Doctor Who's Putrid Ham
A quest through the Dr Who novelisations
"The excellent ham of Doctor Who is more than a little off"
1974 Times Literary Supplement review of Doctor Who and the Crusaders (quoted from David J Howe's The Target Book)
"Wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn..."
DOCTOR WHO AND THE ARK IN SPACE
by Ian Marter
Marter quickly establishes himself as the perfect choice to adapt Hinchcliffe-era stories. Stock sequences, like the Doctor battling to fix the oxygen supply while asphyxiating, become tense and thrilling (3), while more sci-fi set-pieces, like Sarah’s cryogenic freezing, become positively sensual (4), deaths are rewritten to emphasise the physicality of events (5), and even little moments, like Noah’s infection, are injected with tactile similes (6) and a sense of claustrophobia and overwhelmed horror (7).
Two long-running strands benefit especially from Marter’s prose. The first is Noah’s multi-episode transformation into a Wirrrn. It starts with ‘a sound of water dripped into boiling fat’ as his flesh turns to ‘green pus’ (8), then ‘crackling mucus’ starts to dribble from his mouth (9) and finally ‘with a crack like a gigantic seed pod bursting, his whole head split open’, releasing ‘sizzling’ green froth (10). Marter focuses on sounds, as if relaying the experience from inside Noah’s head, the body horror coming both from that bewildered perspective, the only one that can’t clearly see it all happening, and from the lack of sensation that betrays how Noah’s already alienated from his own self.
The second, which does focus on sensation and emotion, is Sarah’s crawl through Terra Nova’s maintenance shafts from Part Four. Marter shrinks the space (11) – twice over in fact (12) – and really goes to town on the visceral prose (13&14). More significantly, he also makes the conduits ‘Obsolete structures’ (15), exposed to the dangers of space (16). When Sarah likens them to ‘the bowels of some prodigious mythical beast’ (17), there’s a clear contrast being drawn with the gleaming modernity of the rest of the ark, reinforced by the way the Terra Novans are barely even aware of their existence and view them as so alien that they can only imagine sending the cable through by machine (18). By traversing the inhospitable and forgotten skeleton of the satellite, a relic of the era of ‘stellar exploration’, Sarah’s expedition is the climactic symbol of how the Doctor and his companions have been reconnecting mankind’s future with its forgotten humanity.
As a theme, this is pretty much par for the course for Target – its ending at the very least has echoes of Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (19) – so maybe it’s no surprise it comes through so much more clearly in the book than in the broadcast episodes. Marter, however, has to work quite hard to ensure it does. For a start, Rogin’s onscreen down-to-Earthness and frequent colloquialisms are thrown out (20), and Sarah muses at one point how unlikely Vira and Rogin are to understand simple wordplay (21). More significantly, Noah’s immediate ‘intense hostility’ (22) towards the Doctor and company is used to reveal how easily the Terra Novans feel ‘disgust’ for those not part of their select group (23), dehumanise them – Noah terming people he assumes are Regressives from Colony Seven (24) ‘alien forms’ (25) – and discuss their extermination (26).
As on TV, Vira is the chief barometer of the Tardis crew’s effect on Terra Nova, happily munching away on jelly babies by the end of the story (27). She starts off dismissive of (28) and disinterested in anyone outside the great plan (29), very much a product of the 30th century’s ‘highly specialised’ society (30). Though her air of ‘cold authority’ from the start returns at times later (31), it’s also quickly clear that she’s softening once exposed to the Doctor’s party, helping Harry with Sarah despite Noah’s fury at their intrusion (32) and even quietly challenging her commander’s authority, muttering about leaving their status up to the ‘Council’ in a way clearly unthinkable to the freshly awoken Libri (33).
