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)
"The first Cyberman was obviously bored with the conversation. No wonder humans were so retarded when they talked in this ridiculous way"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CYBERMEN
by Gerry Davis
First published 19 February 1975 (1), between The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment (2)
Height Attack
The Cybermen are pretty big: ‘It was the shadow of a large, human figure with a strange flat, almost square head, and two jug-like side protections’ and ‘a huge silver-clad figure, like a man but obviously not a man. The head of the figure loomed at least a foot above Ralph’s head’. And the Cyberleader, of course, is then ‘slightly larger than the others’. But there are also, it seems, ‘two giant Cybermen’ – size really does matter if you’re made of plastic, it seems
First Pertwee’s final story on TV was followed by the first non-current Doctor novelisation, then Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon, the first Pertwee novelisation to embrace a gamut of alien creatures (Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon focusing on future colonists from Earth), was released on the eve of ‘Robot’, which sees the Doctor definitively depart his Earth home, and now there’s an introduction to the Cybermen, who haven’t appeared on TV since ‘The Wheel in Space’, shortly before the broadcast of ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’. Target even gets in Gerry Davis, who’d been commissioned to script that TV return, to do the job. Presumably, this is just the book range cannily anticipating certain appetites around what they know’s coming on TV but the effect must have been that children watched certain events in the series in the context of the novelisations.
It’s unfortunate for those kids then that ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’ in no way resembled ‘‘The Moonbase’ with the Cybermats’ (3) idea that, so Davis said in 1987, was originally scripted. That would have made Doctor Who and the Cybermen the perfect primer, even down, according to Shannon Patrick Sullivan, to the ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’ Doctor being written ‘in the vein of Patrick Troughton's [portrayal]’ (4). To be fair, Davis couldn’t have any idea how Tom Baker would play the role and so had to base the character on something, but that doesn’t quite explain why he throws in stuff like the 500-year diary, a bit of business that had barely ever appeared in the show in the first place, been dropped before Troughton left the role and never appeared during five years of Pertwee (5).
There were other signs Davis was dismissive of any suggestion that it wasn’t 1967 anymore. Admittedly, he had first submitted effectively a single-big-set base-under-siege script at, for budget reasons, Barry Letts’s request (6); however, when the serial’s budget loosened and Holmes and Hinchcliffe allowed the story a second location, Davis could seemingly imagine no way in which an increased scope could be anything but detrimental to the story (7). Then there was his archaic practice of giving ‘each episode its own title’ (8), his misreading of the age of Doctor Who’s 1970s audience (or possibly the televisual literacy of that audience, which was presumably greater than in 1967 even if the age range was more-or-less the same), his apparently dismissive approach to the female lead and his treatment of the male sidekick as the action-lead (9).
Which is all a bit odd, because Doctor Who and the Cybermen doesn’t paint Davis as formulaic and outdated at all. Let’s start with his Doctor. Obviously, writing the protagonist ‘in the vein of Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor’ isn’t an issue when you’re adapting a second Doctor script, but it’s nice to take a moment to appreciate how well he captures Troughton’s performance. He catches the anarchic and childish aspects of the character well, most clearly in the Doctor’s early attempts to discover the cause of the Moonbase plague, plunging into a ‘scene of concentrated activity’ and immediately disrupting it with ‘a mad gleam in his eye’ (10). When he goes so far as to unlace Nils’s boot without informing him, causing the Dane to go ‘flying forward’, the Doctor is left ‘triumphantly holding the boot’ (11), perfectly mimicking a children’s prank.
But this isn’t just the caricature that appeared in ‘The Three Doctors’. Davis suggests the impishness is all a ‘pose’ (12), the Doctor’s real nature slipping through in glimpses such as his ‘‘far-horizons’ look’ (13). Partly, this easy-going nature is put on for others’ benefit, as when he enthuses how much fun it’ll be tracking down the cause of the plague on seeing his companions’ ‘faces fall’ when they realise he doesn’t yet know (14), in much the same way Sarah will, in ‘Pyramids of Mars’, suggest Tom Baker’s jokes are just a way of shielding her from how bad the situation is.
