The Tate Modern and the curse of artistic sensibilities...

I realise I've let my blog slip of late - that's the hectic lifestyle of a relatively new father I guess. Anyway, here's some ramblings on a recent outing to remind you all I'm still here...


The Tate Modern and the curse of artistic sensibilities.

I visited the Tate Modern last Saturday, with some friends who’d come to London for the weekend. We felt that, having little ones with us, vivid colours and shapes might keep them entertained. 

As my little one is only about five months old it was difficult to tell how much he was actually taking in strapped to my front. Unfortunately I fared little better. I walked around this strange collection of installations, objects and creations feeling generally very cold and detached. I couldn’t relate to any of it. Why didn’t it move me? I passed through crowds of foreign tourists and art lovers all seemingly eagerly engaged with textures, shapes, colours and impressions. I was in another world though, slightly removed, held back by an impenetrable barrier. Maybe I should have worn a neck scarf, open shirt and corduroy trousers? Many of the men there had done so, and they seemed to be enjoying what they were looking at.

We were through and staggering, exhausted, to the café before I really realised what was happening. At least the café price list was something I could comprehend, if not appreciate!

As I left the building I was wondering what was wrong with me? And then I realised, I’ve conditioned myself to expect some sort of epiphany in these circumstances, a click in my head that suddenly brings the world to light and life in a whole new way. It wasn’t the artwork that was at fault – it was me. As a literature student, writer, actor, whatever, I’ve set my own expectations that all forms of creative art will appeal and have secrets and meanings that one can unlock which will set fire to the world, to my world.

But then surely it’s also the artwork that’s at fault because it doesn’t speak to me in a way that I can understand? Should I need to read an essay to understand what Mirror on Canvas ‘means’ or represents, for example? Not if it’s in an open gallery, no. Shouldn’t a piece of art, like a piece of literature or a film, have a clear purpose or meaning that is apparent to most, and then possibly some hidden depths for those who choose or are able to study deeper and contextualise the work from various viewpoints? Or is this just arty nonsense?

Maybe because I don’t understand this kind of art or how I’m supposed to relate to it, I should just stick to the National Gallery, which always fills me with joy and inspiration when I visit it. But I can’t help the niggling feeling that I’m missing out on something somehow...

Doctor Who series 7 reviews: Cold War

Week three of the second half of Series 7 brought us Cold War, by the very talented Mr Mark Gatiss.

 

The BBC as an organisation and ‘Doctor Who’ as a commercial brand needed to hype the return of the Ice Warriors after 39 years – they’re a major recurring monster from back in them days, after all, and they need to attract attention and pull in the viewers. I appreciate that. But it’s still a shame that I already knew what was in the melting block of ice when the fist burst out and throttled the Russian submariner. A great pre-titles sequence and what would have been the episode one cliff hanger in days gone by – as indeed something similar was in their original 1967 story The Ice Warriors. We can only imagine how much more thrilling it would have been not knowing – or having to guess what it might be.

But we live in a world of spoilers these days. The soaps started it – hinting at juicy plots and storylines to come, to ensure that people stayed faithful and carried on watching. At some point, then, programme executives must have decided that they could no longer rely on viewers returning week after week or show after show to find out what might happen to the characters they love or hate, they had to tell the viewers / fans in advance what was going to happen and the fun then comes in finding out how what you know is going to happen happens. It’s a shift in emphasis only, but it allows programme makers to ‘manage customer expectation’. TV is, after all, just another service industry.

That aside, the new Ice Warrior (that we all knew was coming) looked pretty awesome; sensitively faithful to the original design, yet without the clumsy child-bearing hips and horn-squeezer mittens, giving them a more defined, dextrous and powerful cyborg-style finish. One of the unanswered questions with the original Ice Warriors was what was Martian and what was armour? Now we know. Also during their 1960s & 70s appearances we were told how honourable they were as a race, with their sense of aristocracy and nobility. But then the Sontarans came along and filched the ‘honour in battle’ side of their character trait and stole their position. Gatiss has effected a skilful dual continuation and re-boot of the Martian creatures, answering some of those old questions and building them into a more clearly defined race for future use. They now have an individuality borne out of their history which the series can use without feeling like it’s re-hashing ideas used elsewhere.

What I liked less was seeing the naked Martian head at the end - not the concept, but the realisation. For something so ‘solid’ and real as the Ice Warrior suit it then disappointed me that the head was CGI. This was a time that an actor in a rubber mask would have been perfect. It took me out of the moment and that’s a shame.

I was ticking off a mental list in my head as I was watching this episode. Yep, that’s very much 2005’s Dalek, that’s Alien, that’s the 1953 War of The Worlds film as the spindly alien hand reaches out to Stepashin’s shoulder… That’s not in any way a criticism of Mark Gatiss’ writing or Douglas Mackinnon’s direction – some of the best Doctor Who over the years has borrowed from the best, and even from itself. There are probably more homages in the episode as well that my limited experience failed to spot.

For someone who has enjoyed and admired so much of what Mark Gatiss has achieved as a writer and performer so far, I’m always a tad apprehensive going into one of his Doctor Who episodes. The Unquiet Dead in 2005 was pure brilliance, but since then most of his episodes have left me slightly disappointed at best. I think his episodes always sound wonderful on paper and promise much – perhaps too much, which leaves me wanting that bit more. The problem with Cold War is that I really enjoyed the episode, and have continued to enjoy it on re-watching it since, but it ought to be brilliant and somehow it isn’t - and I’m not sure why.

