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)
"You really must cultivate a sense of urgency"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE GIANT ROBOT
by Terrance Dicks
First published 13 March 1975 (1), between Genesis of the Daleks Parts One and Two (2)
Height Attack
The Robot is ‘huge—well over eight feet tall’ (though it was only ‘well over seven feet tall when Sarah saw it), growing to ‘about fifty feet high’ for the ending.
It’s Target’s first pitch at a full-on comic romp and Dicks is rather good at it. There are odd descriptions (3), exaggerated caricatures (4), rapid character voltes-face (5) and comedic cuts (6). Dicks is especially good at using Harry, building him up as ‘a powerful young man in top physical condition’ who’s ‘boxed for the Navy’ before cutting to him banging on the inside of a cupboard to be let out (7), with even a nice little call-back to the incident later when the Brigadier insists he should have stopped the Doctor re-entering the Tardis (8).
As a newcomer to the regular cast (9), and a man who’s been unceremoniously bundled into a cupboard, Harry does initially appear set up to be a figure of reader ridicule, unable to understand such staples of the show as the Tardis (10) or embrace its nature as a series of action-adventure stories (11). However, his observations on the specific paraphernalia of the Pertwee era, such as ‘UNIT’s lack of formality’ (12) and the way it seems to function ‘very like a lunatic asylum’ (13), feel like they have a bit more bite thanks to the new Doctor being similarly dismissive of his predecessor’s format, albeit not for the same reasons – he ridicules Pertwee’s clothes as outlandish (14), regards the Brigadier as ‘a dimmish pupil’ (15) and treats UNIT’s problems as rather beneath himself, dozing (16), yawning (17), amusing himself ‘by building a tower from odds and ends’ during a briefing (18), generally acting ‘like a bored child’ around them (19) and ignoring both their advice (‘disregarding the Brigadier’s protests’) and their assistance (‘acting as a one man advance guard’) (20).
What’s more, there’s no comeuppance, no suggestion that this is part of some post-regenerative disorder and he’ll soon settle back into his Pertwee ways (even if Dicks does have the unfortunate habit of making him slip back into Pertwee’s vernacular (21)). Indeed, even though the writer was one of the key architects of the Pertwee era, nothing is so clear as the extent to which he’s enamoured of his new lead. This Doctor sparkles with the promise of excitement, even his hair is described as ‘standing on end with sheer energy!’ (22), his whole being bubbling over ‘with mischief and the joy of living’ (23). This Doctor answers the discomfort that’s sat at the heart of the Target novelisations since at least Doctor Who and the Dæmons for a kindlier and more unpredictable character than Pertwee delivered, with the love of ‘mischief’, recently revisited in Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, back at the fore. He might still have the natural authority of Pertwee, wandering around Thinktank like ‘a university Don visiting an infants’ school’ (24), but now he employs it as Troughton would, to get a rise out of a pair of rather stiff villains rather than as a result of a naturally patronising air. Maybe Davis was closer to the mark than Holmes and Hinchcliffe realised.
Also like Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, we have the return of the Doctor-mirror companion. The only other person to successfully investigate anything is Sarah and she’s just as much a loose cannon as him, wrongfooting Winters and Jellicoe in her own way (25) and using a liberal interpretation of the rules to sneak back in unsupervised (26). Even the manner in which her subconscious is sending her hurtling towards danger before she’s even managed to justify her actions to herself, coming up with a plan only after she’s started driving back towards Thinktank, puts her firmly in the Doctor’s camp of reckless abandon. Furthermore, she works independently in uncovering the connection between Thinktank and the robberies, solving the mystery UNIT is investigating almost as a by-product and with their provision of a press pass being their only contribution, just as the Doctor, one comment from Benton aside (27), operates solo, following up on Kettlewell himself (28), storming the Thinktank meeting alone (29) and single-handedly giving the soldiers access to the bunker (30), deactivating the nuclear weapons (31), destroying the robot with the metal virus and just generally saving the day as a one-man army.
