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)
"as historic an encounter as that between Stanley and Doctor Livingstone"
DOCTOR WHO AND THE WEB OF FEAR
by Terrance Dicks
First published 19 August 1976 (1), between The Seeds of Doom and The Masque of Mandragora (2)
Height Attack
The Yeti is a ‘furry monster […] Well over seven feet tall’
Emil Julius is ‘a tall, elegant white-haired old man’, Captain Knight is a ‘tall young officer’ and Colonel Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart is a ‘tall figure’
I got a bit stuck for something to say with Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, and Haisman and Lincoln manage it again with another set of scripts that are resolutely not about anything. Dicks, though, hasn’t left this one quite as pristine as the first Yeti tale.
First up, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. Obviously, no one involved with ‘The Web of Fear’ knew they were establishing a long-running character but that, as Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles argue, makes him all the more interesting (3). The story functions as a ‘Rite of Passage’ for the character, his experiences turning him from the ‘abrasive and sardonic’ Colonel who manages to get all his troops killed into the ‘more protective’ Brigadier of the ‘later UNIT stories’.
Dicks dispenses with all this. It makes sense that a man who’s already featured in 13 novelisations and finished his stint as a regular on TV isn’t used as one of the suspects regarding the Great Intelligence’s inside man (4), but Dicks goes further, having the Doctor immediately identify him as ‘a man you could rely on’ (5) and having them work as a team from the off, each keeping an eye on their respective parties for the possible traitor.
What’s more, the Colonel of the novelisation is already the fully-formed Brigadier we’ve seen so much of, robbing the reader of the (accidental) character development ‘The Web of Fear’ provided. Where on TV, the Colonel is increasingly frantic and desperate in his actions, in the novelisation he’s ‘the kind of soldier who didn’t know the meaning of surrender’ and would ‘die fighting the enemy with his bare hands’ (6). Dicks even changes his motives for trying to get to the Tardis, a fantastical hope for escape (7) replaced by a desire to retrieve ‘important scientific equipment’ for the Doctor (8).
This isn’t the proto-DVD style of novelisation that’s been creeping in since Doctor Who and the Giant Robot – you really can’t relive the broadcast episodes through a novelisation that so thoroughly acknowledges the future of the series. This is something new: Target book as ultra-thorough Programme Guide entry. Maybe it’s relevant that the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and its excellent archive work, was founded in May 1976 (9) because this is now looking at the show as something to be catalogued, a list of significant moments to be known about as much as experienced.
Hence, we get the remarkably inflated analogy of the Doctor’s first meeting with Lethbridge-Stewart with ‘that between Stanley and Doctor Livingstone’, plus a brief synopsis of the whole Pertwee era (10). Dicks even throws in the first steps to the creation of UNIT, the Colonel musing that he’ll ‘send the Government a memorandum’ about establishing ‘A kind of Intelligence Task Force’ (11). In a similar vein, we’re also treated to a detailed (and lengthy) recap of the Great Intelligence’s modus operandi which feels liked it’s been cribbed from some sort of FACT FILE feature (12).
That’s not to say the proto-DVD approach has been entirely abandoned. The awakening Yeti in the Julius Museum is recounted to have ‘blurred and shimmered […] becoming even more fierce and wild than before’, rendering into prose the costume transformation that occurred on screen (13). That change had, according to Shannon Sullivan, happened because the production team felt the previous design was ‘not sufficiently fearsome’ (14) and was presumably shown on screen, considering they never did similar with all the Cyber-redesigns, because ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ had ended just seven weeks earlier. Here, considering the specifics of the design aren’t especially highlighted in the action of either this book or Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, the passage presumably exist simply because it’s described in the script. The same reason seems to be behind Victoria spotting ‘The shadow of a human figure’ in the Intelligence’s lair (15) – on TV, Chorley’s clothing makes it clear that this was him but the novelisation never makes clear who it was.
