...here is a video of every jelly baby moment from Doctor Who. (With added Brahms, for some reason.)

After reading Wally K. Daly's untransmitted Doctor Who story, I became curious about his other work - he was a moderately prolific writer of (mostly radio) plays, and I discovered that he had written a science fiction trilogy in the late 1970s. The BBC as usual junked the original tapes, but Daly's own off-air recordings survive and can be downloaded from various places around the internet (no links here; it's easy enough to Google). They are an interesting demonstration of what a writer normally known for non-genre work might produce in the era of Blake's 7 and the Hitch-Hiker's Guide (and Doctor Who when it was very slightly past its peak). The biggest problem is that the sound quality is not all it could be - I couldn't listen to these on my normal train commute, though they were OK for Wii workouts or driving.

Before the Screaming Begins (1977) is a good start: our central characters, Tom and Sally Harris, are celebrating their wedding anniversary with a walk in the woods when he is abducted by aliens. Sally is frustrated when the police refuse to believe her, but then Tom is returned with new strange powers and a message from the aliens for the people of Earth, and it turns out similar appearances and disappearances have happened simultaneously all over the world; we get mixed up with the Prime Minister (Patrick Troughton, doing a brilliant impression of Harold Wilson) and sinister official A.P. Smith (played by Donald Hewlett, the only main cast member to appear in all three plays).

The Silent Scream (1979) is I think the best of the three, and has interesting foreshadowing of Torchwood: Children of Earth - so much so that I wonder if RTD has acknowledged it as source material? - though of course The Midwich Cuckoos/Village of the Damned is probably a common root. Lots of creepy children endowed with super powers (one played by Susan Sheridan who was the original Trillian at about the same time), and the government pondering extreme measures to deal with them. No Patrick Troughton this time, but Hannah Gordon takes over as Sally Harris.

With a Whimper to the Grave (1984) has the best cast but weakest plot of the three. Patrick Troughton takes back the role of Prime Minister, but loses the election to "Marge", played by Angela Thorne (not her only such role). Timothy West is a chief alien. Maureen "Vicki" O'Brien takes over as Sally. But the central character is Donald Hewlett's A.P. Smith, who links between the aliens' revelation of What They Were Really Up To, and the authorities' attempt to neutralise the alien threat. Unfortunately the to plot strands confuse rather than reinforcing each other, and the wipe-out-the-alien-menace bit is very poorly paced (and there is a very irritating character called Geoffrey Palmer, which must be an in-joke). However you'll want to listen to it for completeness if you've heard the first two.

The fourth series of Companion Chronicles from Big Finish is off to an excellent start.

( The Drowned World: Sara Kingdom's afterlife continues, with flashbacks )
( The Glorious Revolution: 1688 and all that )

It's striking that both of these plays are flashbacks from the point of view of Sara and Jamie, respectively, and that the framing narrative is given a decent prominence.

Meanwhile the main narrative of Big Finish plays is staggering along:

( The Company of Friends )
( Patient Zero )

Big Finish has been moving towards story arcs - the Fifth Doctor / Guardians one earlier this year, for instance - and it is a welcome change of gear: The Company of Friends suffers a bit because it goes the other way (four stories, rather than a third of a story, in the one release). The Companion Chronicles, which ought by rights to be rather more format-bound, feel a bit more vibrant right now.

When I first rewatched The Three Doctors a couple of years ago, my assessment of it was pretty harsh, but I gave it another go this last week and saw more merit in it this time. Back in October 2006 it was only the fourth Pertwee story I had watched, and I had not got very far into the Troughton era either, so my basis of comparison was not very broad; taken in consideration of the surrounding stories (especially the immediately preceding, overrated Season 9), The Three Doctors is not bad at all. (Though Terrance Dicks' novelisation is still an improvement on the broadcast original, particularly because the monsters are not visibly ludicrous.)

I revised upwards my opinion of three of the performances. First, Troughton is not just good, he is excellent, and rather steals the show from Pertwee. He gets a lot of the best lines - there is one about confusing the anti-matter blob by letting it watch television which must surely have been an ad-lib. Second, Courtney's Brigadier, if considered as an admittedly comedic authority figure, is actually pretty decent and he also gets some good nostalgia moments - thinking that Pertwee has changed back into Troughton and framing the situation as best he can. It's not the Brigadier of The Invasion or Spearhead from Space, but we haven't really had him around for a while. And third, the music is not half as bad as I remembered; I think it has to work hard to cover for the awful monsters, but does the job.

