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)
"Ughh! Take it away"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE DESTINY OF THE DALEKS
by Terrance Dicks
First published 25 October 1979 (1), between City of Death and The Creature from the Pit (2)
This was presumably written in something of a hurry, released roughly two months after the broadcast of ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ (3). Quite how much of a hurry depends on how much time you think it took Dicks to write his usual novelisations and quite how little usable script you think Nation submitted in late January – about 2% according to the director (5). It is, however, clear that Dicks is working from scripts lacking several broadcast details – though it does include Romana’s regeneration, a scene Shannon Sullivan states was written by Douglas Adams (6) – which might mean he had to get the adaptation written before July (7).
For whatever reason, whether the rough state of the scripts or not, Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks opens timidly. A lot of that feeling is thanks to the first line, often notably striking in Dicks’s adaptations, being a decidedly standard Dicksism (8), immediately followed by another (9), quickly followed by another (10). On top of that, the first few pages bring a surprisingly wordy recap of the concept of regeneration (11) and explanation the Tardis’s new randomiser (12). It’s as if Dicks is already worried the script he’s received is going to struggle to generate the necessary wordcount and he’s bulking things out from the get-go to ensure he’ll cross the finish line.
Now, you could argue these staples and this clarity of explanation is setting Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks up to be a jumping-on point. This is the shortest gap yet between the broadcast of a story and the publication of its novelisation (and will only ever be beaten by The Five Doctors (13)), and was released before any of the previous season’s serials made it to the page, so maybe care was needed to ensure all readers were properly up to speed. However, Romana’s introduction, in her first appearance in the books, rather undermines this suggestion, consisting simply of the Doctor yelling her name out while he fails in his attempts to fix K9 (14). The book reveals that she’s regenerating (15) and a little about Princess Astra (16) before finally making clear that Romana is a ‘Time Lady companion’ (17) and filling in a little of her background, such as her academic success at the Time Lord academy (18) that the TV show had used to establish her back in ‘The Ribos Operation’ (19). Frankly, if Dicks isn’t assuming a readership familiar with Romana and, at the least, ‘The Armageddon Factor’, he’s going about things very oddly indeed.
Quite how much he expects them to remember ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ is also rather up in the air. On the one hand, the core of the 1975 story gets a nice little recap (20) and Davros gets a solid introduction (21); on the other, opportunities to explain what the Kaleds were when referenced are almost joyfully discarded (22). To be fair, Dicks here is merely following in the footsteps of the broadcast episodes (23), and he does add in the point that the Daleks were once Kaleds ‘in another form’ and later highlights that the Daleks ‘were originally mutated Kaleds themselves’ (24) rather than just having once been ‘organic lifeforms’ (25).
Indeed, though both the book and the TV serial state that the Daleks weren’t always robots (26), Dicks does more to stress throughout the story that the Daleks have become more mechanical. He might have the Doctor label them ‘as good as robots’ (27) and ‘a race of evil automatons’ (28) and have Davros hint at a similar outlook, viewing the Movellans, as ‘a race of robots’, as the sort of ‘foe worthy of [the Daleks’] powers’ (29), but Dicks does ensure Romana attributes the Doctor’s knowledge of the Daleks to years of study (30) rather than implying that it’s simply a result of his being ‘an expert in robotics’ (31) and the Doctor studiously refers to them as ‘semi-robots’ (32) rather than just another robot race indistinguishable the Movellans (33).
Perhaps it’s for the best that Dicks insists the Daleks haven’t become wholly robotic as his tendency to embrace their silliness isn’t wholly absent from the book. Though only shown to be ‘astonished’ once this time out (34), they are explicitly described as ‘metal-studded pepper pots’ (35), which makes it sound like they’re largely ceramic, and have a lovely moment where, searching for the Doctor, Romana, Tyssan and Davros, they seemingly subject the area to ‘incredibly sensitive’ scrutiny before being startled to notice ‘Humanoid footprints!’ in ‘the thick dust’ (36), a trail later revealed to be ‘wide’ and ‘impossible to lose’ (37). Even their use of the beloved comic-strip ‘anti-grav discs’ (38) comes across a bit barmy, featuring in the same story that sees the Doctor taunt them for their inability to climb up a shaft after him (39) and the Daleks resolutely then stay forlornly where they are (40).