Not that Dicks never deviates – he gets rid of the link between the Tardis’s being caught in a web in space and its landing in the web-infested London Underground, for example. On TV it’s clear that the purpose of the web was to draw the ship to London and all the Doctor’s gizmo does is to move it maybe half a mile away from its intended destination (16) but in the book the Doctor constructs the device to ‘wrench [the Tardis] free’ of the web and go ‘somewhere else’ (17) and only suspects ‘that what’s happening in London is connected to’ the space web rather than stating the two events are directly connected (18). Presumably, this is a relic from the scripts Dicks is working from (which had been changed by recording) and his blind adherence to their lack of plot logic suggests that, now on his third adaptation in three months (19), he’s slipped into autopilot.
However, there are some nice little details that the novelisation adds. Travers, for example, gets a good reason for heading up the scientific fight against the Yeti (besides having caused it all), having become a ‘world-famous scientist’ after turning his hand to ‘the still-new science of electronics’ to escape his reputation as ‘a discredited anthropologist’ (20); Jamie gets a better reason for ignoring the Doctor’s protests as he forcibly pries him out of the Intelligence’s brain-draining pyramid, believing he ‘must already be under the Intelligence’s control’ (21); and, most importantly of all, Arnold’s behaviour as the Intelligence’s inside man gets some explanation, apparently reverting to ‘his normal self’ at times with ‘no recollection of what he’d been doing’ (22). On TV, the Intelligence has just been using Arnold’s animated corpse (23) from the start (24), which makes, as the Colonel points out, a lot of his behaviour really rather peculiar (25). As El Sandifer points out, they get away with it in the broadcast episodes because ‘Episode six is a full month later’ than episode three and viewers would ‘forget details’ in between (26), but Dicks can’t rely on such hazy recall here, especially when the earlier chapters could be revisited in a way earlier episodes couldn’t.
This isn’t just a problem for the Arnold reveal but for the whole mystery of the Intelligence’s inside man’s identity. Initially, it looks like Dicks is going to play it straight and leave the reader to hunt clues alongside the characters. The Doctor even presents a list of suspects – Travers, Anne, Chorley, Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Knight and Arnold (27). However, Anne, Travers and (though they weren’t listed) Blake and Weams are then quickly eliminated as they’re all visible to others when the Fortress’s door is opened for the Yeti (28). And Lethbridge-Stewart’s obviously in the clear because he’s the Brigadier. That leaves, within two pages of setting the mystery up, Captain Knight, Sergeant Arnold and Chorley.
That’s when it gets clever. The last of these is immediately made prime suspect, ‘An expression of cold calculation slowly [spreading] over his face’ the moment he’s alone (29), but he’s also very soon made the least likely, with Arnold and Knight responsible for leaving the Fortress unguarded at the crucial moment (30). Wedded to the scripts, Chorley remains chief suspect among the other characters right up until the end (31) but, since he’s no longer actually a likely candidate (and he is never so cleanly taken off the table on TV), this has the effect of frustrating the reader who’s sure all the characters are looking the wrong way.
The moment that best captures this is when Victoria tells the journalist about the Tardis. That’s the point when the Doctor openly expresses that Chorley might be the Intelligence’s inside man (32), the point after which his prolonged absence makes him everyone else’s chief suspect (33), and there’s even the hint of Victoria’s falling under the Intelligence’s influence, as she did in Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, thanks to Chorley’s ‘impossible to explain […] charm’ (34) and the Doctor ‘sensing something strange in the atmosphere’ (35), but the reader is privy to the fact that it’s all just down to Chorley’s being a ‘skilled interviewer’ (36).
A similar trick gets played with Evans. When first listing suspects, the Doctor states it could be anyone ‘except of course for himself and Victoria’. Since in the book the Intelligence leaves its subjects with no memory of their betrayals, he and Victoria could be under its control without knowing, so their exclusion can only be because the leaking of information precedes their arrival. By the same logic, Evans cannot be the mole.
