Customer Reviews

The Infinity Doctors (Doctor Who Series)

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3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since this is the month that Doctor Who turns forty years old (who's bringing the whoopee cushion to the Doctor's birthday party?), I decided to look back to the last anniversary year that was evenly divisible by five. The thirty-fifth anniversary was celebrated by the release of THE INFINITY DOCTORS by Lance Parkin (his first effort for BBC books). I can't remember the last time that the thirty-fifth anniversary of anything was celebrated, but if we indeed must celebrate every fifth anniversary of the series by a special release, we could do a lot worse than to have releases of the quality on display here.

THE INFINITY DOCTORS starts with a passage that's more than a little reminiscent of the beginning of Paul Cornell's TIMEWYRM: REVELATION. But, tellingly, it's not just a rehash of that earlier piece of prose; it takes that reference and directs it in a new and equally good direction. And throughout much of this story, there are elements that are, if not borrowed, at least seem a little bit familiar. But that isn't a criticism. In fact, it's a bonus. It's got enough references to the past to fulfill its role as an anniversary romp, while managing to tell an original enough story to prevent a complete wallowing in nostalgia. It's a fine line to walk, one that gets more difficult with every passing divisible-by-five year anniversary. I'm frankly surprised that it's still possible to get away with it.

THE INFINITY DOCTORS is painted on a huge canvas. The background to the story involves a High Councilor of Gallifrey known as the Doctor who is organizing a peace treaty between the Sontarans and the Rutans, two races who have been locked in combat for countless millennia. The power of the Time Lords has plucked two representatives of those races from an appropriate period in history and the Doctor is working as an arbiter. But, naturally, things are not going as planned. A slight blip on the Time Lord equivalent of a radar screen spells consequences and disaster, not only for their world, but for all worlds everywhere.

There's a line one can draw from Terrance Dicks, to Robert Holmes, to the Cartmel Masterplan, to here. Each took what fictional facts were known about the Doctor's people, threw away the bad, and expanded the rest. Terrance Dicks turned the creators of the TARDIS into Gods. Robert Holmes kept their great powers and jettisoned their God-like status, making them into squabbling academics. The Cartmel Masterplan built upon the legends and the fragments of the Old Time of Gallifrey, based almost entirely on Omega's speeches in THE THREE DOCTORS and the recording of the history of Gallifrey that Engin plays in THE DEADLY ASSASSIN. It ignored all the boring and awful stories that had been built up in the current day Gallifrey (it's interesting to note that in the three years of Andrew Cartmel's script editorship, modern Gallifrey appeared on screen exactly zero times).

THE INFINITY DOCTORS plays a similar game. Virtually the whole foundation of Parkin's Gallifrey is based on those hints and stories that displayed the best that Gallifrey had to offer, and it conveniently ignores those bits that make a discriminating fanboy shudder. So, we delve heavily into the stories of the Old Times, but we have not a mention of the Time Tots. The result is a "set on Gallifrey" story as they should be told, with mystery, excitement and power, not as they were told during the Graham Williams and John Nathan-Turner eras, which featured less than satisfying adventures.

Now before I get completely overwhelmed by talk of Gallifrey, Time Lords and all that jazz, I should talk about how the book works as a standalone story. THE INFINITY DOCTORS feels epic. Not just because it features The Return Of You-Know-Who (Again), but because of its subject matter. We have a book with effective and powerful prose. It starts slow and steady, which makes the later conflicts appear that much more menacing.

I have fond memories of my first reading of THE INFINITY DOCTORS. It was the book that got me back into the world of Doctor Who novels after a double-whammy of the book license switchover and a horrendous lack of free time conspired to pull me away. THE INFINITY DOCTORS may not be the greatest Doctor Who story of all time (though it's damn close, the only minor problems are slight authorial indulgences that the editor should have curtailed), but it might be the most representative. It's got everything: time travel, old enemies, world building, an intriguing plot, devious and enjoyable characters, and the fate of the universe at stake. It even throws in some rarer elements, but makes them feel perfectly at home (by this, I mean the romance; who would have guessed that it could turn out so well in a Doctor Who story?). This is the single anniversary story that you could give to a non-fan and have he/she both understand it and enjoy it. If I were to be trapped on the proverbial deserted island with my pick of only one Doctor Who story to take with me, then I can only say that THE INFINITY DOCTORS would make a very strong case for being that selection.