However, that can’t be the whole story or else he wouldn’t be ‘gratified’ when he hears a note of ‘respect’ in Hobson’s attitude to him (15). That respect is a sign that the director is starting to appreciate his methods (16), and those methods are more about intuition than knowledge. Davis gives the Doctor a whole new bit of business I can’t remember ever having seen on TV, ‘doing a series of intricate calculations […] as a way of thinking out problems’ (17). Crucially, the logical exercise itself ‘meant little’ and is a simple distraction while his mind ponders the real problem. The Doctor may be ‘steely’ but he’s a genuine contrast to the Cybermen rather than simply an opposing force with a fleshier façade. He engages in scientific research because it’s ‘what he enjoyed best’, in other words because it’s fun, and he pursues ‘truth’ rather than fact.
Having carefully set up this thematic contrast between hero and villains, it’s interesting that Davis’s Cybermen actually make no sense whatsoever. For a man who got so worked up about the title ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’ (18), presumably because of its strong pointer toward the metal men having emotions, he pays little more than lip service to the idea that the villains have expunged all feelings. Yes, they’re said to live only by ‘the inexorable laws of pure logic’ (19), and, yes, they’re baffled by the use of the word ‘revenge’ (20), but they’re also shown to get bored (21), to goad their prisoners about their inadequate mental faculties (22) and to get flummoxed by seemingly faulty equipment (23). What’s more, Davis states that their motivation in pursuing ‘power!’ is a desperate desire to compensate for ‘the lack of love and feeling in their lives’ (24), the very lack they are supposed to either be unaware of or view as an advantage.
These are exactly the sort of creatures who would seek revenge. They even pretty much say as much, insisting ‘the Earth people needed to be taught a lesson’ (25). This is not only fiercely petty and emotive, but it’s also essentially the ‘but’ clause following their insistence that ‘revenge [is] not part of their mental make-up’. However much Davis might protest, these are the same Cybermen Holmes and Hinchcliffe presented. Indeed, they’re probably even sillier, with names like Tarn (26), devices ‘which [resemble] the control used to guide model boats and aeroplanes’ (27) and an irrational fear of gravity (28).
This makes it sound like Davis’s Cybermen are a mess, but the opposite is in fact the case. They’re brilliant – delusional perhaps and certainly not logical, but magnificently evocative. They’re introduced as ‘the Viking raiders’ of 2070 (29), which could easily suggest them skulking about the galaxy exactly as the Doctor jokes in ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’, but here the focus in on the constant, unpredictable threat they pose to all attempts at a stable life rather than their own largely empty life drifting through the void. They’re relentless, not needing to eat or sleep, instead recharging themselves through ‘powerful Cyberman batteries’ (30), able to spring and attack ‘twenty-four hours a day’, and they’re patient, effectively dormant when not active (31), so it makes no difference to them how far they have to come to get you. Space is their domain, all around every other life-form trying to make a nice life for itself. There might not be many of them, and they might be very silly, but they still might just any day appear on your planet and turn everyone’s lives upside-down.
And that, oddly, tallies nicely with how the TV series is busy taking the Doctor from the stable, cosy environment of the Pertwee years, re-embracing the hostile environment of space and making the universe a sinister land of horrors once again. However much Davis might think 1967 is a better land, everything about Doctor Who and the Cybermen is pretty much is perfectly suited to when it came out.
Tory Who
‘Polly whimpered and clung to him’
‘He dug Polly in the ribs. “Carry on, nurse.” Polly turned quickly round, her hand upraised, but Ben had dodged out of reach, grinning’
‘Ben noticed Polly standing behind him. “Not you, duchess,” he said, “this is men’s work”’
‘While the men’s attention was diverted by Polly’s miniskirt, the door opened behind them and a man slipped in, looked around, and quickly walked across to the Gravitron room. He opened the door, slipped inside and bent down out of sight behind one of the computer units. It was Evans’ – all of them? In an emergency situation?
Davisisms
‘Jamie, the human hedgehog, cautiously uncoiling enough to see out from his enveloping plaid blanket’ – this is great!
‘while Jamie had the courage of a lion and all a Highland crofter’s resourcefulness and cunning, he was a little thick, even by 1745 standards’ – this less so.