This time round I was watching the DVD, which includes a 1993 convention interview with Jon Pertwee and a 1973 Pebble Mill interview with Patrick Troughton - who looks very nervous and ill-at-ease, either he hadn't yet developed the convention-attending skills he later displayed until the day he died, or perhaps he just wasn't feeling well. There is also the 1973 Who retrospective from Blue Peter, starting with Pertwee (as himself) driving the Whomobile into the studio and then continuing with a potted history of the show, including Peter Purves introducing himself as Steven by showing Katarina's death scene from The Daleks' Master Plan - rather OTT for Blue Peter, I thought, but presumably we have Purves' choice of clip to thank for its survival when the rest of the episode was trashed.

My copy of the DVD itself has a rather special provenance. A few months ago I noticed that several items of Who memorabilia which had been sent to Verity Lambert as courtesy copies by BBC Enterprises were being auctioned on eBay (to raise funds for cancer research), and I ended up buying this DVD and (slightly by accident) a videotape of An Unearthly Child. The latter had been watched, but Lambert (who died in late 2007) had not opened the DVD, which she must surely have received, probably unsolicited, shortly after its release in 2003. On a couple of the First Doctor DVD commentaries, she remarks that she felt very sorry about Hartnell's increasingly poor health when they were working together; watching The Three Doctors, Hartnell's last acting role before his death, would hardly have made her feel better on that score, so I am not surprised that the plastic wrapper was still sealed when I got it.

Harry Towb, a Northern Irish actor who made it moderately big on the British stage and screen, died at the weekend (a few days before his 84th birthday), and I just wanted to acknowledge his two roles in Doctor Who - as Osgood, the lunar controller in episode 1 of The Seeds of Death and McDermott, the old-school plastics factory man in episode 2 of Terror of the Autons. In both cases he gets kiilled off pretty early on, but rather memorably so. Osgood has a fairly standard English accent, but McDermott is the only character ever to appear on Doctor Who sounding like he shares Towb's Norn Iron origins.

( The Seeds of Death )
( Terror of the Autons )

Towb also returned rather bizarrely to play the Brigadier's aged Italian Uncle in The Ghosts of N-Space, Jon Pertwee's last outing as the Doctor, in 1996. There are no pictures from The Ghosts of N-Space, but perhaps that is just as well.

It's ten years this month since Big Finish put the first of their audio Doctor Who plays on sale. I have just about caught up with the complete range (though not quite with all the spinoffs) and am mulling a big Big Finish post to explain it all to those of you (probably at least 90%) who haven't listened to any BF plays. Meanwhile these are the ten I caught up with most recently, in order of internal continuity rather than of when I listened to them or of release (apart from the new Three Companions episodes which go with the discs they came on).

( Companion Chronicles 3.10 - The Magician's Oath: Mike Yates tells a story of sorcerous goings on )
( Companion Chronicles 3.11 - The Mahogany Murderers: Back to Litefoot and Jago for some glorious Victorian adventures )
( Companion Chronicles 3.12 - The Stealers from Saiph: the first Romana at Antibes )

( Big Finish regular series #121 - Enemy of the Daleks: Seven, Ace, Hex, and the pepperpots )
( Big Finish regular series #122 - The Angel of Scutari: Seven, Ace, Hex, and Florence Nightingale )
( The Three Companions, parts 2 and 3: plenty of Polly )

( Eighth Doctor 3.4 - Wirrn Dawn: does what it says on the tin )
( Eighth Doctor 3.5 - The Scapegoat: second world war again, but bonkers this time )
( Eighth Doctor 3.6 - The Cannibalists: cute robots, but not what they seem )
( Eighth Doctor 3.7/3.8 - The Eight Truths / The Worldwide Web: season ends with a whimper rather than a bang )

So, of all of these, my only really strong recommendation goes to The Mahogany Murderers, which is also rather oddly the only one of the stories without an appearance from the Doctor or any of his companions. Most of the others can be skipped

Since I completed my run through the complete BF series of Doctor Who plays a couple of months back, they have continued cranking them out. Here's my thoughts on the latest (Seventh Doctor) audio from their main series, the almost latest (Second Doctor) of the Companion Chronicles, and the first three of the new Eighth Doctor plays.

