Doctor Who books read - Part 6 - first lot for 2014!

Here’s the first lot of Dr Who books for this year.  Be excited!  (Some of you, that is.  The rest of you; lose the will to live, but be polite and English and just wait for the next post without much complaint.)  I seem to have got off to a very Target heavy start, full of the original adventures as seen on TV.  Only one exception this time – an 8^th Doctor segment, and a good one.  This instalment gives you treats of the first, second, sixth and eighth Doctors.

As always with these rambly reviews: SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS IMMINENT!!!!

A note on order.  Target Originals are not read in order of publication (which was all over the place), but in order of each Doctor, and each Doctor is read in order of their stories broadcast on TV.  However, I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given time.  The Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8^th Doctor series (as though they had been on TV, see?  I’m trying to get an arc flavour).  The BBC Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting in-between the TV ones.

Oh, and in case you forgot, I’ve taken to recording which books I read that are actual paper copies, and which are Kindle or other electronic.  I’m being social historical for my own benefit. I want to see how long it is before I just plug books straight into my brain, how many years before I’m a reading cyborg.

Off we go…

1. Doctor Who: Attack of the Cybermen, by Eric Saward (Target Original)
   (6^th Doctor. Apart from Eric Saward’s idiosyncratic way of telling a story, I finished this in an evening.  Oddly readable and one of those Dr Who stories that was filled with death.  Practically all the characters died, and in a way that felt sudden and almost unnecessary.  I wonder if real life feels like that in war zones: sudden and stupid unnecessary death of practically everyone.  The thing is: the Doctor regretted misjudging Lytton, but how else was he to have judged him?  He was only working on previous experience and current behaviour.  There was also no actual indication that Lytton was working for the Cryons for anything other than money; no hint of principle.  Just because he was on the right side for once didn’t mean he was on the right side for the right reason.  And does that matter?!  Well, it makes you think…ACTUAL BOOK.)

2. Doctor Who: Marco Polo, by John Lucarotti (Target original)
   (1^st Doctor. This was excellent, thoroughly enjoyed it.  For some reason the guest characters all struck me as very real, even Tegana the War Lord, who was really a bit of a walking testosterone stereotype.  I think its because I knew only sketchy information about the period and the characters of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan – the novel made me quite hungry to go and find out more; surely that’s what these historicals always intended – to stimulate 12 year olds [or in this case 42 year olds!] to go and off and learn more about a period. 
   
   I felt the passage of time keenly in this book – their journey across the desert hot by day and freezing by night, taking months, with stops here and there.  Time wasn’t glossed over with montage scenes.  I felt it pass.  Lovely feeling of reality.  Their three attempts at escape, punctuating the action.  The growing intrigues with Tegana, and the friendship between Susan and Ping Cho.  I almost don’t want to see these episodes were they ever recovered, in case my usual boredom with the BBC Hampstead style of acting at the time ruins what for me was a splendid page-turner of a book.  Then again, I do love watching William Hartnell’s face – one moment wise, the next sinister, the next grumpy or thoughtful…Anyway, only time will tell on that front.  Loved this one – 20/10!  ACTUAL BOOK.)

3. Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen, by Gerry Davis (Target Original)
   (2^nd Doctor.  Much better than I expected it to be from watching the episodes of this one.  It’s that Hampstead school of static acting not doing it for me again.  Yet the book: whole different proposition.  Kaftan came across enigmatic but interesting, instead of snobby and stuffy.  Toberman became a tragic but noble figure.  Parry seemed to grow allsorts of personality I failed to see when watching.  Klieg was the only one who remained an unbelievable character for me – the minute he gets his hands on a cybergun he seems all shiny eyed and possessed…and I just didn’t buy it.  The people I liked the best though here were Victoria and the Doctor himself.  She was consistently painted as capable and  practical – not a pretty screamer, as she’s so often remembered; and the Doctor was infinitely thoughtful, his face described so well, with its changing expressions, its history. 
   
   The end was remarkably sober: an apology, an acceptance…all very low key.  The entire story was structured beautifully too: its pacing was excellent, I wasn’t bored for a moment, it all flowed, one thing to the next.  I even felt sorry for the CyberController by the end.  Jamie was his usual punctuative self: creating breaks in an otherwise serious story with his questioning and quips.  Very well done; to make me interested, properly in the cybermen.  I felt their We Will Survive mantra.  Something they wouldn’t understand at all, of course…ACTUAL BOOK.)

4. Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus, by Phillip Hinchcliffe (Target Original)
   (1^st Doctor.  This might be an unpopular choice from all I’ve read in Who fan forums, but I enjoyed this one on TV and I enjoyed the book even moreso!  I liked the way it was stories within a story, and yet they did all flow together as part of one narrative.  I enjoyed the introductory segment with the acid sea and the meeting with Arbitan; the ‘whispering jungle’ and the creepers with their accelerated growth. I enjoyed fearing for Barbara during the section with the brutish Trapper; the resourcefulness of Susan in the ice cavern section, helping to rebuild the bridge.  The whole Ian getting framed for a murder and the odd trial with its guilty till proven innocent basis was enjoyable too.  There was something clean, uncomplicated and neatly flowing about this story.  Lots of little opportunities explored and then moved on. 
   
   Looking back, I can’t exactly put my finger on why I enjoyed this one so much: maybe such healthy does of Ian and Barbara: I do really enjoy them as companions.  Maybe also the puzzle solving motif; the orderliness of solving the mystery of where the micro circuits are.  I can’t say.  But in bed reading this, after Fluffhead slept, I had to make myself only read a couple of chapters a night and not just rip through it.  I kept seeing William Hartnell’s smiley yet sinister face in my head.  It made me smile. ACTUAL BOOK.)

5. Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos, by Philip Martin (Target Original)
   (6^th Doctor. Oddly, I really enjoyed this one on TV, greatly sympathised with its themes – yet there was something oddly soulless in the reading of it.  I don’t think this was a fault of the writing, which moved along just fine.  I’m not sure what it was.  Perhaps simply that this theme – still so obviously relevant today, with its reality TV show vibe and the endless piping in of disasters via predatory 24 hour news; the whole blood and circuses at one remove, that of the screen…maybe this group ofthemes simply work better on screen than off?
   
