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 Skonnons will never be a particularly lovable race"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE HORNS OF NIMON
by Terrance Dicks
First published 16 October 1980 (1), between Meglos Parts Three and Four (2)
Now, I like ‘The Horns of Nimon’ anyway, but Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon manages to be enjoyable for completely different reasons; where the onscreen larks, largely reproduced in the book, don’t come across so well, Dicks’s love of a regurgitated classical myth does wonders. As with Doctor Who and the Underworld, this novelisation opens with a prologue that creates a greater mythic quality around the central civilisation. The few reviews I could find all reference how Dicks uses ‘ancient Rome’ (3) as a shorthand for establishing Skonnos, but the specifics of the Skonnan past evoke several empires: the quick succession of Emperors and the internecine fighting recalls ancient Rome (4); the ‘ruined and half-ruined buildings’ speaks of ancient Greece as well as Rome (5); the ‘astonishingly short time’ in which they expanded feels like a reference to blitzkrieg tactics (6); and the emergence of their empire being attributed to a technological breakthrough hints at the British empire (7). In this way, the Skonnons get to stand in for all post-imperial societies, showcasing their aggression (8), ruthlessness (9) and comical, regimental love of homogeneity (10). In light of the Skonnons never having suffered an enemy boot on their planet (11) and, frankly, in light of Dicks’s past form, it’s difficult not to see in all this a pointed commentary on the British nostalgia for their empire – a warning that these are not people who you want to be – alongside the observation that such nostalgia is usually stronger among those who never actually experienced the reality (12) and, in a change to the broadcast episodes in which the Skonnons are irredeemably tainted by their past (13), a glimmer of hope that it is possible for former empire-builders to ‘learn better ways’ (14).
The Nimon get similarly, if lesserly,
beefed up. As isn’t made clear on TV,
the first Nimon simply appears one
day (15) – the sort of thing that well
might inspire awe – and Skonnan
society becomes little more than a
cult to the beast, their ‘horned
helmet that symbolis[ing] their service
to the Nimon’ (16), an addition to the broadcast episodes. The book is also more careful than the TV dialogue to lend the Nimon’s demand for ‘tribute and sacrifice’ a religious air, the repetition of ‘tribute’, ‘sacrifice’ and ‘seven’ giving a sense of ritual, the archaic language of ‘youths and maidens’ echoing holy writ (17). Accordingly, the Nimon is more suited to godhood on the page than onscreen, described as ‘a fearsome, extraordinary creature’ (18), with ‘Great golden eyes’ that betray ‘a fierce intelligence’ (19) and an ‘enormous body that […] throbbed with continual power’ (20). Though still not ideal, this is closer to Lawrence Miles’s, according to El Sandifer (21), mythic representation of ‘everything animalistic […] in human consciousness’ (22), akin to the Minotaur, than the ‘bull-headed alien who fires energy-bolts from its horns’ seen on TV (23).
Of course, the Nimon, like the Skonnons, also represent imperialism – in their case, the aspect that strips other nations of their indigenous leaders and ‘most valuable’ resources (24). However, where the Doctor’s verdict on Skonnos is softened in the book, his verdict on the Nimon is far harsher, his comment that bringing about their demise is a ‘Good job’ (25) translated to the more celebratory ‘good riddance!’ (26). Quite why the Skonnons can be salvaged but the Nimon can’t may simply be due to the Nimon’s mythic, animalistic nature, but the Doctor’s insistence, even alongside his parting shot, that they’re an ‘intelligent species’ suggests they could be reasoned with just as Sorak was. Perhaps it is because, in the story’s reflection on empire, they represent a rampant consumption that desiccates the lands it encounters, and Dicks views that as the worst colonialism of all?