( The Magic Mousetrap: Thomas Mann meets the Seventh Doctor and a long-forgotten enemy )

The second CD also includes the first installment of The Three Companions, an ongoing series featuring Anneke Wills as Polly, Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier and John Pickard as Thomas Brewster. Brewster is certainly my least favourite of the audio companions, but the other two are sheer delight, and I found I had something in my eye as Polly and the Brigadier exchanged notes on their time with the Doctor.

( Resistance: Polly tells her story of occupied France )

( Orbis )

( Hothouse )

( The Beast of Orlok )

So, of this lot I think Hothouse is the most accessible for the general listener. Both The Magic Mousetrap and Resistance have their strengths too.

...if you're a Classic Who fan, and you're not reading jekesta, I have to ask you why not?

My obsessive scheduling of Who books and audios sometimes throws up interesting moments of convergence. ( If you are feeling generous, this could be one of them. )

( Twilight of the Gods, by Christopher Bulis: Two, Jamie and Victoria, and a clash of ideologies )

( Return to the Web Planet, from a story by Daniel O'Mahony: Five and Nyssa, and improbable human plots )

Two Second Doctor novels to finish off the year.

( The Roundheads: Ben, Polly, Jamie and Oliver Cromwell )

( The Dark Path: Jamie, Victoria, and who is that bearded bloke with his own Tardis? )

( 'Oh, my giddy aunt!' - the Troughton years )
Whoblogging index: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten

Big Finish's series of Companion Chronicles, two-hander audio plays featuring companions of the first four Doctors, get better and better. Here we have Susan, Victoria, Jo and Leela brought back to life by Carole Ann Ford, Deborah Watling, Katy Manning and Louise Jameson, recounting adventures that we never saw on screen.

( Here There Be Monsters )
( The Great Space Elevator )
( The Doll of Death )
( Empathy Games )

All of these are recommended.

OK, now that I have read all 161 Doctor Who novelisations, and since I am jetlagged and awake, I am going to favour you with my personal top picks (and then a rough ranking of the others). You will find my reviews of each of the novelisations (plus also other spinoff literature and audio plays) here.

( The Best: Doctor Who and the Daleks )
( Doctor Who and the Romans )
( Doctor Who - The Rescue )
( Doctor Who and the Dæmons )
( Doctor Who - The Curse of Fenric )
( Doctor Who and the Green Death )

( Honorable mentions )

( Good Efforts )

( Average stuff )

( Less good  )

( Poor efforts )

( Dire: Doctor Who - Time Flight )

( The Worst: Doctor Who - The Twin Dilemma )

Brilliant.

Well, after posting and analysing the Best of Who and Worst of Who polls, the obvious next thing to do is combine them. So, a definitive final judgement by Livejournal: the best of the best, the worst of the worst, and deciding whether those stories that got two or more votes in each poll are Good or Bad.

( poll )

And yes, I will probably do one about the audios next.

There were some surprises here, most of all the surprise that more people voted than in the previous poll. Myself, I find it much easier to decide which story I like least than which I like most; perhaps I am unusual in that regard.

Anyway, as before, going in order of decreasing consensus by Doctor.

( Ninth Doctor: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances )
( Fifth Doctor: The Caves of Androzani )
( First Doctor: The Dalek Invasion of Earth )
( Sixth Doctor: Revelation of the Daleks )
( Seventh Doctor: Remembrance of the Daleks )
( Fourth Doctor: Genesis of the Daleks )
( Second Doctor: The Mind Robber )
( Third Doctor: Inferno )
( Tenth Doctor: Blink )
( Eighth Doctor: Err, yes. )

So that's it. Thanks for playing, and I shall probably do the same this time next year or thereabouts.

For those who felt last week's poll was too negative:

( favourite Who stories )

Continuing my project, these are the novelisations of the Season 20 stories, plus one that got away from Season 19 and the anniversary special. A number of these confounded my expectations.

