baker's most brilliant moments as the Doctor ever. His sheer horror when the Captain explains what Zanak does to other planets is surely one of the most brilliant pieces of acting that Tom ever gave on screen. His total hot anger comes over superbly and makes the scene truly hit home. He does not play this scene for laughs either, which is why it is all the more real and impactful. Tom always knows when to crank up the seriousness in his performance, and he is absolutely pitch perfect for this incredible scene. His righteous outrage at the horrors being perpetrated is openly palpable indeed.

The Pirate Planet was the first of only three stories of which he would be involved with as major writer on the show, the other two being City of Death and the sadly then unfinished Shada. This is such a great shame that we only have two full stories to remember him by in Doctor Who. He had the potential to rise to Robert Holmes levels of brilliance, and yet Doctor Who has to make do with but two incredible contributions to the myth that is Doctor Who. But The Pirate Planet stands as a fitting testament to the brilliant mind that was the wonderful and truly gifted Douglas Adams. He will surely be greatly missed by so many around the world. Long may his legacy continue....

Who Reviews Image of the Fendahl by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s feeling a bit witchy.

You can tell almost immediately that Terrance Dicks probably enjoyed writing this novelization.

You can tell because from very early on, it’s clear that he wants you to enjoy reading – or indeed listening to – this novelization. The tells are all there – the lives of even minor characters are decently fleshed out, so that you feel that, even if you don’t know them, you’ve had a sufficient peek into what drives them and makes them tick, just before Dicks, as is his relentlessly jolly wont, kills them off in some horrible, horrible way.

That’s not as easy a trick to pull off as it sounds. It’s been tried in the recent history of Who and it ended up feeling mawkish and manipulative by degrees (Yes, Kerblam!, we’re most especially looking at you). Dicks was always a master of the combination of giving just enough information to get the mood or motive of a character across so we’d buy into them, and then killing them off, mostly to mess with us but crucially also to deliver some advancement in the storytelling. In Image of the Fendahl he practically gives us a pre-credits death, before bouncing us into the business of mysterious human skulls where they should be impossible, time scanning equipment, and a living version of death, a gestalt creature made up of twelve sluglike, tentacle-mouthed Fendahleen, and the core of their being, a previously rational scientist named Thea Ransome. There’s something gleefully demented in Chris Boucher’s original TV script which, to his credit, Dicks maintains in the story of these deathslugs who are fatally allergic to salt (the irresistible idea that the story emerged from the practice of killing actual slugs in this way, and possibly the idea of them wanting some payback, flits through the mind when listening to it – especially when the Doctor rather casually does a thing which was only rarely done in Classic Who, though more and more in New Who in the Russell T Davies era, dropping in the notion that the Fendahl was a creature from the myths of the Doctor’s own people, and later confirming it when we understand that the records about how the Time Lords dealt with their slug infestation have been time-looped so they can’t be accessed). The story, like some others that would come after it, blends ritualistic mumbo-jumbo with scientific flapdoodle and creates something which is a heady mixture of both, but in which against all the odds you never for a moment doubt the reality of what you’re told or shown – there’s a quite gruesomely high body-count in this story, and that helps convince you of the seriousness of what you’re dealing with, even in the face of relative absurdity, with power-hungry dark witches in the basement, salt-dispersing white witches in the village, time-tampering scientific archaeologists with really dodgy names and more besides.

Dicks, in bringing all this to his novelization, does not in any sense hang about. It’s not a rushed delivery, and it also never feels too thin or brief in its coverage of the world or the dangerous scenario with which it’s faced, as for instance, his Robots of Death novelization rather did, but it belts along, taking us in a reasonably logic sequence of events from the Doctor and Leela being forced down to Earth by the effects of Professor Fendelman’s time scanner, through the sudden escalation of events once the riddle of a too-ancient human skull is uncovered, through witchcraft one way and another, saving the world from temporal implosions and ultimately throwing a skull into a supernova.

As you do. Week after week on Classic Tom Baker Who. Because why the heck wouldn’t you?

Louise Jameson’s reading of this story matches her tone and speed to that of the novelization, so you get quite a jolly romp, with the quirky Time Lord and his ‘noble savage’ companion rushing into danger with a relatively cast iron sense of right and wrong, mixed with an underlying darkness always pulsing along through the beats of the story’s structure – a combination which more or less defined Jameson’s time on the show as Leela, and which not without reason continues to make that period one of the fandom’s firmest favourites.

It’s rare that the sense of good and evil has been as distinctly painted as it is in Image of the Fendahl, because for all it deals with gestalt entities and distinctly ugly sluglike creatures, its fundamental philosophical position is that the Fendahl is simply…death. ‘How do you kill death?’ asks the Doctor at one point, and it’s a question that seems ultimately unanswerable – which means the best that can be done is to keep killing off individual Fendahleen so the Fendahl itself never reaches full realisation…and then of course to throw the skull that houses its existence into the nearest supernova you can find. It’s not death for the Fendahl, exactly, it’s more the Naughty Step Of The Fendahl, where the incarnation of death itself can think about its actions in a nice warm environment until someone or something sees fit to break it free again.

In addition to this black-and-white battle of life versus death though, the human stories are what keep us enthralled in the story: Thea Ransome, guilty of nothing but falling in with a moderately psychotic crowd; Max Stael, probably destined to be a wrong ’un no matter what walk of life he fell into; Dr Fendelman, his destiny probably manipulated since the dawn of human ascendancy to reach this moment so he could unwittingly serve the power of death; Ma Tyler and her grandson Jack, trying to merely get along when the ultimate evil drops into the lives.

You should of course feel entirely free to speculate on your own headcanon in which Jack Tyler grows up to be the father of a son named Pete, and a granddaughter named Rose, and that the whole of New Who as we know it is actually a dark Fendahl plot to engineer another encounter between the Fendahl and the Doctor. You should feel free to go entirely nuts with that. But meanwhile, the audiobook release of Image of the Fendahl is punchy, well-rounded, delivered with verve both by Terrance Dicks and by Louise Jameson, taking you back to one of the several ‘golden ages’ of Doctor Who and blending science and witchcraft together in a way that absolutely shouldn’t work – but absolutely does.

Big Finish Reviews+ The Fourth Doctor Adventures, Series 9, Vol 1 by Tony J Fyler

E-Space has never felt so real to Tony.

While it’s true that hour-for-hour, he probably hasn’t quite got there yet, the fact that Tom Baker is now on his ninth season of stories for Big Finish means it feels like he’s now been the Doctor on audio as long, if not longer, than he was on screen. Indeed, January 2020 saw him clock up eight years in the audio Tardis. And whereas by the time he travelled with the Second Romana, Adric and K9 on screen, he was increasingly irritable and keen to leave the role, on audio, he’s sounding fresher than ever, seeming to vocally jump through the challenges of leading the team, like the quixotic, grinning child-sage Time Lord he always seemed to be, over forty years ago.

