Writer: Gerry Davies, Kitt Pedler
Director: Derek Martinus
Producer: Innes Lloyd
Starring: William Hartnell, Robert Beatty, Dudley Jones, David Dodimead, Anneke Wills, Michael Craze

Doctor Who novelisations are endlessly fascinating due to their continued necessity. Before Home Video, there were books to let viewers know what amazing adventures they missed. For Who viewers too young to have witnessed the original transmissions of stories featuring earlier Doctors, those previous incarnations were mere myths. If it weren't for the novels, who knows if those Doctors would have been anything more than fading, black and white memories?

In a world where we can pull up any existing Doctor Who episode we want with the push of a button, the novelisations remain just as vital. Thanks to the expense of tape in the early days of the series, far too many William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton stories were destroyed in favor of other programs. Although there have been attempts to give some the animated, or the audio drama, treatment nothing is as crucial to the survival of these stories than the novelisations.

Although I’ve seen the existing clips of The Tenth Planet, I have never known the full story, until listening to this audiobook. I have to imagine that this may be the ultimate way to experience Bill Hartnell’s swan song. Few things can place you right in the center of a tale like a novel, and nothing does it better than an audiobook.

From our earliest years, stories are told to us. Parents and teachers read us books. Friends recount experiences. Stories are best shared through speaking. This particular audiobook, complete with haunting, droning music, crackling sound effects, Nicholas Briggs’ unnerving Cybermen voices, and Anneke Wills’ superb narration, communicates everything to you beyond what can be achieved in prose. Your imagination holds no budgetary constraints, so the bounds of cheap set design can’t restrict you, and the perfectly timed touches of sound give you all the help you need in envisioning the atmosphere crafted within the novel’s pages.

While listening to the reveal of the Cybermen moving through the snow, killing the men in their way, I couldn’t help but think, “What were kids thinking when they saw this in ‘66? They must’ve been terrified!” The coldness of their surroundings, matched with the lack of empathy is wonderfully depicted in the book, making this jaded listener a little nervous, wondering what these monsters I’ve seen numerous times before might be capable of.

I’ve come to place Doctor Who stories into categories. You’ve got the historical, the base under siege, invasion stories, horror stories, and romps. Often times these categories intermingle. You might get a historical horror story, a base under siege  horror story, a historical romp, and so on. The Tenth Planet blends base under siege, invasion, and horror. What we’re witnessing is a small element to the larger story at play. A handful of frightening Cybermen are invading this base and killing the men inside, while all over the world more Cybermen are doing the same thing, AND there’s a whole new planet in the sky draining Earth of all its energy!

This is epic storytelling on par with anything the current series would do. You don’t need to see the fleet of Cyberships, armies marching through cities, or the Mondas sucking up all our energy, because you feel it. We know the Doctor, Ben, and Polly, we’ve just met the faculty of the base, and their reactions to the situation are enough to inform the massive scale of what’s going on elsewhere.

That being said, there is a downside. A few too many sentences are spent detailing Polly’s long legs and the reaction aroused in men upon viewing her form. The tendency of summing up a character by their ethnicity is more than tad dated and simplistic. Miss. Wills’ American accent, with all those hard R’s, can get a bit grating, but those are nitpicks. True, I would have preferred if such things were omitted, but the novel is what it is.

The majority of The Tenth Planet is devoted to the men spending their careers in a bunker below the frozen surface of the South Pole. This is something utterly unique to Classic Who. The Doctor may be the title character, Ben and Polly may be his friends and second leads, but the stories aren’t about them. Classic Who stories are about the people the Doctor saves. One would imagine that a show like Doctor Who would deal with WHO this Doctor person is and why they do what they do. Superman isn’t about the various citizens of Metropolis going about their day and being saved by the Blue Boy Scout. Why would Doctor Who be about the people he encounters, rather than the Doctor himself?