This month, the fortieth anniversary month, the Doctor Who release is either THE DEADLY REUNION by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks, or THE SCREAM OF THE SHALKA by Paul Cornell, depending on what your medium of choice is. Call it a hunch, but I seriously doubt that the fortieth anniversary will be celebrated in as progressive or as satisfying a manner as the thirty-fifth was.

The question I keep reading is, which Doctor is this? Who cares? Part of the point is that you can insert the first, eighth, or a future doctor into it and read it with equal aplomb. Parkin has created a view of the Doctor that's different for each person reading it. What I see and what you see will never be the same thing in this book.

That said, the book provides only a sliver of hope that it's the first Doctor, since it says he travelled and stopped travelling; nor does the eighth doctor seem likely, since he's described as short-haired and young -- and when young people grow their hair, they generally only cut it when they get older.

Now that I've said my piece in that matter, I have to insist that it doesn't matter. The story is interesting and worthwhile, and it provides as varied a view of the Doctor as there are varied readers. Maybe not for readers who like to see new views of an established Doctor, for more experimental and open-minded readers, it certainly has its virtues.

Doesn't anybody get it? This book is NOT set in the "official" who-niverse. It's a complete re-boot of the programme's history set in a parallel universe. The Doctor is based on earlier concepts of the Paul McGann version, although here he is clearly a first Doctor who didn't go on the run.

The Doctor in this story is brilliantly characterised, along with quasi-Master, The Magistrate, a quasi-Valeyard and a girl called Larna, who may well be the same girl who works in Chronotis' (oops . . . not supposed to admit that!) office in Jon Blum's Unnatural History. Given the difficulties encountered creating a book version of the briefly-seen eighth Doctor, one wonders whether this re-vamped version wouldn't work better in an ongoing series of novels. The story tells of another of Omega's attempts to leave his prison. He failed in "our" who-niverse and sets out to conquer this new version.

What perhaps struck me the most with this book was how "clean" it felt from the white cover onwards. Released from the shackles of almost 40 years of often-contradictory continuity Lance Parkin has the chance to "play God" and go back to the basics of who The Doctor is. I, for one, would like to see this other Doctor return. Had the TV movie been anything like this book, I think we'd have an X-Files-style cult/mass audience on our hands.

I loved this book. Perhaps, it's one of the best pieces of original Doctor Who fiction ever put out. I still after, (how long was my previous review?) don't see why so many WHO fans cop out & start screaming "parallel universe" when something original like this comes along.
Maybe it's because I never got the biography of the first Doctor in those years before he left Gallifrey (does anyone seriously want to own up to knowing that? Marc Platt sit down) Maybe because I read too many Doctor Who stories as individual stories amongst a very flexible cannon (an attitude that is thankfully the one that exists now at Big Finish and BBC Books). Maybe I thought this story was too damn good to leave out of the "all-sacred cannon".
This isn't Star Trek, people. This is Doctor Who, let's be above this whole parallel universe loop-hole (Inferno, withstanding) BUT, if you want to feel that way fine. I just can't be convinced otherwise. This is cannon, official first Doctor, ages before he left for Totter's Lane.
The most important point I can make though is this is Lance Parkin at his finest. Eloquent, exciting and just that damn GOOD. Any WHO fans, casual or those who want to jump shoulder deep into this parallel vs. Cannon debate should buy this book immediatley. One of the greatest ever.