Also, nine seasons in, it’s about time that he was reunited with the full Season 18 Tardis team, in the topsy-turvy universe of E-Space.

It’s more or less at this point that something clicks into place. Marc Platt has been writing inventive, demented, more or less what-the-hell Doctor Who stories for decades now. Lightbulb moment – Marc Platt comes from E-Space. If you think about it like that, his entire career makes a whole lot more sense. He’s brilliant in any universe, he’s just…not from round here.

If you need evidence of that, stick Purgatory 12 in your lugholes and give it a listen. There are lots of mad, brilliant elements in here – leaping from asteroid to asteroid, death being not so much inconvenient as irrelevant, living, learning rust, and a life-form whose idea of a good time is playing chess against Adric.

No, really. We don’t know what to tell you – E-Space is light on thrills, maybe.

Purgatory 12? Heavier on thrills – there are seemingly cannibalistic space raiders, more than happy to chow down on some juicy rump of Adric (You’re entirely welcome for that image). There’s a grumpy mega-organism driving a reincarnation cycle. There’s K9 making an actual, equal, friend. There’s a bold, brave, stupid, naïve hero, seeking a noble quest. There are…more things we’d love to tell you about, but you want to be surprised when you listen, right? You know there are mad things that end up making a deeply odd sense, it’s a Marc Platt script. Marc ‘Ghost Light, Lungbarrow, Spare Parts, Loup Garoux and more’ Platt. You can more or less take creepy, freaky, complex and at least a little bit bonkers as read.

And among the background of a desolation that never ends (you don’t get a name like Purgatory 12 without good reason), there’s an embedded emotional storyline of a crucial realignment of the relationships between the Doctor, Romana, Adric and even, to some extent, K9. It begins with Adric having a teen-strop and the Doctor abandoning him on a benighted chunk of space rock, seemingly forever.

Of course, the Doctor doesn’t really abandon him, but it’s an example of the Fourth Doctor’s sometimes cavalier approach to the people who travel with him that we initially believe he might have – he gets a message and Sarah-Jane’s out the door in less than five minutes. Leela leaves, he grins his face off and chuckles madly. Even, in due course, when Romana decides to stay in E-Space, he make only the most tokenistic of efforts to persuade her to come with him, then dumps K9 on her and naffs unceremoniously off. So, with Adric, the Fourth Doctor more or less kicks him out the Tardis door in the middle of space-nowhere, and leaves him to fend for himself, at least as far as Adric knows. That’s relatively key to the drama here – Adric’s fairly new on board the Tardis, and he and the Doctor are still working each other out. It’s arguable whether or not they ever actually managed it, especially when the Doctor regenerated and Adric’s awe of him notably diminished. But here, Adric is still a swirling mass of emotions after the death of his brother, Varsh, feeling like an eternal outsider, and bouncing off the many walls of the Tardis. Even the frequently frosty Second Romana extends an olive branch to him to stop him from leaving in this story, but the impetuous youth won’t be told or restrained, and neither will the Doctor – it’s a rather touching foreshadowing of the opening to Earthshock in that regard. It would be stretching the fact to say that by the end of this story he’s the Adric of The Keeper Of Traken, but there feels like definite development in his character over the course of Purgatory 12, not least because Adric himself is crucial to the solution of problems and the escape from a fate worse than at least a single death.

Purgatory 12 is a story that works absolutely perfectly with the Season 18 vibe, wild plot elements knotted together with odder, more tangential logic that would normally pass muster in N-Space stories. If you’re a fan of Season 18, you’ll listen to Purgatory 12 and sense a return to the odd, familiar, upside-down-with-knobs-on rules of E-Space. Tom Baker blows every door off the script, Lalla Ward brings a wonderful mix or archness and a character unbending under the power of travel, John Leeson’s K9 is particularly touching here, at first feeling inadequate and electronically anxious that he’s not performing to the Doctor’s expectations, and eventually finding a kind of computer communion with his first real friend. And Matthew Waterhouse, in the role around which Purgatory 12 revolves, delivers an Adric unfinished, an Adric young and pompous and vulnerable and independent and clever, and everything that ever made him appeal to young viewers. An Adric still as much fun as ever he was.

If the hallmark of a Marc Platt script is gloriously weird, frequently creepy, dementedly inventive elements, Jonathan Morris frequently matches pulsing forward motion and elements of humour that turn the brightness of his stories up, making them seem faster and more energetic than many others in the Big Finish library.

In Chase The Night he brings an absolute belter of an idea to the weird universe of E-Space and builds in a Full Circle-style riff on life cycles and the different ways to be alive.

The Doctor and his friends land in a rainforest at night and runs into the crew of a spaceship. A spaceship that goes around the world. On rails.

Mad enough for you yet?

The reason it makes this trip is because the sun is so powerful it will burn the crew to a crisp if they don’t. They’re literally dependent on perpetually outrunning the dawn until eventually they either die or get rescued.

Enter two Time Lords, a snotty Alzarian and a robot dog. Once revealed not to be the much yearned-for rescue team, there’s a good degree of standard-issue suspicion, irritation and downright what-the-hellery about their arrival, not least from the pilot, Dena, played with a kind of strung-out, sleepless edge of command desperation by the incomparable Jane Asher (Seriously, young people, if you’ve never seen her do drama, check out the internet, find her in something called Closing Numbers. It’ll kill you, but in a good way).  So what we have is a semi-enclosed environment with a creeping threat of sunshiney death, an old spaceship on rails, of which bits keep falling off, blowing up or going wrong (no pressure), with a pilot who’s strung out, blinkered and increasingly getting used to making stark, or even horrific decisions for the benefit of her dwindling crew.

Dwindling?

Oh, yes. Didn’t we mention that? Members of the crew keep falling sick, babbling some very specific words, and then dying. Y’know, just because life would be too dull and straightforward otherwise.

When one of the Tardis crew goes the same way, leading to a cliffhanger where they’re pronounced stone dead, things take a turn for the really desperate. But life is not only what it’s cracked up to be. Somewhere in the dark, there’s a force on which the whole future of the crew could depend. But is it a force for good or evil? Or something somewhere in between?

That’s quite a lot of trademark Morris forward motion. Oh, and the humour? It’s here in spades too, with a particular running gag just one early example, when Romana speaks as she would, being one of the cleverest life forms in the room, and everyone has to repeatedly ask for an explanation of her vocabulary, which K9, with increasing electronic embarrassment, supplies. There’s also a sweet joke with K9 mentioning that he can cross the rainforest terrain perfectly well, thank you very much, and then later having to ask in a subdued, sheepish voice for assistance with ambulation over the terrain at speed.