It could be the aftertaste of the CGI Skaldak, or the convenience of re-introducing the HADS to get rid of the TARDIS, or the minor frustration that yet again the very capable Nicholas Briggs has been wheeled out to do a classic monster voice. I’m not critical of Nick, and there’s sense in making the Ice Warrior more verbose and less hissy than his predecessorsssssssssss, but I also feel that the voiceovers should be spread around a bit – give other actors a bit of work!

I appreciate that these are matters of personal opinion and not necessarily justified criticisms of the episode as such.

So, what else was good? The model work was excellent. Clara almost drowning and then reviving to discover that the action has moved on for her and us the viewer was a nice touch and stylishly done. Sometimes we don’t need to see the companion being fussed over and revived. The claustrophobic sets and atmospheric lighting worked exceptionally well – particularly in contrast with the garishness of Akhaten the previous week. The guest cast did a sterling job, with David Warner being given the space to shine as the rather eccentric professor. I was never a fan of Ultravox or Duran Duran myself, but I’m not going to hold that against his character!

Clara got to tick off some more items on her list of things a companion must do. I’m glad the episode picked up on the fact that, up until she saw the dismembered corpses, she’d not yet experienced the kind of violent death that comes with the territory. As she said, it really brought home to her how serious the situations are that they get into. There was a comfortable mix of light comedy and edgy drama in the scene where she enters Skaldak’s detention area and speaks with him on behalf of the Doctor and the crew. It was also cleverly lit and shot in that you don’t realise until afterwards that Skaldak’s no longer in the suit at that point.

The sonic screwdriver. Hmmm... One unfortunate side-effect of it being such an all-eventualities tool these days is that as a viewer I now expect the Doctor to be able to wave it around and do pretty much whatever he wants with it – unless he’s opening a door made of wood. The dénouement to Cold War should have been a lot more powerful than it was, with nuclear war balancing on a knife edge over the press of a button, and only a philosophical argument on the flip of a coin to decide either way. The Doctor’s gesture was noble, offering to blow them all up rather than risk starting a war, but if activating the sonic screwdriver could do that you’d also expect it to be able to re-set the countdown and I found myself very conscious of this, which undermined the drama. Thankfully it didn’t come to that, but it’s not good that as a viewer I’m already expecting it.

I think this was a solid, intelligent and occasionally scary addition to the series as a whole. The Ice Warriors now have a firm platform from which to return, potentially, and I’m rather looking forward to them doing so.

Doctor Who series 7 reviews: The Rings Of Akhaten

So, second up this time around we have The Rings of Akhaten, written by Who newcomer Neil Cross. OK...

I very much enjoyed this episode on the first viewing, and having watched it again a couple more times since I’m still enjoying it. I understand that this isn’t a view shared by many though, and when I think about it more deeply myself I can see that my appreciation is purely on a superficial level.

It didn’t set my imagination aflame, quicken my pace with excitement or send me on a rollercoaster emotional ride, but it was good, honest, visually stimulating and entertaining Doctor Who. I don’t ask for much more – just maybe the occasional draw-droppingly brilliant episode! 

I was impressed with the sound of Neil Cross’ writing. I don’t know much of his work from elsewhere, but if this is anything to go by he writes very ‘sayable’ lines with flare and wit. If he can develop his supporting characters beyond mere ciphers then I’m sure he can give us great things in the future.

Clara’s had three introductions so far, and to a certain extent this episode also introduced her for a fourth time. We get all the family background and, most importantly, she gets her solo five minutes or so, holding her own in an alien environment with strange new people, putting across her companion manifesto for us to judge and coming out – I think – very strongly. JLC is being given some fine material to work with so far and is doing it justice. Her scenes looking after Merry Gejelh and giving her the support she clearly wasn’t getting elsewhere were utterly charming and really serve to stamp her imprint on the show. 

The episode had a surprisingly Tenth Doctor feel, with Matt Smith having some longer, more emotionally driven speeches more in the style of David Tennant. Also the general hubbub feel of the market area evoked the RTD era of the show. I didn’t object to the singing - it’s not like we’ve not had singing before in Doctor Who, and this was hardly the equivalent of the Buffy sing-along-an-episode. 

Are motorbikes becoming a ‘thing’ this series? That’s two episodes on the trot now where a motorbike-type vehicle has been used. Maybe Matt’s swapping hats for mopeds..? Last week’s bike looked cool, but unfortunately this one, supplied by the dog woman, looked like it came from my old CDT class at school. I wasn’t very good at CDT... But if the space bike looked like a blocky plywood disaster, the Mummy in the glass cabinet looked awesome - as did the three Vigil beings (homage to 1978’s Underworld intended..?) 

I wasn’t so keen on Grandfather Sun as a concept, I’ll admit – although there was a precedent set in 2007’s 42 for sentient suns about the universe. Doesn’t Grandfather die at the end though? It’s not really clear. If so then presumably that rings of Akhaten will disperse without a body to orbit, which won’t be great for those living and working there. Hmmm. Either that or it turned into a black hole. Double hmmm.

Also the Mummy and the Vigil looked great but we don’t really know what they were and in the end they were casually cast aside and wasted as red herrings. The sonic screwdriver yet again becomes an annoying shortcut, opening unopenable doors and fending off the Vigil’s attack. I hope the Vigil come back – I’d like to see them used properly.

I was very slightly creeped out at the beginning by the Doctor stalking Clara through her parents meeting and her growing up. It flowed OK from the end of the previous episode, but a casual viewer would be forgiven for wondering what was going on and if episodes are going to flow in this way it may be useful to have a brief reprise. I’m glad that at the end Clara realised the Doctor had been there at her mum’s graveside – it was a sobering reminder to the Doctor that he needs to be careful if he’s playing games like that. But maybe it’s time for a companion whom the Doctor hasn’t met as a child, or whom he doesn’t need to meet as a child, maybe? 

