How to make a Whovian in 13 stories

I got the idea for this post from the article Introducing newbies to Doctor Who through online streaming at Kasterborous. I’ll admit I’ve often spent some time contemplating the very topic: which stories would I show to someone to turn them from a non-fan into a fan. Which stories would I show to a Whoob (Who-noob, geddit?) to get them hooked on Doctor Who?

Unfortunately I haven’t yet had the opportunity to put this scheme into practice, but here are thirteen stories—one for each Doctor—I’d show a non-fan to attempt to co-opt them into the fandom. These aren’t necessarily my favourite stories for each Doctor, but they’re the ones I think would most engage a non-fan with the franchise.

Classic Who marathon: impressions

My recent watching of the Doctor Who TV Movie completes the “Classic Who” segment of my 50-year marathon, having watched all of the classic Doctors in order from Hartnell to McGann for the first time. It’s taken me the better part of a year, and I’m pleased to have, er, “caught up” with the first 33 years of Who that I missed by virtue of not having been alive. I’ve soaked up many memorable moments from the show’s original run and thoroughly submerged myself in Who history and lore. To complete my 50-year marathon, I need only to watch “New Who” up to Capaldi. The New Who segment of my marathon will be a rewatch, but I’ve been enjoying following the life and times of this alien time-travelling physician so much that I simply have to keep going until the end. It’d feel incomplete otherwise.

In any case, before I move onto Eccleston, I’ve decided to listen to the Eighth Doctor Big Finish audios (or some of them, at least). McGann, very unfortunately, didn’t get an “era” on television like the rest of the Doctors; his only televised outing was a very ordinary television movie. The Eighth Doctor’s “era” is on audio, and, I understand, McGann, like Colin Baker, was “redeemed” on audio by Big Finish. So I feel I owe it to McGann, given he is as legitimate an incarnation of the Doctor as any other, to immerse myself in his Doctor’s adventures just as I’ve immersed myself in the adventures of his predecessors, and as I will his successors. Thus, I’m delaying moving onto the revival as I experience the “McGann era” on audio. I’ve started with the Eighth Doctor’s adventures with Charley Pollard in Big Finish’s monthly range, which are the earliest in his timeline (apart from a couple of the more recent releases starting with In the Company of Friends). At the time of writing this, I’ve listened from Storm Warning through to The Chimes of Midnight, and have been very impressed with McGann from what I’ve listened to so far. I’ll be posting brief reviews of each audio I listen to in my regular “Latest Big Finish listens” feature.

In any case, having now seen all of Classic Who, and all of televised Who in general, it’s time to write down some impressions (and lists, lots of lists. Whovians love lists).

If I were to list my favourite eras of the show by Doctor (excluding McGann; as it would not be fair either to judge him by the movie alone, nor to judge him taking into account his audios without doing the same for Colin Baker, etc.), it would go like this:

1. Smith era (2010-2013)
2. Pertwee era (1970-1974)
3. Tom Baker era (1975-1981)
4. Davison era (1982-1984)
5. Troughton era (1966-1969)
6. Capaldi era (2014-)
7. McCoy era (1987-1989)
8. Eccleston era (2005)
9. Hartnell era (1963-1966)
10. Tennant era (2005-2009)
11. Colin Baker era (1984-1986)

I should say there are no eras of the show I really dislike, just as I don’t dislike any of the Doctors. I’m in the awkward position of having Colin Baker as my second favourite Doctor but liking his era the least — that’s because, while I absolutely adored his interpretation of the Doctor, the stories he was given were generally sub-par compared to the rest of the show, without being bad as such.