Chase The Night is a story that mixes quite a few elements of the televised E-Space stories together – an exhausted crew, and in particular a strung out, increasingly blinkered leader in conflict with their lieutenant from Warriors’ Gate, as here, Pilot Dena frequently crosses swords with her engineer, Terson (given that world-weary tone of steady competence under the thumb of an unstable commander by William Gaminara, himself no stranger to audio work), the inevitable decay of systems both mechanical and social from State Of Decay, and the ingenious use of unusual life cycles as both a fundamental underpinning and a major part of the solution from Full Circle. In essence, then, it couldn’t be more E-Space if it tried. But still it has an energy, a runaway train urgency that none of the televised stories managed, and of course it’s all leavened with touches of delicious tongue-in-cheek humour. And it has Jane Asher, so naturally it rules all.

As an opening act to a ninth season of Fourth Doctor stories, Part 1 is a triumph – both the scenarios, both the worlds we visit are odd in very E-Space ways, and the Season 18 team have an energy and a dynamic that’s friendly, certainly, but tinged with spikes of intellectual tension because as has been noted, in Season 18, every member of the Tardis team is a genius in their own right.

What you get here is an enthusiastic Fourth Doctor in a pair of E-Space adventures written by people who’ve thoroughly understood the dynamics of that environment and that sensibility. The Season 18 team is back, and they’re absolutely glorious.

Big Finish Reviews+ The Fourth Doctor Comic Strips, Volume 1 by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s in a corner, going ‘Meeeeep.’

So no change there then.

Doctor Who has, for longer than very many TV shows, embraced the idea of a multi-media existence. From the William Hartnell era, as well as the TV show and a couple of glorious, demented technicolour big screen movies, Doctor Who existed in Target novelisations (Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks landed in 1964), and it also existed in comic strip form – both in an every-year annual, and in publications like TV Comic and Countdown (later known as TV Action).

With the arrival in 1979 of Doctor Who Weekly, then Monthly, then Magazine, comic strips became a great additional way to check in with the Doctor’s adventures. They were a primitive Easter egg – extra adventures that casual viewers would never know had happened. And there have been several golden ages of comic strip adventures, with developments in the New Who era, with, for instance IDW and then Titan Comics publishing ridiculously high quality New Who adventures, with their own companions, arcs, loops, multi-Doctor stories – you name it, they’ve done it, all alongside the Doctor Who Magazine stories.

When Doctor Who Weekly launched in 1979, one of those golden comic strip ages came with it, when Pat Mills, John Wagner and artist Dave Gibbons set about delivering arresting stories, unparalleled statement-panel visuals and a sense of oomph that mirrored the likes of The City of Death on TV.

Now some of the first comic strips to feature in Doctor Who Weekly have been transformed into audio adventures from Big Finish, adapted from the originals, written by Pat Mills and John Wagner, by Alan Barnes. The first set includes The Iron Legion and The Star Beast – two stories with entirely different approaches to hooking fans, but which are both in their own way hugely well-regarded by those who read them when they first came out. The question is whether they work as audio experiences, forty years on from their original publication.

The first thing to say is these are not Doctor Who stories as you know Doctor Who stories. They’re not really the same as the Fourth Doctor’s TV output, even in the uniquely fun Season 17, and they’re also significantly different from the original Big Finish Fourth Doctor stories. These comic strip adaptations should be seen as existing in a slightly different universe of Who. They’re Who, written for children in 1979 to read for themselves, translated into audio with their bouncy, infectious, slightly sillier-than-usual Fourth Doctor intact. If you really want a modern comparison, have a listen to the Baker’s End series written by Paul Magrs and released by Bafflegab for something as bouncy and demented as these stories. But beyond that, there’s a logic in delivering these stories on audio. In the late seventies, one of the easiest and most convenient ways of stepping outside the restrictions of a BBC budget was to write and ink comic strips. Nowadays, the same effect of a bigger, more believable universe can be delivered in audio adventures, so the sense of translating the one into the other is undeniable.

Let’s get something straight here – The Iron Legion blew our tiny little Who-loving minds when it appeared in 1979. The sheer scale of it, the sweep and scope was like nothing that could have been afforded on screen. Because The Iron Legion is essentially the story of a future Roman Empire, with spacefaring technology, iron generals with the heads of eagles, arenas full of slavering outer space slimebeasts, and a hapless couple from a quiet English village, caught up in it all and needing to be rescued and sent back home once the Doctor has toppled the regime.

As you do, if you’re the Fourth Doctor.

Alan Barnes, in translating all that to an audio-friendly version, has recaptured that sense of grandeur, of scope, of a million centurions and a billion citizens stretching this Roman reality into a vista in your brain. And he delivers the relative smallness of the Doctor and his new friends from the village of Stockbridge when compared to the might of that empire very effectively too. This is a story of some stainless steel rats in the Roman wainscoting, working away to bring down if not the empire itself, then the forces that have permeated it and turned it into a force for ultimate evil.

Tom Baker in this story is very full-on, from telling jokes to slimebeasts to facing down generals and invasive alien parasites. He’s Tom Baker, still, but with David Tennant’s energy. The surprising thing is that while, based on that description, you could easily end up with a Doctor you want to punch in the face, Baker absorbs the challenge masterfully and bounds about the place like a bolt of audio lightning.

There are some simply barking mad bits of invention in this story – ‘bacta-guns’ being a notable case. They’re guns which rust metal. Sounds insane when you first hear it, but when you consider that your legions are made of iron, it all clicks into place. The villains too have a name which at least at first appears to be taking the mickey. But they’re well and creepily rendered on audio – in fact, if anything, their delivery on audio is considerably creepier than it was in the comic strips, so what you end up with in The Iron Legion is a story that’s in its own pocket universe of Who, but that within that universe, with a slightly different Fourth Doctor, works brilliantly well, delivering a pulse-pounding, air-punching, nail-biting story, studded with laughs both subtle and immature, and ultimately wrapped around a sad and powerful sacrifice.

The Iron Legion flies past, whipped along at pace and directed with confidence and brio, meaning you don’t get the time to sit and think ‘Hang on, how does that work?’ Accept it – you’re in the comic strip universe of Who now. Go with it, and The Iron Legion will give you a fantastic ride.

The Star Beast is a different kettle of fish altogether. Set in a Yorkshire village, it almost has the flavour of a Companion Chronicle, focusing on the lives of two oddball pals, Sharon and Fudge, who come across something odd in a garden shed. Beep the Meep is fluffy, with big eyes and a seemingly sweet nature – he’s a pre-Mogwai Mogwai in fact, and Sharon and Fudge decide to nurse him back to health, to help him get to his ship, and to get him home.

Sound like a riff on ET – The Extra-Terrestrial? Two years before the movie came out, sorry, and arguably a more realistic take because (spoiler alert, but you’ve had forty years!), Beep the Meep is an utter Star Bastard, covered in fluff and ready to burn whole star systems just for fun. The space police who are hunting the little gremlin down are decidedly less cute, less cuddly and less inclined to look up at you with big wet melting eyes and go ‘Meeeeeeeeep.’

