Doctor Who and the Daleks - how the novelizations got started

All this writing about the early years of Doctor Who made me decide to go back and reread Doctor Who and the Daleks, a slender little book that I read and reread more than a few times back when Target books were a big part of my Doctor Who experience.

It’s an interesting book to revisit. It’s more than just a novelization of the first story with the Daleks, a key part of Doctor Who’s history and Doctor Who’s success. It was published originally in 1964 but the success of its republication in 1973 helped the novelization of just about every Doctor Who serial from the original run.

The latest edition has an introduction by Neil Gaimon, which makes an interesting point. Back in the day (and that includes when I got into Doctor Who), those Target books were the only access folks had to so many of these stories. And Doctor Who and the Daleks got that started.

There were two things that really struck me about the book. First of all, since it was written as a standalone product, not meant to be an exact copy of the serial, it took some liberties with the story, particularly the beginning. Second, it is interesting to look at how the Daleks started out.

Doctor Who and the Daleks replaced all of An Unearthly Child with an alternate origin for how Ian and Barbara ended up with the Doctor and Susan. Instead of them being two schoolteachers checking out a weird student, they are strangers who meet due to a car accident.

Of course, with no other books and no Internet and VCRs, there was no reason to imagine that 1964 readers actually knew how Ian and Barbara ended up in the TARDIS. Doctor Who and the Daleks was not written to be part of the greater Doctor Who mythology. It was written as a standalone book. Sure, anyone who bought it was going to know who the characters were (why else would they have bought it?) but referring to a story that wasn’t a book would have been bad storytelling.

I will admit that I found it confusing when I first read it but now I think that its an interesting look at something that was written before there was even a second Doctor or that Doctor Who was something that would be going for decades.

Second of all, the first appearance of the Daleks was a far cry from the intergalactic conquerors that they would become. (Honestly, like by their second appearance when they took over the Earth)

They were confined to one city on a radioactive planet. Literally confined. If they lost contact with the metal floors that supplied them with the static electricity they needed to move, shoot and even damn well breathe, they died. Man, and the Cybermen’s vulnerability to gold seemed kind of extreme.

None of this is that unreasonable. They started off as a one-off alien monster (and I do love the fact that they aren’t robots but xenophobic blobs of hate. It adds a visceral level of impact to them) when the show was supposed to be educational. They needed a weakness that would serve as a science lesson and defeating them meant killing them all.

Not that killing them off is that shocking. How many times in the history of Doctor Who did the Daleks get wiped out? As long as Daleks get high viewer numbers, they will come crawling back to do some more exterminating.

Still, it is so strange to see them as such fragile and isolated creatures, more obsessed with desperate survival than war. Someone wrote that the original Daleks were little old scientists. They became a race of nightmare warriors pretty darn quickly but they had humble beginnings.

I don’t feel the urge to read any more of the old Target books. But this one, holding such a key position in Doctor Who publishing, was interesting to go back and look at again.

Gotham... what makes it work?

Setting aside Doctor Who for the moment, I want to take a look at a new television show that we have been enjoying far more than we expected to. Gotham.

Honestly, Gotham is a concept that shouldn’t work. Gotham City before Bruce Wayne became Batman. In fact, while he is still a kid. So, basically Batman without Batman.

According to an article in Crack, there was once a plan to make a Gotham High cartoon, about Batman when he was in high school and every single one of his enemies going to the same school. Unless the main character was the school guidance counselor instead of Batman, the idea sounds horrible.

Gotham sounds like it takes that same idea, only placing it before Bruce Wayne goes to high school. If you take away the costume, the utility belt, the cave full of cool cars and the training from Hell, Bruce Wayne becomes one of the Hardy boys with a more prissy wardrobe.

So, how on Earth does Gotham work, let alone be enjoyable?

From where I’m sitting, Gotham takes some key ideas from two different pieces of the Batman mythos. The Nolan films and Batman: Year One, Frank Miller’s story from the 80s.

The Nolan Batman films made a lot of smart, interesting choices. One of them was to make the story more gritty and realistic. Grounded closer to reality than your average comic book movie at any rate. It had a gritty sensibility without being too dark or full of self pity.

Gotham definitely takes a similar path. While Batman has usually been more grounded than, say, the Green Lantern or the Flash, almost all of the gaudy or fantastic elements have been stripped away. There aren’t flash costumes or gimmicky. The bad guys are either mobsters or really emotionally messed up.

The second element that makes Gotham work is that Bruce Wayne is not the main character. In fact, there have been episodes where he hasn’t even shown up. The murder of the Waynes is a key event that sets up the events that create the story but young Bruce is a supporting character.

In Batman: Year One, Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne both arrive in Gotham. Gordon has been transferred there in the police force and Bruce is coming back from years of training to become a vigilante. One of them is cynical bad ass and the other is naïve without a real idea of what they are getting into. Hint. Gordon isn’t the naïve one.

The hero of Gotham is Jim Gordon. He is the honest cop who is out to make a difference. He doesn’t have a costume or a secret cave or such. He’s a normal guy in a city that’s not just corrupt but starting to have the crazies come out.