The answer, I believe, has to do with another reason the novelisations are so important to the survival of Doctor Who. This is a literary show. They’re not simply interested in giving you a cool new monster. The creators of the show are building a world and a world is populated with lots and lots of people. While making the Doctor the point of view character for every adventure would result in a thrilling good time, it wouldn’t construct a believable world. By experiencing the space these military men and scientists inhabit, getting small insights into their background and personalities (however shallow) and how they treat each other sets the scene for the terror about to unfold. The Cybermen are a scary concept, sure, but what makes them effective is that we know the people in danger. We’re set up to understand who these people are, thus making the threat of invaders that much more menacing. That is a trope you find more in literary storytelling than a visual medium like television.

Written by Richard Alan, Steve Alan, Paul Cornell, John Freeman, Dan Abnett, John Tomlinson, Simon Furman, Simon Jowett, Mike Collins, Tim Robins, Andrew Donkin, Graham S. Brand, Ian Rimmer 

Artwork by Lee Sullivan, Gerry Dolan, Rex Ward, Geoff Senior, John Ridgeway, Art Wetherell, Dave Harwood, Cam Smith, Andy Wildman, John Marshall, Mike Collins

Paperback: 196 pages
Publisher: Panini UK LTD

The Seventh Doctor's Second Volume from Panini is "Nemesis of the Daleks," which while still a tad muddled, is certainly of a higher standard than the bulk of what appeared in the first Volume.  Most of the comics presented within this volume were released around the same time as the final year of the original run of the show in 1989, though there a few released in 1990, but this collection essentially signals the end of the television era of Comic Strips, before the Strip was forced to try and stand on it's own for a while.

The opening story features a renegade Dalek Killer known as Abslom Daak, who appeared in a couple of one-off stories that didn't feature the Doctor in the 70s (both of which also appear in this collection).  Daak is a neat creation, which a chainsaw sword for ripping open the pepper pot scourge of the universe, and an attitude to match it. That opening story is pretty great, and if the bulk of the book were of it's caliber it would certainly get a few higher marks, but that isn't really the case.

The stories are mostly good in this set, but a good chunk of them didn't actually originate in Doctor Who Magazine, but were featured in a short lived Marvel UK publication called "The Incredible Hulk Presents," and as such they are a bit shorter than the usual DWM story (and they are all one-offs, as to not confuse new readers). This was more of Marvel, at the time, not really knowing what to do with Doctor Who.  That is seemingly odd, because when they took over the strip and launched Doctor Who magazine, they seemed to know exactly what to do with it.  Anyhow, the stories from that run are decent enough, just short Doctor Who adventures, nothing too big or epic, but some light singular stories. 

I think if only for that opening story, this book is worth a look.  The other stories in this are decent light fair, a load of one-offs, but a vastly better load of one-offs than the ones featured in the Seventh Doctor's first volume of comic strips. 

Written by Simon Furman, Mike Collins, Grant Morrison, John Freeman, Dan Abnett, Richard Alan, John Carnell, Alan Grant

Artwork by John Ridgeway, Kev Hopgood, Tim Perkins, Geoff Senior, Dave Hine, Bryan Hitch, John Higgins, Lee Sullivan, Dougie Braithwaite, Dave Elliott, Andy Lanning, Martin Griffiths, Cam Smith

Paperback: 180 pages
Publisher: Panini UK LTD

The first Seventh Doctor Volume, A Cold Day in Hell is, like all of Panini's Who collections, wonderfully put together and restored, but much of the stories in this volume didn't totally work for me. The first story tries to wrap up the Sixth Doctor comic era by having a finale adventure for companion "Frobisher," but just continuity wise it just feels out of place with the Seventh Doctor...too many references to "since Peri left" which just doesn't fit where the Seventh Doctor was from the moment he took over the part on TV. 