When the Doctor arrives, he’s a more open-minded broker between the hunted Meep and the hunting space cops, the Wrarth Warriors, bringing the wisdom of the Time Lords to the question of whether cuteness necessarily means righteousness. The story unfolds as Beep the Meep does what’s necessary to try to evade the justice of the Wrarth, sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by the Yorkshire kids. While it feels at this remove quite a comical satire, and while it’s been aped many times (we’re looking at you, Galaxy Quest), the new audio version bursts with fun and freshness, both in the adaptation and especially in the cast – with Sharon and Fudge coming gloriously to life in the voices of Rhianne Starbuck and Ben Hunter respectively, and Bethan Dixon Bate out-Meeping all-comers in the cuteness stakes. While still firmly in the comic strip universe of Who, rather than the more familiar universe of Tom Baker’s Time Lord, the fun of The Star Beast is that it’s bonkers in a uniquely British way, with a balance of optimism and 1970s realism that makes us laugh four decades on, not least at how much of the British national character has actually changed since then.

If you enjoyed these adventures when they first appeared, chances are high you’ll want to have a listen to them just to see how they fare on audio. If you’re young enough to still have your own hair and teeth, these stories may well come at you sideways and initially make you think ‘Well, that’s #NotMyDoctor.’ You’re right. It isn’t. It’s the Doctor siphoned through a print dimension, originally aimed at an audience which didn’t include you, but brought up to date and poured into your lugholes. It’s not, by any means, your normal Fourth Doctor programming. It is, however, enormous fun in a universe where the Doctor was a little bit sillier and more childlike than even the universe’s leading Jelly Baby-scoffer ever got on TV. Accept that you’re in a kind of Unbound Fourth Doctor universe, and let the comic strip adventures tickle you today.

Who Reviews Meglos by Matt Rabjohns

"The point is, the Doctor doesn't get to Tigella!"

"Oh, but he does gentlemen, he does...We mustn't disappoint the Tigellans!"

Far from being a lacklustre season, season 18 was an incredibly strong farewell to Tom Baker as the Doctor. Over the course of seven wonderful years he had taken the show to the zenith of its popularity. But as the 80s began Doctor Who was seriously up against some serious viewing figure challenges like never before. The viewing figures for Season 18 were very low indeed. But this is by no means any indicator that the show was lagging. Because it was actually entering the 80s with quite some mature and fervent bang to be honest.

From the opening scene of Meglos though one can see that our wonderful main man of the moment, Tom himself, is in very distinctly poor health. He looks worn out and even haggard and it’s a true credit to his acting ability that he still gave his utmost to the role even when poorly and discontent with the show. The changeover in production had not sat well with Tom and so he reluctantly decided to leave. But with Meglos that happenstance is still five stories away.

In many ways Meglos is perhaps the most traditional of all the season eighteen stories. It has the megalomaniacal despot, this time though in the very distinctive form of Meglos. Meglos of course resembles a cactus in his natural Xeraphite form, but this cactus is one mean and nasty baddie indeed. It is a real pleasure that we get none other than Tom Baker playing Meglos too, and his performance is unsurprisingly rich and superb. There is a real vein of acidity in his performance of Meglos. Of course, with Tom playing both the role of the Doctor and Meglos its inevitable that we will have the epic meeting of the dopplegangers at the climax of the story. But as with every single doppleganger story before in the show, here it is a brilliant moment that caps off a very entertaining and very underrated romp indeed. Yes, and the Meglos make up looks phenomenally good on Tom, even though it must have been uncomfortable for him to perform in. What a trooper Tom, thank you!

Lalla Ward is hilarious when she leads the Gaztaks around in circles and makes fools of them. I love the streak of grit that runs through both of Romana's hearts. She is not a pushover; she could easily manage being the lead of her own show.

Bill Fraser is a wonderful henchman to Meglos, his General Grugger being rough and tough and sharp tongued. However, it is his own underling Brotadac, played with zeal and aplomb by the superb Frederick Treves who rather steals the scenes. It’s very amusing to think the writers of the story came up with the name Brotadac as a funny re arrangement of the words Bad Actor, with them seeing the character whilst writing it as perhaps being portrayed by some hammy or underwhelming actor! John Flannagan and Andrew McCulloch have since quoted Frederick as playing the role extremely well indeed, and one cannot disagree with them.

Another great yet understated performance is given by Christopher Owen as the Earthling. I wonder how any normal person would feel being kidnapped by Gaztaks and then taken over Meglos! Considering this very thing happens to his character, the Earthling still gets some good moments when he rebels and fights desperately to free himself of Meglos's spines. You root for him and eventually he does shake off Meglos. Although his last comment to the Doctor before he gets to go home is rather casually sexist and unnecessary. But this is only a very minor quibble and can pass by the way.

Jacqueline Hill! Oh, to see the wonderful actress back in a new Doctor Who story is very special and very, very welcome. There is absolutely nothing of Barbara Wright in Lexa. Lexa in fact starts out brash and perhaps bordering on the typical religious zealot, but when she knows she is the wrong for almost having the Doctor executed as a sacrifice she comes good. And then the poor women is shot in good old trusted "Let’s kill off the best characters in the show" brigade. But it is a chance to be savoured seeing Jacqueline light up the screen again after so long.

Colette Gleeson and Crawford Logan are equally diverting in their roles as Caris and Deedrix. their early run ins with Lexa are brilliantly charged and performed. They spice up the early segments of the story nicely.

Edward Underdown is rather kindly, and portrays the Tigellan leader Zastor with a huge amount of gentle pathos. He is unassuming and this helps him stand out as one of the more reasonable and approachable leaders of an alien society on another planet.

The story's use of Scene Sync is very impressive, and here works very well indeed, it’s a considerable leap forward from Colour Separation Overlay.

Perhaps the story's main shortfall is it does seem terribly short. The last three episodes of the story seriously underrun, the last in particular being a very meagre 18 minutes! The other shortfall is the poor realisation of the jungle, particularly the bell plant designs. They fail to remotely convince and its strange thinking these same designs come from the same show that a few months previously had produced a spectacular jungle in The Creature from The Pit. But despite the limitations of the budget, this story is still well paced, with a very strong central villain.

And just because this is the most traditional of the season 18 yarns, there is still some very good ideas floating around in this story. Especially the Chronic Hysteresis. How the Doctor and co escape from the trap set by Meglos too is wonderfully simple and yet comes over as a brilliant means of breaking the fold of time.

Meglos is one of those stories you never hear much spoken of. It has plenty of worth and merit. It’s a very solid story in a vastly underrated overall season. Tom Baker did not bow out with a whimper, he went out with a bang. And a resounding and brilliant bang at that...

Who Reviews Nightmare of Eden by Matt Rabjohns

  

There are several cases of stories in the classic era of Doctor Who that do possess a very strong story, but the overall impact and effects of the story are somewhat hampered by studio lighting and weak effects. The show obviously couldn’t always help this, what with it being a very tightly budgeted show made at lightning pace. But there are the cases where despite the shortcomings, the story itself still manages to be very good indeed. Ao very good example of this is Nightmare of Eden.