Of course, it’s not quite as clean cut as all that. Vira’s genuine affection for Noah is clear from the start (34) and, though that might simply be a sign of how quickly she’s influenced by Harry and the Doctor’s concern for Sarah, it’s more likely that that their pair-bonding always meant more to her than just the continuation of the human race (35). On top of that, the technicians Lycett and Rogin are immediately ‘almost friendly’, and the fact that they’re described as ‘much less formal than Vira had been’ (36) suggests this has more to do with their roles than the sociable presence of non-Terra Novans. However, the manner in which, in the scene removed from the broadcast episodes, the Doctor responds to Vira’s inability to shoot Noah even as he pleads to be killed, sympathising that he ‘could not have done it either’, creates a clear link between her behaviour and his, and Vira’s lament that she has shown ‘weakness’ (37) hints that she might actually have been able to do it had she not been exposed to these Regressives.
Mind you, maybe compassion isn’t the aspect of humanity the Terra Novans have lost. Though there’s a clear fondness between Noah and Vira (38), the High Minister’s speech about Earth seems to inspire him to resist the Wirrrn just as much as his personal connection to his crew, and the Doctor puts his final act down to ‘Some vestige of the indomitable human spirit’ (39). This harkens back to the Doctor’s early speech on homo sapiens (40), which Marter tweaks (41), trimming ‘inventive’ and ‘invincible’ and chucking in an extra ‘indomitable’. Those stellar explorers didn’t triumph because they were compassionate, and they certainly weren’t invincible; they triumphed because they kept pushing outwards despite the frozen blackness and solar radiation and all the discomfort and damage it caused them. They couldn’t be stopped.
Never mind Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon, Marter is harking right back to Doctor Who and David Whitaker’s refrain that the key thing in life is to fight and fight and fight some more. Only a stubborn insistence on survival allows humanity to persist through ‘flood, plague, famine, war’ and out into the stars, and it is that spirit that the Doctor celebrates and Noah clings on to. Vira, in fact, seems still not to have rediscovered it even by the end, ready to cancel the whole revivification process because of the loss of the transport ship (42). It’s only as the Doctor departs in a craft she scarcely believes can take him to Earth (43) that she seems to embrace the idea of persevering despite not yet spying a clear route to success, of seizing upon the slightest chance (44).
1 tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Ark_in_Space_(novelisation)
3 ‘Sweat ran into his eyes. His two hearts laboured. His hands felt like rubber’
4 ‘She felt her blood running literally cold, her veins and arteries contracted around the chilling fluid as it coursed through her. She felt her heartbeat slowing and labouring. Her body appeared to merge into the cold jelly surrounding her’
5 ‘Libri's body was hurled across the chamber in a succession of frozen shapes as pulse after pulse cracked into it. When the sparking ceased, Noah stared in terror at the smouldering body of the young man welded to the panelling’
6 ‘There was a hideous sensation in his injured arm, as if a column of stinging ants was forcing its way through the veins’
7 ‘Confined inside the helmet, Noah was deafened by his own scream’
8 ‘With a sound of water dripped into boiling fat, green pus began to bubble out through the seams of the glove’
9 ‘As he tried to speak, a ball of crackling mucus welled out of the dark slit that was his mouth and trickled down the front of the suit’
10 ‘with a crack like a gigantic seed pod bursting, his whole head split open and a fountain of green froth erupted and ran sizzling down the radiation suit’
11 ‘She could move only with a kind of caterpillar action which was terribly exhausting; she contracted her body, pressed her knees against the shaft and then straightened her body, pressed her elbows outwards and finally drew her legs along after her by contracting her body’
12 ‘even narrower than before. She now had to stretch out her arms ahead of her, and to move forward by turning her whole body like a corkscrew’
13 ‘Sarah was drenched in perspiration despite the intense coldness which numbed her fingers. She had to fight for every breath. Her knees and elbows were raw from scraping against the sides of the narrow shafts. Her hair repeatedly caught itself between her shoulders and the metal sides of the conduits’