They should've just started fresh...time has passed, there is a new Doctor, and if you are going to say goodbye to Frobisher anyhow, why shoehorn him into the start of a new Doctor's run? It is an especially odd choice as Frobisher's exit lacks any real emotional impact.  If they wanted to say goodbye to the character, maybe they should have worked that into the end of "The World Shapers" which closed out the Sixth Doctor's run. Seems an odd choice, but this book is full of that. 

It seems at the time Marvel (who was still distributing Doctor who Magazine at the time) was desperate to drag Doctor Who into their big sweeping and ridiculous canon.  They used the Doctor Who strip as a weird in between for a character called "Death's Head," who appeared in some other comic and is shrunk down by the Doctor as an excuse to move him onto his own title by Marvel UK.  They also brought in two awful characters from another title called The Sleaze Brothers for a story so inept and awful. Admittedly, I am almost always anti-Crossover, but Doctor Who really does need to just live in it's own vast and strange universe. The stories that Marvel forced are also just plain bad.

The book also has so many artists, you'd think at least a few would manage to demonstrate an ability to capture Sylvester McCoy's likeness.  But very few actually did, which is odd.  The actor has, in my view, a fairly distinctive face, you'd think artists would find his features easy to capture or even caricature after the more non-descript faces of Peter Davison and Colin Baker.  But for most of this collection you only know it is the Doctor because he's the guy wearing the hat. 

It isn't all bad, "Claws of the Klathi!" is a decent atmospheric tale with good art and a better than the usual capturing of the Seventh Doctor's look.  I rather liked "Keepsake" and "Echoes of the Mogor!" and I did like the running gag in which the Doctor is always landing and immediately realizing he has not yet found his friend's birthday party, which he is apparently on his way towards. 

I think the biggest issue is that collected in this volume is a total hodge podge of writers, artists, and stories.  There is no clear voice (as Steve Parkhouse was throughout all of the Fifth Doctor's run and the early days of the Sixth Doctor), and no clear visual style (as the Sixth Doctor's entire run had in John Ridgeway).  That lack of any artistic vision, along with a company bullying them into working in their own characters that don't really fit...and what you get is a bunch of one offs and only a few stories that actually dig in for more than one issue.  Ultimately this is a collection for Collectors and Completists only, otherwise, I think it is rather easy to skip. 

Written By: Matt Fitton, Roy Gill, Andrew Smith, John DorneyDirected By: Ken BentleyJemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Ingrid Oliver (Osgood), James Joyce (Captain Josh Carter), Ramon Tikaram (Colonel Shindi), Karina Fernandez (Captain Gonsalves/ Phoebe Breckenridge), Lucy Fleming (Alice Donelly), Matthew Cottle (Ben Donelly/ Overseer), David Jonsson (Corporal James Morley), Dan Starkey (Marshal Skar/ Commander Merx/ Sontaran Escapee), James Wilby (Professor John Torrance), Beth Goddard (Christine Colley), Barnaby Edwards (Satellite voice), Jot Davies (Guerilla/ AIDE/ Soldier) and Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks). Other parts played by members of the cast. Producer David Richardson. Script Editors Matt Fitton, John Dorney. Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

Having four series already under its belt, Big Finish bravely decided to try something a little experimental for the fifth series of UNIT. Whereas previous sets have relied on a single thread and usually a single villain (The Nestines, Tengobushi, Silence and Silurians/Sea Devils respectively) the novel approach was taken here to have each story a separate adventure with a new foe. Of course that’s not strictly true, as there is a loose thread concerning an organisation known as the Auctioneers, though this only really comes to the forefront in the third adventure and even then is never fully explored, leaving the possibility open for a rematch in a later set. Anyway! What makes UNIT Encounters so enjoyable is the experimental nature of it. All the team are present and correct (except of course for Sam Bishop who is off on another Bondian adventure) but the stories they are involved in vary from jungle espionage tales, to ghost stories, to out and out comedies.