   I also found I had several problems: I don’t think they plotholes as such, just a skimming over the surface of issues that if you put the book down and consider for 5 minutes, would immediately occur to you.  This: why was Varos so poor?  How on earth did they not know the value of Zeitan 7? Surely if you’re going to export something, you’d do a bit of market research?  Even if you never considered exporting and someone came to you with a pittance offer – wouldn’t you still double check??  After all, no one does anyone any favours in the business world – the metal had to be worth something if Sil’s company wanted to buy it!  You wouldn’t accept the first company that came along with an offer – especially if the offer is terribly low and the person fronting the company is as obviously odious and untrustworthy as Sil???!  Please.  It would be like David Cameron trying to sell me shares in the Post Office.  Alarm bells going off all over.
   
   And also: if Varos is busy, as its other export, selling what is effectively torture porn and snuff movies…well…that would have a HUGE market [even if it had to be a huge underground black market].  It would make money the way drugs do…I think the Officer Class in charge of Varos would have to be extremely idle and rubbish businessmen to not be creaming it off everywhere…and even though they did seem to be in luxury whilst the ordinary people were not, the ordinary people seemed to have no clue: were the servants of the Officer Class not recruited from the ranks of the ordinary people, and have families of their own…be a bit better paid…would tell their families of the lifestyles of the other half of the planet??  There’s an invisible Middle Class here somewhere, not written.  [Stanley looked over my shoulder at this point and said I had gone mad the way Who fans can, searching for continuity in a childrens TV show.  I responded with a sniff that lazy plotting is lazy plotting, and you especially shouldn’t dupe children; also – I expect continuity in any scifi world I buy into, I’m just as anal with Charmed, and Star Trek and ehem, loads of other things…]
   
   Lastly: Quillam.  Very underused yet interesting possibilitied character.  Wonder why they didn’t do more with him?
   
   Ohhhh…no, really lastly: the Transmogrification Machine.  How in heaven’s name would that work????
   
   For some reason, my inner skeptic was very irritated with this story and my suspension of disbelief only partial.)

6. Doctor Who: Kursaal, by Peter Angelides (BBC 8^th Doctor Series)
   (I had a massive break in the middle of reading this.  Not because it was bad or uninteresting – on the contrary, it was hooking and absorbing.  I just got called away to other things.  It’s a mark of a good book though, that I came back after an absence of 2 months and picked up just as interested, and not forgetting where I was or the details of the characters. 
   
   This was a werewolf story, based around the idea of a parasitical and sentient virus, the Jax, that had lain dormant a long time and awaited rediscovery.  This happened when a predatory company came to turn the planet they were on into a theme park. Issues of environmentalism, terrorism for conservation, the rights and responsibilities of companies – and the blurring of all lines addressed here were all dealt with through character viewpoints.  Which makes it sound preachy or polemical, when it didn’t read that way at all.  The characters on both sides of the ethical divide on what to do with the planet come off as unlikeable.  In a way, the Jax is more likeable even when it infects Sam: after all, it’s a virus, it does what it needs to do, and it follows its imperatives; just with more brain than a cold. 
   
   I enjoyed this one, I had a good think about the issues [I would be on the HALF side, the naïve people fighting for the supposedly indigenous Jax, I think; what a surprise!].  I enjoyed the Doctor’s pragmatism as well as his principles.  And I enjoyed Sam’s increasing resourcefulness.  I’m wondering if the experience of being infected by the Jax will haunt her [as being wounded haunted her and was examined in such rigorous emotional depth in Vampire Science by Orman and Blum…or as Tegan was haunted by possession by the Mara, to go back to the TV series…]??  Or will it just be glossed over?  ‘Spose I’ll have to wait and see…ACTUAL BOOK.)

As if all this weren’t enough (and I still seem to be going strong), I’m also trying to get going on the Big Finish audio…not all of them, they seem to have experienced an exponential explosion.  I did review the first two of their past Doctors stories way back near the beginning of these reviews, but they will hopefully start popping up more once I get the time to listen (I plan to walk up and down the living room power exercising – heh – some mornings while Fluffhead is at nursery, while listening to these.  I’ll start including them in the reviews here.  I’m planning to try out their past Doctor range as well as the newer 8^th Doctor range.  We’ll see how I go. 

It’s odd you know, it’s an ever expanding universe; there seems room for so much in it…science fiction is great that way, so inclusive and so endlessly imaginative.  I realised, as well, that I’d left out an entire category of Dr Who books: the Big Finish Short Trips short story collections.  I’m a great fan of the short story as a form when 

done well: pithy mini explosions.  So I’ve started collecting those (hello ebay; they are out of print and can go for silly money, some of them).  In time, you’ll see them start to pop up too, here; but I’m not sure whether to mix my short story reading in with my novel reading or not…am I going to confuse my brain?  Or stimulate it with the change of pace?!  Should I leave them till last, after all the novels? (Alllllllllllllllllllllllllll those novels?  How OLD will I be?!)

Anyway, till next time.  I have a bad cold and am going to cough myself away now, with Halls Soothers and some of that nice cough syrup I make.  I shall probably nap briefly.  See why I read science fiction?  A life of absolute fast lane thrills and intellectual rigour here!

Next bit of the Dr Who books/short stories Read This Year - Part 5

Just a small break in the BJ Guest Season, to get back to a topic I am being a bit surprisingly consistent with this year.  It’s also a little primer for the next post, which will be a BIG treat for lovers of the Virgin New Adventures books, in particular.

As always with these rambly reviews: SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS VERY LIKELY!!!!

And a note on order.  Target Originals are not read in order of publication, but in order of each Doctor.  And I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given time.  But each Doctor’s individual stories will be read in order of broadcasting on TV.  The Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8^th Doctor series (as though they had been on TV, see?  I’m trying to get an arc flavour).  The BBC Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting in-between the TV ones.

1. Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, by Pip and Jane Baker (Target Original)
   (Hmm.  I don’t mind this one at all on TV [despite a lot of others seeming to hate it], but the workmanlike writing let it down.  There was little pace, and little feeling for the characters.  I was seeing it all in my head, but I was watching a repeat of the TV prog exactly; there was nothing added in terms of feeling, by the tie-in.  Not that there necessarily needs to be, but I felt unmoored and unplaced while reading this.  The sacrifice of Beyus, near the end felt oddly nothingey.  Unlike the Ark in Space which I read the same day, where the sacrifices felt like heroism, unremarked as such, no fuss: but …there was soul to the tie-in of Ark, and finishing this one on the same day really showed up the contrasts between the two.  I don’t think it was as simple as the era, though Time and the Rani felt distinctly more juvenile than Ark did – the Tom Baker era did feel more grown up for all its tomfoolery sometimes.  Then again, Sylvester’s era becomes more serious later on, so I’ll have to judge it as I progress.  Ikona came across marginally more sympathetic in the reading here.  But overall, despite the Doctor’s amusing misquoting of proverbs [which I don’t find annoying as Stanley does], it felt just a bit flat.  And that was down mostly to the blankness of the writing; not the paucity of the actual plot and subject as I know some others feel.  Bit of an unfortunate beginning for one of my favourite Doctors, really; did him no favours.)
2. Doctor Who: The Ark in Space, by Ian Marter (Target Original)
   (Heroism and tight scrapes abound here.  Sarah and Harry don’t feel like subsidiary characters, they feel integral.  Tom Baker needs the bounce off they provide.  I enjoyed this when I wasn’t expecting to, as Alex likes this one a lot and we had watched it to death on DVD.  I thought I would be bored – but no, I read it in a day.  It rattled along, Ian Marter doing very well at capturing the feel of it.  He also succeeded in giving Vida more of a real presence than I felt her blank face had on TV.  The sacrifice of Rogen and then Noah, at the end, were typical of Dr Who of this era, it felt to me.  Understated but noted.  Like the end of Inferno – which could have been a sentiment fest and was not written that way at all.)
3. Dr Who: The Nameless City, by Michael Scott (BBC 50^th Anniversary e-book short story series)
   (2^nd Dr and Jamie: A small and perfect gem of a story: well structured, well paced, and whilst the fact that the very chemical elements the Dr needed  to restart the broken Tardis turned up most fortuitously right at the end, it shows the strength of the writing that this came off ‘neat’ rather than ‘contrived’.  I liked the way the Master was described but not named; just a cameo of trouble causing and off he went.  I liked the books, the Charing Cross Road setting – the tone of the whole piece was pleasing.  Enjoyed very much.  ON KINDLE.)
4.  Dr Who: The Macra Terror, by Ian Stuart Black (Target Original)
   (I got a real feeling for Troughton’s Doctor in this one.  And Jamie.  In a way I am glad this story is mostly lost for the TV screen, as I can imagine how badly the crablike creatures could have been portrayed given the budgets and other constraints of the era [not to mention the Hampsted AmDram acting still so prevalent at this period!].  As a book this worked so well – I should imagine it works really well as audio also, which would give the extra dimension of being able to hear the happy happy colony work songs creepiness.  The story was well done: the sense of the Dr arriving and being under siege, as much so as the colonists themselves who have no idea why they follow Control and pipe gas endlessly ‘for  the good of all’; really none but the crabs, the Macra.  If you really think on it, the story doesn’t 100% stand up; but it’s written so joyously and fluidly, it stands up quite well enough to coast you through it.  I was laughing out loud at the silly bit of Jamie dancing away doing a Highland Fling while trying to escape – just the kind of silliness I associate with this period, and I wouldn’t have thought it would work in a book, it seems so visual – but it was fine.  Enjoyed this one very much indeed.  ACTUAL BOOK.)
5.  Dr Who: Something Borrowed, by Richelle Mead (BBC 50^th Anniversary e-book short story series)
   (6^th Dr and Peri: This one was good too.  A small but simply plotted story, full of the rambunctiousness of Colin Baker and the weary sarcasm of Peri.  The Rani had a guest spot as the villain trying to steal indigenous technology from a race that have modelled their marriage ceremonies and planet after 20th century Las Vegas.  It sounds stupid.  It sort of is stupid.  But it definitely worked as a story.  The pterodactyls also helped! So far I’m impressed by these short stories the BBC are putting out for the anniversary. Small and well formed. ON KINDLE.)
6.  Dr Who: The Faceless Ones, by Terence Dicks (Target Original)
   (2^nd Dr: I enjoyed this one, I wish most of it wasn’t lost, as I’d like to have seen it.  For a story taking place in a very limited setting [an airport, mostly], it had no feeling of limitation or claustrophobia in a bad way.  It felt full of forward momentum, and I was fascinated with the idea of the blobby face stealing creatures.  I enjoyed the subsidiary characters here: Jean Rock, the Commandant, Captain Blade [what a name!].  The Dr was very dynamic in this, but the one who was really proving himself was Jamie.  He showed courage and honour and was built up well for the departure of Polly and Ben, back in London of 1966 and happy to be so.  When the Dr and Jamie leave at the end, they are seamlessly into their next adventure.  ACTUAL BOOK.)
7.  Dr Who: Drift, by Simon Forward (BBC Past Doctor Adventures)
   (4^th Dr: This was interesting.  It wasn’t just the cold weather snowy setting but I felt many echoes of The Thing here; not in the mimicking aspects, not at all, but simply in the claustrophobia of snow, and in the way the ice creature flailed about when trying to absorb people – reminded me of the scene in The Thing with the dogs changing.  This book was on the whole, very cinematic indeed.  I keep seeing it very clearly in my head; plus its characters [and there was a rather confusingly large cast of interchangeable soldiery types] had lots of tics that would have translated so well to film.  This was an extremely visual novel, which was maybe why some parts of its conversational character led sections felt a little bit forced. 
   
   There was a great effort to project a very all American atmosphere, people loading their guns ‘nice and easy’ and lots of slow drawling and cowboy type reflexing.  That was about the only annoying thing in the book…I never know whether the attempt from English writers to produce an American atmosphere works with Americans – are the writers relying on TV shorthand from years of US TV fed to us here?  Or have they properly visited America and done their research and actually heard people talk, watched them move?  Not having been myself I often worry at the multitudes of clichés…but I have no idea how many of them may be true to a degree.  I can only go on English TV shorthand about England; and the way Americans do TV shorthand about us – both of these attempts are usually incredibly screwy and I don’t recognise much of an approximation of reality at all.  It looks ok sort of, but it feels wrong, the voices are wrong.  So I worry it’ll be the same for English writers trying to force an American atmosphere…
   
   The Doctor was done extremely well, I heard him talk in my head as I read the …script I keep wanting to say, it was that cinematic; and I enjoyed Leela: I always enjoy Leela [‘I can’t hit a woman’.  ‘Then that is your weakness.’  Exit man, clutching gonads.  Go Leela!].  Adored the bit where the Dr told her at the end to leave behind the gun she had been holding a fair while: ‘they can be habit-forming, put it down, there’s a good girl’ – that was delivered very well indeed; it felt very much like Tom Baker.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

More 'Dr Who' novels read, this year now, Part 3

Yet more Dr Who books I have been reading.  So far it looks like this year will be the year of me reading nothing but Dr Who novels and Tudor history.  What a strange combination it is, too…I decided after the hysterical blather of my last post on 'The Tudors', you might be needing my more measured tones on something much more fantastical, just to be contrary.  And to show you I've calmed down a little.

