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)
"Jo cannoned into the two soldiers like a well aimed ball in a skittle alley"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE TERROR OF THE AUTONS
by Terrance Dicks
First published 15 May 1975 (1), between Revenge of the Cybermen and Terror of the Zygons (2)
Height Attack
An Auton: ‘the giant figure sat upright’
In Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks, Dicks picked up Hulke’s foregrounding of story themes and streamlined it. Now he’s gunning for Hulke’s fleshing out of character backgrounds. Several of the pawns and sacrificial lambs that parade across the page get snappy bits of revealing interior monologue – Rossini reflects on his business methods (3), Rex Farrel’s spinelessness is explained (4) and John Farrel reveals a hint of warmth beneath his brusque manner (5).
The character most elevated is ‘melancholy, balding, bespectacled scientist’ Albert Goodge (6), who, before getting shrunk to death by the Master, gets to demonstrate so much of his character: He is shown wallowing in ‘his usual gloom’ in contrast to scenery ‘bathed in sunshine and is said to be ‘always grumbling’ (7); his down-to-earth nature is made clear in his disapproval of whizz-kid types like Philips ‘straight from university’ (8); his placid demeanour is revealed as he drives ‘slowly and cautiously as always’; and his domesticity is plain from his obsession over the prospect of boiled eggs in his packed lunch (9), the confirmation of which constitutes his ‘worst fears’ (10), and the detail of his wife’s name, Elsie. So much does he take possession of his little scene, even his death is related from his perspective and using the tools of his work as a metaphor for the process (11).
The regulars get a nice bit of extra flesh too. Benton is mostly treated as a burly dogsbody, though he does get the nice detail of always keeping his eye on the job even as his superiors get distracted (12), but Yates gets a bizarre little internal monologue on his first encounter with the Master about facial hair (13) – playing on his fashion-consciousness (‘whiskers are fashionable these days’), playfulness (‘Yates wondered idly what the Brigadier would say’) and uselessness (the incident nearly gets the Doctor killed) – and the Brigadier reveals that his starchy demeanour is simply cover for social awkwardness (14), that his speed of action is directly proportional to his control over any given situation (15) and that his stubbornness comes most to the fore when he’s made a mistake (16).
The relationship between the Brigadier and the Doctor is also given many lovely moments to shine. They’re established as ‘Good friends’ whose ‘not infrequent arguments’ result from ‘utterly different’ temperaments (17) and this is demonstrated in the tension during one of the Brigadier’s conferences between his desire for ‘military order and discipline’ (18) and the Doctor’s distracted manner (19) and again in a scene where the Doctor teases the Brigadier for his security jargon (20). Considering how rude the Doctor actually is to the Brigadier (21), the reader’s fortunately also treated to a quite long scene where the latter gets one up on the former by challenging him to turn that very rudeness on new recruit Jo (22), blankly letting the Doctor squirm (23) and barely concealing his pleasure at his triumph (24).
Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the novelisation though is the Master, though his ‘enormous vanity’ might get one too many mentions. The portrayal forms an interesting contrast with Barry Letts’s in Doctor Who and the Dæmons, where the Master is shown to show regret each time he thinks he’s killed the Doctor. Here, in the face of repeated failure, his reaction in front of others remains similar, insisting ‘The bomb was merely a greetings card’ on the first attempt (25) and expressing pleasure that ‘the game can be prolonged a little’ after the second (26). But inside, Dicks has him seething. ‘pretending he’d planned things that way all along’ to salve his ego and destroying tables once in private to let out his ‘bitter anger’ at the Doctor’s repeated escapes. What’s more, this obsession, as the Auton Leader points out, is what actually undermines his schemes (27).
Far from being a cold calculating mastermind, the Master becomes a villain given to ‘ungovernable rage’. He feels the frustrations of the compromises he makes to achieve his ends, finding it ‘humiliating […] to depend on the help’ of the Autons and keeping a lid on those frustrations only ‘with an effort’ (28). This lets Dicks slightly rewrite the ending, making it less abrupt and more the culmination of the Master’s unravelling relationship with the Autons than a sudden realisation of the danger he’s in. When the Doctor proposes that ‘The first act of the new Nestene rulers will be to execute you’, pointing out how his ‘plan failed’ and he ‘didn’t fulfil [his] promises’ (29), the Master is shown to consider the situation and reflect on how his partnership ‘had been a little strained’ (30). This makes a surprisingly big difference to the climax - the Master switches sides (31) not because he was an idiot to team up with the Autons in the first place but because it has become clear that his emotionally driven behaviour is antithetical to them (and because the Brigadier’s got a gun on him (32)). When he realises the possibility that ‘the victorious Nestenes wouldn’t treat him as a hero after all’, he reveals both how irrational his motives have been and how badly he has been misreading his allies to this point.