Davros comes off better. Though he might be a bit of a bore, unstoppable in his rambling after centuries of slumber (41), his title-dropping rumination on his oncoming domination of the universe (42), during which, in contrast to the rather more balanced onscreen conversation (43), he doesn’t let the Doctor get a word in edgeways, is lent a power by the Doctor’s own earlier tingling of the same destiny (44). At the same time, though hardly the sanest-seeming of threats, ‘slumped in his chair, dreaming of never-ending Dalek victories’ (45), his portrayal as a mad king in command of a ‘deferential’ army (46) makes clear the danger inherent in his return. Indeed, the fact that he has lost all reason, in the midst of a war where reason has brought the Dalek advance to an impasse (47), the very fact that Davros is barking mad might be seen as a positive boon to his ambitions.
There’s also the detail that the Doctor clearly shares the view that Davros’s return will strengthen the Daleks (48) and even tries to cold-bloodedly assassinate the Dalek creator (49). This sequence, which follows the Daleks agreeing to let their prisoners free in exchange for the Doctor leaving Davros alive, differs from the broadcast episodes, in which the Daleks are seen to welch on the deal first (50), with Tardis Data Core suggesting that making the Doctor appear less cold-blooded was the exact reason for this apparently last-minute addition (51).
But it’s not just the absence of a line Dicks possibly had no knowledge of that makes the Doctor seem harsher on the page than onscreen – nor is it the way he takes such relish in destroying a bunch of Daleks (52) when on TV he didn’t even press the button himself (53) – it’s the way his motive is regret for his decisions in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ (54), his insistence that ‘He must not hesitate again’. This is a Doctor who’s not only grown so tired of his endless confrontations with the Daleks he sees them as a ‘pestilence’ to be wiped out (54) but also turned his back, it seems, on the ideal that there might be a better way if it’s only sought – ‘Genesis’ saw him abort his first opportunity to blow the Daleks up at birth because there was a chance their development might be altered – and that the good that will come from the evil of the Daleks is worth their existence.
Or, at least, that’s one possible conclusion. Unfortunately, such a neat wrap-up isn’t possible because there’s a distinct possibility that the Doctor’s a bit of a bigot. Going back to the start, when Romana parades her possible bodies, Dicks takes the Doctor’s reaction to option of a tall woman (56), adds in a noise of disgust and relocates it to her emerging as ‘an exotic female of some alien race [:] “Ughh! Take it away”’ (57).And, just to make sure the reader doesn’t mistake this as anything other than the Doctor’s preference for a human appearance, his reaction to seeing the Movellans is to consider what ‘strikingly attractive people’ they are (58). So maybe Davros just deserves to get blown up because he’s withered and ugly and the Daleks destruction is a source of joy because they’re pepperpots.
Height Attack
The Doctor is ‘a very tall man’, Romana tries out being ‘an enormously tall girl’, Tyssan is a ‘tall, gaunt figure’ and the Movellans are universally ‘tall, well-built and extraordinarily good-looking’. Even the Daleks are now ‘huge’, though that might just be relative to a pepper pot: ‘They were shaped like huge metal-studded pepper pots’
Dicksisms
‘A wheezing, groaning sound mingled with the noise of the thunder, and the square blue shape of the TARDIS materialised’ AND ‘there was a wheezing, groaning sound and the TARDIS dematerialised’
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
‘The Doctor and Romana were on their way to new adventures’
Revenge of the Educational Remit
‘The sensation of familiarity, known as déjà vu, was a common phenomenon among time travellers’ – and if that’s not the reason that sentence got in there, I don’t know what is
Miscellania
That 13-incarnation limit hasn’t stuck yet: ‘they went through a considerable number of reincarnations in the course of their amazingly long lives’
‘Davros produced an extension lead, and plugged it into the sphere’ – extension to what?