There are less books in this post than the last Dr Who one, but I did waffle about length at some of them, so I stopped now and posted, before carrying on.

As before, the BBC 8th Doctor Novels are read in order.  The original Targets are read in order by the Doctor I am doing.  I am doing several at once.  So each Patrick Troughton, say, will follow in the correct order; you might just get other Doctors also in order, in between.  I don’t stick to one Doctor at a time.  I move about. 

I haven’t read any Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester this year yet; or any Virgin Missing Adventures (or should I say, I’m reading one, but I’ve not finished it yet).  In fact, I have read more Targets than anything else so far this year – and not because they are small and quick; just because I am quite enjoying them at the mo.

SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS HIGHLY LIKELY!!

1. Doctor Who and the Cybermen, by Gerry Davis (Target original)
   (Well, hmm, hello again Patrick Troughton.  This had a good plot.  But it was all over the place in terms of pacing.  This must be one of the most nearly there but not quite books I’ve read in ages.  I just kept losing interest, despite the interesting possibilities of a Gravitron, despite Polly actually being instrumental in manufacturing a clever weapon to defeat lots of the cybermen; and despite the Doctor being clever and scientific.  I liked the virus element a lot, at the beginning; but like most uber-villians, the cybermen themselves bore me.  So I got bored, and the episodic structure did not translate well in terms of believable cliff-hangers in the book; either they weren’t emphasized or just weren’t there.  So the book dragged along, despite its good premise.  Hmmmmmm.)
2. Dr Who: Black Orchid, by Terence Dudley (Target original)
   (Again, much more readable than it was watchable – and this was one of the Peter Davison’s I enjoyed more than the others.  The extra book length because of the 2 episodes meant the story could be fleshed out a bit more than Target space usually allows for.  However, all that extra space was used a little bit poorly: a lot of cricket terminology – I did feel interested, but would have preferred more character and story development.  There was also a lot of focus on the Indian character but in a very repetitive way: I didn’t feel, despite the continual emphasis on him, that I was learning anything about him beyond his words, at all.  And his words were always the same.  It was all very surface.  A tale I think, based on atmosphere and ambience rather than substance.  But still I enjoyed it.)
3. Dr Who: The Underwater Menace, by Nigel Robinson (Target original)
   (I hated the one episode I saw of this, hence I left it out in my reading of Troughton’s era.  Then I felt anal and OCD at having missed any [it was itching at my sense of orderliness] and went back for it.  Surprised to find I really enjoyed it.  I enjoyed its Atlantean setting – stupid though it undoubtedly was.  I enjoyed the ridiculous characters: Lolem, the superstitious priest of Amdo  the Fish Goddess; Zaroff, the archetypal Flash Gordon in black and white style mad scientist [though in my head I was actually seeing him as Zarkov, from the extremely brill colour Flash Gordon, because Topol would have owned this role with such flair, I reckoned].  I enjoyed the stupid running about and hiding and getting lost.  I enjoyed a society being brought down by a strike!!  Yay, socialism!  It was fun.  Considering everything about it was unbelievable and stupid, and it’s not like I was in a great mood reading it, I can only assume this great fun-ness is all down to Nigel Robinson, the writer.  I will look out as I go through, for more of his, and see if they are all so enjoyable.)
4. Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child, by Terrance Dicks (Target Original)
   (Beginning of the William Hartnell era.  A bit confused, and always have been, by the title of this one.  I mean, I know Susan is the unearthly child, the hook to get Barbara and Ian involved in the story, but its as if the whole story should be about her, and it isn’t…Its about Kal, and Za and Hur, and other people speaking in strange pidgin English about ‘Fire!  Fire!’  I did quite enjoy this, though I don’t remember from watching it Barbara being quite so hysterical, running about the place and calling things ‘evil’…always a word prone to overuse and misuse.  William Hartnell’s doctor, in this one, is rather a ruthless nasty supercilious git.  Quite enjoyed reading his strangeness.  His almost being about to kill Za at one stage – why?  Just to get the situation out of the way so he could carry on getting going back to the Tardis?  Or…?  Because he regarded Za as no more or better than an animal, and therefore lower, less important than himself?  The Doctor of this story in particular is nothing if not a really arrogant arse.  Most interesting.)
5. Doctor Who and the Daleks, by David Whittaker (Target original)
   (More William Hartnell.  This was a most interesting one.  Stanley didn’t tell me this was the first Dr Who book ever published, and was not projected to be part of a series, but a standalone.  I was therefore very surprised indeed, when it re-wrote the beginning of the story entirely, having Barbara and Ian not know each other and meet due to a car crash on Barnes Common.  Ian came across as a very angry young man, and Barbara as significantly more hysterical female than the actual series – indeed, she spent most of the book in an emotional funk caused by trying not to show that she was falling in love with Ian and thinking her feelings were unrequited, it appeared at the end.  Also at the end, he seemed to be falling in love with her.  Absolutely NONE of all that is in the TV version – neither the meeting, as of course that was dealt with in An Unearthly Child, nor the love interest angle, that just never cropped up at all.  So I was rather frustrated to feel I was reading both a rewrite and rehash of the first story all stuffed up in the second one here.  However, the story had a number of good things going for it.  Ian’s characterization is the focal point of the story, which is told in first person.  It gives it a detached sort of immediacy [that’s the confusing 1960s characterization for you].  The presentation of the thoroughly peaceful mutated Thals and their eventual conversion to the idea of Life as Struggle, and therefore the need to fight to progress, fight to protect, and fight to simply EXIST rather than be ‘exterminated’ was quite fascinating.  There was a very good speech at one point, about the need to fight for things, for principles.  I read it very late at night and suspect it may have been full of logical flaws, but it made sense to my tired brain as I read it.  It even contained some new thoughts I hadn’t quite had in that format myself before.  I will copy it here when I get a minute.  I enjoyed this very much and was sorry to see it end.  The Daleks weren’t too irritating. And Davis Whittaker is a higher standard of writer than the age group the book was aimed at.  It read simple, but very adult. )
6. Doctor Who: Alien Bodies, by Lawrence Miles (BBC 8^th Doctor Series)
   (Stupidly, I have left it a little while after reading before reviewing this one.  This was for a good reason.  It was so bristling with characters – so many and so well painted – that I felt I had to mention them all in the review and knew even as the book ended that I was going to forget the ones that engaged me least.  So let me do it simply, another way: The idea of the Faction Paradox was brilliant – a sort of voodoo-hoodoo time-travel, with Tardis’s that ran on blood sacrifices. The idea of Tardis’s so advanced that they were the shape of and as organic as people, hence a Tardis called  Marie, that was badly damaged but mending by the end of the book.  The idea of auctioning off the Doctor’s body; and that he invalidated his treaty with the Celestis by not handing himself over to them, even though when he did that little act of treachery he hadn’t actually made the deal yet in terms of time line…all this was brilliant, and written very well.  On the downside, if I never hear the word ‘biomass’ again it will be too soon.  There was something immensely precocious about this book.  I enjoyed it a lot, but also felt that the author was determined to show me how clever and far reaching his imagination was, all the way through.  This is something that afflicts a lot of the non-TV Dr Who books.  I get the idea they are written by people who are incredibly clever, but who have no subtlety: they want to be very much admired for their playful futuristic brilliance, thankyou very much.  This can cause the style and delivery of their books to be a bit off-putting and/or overwhelming at times.  But saying that, I still enjoyed this book very much!)
7. Dr Who and the Claws of Axos, by Terrance Dicks (Target Original)
   (The Doctor’s ambivalent attitude was an odd thing in this story.  It grated at times, in that you need to trust the Doctor’s moral sense for these books to work.  On the other hand, it created a sense of jeopardy that these stories rarely have.  I found the concept of Axos an interesting one, and reading about it enabled me to forget that on TV I think of this one as ‘the Parsnip Monster’ story; all those tentacles look like bits growing on a parsnip when it’s getting old…I enjoyed the Brigadier, Yates and Benton, as ever, in this story.)
8. Dr Who: Robot, by Terrance Dicks (Target Original)
   (I almost didn’t read this one, as its one of the one’s Fluffhead watches a lot, so unless there were massive changes in tone from TV to book, I felt as though I would be repeating myself.  I want to get on to the other Tom Baker’s I don’t remember so well because Fluffhead doesn’t watch them all the time.  But then my sense of order kicked in, and said – woman: read from the first one.  So.  The first Tom Baker.  I think the whole robot story is a very odd one to pick for Tom Baker’s first go at being not Jon Pertwee.  Maybe I just think that as I’m not fascinated with robots? The Brigadier [yay!], Benton etc are all about, so the earthbound nature of the story still feels very Jon Pertwee-ish.  But from the beginning, whilst Tom Baker comes out with some lines that you could equally well imagine Jon Pertwee saying [mostly lots of turns of phrase that sound very posh and quite patronising: ‘Do get on with it Brigadier, there’s a good chap’ for example], he sounds different, moves differently, and has a sense of feyness about him that marks him as different straightaway.  Quite a feat, considering how magnetic and solid a presence Jon Pertwee was.  This change comes across in the book just as well as the TV story.  This book also gives a lot more interior thought to Sarah, so you get to feel her frustration and irritation with the ThinkTank people; her bewilderment and fear first for and then of, the Robot.  Kettlewell’s embryonic Professor Kronotis routine [I couldn’t help but see the similarities] is described well too.  Terence Dicks has done a solid here.)