‘“Clever girl,” said the Doctor patronisingly’ – I can’t work it out at all. Is the text having a go at the Doctor for being a patronising git? Or is it saying that it’s appropriate he should be patronising when Polly struggles to understand such simple things? I’m not sure I can ever imagine patronisingly ever being used except to tell the reader that they’re looking at a right git but it’d be odd if that was what Davis was setting the Doctor up as.
‘Hobson looked up and down the bed incredulously and thumped the bolster angrily. “Is this someone’s idea of a particularly bad joke?” – it’s not that big a bed and that’s an oddly long, adjectivally heavy sentence for an angry man.
‘Their weapons don’t work in this vacuum’ – the moon has an atmosphere, doesn’t it? (well, it turns out it does - https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LADEE/news/lunar-atmosphere.html - but Davis clearly isn’t actually being ridiculous at all).
‘She stalked disdainfully off to the other beds, fussing round the patients and eventually stopping opposite the one containing Dr. Evans. “I wonder who this is”’ she said […] Polly picked up the temperature chart from the bed and looked at it. Ben looked over her shoulder. “It’s Dr. Evans!” he exclaimed’ – Um… Why?
‘Love, hate, anger, even fear, were eliminated from their lives when the last flesh was replaced by plastic.’ – this is great!
‘The Cyberman was directing them as a shepherd directs sheep dogs in the Welsh mountains’ – this less so.
‘The man was tall and the Cyberman, holding him by the legs under one arm, the blanket dangling beside him, headed for the door of the Medical Store Room’ – how exactly is he carrying him??
‘Like dangling puppets, they accelerated rapidly into the black of space’ – is that what dangling puppets do?
‘The Cyberman’s voice vibrated harshly, as though computerised’ – so, are they not computerised?
‘The Cyberman spark seemed to have helped clear the congested blood passages in his injured head!’ – I’m sure this is intended figuratively, but still…
1 http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Cybermen
2 http://epguides.com/DoctorWho/
3 ‘It was a little like ‘The Moonbase’ with the Cybermats’
Gerry Davis, DWM 124 (interviewed by Richard Marson); quoted from doomwatchforum.proboards.com/thread/40/dwm-interview-gerry-davies-1987
4 ‘In the absence of a concrete idea of how Tom Baker would be portraying the new Doctor, Davis also elected to essentially write the character in the vein of Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor, including the use of such signature elements as his 500-year diary’
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, A Brief History of Time (Travel);
www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4d.html
5 The 500-year diary is a trait Davis either gives the Doctor or assumes he always used (based on its appearance in 'Power of the Daleks' and 'Tomb of the Cybermen' and NOTHING ELSE according to tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Five_Hundred_Year_Diary). It’s quick to appear at the start of the story (‘The Doctor had reached into his capacious pockets and brought out his diary […] He remained utterly absorbed’), is twice commented on as coming out ‘again’ (‘The Doctor was edging away, his diary out again’ and ‘The Doctor consulted his battered diary again’), becomes something the Doctor seeks comfort in even when it isn’t helpful (‘The Doctor brought out his diary but seemed at a loss where to start looking’), something he turns to at every uncertainty (‘“There’s something very wrong indeed.” He pulled out his diary’), something that winds up the other characters (‘“There were Cybermen, every child knows that, but they were all destroyed long ago.” The Doctor stopped and brought out his well worn diary. “So we all thought!” Hobson thumped the arm of his chair. “Put that book away, Doctor”’), with even the narration sighing at the inevitability of its reappearance (‘The Doctor stopped, thought for a moment, and then brought out his inevitable diary’), and finally is acknowledged as nothing more than a prop (‘The Doctor flicked open his diary, but he knew the answer. It was purely a routine gesture’). It’s quite the journey for something of such incidental heritage. That said, Davis's obsession with it seems to have rubbed off on the new production crew for Season 12 as apparently ‘the Fourth Doctor checked his pockets for his diary, which contained notes he had made about the Sontarans’ in ‘The Sontaran Experiment’ (tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Five_Hundred_Year_Diary), a detail that had completely passed me by.