Despite this, Dicks follows the TV scripts’ insistence on making Evans a suspect for a bit (37), but he now draws attention to Arnold’s involvement (38) – Arnold not only instructs Evans to give the Doctor the Yeti statuette but the dialogue is altered to suggest Arnold directly handed it to him (39) . Dicks identifies that it was never the mystery that made the TV episodes work but the paranoia suffered by the characters and so he discards the former altogether in favour of emphasising the latter, drawing attention to clues the characters are missing in their panic.
It’s not exactly clear at what point Dicks thinks the readers will have worked out Arnold’s the Intelligence’s inside man, but it must be before his disappearance. When Corporal Lane’s corpse emerges from the web, it’s not, as on TV, covered in the lethal substance, suggesting mere contact is the killer. Instead, Lane’s ‘gas-mask had been wrenched from his face’, suggesting the respirators do work and it’s only its removal that killed him, just ‘his face […] covered with the thick, fluffy substance of the Web’ (40). The only person who could have pulled it off him, and deliberately caused his death, is Arnold.
When Arnold returns, then, the reader follows his actions in the knowledge that he’s working for the Intelligence. That lends a lovely tension to moments like his encounter with Chorley – ‘We’d all forgotten you’, he says, but with the sinister overtone that it’s the Yeti and the Intelligence that had forgotten him and now he’s got no chance of slipping through the net again (41). It means that, when Travers and Victoria are ‘shepherded’ away from the platform shortly after sending Arnold to tell the others of their location (42), it’s pretty clear their temporary placement there was intended as a trap (though why the Intelligence couldn’t just have Arnold lie about where they were would be a fair question). It also makes all the hope Lethbridge-Stewart puts into Arnold’s ability to slip away from the Yeti unnoticed transparently futile (43). Most importantly, it introduces peril to moments like Arnold’s demand for Evans to say where the Doctor’s gone – not only does Evans reveal the Doctor’s location but he also partially reveals their plan (44).
The Intelligence never does seem suspicious that the Doctor wanted ‘to catch a Yeti’, though, suggesting that information was never relayed to it, and Arnold does still seems to sometimes act in the interests of the human characters, sealing the Web in the Fortress to slow its progress (45), for example. When Arnold gazes ‘blankly’ at the map showing how far the Web has spread, is he sad to see ‘So very few lights still burning’ or satisfied (46)? We never find out, but it lends a poignancy to his being the mole that simply being an animated corpse never could.
And it’s not just the question of the Intelligence’s inside man Dicks improves. ‘The Web of Fear’ is often looked to as one of the TV stories that most informed Doctor Who’s tactic of putting the fantastical in the mundane, the inspiration behind Jon Pertwee’s repeated talk of Yetis on a Tooting Bec lav and a clear influence on the Pertwee era as a whole. Whilst all that’s true, it basically comes down to the decision to set it in the London Underground. The novelisation, which can’t rely on the visuals to sell the juxtaposition of monsters and setting, has to work a bit harder at this and, as a result, creates rather lovely grotesque parodies of everyday scenes. The Yeti’s captives stand ‘like passengers waiting for a train’ at Piccadilly Circus (47) and the Intelligence talks to Victoria through ‘the station’s public address system’ like some sibilant station master (48). It’s the difference between putting the scary in the everyday and making the everyday scary and it’s nice to see Dicks push the latter so effectively at a time when the TV show’s idea of a present-day story is giant plants in a stately home or petrified hands in a nuclear power station. It’ll be a long time before anyone else remembers the series has this trick up its sleeve.
1 tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Web_of_Fear_(novelisation)
3 ‘It’s arguable that the loss of his troops during the raid makes him more protective of the scientists afterwards [and possibly more protective of his men in later UNIT stories, in which case this is very much his Rite of Passage]. Before this crisis, he’s rather abrasive and sardonic, and even afterwards he’s not above suggesting that the Doctor might give himself up to the Great Intelligence in order to save the others. […] what’s really worth noticing is that the man we see in episodes three to six of “The Web of Fear” might feasibly have become either the Brigadier we all remember or the Brigade-Leader from “Inferno” (7.4). Suggesting that the “evil” parallel-universe version of the character is the sort of person he could have been if he’d never met the Doctor…’ – it’s intriguing that they also like this idea because it works as a sort of origin story for both the Brigadier of the Pertwee years and the Brigade-Leader of ‘Inferno’, though that opens the possibility of ‘The Web of Fear’ being the vital turning point that creates the fascist alternative universe of that story and so a whole massive kettle of fish I don’t really want to get into…
Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles, About Time 2
4 DOCTOR: The main door didn't open by itself, did it? It may be any one of us.
COLONEL: Me, perhaps?