I started with William Hartnell, the original. I enjoyed his stories, and I enjoyed watching Hartnell himself. Hartnell clearly put a lot into that character, as the First Doctor is always a pleasure to watch, especially in his first season. The Hartnell era (particularly Season 1) is perhaps the most experimental in the show’s history, as the production team were working with a completely blank slate, and it’s a privilege to watch the show trying different things, testing its strengths, shaping itself. To my mind, Season 1 of Doctor Who is a straight run of classics (apart from episodes 2-4 of An Unearthly Child), and certainly one of the best ever seasons of Who; despite the low-rent production, it has all aged exceptionally well (which cannot be said for many serials in later eras). Seasons 2 and 3 (and 4) didn’t meet the consistent quality that Season 1 had achieved, but there are still a spattering of gems throughout, albeit among a lot of rubbish as well. The Doctor’s companions, especially Ian and Barbara (although Vicki is an all-time favourite of mine), are all great, lovable characters who made the Hartnell era even more enjoyable. The First Doctor himself is a compelling and interesting character, and it is fascinating to watch the Doctor transition over his era from a cantankerous, resolute recluse who seemed to desire only to be left alone into the character we know as the Doctor today, the renegade Time Lord determined to fight evil and injustice in the universe wherever he finds it.

Patrick Troughton’s era I just found great, walloping fun. The stories in the Troughton era are uncomplicated monster-of-the-week runarounds, commonly in the “base-under-siege” style. There’s nothing wrong with that: I know plenty of fans regret the poor scripts and simplistic stories of the Troughton era, but if you can just enjoy these stories for what they are, as I was able to do, Troughton can be marvellously fun. Even rather pedestrian scripts that would seem utterly silly and juvenile in, say, Season 26, like The Dominators, can be great fun if you appreciate them for what they are and just allow yourself to be absorbed by the story. In any case, the Troughton era has its fair share of undisputed classics, such as The Power of the Daleks, The Moonbase, The Evil of the Daleks, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear, The Mind Robber, The Invasion, The Seeds of Death and The War Games, despite many episodes being regrettably missing. Troughton had a succession of great companions: Ben & Polly, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield and Zoe Heriot. Jamie is an all-time fandom favourite, and, for me, the team of the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe is one of the most memorable and definitive TARDIS teams of all. The Second Doctor is played superbly all throughout his era by Patrick Troughton, who is easily the best actor to play the role in the classic run, and gives his all to the role. Troughton is an absolute joy to watch, and if he doesn’t significantly elevate the quality of his stories, no one does.

Jon Pertwee’s era is my favourite era of the classic show. Like the preceding era, it’s great fun, but with some distinctive aspects: namely, the earthbound stories and prominence of UNIT. When I had reached the Pertwee era, my initial reaction was “Oh great, a whole era of stories set on Earth. How unexciting.” What’s the point of a show about a man who can travel anywhere in time and space if he never leaves the Home Counties? However, I enjoyed the earthbound dynamic much more than I thought I would. I really grew fond of the “UNIT family” of the Brigadier, Liz Shaw/Jo Grant/Sarah-Jane Smith, Benton and Yates, who are all fabulous characters played well by great actors. The idea of having the Doctor marooned on Earth working for UNIT could easily have misfired, but it is pulled off superlatively, so much so that it’s my favourite era of the classic show, even if Pertwee himself is not one of my favourite Doctors. The Pertwee era, for me, is a long run of mostly high quality stories, which I only truly began to appreciate when I got to later eras of the show where such high quality writing and production became less commonplace. The Pertwee era gave us three classic, fondly-remembered companions — the Brigadier, Jo Grant and Sarah-Jane Smith — as well as the enduring enemy of the Master, and a whole host of great, classic stories.

The Tom Baker era, as fans know, is when Doctor Who reached its zenith in terms of popularity and presence in the public consciousness. Indeed, the first few seasons of Tom Baker are, to my mind, Doctor Who at its consistent best. The run of stories from The Ark in Space to The Sun Makers is an unbroken succession of 20 of the most memorable stories in the show’s history, with an abnormally high concentration of outright classics. It is an era when the show was simply getting it so right all the time. It also helps a great deal that Tom Baker is the most compelling portrayal of the character yet and since, an enigmatic, magnetic, and totally alien character by whom you simply can’t help but be mesmerised. Tom Baker’s companions were all memorable, even K9, although the Doctor looked a little put out in Logopolis surrounded by Tegan, Nyssa and Adric (missing Romana, one guesses; and yes, I totally ship them). The era began to lose its way in its fifth season, the Key to Time saga, and never recovers the glittering heights of Seasons 12-15, but even the latter stories of the Tom Baker era are generally higher quality than most of what came afterwards. There are still a smattering of great stories in these later seasons of the era, such as The Pirate Planet, The Stones of Blood, City of Death, Full Circle, The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis. Additionally, Shada, had it been completed, would easily have been one of the gleaming high-points of the show on par with The Caves of Androzani and City of Death, and, in the modern series, with Blink.

