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 appeal to vanity had its effect"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE STONES OF BLOOD
by Terrance Dicks
First published 20 March 1980 (1), between The Horns of Nimon and The Leisure Hive (2)
I can’t remember where I read it (which terrifying might even mean that I wrote it myself in an earlier post), but someone had a lovely take that, if you wanted a good line from your Doctor Who scripts preserved for posterity, you had to make sure it appealed to Terrance Dicks because he’d be the one deciding what went in the novelisation. On the evidence of this first outing, Dicks loves David Fisher. That, however, doesn’t mean Dicks does nothing, though it does make me suspect that the things he does might have been in the original scripts and just never made the final cut.
For a start, he clarifies three things that I never understood watching the broadcast episodes. Firstly, when Vivien tells the Megara she has ‘no objection to the assessor’ (3), I always took it to suggest she had some clever way to avoid its scrutiny, one which was later ineffective once she was unconscious. The novelisation makes it clear, however, that she submits to the assessor only ‘for the one relevant question’, about whether she released the Megara (4). Secondly, and staggering I’m definitely not the only person who was unclear on ‘how the Doctor knew that Cessair’s necklace was the segment’ (5), the novelisation shows the Doctor clocking Vivien’s ‘hand fly to the jewelled pendant about her neck’ when the Megara mention ‘the Great Seal of Diplos’ (6). Finally, I’d always assumed the Doctor survived his execution because, by making physical contact with another person, he’d dissipated the effect. Actually, it just turns out the Megara ‘cut off the destructive ray’ because they had ‘no legal authority to kill’ Vivien (7).
Then there’s some nice additions, such as the Doctor’s tale of ‘dressing up as a soothsayer’ to warn Julius Caesar of his assassination (8) and K9’s reassurance that Professor Rumford should be able to help repair the Doctor’s machine since she’s ‘a
reasonably intelligent humanoid’ (9).
Dicks also sharpens up the joke
nicely when an Ogri comes
‘smashing through the cottage
window’ the moment Romana asks
K9 how close it is (10), rather than
the thing bobbing by the window
before coming in the door (11),
though this might have just proved impractical to stage.
There’s some lovely prose work
too, such as when Vivien wakes up
after the Doctor’s turned the tables
on her and gazes wildly about
‘unable to grasp how things had
gone so suddenly wrong for her’
(12), which I don’t feel came across
quite so well onscreen. The campers
get a touching bit of back-story,
‘Newly-married, too hard-up to afford a proper holiday’ (13), before their summary demise. And then, of course, there’s the Ogri.
I’ve not seen a better description
of their onscreen appearance than
El Sandifer’s (14) and I can only
stress that she’s bang on the money.
Dicks wisely resists too much
description when it comes to the
Ogri, giving them ‘a fierce red glow’
when they awaken, along with ‘a
deep thudding like the pounding of
some giant heart’ (15), and ‘an unearthly glow’ when they feed (16), though he still manages to at times capture the essence of watching them on TV, as when is said to be ‘blundering about in the cottage’ (17). Instead, Dicks focuses on the uncanny scenes of stones drinking up blood (18) and gives them a little more personality than in the broadcast episodes: they’re clearly individuals, if on the level of ‘well-trained dog[s]’ (19), one Ogri deciding consciously deciding upon self-preservation over following orders once it’s seen its fellow obliterated (20), but also charmingly a bit lost outside their natural habitat without specific instructions (21).
But the greatest beneficiaries of
Dicks’s adaptation are De Vries’s
coven. Perhaps ‘a dapper-looking
man with a rather Continental
appearance’ (22) was the intention
of the TV production, though I’m
not convinced, but the initial
meeting between him and the
Doctor comes off as far more of a
game of chess, the Doctor deliberately prodding De Vries in the hope he’ll become ‘indiscreet’ (23), De Vries furious (24) but keeping enough of a lid on it to give nothing away and successfully capture his questioner. The coven as a whole are helped by the explanation that Professor Rumford’s interrupting their ceremony ‘break[s] the spell’ the ceremony has conjured (25), causing their natural instinct, which, if Martha’s anything to go by, views human sacrifice as a step too far (26), to kick in, rather than them just running away from an old woman with a bike. Above all the others, Martha is wonderful. A ‘local schoolteacher’ who saw ‘rituals and sacrifices’ (non-human) as a splash of ‘colour [in] a very dull life’ (27), she pleads with De Vries, as everything goes wrong, to give the whole thing up as come away with her and, I think, start a new life in Plymouth. What especially sticks is that the appeal of Plymouth seems to boil down to the fact that they can drive there ‘in a few hours’ (28), which seems rather a doomed plan for starting anew unless she’s actually suggesting they flee the country.