That they are a team and UNIT merely background drapery, bringing in reports of mysteries, providing passes and driving people to and fro in jeeps, is established clearly at the start and the end, pretty much the only occasions they spend together. At the beginning, it is Sarah rather than UNIT who ensures the Doctor is involved at all, making an ‘appeal that was difficult to ignore’ (32) and grasping at the Brigadier’s story of a robbery as an excuse for his staying on Earth (33). Not that she’s bothered about UNIT’s problems, she just ‘couldn’t bear the thought of losing the Doctor so soon’ (34) and seizes upon the first tool to hand. At the end, they are shown to instinctively share the same reaction to the robot’s death (35), a regret no other character seems to feel, before deciding to just bundle off in the Tardis and leave the Brigadier to it (36).
Which is all a bit odd for the Target novelisations. That Doctor Who and the Giant Robot offers nothing more than a comic romp functions as a dismissive final examination of the UNIT era, a recognition that it’s become a collection of beats that do little more than pad out a minor story easily resolved by the Doctor and Sarah working alone. That it establishes Harry as a more efficient comedic tool, a sort of one-man portable UNIT whose out-of-his-depth bewilderment offers incidental asides rather than the straightjacket of a tired old formula, further suggests they were never really necessary even for that rather lowly purpose. That it so wholly embraces the excitement of being ‘off in the TARDIS, not hanging about round here!’ bangs the final nail in the coffin and suggests the whole thing was a bit of a mistake.
This was all fine in ‘Robot’, where the show was heading back out to the stars under a new production team, but it’s an altogether braver move for a series whose next book is Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons. As such, it marks a shift. Where before the books suggested they should be read as a series, going to the trouble, for example, of introducing Jo Grant in Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon and indeed the whole premise of Doctor Who in Doctor Who, now the novelisations are clearly vehicles for revisiting the past, embracing a role as the DVD range of their era.
Of course, I’d complain that’s a shame and makes them far less interesting as odd bits of paraphernalia and was indeed going to until I discovered Jason Miller’s blog, where he’s doing a far better job of this project than I am. He recounts buying Doctor Who aged 12 in 1985/6 and then returning it within a half-hour because ‘it was all wrong. Made of lies!’ (37). As the history of the programme became an increasingly known thing – the first edition of The Making of Doctor Who had been published in mid-1972 (38) and the Radio Times’s ‘Doctor Who Special’ in late 1973 (39), both featuring synopses of all earlier stories – and fandom became increasingly a defined market, Target once more just looks very savvy in knowing what their readership want.
Tory Who
‘As the Robot stalked towards her, huge metal hands outstretched, Sarah fainted dead way’
Dicksisms
I know that Dicks is pursuing an effect with the endless repetition of ‘The Robot caught the falling body and lowered it almost tenderly to the ground’ but it just feels like a microcosm of his tendency to repeat phrases across books. Speaking of which…
‘the sound of the all-too-familiar groaning noise’
1 http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Giant_Robot
2 http://epguides.com/DoctorWho
3 ‘the Doctor lay flat on his back on the bed, nose and toes pointing at the ceiling’
4 ‘He disappeared inside the TARDIS and a moment later reappeared in a Roman toga, complete with laurel wreath. The Brigadier didn’t trust himself to speak. He began turning an alarming shade of purple’ – it’s the ‘alarming shade’ that does it, most reminiscent to me at least of an Asterix cartoon. Do people ever actually turn purple in real life?
5 After the Doctor’s protracted wardrobe routine: ‘Tell me on the way, Brigadier, tell me on the way. You really must cultivate a sense of urgency’
6 To Sarah: ‘Miss Winters continued, “I’ll make a bargain with you. Keep quiet about what you’ve discovered, and I’ll keep quiet about how you discovered it”’ AND, WITHIN ONE PAGE, BEFORE ANYONE’S EVEN LOOKED AT HER ‘“... an enormous Robot, well over seven feet tall!”’
7 ‘Harry Sullivan was a powerful young man in top physical condition. In his service days he had often boxed for the Navy. He advanced determinedly on the Doctor, quite prepared to use force if he had to. After all, it was for the patient’s own good’. Cut to: ‘They heard a muffled thumping from a cupboard. The Brigadier opened it and Harry Sullivan fell out. […] “Picked me up,” he said with a sort of astonished rage. “Picked me up and chucked me in the cupboard like—like a ruddy old coat!”