Let’s get over the bad points first. Of course, the lighting for this story is far too bright. I once went to Longleat when they had one of the Mandrels on display in near pitch darkness, and in that setting the Mandrels looked actually highly creepy and menacing. But with stonking light blazing behind them on screen one can’t help but feel that they look a bit silly indeed. Not so much when set in the dark jungle in the CET machine, as the lighting is just in these sections done well. I find it odd that a ship that has just crashed into another would still have its full lights blazing!

And some of the effects work is not very impressive. Such as the guard’s guns being about the worst the show ever did, hardly ever coming from the gun nozzles! But then again there are some superb effects too on display. One of the finest is the merging of the vessels and the planetary scene right next to them in space. These scenes actually look extremely impressive, and another also extremely polished effect is when the ships separate and the Doctor dissolves. That is a brilliantly realised effect and looks highly effective.

Tom Baker's infamous "My arms, my legs, my everything!" scene is clearly the sign of a lead actor just being allowed to run wild with no control. Not that it is a horrendous scene, but it does seem to make the Mandrels look even less of a threat than they are clearly supposed to be. Maybe Tom should have been reigned in a little with this moment. But these bad parts of the story are the only ones of serious note. The rest of the well thought out story comes out very strongly.

It is also very relieving to see David Daker being more restrained in his role as Captain Rigg with this story, when in The Time Warrior his Irongron is so outrageously over the top. Here he is even at times very convincing when he has inadvertently taken the Vraxoin drug and is starting to flip out on the terribly dangerous drug. That his final scene is one showing him in painful withdrawal, and heading to pound Romana when she won’t give him any more is an extremely palpable moment. This is a far more enjoyable performance by David here.

Lewis Fiander is truly wonderfully zany with his unknowable accent as Tryst. He is highly amusing but the ruthless streak in him is still present and he comes over as a very devious and untrustworthy fellow. You just know he is bad one. His final scene with the Doctor where he tries to get him to speak for his actions and the Doctor just whispers Go Away is a great finale and an end to Tryst and Dymond's vulgar and despicable plans. The dark sunglasses just complete his amusingly deviant look!

Geoffery Hinsliff was always a reliable actor, and his Fisk here is your typical hardnosed bureaucratic policeman, who is wonderfully inept and stupid. Michael Craze's (Ben Jackson, opposite Pat Troughton’s Doctor) brother Peter also makes his second appearance in the show as Costa. His character somehow doesn’t come over as stupid as Fisk!

And one other element that can’t ever be faulted in this era of the show is the wonderful chemistry between the Doctor and Romana. Tom and Lalla are just a totally electrical combination, and they bounce off each other just so perfectly every story they are together. Their pairing was surely a masterstroke from the series. Even David Brierley isn’t too bad at being a John Leeson replacement as K9. Together the team of Doc, Romy and K9 are always a recipe for firm success, even in their weaker written and produced stories!

Amidst all the outlandish characterisation, there are a few restrained and more believable performances too. Jennifer Lonsdale as Della is a case in point. She is calm and reserved and Jennifer definitely shines as one of the better characters of this story. Barry Andrews as Stott too is also commendable and competent.

The main thrust of the story line of this story is very pertinent too. To have a show clearly warn children of the harm of drug addiction is a very bold move and theme for a story. In one way it’s a shame that the mood of the story line is almost completely offset by some of the poor realisation and blazing lighting as I have already stated. But one more extremely effectively achieved moment is when the Mandrel is electrocuted and crumbles to a powder...and it turns out that this powder is the deadliest drug in existence. It’s a very clever plot twist, realised well.

What also comes over well is the acting of the people who have been drugged by the Vraxoin. Of particularly good note is Stephen Jenn as Secker. He plays the part of a withdrawn drug dependant superbly well, and his horrific cry in the destabilised zone when attacked by a Mandrel is very well acted indeed. It’s a shame his character couldn’t have been in the show just a little longer actually. Scenes of the Mandrels in the destabilised zone too are another case of the story's much better effects. Being in a hazy and creepy area.

One comes away from the Nightmare of Eden with the sense that whilst the story is very commendable and well thought out, that its realisation is sometimes highly cringe-worthy. But if you can get past the silly lighting and the somewhat flat set design, you will see there is a lot that is decent one can take away from the story, particularly its stance on drug taking. Surely a still hugely relevant message to so many to this very day.

For the fact that season 17 is known as the "Funny" season where a lot of people say the show got way out of hand with its cheap humour, Nightmare of Eden is actually scant for OTT humour. Honestly in fact it's only Tom's aforementioned "My arms" scene that is a little ridiculous, but nothing much else is to laugh about in this story. It stands, just for its story merit, as a fitting final script from the brilliant Bob Baker, this time working solo after he had gone his own way from his former writing partner Dave Martin. As a farewell gesture to the show it could have been much, much worse. In fact, Nightmare of Eden is possibly the worthiest story of season 17 by far for its moral content. So, not the unmitigated disaster it is often unfairly maligned for being. Far, far from it...

Who Reviews Warrior's Gate by Matt Rabjohns

"Run Doctor! Scurry off back to your blue box. You're like all the rest: lizards when there's a man's work to be done. I'm sick of your kind. Faint-hearted, do-nothing, lily-livered deadweights. This is the end for all of you. I'm finally getting something done! Hahaha hahahahaaaaa!!!!"

John Nathan Turner and Christopher H Bidmead wished for Doctor Who to be taken into more "Real science" territory after what they considered a far too jokey period of the show which had been season 17. The did not completely remove the humour, but they did lance a huge amount of it out of their debut season together. They also drove the stories towards being more serious, which is a good thing. Its then somewhat just a little paradoxical that "Warrior's Gate" does actually possess the most humour of all the season 18 stories. But within this story the humour comes from the drama, rather than being grafted on.

"Warrior's Gate" is probably the most science-oriented story of the season. It can be actually a tad confusing if you're not concentrating fully. But if you are fully alert, then you will discover just how unique and interesting this story is.

Steve Gallagher is a very talented and gifted writer. Here he takes the themes of a contracting section E Space and runs with it and presents us with a very very stark and stand out story indeed. This is helped no end by the inventive and creative direction of Paul Joyce, although one understands that this story was not one with a smooth production at all. Paul Joyce was apparently far more of a visual filmic director, and had no idea of the manic schedule that was the usual Doctor Who story recording of the 80s. In fact, he was even sacked at one point by John Nathan Turner and some segments of the story are directed by Graeme Harper. That a superb story somehow manages to emerge from all this hassle is a definite credit to everyone involved in its making.

