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The Dark Path (Doctor Who: The Missing Adventures)

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Missing Adventures. A simple two word phrase with so much meaning, particularity in the context of the Virgin Doctor Who novel range by that name. The term implies that there's gaps to be filled and that the novel sitting in one's hands is the doorway to take through such an adventure. 1997's The Dark Parth by David A. McIntee, the penultimate novel of that range, is one such example. It is the tale of the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria on Darkheart, the lost colony world of the fallen Earth empire. More then that though, it is the tale of their encounter with the Doctor's old friend, a Time Lord named Koschei and the encounter that changed him forever.

From the few Second Doctor novels I've read and the reviews I've read online, Patrick Troughton's particular characterization has proven very difficult to replicate in prose. Maybe that's because Troughton was known for what Barry Letts termed "semi-improvisation" meaning that he didn't stick to a script, I'm not certain. What I am certain of is that McIntee managed to capture the Second Doctor perfectly in The Dark Path. It's perhaps most evident in the dialogue spoken that one can hear Troughton saying the words on the page as, somehow, the novel captures that semi-improvisational spirit that Troughton brought to his Doctor. It is particularly evident in the final chapter as the novel reaches it's climax as the Doctor flips back and forth from whimsical to serious that McIntee's knows this Doctor and knows him well. This isn't a recreation of the Second Doctor, it's almost like a lost performance being discovered.

That also goes for the other Time Lord character of the novel, Koschei. Koschei is of course another character that we know and love (and I don't think I'm spoiling anything as a look at the novel's cover will reveal who it is): The Roger Delgado Master. Except this is before he became the Master. All the trademarks of the Delgado Master are apparent and beautifully done: the suave and assured nature even the choice of words in the dialogue that, like the Second Doctor, one can almost hear Roger Delgado delivering the lines. All that makes what happens in the novel all the more incredible if not shocking.

That's not forgetting the companions though. Jamie and Victoria are just as well done as the Doctor and Koschei. In fact, Victoria is almost the third star of the novel and even becomes a potential companion to Koschei for a good chunk of the novel. McIntee reveals that there's more to Victoria then just the "screamer" often remembered by fans. Here is a troubled young woman, her family dead, wandering the universe seeking peace but finding herself in one incredibly dangerous situation after the other. In fact, the novel's setting between the TV stories The Web Of Fear and Fury From The Deep is perfect because The Dark Path, in it's very last pages, sets up Victoria's exit in the latter story. It explains why she seemed to make that decision to leave when she did. It's retconing at its best, or perhaps at its second best.

Because there's something else that this novel does. It shows the reader that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The friendship between Koschei and the Doctor is apparent from the first time they meet in the novel, about midway through. From there though, things begin to go wrong for their friendship as events overtake Koschei and he finds himself walking a fine line between good and evil. The worst thing is, it's not that he is evil. What Koschei does throughout the back half of the novel is for a cause I think anyone can identify with (and as much as I want to, I won't spoil). Even that good reason can't stop what we know is coming: the moment when Koschei will cease to be and the Master is born. McIntee pulls out the stops for this transformation including a jaw dropping final chapter where a friendship ends and a rivalry begins. No sound of drums required: just a man in the wrong place, at the wrong time, trying to set things right and becoming something far worse.

The Dark Path is many things. It brings two brand new performances from two of the best actors to appear in the series and does so, amazingly, in prose form. It's an excellent addition to the Missing Adventures range, living up to what it's supposed to be as a result of that and much more. It is perhaps, above all else, a tragedy. It is like watching a train wreck: there's something horrific about it but one just can't turn away. For two good men came to Darkheart and neither man left the same as he came.