But that’s enough of the mythic. Unlike Doctor Who and the Underworld, Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon also invests in the characters sufficiently to keep the novelisation going strong all the way through. Whether intended by the script or not, Soldeed is now explicitly ‘no scientist’, instead ‘a middle-aged laboratory technician’ chosen to investigate the Nimon’s sphere because he’s the closest Skonnos has left to a scientist (27). Having stumbled into power, many of Soldeed’s actions are mere bluff (28) designed to ‘maintain his status as a great scientist’ (29) despite not knowing how anything works (30). Similarly, his ‘new self-importance’ (31) after meeting the Nimon is an act: he’s sufficiently aware of his lack of ‘authority’ to grow ‘a flowing moustache and a pointed beard’ (32) in an attempt to cultivate some; his interactions with the Nimon, though they ensure he is ‘flattered and courted’ (33), leave him ‘speechless with terror’ (34); and even his early, quick murder of Sato (35) seems calculated to establish his position (36). Soldeed’s behaviour is political, not a result of megalomania awakened by power but an attempt to maintain power, most clearly when ensuring ‘a scapegoat’ when things go awry (37). It is even revealed he shares the same scepticism of the Nimon’s benevolence as that voiced by Sorak (38), but faith in the Nimon’s promise is the only thing that maintains his position and probably the only thing keeping him alive. The text may insist he’s possessed of a ‘lunatic desire for military glory’ (39) but the novelisation exposes so much other motivation for Soldeed’s actions that this feels too simple a verdict by its delivery towards the end.
Sorak gets a bit of a make-over too. He nicely captures the tension between scepticism of the Nimon and a fervent desire to believe himself on the verge of the second Skonnan empire (40) but he also encapsulates the in-fighting and backstabbing that’s plagued Skonnos through history. Where on TV, he appears simply a slightly hapless right-hand man to Soldeed, in the novelisation, he’s constantly ready to overthrow his leader should the opportunity present itself (41) – this is even the reason he goes back to study K9 in Soldeed’s lab (42). Fortunately for the future, though ‘ambitious’, he’s also ‘practical’ (43), and it seems his planet’s desperate need for ‘aid’ is enough for Skonnos to attempt a new direction under his leadership (44).
Last up is Seth. The Anethans as a whole are mostly just the target of Dicks’s snark – Teka’s explanation that the other sacrifices are ‘too frightened even to talk’ (45) feels like a barb aimed at non-speaking extras and their failure to run from the Nimon is now compounded by the instinctively submissive way ‘Several of them fell to their knees’ (46) upon sight of it. Even little turns of phrase that seem to enrich them, such as the Skonnons’ explanation of the Anethans’ meekness (47), serve only to confuse matters – Aneth it seems was both ‘devastated’ and ‘suffered far less than Skonnos itself’ (48). Under Dicks, however, Seth gets a little spunk: he’s more forceful shutting down Teka’s hero-worship of him (49) but also explicitly willing to indulge it when it brings her comfort (50) and clearly cares for her as much as he’s exasperated by her faith in him (51). His key contribution to the plot, defeating Soldeed, feels more involved in the novelisation, besting him in a fight and even, in the midst of it, realising ‘he could be a hero after all’ (52), where on TV he just happens to have a blaster (53).