This shouldn’t be a surprise – it’s basically what Dicks did with the Controller in Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks – but it feeds beautifully into the extra bits of characterisation in this novelisation and enriches the Master immeasurably. His pawns don’t just get snappy bits of revealing interior monologue when they’re introduced or killed, they also get them whilst under his influence. Phillips is described as having ‘almost forgotten who or what he was’ (33), much as Rex Farrel ‘seemed to ‘shut off’’ when hypnotised (34), but the ‘almost’ is important, suggesting the ‘brilliant scientist’ has a dim awareness of being made ‘a mindless buffoon’, actually experiencing his life as ‘a circus clown, stumbling about’ and somehow complicit in ‘accepting […] the blows and kicks without complaint’. The ‘nightmarish existence [that] seemed to have gone on forever’ isn’t just something that happens to Phillips’s body, it is something he has to endure. Similarly, there is a seeming horrible moment of clarity when Rex celebrates his freedom from the Master’s control just as he dies in his service (35). That the Master is ‘amused […] to degrade’ people in this way, in other words that he does it not just from expediency but for pleasure, makes him a nastier adversary than that portrayed by Delgado (36).
All this lovely character work, sadly, just throws Dicks’ treatment of Jo into even sharper relief. Rather than the slyly enthusiastic action-adventurer Katy Manning plays, the character is portrayed as completely unsuited to UNIT life, ‘paralysed with fear’ in the face of a killer doll (37), collapsing ‘sobbing into the Doctor’s arms’ when held captive by the Master and the Autons (38) and simply hiding, ‘forgotten in the excitement’, during her and the Doctor’s rescue (39). The one occasion on which she does become engaged in a set piece, it is simply as a physical mass to be lobbed around by the Doctor (40), and her sole active contribution to the events of the book is to have smaller wrists than a man (41). Her presence in UNIT seems to be wholly down to the patronage of her uncle (42), the fact the Brigadier doesn’t believe anyone more qualified would put up with the Doctor (43) and the fact she sees physically suited to making the latter too guilty to dispense with her, gazing ‘appealingly up’ at him ‘like a puppy desperately hoping someone will throw another stick’ (44). Even the few insights given into her thought processes undermine her, her lament that ‘modern intelligence methods failed to make proper allowance for women’s intuition’ reads like Dicks ridiculing not just her but the very idea of women in intelligence (45).
The really insulting aspect of Jo’s being likened to a puppy (one of the really insulting aspects of Jo’s being likened to a puppy) is how much work Dicks puts into infantilising her, with her gazing ‘up’ and ‘desperately hoping’ for someone to essentially play with her – no wonder the Doctor calls her a ‘ridiculous child’ (46). Troughton and Tom Baker’s performances derive much from their childlike natures, something the fourth incarnation even acknowledges at the end of Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, and Jo’s treatment could be read as a criticism of the third Doctor’s nature. His verdict on the new companion is notably not shared by the Brigadier – he not only dismisses it but is confused about who the Doctor might be referring to – and so might reflect more on his attitudes than her character. Unfortunately, there’s not much (any?) evidence for this beyond a tortuous analysis of those two passages. However, Dicks might just let the cat out of the bag should he show an overzealous enthusiasm in killing off Pertwee next time.
Tory Who
‘“I’m sure you’ll deal with things, dear,” said Mary Farrel soothingly. Thirty years of marriage to her forceful husband had convinced her that he was always right, and that he could cope with anyone. Since John Farrel held both these opinions himself, they got on remarkably well’
McDermot on the Master: ‘some foreign jackanapes with big ideas’ – At least he’s going to die
Why are the Master’s creations all ugly?: ‘Farrel recoiled in horror. Inside the box was one of the most evil-looking dolls he had ever seen in his life. A squat, hairy thing, with a slant-eyed oriental face, and a straggly tuft of beard. Enough to scare any child into fits’
Dicksisms
‘He garaged the car’ – that’s a verb?
‘Somehow hampered by the coils of rope, Tony grabbed the Doctor’s bound wrist’ – eh?
‘The Doctor meanwhile was trying to chat with Tony, somehow hampered by the coils of rope, but was finding it heavy going’ – eh??