And that’s as far as I’ve got so far, with finished ones, anyway.  More to come later this year, I’m sure.

World's Tiniest Conker, and the Lammas Teacake

Fluffhead and I went walking the other day.  The conker tree 2 streets down (to give it its correct technical term) is producing early season conkers for our delectation.  I opened one of the spiny green cases for him, and the world’s tiniest baby conker fell out.  (Fluffhead has developed a tone of voice for indicating small things.  You know that noise we girl creatures often make when confronted with a kitten/chick/puppy/tiny walrus – I was watching Blue Planet yesterday [they certainly do not behave friendly when grown; more like angry drashigs] – that noise of ‘aaahhhhhhhh – cuteness!’?  It can be a bit ear splitting?  Fluffhead has perfected a variation on this.  Also earsplitting, and complete with little pinching fingers hand gesture, demonstrating the shrunken nature of the said thing.)

So Fluffhead squealed excitedly, right in my ear, which almost knocked me over.  (I was bending over with him, doing my ‘I am a grown up demonstrating’ thing.)  He was so excited with it; he tried to put it up his nose.  (An interesting stage in the development of children, that.)  I retrieved it and put it in my pocket.  Tiny lovely thing.

Because of all the rain this summer, it’s become a bit autumnal outside already.  There’s blackberries growing in my front garden, just baby ones, but there they are.  And leaves doing the golden wonder on the paths already.  As well as loads on unseasonal August chilliness here and there between the downpours and incessant humidity.

As usual, life has been such that I feel pressured with my scraps of BlackberryJuniper time, and I haven’t had that time to be properly commemorative of one of the festivals I really like in the neopagan wheel of the year.  That would be Lammas or Lughnasadh, July 31^st/August 1^st.  Now.  You know better than to wait for me to explain what all that is about, in any depth.  I’ll tell you only the minimum.  There are plenty of websites, plenty of books (plenty of nice healthy – yet irritating – dissension) on what constitutes a Lammas/Lughnasadh festival/celebration for us neopagan wotsits, and what to do etc etc yawn yawn.  Go fetch if you like.

I’ll be quick with my explanation.  The first harvest in the old agricultural year.  Taking in grain.  Johnny Barleycorn gives his life for the land; again, as he does every year (he is his own beheaded flower).  It’s the Festival of Bread!  Baking!  That lovely baking bread smell…pulling apart a loaf and seeing the seeds on the top fall off, warm softness inside exposed.  Dip your nose in and get that good health feeling.  (For those of you not fans of bread, be merry anyway – it’s also the festival of ale, beer, other grains and soft fruits.)  You know:  a thankful for my belly’s joy celebration.  This is my take on it, anyway.

So in between listing trillions of things for sale on ebay (do buy my drashig, seriously?!), taking care of my Amazon shop, doing the laundry[1], and generally trying to keep the house from vermin, pestilence and decay, I realized I had missed Lammas by at least 3 days.  Not even said a few words, or lit a candle.  Tsk, tsk.  Thus does my life go.  I miss many occasions this way.