DOCTOR: Perhaps.
COLONEL: Or even you?
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
5 ‘They looked at each other for a moment, and then the Colonel smiled. “We’ve got to trust someone, Doctor, so we may as well start with each other. I’ll keep an eye on my party, you take care of things here, eh?” The Doctor nodded, curiously pleased by the Colonel’s trust. Starchy sort of fellow this Colonel, but a man you could rely on. Unaware that this was the beginning of a long friendship, they both hurried out of the room’
6 ‘Lethbridge-Stewart was the kind of soldier who didn’t know the meaning of surrender. If the worst came to the worst he’d die fighting the enemy with his bare hands’
7 COLONEL: Well whether you think it foolish or not, we are going to rescue that craft.
KNIGHT: Oh, but sir. Our job
COLONEL: Captain Knight, the Army has failed to defeat this menace. Now the Doctor thinks he might succeed. Personally, I doubt it. But if we stay here, we're as good as dead. Therefore I do not intend leaving any escape route unexplored, however screwy you may think it
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
8 ‘Pick me a squad of the fittest men and have them ready to move out. The Doctor has some important scientific equipment in a box near Covent Garden. I’m going to fetch it for him’
9 According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_Appreciation_Society
10 ‘Although neither of them realised it, this was in its way as historic an encounter as that between Stanley and Doctor Livingstone. Promoted to Brigadier, Lethbridge-Stewart would one day lead the British section of an organisation called UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), set up to fight alien attacks on the planet Earth. The Doctor, changed in appearance and temporarily exiled to Earth, was to become UNIT’s Scientific Adviser. But that was all in the future. For the moment the two friends-to-be glared at each other in mutual suspicion’ - presumably the Doctor’s the explorer, making Lethbridge-Stewart the journalist (?). Except Stanley travelled to the explorer on a rescue mission, and the Doctor’s not exactly lost, starving and bereft of hope. It’s not like Stanley and Livingstone had some great future together either, unless Dicks really rates the five months they spent together out of mutual friendship a massive contribution to history. So, neither of them’s like Stanley or Livingstone, their meeting in no way resembles the meeting of the journalist and explorer and their future relationship as friends and colleagues helming an international alien-fighting force bears no relation to Livingstone teaching Stanley some tricks for getting about Africa
11 ‘Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart was lecturing Professor Travers. “What the world needs is a permanent International Organisation to deal with this sort of thing. A kind of Intelligence Task Force... I think I’ll send the Government a memorandum...”’
12 ‘he wanted to discover the plans of the Great Intelligence which controlled them. The Yeti themselves were no more than mindless robots, controlled by impulses picked up by the sphere nestling in their chest units. Incongruous at they were, in the setting of the London Underground, the Doctor felt no great surprise at seeing the Yeti again. Ever since that mysterious Web had held the TARDIS suspended in space, the Doctor had suspected that the Great Intelligence had returned to attack him. Exiled from some other dimension, the Intelligence was a malignant disembodied entity, condemned to hover eternally between the stars, forever craving form and substance. It possessed the power to take over human servants, who became totally subservient to its will, their own personalities utterly swallowed up. Yeti provided the brute strength and terror, human puppets supervised and controlled their actions. That was how the Great Intelligence had operated in Tibet, and the Doctor felt sure the same pattern would be repeated’ – bit of exposition
13 ‘Its features blurred and shimmered before his horrified eyes, becoming even more fierce and wild than before’ – to be fair, I’ve never really got why the bothered addressing the costume change on TV, so I was always going to find it a bit odd in the novelisation
14 ‘The production team instructed that the Yeti be redesigned for The Web Of Fear, believing that the costumes used in The Abominable Snowmen were not sufficiently fearsome’
Shannon Sullivan, A Brief History of Time (Travel),
shannonsullivan.com/doctorwho/serials/qq.html
15 ‘The shadow of a human figure moved in one of the tiled passages leading out of the concourse’
16 DOCTOR: Yes, of course we will, Victoria. You see, whatever's holding us must let go sometime. […]
VICTORIA: What's going to happen? We're landing
DOCTOR: There. Now, hold tight […]
JAMIE: Aye. What did you do?
