Heroes of Doctor Who: Vicki

By Owen Quinn author of thee Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

copyright BBC

Once again we look back at the long history of Doctor Who – coming up on 50 years young – and celebrate the characters, big and small, who have helped create the man and the myth. This week we go right back to the start to Vicki, who travelled with William Hartnell’s first Doctor.

In the wake of Susan’s departure from the Tardis, albeit forced on her by the Doctor, there was a gap in the crew. Ian and Barbara knew the grumpy old man was missing his granddaughter like crazy and it wasn’t long before they came across someone that might fit right in with them.

Vicki’s introduction came in the two-part story The Rescue. On a planet in the future, the Tardis crew came across Vicki and her friend, paralysed in a spaceship crash. They were being menaced by a spiky headed alien called Koquillion. In the end it is revealed he murdered the crew and caused the crash. Alone, Vicki was offered the chance to come aboard the Tardis and travel with them. In a way, it helped ease the Doctor’s loss and he quickly came to adore her. She was sassy for a girl from the future but often fell into the old writer trap of making her a screaming victim.

She faced the Zarbi on the Web Planet and the Daleks in the Chase which saw the departure of Ian and Barbara but they soon discovered that Steven Taylor had stumbled aboard the Tardis in the battle between the Daleks and the Mechanoids. She and Steven bonded quickly and they became the first companions to meet another member of the Doctor’s race though at this point no one knew they were called Time Lords.

The Time Meddler showed their playful side as they tried to figure out why modern devices were turning up in medieval England and it wasn’t long before they discovered another Tardis and the monk in question. In Galaxy Four Vicki learned the truth about the Rills and can be seen in an upcoming DVD release as episode three of this story has just be found after 47 years, giving us a clear look at this under-rated story about how appearances can be deceiving and the first time the Doctor had encountered an all-female warrior race.

But Vicki was soon to leave in the Myth Makers as the Trojan horse is wheeled out at the battle of Troy. The Doctor never could keep his mouth shut as he gives the Greeks the idea by accident. She falls in love and elects to stay behind, ironically dying thousands of years before she is even born, much to Steven’s dismay.

It is almost as if the discovery of this episode and the Troughton story Underwater Menace is a reminder from the fates that there were companions long before Rose and Amy that need to be remembered in the approaching fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Maureen O’Brien who played Vicki didn’t really associate herself with the role for a long time but others didn’t forget. She was part of the Missing Adventures range, in particular the Man in the Velvet Mask, and her character again expanded in other novels like Empire of Glass along with Steven. It’s a tribute to these characters that they are remembered and loved enough for modern writers to breathe life into them again for a brand new audience.

And, like the others, Maureen has featured in the Big Finish range as both Vicki in the companion chronicles and other characters. Vicki is as loved today as she was back then and we look forward to seeing more in the fiftieth anniversary. She’s always welcome.

Heroes of Doctor Who: Nyssa of Traken

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Once again Owen looks at the long history of Doctor Who and picks a character that was instrumental in the creation of the Timelord we know and love. This week… Nyssa.

Copyright BBC

Hailing from the peaceful union of Traken, Nyssa’s father Tremas was taken over by the Master and then the Master’s interference with Logopolis resulted in huge chunks of space dissolving including her world and everything she knew. She was brought to the Doctor by the Watcher who was revealed to be a future Doctor in the hours before the fourth regenerated into the fifth.

In many ways Nyssa, played by Sarah Sutton, was the perfect companion and Peter Davison has gone on record with this. She was gentle, loyal, a brilliant scientist and very independent. The Doctor trusted her completely, bowing to her skills in Terminus to recreate a cure for Lazer disease, a type of leprosy and in the Visitation was able to build a sonic machine to stop the Terrileptil android when it tried to take over the Tardis.

She was a very quiet soul and when she had a point to make, the Doctor knew to stand and listen. It was up to Nyssa to steer the Tardis away from imminent destruction in Castrovalva as the newly regenerated Doctor was in no state to help them.

A plot device not used to its full advantage was Nyssa’s telepathic abilities that were instrumental in Time Flight when the Xerephan race used her as a conduit to help the Doctor defeat the Master. When the chips are down, Nyssa was a strong girl who left the Tardis a woman who takes charge when everyone else falls apart. In Mawdryn Undead she deals with the badly injured Mawdryn who claims to be the Doctor and makes the decisions against Tegan’s advice. She cared deeply for her friends and is distraught when Tegan is possessed by the Mara. When she loses her in the market she blames herself.

But in Terminus Nyssa decides to stay behind to make it a proper hospital to cure Lazer disease. Infected herself, she is cured by a massive dose of radiation but knows this is a risky and unethical form of treatment. She leaves her friends for a greater cause in circumstances in which she may well die but she has to follow her heart.