The Rings of Akhaten had a tricky job to do, because of where The Bells of St John left off. There was a lot of preamble to get in at the start, then the usual settling in of the new travelling companion on her first proper TARDIS trip, so we were really nearly half way into the episode before we got much in the way of intrigue or jeopardy. We’re not used to that kind of pedestrian pacing these days, and what it tended to do was draw attention to the lightness of the story and the supporting characters. Would we have given a fig about Merry if she wasn’t a small girl? Probably not.

But then, as I said at the beginning, I’ve watched this several times and enjoyed it on each occasion. I think the difference is that the better episodes really impress, whereas this was just enjoyment of a TV show I love, well made.

Over all this was an attractive episode, with colour and spectacle and monsters and the Doctor baring his soul at the end and needing the help of his companion to win the day – hooray. But for those who like to scrape the surface and nibble the rough edges underneath there were slim pickings. It’s an episode of ideas and concepts but it doesn’t flesh them out properly or develop them, just brushes them aside and moves on to the next item. For that reason this was a disappointing addition to the series.

Doctor Who series 7 reviews: The Bells Of St John

So here we go with Season 7 part 2, and the Steven Moffat-penned The Bells Of St John.

I noticed something very curious on social media after this episode was broadcast: my Facebook feed was positive about the episode, any my Twitter feed was negative.

So, what’s to like?

- Matt Smith continues to be great and also to show occasional touches that really surprise an audience (it’s reassuring to know that he hasn’t already given us all he’s got).

- Jenna Louise Coleman. I get the feeling I’m going to get fed up with saying how effortlessly brilliant and easy to watch she is, but she is so it must be said. I like the fact that, in what’s essentially a companion introduction story she doesn’t have the solution to it all. She helps, assists proactively, but she doesn’t ‘solve the crime’ herself so to speak.

- Celia Imrie. Compare her with Samantha Bond in The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of The Bane, or Sarah Lancashire in Partners In Crime. She’s no silky, posturing baddie. She’s in charge. She’s unscrupulous. But there’s no sneering to camera. A very well-pitched performance with the added bonus of making the audience totally empathise with her at the end as she regresses mentally to a child. I hope that posterity brings her out from the shadow of Victoria Wood and Julie Walters.

- The hairy guy eating chips being possessed: this guy was comedy gold – probably my favourite ‘moment’ of the episode.

- The spoonheads: finally the ‘smilers’ idea from The Beast Below done properly and with a clear purpose. The Doctor spoonhead was really unnerving, a proper moment of discomfort.

- Helpline. Yes, I know this is an obvious ploy to get the audience guessing ‘who was that woman in the shop’ but I love the idea of being able to call the TARDIS phone for help. It at least makes a change from the psychic paper.

- It had pace, excitement, pizzazz, a vertical motorcycle journey and the best off-screen window smash since Spearhead From Space.

And what’s to like less?

- The Great Intelligence. At Christmas in Victorian times it sounded like Ian McKellen. Richard E. Grant was just its human tool. But now it looks and sounds like a disembodied Richard E. Grant instead. I don’t follow.

- Richard E. Grant. It felt to me like he was phoning it in with his brief appearance on the screen at the end; there was no sense of performance or delivery at all. A real shame.

- Characters stand there while the spoonhead turns around to scan them. Pfff. Grumble all you want, Twitter, but I’ll take this as dramatic licence thank you very much. We’re watching fiction, not real life, and it’s worthwhile now and again to get a ‘theatrical’ moment to remind us of that. A Dalek standing there repeating ‘exterminate’ five times before blasting someone is a more common example.

- Do we need another sassy, flirtatious modern female companion who is either being manipulated by someone / thing or is a mystery for the Doctor to unlock? Arguably not – but fortunately JLC’s performance far outweighs this. Personally I’d have been very happy to have her on board as a Victorian governess. I would, however, prefer any mystery to be resolved or at least side-lined before the 50^th Anniversary Special later in the year. That needs to focus on The Doctor as the centre, not on the companion in my view.

- I don’t know if the writer / director believes that we, as audience, should be surprised when a cowled mysterious figure is brought in as some sort of enigma and turns out to be The Doctor. It happened here and it happened in The Wedding of River Song. Neither occasion has surprised me – in fact what would have surprised me is if the figure had turned out not to be The Doctor! It just seems like a pointless distraction to me.

- Taking Clara home at the end. He was doing this with the Ponds all the time too towards the end of their reign. If the production team are consciously leaving gaps for the novels and audiobooks to fill that’s fine and may serve me right for not reading or listening to them. Personally I prefer the ongoing travelling narrative. It’s not like going to work every day, it’s supposed to be extraordinary. Otherwise it’s just Mr Benn (‘as if by magic, *ting*, the Doctor appears’) with Clara popping out every morning to see what adventures the blue box will hold for her that day.

- Sonic screwdriver. I’ve always loved the sonic, and I used to get frustrated in the 80s when The Doctor would comment about how much he missed not having it or should really make himself a new one (so do it already!). But its function in the new series as a catch-all scanner and whatever the writers need it to be that week can be testing at times. For instance why sonic scan the raw-state spoonhead? Why not give the spoonhead a concealed keyboard instead that The Doctor can hack? It wouldn’t delay the action much, and above all it would just make a nice change.

- It wasn’t clear to me what use the uploaded humans were to The Great Intelligence. More ‘mind space’ for it to occupy, perhaps? But that wouldn’t make sense because it’s all just data on drives surely, so is the Great Intelligence now just a sentient hard drive, like Xoanon or The Oracle?