DOCTOR: Well, I've managed to move us on a bit. Not very far, perhaps half a mile from where we were expected to land. For the moment, we have eluded our captor.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
17 ‘It should be enough to wrench us free from whatever’s holding us, and set us down somewhere else’
18 ‘If I took off again we could easily find ourselves trapped in that Web. The power-boost might not work a second time. Anyway, I’m convinced that what’s happening in London is connected to what happened to us’
19 He’s done a stretch of three in three before but on that occasion two of the stories were ones he’d script edited and so had a greater familiarity with. It is possible, if El Sandifer’s right, that he also worked on ‘The Web of Fear’, presumably in a shadow capacity (‘Any writer - and especially Terrance Dicks, who comes onto the show with this story - can see that this one works, and will learn from it’: Elizabeth Sandifer, Tardis Eruditorum, eruditorumpress.com/blog/help-brigadier-help-the-web-of-fear), but this isn’t a version of history I can find any back-up for, most others putting his first association with the show a year later with ‘The Invasion’ (‘Terrance Dicks began his long association with Doctor Who in 1968, when he joined the production team during the Second Doctor story The Invasion’: tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Terrance_Dicks)
20 ‘he had embarked upon the study of the still-new science of electronics. In forty years Travers had turned himself from a discredited anthropologist into a world-famous scientist. His discoveries and inventions had made him rich and respected’
21 ‘Jamie decided the Doctor’s will must already be under the Intelligence’s control, and increased his efforts to drag him away’
22 ‘“When the Intelligence wasn’t in control, Arnold was his normal self,” explained the Doctor. “Unfortunately the Intelligence could take over his mind and guide his actions whenever it wanted. Afterwards, Arnold had no recollection of what he’d been doing. I suspected it was him when I heard he’d come through the Web unharmed”’
23 ARNOLD: (no accent) No, merely Arnold's lifeless body in which I have concealed myself. But let us to work. There will be time for discussion later
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
Is that the first ‘I’ll explain later’ moment in the series?
24 DOCTOR: No. He was just a poor soldier that was taken over. He was probably one of the first to disappear.
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
25 ‘Sergeant Arnold was so brave, so loyal. He took such risks to help us’
26 ‘Hainsman and Lincoln can get away with the Arnold reveal in practice because viewers in 1968 can be relied upon to forget details of episode three by the time episode six rolls around. Episode six is a full month later’
Elizabeth Sandifer, Tardis Eruditorum, eruditorumpress.com/blog/help-brigadier-help-the-web-of-fear
27 ‘He looked round the faces in the room. Travers and his daughter, Harold Chorley, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and Captain Knight, Sergeant Arnold standing rigidly to attention. Had the Intelligence already chosen its agent? It could be anyone in the room—except of course for himself and Victoria’
28 ‘Blake and Weams were in the Operations Room, plotting the movements of the Web. Travers, Anne and the Doctor, watched by Victoria, were happily rigging up a Yeti-proof detonator and timing device. A party of soldiers was wrestling with a heavy baggage trolley […] In the midst of all this activity someone moved quietly along the outer corridor and opened the locking clamps on the door that led to the tunnels’
29 ‘Chorley was alone, staring at the map. An expression of cold calculation slowly spread over his face...’