14 ‘Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. Her skin seemed to adhere to the cold metal shaft, and would only come away with a sharp and painful wrench. She could see absolutely nothing. She gasped for oxygen’
15 ‘Obsolete structures […] Relics of the time when the Satellite was functioning as a research base for stellar exploration’
16 ‘there would be very little air or heat in the shafts, and that Sarah would have no shielding against cosmic radiation from Space’
17 ‘She imagined herself crawling through the bowels of some prodigious mythical beast’
18 ‘we would require a mechanical cable-runner; the conduits are only forty centimetres square’
19 ‘Noah sacrificed himself for the sake of his people here’ – and not just that, Rogin does too: ‘He sacrificed himself so that the Satellite would be saved’. And the Doctor was keen to try and do so himself
20 Examples from the TV episodes include: ‘It always sets my teeth on edge’ AND ‘You don't want trouble with the space technician's union, Doctor’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/12-2.htm
21 ‘she managed a smile to herself as she visualised Vira's and Rogin's blank stares on hearing her little joke’
22 ‘Noah continued to stare at Harry with intense hostility’
23 ‘He looked Harry up and down, staring at his crumpled clothes and shoeless feet in undisguised disgust’
24 ‘There was a Regressive element among the volunteers for Colony Seven’
25 ‘Noah broke into a mocking laugh. “You and your companions are the only alien forms here”’
26 ‘“The Commander will not permit contamination of the Genetic Pool,” said Vira in a hard voice. “All Regressive influences must be eliminated”’
27 ‘She tentatively broke off a small piece from the sticky lump in the bag and put it into her mouth. She grimaced, then she smiled and nodded in approval at the taste’
28 ‘“You have no function here,” retorted Vira dismissively’
29 ‘Vira turned abruptly away, as if losing all interest in them. “She was not among the Chosen”’
30 ‘“Not her function, Harry,” called the Doctor over his shoulder. “By the Thirtieth Century, human society has become highly specialised. Vira is a Medtech; we, I suspect, are an Executive problem”’
31 ‘Vira looked defiantly at the Doctor. She seemed to have regained her former cold authority’
32 ‘Vira hesitated a moment under her Commander's furious gaze. Then she said quietly, “The Council can decide, Commander,” and walked quickly over to Sarah's pallet, and began monitoring her progress’ – does this mean Vira is softer than Noah or that she’s already been softened by contact with the Doctor and Harry?
33 ‘Vira went over and spoke to the young Medtech in an urgent whisper. “Libri, there is no procedure for arresting Revivification. It would be fatal.” Libri met their gaze calmly. “Noah is our Commander,” he said’
34 ‘There was a sudden yielding in her face. “Commander”’
35 ‘“Noah and I were pair-bonded for the new life,” she said. Her eyes were full of tears’
36 ‘Lycett and Rogin. At first dazed and suspicious, the technicians had soon revealed themselves to be almost friendly […] They were much less formal than Vira had been’
37 ‘“For pity's sake... kill me... kill me now,” [Noah] pleaded […] “I am sorry,” [Vira] said at last. “I showed weakness.” “No, I could not have done it either,” said the Doctor’
38 It’s more obvious on her side than his, but he does actually mirror her actions on waking (‘Vira stretching out her hand in greeting […] He was holding out his hands to her in a simple gesture of recognition’) before getting distracted by Harry and Sarah, she’s the only one ‘Noah—or what is left of Noah—will trust’, and he does make a special effort to say goodbye to her: ‘Farewell... Farewell, Vira...’
39 ‘Some vestige of the indomitable human spirit, perhaps’
40 Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they've crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts, and now here they are amongst the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable. Indomitable!
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/12-2.htm
41 ‘Homo Sapiens... what an indomitable species... it is only a few million years since it crawled up out of the sea and learned to walk... a puny defenceless biped... it has survived flood, plague, famine, war... and now here it is out among the stars... awaiting a new life’
42 ‘“Without the Transport Ship we have no means of reaching Earth.” […] Vira moved towards the panel, her hand raised, as if she were about to cancel the Revivification Process once and for all, and abandon the great plan which had succeeded thus far against incalculable odds’
43 ‘Do you ask me to accept that you are intending to convey yourself to Earth... by means of this... this obsolete artefact?’
44 ‘Suddenly Vira smiled in recognition. “Yes... yes,” .she cried. “Good luck...”’