But there are times when we are convinced that Gordon is not the protagonist of Gotham. Right now, it seems like that role is Oswald Cobblepot, the Penguin. If he’s the protagonist, he’s definitely an anti-hero at best. He is a slimy, nasty little monster who does some really horrible things. His veneer of charm and sophistication hides a vicious, petty killer.

And he is so fascinating. He is so compelling. I never thought you could make the Penguin so nasty and so interesting and they did both in Gotham. Bruce’s tragedy got the ball rolling. Gordon is the hero. But Oswald Cobblepot drives the story.

There is one question that Gotham leaves me with. With all of the changes that they made to make it work, all of the traditional elements of Batman removed, why is it Gotham? Why not, I don’t know, Detroit? I know, the answer is name recognition. And I do enjoy it when I recognize a name. But, still, it seems like what makes Gotham work is by having it not be Batman.

William Hartnell - the Doctor who began it all

As everyone who is reading this already knows, William 'Bill' Hartnell was the first actor who played the Doctor. Seriously, if you're not interested in Doctor Who, why are you reading this? Of course, you might just as well ask what does this guy have to say about Bill Hartnell that hasn't been said before?

I have a strange relationship with both Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. I haven't seen a lot of their serials. However, I have read every last adaptation of them. Heck, I'm pretty sure I've read every single Target book back when I was in middle school and high school.

Looking back, it was definitely a second rate way of experiencing the serials. Most of the books were basically just the scripts in book format. More than that, a lot of the earlier written ones simplified the scripts. Or, in a couple cases, flat out were different. They didn't give me a real appreciation or understanding for the craft or work of the actors. And, let's be honest, that is a huge gap.

Still, the Target books let me get a taste of the history of Doctor Who and some insight into the early years of the show.

Let's get back to Hartnell.

No matter how you look at it, it all got started with Hartnell. No Hartnell, you got no Doctor Who. And many of the elements that define Doctor Who were introduced from the beginning. Time Travel, the TARDIS, the Daleks, all sorts of the things that are a part of the Doctor Who mythology.

At the same time, Doctor Who was still being invented. A lot of ideas that are now part of the bedrock of the franchise didn’t even exist back then. After all, the BBC had no idea that they were creating a multi-generational dynasty.

Gallifrey, Time Lords, regeneration, the whole idea of the Doctor definitely not being human, none of that had been dreamed up yet. In fact, instead of being a renegade or happy-go-luck rambler, there was more of a sense that the Doctor was a refuge from some sort of catastrophic disaster that had killed his entire family except his granddaughter.

(Come to think of it, the Time War of the second Doctor Who series that seemingly destroyed Gallifrey and all the Time Lords is exactly that kind of disaster. I guess some ideas will come around again if you give them enough time.)

Compared to later eras of Doctor Who, the Hartnell serials definitely have their own feel. Many of the fundamental ideas just hadn’t gotten around to being thought up yet. The idea that the Doctor was the hero and protagonist took a while to catch on. The two humans he shanghaied were the ones doing the heroics at the start. The Unearthly Child practically had the Doctor as a villain.

The idea that Doctor Who was going to be an educational show, by golly, was struggling against it becoming a science fiction action show. While the Doctor has never stopped visiting the past and messing around with historical figures, the Hartnell era had the historical stories, where the only fantastic element was the TARDIS and company. Honestly, that’s an idea that has never been revisited. (Yes, Black Orchid from Peter Davidson’s time didn’t have any fantastic elements but it also wasn’t trying to teach any history lessons)

The idea of the historical stories is neat and part of me wonders what it would have been like if the BBC had explored them more. On the other hand, the Daleks being a smash hit from the get go really pointed at how the real future of the show was in the fantastic.

Since the show was still defining itself, the Hartnell era was also surprisingly experimental. Stories like the Web Planet or the Feast of Stephen or the Gunfighters or the Celestial Toymaker pushed the boundaries of what the series could do in ways that later eras wouldn’t. (Clearly, not always successfully but they tried.) I’m not sure if Doctor Who got so far out of its comfort zone again until Delta and the Bannermen. (After decades of pondering, I still can’t decide if that one was brilliant or just insane)

Bill Hartnell isn’t my favorite doctor. His era isn’t what I think about when I think about Doctor Who. But it was the cornerstone of something that ended up being so much bigger than anyone in 1963 could have ever guessed.

The start of my love of Doctor Who

It's safe for me to say that my favorite TV show is Doctor Who.

When I was home alone around the age of twelve, I watched the Jon Pertwee serial The Sea Devils. I knew absolutely nothing about the show. In fact, looking back, at particular serial, it was a sequel to the earlier Doctor Who and the Silurians and featured the reoccurring villain The Master. In fact, if I were going to try to introduce someone to Doctor Who, it is not a serial I would have picked.

But, still, I was fascinated by it. I wanted to see more.

Over the next few weeks, I kept on watching. The next two serials, the Mutants and the Time Monster, were enough to completely hook me and I haven't looked back since.

These days, if Doctor Who isn't mainstream in the USA, it's close enough to count. Seriously, the Internet and technology has changed the world so much since I was twelve, it's not even funny.