30 ‘“I’m afraid there was a mix-up, sir. The sentry was detailed to the trolley party. Sergeant Arnold thought I’d replaced him, I thought he had. Entirely my fault, sir” “‘Beg your pardon, sir, it was mine,” volunteered Arnold. “I must have misunderstood the order”’ – it might have been a genuine mix-up, maintaining Chorley as a suspect, but the perfection with which leaving the Fortress unguarded was timed suggests not
31 ‘“Och no, it was yon bloke Chorley,” said Jamie. “I said so all along”’ AND ‘“You were the one who betrayed us to the Intelligence.” Chorley was babbling with fear’
32 ‘“What does it matter if this Chorley does get to the TARDIS? He canna operate it. He won’t even be able to get in.” “Not if he’s a normal human being, Jamie. But suppose he’s been taken over? The last thing we want is the TARDIS in the hands of the Intelligence”’
33 ‘Now Chorley did just quietly disappear and I’d say he was a much more likely candidate’
34 ‘Victoria nodded. It was impossible to explain the impact of Chorley’s charm’
35 ‘The Doctor came into the room and looked at them, sensing something strange in the atmosphere’
36 ‘Chorley was a skilled interviewer, who knew how to use the soft approach when it paid him’
37 Evans is once implicated without reference to Arnold: ‘the Doctor opened the tobacco tin. As the lid came off, the others saw an expression of astonishment appear on his face. They crowded round to look. The tin was empty’ – but then this never gets explained at all
38 EVANS: Hope I'm not disturbing, Doctor, but Staff asked me to give you this.
(A model Yeti.)
DOCTOR: Where'd you get this?
EVANS: On the floor, by that young lad Weams, it was.
DOCTOR: But this is what brought the Yeti to the explosives store. It's obviously been reprogrammed as a homing device and you've given it to me!
EVANS: Here, you don't think I had anything to do with these Yeti, do you?
chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
This suggests Evans picked it up himself whereas ‘It was found’ in the novelisation makes this information given Evans by Arnold, perhaps falsely
39 ‘Private Evans sidled into the room, shaking his head at the sight of the damage. “Right old mess, innit? Sergeant Arnold said I’d better give you this, Doctor. It was found in the Ops Room, see?” The Doctor said, “You know what this is, don’t you? A homing device to fetch the Yeti!”’ – is sidling suspicious?
40 ‘As it emerged from the Web, Evans saw Corporal Lane spread-eagled across it. The gas-mask had been wrenched from his face, which was covered with the thick, fluffy substance of the Web. He was quite dead. Of Sergeant Arnold, there was no trace’
41 ‘We’d all forgotten you, Mr Chorley. Wonderful how you managed to survive all that time, isn’t it?’ – that last bit’s almost a threat. He won’t be surviving much longer now
42 ‘Victoria realised they were being shepherded along the platform’
43 ‘“If I’m on the loose I’ll follow and try to help somehow.” The Colonel nodded […] In the moment of confusion, Arnold slipped away into the side tunnel. The rest of the party were herded on... Apparently the Yeti had noticed nothing’
44 ‘Evans was staring transfixed at the Sergeant. “But... but...” Arnold, who seemed to be recovering rapidly, growled, “Don’t stand there bleating like a Welsh baa-lamb, Evans, answer the Colonel.” “The Doctor and Miss Travers have gone back into the tunnels, sir,” said Evans nervously. “Warren Street, they said” “What the blazes for?” “Said they wanted to catch a Yeti, sir”’
45 ‘They tore through the corridors and out through the main entrance. Arnold closed and barred it behind them. “That’ll hold it for a short while”’
46 ‘Arnold wandered across to the indicator map and gazed blankly at it. So very few lights still burning now...’
47 ‘On the platform at Piccadilly Circus a strangely motionless group stood like passengers waiting for a train’
48 ‘There was a strange, crackling sound every time the voice spoke. It amused the Intelligence to make use of the station’s public address system. The voice boomed again, and this time Victoria realised it came from a loudspeaker just above her head’ – they might actually be doing this on TV, but it’s not clear
Revenge of the Educational Remit
On telly:
EVANS: I've got my tobacco tin.