‘“Our objective is not peace, Doctor. It is victory! The total destruction of the Dalek fleet!” Savagely he mimed the action of scissors cutting paper’ – I just find this very funny
1 Based on the Popular Television Series, ed. Paul Smith
2 epguides.com/DoctorWho
3 ‘The first story for which this was attempted was The Destiny of the Daleks, the book's publication being planned for November 1979, just two months after the story would finish on television’
David J Howe, The Target Book; p.54
4 ‘The draft scripts arrived one week after the target date of 19th January 1979’
dalek6388.co.uk/destiny-of-the-daleks
5 ‘director Ken Grieve claimed that the script was in fact "98% written by" script editor Douglas Adams. (BBC DVD: Destiny of the Daleks)’
tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Destiny_of_the_Daleks_(TV_story)
6 ‘Adams also made several contributions to the script. In particular, it fell to him to write the opening sequence involving Romana's regeneration’
shannonsullivan.com/doctorwho/serials/5j.html
7 Studio dates (according to doctorwholocations.net/stories/destinyofthedaleks):
BBC Television Centre (Studio TC3), Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7RJ (2-3 Jul 1979)
BBC Television Centre (Studio TC1), Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7RJ (15-17 Jul 1979)
8 ‘Through the vortex, that mysterious region where time and space are one, sped a police box that was not a police box at all’
9 ‘a highly sophisticated space/time ship called the TARDIS, a name taken from its initials, Time and Relative Dimensions in Space’
10 ‘that mysterious traveller in time and space known as the Doctor’.
11 ‘Time Lords had the power of bodily regeneration, the ability to change a damaged or worn out body for a new one by a unique and complex process of molecular readjustment’
12 ‘To escape the enraged Black Guardian's revenge the Doctor had built a device called the randomiser into the directional circuits of the TARDIS’
13 The emergence of revisitability
14 ‘Without looking up the Doctor yelled, “Romana!”’
15 ‘“what are you doing here?” “Regenerating. Do you like it?”’
16 ‘You're the Princess Astra, and we left you back on Atrios’
17 ‘The Doctor realised that he was indeed looking at his Time Lady companion’. Admittedly, the earlier line ‘only Time Lords regenerate, and you're not a Time Lord’ is a pretty heavy hint
18 ‘The Doctor frowned, remembering that in a purely academic sense, Romana's qualifications from the Time Lord Academy were rather higher than his own’
19 ‘ROMANA: I may be inexperienced, but I did graduate from the Academy with a triple first.
DOCTOR: I suppose you think we should be impressed by that, too?
ROMANA: Well, it's better than scraping through with fifty one percent at the second attempt.’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-1.htm
20 ‘He had hesitated once before, at a time when he could have destroyed the Daleks before their creation, simply by touching the two wires that would complete an explosive circuit. Who knows what horrors he had unleashed upon the Universe?’
21 ‘something that had once been a man. The withered old body was wrapped in a high-collared plastic coverall, and surrounded by what looked like an astonishing variety of life-support systems. Only one hand was visible, a withered claw poised over a set of controls built into the wide arm of the chair. The face was the most horrifying thing of all. Parchment-thin skin clung to a shrivelled skull, the eyes were sunken pits, the mouth a thin, cruel gash […] “Davros. The evil genius who first created the Daleks”’
22 ‘“They seem to be plans of the old Kaled City.” “Kaled?” “Dalek, in another form. It would take too long to explain”’
23 DOCTOR: Ah ha. Floor plans of the old Kaled city.
TYSSAN: Kaled?
DOCTOR: Yes. Never mind about that.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
24 ‘“Some kind of Kaled mutant species presumably... and the Daleks were originally mutated Kaleds themselves!” He tipped his hat to the blob, which was crawling rapidly back into its crevice. “Thank you very much, my dear chap. I think you've just told me why the Daleks need Davros!”’
25 DOCTOR: Oh, a Kaled mutant. Of course. The Dalek's were originally organic lifeforms. I think you've just told me what the Daleks want with Davros, haven't you.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
26 ‘They remembered they'd once been organic creatures themselves, capable of intuitive, irrational, emotional thought’
DOCTOR: That's why the Daleks came back for you. They remembered they were once organic creatures themselves, capable of irrational, intuitive thought, and they wanted you to give it back to them to get them out of their trap of logic.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
27 ‘The Daleks are as good as robots too’
28 ‘They are a race of evil automatons—‘
29 ‘At last the Daleks have met a foe worthy of their powers. The Movellans, a race of robots!’
30 ‘I don't suppose there's anyone living who knows more about the Daleks than the Doctor. He's studied them for years, he knows how they work, how they act, how they think. But then, of course, he's an absolute genius at robotics...’