Like, Pertwee’s era, I enjoyed Peter Davison’s era far more than I anticipated, as I did the Fifth Doctor himself. The Davison era started uneasily, but soon found its rhythm. From Kinda onwards, the stories are generally quality, with the odd clunker here and there (*cough* Terminus *cough*). In Davison’s era, one can definitely sense the difference between John Nathan-Turner’s stewardship and previous eras of the show, not least in the adoption of silly “uniforms” for the Doctor, the exclusive use of tinny synthesizer music, and the marked difference in tone and feel (creepy gothic horror out, floodlit spaceships and other indistinguishable sets in). Davison’s companions are one unfortunate aspect of his era: while I personally like Nyssa, and Adric eventually grew on me, Tegan is annoying and awful (the stereotypical antipodeanity of her character was exaggerated to cringing point; she seemed to be able to talk only in cliches; and her constant cynical moaning must have sorely tried the Doctor’s seemingly infinite reasonableness and patience), and Turlough is a cowardly git, although he, at least, improves. In any case, the Doctor often seemed to be left somewhat overwhelmed by the number of hangers-on following him everywhere, getting in his way as he tries to save the universe. The balance is only rectified when Peri joined the Doctor at the end of Planet of Fire, but only for one story (what a great one it was, though). Over the course of his era, Davison himself became one of my favourite Doctors. Once I looked past the silly cricket whites he never took off, the Fifth Doctor was actually a highly engaging interpretation of the character, the original “old man in a young man’s body” Doctor. Davison developed and modified his Doctor’s characterisation over his three seasons, finally perfecting it in his final season, having gone from irritating youthful enthusiasm to gruff and world-weary, yet still unfailingly polite (which I find much more interesting).

Colin Baker, as I’ve said is my favourite Doctor of the classic era, and my second favourite Doctor of all, but whose era is my least favourite. From my perspective, Colin had one classic story (The Two Doctors), four other above average stories (Vengeance on Varos, Revelation of the Daleks, Mindwarp, The Ultimate Foe), and the rest were all either average or bad. Colin’s era began badly in The Twin Dilemma, but picked up in Vengeance on Varos and put out a couple of decent, even good stories that nevertheless fly under the radar as a result of the unremarkable stories that surrounded them. The Trial of a Time Lord was a great misfire which nevertheless has its great, even inspired moments, but ultimately falls flat. I think the problem was that Doctor Who, by then, had become too repetitive and samey; the right thing to do when Colin took over was to take the show in a completely new direction, preferably darker and more grown-up, to match the Sixth Doctor’s character (which was eventually done with McCoy), rather than to keep making more of the same. It does seem, in any case, as though the writers had begun to run out of ideas in Colin’s era: the scripts seem lazy and half-arsed, not to mention unimaginative. None of this, of course, was Colin’s fault. It seemed Colin was much more enthusiastic about the show than either JNT or the writers; he had big plans for his very interesting interpretation of the character, and was unabashed about his desire to surpass Tom Baker’s record of seven seasons playing the Doctor, and played the character himself with such zeal and conviction. For his commitment, he was unceremoniously and unfairly sacked by the BBC bigwigs (it really should have been JNT, who had done all he could and actually wanted to go). Colin’s is an era of missed opportunities, although not necessarily bad in itself: if you look hard enough, you can find things in this era as great as in any.