But there has been a massive Nyssa resurgence in the last couple of years. She has been feature in novels in both the Doctor Who ranges. She meets the fourth Doctor In the future but cannot tell him who she really is because he hasn’t met her yet.

But Big Finish has used her in audio stories frequently but decided on a new twist. When they decided to reunite the old Davison Tardis team, it was decided it should be with an older Nyssa, one who has come through the Lazer experience and become slightly harder. It freshens the relationships between the old regulars and takes her character in new directions but her loyalty to the Doctor and her friends has never changed.

And for that, she is a great example of character evolution and daring to do something new keeps Nyssa in our hearts.

Heroes of Doctor Who: K9

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

copyright BBC

We once again comb the massive history of Doctor Who and focus on the characters who created the Timelord  we know and love… this week, K-9.

In an attempt to cash in on the success of the droids in Star Wars, it was decided that the Doctor and Leela would gain a robot companion in the shape of a dog.

We first met K-9 in the Invisible Enemy which saw the universe threatened by a virus that took over the Doctor. It was left to Leela and K-9 to keep the hordes at bay and the bond between them was obvious straight from the start.

As K-9 was a late addition to the show several scripts could not accommodate him and he was absent for a couple of stories being left inside the Tardis or contracting laryngitis but the public fell in love with the little dog. Voiced by John Leeson, who used to rehearse on set alongside Tom Baker and both actors became firm friends and helped the Doctor fall in love with the little tin dog. K-9 had his own personality with a dry humour and was the only one to beat the Doctor at chess – which didn’t go down well with the Time Lord.

Like any companion, K-9 faced death at many turns including death in a furnace and being smothered by Wolf Weeds in Creature from the Pit and being beheaded by Marshmen in Full Circle.

All together there are three versions of K-9. The first stayed behind on Gallifrey with Leela in the climax of Invasion of Time. It was revealed then that the Doctor had secretly built another version of his own with marked improvements on the original.

It has often been wanted by fans for a face-off between the Daleks and K9 but we never got it. For Destiny of the Daleks, he was trapped in the Tardis beneath a pile of rubble. However, in the Dogs of Doom comic strip we got what we wanted and the little dog was more than a match for the Daleks.

It is widely known Tom would have been happy to have John himself crawl about in a dog outfit as the prop dog was hard work and prone to all sorts of mechanical problems. But it all helped to endear the character to the masses. Like all dogs, K9 was a brave little soldier battling the giant stone Ogri to the point where he was badly damaged even though he made them turn tail. He also found a similar foe in the Pirate Planet in the shape of the Captain’s mechanical parrot who had a laser in its beak. In State of Decay it was up to K9 to communicate with the Tardis to find the ancient scrolls about the giant vampires, an old enemy of the Time Lords with whom they waged a war.

But incoming producer John Nathan Turner decided that having a super computer in the form of K9 was an easy get out clause for the Doctor and he had to go. In Warriors Gate, K9 was damaged beyond repair by the time winds in the void between E space and our universe. Only by passing through the Tharil mirrors could he be saved. Unfortunately it was a one way trip but he and Romana stayed behind to help free the Tharils from slavery.

And that was that until the emergence of a spin off show called K9 and company starring Sarah Jane teamed her up with the little dog, sent to her as a present from the Doctor. Again he was voiced by John Leeson but it never went to a series.

But the Juggernaught that is Doctor Who fills many arenas and the novels continued the story of K9.

He was the Doctor’s constant companion in the fourth Doctor comic strips and Big Finish brought version one and Leela to the fore in the Gallifrey audio series. But in David Tennant’s first season we find him reunited with both Sarah Jane and K9 in School Reunion. Here K9 was in a poor state, surprising given Sarah’s connections with UNIT and the Doctor managed to repair him for the battle with the bat like Krillitanes. And in one final selfless act this K9 was destroyed in an explosion when he took out the Krillitanes in one blow. But seeing t how upset Sarah was the Doctor conjured up a new more durable version, ensuring he would never get into that state again. This left Sarah and K9 to go off and have their own adventures in the Sarah Jane Adventures. However, in the first series he was trapped orbiting a black hole in another dimension, staying there to protect the Earth.

However it was K9 that managed to save the day at the end of Journey’s End by transmitting the Tardis base code to the Tardis in order to being Earth home to its original position in space having been stolen by Davros and the Daleks.

But it wasn’t long before K9 could return to Earth and be by his mistress’s side once more and engaging in a bitch fest relationship with Mr Smith, Sarah’s super computer. When her son Luke went to university K9 went with him and that’s where he is to this day but not before helping the Doctor one last time in The Wedding of Sarah Jane when the Trickster trapped them all in different points of time to destroy Sarah once and for all. Clyde has even been known to take him to school to cheat in exams.