Even the traditional Dicks clarifications are a little less offhand than usual. The ending may reek of sarcasm thanks to the comment that ‘Luckily the exploding energy unit had produced a very small and very confined explosion’ (54), but it’s still an improvement upon what was seen onscreen, and Dicks manages to turn the low number of Skonnon extras and the stark Skonnan sets to his advantage, now a symbol of the long ‘civil war that had ended through sheer exhaustion’ alone (55). With Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon, a test for any adaptation surely as much as it is for any viewer, just around the corner, it can only be encouraging to see Dicks handling some of Who’s weaker material with such gusto…
Height Attack
The Doctor’s ‘a tall, wide-eyed, curly-haired man’, Sezom is ‘a tall gaunt figure’ and the Nimon have ‘huge bodies’
Dicksisms
‘a mysterious traveller in space and time known only as the Doctor’
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
‘It was some considerable time later’ – except it’s not quite right, reading more like a stage direction than a storybook
Revenge of the Educational Remit
Dicks actually spells out the source material: ‘A hero called Theseus who sailed to defeat a monster called the Minotaur. It had horns and lived in a maze and demanded sacrifices’
1. Based on the Popular Television Series, ed. Paul Smith
2. epguides.com/DoctorWho
3. ‘the Skonnan Empire, like ancient Rome before it, collapsed from within’
4. ‘The noble families fell to fighting amongst themselves, Emperor followed Emperor in quick succession, rival Emperors set up against each other’
5. ‘mile upon mile of ruined and half-ruined buildings bore silent witness to the end of a once-great star empire’
6. ‘In an astonishingly short time they were the masters of a hundred worlds’
7. ‘An aggressive race, with a talent for war and conquest, they had discovered high technology and space flight much earlier than their neighbouring planets’
8. ‘The aggressive streak that had brought them success was to cause their downfall’
9. ‘So those are the people we’re mixed up with—a set of ruthless murderers, determined to make a comeback’
10. Every Skonnon’s name now explicitly starts with an S – Soldeed, his right-hand man Sorak, their old commander Sato and the two cruiser pilots at the start of the story, Sekkoth and Sardor
11. ‘No enemy had ever defeated the Skonnons. They destroyed themselves’
12. ‘Sekkoth, the Captain, was a wizened, grey-haired veteran of the First Empire. Sardor, his co-pilot, was a younger man, plump-faced and overweight. He had been too young to serve in the First Empire Wars and, perhaps as a result, he was even more fiercely militaristic than his superior’
13. ‘ROMANA: What do you think Skonnos will be like with Sorak in charge?
DOCTOR: Oh, not much better. Nasty race of people. Still, they're too busy fending for themselves to bother anyone else now.’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-5.htm
14. ‘I’m afraid the Skonnons will never be a particularly lovable race, but they’ve had a couple of severe lessons, first the civil war and now the Nimon. Maybe they’ll learn better ways’
15. ‘One day a mysterious silver sphere appeared, just outside the Palace’
16. ‘Sorak wore the black Skonnan uniform with the addition of the horned helmet that symbolised their service to the Nimon’ – is the horn thing something the Skonnons adopt through fealty or something the Nimon imposes to fluff its ego? It gave Soldeed the horny staff, suggesting it’s a motif the Nimon enjoy, but that might just suggest they can’t imagine channelling power through anything but a horn…
17. ‘the Nimon demanded tribute—tribute and sacrifice. Seven times the sacrifice was to be made. Seven youths and maidens of high birth were to be provided on each occasion’ – why of high birth? And who specified high birth, the Nimon or the Skonnons? This is another divergence from the TV episodes and I can’t help but feel it’s Dicks having a go at the useless aristos again, though I can’t quite fathom how the dig would work
18. ‘It was a fearsome, extraordinary creature, not unlike the great buffalo of Earth’
19. ‘Great golden eyes blazed with a fierce intelligence’
20. ‘The most terrifying thing about the Nimon was that it was never still. It was as if so much energy was packed into the enormous body that it throbbed with continual power, pacing restlessly to and fro like a great caged beast’
21. ‘To give Lawrence Miles, who has done a few spells as a punching bag lately, his real due, the original myth of the minotaur is “a tale of everything animalistic and Freudian in human consciousness, about a journey into the darkest, guiltiest tunnels of our collective psyche” whereas this is “about a bull-headed alien who fires energy bolts from its horns and lives in the middle of some space-corridors.”’
