Stranger in a Strange Land: The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

 

Vanessa Bishop did a lot of writing for Doctor Who Magazine in addition to penning some short stories, none of which I've ever read. Until now.

"The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back" appeared in the first Decalog so we are looking at a tale from c.1994. The Reference Guide places it immediately after Doctor Who and the Silurians while the Complete Adventures shunts it forward a bit to follow The Ambassadors of Death instead. The Reference Guide adds explanations for chronological placement of the stories whereas I can find nothing similar at The Complete Adventures site. I am going with the former here as the Brigadier is still pissed at the Doctor for what he sees as his willingness to betray UNIT in favor of the Silurians.

Lethbridge-Stewart is indeed very angry with the Doctor. He is suspicious of that two hearts thing and not happy that his scientific advisor has been slipping out without telling his (ostensible) superior where he's going. And so the Brigadier is having the Doctor followed.

I should note that the story begins with a bit of Reverend Maurice Burridge. First, the beginning of an encounter with the Doctor followed by some reckless driving out on the country lane that shakes him out of prayer mode.

As noted above, the Brigadier is suspicious of the Doctor and even Liz isn't quite sure where he's been going when he suddenly goes absent from the lab. It turns out that the Doctor has been trying to track down an alien who has been stranded here on Earth. Sounds like something right up UNIT's alley but the Brig and Co. have been left out of the loop, presumably because of the jiggery-pokery that the Brigadier pulled off with the Silurians. It turns out that Burridge has been harboring the creature.

With the Doctor having been tailed, the Brig and a crack UNIT squad show up as the Doctor is closing in on the alien. It turns out that, when people make eye contact with the visitor from another world, this alien gaze induces seizures followed by death. Of the humans, that is. The Brigadier refuses to let the Doctor follow through on his plan to have the alien captured and cared for while he repairs its ship.

The alien, an Eriscent, is running for its life but encounters a group of UNIT red shirts as it attempts to re-enter the church. The soldiers suffer from the telepathic contact the alien tries to make. In order to prevent death on a wider scale, the Doctor lets off a shot and the alien falls to the ground dead. He bitterly whispers to himself, "There. I'm sure that's made everything a lot tidier for you, Brigadier." before telling Liz that his shot didn't even hit the alien, that it has simply died of fear.

This is one dark, bleak tale. It's hard to believe that the Doctor and the Brigadier would become such good friends after they fight here. I mean, they don't just do the old couple bickering routine, they really go at it. Recriminations follow accusations and poor Liz gets stuck in the middle. The Brig reprimands her and good, at one point. And that poor alien. For once the Doctor is unable to help someone who really needed his assistance.

Bishop does a great job here of telling a fine tale in under 30 pages but also taking the relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier to an extreme - for Doctor Who. I am used to this pair being at loggerheads occasionally but ultimately working together for a common cause. Here these two alpha males show a lot of contempt for one another. A very different feel than anything I've seen on the TV show.

As I was writing, it occurred to me that this dark twist on the Doctor Who formula may have been part of a larger trend in the mid-90s. Then I struggled to find another example of a TV show/movie franchise/whatever which usually had happy endings take a turn to the dark side. I thought about Batman but I don't read comics so I didn't know when he turned into The Dark Knight. So my hypothesis remains just that.

Anyone out there more familiar with pop culture out there that can comment on existing properties becoming darker and grittier in the 90s?

What do you call it when the rich steal from the rich?

It is 1933 and we are introduced here to a thief named Lucas Seyton. He has absconded with "Madonna and Child" by Reubens and he manages to outwit the aptly named Constable Sharpless while making his escape. Traipsing back to his domicile, he hears a kerfuffle coming from an alley which he dutifully investigates.

He discovers the Doctor being accosted by a trio of men who turn out to actually be robots. Seyton is able to dispatch with one of them causing the others to beat a hasty retreat. The hero of the hour leaves his calling card on the busted robot - "The Fallen Angel". Back at his rescuer's place, the Doctor explains that he and his companions "appeared" in a house that is guarded by those robots. It is their duty to keep the prisoners in and kill anyone who dares enter from without. The Doctor had managed to escape but he must return to find Jamie and Zoe.

Seyton, it turns out, is no petty thief. Instead he is a real life Dennis Moore, er, Robin Hood. Well, kind of. To atone for the past sins of his family who got rich off the backs of others, he steals things from his fellow aristocrats, sells them, and gives the proceeds to the poor.

After hearing the Doctor's tale of woe, Seyton volunteers to help this peculiar man find his companions and enlists the help of a friend, Ketters, who flies them to the prison/house in a Sopwith Camel or some such type of plane. Robots are sent on an intercept course and a dogfight, of sorts, ensues with one of the robots being destroyed and the plane meeting a fiery end but not before the Doctor and Seyton are able to abandon ship, so to speak. Ketters, however, met a different and less salubrious fate.

The Doctor and Seyton make it to the house and breach the entrance by using an electronic pass that they recover from the robot that was downed in the dogfight. They find that the prisoners are dead, having killed one another, but that Jamie and Zoe are still alive. However, escape will not be easy as a rather nasty metal guard spider confronts them. Just as things are looking grim, the spider is destroyed by shots from none other than Ketters who managed to survive after all.

Since the house was a high tech prison on Earth, it was outfitted with a mechanism that wipes the memories of people who stumble upon the place and they forget that they ever did within a few hours. And so Seyton is deprived of his memories of this adventure.

Andy Lane is a fine writer of Doctor Who novels and this excursion into short story territory is quite good. Seyton is a fun character. He's flippant, quotes Winnie-the-Pooh, and takes the bizarre in stride. I don't think we ever get a detailed explanation of the prison but the Doctor does say he had a hand in its creation. For instance, he programmed the guards.

Just a fun little adventure that made me wish I'd run into Lucas Seyton again.

The Time Wind-swept Gentry

It had been a while since I'd read a Virgin Decalog story and I was pleased to find that this one was written by Gareth Roberts. I really enjoyed his Virgin New Adventure, The Highest Science, as well as the 2 or 3 Missing Adventures with the Fourth Doctor of his that I've read. He has a good sense of humor and writes tricky tales, stories with some meat on their bones. Just good Doctor Who.

Here in "Vortex of Fear" Roberts plops the reader down in what I at first thought might be an old folks home. Then I hypothesized that we were, in fact, at an insane asylum or psychiatric hospital or whatever they're called now. It turns out, though, we are at a prison, of sorts, where the 1%ers of the planet Dephys 49 can spend a year instead of paying taxes. The joint is suspended in the time vortex and the communications equipment has mysteriously gone down.

When the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie land there, they're mistaken for technicians who have come to fix the radio. While poking around they notice weird things like bodies disappearing and they find themselves enacting the same situations repeatedly. We learn that the prison/hotel/place they are in was sabotaged by an enemy of someone there and that the prisoners/residents have been exposed to the time winds of the Vortex. They are little more than ghosts now, fated to bicker with one another for all of eternity in this place.

At 35 or so pages, I wouldn't have minded at all if it were to be expanded to novel length. Indeed, I was reminded of the BBC Past Doctor Adventure Relative Dementias at the beginning. But I think it also works well as a short story. It was spooky and gave off The Ward/The Jacket kind of vibes without really descending into all out horror. Just weird and uncanny.

I thought it was funny that one of the characters, Kya, smokes. Then again, this is a mid-90s story. I love that she uses one of those super duchess filter extenders so she looks aristocratic as she fails to keep the smoke at arm's length. Great stuff.