8 ‘“In there, sir.” Harry nodded towards the TARDIS. The Brigadier exploded. “Why on earth didn’t you stop him?” Harry glanced at the cupboard. “I tried that once before, Sir”’
9 ‘Harry Sullivan, feeling rather out of things, looked on as the three old friends exchanged delighted greetings’
10 ‘fixing the TARDIS with an unblinking stare. He knew it couldn’t really vanish into thin air as the others had told him. But he was taking no chances. Moreover, he had been ordered not to let the Doctor out of his sight, and keeping an eye on the TARDIS was the best he could do at the moment’
11 ‘Harry Sullivan jumped into the back seat, deciding he might as well go with the Doctor as sit about watching the search. A few minutes later, holding on for dear life, he was wondering if he’d made the right decision...’
12 ‘Harry obeyed, thinking he’d never get used to UNIT’s lack of formality’
13 ‘Convinced by now that he had left the Navy for some-thing very like a lunatic asylum, Harry Sullivan ran after them’
14 ‘Clothes. A velvet smoking jacket, check trousers, a frilly shirt. The Doctor fingered the elegant garments for a moment and frowned. They looked as if they’d fit all right, but, he didn’t like them. Far too fancy. What sort of a chap would go around dressed up like that?’ – remember that Pertwee’s costume was to an extent the actor’s own creation (or so it’s often said*) when considering exactly how much Dicks might be sticking the knife in here
* www.bigfinish.com/releases/quickinfo/toby-hadoke-s-who-s-round-19---christine-rawlins-925
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Doctor#cite_note-1 (citing Patrick Mulkern, ‘Dressing the Doctor’, Doctor Who Magazine Autumn Special 1987; p20)
15 ‘The Doctor smiled benignly, like a teacher who sees a dimmish pupil grasp a simple theorem’
16 ‘In the back seat, the Doctor sprawled dozing, his hat over his eyes’
17 ‘The Doctor yawned and stretched. ‘I admire your confidence”’
18 ‘They all listened in silence, the Doctor whiling away the time by building a tower from odds and ends’
19 ‘the Doctor, who was wandering round the room like a bored child’
20 ‘an odd-looking character in a long scarf and a floppy wide-brimmed hat. The Doctor, disregarding the Brigadier’s protests, had insisted on acting as a one man advance guard’
21 ‘“My dear Brigadier,” interrupted the Doctor testily, “nothing your Government can give us is likely to be of the slightest help. Up to and including an atomic bomb!”’ – that’s pure Pertwee that (as are all the “old chap”s). Has Dicks seen Baker perform yet? Or met him?
22 ‘The unfamiliar face was bright and alert, the blue eyes sparkling. Even the curly hair seemed to be standing on end with sheer energy!’ – which leaves UNIT as a rather tired looking thing
23 ‘His whole face was alight with mischief and the joy of living’
24 ‘Long scarf flowing behind him, he strode through the various laboratories like a university Don visiting an infants’ school. He inspected the most complicated and advanced experiments with the kindly interest of a teacher checking through a child’s homework; sometimes administering a pat on the head; sometimes pointing out elementary errors with an air of charitable indulgence. By the time the tour was over, Miss Winters had received an exceptionally large dose of her own medicine, and she was quietly seething with rage’
25 ‘Sarah felt she’d somehow gained the initiative […] “What’s in here?” asked Sarah brightly. Before anyone could stop her, she popped inside’
26 ‘Sarah fished inside her handbag and took out the Thinktank visitor’s pass. VALID FOR ONE DAY ONLY, she read. Well, even if it was getting late, it was still the same day. Worth a try! She noticed that her subconscious agreed with her. Ever since leaving Kettlewell’s cottage, she had been driving steadily towards Thinktank’
27 ‘Desperately Benton floundered on. “He also said something about a virus, sir. Something that attacked his living metal.” The Doctor suddenly became interested. “Did he now? Well, I suppose it’s logical enough.” “So I just thought, sir,” Benton went on, “if this virus does attack the metal the Robot’s made of, maybe we could...”’
