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chicafrom3My Target readthrough has now brought me to the end of The War Games and thus the end of the Second Doctor's era. So it seems a good time to pause for some more Thoughts.
It's impossible to discuss Two's era without talking about Victoria, especially but not exclusively now. Deborah Watling passed away less than a week ago. Victoria was never one of my all-time favorites, but she's an important companion, and Deborah was a major part of the Whoniverse; I think we're all going to miss her. Rest in peace, Deborah.
I'm sorry to start off on such a downer note, but it would have felt inappropriate not to address it.
Victoria's relationships with the Doctor and Jamie are lovely, and most of the novelists manage to do it justice on the page -- it's almost cliche to refer to, at this point, but her discussion with the Doctor in The Tomb Of The Cybermen about lost loved ones is lovely:
I mean. If you didn't tear up reading that...
In general, the Target novelizations do a good job with the Second Doctor -- the worst of the lot rates a solid "good but not great", and many of them are genuinely excellent. My one regret is that the majority of the writers felt the need to write Jamie's accent out phonetically which, in my opinion, is never a good idea why would you do that. But they're otherwise good enough to make up for it. And some of the serials really benefit from the novelization format, whether that's due to fleshing out motivations in The Invasion or condensing endless running-around scenes in The War Games. (I love The War Games, I do, but it's at least an episode and a half longer than it needs to be.)
The companions are also generally well-served. Ben and Polly are a delight, Jamie is JAMIE in all his brash stubborn glory, Victoria is sweet as pie, Zoe is always the cleverest one in the room, and they all have such distinct and individual relationships with the Doctor and each other -- it's beautiful. And to call back to my perpetual desire for companion overlap, the Second Doctor's era has a variant form that falls somewhere between actual companion overlap and New Who's first-in-last-out policy: Jamie joins up with Ben and Polly in the second serial, and then stays through to the end of the era, outlasting Ben and Polly and Victoria (and quite possibly he would've outlasted Zoe has the Time Lords not intervened). Because Ben and Polly predate him, and because Victoria sticks around as long as she does, it doesn't feel like New Who's distinct companion eras, even though it's closer to than than to the First Doctor's full-on overlap pattern.
The Second Doctor's era is also when a bunch of lasting elements of DW worldbuilding and set dressing come into play: Regeneration (although not by that name), the Time Lords are established by name and seen for the first time, the Doctor admits that he stole his TARDIS and ran away because he found them boring, the sonic screwdriver is thrown into the mix (although it's less magic-wand-ish with Two than it will eventually become). It's a shame so much of Troughton's episodes are lost, because this is such a defining era of the show.
(One last thing: when I wrote up my thoughts on the First Doctor's era of Target novelizations, I mentioned my annoyance with the writers' inclusion of anachronistic worldbuilding, like the sonic screwdriver and the existence of the Time Lords, and that continues through the Second Doctor's era ... but for whatever reason I was much less annoyed with Terrance Dicks pausing in the middle of The Web Of Fear to wax poetic about the Doctor's eventual relationship with the Brig:
Instead of annoyance and an instinctual "that hasn't happened yet!" reaction, I got hearts in my eyes.)
It's impossible to discuss Two's era without talking about Victoria, especially but not exclusively now. Deborah Watling passed away less than a week ago. Victoria was never one of my all-time favorites, but she's an important companion, and Deborah was a major part of the Whoniverse; I think we're all going to miss her. Rest in peace, Deborah.
I'm sorry to start off on such a downer note, but it would have felt inappropriate not to address it.
Victoria's relationships with the Doctor and Jamie are lovely, and most of the novelists manage to do it justice on the page -- it's almost cliche to refer to, at this point, but her discussion with the Doctor in The Tomb Of The Cybermen about lost loved ones is lovely:
‘Are you happy with us, Victoria?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I am. At least, I would be if only my father... were still alive.’
‘I know. I know,’ murmured the Doctor.
‘I wonder what he would have thought if he could just see me now,’ she murmured.
‘You must be missing him very much.’
‘It’s when I close my eyes,’ she said, turning to him and looking at him earnestly with her grave, blue eyes. ‘I think I can still see him standing there—before those awful...Dalek creatures came to the house.’
