strange and random happenstance: Gallifrey

Earthworld by Jacqueline Rayner
Published by: BBC Books
Publication Date: April 5th, 2001
Format: Paperback, 224 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

The Doctor is off on another adventure with Fitz. Anji, a survivor of their last adventure is looking for a lift home, little does she know that more "adventure" is in store. They appear to land on a prehistoric planet, but everything is off. Soon they realize it's a theme park designed to be like "ancient earth," ie, Anji and Fitz's lovely 20th century. Though anachronisms abound in absurd and disturbing ways. All they really want to do is get back to the TARDIS, but with The Doctor's memory problems... well... will they be able to get out? Separated from each other they soon hear of the deaths that have been plaguing the park. The security team seems to think that it links back to a teenage terrorist organization, oddly named ANJI, but once they all meet the president's three teenage daughters, everyone is pretty sure they're the homicidal maniacs playing their own game within the park. Can a foggy Doctor, one loyal companion, and one inadvertent companion save the day? Or will they become the triplet's newest victims?

I've seriously thought this over and come to the conclusion that all Doctor Who books could only be read by fans of the show. Anyone who would pick up a random Doctor Who book would be at sea, unable to know what was going on. Even if you're just a fan of the current rebooted series, you know a bit about the history, about the past regenerations, you have some basis, some reason for going into a bookstore and picking up this book. I think reading about the eighth Doctor must be like the uninitiated reading just a general Doctor Who book. I had to actually do extensive research online just to figure out who these new companions were and what was going on with The Doctor. In an interesting inverse in proportions, The Doctor with only one appearance in film is the one that everyone writes about. Of course, this does make sense. He doesn't really have a fixed mythology, or character like those set in celluloid. Therefore it feels like a bit of a free for all for authors. Here's someone they can leave their stamp on. They could mold this Doctor into their Doctor.

This lack of restraint has led to some very odd things. Lots of amnesiatic problems, latching onto a fact from the tv movie, weird companions that are simulacra of the real companions that are long gone, hundreds of years where The Doctor was doing nothing, something? Gallifrey is gone? I was just so out of my depth at references and asides that I couldn't really enjoy anything. A good author will help you to understand what exactly is going on, especially if that author was in charge of the eighth Doctor's range of books... but from this outing, I have to say, Jacqueline Rayner isn't a good author. I felt no connection to anyone in the book. How can I like The Doctor if I don't know who he is, I mean, HE doesn't even know who he is!?! As for the companions. Fitz... well, him and The Doctor have tons of past history, you'd think he'd be good to help us understand what was going on? But no, he'll just reference tons of adventures that you have no idea about and will therefore make you want to join the triplets in killing him. As for Anji... well, let's put a pin in that rant for a second why don't we. Yet I will say, Anji should have been our entry into this adventure, being the new kid of the block, but, well, it failed miserably.

Getting to the actual story, well, I have to quote Patrick Stewart on Extras, "I've seen it all." There was so much unoriginality in this story it was mind boggling. I don't mean to always go, hey in this episode of Red Dwarf you're ripping off... but, well, she did rip off Red Dwarf a lot... and it was funny and fresh in Red Dwarf. A book should not make me want to go and watch Red Dwarf instead of reading it right? The way Fitz comes to terms with being "not the original" because he can play wicked guitar, because in the original Fitz's mind he could... well, that's the end of the Red Dwarf episode "Psirens!" As for Earthworld itself, yeah, not that original, and I know Red Dwarf didn't create the idea with the episode "Meltdown"... but all the Elvis stuff... Red Dwarf again. The medieval stuff I kind of liked, and in fact, that's what brought it up a full star, because in those instances there was a unique story with just The Doctor helping this "kingdom." It was contained, it was simple, it didn't rely on me having these vast pools of knowledge from other sources. If this little section had been the book, sigh, what a good book it would have been. But instead I will just be left quoting Patrick Stewart.

Though all this pales to Anji and what she represents. Anji the new companion, having just gotten into the TARDIS to get a lift home after her boyfriend was killed in the previous adventure... an adventure that might have made a better selection for this fiftieth anniversary perhaps, I don't know. But also, you don't ever ask for a lift from The Doctor, you won't be home for awhile, but then, Anji has issues... Anji's internal monologue is just so misogynistic and sets women's lib back years I was SHOCKED that this book was written by a woman. All Anji does is think about herself in a couple with the dear dead Dave, think about her shoes (of course she's wearing high heels), think about how she was wanted by all the other men at her office, yet she was faithful to Dave, and then, in her final "email" to Dave she actually says: "What's a step up from a man? (XY chromosome that is, none of this 'mankind' stuff, women are definitely a step down officially.) " EXCUSE ME!?! If the previous hundred some pages hadn't been a slap in the face for any smart independent woman, you have to state it as clear as possible. We are less? Well, obviously you are. You have some issues. Also the fact that Fitz is having inappropriate thoughts about teenagers, really young teenagers... I think someone needs some therapy. Perhaps it's me for actually finishing this book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: 20th Century, Anji, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Book Challenge, Earthworld, Elvis, Extras, Fitz, Gallifrey, Jacqueline Rayner, Patrick Stewart, Red Dwarf, TARDIS, The 8th Doctor, Womens Rights

