As may have been mentioned earlier on the blog, I’m a nerd and have been for some years. So my relationship with this story goes back a very long way into my childhood. It was the first ever Doctor Who book I bought (I even remember the shop I bought it from, "Wonderworld" in Boscombe (sadly no longer there)) and it was one of the first Doctor Who stories I owned on VHS. No idea how old I was at the time of either of those purchases but I can tell you exactly where both the book and the VHS are. The latter is in my lounge as I type this, even though I haven’t owned a functioning VHS player for some time…
The story commences with an attempt at a peace conference. It doesn’t piss around in terms of impact, it basically starts with “World War III is coming and we’re all screwed”. Obviously, however, someone isn’t keen on said peace conference and is trying to kill the head negotiator.
So The Doctor uses this as an excuse to bugger about in a country manor for the night. I LOVE the Doctor in this. Yes, he can be a miserable old shite but he’s a cheese eating, wine swilling miserable old shite and seeing him assess the glass of wine is a highlight of this story, along with seeing him pour a glass of whisky, get into a fight still carrying said glass and then have a sip of the stuff between decking people.
The Doctor and Jo end up going to the far future and a world where WWIII ending up killing seven eighths of the world’s population and the Daleks have swept in to take control of the remaining huddled masses. I love a dystopian future and this is a cracking one – tower blocks in wastelands and people toiling in factories working towards impossible targets.
I feel as if this story doesn’t treat the audience like children. Jo asks some detailed question about time travel and The Doctor starts telling her about the Blinovich Limitation effect. In new Doctor Who we’d have just got “Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey” or some other crap. This is a Doctor who doesn’t talk down to us. We may not have a clue exactly what this effect is but at least he’s not treating us like bloody children. This continues through the story and we hear about a certain temporal paradox core to the plot.
In other areas the script doesn’t mess around as well – The Controller of this region of the dystopian world of the future (Post WWIII and subsequent Dalek invasion) gets into a row by the Doctor who calls him a quisling (repeatedly). That sort of scripting would probably never happen today.
The story has a nice twist towards the end, which is where things get properly “Timey Wimey” but is explained very nicely. And then The Doctor and Jo scarper back to the 20th Century with some Daleks and Ogrons in tow. We then get a very nice battle between UNIT and the Daleks before a lovely big explosion.
Frankly, I never understood this as a kid. The time travel element is complicated as hell for a ten year old but I loved it nonetheless. I still do.
The story is very dark and we never really find out if the Doctor’s interfering actually succeeded in changing the future for the better. Love it. 9/10.
The story commences with an attempt at a peace conference. It doesn’t piss around in terms of impact, it basically starts with “World War III is coming and we’re all screwed”. Obviously, however, someone isn’t keen on said peace conference and is trying to kill the head negotiator.
So The Doctor uses this as an excuse to bugger about in a country manor for the night. I LOVE the Doctor in this. Yes, he can be a miserable old shite but he’s a cheese eating, wine swilling miserable old shite and seeing him assess the glass of wine is a highlight of this story, along with seeing him pour a glass of whisky, get into a fight still carrying said glass and then have a sip of the stuff between decking people.
The Doctor and Jo end up going to the far future and a world where WWIII ending up killing seven eighths of the world’s population and the Daleks have swept in to take control of the remaining huddled masses. I love a dystopian future and this is a cracking one – tower blocks in wastelands and people toiling in factories working towards impossible targets.
I feel as if this story doesn’t treat the audience like children. Jo asks some detailed question about time travel and The Doctor starts telling her about the Blinovich Limitation effect. In new Doctor Who we’d have just got “Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey” or some other crap. This is a Doctor who doesn’t talk down to us. We may not have a clue exactly what this effect is but at least he’s not treating us like bloody children. This continues through the story and we hear about a certain temporal paradox core to the plot.
In other areas the script doesn’t mess around as well – The Controller of this region of the dystopian world of the future (Post WWIII and subsequent Dalek invasion) gets into a row by the Doctor who calls him a quisling (repeatedly). That sort of scripting would probably never happen today.
The story has a nice twist towards the end, which is where things get properly “Timey Wimey” but is explained very nicely. And then The Doctor and Jo scarper back to the 20th Century with some Daleks and Ogrons in tow. We then get a very nice battle between UNIT and the Daleks before a lovely big explosion.
Frankly, I never understood this as a kid. The time travel element is complicated as hell for a ten year old but I loved it nonetheless. I still do.
The story is very dark and we never really find out if the Doctor’s interfering actually succeeded in changing the future for the better. Love it. 9/10.