Sylvester McCoy’s era constituted something of a rebirth for the show, a rebirth that had been sorely needed. In the first place, though, the McCoy era started with the “silly season”, Season 24. A lot of fans deride Season 24 as an all-time low for Doctor Who before a glorious regeneration, but it can be quite enjoyable if, like Patrick Troughton’s era, you enjoy it for what it is; both Paradise Towers and Delta and the Bannermen are decent and enjoyable enough stories in their own right. However, the great u-turn that the show took in the following season was a positive development: I regard Remembrance of the Daleks and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy as masterpieces both; the latter in particular is an astonishingly creative and exciting exemplar of what the show could have become if it had been allowed to continue. Season 26 continued the new darker, more mature direction, with The Curse of Fenric a parting high-point. We know that it was all too little too late, but the final two seasons of the McCoy era are arguably the most creative storytelling the show has done since Season 1. My opinion of McCoy’s era is only slightly diminished by the fact that, despite his odd moments of glory, I found the Seventh Doctor a rather boring and unengaging Doctor. Ace, on the other hand, was a very interesting and engaging companion, easily the most developed companion of the whole classic run, and the unprecedented focus on Ace’s character prototypes the companion-centred storyelling of New Who.

So now, at the close of the classic segment of my 50-year marathon, my “favourite Doctors” list stands something like this:

1. Matt Smith
2. Colin Baker
3. Tom Baker
4. Peter Davison
5. Christopher Eccleston
6. David Tennant
7. Paul McGann
8. Peter Capaldi
9. Jon Pertwee
10. Patrick Troughton
11. William Hartnell
12. Sylvester McCoy

As Whovians know fully well, one’s personal “favourite Doctors” list is subject to constant change, even after one has long seen everything there is to see of Doctor Who. I’m sure mine will continue changing, especially as Paul McGann has been rapidly shooting up my list the more I hear of him on audio. My rewatching of Eccleston and Tennant in the New Who segment of my marathon may yet change my opinions of them (Matt Smith has no chance of being dislodged from the top spot). In addition, Peter Capaldi also has the potential to make it much higher, come Series 9.

Latest Big Finish listens #2 [SPOILERS]

I’ve had a bit of an audio binge over the last week after a long period of not having listened to any new Big Finish. I’m still just going through the “highlights” at the present time, although I’ve moved onto the Sixth Doctor stories. I’ve got a vague plan in mind to listen to a particular Doctor’s audio stories after I’ve finished with his television stories and while I’m watching his successor on television. So I listened to Peter Davison after I’d finished with him on television, and now I’m listening to Colin Baker while I’m watching Sylvester McCoy. When I finish my Classic Who marathon (which probably won’t be long, given the rate I’m getting through the stories now), I want to do a marathon of the Eighth Doctor on audio before I move onto the New Who segment of my 50-year marathon. I probably won’t do all of the Eighth Doctor stories, but I think at least the Eighth Doctor Adventures, and perhaps the Dark Eyes saga as well.

In any case, without further ado, here are my thoughts and commentary on the latest Big Finish audios I’ve listened to. Just a spoiler warning, though: I’m not going to keep my “reviews” of Big Finish spoiler-free anymore as I did in the last installment, as I felt overly constrained by having to limit my commentary in the way I did.

The Kingmaker

The Fifth Doctor, and Peri and Erimem, get stuck two years apart in London during the reign of Richard III, meanwhile both become involved in the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. This is an intriguing story that purports to solve the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, and indeed does so in typical surreal Doctor Who fashion. I listened to this story knowing of its reputation as a Fifth Doctor audio “classic”, albeit somewhat sceptically as Doctor Who historicals never seem to entertain me as much as the general sci-fi stories (despite being a huge history buff). Indeed, there are some excellent moments in there, and Peter Davison is in top form. Separating the characters and seeing them follow separate streams of the same plot in different points in time, only to see both the characters and the plotlines converge at the end, was a well-executed device that makes what could have been a somewhat tiresome and unremarkable story grip and intrigue the listener. There is some wonderful dialogue between the Doctor and Richard III dealing with the reality of time travel, precognition, fate and predestination. Richard III is not portrayed as the pantomime villain of Shakespearean myth, but embattled, manipulative, flawed and fatalistic, cynical about, yet resigned to, his place in history, and a reputation The Kingmaker posits he doesn’t deserve.