Finally, Dicks handles the Megara nicely. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise though as, Rob Shearman, writing about the broadcast episodes, describes them as ‘extremes the cliché of the logical mind, best typified by K9’ (29), and the Target range have been handling him deftly for ages now. Like K9 then, the Megara, are ‘fussy little beings’ (30) and, beneath the surface, a powder keg of ‘vanity’ (31), agitation (32), ‘weariness’ (33), outrage (34), ‘excitement’ (35), griping (36), defensiveness (37) and, slightly more sympathetically, ‘sadness’ (38) who ‘happily’ get so lost in legal debate they don’t notice the accused sneaking off (39) and are clearly grudging when the law differs from their desires (40). Unlike K9, the Megara seemingly view almost everything they encounter as cause for execution (41), which, just one month off the back of Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time, raises worries for the society they represent.
Actually, the danger of over-literal justice is addressed face-on exactly as on TV (42), which is a nice joke but rather distant. Closer to home is the suggestion that lawyers thrive on the impenetrability of the law, as when the Megara advise the Doctor against representing himself (43). Where Dicks really sharpens the commentary is the implication that all the bureaucracy and talk of impartiality is an excuse rather than a justification for officious behaviour. The Megara are said to sometimes speak ‘together in a kind of chanting chorus’ (44), and this behaviour only seems to come up when they are challenged (45). It’s even described as eerie (46). For the book range, it’s the first time an aspect identifiably of contemporary Britain has been presented as a tool of tyranny.
Dicksisms
‘A police box which was not a police box’
‘an impossibly large control room with a many-sided central control console’
‘that mysterious traveller in time and space known as the Doctor’
‘the police box produced the most astonishing, wheezing groaning sound, and faded away’
1 Based on the Popular Television Series, ed. Paul Smith
2 epguides.com/DoctorWho
3. ‘If it will facilitate the proceedings, may I say that I have no objection to the assessor. Attach me to it if you wish. Ask me if I broke the seals. I will answer truthfully’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-3.htm
4. ‘“If it will simplify proceedings, Your Honours. then let me say I have no objection to submitting to the Assessor—for the one relevant question. Attach me to it. Ask if I broke the seals. I will answer that I did not, and the Assessor will confirm that I speak the truth. Everything else is irrelevant.” The Doctor sighed. Miss Fay had out-manoeuvred him’
5. ‘There is one loose end, namely how the Doctor knew that Cessair’s necklace was the segment’
David J Howe, Mark Stammers, Stephen James Walker, The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor; p.109
6. ‘“the removal and misuse of the Great Seal of Diplos.” The Doctor looked again at Miss Fay—and saw her hand fly to the jewelled pendant about her neck’
7. ‘“We had no legal authority to kill her, therefore we were forced to cut off the destructive ray.” complained Megara One’
8. ‘He’d always got on very well with Julius Caesar, though you couldn’t really trust him. And, of course, he’d never listen to advice. Even when the Doctor had gone to all the trouble of dressing up as a soothsayer, and croaking “Beware the Ides of March”, old Julius wouldn’t listen’
9. ‘You are a reasonably intelligent humanoid. You will work under my direction’
10. ‘“How close?” asked Romana urgently. The Ogri came smashing through the cottage window’
11. ‘ROMANA: How close, K9?
(Outside the window.)
ROMANA: Come on, let's get out of here!
(The Ogri smashes down the front door.)’