31 ROMANA: Oh yes, the Doctor knows more about the Daleks than anyone.
SHARREL: He is an expert in robotics?
ROMANA: An absolute genius.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
32 ‘A race of robots fighting a race of semi-robots. I knew the Universe was done for the moment they invented the washing machine’
33 DOCTOR: One race of robots fighting another
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
34 ‘“Why don't you leave me alone?” Her outburst produced an astonished silence. The Dalek at the controls of the interrogation machine studied the pattern of flashing lights and symbols on its read-out screen’
35 ‘They were shaped like huge metal-studded pepper pots’
36 ‘“Humanoid footprints!” The Daleks scanned the floor with their incredibly sensitive eye-lenses. In the thick dust of the floor, they registered footprints leading away’
37 ‘The trail was wide, impossible to lose. Humanoid footprints and the wheel-marks of Davros's chair’
38 ‘Floating down through the gap from level three on their eerily silent anti-grav discs’
39 ‘Think you're the most superior race in the Universe, don't you? Well, just try climbing up after us!’
40 ‘Two of the Daleks moved away. The third stayed at the bottom of the shaft, eye-stalk peering upwards for the enemies it could no longer reach’
41 ‘there was no hope of stopping Davros now. Deprived of an audience for centuries, he was making the most of this opportunity’
42 ‘Destiny, Doctor. Destiny! Irrevocable, predetermined events. Power that fore-ordains more power. My power. My invincibility. My supreme plan to control the Universe’
43 DAVROS: Destiny, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What?
DAVROS: Invincible necessity.
DOCTOR: Oh, that, that, yes.
DAVROS: Power. My power. My invincibility. My supreme plan to control
BOTH: The universe.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
44 ‘his sense of curiosity was too strong for him, that and a strange feeling of—destiny. Randomiser or no, somehow the Doctor felt he had come to this planet because he was meant to come here’
45 ‘Davros's head fell to his chest and he lay slumped in his chair, dreaming of never-ending Dalek victories’
46 ‘Davros was installed king-like in the control area, surrounded by his court of deferential Daleks’
47 ‘They wanted you to give those qualities back to them, to get them out of their logical trap’
48 ‘The Daleks were stronger now and more numerous, and with Davros to help them... He must not hesitate again’
49 ‘He looked at his sonic screwdriver, as if troubled by the action he must take. The Doctor sighed. […] The Doctor pressed the switch’
50 ‘(The Doctor disappears.)
DALEK: Exterminate the prisoners’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
51 ‘After the Doctor escapes from Davros in episode three, in an overdubbed line of dialogue Davros orders that the slaves be exterminated, yet this never transpires. The DVD production notes acknowledge that this line of dialogue appears to serve no purpose.
-
Plausibly, this piece of clumsy editing could be a "Han shot first" moment. In the preceding scene, the Doctor agrees to spare Davros for the lives of the slaves ... then immediately reneges on the deal and tries to kill Davros (Justifiable, but rather unheroic). Making Davros the first to break his word could be argued to make the Doctor's betrayal seem less cynical.’
Tardis Data Core, tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Destiny_of_the_Daleks_(TV_story)
52 ‘The Doctor reached out and put his hand on the detonating switch. “My only regret is that I can't be there to see it!”’
53 ‘The Doctor puts his hand underneath Davros's fingers and pushes up. Davros pushes back so the Doctor pulls his hand away and Davros hits the detonator button’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
54 ‘He had hesitated once before, at a time when he could have destroyed the Daleks before their creation, simply by touching the two wires that would complete an explosive circuit. Who knows what horrors he had unleashed upon the Universe?’
55 ‘They're like the viruses that carry plague and pestilence. Your Daleks are no better than annoying little bugs, Davros. One day they'll be stamped out altogether’
56 DOCTOR: Too tall. Take it away
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-1.htm
57 ‘Romana reappeared in the guise of an exotic female of some alien race. “Ughh! Take it away,” said the Doctor’ – I know it’s a joke on ‘It's all vanity anyway. People attach too much importance to outside appearances’, but it still makes him come across badly
58 ‘Whoever his rescuers were, thought the Doctor, they were a strikingly attractive people’