Marterisms
Sarah’s hair is ‘tucked into a saucy woollen hat’
‘“Now listen carefully,” and he quickly outlined a simple plan.../... A few moments later’ – I’m not sure anyone’s done quite so televisual a cut in the novelisations before
The first Wirrrn gives ‘an unearthly sigh of satisfaction’ – this might be a deliberately odd phrase as it ensures that, when the Doctor links his brain to the dead Wirrrn tissue, the moment he ‘sighed, as if with satisfaction’ is a clear echo of the opening moments
‘The creature cowered, uttering hoarse screams as a stream of brutal shock-waves pulsed from the sphere, blistering its body with burns’ – it’s especially disturbing to think of an exoskeleton blistering
Sarah experiences ‘the sensation of being slowly dismembered’, which I suspect sounds rather more drastic than Marter intends
‘large ovoid window panels of tinted glass, through which a brilliantly clear night sky blazed’ – is it the ‘night sky’ if you’re in space?
‘a snaking tentacle of globule lashed through the gloom towards his head’ – what does that mean?
Tory Who
Crawling through 40cm-wide shafts: ‘At last—an assignment worthy of your talents...’ – doesn’t think much of Sarah, does he?
A hint of Dicks: ‘before she could haul herself to her feet, she suddenly felt extremely dizzy. She keeled over on her side in a dead faint just as the Doctor reached her...’
At the sound of some gabbling, Sarah ‘rushed to the Doctor's side in terror’
Revenge of the Educational Remit
‘Cryogenic... cryogenic... the word reverberated in Sarah's mind. She tried to remember; what was it? Something to do with freezing... yes, freezing... the theory of tissue preservation for long periods of time... from the Greek word for frost...’
Height Attack
A Wirrrn is ‘fully three metres long from the top of its domed head to the tip of the fearsome pincer in which its tail terminated’, Vira is ‘fully two metres tall’ and Noah is ‘a tall, slim but powerful man’.
The Doctor is ‘a tall, broad man with a riot of curly brown hair bubbling out from beneath a stylish felt hat’, but how else do you describe Tom Baker?
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
Is this actually Terra Nova’s point of view?: ‘Patiently it waited. Then suddenly, after many centuries, something stirred within it’
Or is it specifically from the perspective of the defence sphere?: ‘The brittle, splintering sound of its movements died away as panel after panel glided shut behind it. The sphere hung inert in the darkness’
References I Didn’t Get
‘the imago stage’ – ‘the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis’ according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imago, so it’s referring to a fully grown Wirrrn here
Miscellania
They appear to be WIRRN on the back cover but Wirrrn within and, when spoken by the Noah, ‘Wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn...’
‘Out among the remotest planets, in faithful orbit through the Solar System, the great Satellite revolved’ – it’s out among the gas giants?
Terra Nova: ‘We appear to be inside an old Centrifugal Gravity Satellite, shaped rather like a doughnut with an éclair stuck through the middle and connected to it by several chocolate fingers’ – if only those were the materials they’d used to make it on TV
‘In her wrist, Harry's practised eye caught the beat of a regular pulse’ – Harry can see a pulse?!
‘“Who is this?” Harry swung round at the ice-cold enquiry. Noah was staring at him with blazing eyes’ – ice-cold and blazing?
‘They all knew that Sarah was about to risk her life in an appallingly dangerous mission. Sarah herself knew that for a journalist it was the scoop of a lifetime’ – eh?
The Wirrrn: ‘giant locusts’ with a ‘massive leathery body’. They have an ‘octopus head’ with ‘huge globular eye on each side’, each eye ‘composed of thousands of cells’; ‘raised antennae’; nostrils to take ‘sharp intakes of breath’ and for ‘sniffing [Sarah] out’; ‘huge quivering mandibles’ big enough for ‘completely enclosing [Sarah’s] struggling body’; ‘six tentacular legs’, ‘three stumpy tentacles’ ‘In place of [each] arm’, bristling ‘with razor-sharp 'hairs'’ in ‘rows’; a ‘segmented body’; ‘razor-bristling legs’; and, at the end of its tail, a ‘murderous claw’ able to be held up ‘over its head’ ‘like the sting of a giant scorpion’.
