Twilight of the Gods

There's nothing like going back, is there?

The thing that I love about the print versions of Doctor Who is how authors are allowed to go back and revisit their favourite episodes, re-examine the past events, and get that chance to see how the Doctor's presence influenced the lives of the people he touched. It's not always pretty, when you consider how he says he hates goodbyes and likes to run out as soon as the evil has been vanquished and leaves the survivors to learn how to clean up the mess. But, there are other times when everything is going just fine, the Doctor has truly shown them the way... and something else comes along.

Take Vortis, the insect world of The Web Planet. Freed from the influence of the Animus, the world is alive again, the forests and flowers are back, and the Menoptera have made good on their promise to live in harmony with the Zarbi and be watchful for another Animus. They did not, however, account for an interplanetary war and a territory struggle that would see Vortis being fought over by two races. It seems that the Gods of Light are on their side when the Doctor returns with a new face and new companions, but there is more at stake with the rise of a second Animus, and the revelation that Vortis may just be a huge ant farm, the Gods themselves just observers who have forgotten how their experiment works and cannot handle how it has evolved.

I suspect that author Christopher Bulis was one of those fans who found the world of Vortis just alive with possibilities, and was annoyed with the banning of Web Planet writer Bill Strutton from working on the series again. It's evident in his writing that he likes the world of Vortis, and in some kind of homage to the original story has the Doctor and Jamie captures by the darker forces and Victoria befriended by the Menoptera as Barbara was years before. Victoria gets to recover some of her dignity and demands that the alien agressors laying waste to the planet address her as a lady, bringing her back from the edges of terror she has been subjected to in the previous adventures.

Twilight of the Gods was published in the Virgin Missing Adventures range years ago, and is out of print. Copies still pop up on eBay at an okay price; if you're a fan without, try getting yourself one of these. You won't be sorry.

How's about another?

NEXT EPISODE : COMBAT ROCK

The Web Planet

I'm going to start off with a ringing endorsement of this one - I love The Web Planet. Up until this point the TARDIS has gone to some very interesting places, the crew have been put through some insane ordeals, they've met the Daleks twice, and one of the regular cast has left and been replaced. Now come 6 of the most imaginative and well-visualized episodes of this black and white era.
After leaving Roman times, tha TARDIS is snared by some force that the Doctor cannot counteract, and the ship lands on a desolate planet with a thin atmosphere and no vegetation. Ian wonders if they are on the moon, but it is later revealed that they are on the planet Vortis, where the dominant life forms are all insects grown to human proportions. The Zarbi are massive ant-like creatures that have become militant and do the bidding of the mysterious Animus. The Menoperta are beautiful butterfly-like creatures with wings and can actually fly (yes, some of the wires can be seen as the actors cavort about the brilliant sets but there's no such thing as perfect in1965). And underground live the Optera, a simpler version of their flying cousins. In short, the Doctor, Barbara, Ian and Vicki are the only humans in the cast, the rest are all costumed. Oh to have seen this in colour! Not only are the natives of Vortis the most alien to date, but the planet itself is a new experience for the show with it's thin atmosphere and the odd flaring that accompanies it when light reaches the surface (this effect is achieved by smearing Vaseline on the camera lens, and it works wonderfully).
Vortis has been invaded, the Menoperta repelled by the once-peaceful Zarbi. A mysterious web of thick growth has begun to creep across the planet, and at its centre sits the Animus, waiting for the final assault by the Menoperta. The TARDIS crew arrive when the Menoperta are set to make one final desperate gamble to reclaim their planet from the dark power that drove them away, and the crew are split up; Barbara is taken prisoner and becomes part of a slave worker party of captured Menoptera (their wings are brutally torn from their bodies by the Zarbi when they are captured). Ian and the Menoptera leader Vrestin fall in with the subterranean Optera. And the Doctor and Vicki are forced to work for the Animus to detect the massing army of Menoperta, which results in a very clever battle at the end of episode 4, with Barbara inadvertantly caught in the clash of the Zarbi army and the Menoperta spearhead.
Faults? A couple, but they are all visual ones, such as a Zarbi running headlong into a camera. The wires on the Menoptera actors. The cast getting too close to the well-painted backdrop vista of Vortis and casting a shadow across it from time to time. Minor stuff. The adventure required so much special attention to detail that it reportedly blew the budget for the season and writer Bill Strutton was banned from ever writing for the show again (which if you ask me was damn stupid - script editor Dennis Spooner should have taken better care of some of these details).
Rumour has it that The Web Planet is up for the extreme DVD makeover this year, which would be nothing short of fantastic. To be able to see this adventure in sharp detail would be great, and maybe the Restoration Team could get rid of those wires on the Menoptera. And then there's the final moments of episode 6; there is some issue with a the rights to a particular piece of music over the closing credits. The end of my VHS version has some jarring computer-generated closing titles as opposed to the normal scrolling credits of the regular series and the final seconds of the show are clipped to accomodate the rights issue. Either the issue has been resolved or the Restoration Team are going to work some kind of miracle and make it so we can see the episode properly with it's promise of the next episode being The Lion, the first of 4 episodes collectively known as The Crusades.
But we're not going there just yet. It's time to read a new novel.

NEXT EPISODE : THE ELEVENTH TIGER