( 5) Doctor Who and the Visitation, by Eric Saward - better than expected )
( 6) Doctor Who - Arc of Infinity, by Terrance Dicks - standard stuff )
( 7) Doctor Who - Snakedance, by Terrance Dicks - standard stuff )
( 8) Doctor Who - Mawdryn Undead, by Peter Grimwade - better than I expected )
( 9) Doctor Who - Terminus, by John Lydecker - the best of this bunch )
( 10) Doctor Who - Enlightenment, by Barbara Clegg - starts well, ends with a whimper )
( 11) Doctor Who - The King's Demons, by Terence Dudley - the least impressive of this bunch )
( 12) Doctor Who - The Five Doctors, by Terrance Dicks - a guilty pleasure )

This brings me to the end of Nyssa's run on the show. As with a lot of the brainier companions, she doesn't transfer particularly memorably to the printed page. Although she does bring with her a tragic back-story, losing first her father and then her whole homeworld, this fades more and more into the background as time goes on. Having said that, there are a couple of stories - eg Black Orchid, Terminus - where she is pretty central to the action and this works well.

Nyssa of course continues to feature on Fifth Doctor audios from time to time, including on several of the best Big Finish stories - The Mutant Phase (with Daleks), Primeval (a sort of prequel to The Keeper of Traken), The Game (which brings back William Russell rather gloriously) and two particular favourites, Creatures of Beauty (which has a very unusual format but none the less works) and most of all Spare Parts (the origin of the Cybermen). Any or all of these would be a decent jumping off point to get into Big Finish, if you haven't already done so.

This is what the poll reveals as the Worst Who stories (listed in order of decreasing consensus by Doctor).

( Fifth Doctor: Time Flight )
( Second Doctor: The Underwater Menace )
( Ninth Doctor: The Long Game )
( Sixth Doctor: Timelash )
( Seventh Doctor: Time and the Rani )
( Third Doctor: The Mutants )
( Tenth Doctor: tie between Love & Monsters and Fear Her )
( Eighth Doctor: what do you think? )
( First Doctor: tie between The Chase and The Gunfighters )
( Fourth Doctor: The Horns of Nimon )

Thus is revealed the accumulated weight of Livejournal. I am in line with the majority on only three of the nine where there is a serious contest; blue_condition, whose debate with me sparked this, does rather better. So basically, Pete wins the argument.

Sparked by a debate between blue_condition and myself, I must ask the following questions:

( which is the worst story of each Doctor? )

I'd already read probably the best Jamie / Zoe novel, Doctor Who - The Invasion, by Ian Marter, and also the worst, Doctor Who and the Dominators, also oddly enough by Ian Marter. Four of the other six are fairly standard efforts by Terrance Dicks, but the other two present points of interest.

( 35) Doctor Who - The Wheel in Space, by Terrance Dicks )
( 36) Doctor Who - The Mind Robber, by Peter Ling )
( 37) Doctor Who and the Krotons, by Terrance Dicks )
( 38) Doctor Who - The Seeds of Death, by Terrance Dicks )
( 39) Doctor Who - The Space Pirates, by Terrance Dicks )
( 40) Doctor Who and the War Games, by Malcolm Hulke )

So, that's it for the Second Doctor novelisations. I finished up my read-through of the First Doctor novels by regretting that almost nobody manages to capture Hartnell's performance on the printed page. Troughton (who perhaps put less of his own personality into the part than any other Doctor before Davison) is easier to pin down, the visual aspects of his performance more easily described. Of the other regulars, I felt that Victoria gains most, and Zoe loses most, on the printed page. Perhaps it is easier to inject some gravitas into the rather two-dimensional Victoria than to convey how stunningly cute Wendy Padbury is as Zoe.

The best of the Second Doctor novelisations are John Peel's Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks, Terrance Dicks' Doctor Who and the Web of Fear, Peter Ling's Doctor Who - The Mind Robber and Ian Marter's Doctor Who - The Invasion, with honourable mentions to Doctor Who - The Evil of the Daleks, the other three early Season 5 books, and Doctor Who and the War Games. None is quite as good as the best of the First Doctor novelisations, though.

Since I am reading these on my commute and am taking a long weekend chez scattyme in France, it'll be a while before I do the next lot.

Just because I'm reading the novels doesn't mean I am neglecting my duties to the original classic television series (though I imagine I will finish the novels first). But I realise I've fallen behind a bit in recording my reactions to them since the start of last month.