6 ‘Hewing to Letts' original request for a fairly inexpensive serial, most of Davis' action took place on board the Nerva beacon’
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, A Brief History of Time (Travel);
www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4d.html
7 ‘they wanted a cheapie, so I wrote the whole thing as a sort of Las Vegas in space [...] Then they got more money and decided to write in a sub-plot, which I thought diffused the interest a bit’
Gerry Davis, DWM 124 (interviewed by Richard Marson); quoted from doomwatchforum.proboards.com/thread/40/dwm-interview-gerry-davies-1987
8 ‘The writer gave each episode its own title, even though this practise had been abandoned while Davis was a member of the production team’. As Shannon Sullivan highlights, the most extraordinary thing here is his persistence with something he witnessed phased out on his watch nine years before
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, A Brief History of Time (Travel);
www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4d.html
9 ‘Both Holmes and new producer Philip Hinchcliffe were concerned throughout the writing process that Davis was pitching his scripts at an audience younger than Doctor Who was now targetting. Hinchcliffe was also concerned that Sarah was largely extraneous to the action, and that Harry dominated episode four at the expense of the Doctor’
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, A Brief History of Time (Travel);
www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4d.html
10 ‘It was into this scene of concentrated activity that the Doctor, armed with a bottle of swabs, specimen tubes and a large pair of scissors entered and immediately began to disrupt. He was doing what he enjoyed best; research for a scientific, or in this case, a medical truth. With a mad gleam in his eye’
11 ‘The Doctor became obsessed by something he saw on Nils’ boots. He bent down to examine them […] the Doctor had got a firm hold on Nils’ boot and unlaced it. As the Dane moved away, the Doctor held on to the boot. Nils went flying forward, leaving the Doctor triumphantly holding the boot’
12 ‘Normally dreamy and a little absent from the proceedings, in a gentle, charming sort of way, the Doctor occasionally showed a different nature underneath the easy-going pose. Now his green eyes became steely, his face hardened’
13 ‘The Doctor had, as Polly put it afterwards, a ‘far-horizons’ look in his blue-green eyes. “There are some corners of the universe,” the Doctor went on, “which have bred the most terrible things. Things which are against everything we have ever believed in. They...” he shivered in spite of himself, “... must be fought. To the death”’
14 ‘“Have you any idea yet what it is?” Polly and Ben looked hopefully at the Doctor. He looked back at them quizzically. “Haven’t the faintest idea, so far. But...” he added, as he saw their faces fall, “... we’ll have a lot of fun tracking it down”’
15 ‘“Doctor,” Hobson turned to him. The Doctor was gratified to notice a new tone of respect. “What do you make of this?”’
16 This is a slightly tenuous point to justify, but there is a definite echo to an earlier exchange between Hobson and Ben: ‘Ben explained. “A kind of gun for destroying tanks. It’s portable and fires a rocket.” He straightened up and moved away from the binoculars. […] Hobson moved slightly to one side. “We’d better get down,” he said. “Chuck, we need you below. Perhaps you,” he looked at Ben with a new respect, “wouldn’t mind manning this look-out post”’. Here, Hobson’s respect seems to be earned through Ben’s knowing things. When Hobson comes to appreciate the Doctor, it’s for his ability to explain rather than identify the unknown, in other words his ability to intuit rather than simply possess information – look at this hole and try and deduce what could have caused it
17 ‘Polly noticed the Doctor was now deep in his notebook, doing a series of intricate calculations. She knew that he sometimes used logical calculations as a way of thinking out problems. The calculations themselves meant little. They were often some mathematical problem he set himself and then worked on while he was puzzling out a solution’
18 ‘As for ‘Revenge’, which was the wrong title if ever there was one – mine was ‘Something in Space’’
Gerry Davis, DWM 124 (interviewed by Richard Marson); quoted from doomwatchforum.proboards.com/thread/40/dwm-interview-gerry-davies-1987
19 ‘Their main impediment was one that only a flesh and blood man would have recognised […] They lived by the inexorable laws of pure logic’
20 ‘“You people, who are supposed to be so advanced, here you are taking your revenge like children!” The Cyberman turned and looked at the second Cyberman, then back to Benoit. “Revenge? What is that?” “It is a feeling people have when...” The first Cyberman broke in, “Feeling? Yes, we know of this weakness of yours. We are fortunate. We do not possess feelings”' – 1. Not very convincing. 2. Why does not having a feeling mean that it’s absent from your vocabulary? Is this just a dig at Holmes and Hinchcliffe for their title?