If this story suffers from anything, it’s the confused to-and-fro between comedy and tragedy — to be sure, this does work effectively at times; I enjoyed the scenes involving the publisher’s robot and the scenes with Peri and Erimem in the tavern, but I feel that, in general, the comedy detracts from the drama, e.g. the scene in which Richard’s adviser conducts a “press conference” with the top gossips of the kingdom. This audio could have worked a great deal better as a straight drama with a few comedic elements thrown in here and there, but, in attempting to be both tragedy and comedy, does neither wholly successfully. The twist of the pub landlord and his “nieces” being the Duke of Clarence and the (crossdressing) Princes in the Tower actually worked very well as a plot twist and as Doctor Who’s “answer” to the historical mystery, but the revelation was marred somewhat by the Duke and the Princesses being, in general, indistinguishable from your common garden cockney slum-dwellers (and very comical ones at that). Another detriment to this story is the fourth part, which after the initial revelations about Shakespeare, the Duke of Clarence and the Princes in the Tower, seems to drag on somewhat pointlessly for the rest of the episode, as though filling in time. To be sure, the switcheroo with Richard III and Shakespeare was very clever, but the last fifteen minutes or so of the episode were quite unnecessary. For these reasons, I’m thus giving The Kingmaker a rating of 8/10 for what could have been a 10/10. Rating: 8/10.

Urgent Calls

Urgent Calls is a single-episode (half-hour) story involving the Sixth Doctor alone with one other major character. It’s a fantastic little story, an account, seemingly, of an alien invasion entirely through a series of phone calls between the Doctor and a woman called Lauren. The concept is ever so clever, and the story thrives precisely due to the limitations imposed upon it. There’s not much to say about such a clever little story like this, other than that I feel it would be a great introduction to Big Finish for newcomers to Doctor Who audios, a powerful and memorable exemplar of what Big Finish can do with Doctor Who on the audio format, albeit that it’s not a typical sample of a Big Finish audio.

Colin Baker plays the part of the Sixth Doctor with all the gusto and conviction with which, I am told, he is renowned on audio. This was my first experience with the Sixth Doctor on audio, and, although I had heard that the Sixth Doctor was somewhat “re-characterised” on audio into a more generic Doctor from his bombastic, brash, flamboyant, pompous persona on television (which I absolutely adored), and, from what I’ve since heard of Sixie on Big Finish, that is indeed something of the case, I was relieved to hear in Urgent Calls that the rough edges were still reassuringly there on what has become my second favourite Doctor. Nevertheless, the Doctor is also beginning to mellow in this story, a well-executed instance of character development. Kate Brown endears herself to us as Lauren, the sweet everywoman working in a call centre, and her chemistry with Colin is quite engaging. It’s interesting to hear Lauren’s and the Doctor’s relationship developing into something almost romantic (at least for Lauren), as they become familiar with each other, and as Lauren contributes to some initial character development for the Doctor. The story ends on a slightly sad note as (it is implied) the Doctor destroys the virus strand and the wrong number calls stop, meaning the Doctor’s and Lauren’s budding relationship has come to an end. I don’t know if Lauren makes a return in subsequent audios, but it would be great to see Lauren and the Doctor reunite in person. Rating: 9/10. [N.B. I think that picture is actually fanart; I’m not entirely sure, as I found it through a Google Image search. But whatever.]

Trial of the Valeyard

The Valeyard is on trial for charges unnamed in the familiar setting of the Time Lords’ orbiting courtroom, and the Doctor is his defence counsel. Big Finish effectively revisits the plotline from Trial of a Time Lord in this hour-long story, investigating the nature and origins of the mysterious figure of the Valeyard, allegedly the Doctor’s dark future incarnation. This audio also delves into the mysteries of Time Lord regeneration, and Rassilon’s legacy as “creator” of the Time Lord race. Trial of the Valeyard takes place predominantly as a courtroom trial, the three main actors of the original Trial — Colin Baker, Michael Jayston and Lynda Bellingham — reprising their roles as the Sixth Doctor, the Valeyard and Madame Inquisitor respectively. The story is slow to get moving, but when it does, there is immediately an air of intrigue as it becomes apparent the Valeyard’s charges are not allowed to be mentioned, suggesting, once again, High Council impropriety. The Valeyard’s recounting of his origins and life are absorbing exposition of one of the show’s more mysterious characters; likewise his explanation of his studies into regeneration are a fascinating contribution to the backstory of the Whoniverse, one of the most mystical aspects of the Time Lord species. It was thus slightly disappointing when the trial, the Valeyard’s revelations, everything, was revealed to have been an elaborate plot of the Valeyard’s to take revenge on the Doctor and the Inquisitor. A somewhat poor and lazy ending to what could have been a much better story.