The Tharils are a particularly good and well realised race of aliens, that are given a good amount of background, yet still have a lot of mystery surrounding them. They are not out and out heroes, not totally black hearted individuals either. Their greyness is what makes them interesting. They are in no way shape or form the typical Doctor Who alien race. In fact, little of Warrior's Gate is typical Doctor Who. Jeremy Gittins appears as Lazlo too, long before his more memorable role as the Vicar in "Keeping Up Appearances". David Weston however is the most notable and present of the Tharil, and he is sublime in the role.

The casting on the story is also spot on. Kenneth Cope is a brilliant Packard, and any shadows of his Carry On Film appearances or the suchlike are totally absent from his performance here. He plays Packard real and straight-faced all the way through.

Clifford Rose is the man of the hour though. His Rorvik is delicious. He's thoroughly nasty through and through. He has no ounce of decency in him. He is totally self-centred and acidic and he really stands out as one of the more memorable Doctor Who baddies. Actually, his slightly bonkers laugh towards the end of the story is very weirdly unsettling. He is definitely in the ranks of the best.

The Gundan Robots are also another well-designed set of robots, with their voices being particularly effective. They look mean, tall and command attention.

Another striking aspect of the story is the extravagant visuals. It does help to make the story stand out, but not like a sore thumb, rather more like a proud and exuberant thumb! The visions of the Doctor in his gorgeous burgundy ensemble moving past black and white shots of gardens and castles is amazingly effective on screen and looks totally unique.

The only major gripe with this story is the horrifically rushed goodbye to Romana as a character. Honestly, I can’t help feeling that Lalla Ward deserved a far better exit. However, the Doctor crowning her as the "Noblest Romana of them all!" is a lovely farewell line to this popular and much-loved companion. However at least she gets a good cause to follow, in that she leaves to help Biroc free his people from the universe of E space, and K9 stays with her too to lend a probe. K9's exit was also bittersweet for a lot of younger fans who adored the metal mutt.

Perhaps another tiny gripe is that Matthew Waterhouse does get rather side-lined in this script, and doesn’t really justify his presence within the story really. But Matthew again is not half as bad as he is frequently portrayed as being, and he has some very amusing interactions with K9 all along through this story.  And he is already proving himself worthy as a reliable assistant, especially when he gets the Doctor out of trouble with Rorvik.

Another small but worthy note to mention is the guns in this story for once don’t look flimsy and stupid and unconvincing. They look to be made of real decent heavy metal so when Rorvik holds one to the Doctor's cheek you believe for once this gun could cause some real harm. The designers did well on this story to say the least.

So, the Doctor and Adric finally escape the confines of E Space and head back into the real universe of N Space. But the end of an era is approaching, and Warrior's Gate stands as a very original and different story to help make Tom Baker's last year very memorable and very entertaining indeed.

Fans Fiction The Haunting of Clementine Bradden by Jennifer-Anne Hunter

The TARDIS landed in a territory that had become familiar to it in recent days; the bedroom of Clementine Bradden, with its bare yellow walls; a blank canvas for a creative mind.  They provided an artificial light into Clementine’s life, which had become bleaker as the years passed by and the light had faded.  She was in need of a Doctor, but not the one with degrees and letters after his/her name but, the one with the blue police box.  Her life had spiralled since she was very young and now in her late twenties, a night for her was filled up with recurrent nightmares of a man in her bedroom, and not a cup of tea and a jelly baby, or a cocktail with friends.  All she did was work, eat and sleep, with no enjoyment in any of them. They were just needed to function. A means to an end. 

   Even when she bought her first designer handbag, she felt nothing.  Her life had become numb, like she was just existing, but for no reason that stood out.  She had tried counselling over the years, which helped in a way by giving her an outlet, but the nightmares had started recently when she saw a strange man in her room.

   The Doctor landed the blue box without its usual noise when he forgot to put on the brake, but with silence as one did not want to cause alacrity like the first time he had landed in her room.  In other words, she screamed.  Like usual his co-ordinates were all out of sync and the timing was off, so he peeped out of the door saying ‘oops sorry’ with a little smile, but he was drawn in by her. There was something about her that made him continue popping in and out of her life at various stages.

   This time instead of her screaming at it like she did before, she just looked and stared at him as he made his reappearance.  Maybe she was drawn in too, by his big kind eyes and woolly scarf.  It was as if she wasn’t surprised by the blue police box and the man that came with it in her room; maybe she was expecting them.  The Doctor from viewing her from afar, had discovered time held no future for her: she just had a past.  He was intrigued.  She wasn’t beautiful by any means, yes, he had travelled with some beauties as a rogue Timelord, but she just radiated sadness and a longing.  He didn’t know the reasons or how this happened, but he wanted to know more. 

   He visited her at school. She thought he was the caretaker.  She wasn’t popular and by no means Einstein, but she didn’t fare too badly. He saw her move out of her parents’ house to go to university and there was nothing but love in their eyes.  He saw her get her first flat, he hid behind the bush and he directed her to her first job interview.  She didn’t really look at him, or see the box he just appeared out of.  It was as if she was just there in life, not participating fully and was just wading through it to get to the end.  Like the one time he tried to read James Joyce’s Ulysses, he ended up going back in time to tell him to write a shorter much more concise to the point version.  Which of course he didn’t, which is why many students struggle to read it to this day.

Then he saw the night it all changed. He wasn’t the only man in her childhood bedroom.  Governed by the Guardians of Time he couldn’t stop it, he was just a holographic projection. 

   One man broke three hearts that night.

   He saw the nightmares, looking down at her as she tossed and turned in her half sleep and seemingly lost the fight with her duvet.  It was almost as if her body was remembering that night, as she calmed and awoke.  He left her with a glass of water from the fountain in the TARDIS. It was one of these new fittings he barely used, but one does need water in order to make a cup of tea. 

   And now he spoke to her: ‘Hello’, as he didn’t know what else to say, mostly his other companions had interjected themselves into his life, but now it was the other way around.  Again, she just glared at him, she wasn’t surprised to see him, it was if she knew he meant to be there. 

   ‘Here, have this,’ handing her another glass of water, ‘this might make you feel better’.

   ‘It’s not poisoned, is it?’ she asked.

   ‘No, my dear’ he replied softly.  He was struck by her composure.  She took a sip and then sipped some more.  He just smiled gently at her so she knew he was no threat to her.

   ‘What are you doing here and how did you get in?’.  He realised that he was talking to a younger version of Clementine embodied into the adult, it was like she was an inquisitive 8-year-old who still believed in Santa.  Her mind hadn’t developed past that night.   She was living the adult life, with a mind stuck deep in the past.

   ‘Well I am what you might call the Doctor’

   ‘But I didn’t call for a doctor!’ she exclaimed and stared beadily at him.

   ‘I am a special type of Doctor, and I could see you were having trouble sleeping and I came to help.’

   ‘Oh, so a sort of sleep therapist.’

   ‘You could say that.’

   ‘Cup of tea, Doctor? It always helps me to sleep.’