21 ‘The first Cyberman was obviously bored with the conversation. No wonder humans were so retarded when they talked in this ridiculous way’ – how is this unemotional? And was it ever possible to use the word ‘retarded’ in this way without sounding like a seven-year-old??
22 ‘“Entry!” Hobson looked up. “How did you get in?” “It was very simple,” said the Cyberman. “Only rudimentary Earth brains like yours would have been fooled”’ – They are actually exactly as cutting as a seven-year-old. Is that Davis’s idea – that the Cybermen actually reflect the target readers’ desire for power over adults?
23 The great logical Cybermen’s response when their weapons don’t work?: ‘The Cyberman shook it slightly, aimed at Benoit again, and pressed the button’
24 ‘They achieved their immortality at a terrible price. They became dehumanised monsters. And, like human monsters down through all the ages of Earth, they became aware of the lack of love and feeling in their lives and substituted another goal—power!’
25 ‘The only previous time a Cyberman space ship had landed on the Earth, it had been humiliatingly defeated. So, although revenge was not a part of their mental make-up any more than the other emotions, the Earth people needed to be taught a lesson’ – This must be deliberate, mustn’t it? They’re clearly not logical and massively over-emotional about everything. ‘needed to be taught a lesson’ my arse.
26 ‘Cyberleader—Tarn’
27 The mind-controlled humans are operated by ‘a third Cyberman, carrying a small box which resembled the control used to guide model boats and aeroplanes’
28 ‘For some reason they were afraid of gravity’ - and Davis strongly implies an irrational fear with that almost disbelieving ‘For some reason’
29 ‘By the year 2070, they had become as known and feared in the galaxies as the Viking raiders of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries’
30 ‘The Cybermen themselves did not rest. When necessary, they could fit themselves into giant clips connected to the powerful Cyberman batteries, and re-charge themselves. Otherwise, they were operational twenty-four hours a day’
31 ‘Polly noticed that, except when they were moving, the two Cybermen were as still as two suits of armour in a museum. The only thing that indicated life was a very slight whirring noise, which seemed to come from the chest unit every time they were about to speak’
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - ‘Centuries ago by our Earth time, a race of men on the far-distant planet of Telos sought immortality’
‘Thoughtfully, Ben filled up the huge coffee urn with water, replaced the filter bag with fresh coffee, and switched it on. If he could not be of use in any other capacity, he was determined that no one should want for coffee while he was the official moonbase coffee boy’ – This is a lot of detail for something quite mundane. Is Davis trying to make up for the oft-shown coffee Polly bit in the TV episodes or just laboriously setting up his clues? It’s clues! – ‘He reached over and picked up a bag marked ‘Sugar’. The bag was broken and, as the man raised it, the powdered contents streamed out over the racks and floor […] “Anyone would think we had rats up here!” he exclaimed’
‘As Ben appeared not to hear her, she strode over and picked up the cream and sugar herself. She brought it over to Hobson, who declined the cream and took two large spoonfuls of the sugar. He raised the coffee to his mouth, “Careful,” said Polly, “it’s hot.” Hobson lowered the cup again’ – does Davis expect readers to remember that it was the sugar? This feels like it’s playing the suspense of Hobson on the edge of taking a sip – but then the reader would remember that Hobson was alright…
Miscellania
‘Their small fleet of Cyberman space ships landed on the moon at exactly 4.30 a.m. on October 15th in the year 2070’
‘The Doctor looked thoughtfully back over at the crater rim but, as usual, did not reveal his thoughts to the others’
‘the chronically vague and evasive Doctor’
‘Polly did another of her instant switches. This time it was from, as Ben put it, the ‘toffy-nosed Duchess’ giving orders, to the coy ‘little girl lost’ act. All big eyes and wheedling, she took his arm’
‘Jamie had just joined the Doctor’s motley crew. In contrast to Polly and Ben, both from stable backgrounds in 1970’s London, he was a hunted man, a refugee’
‘Ben added, “always wanted to be an astronaut meself. First giant step and all that”’ – nice little pilfering from history there. I suppose that, now he and Polly seem to be from the 1970s, he is quoting rather than clairvoyant