1 http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Terror_of_the_Autons_(novelisation)
2 http://epguides.com/DoctorWho/
3 ‘Rossini had his own way of making money. He hired only the deadbeats, the down-and-outs of the circus profession; those who for one reason or another could never get a job with the big, posh outfits. Some were too old, or too incompetent. Some, like Tony the strong man, were on the run from the police. Rossini hired them all, and paid them starvation wages’
4 ‘Farrel Senior was a big, tough, self-made man, who had bullied his way to the top through sheer determination. Even in his sixties, he was an imposing figure. Unable to accept that Rex hadn’t inherited his own strength, he had always treated him harshly in an attempt to ‘put some spine into the boy.’ As a natural result, Rex had grown up feeble and indecisive, always living in his father’s shadow.’
5 ‘It had been Rex’s mother who had talked her husband into retiring and letting Rex take over the factory. She realised that the boy would never really grow up until he could get away on his own. John Farrel had been persuaded against his will. He was not surprised to hear from McDermot that things were already in an unholy mess. But he loved his son, in his own way, and was genuinely distressed to see the boy looking so desperately haggard’
6 ‘Albert Goodge, a melancholy, balding, bespectacled scientist, drove slowly and cautiously as always along the narrow country lane, plunged in his usual gloom and lost to the beauty of the scene around him. It was a fine day in early summer. Fields and hedges lay bathed in sunshine, birds sang, lambs gambolled; and Albert Goodge worried about the quality of his packed lunch’
7 ‘Goodge was always grumbling about something’
8 ‘Goodge looked at him gloomily. He didn’t approve of young Phillips. Another of these whizz-kids straight from university’
9 ‘“Cut out the boiled eggs, Elsie,” I said. “Quite apart from the effect on my digestion they’re boring to look at.”’
10 ‘Goodge sighed and opened his lunch box. His worst fears were confirmed. Eggs again!’
11 ‘Goodge felt as if his whole body was being clamped in a giant fist and squeezed, squeezed. He seemed to be shrinking, rushing down the wrong end of a telescope into blackness’
12 ‘the roar of the approaching jet-fighters was deafening. Yates and the Brigadier were both looking upwards. Only Benton, obedient to his orders, was watching the coach through his binoculars’
13 Yates, his mind drifting rather as he meets the Master for the first time (and fails to rumble his disguise): ‘Wonder why he grew that beard? Still, whiskers are fashionable these days, except in the army. Yates wondered idly what the Brigadier would say if he sprouted a beard. He could try a moustache, though. No regulation about that. It used to be traditional in some regiments...’
14 ‘When the Brigadier came in he saw to his horror that Jo was blinking away tears. He covered his embarrassment with military formality’
15 ‘Only too pleased to have a practical problem to deal with, the Brigadier rushed from the room to set up the checking operation’
16 ‘The Brigadier, aware that he should never have allowed it to go to the museum, knew that he was really in the wrong. As a result he was naturally insisting that he was completely in the right.’
17 ‘The Doctor and the Brigadier were engaged in one of their not infrequent arguments. Good friends though they were, their temperaments were so utterly different that the occasional clash was inevitable’
18 ‘He was supposed to be listening to the Brigadier, who had decided that it was time that a little military order and discipline was brought into things. He had called a conference’
19 ‘The Doctor rose as he spoke, and started wandering restlessly round the laboratory’
20 ‘The Doctor sniffed disapprovingly. He didn’t think much of the Brigadier’s security mumbo-jumbo. “And who might X.39 be? Or don’t you know?” “Of course I know, Doctor,” said the Brigadier crossly. He scrabbled again in his pile of papers and found a second checklist which he compared with the first. “Agent X.39 happens to be.. wait a minute... Jo Grant!” The Brigadier looked up triumphantly’ – it is disappointing that the Doctor’s patronising attitude is actually vindicated here, with the Brigadier not only actually not knowing the codenames but also being so pointlessly triumphant at having proved the Doctor’s point
21 ‘Jo looked at him reproachfully. “You weren’t very polite, you know, Doctor. They did save our lives.” The Doctor did his best to look sorry. “I’ll apologise later, Jo—if I remember”’ – he really is a knob. Not only does he not have an ounce of contrition in his soul, he willingly proclaims how unimportant he finds the whole matter
22 ‘The Brigadier’s face took on a rather cunning expression. “Very well, Doctor, I’ll reassign her.” The Doctor gave a satisfied smile, which vanished at once as the Brigadier added, “but I think you should break the news to her yourself”’
23 ‘He looked appealingly at the Brigadier. The Brigadier looked back impassively’
24 ‘The corner of the Brigadier’s mouth twitched, and the Doctor glared at him’
25 ‘The Master smiled. “The bomb was merely a greetings card—a small gallantry on the eve of battle. I wished the Doctor to see my power. To know that I have defeated him, before he dies!” In fact, having twice failed to kill the Doctor, the Master was salving his enormous vanity by pretending he’d planned things that way all along. “Professor Phillips’ car has lured the Doctor to the circus — that is the first stage of my plan. Now that he is here, I shall destroy him!”’ – is this the reason for the Master’s increasingly convoluted plans? It’s the only way he can salvage the failure of his last plan??