I was highly impressed by this story. Lance Parkin dares to carry us back into the deepest mysteries of Galifrey. The legends, the stories hinted at from since the First Doctor appeared reveal themselves in practical perfection. What Mr. Parkin did, as I say, was daring. Most, I believe, would not be fool enough to attempt to brandish before the fans of Doctor Who their version of hidden history of Gallifrey and the secrets of the mysterious Doctor himself! Lance Parkin does so with power and authority. True to the very nature of the Doctor, while not ever specifying exactly when this story takes place, Parkin creates a tale fit for Time Lord legend! The scientific aspects of the book are both astounding and respectable. Not only can Parkin write with eye-catching skill, but he successfully pilots his story through the dangers of scientific plausability! This is a book which blends Time Lord mythology, astophysics and quantum physics, and the would-be reality of the Doctor's universe with perfection. My only disappointment is that the BBC has--so far--chosen not to include a short biography of the author within the binding of this novel. If I could award an author for best Doctor Who novel, Lance Parkin would have to write himself a speech.

First of all, despite what the title says, there's only one Doctor that shows up in this novel. The problem is, you never find out which one it is. There is a description given, but it doesn't give you much to go by, because it seems to be a combination of 3 doctors. And (for me at least) this causes a slight problem, because I can't visualize the Doctor properly while reading. In the end, I decided it was either a) Young Hartnell (1st) Doctor, b)a future Doctor we haven't seen yet, or c) an alternate reality Doctor. As for the plot itself... well, it seems ambitious in it's scope but gets lost along the way. It tries to tie in a lot of themes from Doctor Who history, and provides insights into Gallifreyan (sp?) history. The Master is in it too, but he's the Doctor's friend (and called by a different name). While this book demands 2 or 3 readings, and there are some cliches in here and somewhat implausible characterizations. However, it's not a BAD book; it just needed to be about 50 pages longer.

Its perhaps a testament to the enduring flexibility of "Doctor Who" that you can even attempt something like this and nobody really blinks. When the television series started in the sixties, there was no grand plan or even Bible that the various writers could refer to and so what transpired was that the production teams essentially made all the details up as they went along. The Doctor was originally just a wanderer, a renegade from his own world, a world we knew nothing about, more a magician than an alien. Things we take for granted now, like Time Lords and Gallifrey and their ilk, weren't really introduced until the series turned to color in its seventh season (the Time Lords appeared at the end of "The War Games", Troughton's last story and the last black-and-white story). Which meant that there was a big aura of mystery to the character, an aura that got dissipated over time and that they started to restore during McCoy's last few seasons. Then they cancelled the show. Whoops.

But what makes the series interesting is that every time they start to explain exactly what the Doctor is or his past or where he came from, someone else always seems to come along to contradict it, so that all the accounts seem true to some extent, but they all can't be true at the same time. The Looms of "Lungbarrow" don't jibe at all with the Doctor's childhood that we get a glimpse of during the new series' third season finale, and while nobody really likes to acknowledge the Eighth Doctor's allegedy half-human heritage, it's still thrown out there. What matters is that it doesn't need to be necessarily true if it still makes a good story.

Thus we get to Parkin's novel. It takes place in the studied halls of Gallifrey, where the Time Lords scurry back and forth in their slow, unchanging way, where ancient history is discussed like we talk about the results to last night's baseball game, where people casually use fantastic technology the way you switch on a garage door opener. In this setting it all seems very familiar and one wouldn't be too off assuming that we were about to undergo another romp with the High Council, like so many other stories have already done.

And yet Parkin does a most fascinating thing here. Living in these halls, working amongst his Time Lord fellows, he gives us "The Doctor". Not the First or Third or Eighth or Fourteenth, but simply the Doctor. Oh, we recognize him all right, with his affection for Earth, his ability to be clever and act like a fooll at the same time, his penchant for thinking outside of the box and his desire to do the right thing above all else. His rooms are cluttered, his clothes aren't robes but cashmere sweaters, he's the Time Lord we've all come to know and love. But we don't know which incarnation it is. And it doesn't matter.