( The Brain of Morbius: Fourth Doctor and Sarah reprise Frankenstein )
( The Pirate Planet: Fourth Doctor, Romana I and K-9 do battle with Douglas Adams )
( Warrior's Gate: Fourth Doctor, Romana II, K-9 and Adric at the junction of the universes )
( Arc of Infinity: Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa meet the future Sixth Doctor and Omega )
( The Two Doctors: Sixth Doctor and Peri meet Second Doctor and Jamie and do battle with the Sontarans )
( Time and the Rani: newly regenerated Seventh Doctor and Mel deal with renegade Time Lady )

So, in summary, The Brain of Morbius and Warrior's Gate are real classics, and The Two Doctors held up better than I had expected; skip the rest.

These five Who books are all from 1967-68 stories, but from different ends of the chronology of publication. The first of these was in fact the very last of the official novelisations produced by Target/Virgin, in 1993; the other four were among the first five Second Doctor books, published between 1974 and 1978 by Target. Having been underwhelmed by my last clutch of Who books reviewed, I'm happy to report that all of these are good stuff.

( 27) Doctor Who - The Evil of the Daleks, by John Peel )
( 28) Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen, by Gerry Davis )
( 29) Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, by Terrance Dicks )
( 30) Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors, by Brian Hayles )
( 31) Doctor Who and the Web of Fear, by Terrance Dicks )

So that's it for the Jamie/Victoria combination. While Victoria, apart from in Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen, is the screamiest girl companion since Susan, the affectionate interactions between the Tardis crew are almost (but not quite) as entertaining on the page as on the screen.

All five of these books are medium good, and four of them are important as the perspective through which fans of my age first encountered the Second Doctor. The best of them is certainly Doctor Who and the Web of Fear, which wraps up one line of continuity (the Yeti and Travers) while setting up another (the Brigadier and UNIT). But all are worth adding to the serious Who fan's library. (The same can't be said for the other two novels of this run, alas.)

Five novelisations of Second Doctor stories, all originally broadcast in 1967. None of them specially good, and a couple which are pretty dire, but all very quick reading for my commute.

( 22) Doctor Who - The Highlanders, by Gerry Davis )
( 23) Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace, by Nigel Robinson )
( 24) Doctor Who and the Cybermen, by Gerry Davis )
( 25) Doctor Who - The Macra Terror, by Ian Stuart Black )
( 26) Doctor Who - The Faceless Ones, by Terrance Dicks )

In summary, your life will not be incomplete for lack of having read any of these! These are the five books featuring Ben, Polly and Jamie in the regular cast; it is remarkable how much more interesting Polly is as a character than the other two. Shame she didn't stay longer.

20) Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks, by John Peel

John Peel continues his run of excellent Who books with this, the first story of Patrick Troughton's incarnation of Doctor Who. It is a favourite of mine anyway - I cannot understand why fannish opinion generally prefers the later Evil of the Daleks - but Peel, equipped with David Whitaker's original scripts (retrieved, apparently, from his ex-wife's attic) and benefiting from some editorial decision to give him 250 rather than 125 pages to tell the story, has done an excellent job.

On reflection, it's also because this is a relatively unusual Dalek story, presenting them not as a rival galactic empire to us humans but as in some way a dark reflection of our own desires about ourselves. The only other televised story that comes close to doing that is Robert Shearman's Ninth Doctor story.

Anyway, Peel turns a good TV story (as far as we can judge, since it is one of the lost ones) into a good novel. An encouraging start to my reading up on the Second Doctor.

Having mostly enjoyed the first set of these, I can say that the second set is of the same order of quality.

( Mother Russia: Steven tells a story of the First Doctor in Napoleonic times )

( Helicon Prime: Jamie and the Second Doctor on holiday, solve a mystery )

( Old Soldiers: Brigadier recounts a German adventure with the Third Doctor )

( The Catalyst: Leela and the Fourth Doctor in Edwardian times )

So, try the first of these, and if you like it, experiment with the rest; good performances from the key actors, not so sure about the story in some cases.

Via a kind person in a friends-locked entry where he says very flattering things about me: Before You Know It: free downloads for first steps in dozens of languages. We've been playing with this at home for the last few days (me on Russian, F on French) and enjoying it. Takes a while to download and set up but great fun.

Patrick Troughton, the day before he died. Haven't yet watched all of this, but it seems both fun and poignant.

manjushra and nickbarnes exchange mathematical poetical riddles. (Answers here.)