26 ‘Rex looked at him in amazement. ”You’re not angry?” “Because the Doctor has escaped? Of course not. He’s an interesting adversary. All it means is that the game can be prolonged a little.” “But you still wish to destroy him?” The Master sighed regretfully. “I’m afraid it will be necessary, in the end. The more he struggles to postpone his death, the greater will be the final satisfaction.” […] Rex took the papers and left the office. As soon as he was gone, the Master’s face twisted with rage. He slammed his fist onto the desk, cracking the heavy mahogany top. To preserve his enormous vanity, he was forced to pretend that his attempts to kill the Doctor were merely an amusing game, which he could end when he pleased. But each successive defeat was a cause of bitter anger. He began to plan the Doctor’s destruction once more’
27 ‘To the Master’s rage and astonishment, the Auton Leader said, ”You waste too much time on your feud with the Doctor.” A spurt of ungovernable rage shook the Master’
28 ‘The Master controlled himself with an effort. It was humiliating for him to depend on the help of these plastic puppets’
29 ‘Your plan failed. You didn’t fulfil your promises. The first act of the new Nestene rulers will be to execute you’
30 ‘the Master considered the situation. Relations had been a little strained with the Nestenes of late. He remembered the threats of the Auton leader. Perhaps the victorious Nestenes wouldn’t treat him as a hero after all’
31 ‘All in all, thought the Master, perhaps it was time to change sides...’
32 ‘The Brigadier decided to take a hand. He drew his revolver. ‘That’s one reason, said the Brigadier. “And here’s another. If you don’t do exactly as the Doctor orders I shall shoot you here and now!”’
33 ‘Most of Phillips’ time had been spent inside that strange control room, carrying out a variety of tasks according to the Master’s instructions. The rest he had spent as a circus clown, stumbling about in the ring with the others, accepting the buckets of water and the blows and kicks without complaint. It had amused the Master to degrade a brilliant scientist into a mindless buffoon. Under the influence of the Master’s hypnotic power, Phillips had almost forgotten who or what he was. His nightmarish existence seemed to have gone on forever’ –
34 Rex Farrel under the influence: ‘sometimes he had seemed to ‘shut off’ as if in a momentary trance’
35 Rex: ‘Hypnotised, disguised, and finally sacrificed, he had performed his last service for the Master. Now he was free’
36 Unfortunately, the manner in which Dicks gives the Master some real teeth makes this all the worse: ‘The Doctor looked indignant. “Like him? I can’t stand the fellow. He’s ruthless. Depraved. Totally evil. In fact, a thoroughly bad lot. Only...” “Only what, Doctor?” The Doctor looked a little sheepish. “Well, I do sometimes think the cosmos would be a duller place without him.”’ – Git
37 ‘As she stood there paralysed with fear, it sprang for her throat’
38 ‘Jo collapsed sobbing into the Doctor’s arms. He patted her back soothingly, but his brain was busy with the next move’
39 ‘Jo, forgotten in the excitement, slid right under the jeep for cover and kept her head down’
40 ‘At the sight of them, the Doctor lifted Jo off her feet, and literally threw her across the room. “Hold her!” he yelled. Jo cannoned into the two soldiers like a well aimed ball in a skittle alley. All three collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs’
41 ‘Jo struggled frantically with her ropes. She had never been more grateful for her small size. The Auton knots were clumsy and her hands and wrists were to small that she was able to wriggle them to and fro within the bonds. She worked harder and harder, rubbing her wrists raw in the process. Beside her the Doctor was attempting the same task but with less success—his hands and wrists were bigger, and far more effectively tied’ – it appears this is what she brings to the team
42 ‘she owed her appointment to some discreet wire-pulling by her uncle, who, luckily for her, happened to be a Cabinet Minister’
43 ‘Don’t thank me, Miss Grant. You haven’t met the Doctor yet!’