Opening the set is Matt Finton’s ‘The Dalek Transaction’, which takes the team to the jungles of central America on an undercover mission to buy a captured Dalek from a group of guerrilla rebels. Action packed and with a breakneck pace, it’s a hell of an opener, highlighting the real genius of what makes the audio UNIT based series work; the ability to fly all over the world and feature humongous set pieces that a BBC budget simply wouldn’t allow. The team are all seen working together in this story, with Ramon Tikaram’s Colonel Shindi given a real chance to shine. However undoubtedly the show is stolen by Guest actress, Karina Fernandez as Captain Gonsalves. Her interactions with Jemma Redgrave are some of the most enjoyable scenes in the entire set as despite being from completely opposite ends of the spectrum, they understand each other as the commanders of their respective troops. Unfortunately the story isn’t a total success and that’s mostly due to it’s titular villain. Single Dalek stories have been somewhat out-played now and although Finton tries to inject a few hints of this Dalek being ‘something more’ it never really goes anywhere and the stories twists and turns never really go anywhere. However if you allow yourself to become lost in the action and character moments, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.

Invocation is the next story and see’s Kate investigating happening’s at an old house that still appears to be on the UNIT books, despite having no projects there for decades. Meanwhile a mysterious ‘Grey Man’ is sighted across London. Highlighting the tonal shifts that make this set so enjoyable, we go from an action packed opener to a ghost story in the classic vein. Featuring dark secrets from UNITs past and highlighting the darker side of Kates character, I found this to be one of the highlights of the set. Admittidly a lot slower than the other stories, Invocation takes time to explore it’s mystery and towards the end really puts Kate into the centre, stressing her family ties in a far more rewarding way than Moffat’s interpretation allowed for. Perhaps a little derivative at points for some, it was a welcome change of pace for the UNIT franchise.

The Sontaran Project on the other hand I found to be perhaps the weakest of the bunch. Putting the Auctioneer plot front and centre, what results is something of a mess. At the end of the story we still know decidedly little about them, which if they return in a later series I’m all for, keeping them enigmatic and in the background makes them appear a formidable foe. The problem is the story meanders and plods along, torn between a plot concerning experimentation on Sontarans in order to clone private armies (an interesting concept) and revealing a little bit concerning the Auctioneers. Neither of these plots are given particular emphasis and neither feel like there’s any real threat. The Sonatarans turn up, join forces with UNIT, confront a foe we discover more about and the story ends. Dan Starkey is once again given a chance to shine but really that’s the only highlight of what otherwise feels like an attempt to give some connection to the various stories.

However all is redeemed in ‘False Negative’. Far from the explosive finales of previous sets, Encounters ends with an all-out comedy, centring on the hilarity that ensures when Osgood and Josh are flung into a parallel world that may or may not be a version of the one from Inferno. With much made of the fact that the Osgood and Josh of that world are not only unashamedly evil, but also in a highly sexualised relationship, I found myself laughing out loud at several points. False Negative is certainly not going to be to everyone’s taste and I think individuals expecting an Inferno sequel or pastiche will certainly be disappointed but it is immensely fun. John Dorney has written a superb and highly amusing script that gives the cast (particular Ingrid Oliver and James Joyce) a real chance to shine and is another jewel in this sets crown. Choosing to end the set in this way was a brave and bold move and one that has to be respected.

With three highly enjoyable stories and one dud, UNIT Encounters took a lot of chances and for the most part they payed off. Whilst I may not have enjoyed the handling of their story in The Sontaran Project, I was certainly intrigued by the Auctioneers and look forward to any possible rematch between them and UNIT. However the real joys of this set came not from the loose overarching plot but from the experimental nature of the stories. A lot of brave decisions were made with this set and the production team have to be commended for willing to do something different.  