So when Fluffhead and I went out that afternoon, we visited that place of intense class and comfy highchairs: Munch in Purley.

And treated ourselves to the Sacrificial Lammas Teacake.  (My mother was most pleased to hear that I had indulged in a teacake when I told her later; she would live on them if she could – and I think she believes that if I eat enough teacakes I will soon want to go on strolling rambles wearing a really sensible anorak from Millets, and generally sort my life out.  Actually: I do love a good ramble, I just don’t do them in those rambling groups, as I tend to get irritated with all that inane conversation disturbing my appreciation of the birdsong etc[2].  I also used to own 2 really sensible anorak type waterproof walking jackets from a Millets equivalent.  But I gave them away to needy people who walk in the wet more often than me, and who fitted them better.  So mum knows me pretty well.  I think she would like if I visited teashops with her more often, that’s it…It’s the tea that puts me off though, yukky stuff…)

So, the celebratory Sacrificial Teacake.  With due ceremony, I looked at it meaningfully.

And considered waving fields of grain.  (And the fact that they have been so wetted out this summer, that lots of them are rotting in the fields, which is also true of lots of our potatoes and other veggies, and is a great shame – not to mention it will mean the prices go up yet further and we have to import more.  Also unfortunate for us.)

With Fluffhead looking on, and gleaming eyed, biting the head off his gingerbread man (there! - that’s the Wicker Man spirit, son!), I thanked Johnny Barleycorn in my head, for growing all year and then dying for me, so I could have a full belly of bread (hmmmmmmm, yes, you go and have a chicken and egg conversation with yourself about Christianity and vegetation gods in paganism).

I looked at the shiny topped teacake, all glazed with EGG (said ‘EGG!!’ – Fluffhead’s favourite food, and always asked for at a loud shouty exuberance).  I looked at the raisins and sultanas and thought of all the fruit of the countryside. All the sweet fruit, full of its goodness and vitamins.  (For some reason, I also had a flash of Nigella Lawson with her face covered in overly ripe avocado, from a programme of hers I caught for a few minutes once – I remember I thought it was a terrible waste of good avocado; they’re expensive, you know.  I’m sure they’re good for faces, but nonetheless…)

I cut up Johnny Barleycorn.  (And Fluffhead bit off his gingerbread form arms thoughtfully, still crying out: ‘EGG!  EGG!!’)

And there, buttered with finest generic Munch margarine, and washed down with Twinings peppermint tea, went the Sacrificial Teacake of Harvest.

When we got home, we had an apple too.  I kissed it, cut it in bits, and ate my half, with an attempt at solemnity that was a trifle stuffed by Fluffhead’s trying to feed his half to his Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker Doctor models; then grinding it into the carpet, forgotten, as he rushed off to kneel down with his toy combine harvester.  Pushing it up and down, up and down.  Up and down.  All over poor Patrick Troughton’s un-regenerated-head.

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[1] I seem to be always in a state of having the entire house’s clothes, sheets etc on my desk in my room in massive messy ut of the dryer or off the line pile, ready to fold up.  Why??  Why is there always the same amount, when I definitely spend much of my precious incarnation here FOLDING AND PUTTING IT AWAY????????????)

[2] Yes, I know, I talk rambly crap here, so am ensconced in an unfeasible glasshouse.  I know, I know…

Living with Dr Who

In our house we have a dalek on top of one of the bookshelves in the living room.  A medium size remote control dalek that has lost its forward motion, and can go only rather confusedly side ways.  But it rarely comes off the shelf; we spend a lot of time pointing at it, for Fluffhead, and saying: ‘What’s that?  What’s that?  What’s its name?  What’s it called?’  This is in an attempt to engage Fluffhead into the realm of the Speaker, rather than the incoherent occasionally specific Babbler.  (He’s a bit late in developing talking; though he understands everything.)  I have a smaller dalek on my windowsill of my book room.  It’s not mine, its Stanley’s (as is the other one), and I keep it forever next to a stuffed toy unicorn that is slightly larger.  To me, this originally random, and now left there deliberately placing, indicates the power in my mind of dreams over science and technology. Though I begin to see this is a false dichotomy.

We have all the Doctor Who’s ever released on DVD, and all the ones that weren’t or haven’t been yet, through one means or other.  We have a drive on the main computer called Dr Who, as it contains all the documentaries, makings of and various other bits and audiovisual pieces that are associated with the programme.  We have rare copies of the Radio Times from ages ago, in plastic covers, with Jon Pertwee velvetly gesturing, having just got out of Bessie. 

I used to think all this was rather cute.  Like Stanley’s other major thing he does in his spare time, collecting and building models (I don’t want to say obsession, as he thinks of loads of other things; yet its way more than a hobby), it’s a thing that takes up a lot of space and time (there’s a Tardis joke there somewhere), but didn’t really concern me.  It was one of those…things your partner does, that you don’t mind, but aren’t really involved in.

Stanley used to write for the old style Marvel Dr Who magazine in the old era (way before the new fangle-isation of the latest and ever younger growing twelve year old Doctors we have now), so not only does he have all the stuff, he knows loads of things about it.  He can nerdily correct anyone about any detail.  Whilst saying to me, as an aside, that he isn’t being nerdy, because he doesn’t subscribe to all that new stuff, specially all that stuff about Bernice, and the endless attempting, by fanboys, to correct continuity problems from the past, or replay and redo over incidents they didn’t like, from their own understanding of them.  To make it all better, and bigger.  He knows it for what it is, he says: A Programme He Likes.  That’s all.  Not a world, not a real universe, not a living breathing thing (which he seems to think you could be forgiven for imagining some of these other fanpersons behave as though it is).

Again, not really of any concern to me, really, I thought.  An interesting distinction, I thought.  I see what you mean.  I suggested, idly, one day a few years ago, that we have a Dr Who marathon (we are a couple of marathonhood when it comes to viewing anything; our twin nerds – and I freely admit Happy Nerd-dom about anything I like – sit peacefully entwined together watching many a boxset in our free time)[1].  This all went well through the early days of William Hartnell.  I used to get a bit annoyed with the bouffant haired whatshername being all teachery and posh.  But I loved the ‘Quite so!’-ness of the whole enterprise at this stage, it being one of my favourite expressions anyway. However, I had no patience with the BBC’s treatment of Patrick Troughton’s era, there being so few un-broken stories remaining to see.  I got all itchy and annoyed and stuck.  I insisted on moving on to the first Doctor of my childhood, Jon Pertwee, who I vaguely remembered loving for his flamboyancy.

