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A review by scottishvix
Doctor Who and the Daleks by David Whitaker
4.0
Well, this is different. Most Target novelisations are direct adaptations of the script for the TV series. They might add in what a character thought to explain their motivations, include a scene that was in one of the original scripts but was cut for time, or fill in a plot hole, but in the main they are straight adaptations with little room for creativity from the author.
David Whitaker’s adaptation was, according to his Wikipedia page, based on Terry Nation’s original notes for the story. But the first 20% is completely different to what occurs in the episode (I have seen the serial several times, most recently towards the beginning of this year so I am pretty familiar with it). It would not have been out of place as the introductory episode of the series, except it is also different from the beginning of An Unearthly Child. Ian Chesterton is a bored school teacher who has just been rejected for a job at a science research centre. Lost on Barnes Common in the fog, he is stumbled upon by an injured Barbara Wright who has just come out of a car wreck. She is a bored secretary who has taken up tutoring a private pupil for extra cash. She was driving that student, Susan English (not Foreman?), home when their car crashed. They go back for the badly injured Susan, but are unable to find her. From there the story is familiar to people who have seen An Unearthly Child – they meet an old man who is suspiciously evasive and a locked, out-of-place Police Box, they fight their way inside to discover it is a space ship. There is anger, resentment and disbelief, and then acceptance of what has happened. Then the book finally gets into the same territory as the originally screened episode.
In another departure, the book is not written in the omniscient third person that is usual for the Target novelisations. Instead, everything is from the direct POV of Ian Chesterton. Things that he couldn’t have seen, like Susan’s trip back to the TARDIS for the medication necessary to save them from radiation poisoning, is relayed back to him by someone who was there. This change makes the most of the altered beginning, as we get Ian’s internal reactions to his situation and surroundings. We can read his thoughts as he moves from scepticism to belief at his being in a Time/Space machine and it is a delight to discover the marvels of the TARDIS through his eyes – the shower is definitely something I’d like to try out. I would have preferred less of the animosity that was shoehorned into the Ian/Barbara relationship and leads to a very obvious place at the book’s conclusion.
The other addition, not normally present in the Target books but found in my copy, were the illustrations. These line drawings correspond more to the TV series than the book – for example the first drawing Susan appears in shows her in the blouse and tight fitting cropped trousers of the TV show, rather than the bright jumper and ski trousers she’s described as wearing on the previous page. The drawings themselves are actually quite nice little sketches, though the artist clearly had some trouble with accurately rendering the faces.
All in all, this is a curious little piece, quite different from the normal Doctor Who novelisation, or even most TV tie-ins. This was written before Whitaker did any of his script writing for the actual series and may have been, in a way, an audition piece. An interesting little curiosity for fans of the series.
David Whitaker’s adaptation was, according to his Wikipedia page, based on Terry Nation’s original notes for the story. But the first 20% is completely different to what occurs in the episode (I have seen the serial several times, most recently towards the beginning of this year so I am pretty familiar with it). It would not have been out of place as the introductory episode of the series, except it is also different from the beginning of An Unearthly Child. Ian Chesterton is a bored school teacher who has just been rejected for a job at a science research centre. Lost on Barnes Common in the fog, he is stumbled upon by an injured Barbara Wright who has just come out of a car wreck. She is a bored secretary who has taken up tutoring a private pupil for extra cash. She was driving that student, Susan English (not Foreman?), home when their car crashed. They go back for the badly injured Susan, but are unable to find her. From there the story is familiar to people who have seen An Unearthly Child – they meet an old man who is suspiciously evasive and a locked, out-of-place Police Box, they fight their way inside to discover it is a space ship. There is anger, resentment and disbelief, and then acceptance of what has happened. Then the book finally gets into the same territory as the originally screened episode.
In another departure, the book is not written in the omniscient third person that is usual for the Target novelisations. Instead, everything is from the direct POV of Ian Chesterton. Things that he couldn’t have seen, like Susan’s trip back to the TARDIS for the medication necessary to save them from radiation poisoning, is relayed back to him by someone who was there. This change makes the most of the altered beginning, as we get Ian’s internal reactions to his situation and surroundings. We can read his thoughts as he moves from scepticism to belief at his being in a Time/Space machine and it is a delight to discover the marvels of the TARDIS through his eyes – the shower is definitely something I’d like to try out. I would have preferred less of the animosity that was shoehorned into the Ian/Barbara relationship and leads to a very obvious place at the book’s conclusion.
The other addition, not normally present in the Target books but found in my copy, were the illustrations. These line drawings correspond more to the TV series than the book – for example the first drawing Susan appears in shows her in the blouse and tight fitting cropped trousers of the TV show, rather than the bright jumper and ski trousers she’s described as wearing on the previous page. The drawings themselves are actually quite nice little sketches, though the artist clearly had some trouble with accurately rendering the faces.
All in all, this is a curious little piece, quite different from the normal Doctor Who novelisation, or even most TV tie-ins. This was written before Whitaker did any of his script writing for the actual series and may have been, in a way, an audition piece. An interesting little curiosity for fans of the series.