There’s a bit more negative than positive here, I realise – which is odd because I really enjoyed the episode and I try not to be a pedant (my good lady wife, for example, was distracted by a continuity error with the placing of the bitten jammy dodger, which I willingly forgave!)

The character interplay between The Doctor and Clara was excellent and it promises good things for the remaining seven weeks and beyond. The story was engaging and comfortably linear, if not that surprising. And although technically it’s not a season opener it’s become that by default and I think it’s whetted the appetite sufficiently for the next few months.

Doctor Who in Print: Target sets its sights...

I was watching 'On Target - Terrance Dicks' on the Doctor Who The Monster of Peladon DVD this morning and something Paul Cornell said really made me think.

I've recently been revisiting some of the early books in the Target range, including their re-prints of the three mid-1960s books originally published by Frederick Muller: Doctor Who and The Daleks by David Whittaker, Doctor Who and The Zarbi by Bill Strutton and Doctor Who and The Crusaders again by David Whittaker.

When discussing how the Target books came into being Paul Cornell said that these three re-print titles came from an earlier, much more basic age of children's story telling - the inference being that the newer TV adaptations that Terrance and others were embarking on was more developed and progressive.

I disagree with this entirely.

What marks these three titles out as extra special in my view is how bold, challenging and 'adult' they are in so many respects. They come from a different era, when roles, values and standards were different - but then the TV shows they were based on did too, and to us now in the (cough, erm) enlightened 21st Century many of the 1970s and 80s Target books display outmoded views and opinions that need contextualising as well.

To pick a few examples from these pioneering 60s novelisations, the way David Whittaker develops the romantic relationship between Ian and Barbara across both his books is never patronising or simple, and none of the later Target books dared to treat any of the companions in the same way. By the end of The Crusaders I was bemoaning the fact that more stories hadn't been written and published at the time - at least The Chase to finish off Ian and Barbara's story.
Bill Strutton doesn't follow Whittaker's romantic ideals, but he extertly manages to show how the Menoptra aren't naturally friendly and trusting towards our stranded heroes - this has to be built through mutual struggle towards the same ends. It's an alien world with alien cultures and alien values. The Menoptra and Optera are anthropomorphised, but there is little reason for them to trust to TARDIS crew and not look upon them as another obstacle to them reclaiming their planet. We the reader know otherwise, but in an age where the TV Doctor and his companions are very easily accepted almost everywhere they go in order to keep the stories moving at pace it is refreshing to be reminded of the differences that may prevent groups of well-meaning species to automatically bond.

Both authors are far more cavalier with their source material than the Target books would quickly become as they were churned out, factory style. Strutton makes one wonder how heavily his TV scripts were edited by Dennis Spooner, since the controlling intelligence here is no longer called The Animus and the Menoptra device isn't an 'isoptope', amongst other alterations. They don't change the story, but they're telling in their differences. Whittaker had already script-edited The Daleks for TV and adapted it for the cinema, so it's no wonder he takes a different approach to the novelisation and at the same time chooses to bring the 'crew' together in a different way - subtely different to, yet also similar to, the TV version from the previous story An Unearthly Child. It works for the narrative style, but Barbara loses out as a character - we never really get to know her, unfortunately. This is rectified in The Crusaders, told in a more standard third-person style and where much of the peril and action involves Barbara and her struggle with El-Akir - a violent and potentially sexual struggle that the narrative doesn't shy away from. It's a lyrical and often powerful TV drama. As a novel this is heightened many fold.

These early novelisations are not constrained by a low page count, but at the same time they're not overly long - they feel like they're allowed to be as long and in-depth as they need to be. This, at least was carried over into the early original Target books too, as were the wonderful illustrations. The Daleks, being the longest TV story of the three, is economical by telling the story completely from Ian Chesterton's viewpoint - an experiment never again attempted in the range. The Crusaders, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to develop its story and action in ways that the TV series could never have allowed at the time.

There is little sense of cosiness about any of these three books, and in my opinion little sense of them being written for children at all - intelligent teenagers, perhaps, or young adults. But whereas I recall loving The Auton Invasion and Day of The Daleks from the early Target books as a child, for example, I missed a lot of the subtlety of The Daleks in my quest for spectacle, and I couldn't get engaged by The Zarbi or The Crusaders at all. Reading them now I'm not surprised. I think the very opposite of what Paul Cornell claims is true: if these books were written for children they were written in such a way as not to conceal or heavily sugarcoat any of the harsh and emotional realities of life, not to patronise and very firmly to trust the reader. You didn't have to have watched the TV show first to enjoy these books. Yes the lead character is often referred to as 'Doctor Who', just like in the annuals and comic strips of the time - but then Target allowed Gerry Davis to do this in his Tomb of The Cybermen novelisation out of nowhere in 1978, so there was clearly no hard and fast rule on the subject. It's not enough to convince me to dismiss these books as unsophisticated. I believe these are three of the most powerful and well-written books in the whole Doctor Who range.

A Doctor Who Season in print: 23 - The Trial of A Time Lord

This will probably be my last one of these, as it's the last series of four stories I can write about. Have I left the best till last?

Season 23 was one long 14-part Doctor Who story, The Trial of A Time Lord, where - surprise surprise - The Doctor was put on trial for his life. But it was split into several sections or 'stories', by several writers, and so these were all adapted as separate books (albeit branded with a Trial of A Time Lord cover flash). So we've got:

The Mysterious Planet, by Terrance Dicks
Mindwarp, by Philip Martin
Terror of The Vervoids, by Pip & Jane Baker
The Ultimate Foe, by Pip & Jane Baker

They weren't published together, or in story order either. But the real shame is that there's no editorial continuity, so each book exists both as an individual entity in its own right and yet still attempts to be part of the larger whole story.