There is even an Australian version of K9 where our familiar version is destroyed but regenerates into a futuristic version which can fly. Battling an array of outrageous villains, the series only went for one series but having never seen it can’t really comment on how successful or faithful it was to its parent show.

But that’s K9; even this generation kids fell in love with him all over again and you can buy a remote control version in large and small sizes. Mine’s still in its boxes and in our house that Christmas my son and I both got K9s, something I thought I’d never see.

Something tells me that little tin dog is going nowhere anytime soon.

Why doesn’t the Doctor believe in ghosts?

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Doctor Who is widely regarded as the best and longest running sci fi show in the world, encapsulating everything from alien monsters, time travel, parallel worlds and virtually every sci fi idea in the universe including landing in a Land of Fiction in the Patrick Troughton classic The Mind Robber where fairy tales and comic book heroes were as real as you and me. It has referenced stories such as the Thing, Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes to bring us memorable and classic tales that literally stand the test of time.
However, there is one area of the world of imagination that has been categorically refuted and never, ever been seen as a legitimate field for storytelling. And bad enough for the Doctor to fluff away its existence but the denial has filtered into both the Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood which quite frankly has left me more than a little peeved off. How can a show that uses every sci fi convention in existence be completely closed to the idea of ghosts?
Now let me say up front, I don’t believe unless I have had a personal experience. There are too many hoaxers out there and fake physics that use their “gift” to bleed grieving relatives dry. That is undeniable but there have been too many experiences in my life and those close to me that simply cannot be dismissed away by, “there is no such thing.” And in most of those experiences I cannot explain it other than I was interacting with dead relatives.
Are all the tribes from all across the world telling lies? If in the 21st century we are so open minded to aliens and other possibilities, then why does Doctor Who as a concept deny the possibility of their existence? It is a subject that has me riled up big time and leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. True, life after death has not been proved scientifically but the fact energy doesn’t die, it changes form has. Humans are essentially bio electrical machines, something that as the Doctor’s favourite species, he should know.
But in every Doctor Who story that ventures to this subject, it is explained by time fissures and weaknesses in the time space continuum. Handy enough explanations but ones that diminish the strength of the human mind and soul. In the classic fourth Doctor adventure the Image of the Fendahl, we meet Mrs Tyler, an old lady that has visions and can see things other people can’t. This could be evidence that the human brain is capable of things we can’t imagine and open a study into why only certain people have these abilities but no, the Doctor puts it all down to her living near a time fissure for years. Yet in the Pirate Planet the Mentiads are accepted by him as evolving humanoids that have the added extra of being telekinetic but can also see things that others can’t. Does this by definition mean that it’s ok for alien cultures to display these abilities but humans are too backward. Not really the right attitude from the same man that calls humankind indomitable.
In the Awakening, we see that figures from the English Civil War are the result of the Malus’ creating them as weapons of defence against the fifth Doctor and friends.
Was it a ghost that miraculously released the Doctor from the locked room in Image of the Fendahl, releasing him conveniently in time to save the day?
In Army of Ghosts I thought my prayers would be answered but no, it was the Cybermen crossing over from the other universe. Yet the Doctor dismissed the possibility as the human mind wanting to believe in an afterlife and creating it in their own heads. This again diminishes the idea and the human mind as laughable and yet in the first Doctor adventure the Dalek tale the Chase they encounter both Dracula and Frankenstein in person not realizing they are in fact robots in a fun fair on Earth. Yet the Doctor is afraid as he believes the Tardis landed in a dimension where human imagination can create physical objects and scenarios. Is this where he stopped believing because it actually scares him to believe such a thing is possible from a simple human mind? If they can do that what else could they do if their brains were let loose? Maybe he tells people there is no such thing as ghosts as to prevent humans making the connection to the other side and creating havoc by breaking open one of the universe’s greatest mysteries. Queen Victoria puts it well in the tenth Doctor story Tooth and Claw involving a werewolf. She says a good ghost story gives hope of just a sliver of contact from the other side and people are desperate for that which is true and for once the Doctor looks like he is entertaining the idea for a change in his speech about her husband helping her from the other side with his foresight regarding building the werewolf trap.
In fact when confronted by Azal in the third Doctor story the Daemons, soon to be released on DVD, the Doctor says he is the inspiration for the Devil but in the Satan Pit, he comes face to face with the real thing, a fact confirmed when he tells Donna of his fight with the Devil himself. So if one exists then by logic so does God and ghosts. Could this be a turning point in the man’s thinking, a point where he realized he really didn’t know everything as empirical fact?
As a writer who brings as many ideas and conventions to make an entertaining story, I find this makes Doctor Who a narrow minded vision despite its 50 year run. Even the recent Peter Capaldi story Under The Lake and Before The Flood for a time the Doctor discovers ghosts really do exist only to have that opinion change by the end of the episode. Dammit I thought it was finally going to happen. Even when Sarah Jane denies the existence of ghosts in her show, it minimises the character for me. Here is a woman who has seen things through time and space most never will yet outright blanks a very human concept. Although I agree kids shouldn’t be frightened by ghost stories until they’re older, most of the world’s paranormal experiences come straight from the mouth of babes as it is a common belief their innocence allows them to see what we lose over time.
And if I ever get the chance to write for the show in any capacity, I intend to break the tradition. There’s a whole other dimension the Time Lord has yet to explore.