I loved him all over again.  I wanted to be a scientist, like Liz Shaw.  I realised I remembered wanting to be Jo Grant, with her brilliant white knee boots, and her not really entirely ditsy but actually quite gutsy portrayal of a companion, when I was quite a small thing[2].  I thought the dinosaurs were brilliant – Stanley thought they were supremely poo and most badly done.  That’s just unkind.  (I come from a history of liking horror films with awful amateurish special effects, so I suspect I have a way greater tolerance of this sort of thing than he does).  I did fall asleep, repeatedly, during the Sea Devils.  But then, that was a very chase around story; not my favourite kind.  I had ecstasies re-watching The Daemons, and remembering I had thought of it as one of the first horror films I had ever seen; my mind somehow mixed it up, for years, with The Devil Rides Out.

Then we did Tom Baker.  I was surprised to find I mourned Jon Pertwee for almost the first 3^rd of watching Tom – the Actual Doctor of Most of My Childhood.  And Therefore Clearly The Best One, for me.  But the scarf helped.  The hair helped.  The mad eyes helped.  I wanted to be Leela – so loyal, unafraid and clear about so many things.  I wanted to be the second Romana, calm and clever and pixie like in her so often Victorian style clothes.  I was content to watch Shada even though it was broken.  (Still one of my favourites.)  Apparently I made my first nerdy Dr Who comment during this stage of the watching.  Apparently, I watched one story or other, and turned to Stanley, who didn’t like it much at all, and said, ‘Well, it’s no Talons of Weng-Chiang, but it’s alright, isn’t it?’  I had to laugh hearing myself come out with that.  Ehem.  I can never remember the name of my favourite story here – is it Seeds of Doom?  The one where a mad – and completely correct, in my opinion – person wanted to get rid of humanity, so that plants could retake over the Earth, as less of a danger than us.  Terence Stamp, was it, playing the mad person?

Then we got to Peter Davison.  Oh dear.  It was too much of a shock.  Just as in my childhood, I completely baulked at the new Doctor.  I watched the first 3 or so stories, getting ever more grumbly, before I came to a complete stubborn halt.  In childhood, I do believe I just continued growing up, or whatever it was I had been doing (reading the collected works of James Herbert or something).  As an adult, I was nagged a bit about consistency of viewing, and then we moved on to some other marathon (I think we were re-doing Space 1999, at that point).  I just couldn’t get past the low key cricket outfit, the blondey mellowness.  And all that slightly sickly bumbling about at the beginning of the run.  And the way the entire story styles and look of the programme changed.  I was informed by Stanley this was due to the beginning of the John Nathan Turner era.  I made mental faces at this man, for ruining my good buzz.  I mourned Philip Hinchcliffe and all that nice gothic-yness that had been going on for a while with Tom Baker’s Doctor.

Then Fluffhead, started getting nerdy about 6 months ago, the way tiny children can do.  When they want the same story read fifty times (this is how they learn: repetition, the orderliness of the same things appearing at the same time endlessly etc – you have to have the patience of a saint when reading).  We had a lovely run of re-watching Robin of Sherwood (my own personal English nerdfest) quite a few more times than was reasonable.  Then I wondered what else we could watch when indoors, that was in nice small segments.  When Stanley had Fluffhead, he always put Dr Who on, and the titles seemed to calm him, every single time, from any kind of unhappiness or tantrum.  I don’t know if it was the time tunnel effect or just the brilliant music (which I don’t think I will EVER tire of – and woe betide anyone fast forwarding through the titles and making me miss the music).  So I put on some Jon Pertwee, and some Tom Baker.  Fluffhead loved Robot, and Carnival of Monsters.  He would run up to the screen and keep pointing at the Doctor. In every scene, I had to re-identify him.  And the companions.  He seemed to really like Sarah Jane’s smiley face.  But Stanley had all the Dr Who’s in order, in a large bookshelf we had covered and hidden the front of, with weighty poster frames.  Because Fluffhead had loved the whole lot too much in the past and they were in danger of being broken with the stampede of loving little feet and tearing mashed potato fingers.  So one day when he was sleeping, I quickly disassembled the whole defence system, and grabbed a random large handful and rebuilt it back.  This being rather an afterthought, I was annoyed to find I had plucked out loads of Sylvester McCoy.  I had never seen any of those.  No idea who he was at all.  Oh well.  It was out, Fluffhead was up…

So I put Sylvester McCoy on.  And went a bit mad.  

We had previously been watching these in between other things; if Fluffhead sang or burbled at me (as he more or less does, all the time), it didn’t really matter if I missed bits, as these were old stories I was familiar with.  If I missed loads of exposition, or dialogue, again, not a problem, we would likely re-watch it later anyway, or I would just enjoy the colours and running about the countryside (or sewers or tunnels or whatever).

But right from the very first story, Sylvester was different.  He seemed to just fall into the role naturally.  He fitted in with the startling lack of money and sometimes downright daft plots and characterisations with no problem at all.  He was theatrical, funny; he had a very sympathetic face – both angry and compassionate.  I had no problem with Bonnie Langford, as other people seemed to have had.  She was cheerful – hey: I would love to be a cheerful person; I won’t besmirch the Chipper Fairy Woman. 

Suddenly I really cared if Fluffhead did that unerring child thing of yelling JUST when some very important thing is being said very quietly indeed, some important bit of exposition.  I found myself not getting through 2 full length 6 parters in a day (as we could previously if it was raining outside), but barely one story of less episodes.  I would watch it, then go back to where we got lost and just do it again, till I felt I got what was going on.  Whilst attempting potty training (what a lovely mess that still is on the rental carpet, sigh), reading and re-reading Tabby McTat and all the other books of Fluffhead’s, doing the laundry in a different room, and listing and preparing Amazon and ebay sales etc.  The universe was working with a Sylvester McCoy background.  I started dreaming about being Ace.  What a firey girl!  What a lot of possibilities she had!  What lovely character development – and not just in the way they wrote it, but mostly in how she acted it, as she went along.  I give credit to those two, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, for making the Cybermen and the Daleks bearable and even interesting for me, for the first time.  I generally have terrible trouble with villains that want world domination and demand ‘Destroy Them!’ with regularity.  It’s just boring.  I loved when Sylvester ranted at the daleks and mimicked their tones and wants: ‘Limitless rice pudding!’ he mocked.  I laughed out loud.  Exactly!  I even got past some pretty dodgy misuses of Norse Mythology, my other big obsession this year so far.  I mean – the Gods of Ragnarok????  …Had absolutely no relevance to that circus story, as a myth.  And The Curse of Fenric could’ve used the mythology so much better; but is forgiven for being a very good looking production, and just interesting on other levels. (And the Target novelisation makes it make a lot more sense, too.)