She tried not to think about that and the way the Daleks had killed him. Instead, she had trained herself to remember evenings sitting together in front of the fire and the way he laughed, saying, ‘Toria! Listen to this!’ while reading out something that amused him in his book.
‘He was such a kind man, you know,’ she said to the Doctor. ‘I shall never forget him. Never.’
‘Of course, you won’t,’ he said softly. ‘But the memory of him won’t always be a sad one.’
‘I think it will,’ said Victoria.
‘It must be difficult for you to see what I mean,’ she said wisely. ‘I suppose, because you’re so ancient. I mean old... You probably can’t remember your family.’
‘Oh, but I can,’ and the Doctor again gave her that smile that was full of everything. ‘I can, when I want to, and that’s the point, really. I have to really want to bring them back in front of my eyes—the rest of the time they sleep in my mind and I forget.’ He looked at her compassionately. ‘So will you.’
Victoria looked doubtful.
‘You will, you know,’ he insisted. ‘You’ll find there is so much else to think about—to remember. Our lives are different from everybody else’s, that’s the exciting thing,’ he said. ‘Nobody in the universe, in the whole universe, can do what we’re doing, be what we are. Nobody.’ He looked at her young intelligent face. ‘Now, get some sleep and leave this poor old man to try and keep awake,’ and he smiled at her again, but this time with his old ironical smile, the casual Doctor again.
I mean. If you didn't tear up reading that...
In general, the Target novelizations do a good job with the Second Doctor -- the worst of the lot rates a solid "good but not great", and many of them are genuinely excellent. My one regret is that the majority of the writers felt the need to write Jamie's accent out phonetically which, in my opinion, is never a good idea why would you do that. But they're otherwise good enough to make up for it. And some of the serials really benefit from the novelization format, whether that's due to fleshing out motivations in The Invasion or condensing endless running-around scenes in The War Games. (I love The War Games, I do, but it's at least an episode and a half longer than it needs to be.)
The companions are also generally well-served. Ben and Polly are a delight, Jamie is JAMIE in all his brash stubborn glory, Victoria is sweet as pie, Zoe is always the cleverest one in the room, and they all have such distinct and individual relationships with the Doctor and each other -- it's beautiful. And to call back to my perpetual desire for companion overlap, the Second Doctor's era has a variant form that falls somewhere between actual companion overlap and New Who's first-in-last-out policy: Jamie joins up with Ben and Polly in the second serial, and then stays through to the end of the era, outlasting Ben and Polly and Victoria (and quite possibly he would've outlasted Zoe has the Time Lords not intervened). Because Ben and Polly predate him, and because Victoria sticks around as long as she does, it doesn't feel like New Who's distinct companion eras, even though it's closer to than than to the First Doctor's full-on overlap pattern.
The Second Doctor's era is also when a bunch of lasting elements of DW worldbuilding and set dressing come into play: Regeneration (although not by that name), the Time Lords are established by name and seen for the first time, the Doctor admits that he stole his TARDIS and ran away because he found them boring, the sonic screwdriver is thrown into the mix (although it's less magic-wand-ish with Two than it will eventually become). It's a shame so much of Troughton's episodes are lost, because this is such a defining era of the show.
(One last thing: when I wrote up my thoughts on the First Doctor's era of Target novelizations, I mentioned my annoyance with the writers' inclusion of anachronistic worldbuilding, like the sonic screwdriver and the existence of the Time Lords, and that continues through the Second Doctor's era ... but for whatever reason I was much less annoyed with Terrance Dicks pausing in the middle of The Web Of Fear to wax poetic about the Doctor's eventual relationship with the Brig:
Although neither of them realised it, this was in its way as historic an encounter as that between Stanley and Doctor Livingstone. Promoted to Brigadier, Lethbridge-Stewart would one day lead the British section of an organisation called UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), set up to fight alien attacks on the planet Earth. The Doctor, changed in appearance and temporarily exiled to Earth, was to become UNIT’s Scientific Adviser.† But that was all in the future. For the moment the two friends-to-be glared at each other in mutual suspicion.
Instead of annoyance and an instinctual "that hasn't happened yet!" reaction, I got hearts in my eyes.)
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