Nevertheless, if this story does one thing right, it’s to bring home how very alien and otherworldly the Time Lords are as a species: watching and listening to the Doctor, it’s easy to forget that he, and his species, are not like us; Trial of the Valeyard reminds us, through compelling exposition, that the Time Lords are an impossibly ancient civilisation, a race of potentially immortal beings as exemplified in the mystery of regeneration. Colin Baker is fabulous here; it’s obvious he’s having delicious fun reprising the brash and petulant persona of the Sixth Doctor of the original Trial. The Doctor, at first having no qualms about seeing the Valeyard punished for whatever it is he’s done, soon becomes intrigued and curious and agrees to defend the Valeyard. It’s heartening to see that the Doctor’s sense of justice is not lost, as he becomes indignant at the lack of procedural fairness, even when it’s the Valeyard who’s on trial, prompting him to rally to the Valeyard’s defence. In the end this is an engrossing story that unfortunately suffered from a few detriments. Rating: 8/10.

…ish

The Sixth Doctor and Peri visit an intergalactic lexicographers’ conference, a gathering of the universe’s top word-nerds for the compilation of the greatest dictionary ever made. The leader of the grand enterprise is found seemingly dead by her own hand in curious circumstances. This was one of the stories I couldn’t wait to listen to, especially given that I adored Iterations of I, a story with a similar concept (in that a sentient number, in this a sentient word). Indeed, the concept is positively captivating: a sentient fragment of the longest word in existence, the “Omniverbum” a transcendental word around which meaning and reality itself becomes warped. This is all very clever and spacey-wacey, and has the potential to misfire if not executed well. For the most part, it is done well, enthralling and fascinating the listener, but there are times when the listener can lose track of what’s going on and have trouble following the very complicated explanations. I experienced this at times, and, for a while, was left listening not quite sure that I was following what was going on involving the “Ish” and Book. I was relieved, when reading other reviews, to find that I wasn’t the only one who encountered this problem. In any case, it detracts to a degree from the story in a way I never found when listening to Iterations of I, for example.

The Sixth Doctor and Peri work well together in this story, at least in the moments when they are actually together. It’s enjoyable hearing the playful banter between them, and their cute British-American double-act in defeating the “Ish” brought a grin to my face. It’s good to hear Peri characterised more intelligently than she was on television, where she appeared to be at times little more than a helpless bimbo. She’s a college botany student, after all, not just a pair of breasts, so it’s great to hear her using her intellect, resource and initiative in this story. I think the Six-Peri combination can work really well; there were moments of this on television, but …ish gives us a fairly good exemplar of what a joy to listen to the Six-Peri team can be. Overall this is an engaging and stimulating story unfortunately let down by its problems with exposition, which is a shame as in its imaginative concept was the potential for a classic. Rating: 8/10.

Latest Big Finish listens #1

I’ve started my journey through Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio dramas with the Fifth Doctor stories, which is where I am up to presently in my TV marathon, beginning with the “highlights” first as I dip my toes into Big Finish (I’ve already shared my thoughts on Spare Parts).