44 ‘Jo gazed appealingly up at the Doctor, looking, he thought, rather like a puppy desperately hoping someone will throw another stick’
45 ‘Jo decided that modern intelligence methods failed to make proper allowance for women’s intuition’
46 ‘“Keep that ridiculous child out of my hair. She’s driving me mad.” “Child? What child?” The Doctor held out his hand about five feet above the ground. “You know. The one who seems to think she’s my assistant” “Miss Grant is scarcely a child, Doctor”’
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
‘Had Goodge looked up, he might have caught a glimpse of a dark shape peering down at him. He might even have been able to sound the alarm in time to save his own life. But he didn’t look up.’
Of the Doctor and the Brigadier: ‘What looked like quite a promising quarrel was broken up by the entrance of Captain Yates’ – Whose POV is this??
Old Farrel and his wife: ‘The tragedy was that neither of them had ever encountered anyone as evil and ruthless as the Master’
‘Unaware of the Master’s plans for him—though they wouldn’t have surprised him in the least—the Doctor was sitting in his laboratory checking over the Master’s dematerialisation circuit’
References I Didn’t Get
‘there was even an old-fashioned roundabout, with the traditional steam horses’ – turns out they’re indistinguishable from not-steam carousels. Or have I unknowingly always been riding steam? (www.youtube.com/watch?v=sReYSqatQk0)
Revenge of the Educational Remit
‘The Doctor held out his hand. “Your mouth and nostrils were sealed with this.” Jo saw a filmy piece of colourless plastic, so thin and transparent as to be almost invisible. “Doesn’t look very dangerous, does it? But without oxygen you’d have been unconscious in two minutes, dead in under ten.” Jo shuddered, thinking of the many tragic accidents caused by carelessness with simple plastic bags’
Leftie Who
Bosses are leeching cocks: ‘All the profits went into his own pockets, paying for the flashy suits, the diamond rings and the big cigars that fitted Rossini’s picture of himself as international showman. Anyone who objected was soon beaten into submission by Rossini’s big fists. He had a right to his perks. He was the boss, wasn’t he?’
‘on taking over from his father, his first action had been to order complete automation. He had spent most of the firm’s capital on new machinery, disregarding the advice of McDermot, his father’s chief engineer’ – the first act of inherited wealth is to disregard the advice of skilled people and to start discarding people – nicely, it’s been a disaster
‘Dominated by his father all his life, conditioned to obedience from early childhood, Farrel was
an easy victim’ – that’s inherited wealth for you
The Brownrose scene, in which the Doctor uses his friendship with ‘Tubby’ Rowlands to browbeat one-scene exposition machine, is removed, allowing the third Doctor to dodge one of his worst moments of being, as Jason Miller puts it, ‘an elitist snob’ (Jason Miller, Doctor Who Novels, drwhonovels.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/the-deadly-daffodils)
The other policeman (who is also an Auton) looks remarkably surprised. Meanwhile, Jo Grant is played by a blond Stephanie Beecham and Pertwee by a cartoon child-catcher
Miscellania
The Autons are ‘a terrifying parody of humanity’, which, it appears, means they’re dogs: ‘the two Autons appeared. They paused, wrist guns extended, heads turning to and fro, questing like hunting dogs’
‘The impact had jammed the front door of the car, giving them a few minutes’ start’ – a few minutes? How shit are the Autons? I’ll tell you how shit: ‘All the Autons were milling towards the front, trying to help the Master, jamming into each other in the narrow aisle’
Inspiration for ‘Rose’?: ‘The severed Auton arm had started lashing about the floor like a wounded snake, spitting out energy bolts’
More superpowers for the Time Lords: ‘Once captured by the Time Lords, the Master’s life-stream would be thrown into reverse. Not only would he no longer exist, he would never have existed’, PLUS ‘The Doctor was far fitter than most human beings could ever be’ AND ‘His reflexes were literally super-human’
FIRST TIME?: ‘the Master’s TARDIS, unlike his own, still had its chameleon mechanism in working order’ – ‘the chameleon circuits had worn out’ – not named on telly until ‘Logopolis’
‘my TARDIS is one of the original Mark One’s [sic]. Splendid old machine, mind you. Don’t build ’em like that any more. But the Master’s is one of these flashy Mark Two jobs’ – these terms are used to describe the dematerialisation circuits of the two Tardises on TV. In ‘The Time Meddler’, the Monk’s Tardis is described as a ‘Mark 4’, though he does also ask the Doctor what ‘type’ his is. I think it’s first called a ‘Type 40’ in ‘The Deadly Assassin’