By taking away the certainty of who we're dealing with, Parkin has either given us a glimpse into the very early history of the Doctor, or a fascinating alternate history, a Doctor who left Gallifrey to explore but was able to come back to try to enact the change that he felt was so stifling his people. As such, he's free to do whatever he wants, giving us a fictional universe that looks very much like the one we thought we knew, but may be one we don't know at all, the characters all skewed slightly, veering into different directions.

He teases us with the possibility of the Doctor having a wife (linking it to his other novel, "Cold Fusion"), children, he gives us a little bit of Time Lord romance. He gives us mystery and wonder and people making the wrong decision at the wrong moments and the right decisions at moments when they didn't even know there was a decision to make. The details of the plot are almost beside the point . . . the Doctor brings the Sontarans and Rutans together to try to broker a peace treaty before both sides destroy each other. Meanwhile, something bad is happening to time and the source of it is outside our universe.

It races along in little clips, playing this all completely straight, giving us characters that we wish we could spend more time with (Larna, Patience), others that we'll spend more time with in the future ("The Magister"? . . . three guesses!) and a host that we'll probably never see again. The threat is enormous, the settings are wide-screen, the body count stacks up and when its over you have the feeling that if the BBC ever decided to make an official, canon-laced beginning to the series, this will do just fine. Or as a standalone adventure that will never really happen, it works as well. Because the beauty of the series is that you can take this sidetrips and never-was scenarios and in a way they're all just as valid as anything we see on screen. Which Doctor is this? It's your Doctor, of course. And mine. And for everyone that has ever seen a police box and wishes it were bigger on the inside. For the people who like their entertainment to have a little mystery mixed in and who think having some things never be fully explained suits them just fine.

Parkin takes the familiar template and reimagines it into something that may fit in what we already knew, or can stand completely alone. Its daring, in its way, but at the same time we should expect this kind of thing. Not all the time, but a show that isn't afraid to go here every so often wouldn't be "Doctor Who". Which is why, over ten years after this book was printed (its 35th anniversary at the time) we're still reading and watching.

To save confusion, it's best to view the Doctor as a completely different, parallel universe Doctor instead of trying to place an already established Doctor in it. Lance Parkin has done a wonderful job in recreating Gallifrey, it's history and the fact that there are others living on the planet and not just the TimeLords. How could you not have a 35th Anniversary book without the potential grand destruction of the entire universe. This book is recommended for a change from the normal Doctor's exploits as I find alternate versions are always refreshing. Only probelme is that I found the Doctor's portrayal to be a little bland, but with everything else going on, with the mediation between Sontaran and Rutan factions and the return of a historical Gallifreyan hero, this hardly really mattered.
An enjoyable read - RECOMMENDED!!!

This novel starts out on Gallifrey with the Doctor trying to negotiate a peace treaty between the Sontarans and Rutons. However, things never go smoothly in the Doctor's life. Before you know it, a masked man is committing acts of murder and sabotage. If that isn't bad enough, a mysterious energy wave from the future is on the verge of either destroying the Time Lords, or turning them into Gods. One can't read the book without picking up on the numerous inconsistencies in established Doctor Who history. For example, the Master is in charge of the guards. Although he is called by another name, there can be no denying it's him. As for the Doctor, he acts like #8, has #4's scarf, and looks the most like #5. The explanation for this come about 3/4 quarters of the way into the book when the main villian tells the Doctor that out of an infinate number of universes, that there is at least one Doctor per universe, thus providing an infinate number of Doctors, and the title for the book. This would be fine if the book wasn't billed as the 35th anniversary special. It's kind of hard to get excited over a story that doesn't take place in the "real" Doctor Who universe. A better 35th anniversary story would have been set in the "real" Doctor Who universe, and could have delt with somebody trying to sabotage the Sontaran and Ruton peace conference. As it stands, this is a good, but by no means great way to celebrate Doctor Who's 35th anniversary.

This book is very well-written, mostly, and the Doctor is a very good one. I think you might someday be sad if you don't read this book pretty soon.