"Twice Upon A Time".
Written by Steven Moffat 
Directed by Rachel Talalay

Starring Peter Capaldi, David Bradley,
Mark Gatiss and Pearl Mackie

This review contains spoilers from the Doctor Who Christmas Episode 

To be frank, the more recent “Doctor Who” Christmas Specials have somewhat fallen flat in my humble opinion, predominantly due to Steven Moffat’s overreliance upon festive frivolities and holiday humour. Indeed, with the possible exception of Matt Smith’s swansong, "The Time of the Doctor", I haven’t ‘thoroughly enjoyed’ one of these seasonal-themed shows since Russell T Davies’ 2008 masterpiece “The Next Doctor”. I’m also not the greatest fan of Peter Capaldi’s tenure as the time-travelling Gallifreyan either, and believe the Scottish actor’s considerable talents were woefully wasted during his first two seasons, and only really came to the fore once he was ably accompanied by characters like Bill Potts and Nardole.

"Twice Upon a Time" however, does not seemingly fall into many of the tinsel-laden traps its predecessors have succumbed to, and instead tells a relatively straightforward story of the Timelord trying to understand whether a company capable of replicating the memories of the deceased should be universally viewed as a villainous malignancy or, somewhat perturbingly for the Doctor, an actual cause for the greater good. In fact, the realisation that this particular adventure specifically occurs on Christmas Day only becomes relevant (and resultantly noticeable) at the episode’s end when it enables the titular lead to engineer a military ceasefire through the manipulation of a few blessed hours of time.

Peter Capaldi’s portrayal of a Timelord desperately seeking peace after two thousand years of life, is also far more watchable (and likeable) than the version who required Clara Oswald’s hastily-written handy cards in “Under The Lake” so as to demonstrate even the smallest amount of compassion and humanity. Despite being tired of living himself, the Doctor isn’t about to stand by and watch a single lone soldier die if he can help it, even when Mark Gatiss’ World War One British officer nobly agrees to sacrifice his life in the belief it will save others. Such natural empathy and warmth on behalf of the Twelfth Doctor was sadly missing through so many of his earliest adventures, so it’s nice to see a far more agreeable attitude being shown throughout his final adventure.

Far more impressive though, has to be David Bradley’s ‘tour de force’ as the First Doctor. For those old enough to remember, I thought Richard Hurndall’s performance in the Twentieth Anniversary special “The Five Doctors” would be hard to beat, yet the star of “An Adventure in Space and Time” effortlessly transforms into the grumpy grandfather’s role and proves a pleasure to watch; even if he is given the majority of Moffat’s less than subtle sexist jokes – ‘smacked bottom’ for Pete's sake… 

Admittedly, some of the “original” Doctor’s athletics are a bit hard to accept. The oldster’s zigzagging in between numerous Dalek disintegration beams as he fast approaches a watchtower belonging to the only ‘good’ Kaled in the galaxy takes a bit of getting used to, and one could certainly never imagine the frail-looking William Hartnell hurling himself from atop the TARDIS onto the ground, even if his fall was cushioned by a sheet of Antarctic snow.

Fortunately, such physicality doesn’t jar too much upon the senses, and are always quickly eclipsed by Bradley’s acting gravitas. In fact, one of the highlights of the story is the heart-wrenching despondency etched upon the old man’s face when he comprehends that he will become “The Doctor of War” his adversary is seeking after. This fate, despite being engineered through the sheer necessity needed in order to fight the universe’s many wrongs, clearly reaches down to the very core of the Timelord’s fears as to what his violent legacy may become should he accept the need to regenerate for the first time, and the Yorkshire man ‘nails’ this inner turmoil on-screen marvellously.

Mark Gatiss’ Lethbridge-Stewart is similarly an inspiring casting choice, with the English screenwriter putting in a remarkably charming, stiff upper-lipped performance. Such firm fondness for a non-regular character is particularly impressive considering his sombre introduction, trapped inside a bomb blast crater with a wounded German soldier pointing a pistol at him. Yet the World War One Officer (“Sorry… Spoilers.”) soon becomes a decidedly engaging companion, whose baffled bewilderments and naïve nobilities quickly endear him to both the audience and the Twelfth Doctor. It’s certainly a role which seems to far better suit the actor’s strengths than his previous foray into the world of “Doctor Who” as the decidedly over-the-top villain-come-monster Doctor Lazarus.