But is that a bad thing, and does it work?

First up, but published second, is The Mysterious Planet, written by Robert Holmes and adapted by Terrance Dicks. This was a pretty flat and unremarkable four episodes on TV but I think it suits the page much better. This is Terrance Dicks' only Sixth Doctor adaptation and there's a real sense that he's relished the challenge and also that he very much respects Holmes' script. Holmes had died by this point, so perhaps for Dicks this was a kind of personal tribute. It suits the length (127 pages) and it's a pleasant, relaxed read that trundles along nicely. It sets the scene for the Trial well enough at the beginning, pitching the menage a trois inter-play between The Doctor, The Valeyard and The Inquisitor, and some of the dramatic high points that appear forced on TV are much easier to stomach on the page. It's an exceptionally verbal and witty script in places, and this comes across very effectively in Dicks' novelisation. For example Glitz and Dibber have a habit of talking about what they're doing or going to do, rather than just getting on and doing it - in a sort of witty self-promotional commentary. Whereas this can be frustrating on TV it suits the prose medium much better. Merdeen's duality also sits more comfortably on the page, giving us access to his thoughts, and there's more of a sense of Drathro's purpose and problem - the robot actually creates pathos at times! This is a great start to the season and Dicks has brought years of experience to a deceptively simple and unpretentious read.

Next up, but published last, is Mindwarp by Philip Martin. Again this was a great read, with a slightly longer page count (142 pages) and some effective development of the TV script in places. We now have Zon, Keeper of the Record of Time activating the Matrix screen and running the evidence, not the Valeyard himself. Mindwarp is a very uncomfortable story, with an unpleasant job to do - no less the case on the page than on the screen. This is possibly the adaptation where the story itself and its part within the Trial are most at odds. In the Trial we have to join the story when it's already underway, because it's being presented as evidence. The Doctor tells Peri (us, effectively) at the start that he's actively following up a mystery over arms supplies. The novelisation follows this, but there wouldn't be anything stopping Martin from adding a prologue chapter outlining the action we've missed. After all, he gives us an epilogue offering a (far more plausible) alternative 'happy' ending to Peri's story than the TV version did. Mindwarp is a very colourful, visual TV story and it's to Martin's credit that the novelisation also feels the same. It could be argued that there's too much going on; Sil, having dominated Vengeance On Varos the previous season, is a bit lost within the mix here and is reduced to a comedic supporting role, which is a shame. But since the story is so unpleasant the comedy is necessary to try to balance it. However, nothing can balance the horror of The Doctor abandoning Peri and allowing her to be operated on: it is the ultimate failure from the hero who fought death itself to save her from an infection just after they met.
The Trial scenes, inter-cutting the main action, are often lumpy and graceless as The Doctor rants and makes childish gibes at The Valeyard but this is as much symptomatic of the length of the Trial story as much as any failings by the writer. Needless to say Zon, Keeper of the Record of Time does not appear again after this book.
Despite the unpleasant storyline this is a great read that rattles along with pace and energy and occasionally wit, like The Mysterious Planet.

Third in line, but published first, is the case for the defence:Terror of The Vervoids, by Pip & Jane Baker. I was wary of this book, following my experiences last year with their Time And The Rani novelisation which was without equal the worst, most patronising Target book I've read. I managed to keep a relatively open mind, though, and I'm glad I did because this was another enjoyable read. Three out of three so far.
A trial is not necessarily the best setting for a Doctor Who story if evidence is being presented and you're trying to tell a story at the same time without giving everything away to the reader early on when some detail is challenged. That happens at least once here, where the Doctor has to answer 'the murderer', rather than giving the character's name. The Bakers do allow a moment for The Inquisitor to reveal that she's interested in the mystery being played out on the Matrix screen but there's definitely artistic licence being shown throughout all these books so far in that respect. There's an interesting attempt by the authors to treat this as a proper murder mystery novel, as well, with occasional comments from an omniscient narrator, and this adds to the charm and the readability of the book - particularly when building Professor Lasky's background just before her death. At 144 pages it's the longest of the four novelisations, and like its two predecessors it's an often unchallenging and fun read, with only occasional moments of verbal diarrhoea over the scientists and the specialist subjects of their studies.
What is a shame, and it's difficult to pinpoint if this is the fault of the Bakers or producer John Nathan-Turner who 'created' the character, is that Mel Bush only comes across as a cipher and never as a proper believable character. She is whatever the situation requires her to be and spurts words in a way that no one would ever naturally speak. Little character traits are shoe-horned in and accompanied with brief, clumsy explanations just so the audience knows. Fortunately this doesn't ruin the book because the Sixth Doctor is possibly the best he's ever been on the Hyperion III: wonderfully understated, calm and at times scheming. Unfortunately this cannot describe the courtroom sequences which continue to break up the story without feeling that they add much to the over-arching story. Regardless, at this point I'd have welcomed a volume that combined all three books and told the whole story (moving the Mindwarp Epilogue to the very end, of course).