Iterations of I

Iterations of I features the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric. The story follows the TARDIS crew as they investigate disappearances on a lonely island in Ireland involving a strange cult dedicated to finding God in a number. It is a haunted house story with an imaginative sci-fi twist: sentient numbers, or creatures that exist in the realm of mathematics. The concept is positively inspired, one of those luminous ideas writers occasionally hit upon analogous to striking gold. The concept, and the story surrounding it, is masterfully executed, as claustrophobic tension and mystery is injected in generous doses into the story, keeping the listener positively gripped by the unfolding drama throughout. The concept, of creatures that reside in another realm of existence, and in particular the Doctor’s suggestion that, in killing people, they were only attempting to communicate, reminded me of the recent episode Flatline in Series 8, which was another excellent story with an inspired concept. Iterations of I is exactly the kind of intelligent, mature drama that I was expecting when I began to listen to Big Finish — drama that exercises the imagination as well as merely entertains — and I was not disappointed by any means. Rating: 10/10.

Psychodrome

Psychodrome is the other story from the Fifth Doctor box-set (the first being Iterations of I), set shortly after the events of Castrovalva, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric. The TARDIS team happen upon a very strange place: a seemingly enormous cave, in one corner a spaceship of human colonists, in another a castle and a royal court, in another a monastery populated by monks dedicated to scientific inquiry. Psychodrome is a very original story with an ingenious twist (which I shan’t spoil, except to say that it bears some resemblance conceptually to one of my favourite stories in Series 6). It is a much more personal and intimate story than it first seems, and not only because it is set at a time when the TARDIS crew were unfamiliar with each other and their new Doctor. There are a number of quiet little moments between the characters that allows us to empathise with them in a way that we often don’t get to on screen. The characters’ fledgling insecurities, fears and resentments about each other are explored in this story, and in fact form a major point in the story. While Psychodrome is generally a great story all-round, one thing it suffers from is too many characters and too many things happening at once: the listener (or at least this listener) tends to struggle keeping up with what’s going on and who’s talking, something that exacerbates the original problem in the overcrowded TARDIS of Davison’s era. Rating: 8/10.

Creatures of Beauty

Creatures of Beauty sees the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa become involved in a bitter political situation on the planet Veln, where, a couple of generations ago, a Koteem waste transport ship broke up in the atmosphere, releasing dyestrial toxins which would go on to destroy the environment and doom its people to a slow death. The story follows the Doctor and Nyssa as they are mistaken for agents of the hated Koteem and become embroiled in the politics of this dying planet. Creatures of Beauty is a brilliant self-contained story, one of those Doctor Who stories where the focus is not so much on the Doctor and his companions, but the place they come to and the people they become involved with. This is one of those Who stories where the Doctor plays a passive role and, seemingly, doesn’t change anything or intervene, although there is a great twist in relation to this at the end. This story does not unfold in the right order: it begins in the middle of the plot and jumps forwards and backwards throughout. This is a clever storytelling device, but it is slightly confusing here, especially when the story appears to end at the conclusion of Part 3 (prompting me to confusedly check if I’d been listening to the story in the wrong order). Nevertheless, a very gripping and memorable story. Rating: 9/10.

Circular Time

Circular Time is a compendium of five 25-minute stories involving the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa. The first, Spring, sees the Doctor and Nyssa pay a visit to a rogue Time Lord who has set himself up as the leader of a civilisation of flightless birds. The second, Summer, sees them imprisoned by the Warden of the Royal Mint, Sir Isaac Newton, for possession of “counterfeit” coins (from Earth’s future). The third, Autumn, sees the pair settle down in an English village as the Doctor takes up with a village cricket team and Nyssa tries to write a novel, and becomes involved with a romantic interest in the process. The final story, Winter, follows an aged Nyssa, who, disturbed by dreams of the Doctor, uses a device to examine her dreams, only to find she has entered the strange dreams of the Doctor. Circular Time is a nice little collection of stories (I am tempted to say “cute”) that stray from the traditional Doctor Who formula: Spring and Summer are the only stories that bear any resemblance to conventional Doctor Who, while Autumn is a contemplative little tale, and Winter an intriguing insight into the Doctor’s mind. Each of the stories is strong in its own right, Autumn being the strongest, a story with no obvious plot or conflict, but which ends on a poignant, even philosophical note. It’s hard to rate Circular Time as a whole, so I’m going to give each of the stories a separate rating. Spring: 7/10. Summer: 8/10. Autumn: 9/10. Winter: 9/10.