Plot-wise, "Twice Upon a Time" undoubtedly still suffers from some of Steven Moffat’s infamously head scratching discombobulations, as no-one ever seems to properly rationalise just why the Gallifreyan’s dual contemplation of ‘ending his travels’ causes a participant of the Great War to be erroneously dispatched to the South Pole in the year 1986? There’s also little explanation provided as to just how the universe’s mysterious benefactors ever came to be in a position to extract everyone’s memories just before their moment of death, nor how they developed the technology to travel back in time and do so retrospectively?

Similarly disconcerting, though perhaps understandable given this adventure is supposed to finish with a feel good finale, are the handful of sickly sweet cameos thrust upon the Doctor at the very end of the show. Rusty the Dalek’s somewhat bizarre appearance mid-way through the tale definitely caught me by surprise, but it at least provided a valid contribution to the plot, seeing as how the Matrix no longer existed, and even Mark Gatiss’ revelation that he was Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart’s ancestor made some sentimental sense. Yet the sudden materialisation of Nardole in No Man’s Land appeared to have been manipulated purely to provide the tenth season TARDIS crew the chance for a last group hug, whilst the ‘blink and you’ll miss her’ manifestation of the Impossible Girl, Clara Oswald, was seriously super sugary-strong stuff…

Sadly, this particular Christmas Special also insists on treating the Timelord’s regeneration as an opportunity for the lead actor to perform a lengthy swansong; a trend arguably initiated by Russell T Davies dreadfully drawn-out dramatics for the Tenth Doctor in “The End of Time”. True, Matt Smith’s “like breath on a mirror” speech from “The Time of The Doctor” was memorably magnificent and encapsulated much of his tenure on the television series within the space of a few minutes. However, Peter Capaldi’s soliloquy seemingly comes across as a bit of an emotionless rant, in which the show’s producer appears, once again, to be trying far too hard to be funny or clever, and thus disappointingly causes the Twelfth Doctor’s final moments to be far more reminiscent of his disagreeable early days rather than the more warm, likeable time traveller he has become over the past twelve months.

Producer & Script Editor: Ian Atkins,
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

Written By: Anthony Keetch, Directed By: Lisa Bowerman

Cast Peter Purves (Narrator)

"His old body is wearing a bit thin......It happens to us all."

How very apt that Big Finish should give us a festive Short Trips, featuring the first Doctor (the original you might say!) ahead of this  Christmas day television outing?

The story opens with the TARDIS materialising into what seems like an idealised Christmas scene. As Steven and the Doctor step out, they see that there's snow all around, along with a forest of pine trees and, just off in the distance, a cosy looking cottage. However (as always) everything s not quite as it seems, because in the  cottage the pair find a young girl, Greta, and her Grandfather, Herman, cowering from an unlikely alien threat outside.

The story is a joy to listen to, and this is a lot down to Peter Purves narration, which starts off warm and gentle, but slowly leaves the listener feeling somewhat claustrophobic and quite tense. His impersonation of the first Doctor is almost perfect. Between Antony Keetch's writing talent, and Purves vocal skills we find ourselves suddenly in the company of William Hartnell, which is a lovely Christmas present in itself.

O Tannenbaum is essentially a tightly written, base under siege story, with a taste of first contact thrown in for good measure. What is a nice surprise though, is, as was the original intention of Doctor Who, the story also manages to sneak in some historical facts for the listeners to ponder over.

The words O Tannenbaum, of course is German for O Christmas Tree, and this short story will ensure that you keep you keep that real tree you have in the living room well watered and alive for as long as possible - otherwise, you never know it's loved ones might just come looking for it - and you!

As Steven Taylor / Peter Purves rounds off this story with a cheeky  "A very merry Christmas to all of you at home." you will walk away from this festive little treat with a lovely, warm feeling.

Merry Christmas!