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chicafrom3My last Target readthrough post (the new-series novelizations don't count) was just over a year ago, when I finished the Third Doctor's run on 06 November 2017.
...The Fourth Doctor took me a while, but I have now reached the end of Logopolis and am about to embark on the Fifth Doctor.
In retrospect, I probably should've broken this era up by Companion, because it has taken me long enough that large portions of it have blurred together in my memory. Hindsight remains 20/20.
So this is gonna end up being more "general impressions" than anything else.
Honestly, overall the Tom Baker era is dominated by perfectly adequate novelizations that pretty much just put the script in prose format. There's a few outliers (I'm quite pleased that Logopolis is the last one because it's one of the best and it's good to leave off on a high nott), but mostly they're just decent novelizations.
Some notes on character and story stuff:
Sarah Jane remains the best, even if she gets shunted into the damsel-in-distress role a little too often. The writers just really like to make her suffer, don't they?
Take a shot every time Leela is described as wearing a brief costume of animal skins! Leela is a character who is honestly a little better served in prose than on screen through no fault of Louise Jameson's -- the 'savage' thing is just somewhat less cringeworthy, in part because certain authors made an effort to play it down. It's also worth noting that despite almost every novelization making a point of mentioning her brief costume, there's not a whole lot of dwelling on how much skin she's showing.
And then there's Romana, and Romana is FAB, all of her, I could gush about Romana all day ♥♥♥ I honestly think Romana may be the most ambitious Companion concept in the series's history -- a Time Lord who knows more (on an academic, not practical, level) about the TARDIS and time/space travel than the Doctor does. It's not always executed terribly well, but they tried and SHE'S SO GREAT.
Next comes Adric, who also comes off better in prose than on screen, in part because he comes off as younger and in part because (at least with some authors) we get to see bits of his internal monologue, which mitigates the arrogant-precocious-teen thing a bit.
And finally for about five minutes there's Nyssa and Tegan, neither of whom get much opportunity for development (yet), but I have to mention how much I enjoyed Tegan's characterization in the novelization of Logopolis. Christopher Bidmead obviously put a lot of thought into her motivations and personality and it's great.
It's interesting how at first the era hangs on to the last strands of the largely Earthbound Three-And-UNIT era, with UNIT being treated as a base of operations in between jaunts to outer space and history. Once Harry leaves, they slip away from that, and once Sarah Jane is gone, so is UNIT -- we're firmly back to Adventures In Time And Space.
And yet we get the first real multi-story arcs in DW with the Key to Time and E-Space arcs. One of which is more successful than the other, but you can't have everything. For the most part the Fourth Doctor's era is pretty safe in terms of stories -- they found a formula that works and they stick to it -- but there were a few things they let themselves experiment with, like a Time Lord companion and trips to Gallifrey and story arcs that contain multiple serials. Every era of Doctor Who should experiment with something.
In any case, on to Peter Davison! Also known as the Doctor I rewatch the least, so some of these stories may end up feeling completely new to me!
...The Fourth Doctor took me a while, but I have now reached the end of Logopolis and am about to embark on the Fifth Doctor.
In retrospect, I probably should've broken this era up by Companion, because it has taken me long enough that large portions of it have blurred together in my memory. Hindsight remains 20/20.
So this is gonna end up being more "general impressions" than anything else.
Honestly, overall the Tom Baker era is dominated by perfectly adequate novelizations that pretty much just put the script in prose format. There's a few outliers (I'm quite pleased that Logopolis is the last one because it's one of the best and it's good to leave off on a high nott), but mostly they're just decent novelizations.
Some notes on character and story stuff:
Sarah Jane remains the best, even if she gets shunted into the damsel-in-distress role a little too often. The writers just really like to make her suffer, don't they?
Take a shot every time Leela is described as wearing a brief costume of animal skins! Leela is a character who is honestly a little better served in prose than on screen through no fault of Louise Jameson's -- the 'savage' thing is just somewhat less cringeworthy, in part because certain authors made an effort to play it down. It's also worth noting that despite almost every novelization making a point of mentioning her brief costume, there's not a whole lot of dwelling on how much skin she's showing.
And then there's Romana, and Romana is FAB, all of her, I could gush about Romana all day ♥♥♥ I honestly think Romana may be the most ambitious Companion concept in the series's history -- a Time Lord who knows more (on an academic, not practical, level) about the TARDIS and time/space travel than the Doctor does. It's not always executed terribly well, but they tried and SHE'S SO GREAT.
Next comes Adric, who also comes off better in prose than on screen, in part because he comes off as younger and in part because (at least with some authors) we get to see bits of his internal monologue, which mitigates the arrogant-precocious-teen thing a bit.
And finally for about five minutes there's Nyssa and Tegan, neither of whom get much opportunity for development (yet), but I have to mention how much I enjoyed Tegan's characterization in the novelization of Logopolis. Christopher Bidmead obviously put a lot of thought into her motivations and personality and it's great.
It's interesting how at first the era hangs on to the last strands of the largely Earthbound Three-And-UNIT era, with UNIT being treated as a base of operations in between jaunts to outer space and history. Once Harry leaves, they slip away from that, and once Sarah Jane is gone, so is UNIT -- we're firmly back to Adventures In Time And Space.
And yet we get the first real multi-story arcs in DW with the Key to Time and E-Space arcs. One of which is more successful than the other, but you can't have everything. For the most part the Fourth Doctor's era is pretty safe in terms of stories -- they found a formula that works and they stick to it -- but there were a few things they let themselves experiment with, like a Time Lord companion and trips to Gallifrey and story arcs that contain multiple serials. Every era of Doctor Who should experiment with something.
In any case, on to Peter Davison! Also known as the Doctor I rewatch the least, so some of these stories may end up feeling completely new to me!
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