   ‘I thought you’d never ask’.  She got of her bed in her Minnie Mouse pyjamas and wrapped herself up in a blanket and led the way into the kitchen. It was a room in a shared house she lived in and she knew no-one else would be up.   She made two cups of tea and they sat at the table. 

   ‘Now Clementine, tell me what happens in your nightmares.’ and he gently touched her hand offering comfort, so she could tell her tale.

   ‘You see Doctor I see this man; I don’t see his face.  It’s like his face has been wiped from my memory.  He’s in my room, but it’s not this room.  Its … its…’

   ‘Go on’ the Doctor’s hand clutching hers, gave her the courage to carry on.

   ‘It’s my old bedroom from my parents’ house.  I know he’s there but it’s like I feel what happened, but I don’t remember.  I don’t know what is happening to me Doctor, please can you help?’  He looked at her, the tears hiding behind his eyes.  He knew but couldn’t tell her. 

   ‘I will see what I can do for you.  I will come back again and see you tomorrow night.  Now get some sleep.’ he said, as he walked her back into her bedroom.  He opened the door of the TARDIS and Clementine just stared at it with her eyes wide.

   ‘You’re not a normal doctor, are you?’

   ‘No dear I am not, cheerio Clementine Bradden.’

   ‘Goodbye Doctor, excuse me?  How do you know my name?’, she asked as the TARDIS doors closed behind him and the Doctor knew he must consult with somebody higher and more knowledgeable than himself. He was perplexed by her comfort in seeing him in her room, given what had happened to her as a child.  He was a stranger to her, but he had been there without her knowledge at various times in her life.  Her eyes pleaded with him to help her.  She was trusting a stranger, but she couldn’t trust herself and what her body and her memory was trying to tell her.  She was simply unable to fathom out what happened to her that had stilted her life.

   He landed the TARDIS in a place he only visited on occasion, in other words when he was summoned or needed help.  The white benches, the scenic view, the serene environment.  He sat down, adjusted his jacket and waited.  He looked at the trees, still blossomed even though that earthly season had well passed.  No time passes, as time itself is guarded there.

   At last his companion arrived, well appeared on the bench opposite.  His cane was just used for decoration, his beard white, the rest of his attire a mix of creams and whites.  His unmistakable panama hat and the red rose in his lapel were his staple.  Time had not changed either men, but both had and succeeded in changing it. 

   ‘Doctor, this is a surprise.’

   ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

   ‘Yes, it is, my counterpart has been banished from these here parts.’

   ‘White Guardian, so pleased to see you!’

   ‘Doctor, your visits are very rare, given our friendship and the assistance we have given each over the years’.

   ‘Well I am very sorry, I have been sort of doing a bit of freelance work you see, all in your good name of course.  I do restore order and do my bit.’

   ‘You sometimes make a mess of it too’, the Doctor winced as he knew fair well, he made mistakes too, just like his human companions.

   ‘I do ask a small favour of you though.’ the Doctor pleaded.

   ‘Go on’ he replied begrudgingly.

   ‘It’s this girl… see… well she’s now a woman.’

   ‘I am well, aware girls grow into women, Doctor, get to the point’ said the White Guardian in a very ironically impatient way, given that time does really change in his homestead.  Maybe the Doctor had just caught him on a bad day, or maybe the Doctor realised he should make more of an effort.

   ‘She is stilted, Guardian, there’s no future mapped out for her.  She is stuck in the past.  Something happened and she can’t get passed it, she kind of doesn’t remember and I think she needs to face it.’

   ‘What do you mean Doctor?’ asked the Guardian, getting slightly more irritated by the Doctor’s presence. 

   ‘I want to show her,’ the Guardian’s eyes became wider as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘I want to take her back to that night and show her what happened to her, then maybe she could move on from it.’

   ‘You know the rules Doctor; a human is not allowed to travel down their own timeline.  Stopping the event itself or meddling in it can influence time itself with devastating consequences.’

   ‘Yes, but I want to show her, I don’t want to stop it’

   ‘You know her past self, can’t see her present self, don’t you?’

   ‘Yes, I plan to park the TARDIS out of lateral time.  She will be able to see herself and what happened, but she will be invisible to the events themselves.’

   ‘That is one way to do it I suppose, but you do realise, if you let her see what happened it may damage her further.’

   ‘It won’t, Guardian, I have observed the people she has around her, they will support her.’

   ‘You know what happens now is your responsibility. I can’t assist you in anyway. I cannot and will not stop and erase or edit history for you or any Timelord.  And I do not support or condone this behaviour.’

   ‘I know, I merely sought out your advice, your knowledge is way above mine and your status is far more superior. I thank you, your Guardianship.’

   ‘Less of that’, he grimaced sarcastically, ‘I will ask you one question Doctor, why this human?’  The question stunned the Doctor like a baby when it hears itself sneeze for the first time.  He was caught off-guard.  He had no prepared answer.

   ‘I do not know, maybe she reminds me of somebody.  I…I guess… I g-g-guess … I do not know’, the Doctor stuttered and stammered.

   ‘Very well Doctor’ and with that the Doctor found himself alone looking at the empty bench before him.

Clementine slept through her alarm, which concerned her as she was usually so punctual and efficient in her work.  Like with her nightmares, she didn’t know who to turn to or tell about the man in her room.  Who would believe her? Her mother was too dismissive, when she had tried to ask about it and had avoided her and her nonsense as she put it. Clementine busied herself, and then rushed home, to await her next appointment with the strange but likeable Doctor.

   She sat on the bed and waited for the Doctor, slightly nerved at the thought of seeing him again.  He knew things about her that she hadn’t told anyone.  Everything now was becoming blurred in her mind, like she had been given a new pair of prescription glasses and her eyes were adjusting.  She was now questioning her life, her existence.  What had the man in the blue box done, what was he about to do?

   The nightmares had started when one of the other tenants had accidentally stumbled into her room drunk.  He apologised straightaway and the day after she received a box of chocolates and a card re-iterating his apology.  They were left outside her door, as he didn’t want to intrude once more or even worse startle her again.  Her immature mind did not question how the Doctor came to be in her room not once but twice and now, he was about to arrive for a third time.  She had assured herself she must have been dreaming, just like she had been told she must have dreamt about the first man in her room. 

   The police box appeared before her, and the now familiar face peeped out.  She wasn’t scared by his presence, but she was afraid of the unknown.

   ‘Hello again?’ he beckoned her over, ‘would you like to come in for a spot of tea?’  She wrapped her arms around herself and walked slowly and in an almost hypnotic way to the TARDIS.  The fear of the unknown silenced her.  ‘Don’t be scared, I am not going to hurt you in any way and you can leave at any time; just mind the step.’ 

   ‘For some reason I know that Doctor, I don’t know what is going to happen, b-b-but …I-I-I know….’ She was silenced by the interior of the TARDIS as she stepped inside.  ‘It’s … it’s…’

   ‘I know’ the Doctor interrupted with a little smile.  He was used to giving his little spiel to anybody lucky enough to be able to step inside and see the wonders of time and space.