With the advent of the original novels and the show at the time being on indefinite hiatus, it was extremely tempting for the writers to delve more into events of the Doctor's past and try to explain the origins of some things that weren't quite clear on the show. This wasn't always a good thing to do, because sometimes things are better left unexplained, left to reside only in our imaginations. But in the right hands (Virgin seemed to do all right, I haven't gotten to the BBC books yet), a good story can be both a good story and a revealing bit of history, shedding light on some untold events and putting things in context. This novel is an attempt at that and winds up doing a good job of it. Featuring the second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria, they wind up landing on a strange planet where the people appear to be members of the Earth Empire, which unfortunately died out centuries ago. Meanwhile, the system of government that replaced it, the Federation, is also arriving to both explore and integrate. But the Empire doesn't exactly want to get integrated and they have a secret as to how they're still around that they really don't want to share. Thus, as expected, matters start to spiral downhill. Compounding this is the arrival of yet another Time Lord, the suave Koschei and his companion Allia, who are there to mostly observe and study, although it seems like Koschei has other plans on how things should be going. Koschei, as anyone who has seen the cover knows, is the Master before he actually became the Master and anyone who remembers the backstory of the original series knows that he and the Doctor were friends back in the day before a rivalry developed. Here is that rivalry. It's interesting to see the Master in the beginning going about his business like a cold but generally decent person, it's only later that his morality completely unravels and things get really out of control. McIntee's novel feels more action-packed than it actually is, a lot of the fighting takes place in space with starships beating the crap out of each other, which honestly is hard to convey on the printed page. The secret behind the Empire's longevity in this little sector of space is well handled and for the most part everything comes together, once you cut through the technobabble. The Master's descent into evilhood seems to come a bit fast and apparently a longer version of the novel took a slower and more believable route, here it doesn't seem like it takes him much to snap. Jamie and Victoria are well played, although Victoria doesn't do a whole lot other than whimper and scream and wish she were somewhere else. Troughton's portrayal surprised me the most, however. On screen he was probably the best Doctor the show ever had, based on pure acting alone, he took whatever they handed him and made it work, whether it was serious or pratfalls. And he's more or less written that way here, we see him pretending to bumble through to catch people off-guard, we see him being wickedly intelligent and we see him doing the slapstick as well. If the novel is hamstrung by anything, it's the lack of a overall plot drive, things happen and there are plenty of characters but no real central villain so much as a situation that everyone keeps messing with. It makes the novel seem slow, although I have to say I tore through it rather quickly. It may be a bit too heavy with references for the new fan (if you can find the book) but old fans will find this invaluable and fascinating.

Okay I know the book came out eons ago but since it does have some relavance to Face of the Enemy, I figured I'd throw my ramblings on it in at this point. As always with McIntee's books, the setup within continuity is good. It takes place directly before Fury from the Deep, even going as far as to have the book end with the TARDIS landing in water. It starts with the Doctor being drawn to Darkheart, a forgotten 300 year old Imperial colony, by a time disturbance that he speculates could be caused by another time machine. They arive in the midst of a hunt for a creature that has been preying on Darkheart's Adjuticators. It then takes off at galloping pace, introducing more threads and charecters, which weave in and out of contact with each other, creating a gripping, tight story. The book was billed as the first meeting of the 2nd and the Master. This is not the most accurate description. It would be more accurate to call it a book about the creation of the Master. The Doctor meets up with a former classmate and friend of his, Kocheci (sp?) and his female human travelling companion. Through death, betrayal and the temptaion of ultimate power Kocheci becomes the Master. McIntee smartly realized that the best way to have us understand the transformation of Kocheci was to see it through the eyes of someone familar to us, Victoria. Victoria looks up to Kocheci the same way she looks up to the Doctor. The line between the "baddies" and the "Good Guys" is very narrow in the Dark Path. The alien race described as "a cross between a Klingon and a Predator" is part of the Federation, but yet very savage. They do not wait for Fedration approval to attack Darkheart after one of their packs is discovered destroyed by the Imperial colony, they plow ahead with their superior technology and physical power, killing all enemies without mercy. They are held back only from some advice from the female human captain of the Federation vessels. Even Victoria is not immune to the narrow l! ine. Kocheci tempts her with the destruction of Skaro. She is very vulnerable at this point in her travels, McIntee perfaces her departure in Fury from the Deep by stressing this. Although the Doctor and Jamie have helped her recover from the pain of losing her family to the Daleks, she has seen too much death since to endure the travels much longer. Kocheci's propsal to destroy Skaro in the past seems to her more rational because of this mindset. The 2nd Doctor has been described as one of the toughest Doctors to catch the spirt of on paper. Troughton played the Doctor many times off the general gist of the scripted lines, and his manarisms many times are not reflected properly in print. This is an exception, the 2nd Doctor is captured remarkably well, he stumbles around, pretends his umbrella is a gun and generally gives the appearance of being a fool, while really knowing quite clearly what is going on most of the time. There are so many great continuity references worked into the Dark Path, that one would think they would drag the story down into over-referenced crap. This is not the case, all the references are very well mixed in and simply serve to bring a smile when you stumble across them. There are references to Evil of the Daleks, The Time Monster (Chronavores), The Highlanders, Ben and Polly, the Doctor's regeneration, and more. The bottom line? A great read, one of those that you have a difficult time putting down once you pick it up.

Just read it. Dave's got the characterisations just right. It's too bad it couldn't be made into an episode. It's realy good. Tells of the Master's past and how he went evil.