Elizabeth Sandifer, Tardis Eruditorum, eruditorumpress.com/blog/through-an-endless-shifting-maze-the-horns-of-nimon
22. ‘The original Minotaur story is about […] everything animalistic and Freudian in human consciousness’
Lawrence Miles & Tat Wood, About Time 4; p.312
23. ‘It’s about a bull-headed alien who fires energy-bolts from its horns and lives in the middle of some space-corridors’
Lawrence Miles & Tat Wood, About Time 4; p.312
24. ‘the Anethans meekly surrender the cream of their aristocracy—not to mention their most valuable minerals’ – no, I’m not wholly happy about equating ‘the cream of their aristocracy’ with indigenous leadership either, but it functions as a plausible reading of at least this one line. I’m also not sure about describing Hymetusite, ‘the most radioactive substance in the galaxy’, as their most valuable resource, but Uranium and Plutonium are supremely expensive, so it’s not such a stretch…
25. ‘ROMANA: And the end of the Nimons.
DOCTOR: Good job, too’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-5.htm
26. ‘“The end of Crinoth,” said the Doctor. “And of the Nimon too. I hate to say it about any intelligent species—but good riddance!”’
27. ‘General Sato, Commander of the few remaining Skonnan troops, routed out Soldeed, a middle-aged laboratory technician, and sent him to investigate. Soldeed protested that he was no scientist. Sato pointed out that he was the nearest they’d got’ – I’m not entirely clear on the distinction between a lab technician and a scientist. Do lab technicians not tend to have a scientific background?
28. ‘In his heart Soldeed knew he was no scientist. He was merely bluffing, keeping up appearances until the Nimon gave him the scientific knowledge and equipment that would confirm his power’
29. ‘Soldeed sat brooding in his laboratory. It was a large room filled with complicated pieces of electronic equipment, whose working was a complete and utter mystery to him. To maintain his status as a great scientist, Soldeed had taken over a room in the Palace and filled it with all the scientific equipment that could be salvaged from the ruins of the city’
30. ‘Soldeed spent hours in the laboratory tinkering away, hoping desperately to get something—anything—working again’
31. ‘Soldeed returned, swollen with new self-importance’
32. ‘He had cultivated a flowing moustache and a pointed beard in an effort to add authority to his otherwise undistinguished features’
33. ‘since he alone had the ear of the Nimon, he must be flattered and courted’
34. ‘As always when he looked on the face of the Nimon, Soldeed became speechless with terror’
35. ‘Sato scoffed and demanded to see the Nimon for himself. Soldeed pointed the staff at him, a ray shot from the horns, and Sato fell dead’
36. ‘Captain Sorak, Sato’s aide-de-camp, became a prompt convert to the Nimon’s cause. So did the rest of the officers and their men’
37. ‘Soldeed was even more certain of something else. The Nimon was going to demand a scapegoat. Someone would have to be punished for the late arrival of the tribute and the missing crystals, and it wasn’t going to be him. This fool of a pilot would fill the role very nicely’
38. ‘“Soldeed, it sometimes occurs to me to wonder exactly why the Nimon is doing so much for us. I mean, to put it bluntly, what’s in it for him?” Soldeed had sometimes wondered the same thing, but he pretended to be outraged’
39. ‘Soldeed’s lunatic desire for military glory’
40. ‘Sceptical as he was, Sorak desperately wanted to believe what Soldeed was saying’
41. ‘All in all, thought Sorak, Soldeed was getting considerably above himself. Once the Nimon had delivered the promised technology, Soldeed would have to go’
42. ‘looking thoughtfully at the motionless K9. “So, you have power, do you? Power that even Soldeed cannot understand...” Sorak had decided that the time for Soldeed’s overthrow was near. The more power he could get his hands on, the better it would be for him’
43. ‘Sorak was an ambitious man but he was practical too’
44. ‘the Doctor took Sorak aside and had a few sharp words with him about the folly of imperialist ambitions. He also had pointed out that since Aneth was both a peaceful and a prosperous planet, it was in a position to give a good deal of useful aid to the shattered Skonnos’
45. ‘They’d be useless, they’ve given up already. You can see, they’re too frightened even to talk’
46. ‘The Anethans looked in utter terror at the black bull-like figure in its shining harness. Several of them fell to their knees’
47. ‘We devastated their planet, taught them to fear and obey us’
48. ‘The Anethans were a peace-loving people, and their planet had suffered far less than Skonnos itself in the Empire wars. But when the black Skonnan battle cruiser appeared in their skies, the memory of past defeats paralysed the Anethans with terror’
49. ‘TEKA: And the Nimons are finished. Seth defeated them. I knew he would. He's the hero of Aneth. SETH: Teka, please.’ (chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-5.htm) COMPARED WITH “Seth defeated him. I told you he would. Seth is the hero of Aneth!” “Teka,” said Seth. ‘Will you please shut up?” Teka started to cry and Seth consoled her’
50. ‘“You’ll look after me, won’t you?” The ship was shaking itself to pieces and soon they would all be dead, he thought. But he smiled down at her and said confidently, “Yes, of course I will”’
51. ‘Seth looked at her in affectionate exasperation’
52. ‘“Seth, help him!” screamed Teka. Seth found that he could be a hero after all. He hurled himself upon the astonished Soldeed and wrenched the staff from his hands. Since he had no idea how to operate it, he whirled it through the air and clubbed Soldeed to the ground. The Doctor sprang to his feet. “Well done, Seth!”’