With only two episodes left, it couldn't all go wrong with the final book The Ultimate Foe could it? This was the third of the four books to be published, and it's well known amongst fandom what a tortured birth the story had. The novelisation is again by Pip & Jane Baker, although the first half of the story (episode 13 of Trial) was written by the ailing Robert Holmes and script editor Eric Saward. Saward then had a falling out with producer JN-T and withdrew his episode 14 script. So the producer had to bring in another writer to try to finish the story in a different way to what Holmes & Saward had planned, but using the same characters and sets. Having been reliable in the recent past JN-T brought in eccentric Bakers who did their best to pick up from the episode 13 cliff hanger and bring things to a happy conclusion in a way that met JN-T's wishes. Tough call.
Having had such a messy conception what The Ultimate Foe really needs is a completely different writer to adapt it as a novel, someone who can look at it all dispassionately and even it out. I'm reminded of Terrance Dicks novelising Season 7's The Ambassadors of Death, rather than David Whittaker or Malcolm Hulke who were too close to the pain of it. But we don't get that here. Terrance Dicks would have been the obvious choice too. No, instead we get the Bakers practically crucifying Holmes and Saward's work, which takes up about a third of the 126 page book, before developing their own ending which met JN-T's requirement and resolves everything happily.
The story can't help but feel uneven, but is it any good? Terror of The Vervoids leaves us with a cliff hanger, where The Doctor is charged with genocide. Then lots of things happen at the beginning of The Ultimate Foe - probably too many things. The Master appears in the Matrix having the time of his life, The Valeyard is revealed to be a future evil incarnation of The Doctor, Mel and Glitz are transported to the Courtroom to help The Doctor and things suddenly move inside the Matrix, recalling 1976's The Deadly Assassin. It all sounds a bit nuts really. Sabalom Glitz was previously a strong, proactive character in The Mysterious Planet, with a dim side-kick. Here, solo, he becomes a comedy stooge both for The Doctor and The Master. Mel is served no better as a character here than she was in Terror of The Vervoids. Even worse for her, as she's officially the new companion, Glitz is taken into the Matrix by The Doctor to help him with the main action leaving her standing around looking up The Master's nose on the Matrix screen. It's all a bit of a mess and it's not clear what The Valeyard is looking to achieve from hiding away in the Matrix.
Unenviably, the Bakers pick up this mess but their solution is to throw a dictionary at it while the characters wander around for pages not really doing anything and continually avoiding each other so they can spurt ridiculous dialogue. They have a lot to squeeze in - except they don't in fairness; it's virtually all padding, going nowhere and explaining nothing. It could all have been a lot simpler and the ending much less hurried but they procrastinate and prevaricate and it all gets very rushed at the end which is not to the story's benefit.

A word of advice to P&J from an experienced reader from a young age: there is a difference between educating or inspiring young people to improve their vocabulary through an entertaining read, and an author coming across as being utterly pretentious and conceited. That's how the Bakers appear here, with their attempts at minimal word count but maximum syllable count. I could cope with thremmatologists and agronomists in Terror of the Vervoids, even The Mark of The Rani's 'apposite epithets', but The Ultimate Foe takes this to a whole new level and the bottom line is that nobody speaks that way in real life, or in the established worlds of Doctor Who up to that point or since! Such is their quest for long or silly words to try to confuse the readers with, and increase dictionary sales, that they give us a 'megabyte modem' which The Valeyard is using inside the Matrix to try to assassinate the Courtroom jury - presumably he's going to shock them with the disgraceful images he's downloading off the Internet. Hmmm.
It's not as bad a read as Time And The Rani, but it's still a shame because up to now the books detailing The Trial of A Time Lord have been really enjoyable. Unfortunately this final instalment is just a wordy mess and is a really unsatisfactory conclusion.

Perhaps it's because this season came at a time of (and as a result of) massive upheaval for the TV series, or perhaps there wasn't a procedure of heavy editorial involvement in the Target range at the time, but for four linked books telling one long story I can only see it as a shame that there's no stylistic consistency throughout all the books, no conscious attempt at narrative continuity between them and only very little attempt to expand on what was seen on TV. They are, in the main, very enjoyable reads, but in keeping with the TV episodes themselves the Trial story over all lacks cohesion and punch - never more so than in its conclusion.
 

Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books

I've tried to set myself something of a Christmas tradition these last couple of (married) years, and read an edition of Dickens' Christmas stories each December. In 2011 I read the Penguin Classics A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings, so in 2012 I chose A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books (Oxford Classics, 2006, edited by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst). The plan is to rotate these two each year until I get sick of them. We'll see how long that lasts...

So, this Season's 500 page tome contained the full set of Dickens' annual Christmas books, originally published separately and then gathered into a collection by the author in 1852. We get A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Cricket On The Hearth (1845), The Battle Of Life (1846) and The Haunted Man (1848). 1847 was missed, we're told in the introduction, because Charlie was too busy working on Dombey and Son.

A quick side comment on the illustrations: these are gorgeous, and do much to enhance the charm and appeal of the various texts. Dickens prose is often florid and picturesque anyway, but these occasional and expressive line drawings add that extra dimension and really encourage the reader's imagination.

But back to the words:

A Christmas Carol is for many of us our first experience of Charles Dickens, and I'm sure for far too many of us is the only experience of Charles Dickens too - either in book form or the endless round of TV, film and stage adaptations. It's evolved into a piece of pure Christmas folklore these days, with the characters having settled in to the public psyche and taken on a life of their own beyond the confines of the story. Scrooge himself is now a descriptive term, readily interchangeable for 'miserly' and it undoubtedly comes as a shock to some that the word / name hails from this story.
So much of what we consider to be 'Christmas', as depicted in images on cards and in songs, comes from this story - or rather was first gathered and captured in this story. I wouldn't want to claim that Dickens invented what we now think of as Christmas, but he did a hell of a lot to cement much of its romantic imagery in our consciousness.