I was very happily confused during Ghostlight; laughed through most of Silver Nemesis, enjoyed the scenery in Delta and the Bannermen, and wanted to be a cheetah person (‘ride, sister, with the blood of your enemies in your mouth…’) in Survival.  I loved the way they ended the whole thing.  I like low key endings (or else endings where there’s a shoot out and everyone, absolutely everyone, dies[3]).  It was good the way he put his arm round Ace, and they just went off back to the Tardis, to …travel about more.  That was nicely done.

And Extremely Annoying.  Ending it just when I had totally fallen in love with the two main characters.  And when it had all gone rather Gothy again here and there, too…maybe John Nathan Turner ended up just where he didn’t want to be, and all those changes he made seemed to lead back to the same sort of darkish shining that he meant to change all those years back…but I was happy with where it had gone, where it finally had ended up.

And leaving me to have to go back to…Peter Davison.  The funny thing was; once I did (and I had to admit hookdom by then), I didn’t find him so bad.  I rather started to enjoy his quieter Doctor.  I realised that I quite liked a lot of his stories: I think Enlightenment is a most interesting idea (and my goodness Lynda Barron is bosomly brilliant in it!); I thought The Visitation was excellent; I really liked The Awakening too, and wished it had been longer (rarely I wish a Dr Who story longer; I usually think they could have mostly been improved by being a bit shorter, like most Stephen King later works).  There are more, loads more.

I looked at the BBC website and realised I liked more of the stories than I didn’t.  Stanley and I had a fight about The Myrka in Warriors of the Deep. (I think my relationships will ever and always involve arguments about things that make absolutely no sense to waste spittle on, for other people).  He maintained it was the worst pantomime horse monster ever; I maintained it was a charming large sea horsey thing and I wished it would come to tea and menace us, so I could stroke it and offer it a French Fancy or somesuch.  I do this to Fluffhead’s Cyberman toy too – it regularly has breaks in the whole World Domination Plan to have mashed potato, or a nice bit of chocolate; and we wrap him up in a muslin and put him in a shoebox to sleep at night.  As Fry would say, I have completely ‘un-cooled’ the thing.  (A lot of my reactions of this ilk are to do with Fluffhead – can’t have him being constantly scared of ‘monsters’ and aliens – so I call them ‘creatures’, a subtle difference, but its meaningful, you know.  Also – if he grows up with a healthy curiosity for lifeforms that look different to us, instead of a screamy 1960s companion type fear…what a better place the world will be, eh?!  The best way to deal with a scary looking ‘monster’ is to think of it as a cute creature – look at those lovely proboscis of that funny looking thing in The Twin Dilemma – bless its little face!).  Anyway.  We have agreed to disagree about the Myrka.  We have agreed instead, that Ingrid Pitt was not best served by either that makeup or that outfit.  She’s gorgeous and needed a nicer ensemble – I couldn’t even identify her from her voice, in that story, usually so distinctive.

Now I am travelling with Fluffhead through the mists that are Colin Baker’s Doctor.  I am not minding him at all.  He’s grumpy often, and arrogant.  He has very unsuitable clothes; but they are happy looking.  I hope he gets rid of Peri soon as she wheedles and I am thinking she is not really having a good time – people keep trying to kill her.  I shall be glad when the wheels of time move along and we get Bonnie Langford back.  When all this is over, I shall have to go back to Jon Pertwee again…Joy!

I found a way to do the broken (and too annoying to watch) Patrick Troughton stories.  As I have always liked him as an actor, and am muchly irritated that I don’t get to see his turn at the Doctor.  I remembered the Target novelisations.  I remembered I can buy on ebay as well as sell.  I frothed at the mouth when I saw how cheap the first editions still were.  Stanley despairs of the rate at which they are pouring into the house (he sold all his years ago).  I also found missing adventures, and new adventures and audio adventures.  I realised I could not only do all the missing Patrick Troughton, but extra Sylvester McCoys, and I could see how Paul McGann would have worked out, had he got to do more than just the (ehem lets not talk of it) film.  He’s another actor I adore.  So!  Worlds upon worlds opened up!

Stanley and I had another minor argument.  He doesn’t hold with any of the missing adventures unless they were from the season planned for Colin Baker then not broadcast, as well as a couple of others.  I have decided to be broader.  I will hold with stories rejected for any of the Doctors at the time of production and penned later.  And as for Sylvester and Ace…I’ll read and watch anything, and see what I think.  I got called an apologist for fanboys.  Regardless of pedigree.  I’ll make my own mind up.

Quite so!! 

So:  Dr Who world.  Hey!  Welcome the birth of yet another FanGirl.  Do I get a badge or something??

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[1] I remember, with a sort of sniggery laugh, that I used to know a wonderful osteopath.  He was a Man of Action, a real world person, not the slightest bit nerdyfied. He would tell me, in surprised and unbelieving tones, of his flatmate.  Flatmate and girlfriend never really went out of an evening.  Flatmate and girlfriend watched Boxsets.  One after the other.  And discussed the ideas wherein.  ‘They never went out for a run, or anything…’, my osteopath would say, in tones of total puzzlement.  I used to try to explain the joy of gorging on many episodes of something, and not waiting for a week till the next bit (I have been known to torture myself through the entire lengthy TV transmission of a season of 24, or somesuch long thing, to wait for the boxset, so I can over do it in 2 or 3 delirious days of wonder.  But anyway.)

[2] Oddly, I always want to be a companion; never ever the Doctor.  I don’t want the responsibility I think.  I like being the person standing next to the person causing the action.  I’m not generally in life, the person causing the action.

[3] By the way, that was what was wrong with the end of Buffy, for me: everyone should have died!  How dark that would have been…That’s where Angel did it better; except they only showed one death and left the others to be imagined – whereas they should have showed all or none.  I.e. not killed only my favourite character and left the others to fight hopelessly in the rain, but unseen…(As you can imagine, one of my favourite Buffy episodes is The Wish.)