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-3.htm
12. ‘Vivien Fay was awake and on her feet by now, gazing wildly around her, unable to grasp how things had gone so suddenly wrong for her’
13. ‘They weren’t very experienced campers.
In fact, it was their first time under canvas.
Newly-married, too hard-up to afford a
proper holiday, they had bought the little
tent and set off for the moors’ – which
means Dicks at least is on the same page as
Toby Hadoke: ‘It’s a cold night, why are his
flies undone? Naughty Doctor Who’
Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearsmith,
Running through Corridors 2; p.336
14. ‘The result is difficult to capture in words. This is not because it is terribly hard to
describe - they're giant polystyrene rocks
that glow urine-yellow as they glide around.
Rather it is that the human brain, when faced
with that description, isn't quite capable of
generating the full and jaw-dropping
weirdness of it on its own, tending instead
to hedge and assume that it can't be that
bad. No. It is. It is pretty much the worst
case scenario for giant urine-colored attack rocks’
Elizabeth Sandifer, Tardis Eruditorum, eruditorumpress.com/blog/into-submission-with-my-charm-the-stones-of-blood
15. ‘There was a fierce red glow in the heart of the monolith, and a deep thudding like the pounding of some giant heart’
16. ‘Suddenly, the stones lit up with an unearthly glow and the girl’s hand became the bony hand of a skeleton as the life was sucked from her body’
17. ‘They could hear it still blundering about in the cottage like a great stone bee in a bottle as they fled across the moor’
ALSO is the later line ‘It had a thin high voice, like the buzz of some electronic bee’ an attempt to draw some strange connection between the Megara and the Ogri? I just think the mention of a bee is so noticeably peculiar…
18. ‘It was as though the stone itself was thirsty for blood’
19. ‘The Ogri stopped, like a well-trained dog’
20. ‘“Ogri!” Remembering, perhaps, what had happened to its fellow, the Ogri did not move’
21. ‘The Ogri was too big to go through the door, and without its mistress it didn’t seem to have the sense to crash through as it had in the past’
22. ‘He slipped off his robe and handed it to Martha, revealing himself as a dapper-looking man with a rather Continental appearance’
23. ‘He decided to provoke him a little further. When people became angry they were indiscreet and that’s when you learned something’
24. ‘De Vries was furious at having his sacred Druidism associated with what he regarded as a deplorable old scandal monger’
25. ‘The arrival of the newcomer was enough to break the spell’
26. ‘But she was no criminal, and she had a never expected to be faced with coldblooded murder’
27. ‘Martha was close to panic. She was a local schoolteacher, and she had joined the cult because of her friendship with De Vries, and because the Druid rituals and sacrifices brought some colour into a very dull life’
28. ‘“Let’s just get away from here. Let’s just get in the car and drive off. We can be in Plymouth in a few hours.” “Plymouth?” moaned De Vries. “You just don’t understand, do you? The Cailleach will find us wherever we go!”’
29. ‘The Megara are just delightful, in fact; they take to extremes the cliché of the logical mind, best typified by K9’
Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman, Running through Corridors 2; p.337
30. ‘the Doctor, rather amused by the fussy little beings’
31. ‘As he had hoped, the appeal to the vanity of the Megara had its effect’ AND ‘Again the appeal to vanity had its effect’
32. ‘The Megara buzzed agitatedly’
33. ‘“Objection!” yelled the Doctor. There was a note of weariness in the Megara voices. “What are you objecting to this time?”’ – reminds me very strongly of Red Dwarf, specifically ‘Justice’, but the “objection” joke is presumably quite common
34. ‘Megara One was outraged: “You most certainly can. Megara cannot lie”’
35. ‘Megara Two buzzed and whirred. A note almost of excitement came into its voice. “I have reached her memory cells”’
36. ‘“We had no legal authority to kill her […]’ complained Megara One’
37. ‘Megara One said defensively, “According to Article 3, Section 185 of the Galactic Code”’
38. ‘“It is too late, Doctor,” said Megara One, with a tinge of sadness’
39. ‘While the Megara were happily engaged in this debate, the Doctor and Romana tiptoed down the corridor and disappeared round the corner’
40. ‘Megara Two said unwillingly, “According to our data banks, the law does not actually specify that the accused may not call his own counsel...”’