The Doctor is dead, long live The Doctor. Regeneration is one of those givens in Doctor Who... it doesn't mean I have to like it. The end of the 10th Doctor has been immanent for some time, and in the intervening months I have had much denial followed by anger (last week)... but I think I've reached acceptance, of a kind. The episode, while overall not the best, did have it's moments where David shined and made me repeat his utterance "I don't want to go." I don't want a new journey, I don't want to go to a new Doctor, I want him to stay. I'm going to sound old, but this young guy looks too flash, too, not David Tennant. Oh no... it's not the denial coming back again is it? Because me and denial, we're good friends... for example in my world, Jonathan didn't die on Buffy, neither did Anya, Zander is a pirate though, which seems kind of impossible without the others, and Wes and Fred are happy as can be over on Angel... and how may years has that been? Six, seven... see, me, denial, friends! Especially when it comes to Joss Whedon shows, and Russell T. Davies is kind of the British Joss. Also Wash didn't die in my world, come join me!

But I think I'll let the 10th Doctor have his death. It was a good death, it was a noble death, not some lame ass spider bite, it was a death. I think that's what hits home more then the other regenerations, and it's what Russell T. Davies tried, and I think accomplished, doing, he gave the Doctor a death. Before it was always more a moving on not a full stop. The man goes on with just a different face, but it's not that... it's more. It's the death of a man the world loved and this new guy, we're not sold on. When Christopher Eccleston died, it was a kind of transcendence and a glory, here we are left with sadness.

Coming up in the next paragraph, as River Song would say: "Spoilers!"

We begin were we left off, the "Master Race" has taken over the world and there are no more humans. After some more Master ranting The Doctor, Wilf and the two cacti retreat to outer space to regroup. All this is inter cut with more Star Wars prequel Timelord delusions of Russell T. Davies which are saved from being pure tack by Timothy Dalton being awesome. He was made to play villians, he never worked as Bond because bad is in his bones... Hot Fuzz anyone? So the Timelords have gone major bongo crazy and have actually created the drumming in The Master's head so as to escape the timelock that was created for the Time War. What's even more crazy is that they don't seem to care that they would bring about the end of time, quite literally, when Pandora's box is reopened in the form of this timelock, because they all believe in the Rapture and ascending to another plane. To put it simply... The Master even thinks they're a little not all there. Of course things work out as they should, but not without some more Star Wars references thrown in. Gallifrey falls again and The Master Peter Petrelli's his way out, which made me think that he was going to go nuclear and The Doctor would die of radiation... I was right on the radiation, wrong on the why.

The prophecy of doom, the knocking of four, turns out to be Wilf, trapped in the radiation chamber... he's the Doctor's doom. A person he loves and would willingly die for, is his death, not the Timelords, not The Master. He could live if he wanted, he could let Wilf die, but that's not The Doctor we know and love. The soliloquy of David's is heartrending. You know he'll save Wilf, it's what The Doctor does... but for once he breaks down, rages against the world, how he, someone who is a Lord of Time could die to save a no one. But it's those who deserve saving all the more. And Wilf knows what's coming, he begs The Doctor to let him die, he knows how important the Doctor is to the world.

What Russell T. Davies leaves us with is just designed to tie up loose ends while pulling at the heart strings. Because we're having a changing of the guard at Doctor Who, Russell and Julie are leaving with David, and hence all those companions are too. It's, presumably, the end of Wilf and Mickey and Donna and Martha... we'll see Sarah Jane and Jack, but what about Jackie and finally, what about Rose. I'm beyond pissed that apparently Mickey is with Martha... icky icky, I hate Mickey and Martha deserves better. Donna, while getting what she wanted pre-Doctor, still is so unrealized as a human and looses out the most. Jack... I should have seen that Jack would be in some Star Wars dive bar and then run into Alonso, aka Russell Tovey, and that, they would say, seems the beginning of the next season of Torchwood... Jack has his new Ianto. Allons-y Alonso! And Rose... it's a farewell without her ever knowing, and that's what makes it all the more powerful. Russell didn't reunite them to fight a common enemy, he didn't have them all flying the TARDIS and banishing the foe, he had The Doctor, alone, watching over his friends, some of them without them ever knowing, as his final goodbye. It was the quiet that was needed and lacking in the first part. I will miss the 10th Doctor, but hopefully the 11th Doctor won't be all bad, he just won't, and can't be David.