The Christmas Carol story is brilliant. Purely, simply brilliant. It has atmosphere aplenty, it tugs at the heartstrings, it paints so many wonderful pictures and it rockets along at quite a pace. The only occasion when a modern reader might baulk these days is over the length of time it takes for Scrooge to realise that he's dead in the future when it's plainly obvious to all as soon as he's taken there. Unfortunately for Ebenezer he needs to be shown his gravestone before he accepts the fact. But other than this psychological quibble it is possibly the perfect Christmas yarn, the perfect ghost story and the perfect 'feel good' tale.
I don't see myself tiring of reading this story each year at all.

The downside of A Christmas Carol being so good, and coming first, is that Dickens set himself an almost impossible task in attempting to match it each year. If this Oxford Classics book does anything it shows that, frankly, he failed. In fact, it's not surprising that after four valiant attempts he decided to leave it and just dedicate a special seasonal issue of Household Words, his periodical, to Christmas-related stories instead. There he could share the pain with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and various other contributors of varying literary skill.

The Chimes presents us with 'Trotty' Veck, a street courier / messenger for hire, who likes hot tripe and worries about his daughter and potential future son-in-law. My first reaction was 'I don't like his name'. I'm not proud of that as a critical response, but as a reader looking for some Christmas-time escapism it immediately put me at odds with the text and prevented me from getting fully immersed in the world - which is where I wanted to be. So much of Dickens' work is full of wonderfully expressive character names. Trotty Veck is not a good example. He's also a fool and it's difficult to sympathise with him. There's a supernatural element where Veck has apparently died and is shown the future by the goblins who live in the 'Chimes', the local Church bells, but it never has any of the heart-warming appeal of the Carol and I found my attention wandering. Of course it all works out fine in the end, and Trotty hasn't died - it's all a tripe-induced bad dream, and he and his daughter manage to help some strangers to what will hopefully be a better life with Veck's landlady below. There's a moral in the story, apparently, but it was lost on this reader because I felt at odds with the text the whole time.

What off-balanced me completely was that on the last page Dickens suddenly comes over all self aware, questioning his and the reader's perceptions over the text we've just read. It's all very Sternean, and I can't help but feel the whole piece would have had more charm and appeal if Dickens had taken the playful or unreliable narrator role throughout instead. This 'afterword' comes across, instead, like a knowing wink from an orator, closing a public presentation (and one now is put in mind of Dickens own public readings of A Christmas Carol.)

The Cricket On The Hearth was an improvement, inasmuch as it held my attention, but again the world it depicts didn't reach out to me as a reader and I found the characters and their situations difficult to empathise with. Dickens, in glorious Nineteenth Century fashion, was prone to verbosity and over-description and I started to feel a bit fatigued by over-writing during this story. There's no supernatural involvement this time - although the title and the introduction lead one to expect some input from the cricket at some juncture - but there's also no overtly Christmassy feel to the story. It's quite a sweet story as it turns out, and it shows the value of trust and deep love in a marriage - presumably not just at Christmas though. Again we're given characters of lowly status in the world, with Dickens writing moral lessons for the common man, but none of the characters are particularly vivid or endearing and, alas, none of the names really stood out.

I really struggled with The Battle Of Life more than any of the stories. If I hadn't been determined to finish the collection this would have made me give up. To me it was 80-odd pages of words, failing to interest or engage me at all and with nothing to do with celebrating Christmas - and I don't get what the title has to do with the story specifically. The characters lacked definition and I found it tiring continually having to remind myself of settings and relationships because I found no interest in them or their situation. Does this story constitute a valuable addition to the English literary canon? Not in my view. I can only hope that in two years time when I pick it up again I'm a more enlightened reader.

We're back on supernatural ground with the final story The Haunted Man. It starts off wonderfully, with a gorgeous atmosphere and I was really quite taken from page one. It has a psychological punch which adds interest, but it still has a tendency to wander and ramble, and it requires considerable concentration on the part of the reader to keep tabs on who is where and how everyone fits together. This story was also included in the Penguin Classics edition I'd read the previous year, so I was already familiar with it, but I don't think that made me fonder of it, or that I found it easier to read this time around.

Maybe my mistake was in reading them all one after another - could I have 'Dickensed' myself out? Perhaps next year I should split the stories up with other reads in between, or only read one per year? Or perhaps I should have thought 'I wonder why these other stories aren't as well known as A Christmas Carol?'
These stories were collected together by Dickens as 'The Christmas Books' in 1852, so he was actively encouraging comparison and comment, and for them to be looked at as a whole. A Christmas Carol is a good length story, not too florid but not too concise. The Chimes, The Cricket On the Hearth and The Battle Of Life all feel too long and rambling to me. The Haunted Man is better at holding its length and maintaining interest, but I think it's a shame when a story or novella feels laboured and drawn out. The other clear point for me is that the later books don't offer any further Christmas trappings or folklore (at least not that's been handed down through the years); they don't build on any established myths or create any of their own, they're merely novellas published around Christmas time but not subscribing themselves to any obvious Christmas celebrations.

Dickens imagined himself something of a social campaigner, highlighting the plight of the poor and the general inequality of life - largely through his own personal experiences. But he was a realist too: he satirises, he jibes and pokes away through his creative writing where he can also make a successful living, rather than jeopardising his position with more forceful campaigning. These Christmas stories are very representative of that side of Dickens - they have a didactic purpose, painting pictures of life in various strata, and can be seen as homilies in many ways. But whereas in his novels Dickens had the space to develop characters and build situations I don't believe this novella length was a comfortable medium for him: his work falls between two stools, not having enough space and time to develop strong central characters with clear and original messages, whilst at the same time wanting to pack too much in, thus overcrowding the short capacity and leaving the reader befuddled at times. All except A Christmas Carol, of course, in which he gets everything right.