28 ‘To whom it may concern: Professor Kettlewell tells me he has the Robot hidden at his cottage. Gone to meet him there. PS. If the Robot really is there, I think I can deal with it. PPS. I am leaving this note in case I can’t!’
29 ‘The carefully built-up atmosphere had been completely destroyed by this mountebank! He seemed perfectly capable of keeping these fools happy until the Brigadier arrived to lock them all up’
30 ‘Face blackened and eyebrows singed, the Doctor moved on. As he swept the area before and around him with the sonic screwdriver, mine after mine began to explode. When the Doctor stopped, the air was full of smoke and the ground was churned up like a battlefield after days of shelling. The Doctor grinned, teeth white in his smoke-blackened face, and waved the Brigadier and his men forward. “Come along, then!”’
31 ‘The Doctor pushed back his sleeves, like a virtuoso musician about to give an important recital. His hands started flickering over the keyboard in a blur of speed’
32 ‘There was something about that voice, note of anguish or appeal that was difficult to ignore’
33 ‘The Brigadier had no idea how to answer this question, and gave Sarah a look of anguished enquiry. Sarah’s mind shot back to their earlier conversation. If they could only persuade the Doctor that he was staying for their sake rather than his own... “There’s been this robbery,” she said. “It’s all very important and hush-hush. Isn’t that right, Brigadier?”’
34 ‘Sarah couldn’t bear the thought of losing the Doctor so soon’
35 ‘She looked up at him, almost on the point of tears. “Doctor... Oh, Doctor...” He sighed. “I had to do it, you know”’ – it’s the unspoken nature of the regret that really shows them to be of the same mind. Sarah doesn’t even have to articulate what she feels sad about for the Doctor to understand.
36 ‘Of course, that’s where he should be, off in the TARDIS, not hanging about round here!’
37 ‘But, when I was about 12 years old, we’ll say mid-to-late 1985 or early 1986, I found a copy of the novelization of The Daleks on my mall’s bookstore’s shelf. I was elated. I hadn’t seen the story on PBS yet, but I knew that this was, like, the Holy Grail of my burgeoning novelization collection. Or, whatever’s the Holy Grail equivalent for a kid a year away from his bar mitzvah. Naturally, I bought the book. And then returned it half an hour later. Before we even left the mall – during an endless clothes-shopping trip for my mother in some other store – I flipped the book open and started reading Chapter 1. And it was all wrong. Made of lies!’
Jason Miller, Doctor Who Novels, drwhonovels.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/the-novelization-that-isnt
38 20 April 1972 according to tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Making_of_Doctor_Who
39 November 1973 according to tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_Special_(1973)
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
The Brigadier sank down upon a stool. “Well bless my soul,” he said indignantly. “He’s off again!” And so he was’
References I Didn’t Get
‘go and blanco your rifle or something!’ - ‘The word "Blanco" itself also became used as a verb, as in "to blanco a piece of equipment"’ according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanco_(compound). I’m not sure it quite works, but then ‘Sarah’s grasp of military matters had always been a little shaky’
‘Do you really think you can tackle that monster with a bucket of jollop?’ – which is ‘a liquid medicine of some sort, particularly cough syrup or a laxative’ apparently (www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-jol1.htm)
Miscellania
‘Never! You’re a swinger, Brigadier’ – does this mean Fiona and Doris overlapped?
‘Harry heard another thump, thump, thump, “I say,” he said, “I don’t think that can be right”’ – how long’s he been in charge of the Doctor? Apparently ‘several days’ and it’s the first time he’s realised the man has two hearts??
‘He was preparing a grand scheme for a worldwide reform of mankind’s use of energy; a complete turn-over to pollution-free power that would put a stop to the gradual destruction of the ecology of our planet. He was quite undeterred by the fact that the proposed changes were so enormous that it would take a world dictatorship to put them into effect’ – does Dicks think that democracy is mankind’s sole barrier to solving environmental crises?
‘The body regeneration process’ – is there any way in which this phrase communicates the idea more clearly than ‘regeneration’ on its own?