DOCTOR: Oh, splendid.
EVANS: But then it's got tobacco in it.
DOCTOR: Never mind.
EVANS: Hey! Oh, all right. I only hope you think the sacrifice is worth it.
www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-5.htm
In prose:
‘“Hey, that’s my baccy,” protested Evans. “Smoking’s very bad for you,” the Doctor reproved’ – Just say no, kids
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
‘she didn’t find the missing model Yeti. Unseen hands had already placed one of them in a dark corner just outside the Explosives Store’
Tory Who
Anne Travers is ‘an attractive young girl’ – will a woman ever be described in more detail than this?
‘Although his voice was cultured, it held traces of a middle-European accent’ – are these opposites?
‘Victoria decided to go and look for them. Perhaps they’d let her make tea or wash test-tubes or something’ – though, to be fair, I can’t think what other use Victoria could be
‘he jumped straight on to his chair, like a girl frightened by a mouse’ – I know it’s more cartoonish than sexist but it’s not a simile I’d be keen on as a girl reading the novelisations
Dicksisms
‘that mysterious Space/Time craft known as the TARDIS’
‘after a moment a strange wheezing, groaning sound filled the tunnel’
Curiously, we get ‘a mysterious being known only as ‘the Doctor’ and ‘that well-known traveller in Space and Time called the Doctor’ – he’s both?
‘Then Professor Travers came in. He stood like a barbaric monarch, flanked by guards’ – Dicks does love his perplexing similes
They’re not all bad though: ‘It dragged the unconscious Travers behind it, as a child drags a teddy-bear by one arm’ – to state the obvious, it’s the Yeti’s resemblance to a teddy bear that makes this
‘Knight said, “What’s a nice girl like you—” “Doing in a place like this?” Anne smiled as she completed the old cliché for him’ – even nicer than on TV, that
Is it just me who finds this a very odd selection of words?: ‘Methodically it began to wreck the laboratory. When the place was a shambles, it turned and lumbered away’ – ‘Methodically’ implies a specific purpose to the damage whereas ‘shambles’ suggests just a random and complete disarray
Miscellania
Victoria in the novelisations seems to beat Sharon as the earliest non-white Doctor Who companion: ‘A small, dark girl entered the control room. Her name was Victoria’
‘He opened a wall-locker and produced a couple of large torches, handing one to Jamie and keeping the other himself’ – why doesn’t Victoria get a torch?
‘Although their coats were khaki rather than red, Jamie found it hard to forget that English soldiers were his traditional enemies’
‘The Doctor woke from a nightmare in which he was running furiously through endless semi-darkness—only to find that the nightmare was true. He forced himself to stop’ AND ‘enough explosive energy had remained to send him flying across the platform. He could dimly remember picking himself up and running frantically into the tunnels, presumably in a mild state of shell-shock. Now more or less himself, the Doctor realised he had no idea how long he’d been running or in what direction’
‘“Never mind how I got here,” said the Doctor impatiently. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. The important thing is that there are Yeti in these tunnels. They’re robot servants of an alien entity called the Great Intelligence”’ – it’s interesting what he thinks people will and won’t believe
‘Captain Knight considered. Evans, like Jamie, would be of little use in the Fortress, and if they were to be cut off every useless man would be a liability’ – God, Knight’s ruthless
‘“I must get this dismantled. It’s like walking around with a Time Bomb, having one of these.” He clamped it in a vice and unscrewed the base. “That should fix it”’ – Bit anti-climactic
‘Pity about Evans, he thought, the Welsh usually made such splendid soldiers’ – what is it with Doctor Who and massive generalisations about the Welsh?
‘“The man’s such an idiot!” “That would make it all the easier for him to be taken over”’ – Is that how it works? Is that a clue? And does it mean Arnold is fighting back?
Unconstrained by 25-minute episodes, the Great Intelligence gives a slightly less odd but much more unnecessarily generous deadline: ‘I give you one hour to decide’