All things considered, these lesser known Christmas stories have value and interest from a bibliographical or contextual perspective, and they add value to collections of Dickens shorter published works these days, but truly there is only one Christmas Book and that is A Christmas Carol.

Doctor Who series 7 reviews: The Snowmen

I think it's clear by now that the Doctor Who Christmas Specials work best when they have a purpose, and they're not trying to just be 'Specials'. Easily the best of the bunch have been 2005's The Christmas Invasion, introducing David Tennant as The Doctor, 2010's The End of Time 2-parter, seeing out David Tennant's Doctor, and now 2012's The Snowmen introducing, or continuing to introduce, the mystery that is new companion Clara Oswin Oswald - played wonderfully by Jenna-Louise Coleman.

Despite her appearance in the brilliant Season 7 opener Asylum of The Daleks this is very much a jumping-on point for the series, post-Ponds. We have a new theme arrangement, new titles, new Doctor costume and new TARDIS interior.
- New theme: fine, but I do miss the powerful diddly-dum because it's not all about the woo-oos.
- New titles: wow! There's a hell of a lot going on there, including (at last!) the Doctor's face appearing briefly. The final section is very reminiscent of the split-screen effect diamond-shaped time tunnel used in the latter Jon Pertwee and the Tom Baker titles. Nice!
- New Doctor costume: another tick for me. I always preferred a longer coat on The Doctor. Again, there's much detail and hidden layers - much like the Time Lord himself I guess.
- New TARDIS interior: Yes, I like this - but then I haven't yet seen one that I didn't really like at all (even the washing up bowl walls used for The Time Monster). My only grumble is probably a standard fanboy niggle: there aren't enough roundels! Just the one line around the walls, not all over the place like they used to be. But it's an interesting design, a bit more regimented than recent efforts, with visible edges and corners, and maintaining the different height levels gives flexibility. It also looks more functional and user-friendly - particularly more so than the Eccleston / Tennant 'coral' version with its ethereal fish tank lighting.

So, the episode itself: it's difficult to say too much really because I really enjoyed it and there's a tendency to gush and be over-enthusiastic to the point of sycophancy. So I'll be brief and only touch on those aspects that really stood out.
The episode had a level of style and visual quality that we've come to expect from recent episodes. Saul Metzstein has already proven himself to be a stand-out director within the current bunch.
Commander Strax, Madame Vastra & Jenny have appeared before but were served much better this time than in A Good Man Goes To War (2011). The humour from Strax is wonderful because it comes directly from his character, and isn't forced. Could this weird triumvirate be the next spin-off now Torchwood has disappeared up its own hell-hole? They certainly look great in Victorian garb.
Richard E. Grant spent a bit too long talking through his teeth for my liking, but he was still generally good value and Ian McKellen was excellent as the disembodied voice of the Great Intelligence, a Classic villain returning after 44 years. It's pleasing that in our high-tech world something that is only a large globe with some plastic snow blowing around in it can be so effective as a visual embodiment of 'evil'; very Jules Verne, I thought.
Having avoided the spoilers it was great fun working out that it was actually the Great Intelligence behind it all - although the episode title becomes an obvious feed once you know (for the uninitiated the original Intelligence story was called The Abominable Snowmen). I particularly enjoyed the scene where Grant became an animated cadaver; such staples of horror are always memorable and his frozen face added to the effect immensely.
The Snowmen monsters themselves were fun, however I think they would have looked scarier with no teeth, just a gaping maw - I felt this when I forst saw the pre-publicity images. But then the show has quite recently done the whole empty mouth effect with the Silents so I can understand them not wanting to go down that road again.
Matt Smith was once again on fire in this episode. Frankly I wasn't that impressed with the prequel shown back in November - it didn't whet my appetite and I wasn't moved by the moody Doctor at all. In the episode proper, though, Smith quickly got out of his funk and gave the usual tour de force - particularly when dressed as Sherlock Holmes and in all of his scenes opposite Richard E. Grant.
Jenna-Louise Coleman stole the show though. There was so much going on in her performance, she was incredibly watchable - full of fun, energy and sparkle. It's no wonder she so easily pulled the Doctor out of his 'retirement'. Her confidence and ability was never more prominent than in the 'one word' scene with Madame Vastra & Jenny. A gorgeously written and perfectly played set-piece where the power shifts wonderfully from Vastra to Clara as the conversation progresses. And yes, the final word 'Pond' was loaded and worked on various levels. But at least any Amy and Rory memories this may have engendered were left to the audience to fill in themselves (should they choose) without the kind of laboured soul-searching that would accompany 10th Doctor memories of Rose, for example.
And amongst all this there's a further mystery for us fans: why didn't / couldn't the Doctor quite remember the Great Intelligence? It was mentioned and almost thrown away towards the end, but this eagle-eared viewer spotted it straight away. Is this a seed for a forthcoming story arc? Tennant's Doctor had no trouble remembering the Macra back in Season 3 and they're contemporaneous with the Yeti and the Great Intelligence. Tricky. Is this another of Moffatt's little games?
Some people have observed that the ending was a bit rushed, or convenient. That's very symptomatic of the series as a whole since its return, and sometimes (as in The Fires of Pompeii) it bugs me but here it didn't seem out of place or sudden.
What was impressive about the ending, though, was the way it set up the mystery for the remainder of this series (and beyond..?) about who or what these Clara / Oswin characters are and how or why they're relating to the Doctor. I'm rather excited about the whole thing - so roll on the Spring!