Heroes of Doctor Who: Victoria

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

In this series we look at the cast of thousands who helped make Doctor the Timelord, he is today.

copyright BBC

Of all the Doctor’s travelling companions, Victoria was the most vulnerable and delicate and bears a very special first for a companion.

She was the first person that the Doctor revealed he had a family too. This took place in the Tomb of the Cybermen in a quiet moment with the second Doctor, played by the brilliant Patrick Troughton. And I believe this was because he had taken Victoria aboard the Tardis because she was an orphan whose mother had passed years before and her father had been forced to work for the Daleks who later murdered him. She had a very sheltered upbringing and could ‘scream for Ireland’. And now, like the Doctor, she was alone in the world and he immediately became a father figure to. Maybe he had seen too many victims of the Daleks and walked away but this time was different. Somehow he saw a kindred spirit in Victoria and the safest place for her was the Tardis.

Played beautifully by Deborah Watling, Victoria struck up a good relationship with Jamie (above with The Doctor and Victoria) straight away. Ever the gent, Jamie was very protective of her and they enjoyed teasing the Doctor. She found future women’s fashions quite startling but slipped into them easily. And Victoria was part of the true monster golden era. She met the Ice Warriors, the Yeti and the Great Intelligence (who’ll sound familiar to anyone that watched this year’s Christmas episode: The Snowmen), Cybermen and met the Doctor’s double, Salamander, before facing the seaweed monster in Fury from the Deep. Incidentally, her dad, Jack Watling, also starred in the two Yeti stories.

Many of her stories have been lost or only exist partially due to the BBC’s policy of wiping tapes after broadcast as they saw no further use for them but hope always remains that they will return. Indeed, The Tomb of the Cybermen was lost up to a few years ago before being found, allowing us to finally see the scene where the Doctor admits to family. And in the last month, 47 years after broadcast, two more episodes from the stories Underwater Menace and Galaxy Four have been found. I have no doubt someone has the rest of the missing episodes somewhere; I even heard a rumour at a convention a long time ago that a collector has all eight episodes of Marco Polo but would never give them up. We can but dream… although we still have the audio recordings of those missing stories to enjoy. Indeed, 2 Entertain issued the Troughton adventure the Invasion by replacing the missing two episodes with animation matching the dialogue alongside the televised remaining ones. Maybe we will see Victoria’s missing stories like this one day.

Long before Bonnie Langford’s Mel, Victoria was the original screamer, a gift that was the weapon the Doctor used to defeat the seaweed monster. At the end of this story Victoria decided to stay behind (see video below), being adopted by her new family years after she was born. Indeed she has been mentioned several times in the programme eg Pyramids of Mars where Sarah wore one of her dresses and returning to the Children in Need skit Dimensions in Time where she was paired with the third Doctor.

As well as numerous novels that continued to explore and highlight Victoria and her era, she has become a main fixture of the Companion Chronicle series from Big Finish that tells stories from the companion’s perspective. To this day, Deborah sounds the same and captures Victoria effortlessly. She released her autobiography and the genuine love between her, Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines is there for all to see.

But Victoria did return once more alongside the Brigadier and Sarah Jane in the video adventure Downtime in which Victoria is now head of a company. But there is a problem as she is now possessed by the Great Intelligence who, using its robotic servants the Yeti, is once again trying to take over the Earth. This time however, Sarah Jane and the Brig are on hand to help save the day in what was quite a good adventure given the low budget and it was fantastic to see the Yeti in action once again.

Having met Deborah a couple of times over the years, she is still enthusiastic about her time on the show; a time that is fondly remembered by fans who saw it on original transmission and by those that desperately want those missing episodes returned. She and Frazer speak lovingly of Patrick Troughton and still have a great chemistry that entertains fans up and down the country.

And how nice to think that Victoria is alive and well in our time and still screaming her little lungs out at the first sign of trouble…