“Spare Parts” and the Cybermen

“We are human.”

“We will survive.”

Two lines from the Doctor Who audio Spare Parts that together encapsulate so perfectly and chillingly what the Cybermen are supposed to be. Spare Parts, an origins story of the Cybermen featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, is a tragic tale of a small, dying human population on Earth’s twin planet, Mondas, who will go to almost any terrible measures in their desperation to survive. Spare Parts interprets the Cybermen’s origins on Mondas to be the story of the Mondasians, driven underground as their planet’s drift far away from the orbit of any sun made the surface of their planet uninhabitable, who, seemingly doomed to extinction, resort to “augmenting” their bodies with artificial, cybernetic parts to survive.

A masterpiece, Spare Parts is perhaps more compelling and genuinely frightening a Cybermen story than any shown on the television series, and certainly the most faithful to Kit Pedler’s vision for the Cybermen. It is worth saying that, in my estimation, the Cybermen have not been done exactly right on television since their first story, The Tenth Planet. After the 1960s, Cybermen stories rather lost the plot altogether, and New Who has never even come close. That’s because it’s so easy to forget what the Cybermen are supposed to be — something Spare Parts attempts to return to, and does so spectacularly.

The Cybermen are usually presented as evil killer robots, robot Daleks with legs. Certainly, it’s difficult to get any other impression from today’s stomping automatons in their Iron Man suits. There’s two things wrong with the I, Robot interpretation of the Cybermen: Cybermen are not robots, and they’re not evil. Cybermen are us, as Spare Parts sought to emphasise. “We are human,” as the Cyber Planner in Spare Parts chillingly put it. The Cybermen are supposed to be tragic. We are supposed to look at them and see ourselves in them, and see what we could become. The Cybermen are not the product of some mad scientist  who tried to create a race of perfect killers, as the Daleks are; they are what became of a human population who, in their desperation to survive, sacrificed so much of their humanity that they now blur the line between man and machine. The Cybermen are as much a warning and a “dark mirror” as they are a villain. The Cybermen are terrifying because they are essentially human, because they are still recognisable as us, and the emphasis on the humanity of the Cybermen in Spare Parts achieves this impression very successfully, such as in a particularly affecting scene in which a young girl who has endeared herself to us goes back to her horrified family after being partially processed into a Cyberman.

Furthermore, the Cybermen are not evil. They are not the Daleks. Their objective isn’t to take over the universe or eliminate inferior races. They have removed their human emotions and impulses, and are slaves to absolute logic. Their primary motivation is to survive. Although, since they make no distinction between themselves once they are cyber-processed, the Cybermen seek to perpetuate their kind by converting other human populations into Cybermen (and at the same time “freeing” those poor souls).

For these reasons, I think the Cybermen have the potential to be the scariest Who villain of all, certainly much scarier than the comparatively one-dimensional Daleks (who are nevertheless always good fun). But, portray the Cybermen as the pantomime villains they usually are, and, ironically, you disregard what makes them uniquely scary and, in fact, make them seem more corny than anything.

Apart from returning to the roots and original conception of the Cybermen very successfully, Spare Parts is an exceptionally well-composed audio story in its own right. There are a number of well-realised characters (which makes it all the more tragic when they are converted into Cybermen), and Nyssa is written very well. The mood is ominous from the very beginning, and the rising sense of crisis keeps the listener hooked all the way through, quickening into a dramatic crescendo at the end. From my personal perspective, the one thing I would have changed about the story would have been to have the population of Mondas voluntarily, and resignedly, convert themselves into fully-processed Cybermen in submission to the inescapable reality that doing so is a necessity for their survival — rather than be deceived, and then coerced, into doing so by the whim of the Central Committee/Cyber Planner. I think the former would have impressed more effectively the sense of utter desperation that birthed the Cybermen, bringing home the tragedy of the story. Nevertheless, Spare Parts is certainly a masterpiece of drama and science fiction, and undoubtedly deserves a place among the Doctor Who classics.