41. ‘no one may remove the Great Seals without authorisation. The penalty is death’; ‘Attempts to influence the Bench by immaterial means are punishable by death’; ‘An objection will be regarded as contempt of Court. Contempt of Court is punishable by death’; AND A NEW ONE FOR THE BOOK: ‘illegal detention of this vessel in hyperspace, for which the penalty is death’ (on TV, there’re just the two charges ‘Impersonating a religious personage […] for which the penalty is imprisonment for one thousand five hundred years [and] Theft of the Great Seal of Diplos, for which the penalty is perpetual imprisonment’ (chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-3.htm)
42. ‘an all-powerful justice machine […] found the Federation in contempt of Court and blew up the Galaxy’
43. ‘“you are quite incapable of appreciating the subtleties of the law.” “Machine law?” “Of course. There is no other law”’
44. ‘The two Megara spoke sometimes alternately, sometimes together in a kind of chanting chorus’
45. ‘“We do not make mistakes,” chorussed the Megara’ AND ‘“Demand?” chorused the Megara threateningly’
46. ‘“Perpetual imprisonment,” chanted the Megara eerily’
Height Attack
The Doctor is ‘a tall curly-haired man’, ‘Vivien’s ‘a tall, strikingly attractive dark-haired woman’ who carries ‘a tall, strangely-shaped staff’ and the Ogri are ‘huge and grey’
Revenge of the Educational Remit
‘You can catch all sorts of nasty things from a dirty knife, you know. There’s tetanus, commonly known as lockjaw, not to mention a whole variety of staphylococcal infections’ – Dicks is almost making a point of correcting what at least feels like a mistake on TV: ‘You can catch all sorts of things off a dirty knife, you know. Lockjaw, tetanus, not to mentions staphylococcal infections’ (chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-3.htm)
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
‘The blood should have run straight down the side of the monolith... it did not. […] It was as though the stone itself was thirsty for blood’
‘the forces upon which they were calling were more dark and dreadful than any summoned up by chanting Druids’
‘The Doctor, the real Doctor, not the false shape that had lured Romana into such danger’
‘The TARDIS sped on its way, taking the Doctor, Romana and K9 to new adventures, in their quest to save the cosmos from the power of chaos’
Miscellania
Megara: ‘Two shining silver spheres, the size of footballs’
‘Suddenly a long, snake-like metallic flex shot out of Megara Two. It ended in a circlet which clamped itself around Romana’s head. She looked up, startled. “What’s that?” Megara One said. “It assesses the level of truth”’
‘K9 had been the Doctor’s companion on many adventures. […] he had been fashioned in the shape of a dog by a space-station scientist who’d missed the pet he’d been forced to leave on Earth’ – and in one fell swoop, Dicks dismisses the ending of the immediately previous novelisation, which was also by him
‘Standing behind the altar was a truly terrifying figure, white robed with a feathered bird-mask covering the face. A female figure, with a feathered face that looked incredibly cruel and evil, but more than that it radiated power’ – this feels like two goes at the same description which Dicks just couldn’t choose between
‘“Help! Help! Over here!” yelled the Doctor lustily’ – was ever a better adverb attached to Tom Baker’s approach to the role?
‘K9 emerged from rooting in a cupboard’ – now that’s an image I wish I’d seen
Why’s Dicks changed this to give K9 all the lines? – ‘K9 gave an electronic bleep. “Most probable planet of origin G class planet in Tau Cei. Two other possibilities, but both incapable of supporting human life”’. On TV: ‘ROMANA: It has to be a G class planet in Tau Ceti. K9: There are two other possibilities, mistress. ROMANA: Both incapable of supporting any form of humanoid life’ (chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-3.htm)
‘Also of removing silicon based lifeforms from the planet Ogros’ (chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-3.htm) has been changed to ‘She is also guilty of removing the two silicon-based life forms from the planet Ogros’. Why, especially considering there were three Ogri?
