Not about the themes or ideas but the actual content. Events that are important to the stories being told. It’s really frustrating because I’m trying to make sure things are reported accurately on my blog that hardly gets read.
</rant>
Doing some research for a big blog project coming up next month and listened to some podcasts where people are talking about these books. Look, some people are calling themselves lifelong fans of this work and are just so blatantly wrong about things that happened in them.
Sorry, Daniel: meant to reply to @whoc2c.bsky.social’s original post.
Ark In Space, Remembrance Of The Daleks, Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead
Absolute bags of atmosphere with top-notch scripts, superb actors and brilliant stories.
Other Doctors are just as competent and brave but I rarely felt that he would let things be as bad as they could get, as though he personally stood before chaos and tyranny and stopped it in its tracks.
After a really hard think about it my Doctor might be Jon Pertwee. He resolutely stands up for what is right, speaks his mind but is also in touch with his emotions and understands how others are feeling. He’s also one of the few incarnations that made me feel safe.
Nice is being polite and making people feel as though they have been treated well.
Kind is actually helping people.
Went out to the Astor Theatre last night to see The Black Sorrows. Frontman Joe Camilleri was in the foyer afterwards and I got a picture and an autograph for my birthday.
Inserts obligatory “urine trouble” comment.
Too soon 😭
Anyone else out there read both of these? I’ve just read the Turlough book for the first time and I’m amazed/horrified at how much it resembles Afterlife, right down to the disposal of a female villain through a rubbish hatch. I’m not even mentioning the Federation Starbase on the cover of Turlough.
Here endeth the Classic Series readthrough.
Coming up soon is a blog series where I’ll be reading through the books again, but in publication order this time. There’ll be more information and discussion than I can do here, so see you soon for…
Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff Ian Likes
An atmospheric and far more gruesome account of the story than what we saw on screen. Munro captures the tedium of suburban life and mixes it effectively with the danger of being thrust into a dangerous, unknown world and then having the two mix in the best Who tradition.
Briggs’s second story is superior to his first. It’s a fabulous and intelligent story but as a novel it doesn’t quite live up to its expectations: some scenes feel as though Briggs can’t describe what is happening and relies on “stream-of-consciousness” to convey an emotion rather than a moment.
A lovely, chilling adventure that makes a lot more sense than on the screen. Platt gives us one of the smartest, scariest and imaginative stories in ages. There are literary clues scattered throughout here, making the ending feel a little less disappointing than it is.
Vegetarian, sorry. Although the Varga plant looks like it might be decent in a salad.
Just read about the passing of Marcus Gilbert who played Ancelyn in Battlefield. A wonderful performance. Farewell to a parfit gentil knyght.
They’re eating the clams! They’re eating the mutants!
The TV version is flawed but fabulous. This is just fabulous: the story is basically unchanged, just made heaps better. It does set up and foreshadows a heroic end to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart… but it bottles it (I’ll admit, I’m kind of glad). Aside from that, this is a marvel.
Maybe if you can spell the name of the platform you should be able to access it…
Why isn’t this called Ska Trek?
A polished retelling of an unsettling tale. Like Remembrance, you can see the foundations of the New Adventures being laid out but this doesn’t wallow in pretension the way many of them did. Characters are fleshed out and built up, the setting oozes unease and the story unfolds at a brisk pace.
Another TV story that I’m not a fan of. But this is a pretty good read and even the bits that annoy me - the skinheads, Mrs Hackensack, the naff jazz-worship, the Ace vs Cybermen fight - are much better on the page. The pacing is more even and the characters behave more rationally. It’s just better.
On screen, my major issue with this story is how the Doctor arrives and is immediately caught up in the world and plot. This is fine in a 4-part story but with only 3 episodes it feels rushed and contrived. Graeme Curry’s novelisation expands the story, allowing more expansion of plot.
One of the most important stories in Who. It gave a blueprint for the forthcoming New Adventures and lifted the quality of the book range overall. And it’s a great story that helped recharge the final Classic seasons. And, personally, it revved up my waning interest in the show back in the 1980s.
“Owen’s skill as an editor was not in picking the best examples of stories, but in picking the ones that would be the most evocative of an idea, that would be the most accessible to the audience.
“Namely, nine-year-old me.”
stuffianlikes.com/2025/12/31/a...
…and finished. Right, just going to boldly go and find a place in the house to display it.