Doctor Who is an amazing beast. It's been around for a long time and was in continual production for over half that time. It is a franchise that has reinvented itself over and over again. It's been a British institution for generations.

And, to be honest, there is no particular aspect or era of Doctor Who that I particularly love. I love how it is a strange and wonky tapestry. When you added in the soil off shows and the other media that Doctor Who has been in, it is a ridiculously diverse beast.

Doctor Who is a ride that I've been on most of my life. In some ways, it's been one of the big constants of my life. It can be fun and ridiculous and silly and sad and sweet and it is something that I know I will keep on enjoying.

Literary Guilty Pleasures

Everyone who reads for fun is going to have some literary guilty pleasure. The book equivalent of eating a  Big Mac with cheese, possibly with a couple of Hershey bars shoved on top of the burger. Books that we are embarrassed to admit that we read but we read them anyway. There's money to be made writing them. The Fifty Shades of Gray books are living proof of that.

Me, I have plenty of literary guilty pleasures. However, in my case, they tend to fall less under the salacious and more under the embarrassingly innocent and simple. Don't get me wrong. Children's books don't have to be poor literature. I am not ashamed to admit I enjoyed the Harry Potter books or the Chronicles of Narnia or quite a few other books that are primarily aimed at kids.

But, let's me honest. There are also some books that are the literary equivalent of eating styrofoam.

Okay, let me start off my most embarrassing literary guilty pleasure. I like reading books that were written by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In particular, the ones that are public domain and I can download for free from sites like Project Gutenberg.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was one of the first book mills for children's books. They turned out kiddy books by the dozen for most of the twentieth century. According to Wikipedia, it wasn't a publishing house and they tried very hard to make sure that the public didn't know that all of these books were orchestrated by a single editorial pool.

TVTropes describes the books as extruded literary product and that's a pretty good description. The Stratemeyer books were formulaic to a T. The characters are as flat as boards and about as wooden. Forget about character development or theme. These books are pure plot and you can see every twist coming a mile away.

In fact, back in the day, the moral authorities disapproved of the various series. At first, this made me laugh, since every protagonist could be a proud member of the goody two shoes guild. Then I realized that the moral authorities weren't afraid the books would turn kids into thugs and dope fiends. They didn't like them since they viewed the books as garbage.

Perhaps the most shameful thing for modern readers is the heavy ethnic stereo typing and racism. You can only push the excuse "standards were different back then" so far when everyone who isn't a white American (preferably from a good family and male) seems to have escaped from a third-rate music hall.

Okay, so I have told you why the Stratemeyer Syndicate books count as something to feel guilty about. You may be wondering how I manage to enjoy the stuff.

Well, the Stratemeyer Syndicate books are pure boy's own adventure. If you are looking for escapist fluff from a century ago, empty calories that will distract you and let you shut your brain off for a while, that's certainly something to read. And, if you are looking for boy's own, the syndicate's books are nothing if not consistent.

Like I said, guilty pleasure. And, to be honest, since the birth of my son and becoming a stay-at-home daddy, they haven't had the same allure. That's not something I need to escape from.

There are a couple of long lasting and, dare I say, decent series that have come out of the syndicate. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew came out from them and definitely have a firm place in pop culture.

But those properties are ones that are well protected and not something you get to find on Projected Gutenberg. Still, got to give credit where credit is due.

Exploring the Alphabet with Ella Minnow Pea

I’m one of those parents who sings all the time to their baby. If he actually likes it when he’s old enough to tell me, I’ll keep on doing it. And one of the songs that I sing a lot is the alphabet song, the one that shares the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Singing the phrase L-M-N-O-P over and over again made me remember the book Ella Minnow Pea, which I read when it came out back in 2001. I really hadn’t thought about it much since then but the song made me dig it out and reread it.

Ella Minnow Pea is about a tiny and fictional island nation that reveres the sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,” allegedly written by one of their own. When their monument to that sentence and that man begins to lose letters, it becomes illegal to use those letters in writing or in speech.

I cannot help but be reminded of James Thurber’s The Wonderful O, which features a pirate who makes the letter ‘O’ illegal on an island he takes over (“Alas. Woe is we) Ella Minnow Pea takes that idea and cranks it up to eleven.

Rereading it, I can’t help but feel that Ella Minnow Pea is a book that suffers from a split personality. On the one hand, the innate conceit of the book, the idea of banning letters, is a whimsical one that brings Edward Lear or Lewis Carol to mind. It’s silly and fun.

On the other hand, breaking that ban is punishable by either exile or death. The island council becomes an oppressive, fascist government that kills people and confiscates the land of the people it exiles. That’s serious stuff.

One of the ways that the novel manages to balance these two sides is that is told entirely through letters. Among other things, that helps tone down how nasty the government has to be. Since letters are censored by the council, the writers have to hold back from detailed descriptions.

Ultimately, I think that Ella Minnow Pea is a flawed book that is saved by its premise. The sheer concept on letters getting banned and the quest for an alternate sentence that uses the entire alphabet makes the book worth reading.