   ‘A very interesting office, Doctor.’ She exclaimed and the Doctor chortled.

   ‘Well I have never heard it called that before. Cup of tea?’

   ‘Yes please, I think I better had.’  The Doctor led her to what he called the lounging area of the TARDIS, just off from where the main control panel was.  There were two Bradden sofas and a glass coffee table with a tea tray on it.  Beside one of the very ugly, yet comfortable couches was a tower of books.  Books by Tolstoy, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and JK Rowling.  The classics as the Doctor called them.  The Doctor signalled for Clementine to sit and help herself to refreshment.

   ‘You may wonder what this is all about,’ the Doctor began, ‘you see this office as you call it, is a sort of spaceship.’  Her eyes widened and she struggled to swallow her gulp of tea. ‘It can travel through space’ he paused, ‘and time.’   Clementine set down her cup, as she acknowledged what the Doctor was getting at.

   ‘You mean, you could?’ she was sitting forward not taking her eyes off the strange man in the long scarf sat opposite him.

   ‘The man in your childhood bedroom? Yes’, answering his own question, he nodded. ‘Do you trust me?’

   ‘Strangely I do Doctor. Don’t ask me why, but it’s like you have always been part of my life.’  The Doctor looked on her with concern and slight worry.

   ‘I can take you back, but we wouldn’t be there there.  I couldn’t allow you to risk your past self to see you as it can have severe consequences.  And we cannot stop or change any of the events that are about to occur.  We must remain inside the TARDIS and be as quiet as possible.  Do you understand?’  He was gentle but stern as he asked the question. Clementine drew into herself again, and in her childlike tone replied.

   ‘Yes.’ It was if she knew she had to do this, she had to face the man from her nightmares, it frightened her tremendously. The Doctor led her to the window, which he activated with a simple push of a button.  He placed his hand on her back as a comfort.

   ‘This is where we can see, now are you sure?’ Now, they were looking at her bedroom from the shared house, the yellow walls. She nodded and he pressed another button and with noises, no human could describe, the view silently changed as her old bedroom slowly came into focus.  The faded wallpaper of zoo animals that badly needed replacing, the off-white knobbly ceiling that people thought was fashionable and there was the eight-year-old Clementine lying in bed with one of her dollies.  The door opened and both Clementine’s gasped in unison.  A shadow formed in the doorway illuminated by the landing light, he appeared. The Doctor’s hand was once again offering comfort to Clementine.  The face was recognised.

   ‘What are you doing here?’ Young Clementine asked, innocently.

   ‘I was feeling lonely and I came in for a special cuddle.’ 

The Doctor was now stood behind Clementine as she placed her hand on the pane.  His arms were gently placed on her shoulders.  He saw a tear form on her face as the events enfolded.

   The figure stood in the moonlight, as he shut the bedroom door behind him.  He walked over to her bed.

   ‘You don’t want me to feel lonely, do you?’

Clementine’s leg began to shake in a way to release the tension that was inflating her body.

   They embraced and for a while little Clementine seemed content in giving her Uncle Bobby a cuddle. Then the atmosphere changed, innocence was scarred and a child was silenced.

   ‘Enough is enough.’ and with that the Doctor left Clementine’s side and noisily dis-apparated. Clementine’s bedroom door re-opened, because the noise had alerted someone else in the house.

   The Doctor needed Clementine to have closure, both the past and the present Clementine needed their suffering to end.  She was curled up on the TARDIS floor, weeping softly like a child.  He knelt down beside her, and wiped her face with his long scarf. 

   ‘It’s over, it’s over, he can’t harm you anymore.’ he said gently to her, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ He kept repeating over and over, not knowing what to say or do next. 

   He took her back home, to where he had first stumbled across her.  He opened the door so she could see he had brought her to the safety of the present. She glanced up at the familiarity of her room, stood up without a word and ran out to the comfort of her bed.  He followed and went to sit down beside her.

   ‘No you don’t get to do this,’ she said sternly through her tears, ‘Y-y-y-you have shown me my nightmares, you made me live them, you don’t get to fix me Doctor after you have destroyed me.’ She was shocked by the strength in her voice, hoping her emotions would follow suit.

   ‘I-I-I o-o-only tried to help you.’ he was flummoxed by her response to him.

   ‘I don’t need your type of medicine Doctor, I need to be me, now get out!’ Beaten, he did what she had asked.  Once in the TARDIS, whilst leaving, he looked through the window, as if he could see her.

   ‘I’m so sorry, please forgive me. Oh Clementine, what have I done?’ he was clearly mourning his fixation.

   ‘What have you done, Doctor?’ The White Guardian appeared on the couch behind him.

   ‘I-I-I only tried to help.’ His past confidence had been struck; he had clearly done wrong.

   ‘I did try to warn you, Doctor’ and with a click of his fingers, they were back on the bench, where they previously had their conversation.  The Doctor alarmed at the abrupt change of scene, still stood as if he was in charge of the situation.

   ‘But… my TARDIS?’

   ‘A mere case of spatial dimension, I can’t think clearly in there, it’s far too claustrophobic for me, I like the air.’

   ‘B-b-b…’

   ‘Hush Doctor, you meddled.’

   ‘I most certainly did not!’ The White Guardian merely coughed knowingly. ‘Oh, the whole brakes on, thing, just a habit, you see.’  This response was met with a sarcastic tilt of the head and motioned for the Doctor to sit beside him.  ‘You still have much to learn Doctor.’     The Doctor could nothing but stay silent in agreement, as he was about to be taught a lesson.

    ‘You wanted to heal Clementine Bradden by getting her to face the past, but it wasn’t your place to do so.  She wasn’t ready. You alerted her father to his brother’s defiance much sooner.  And justice was done in that respect.  But you in turn broke a family.’  Realisation slowly made its way onto the Doctor’s face and he now held his head in shame.

   ‘Can’t we just wipe away the memory?’ he asked like he too was a child, asking his Dad for a puppy. 

   ‘If only it were that simple. You see Doctor, you seem to believe that humans can just get over things, and that time heals. You don’t let yourself get involved with these companions of yours.  Your own granddaughter broke your heart, because you thought you were doing the right thing.  You too need to heal. Clementine will heal, she has already shown you that, but she wasn’t ready to face her past as abruptly as you did, but believe it or not she was going to.  Slowly and gradually she would have started asking questions and the truth would be revealed.  Her mum wouldn’t have lied to her to protect her. Yes, time can be a great healer, but it also can be a barrier to truth.  Bit by bit that barrier was breaking down.’

   ‘But Clementine?’ the Doctor pleaded.

   ‘You have been erased and are forbidden in going back into her timestream.  She remembers her past now, but what she always had was her strength and bravery.  So, if you are asking if she has a future? Yes, she does.’

   ‘Oh, thank you, oh thank you. I…‘

   And with another click, the Doctor stood facing a photograph of Susan and began to cry.