53. ‘(Seth fires the blaster, stunning Soldeed so the Doctor can grab the staff from him.)
DOCTOR: Seth, well done!’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-5.htm
54. ‘They’d all survived the explosion safely and in fact there had been surprisingly few casualties—except of course for the three Nimon still in the Complex. Luckily the exploding energy unit had produced a very small and very confined explosion. It had wiped out the Power Complex completely, but there had been very little damage to the rest of the city. Since the unit had been a ‘clean’ one there was a minimum of harmful radiation, though the palace had to be evacuated’
55. ‘When the fighting ended, a handful of well-protected senior officers commanding a few squads of Skonnan troops were the sole survivors in a shattered capital, victors in a civil war that had ended through sheer exhaustion’
Miscellania
Soldeed: ‘He gave a cackle of mad laughter’ – just the one?
K9 watch: ‘K9 didn’t reply—which was hardly surprising, since his head appeared to be on backwards’ AND ‘K9
looked down. Since his abilities did not include jumping he had a particular dislike of any kind of heights’
From the start of the prologue: ‘It was a gleaming, metallic, star-shaped edifice, dominated by the two
enormous horns that rose from its central unit’ – the horns predate the Nimon?
‘Three youths and four maidens’ – is a youth specifically male?
‘The Doctor was just about to enquire why she found it necessary to imitate the traditional dress of the
fox-hunters of planet Earth, when Romana distracted him’ – almost as if Dicks himself couldn’t quite
understand it
Stretching a forcefield tunnel from the Tardis to the Skonnan ship is ‘a completely unparalleled scientific
achievement’ according to the Doctor, and I’ve no idea whether that’s supposed to be taken at face value or
not
A reason for the jelly babies: ‘Hesitantly the young man took a sweet, and somehow the ridiculous little ritual
seemed to calm them’
I quite like the fact Romana is encouraging the Anethans to ‘take over the ship’ from the sole surviving Skonnon before she’s even trapped with them
‘With a talent like mine, I might have been a great slow bowler’ (chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/17-5.htm)
becomes ‘With talents like mine, I could have played cricket for England!’ – is that Dicks hedging his bets on
how familiar the readers might be with cricket terminology or just a bit of patriotism leaking through?
‘Unfortunately a slight malfunction in the TARDIS’s directional circuits caused it to materialise in what was the
least inconspicuous spot on the whole planet’ – it feels odd that Dicks feels the need to give this an
explanation
‘Luckily most of the instrument-consoles were free-standing, so that there were gaps between them and the
wall’ – lucky indeed
The Nimon bellow an extraordinary 12 times, including ‘the bellowing of angry Nimon’, an ‘exultant bellow’
and, my personal favourite: ‘A third Nimon appeared and the first two swung round on him, bellowing their
complaints’
‘The creature wore only a wide jewelled belt and a kind of metallic kilt’ – sounds even odder than how it looks
onscreen
