Alden Bates' Weblog

Yes, it's time for another issue of TSV! Now that TSV 44 is online, there are only 20 issues of TSV (45-64) which aren't currently available either online or in print. Issue 44 contains (amongst many, many excellent items): a scathing indictment of the New Adventures, an article on the many and varied hoaxes perpetrated on Doctor Who fans, the making of the Dark Dimension, and a response to the Seeds of Doom article from last issue.

I had two pieces in this issue. A Masterful Life is an attempt to detail the Master's life. I've updated this a bit before putting it online to cover some of the more notable canonical appearances of the Master since 1995. The other piece was this montage of the Master which I did to accompany said article. The only bit of that artwork I'm really happy with is the Cyberman. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Also in this issue is Morgan Davie's Doctor Who story generator, which I've embellished by adding an automatic generator to the bottom using Javascript. Unfortunately I was only able to test it in Internet Explorer and Firefox, so if it doesn't work in your favourite browser, please let me know.

I decided that this, too, needed updating, so I've created an automatic story generator you can use to get started on your script for the new Doctor Who series being made in Wales!

Previously: TSV 43

TSV 43 went online a couple of days ago. The paper version was published in early 1995, which means that one of the participants in Four Writers, One Discussion had yet to write anything Doctor Who related. Paul Cornell, Andy Lane and David Bishop were known at the time for their Doctor Who novels (and have done further work since), but Steven Moffat hadn't yet penned The Curse of Fatal Death, let alone the two stories he's done for the new series.

There's also The Engima Magnet, a comic strip featuring the fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Kamelion, which started off a regular run of comic strips - unfortunately they're not as common in TSV these days. And one of my favourite pieces of Cyberman art to appear in TSV. And a rare piece of Mel artwork! And this cartoon by Jon Preddle!

I had two pieces of art in this issue: pictures of the first Doctor and the Destroyer from Battlefield. I sent in the latter piece after Paul requested artwork for the Andrew Cartmel interview in TSV 40, but it was held over until this issue, probably because it was similar to Tim Hill's depiction of the Destroyer.

In TSV 44: the other half of Tardis Tales: Yet Another Alien Invasion Story, a look at the aborted anniversary special The Dark Dimension, and there's an article by me about the Master which I should probably update...

Further reading: Paul Scoones on TSV 43, Jamas Enright on TSV 43, David Bishop on Four Writers, One Discussion.
Previously: TSV 42

Onto the first issue for 1995 - TSV 42 would have come out right after I finished university, in fact. Among the major items this time are a guide to the Doctor Who annuals, a script to screen on The Happiness Patrol, and an article on the TARDIS key. There's also a follow-up to TSV 41's Lovecraft article this time examining the Cthulhu references in the new adventure All-Consuming Fire, which makes a nifty counterpoint to an article from TSV 58 which has been online for a while and examines the Sherlock Holmes side of the same book.

I had one item in this issue, a "Dr Hoo" cartoon which no doubt shows off the fact I had no photo-references for the control room from Planet of Fire. Note also that the Doctor is always facing away from us so I didn't have to attempt to draw his face (the Master's a lot easier - just slap a goatee on him) and Tegan doesn't appear at all despite the Doctor mentioning her in frame 1!

And that was the last Dr Hoo strip I did for TSV, though I've done one or two other cartoons - the latest being Dr Who in "The Crap Pun", a collaboration with Jeff Stone which appeared in TSV 73 which you can order in paper form...

Next time, in TSV 43: Andy Lane, Paul Cornell, Steven Moffat and David Bishop; the return of TARDIS Tales, More than 30 Years in the TARDIS, and lots of other cool stuff. :)

Previously: Doctor Who and the Pirate Planet

I've been somewhat lax recently in getting stuff done, and this entry is one of those things. As you probably don't remember me mentioning back in July, there were five¹ Doctor Who stories (from the original series) which were never novelised by Target. All five of these were novelised by the NZDWFC but went out of print last year. In July we put the first of these, Shada, online.

The second book to be put online is The Pirate Planet, the second story of the Key to Time arc season, originally written by Douglas "Hitchhiker's Guide" Adams, and rewritten into book form by David Bishop, author of Who Killed Kennedy, amongst other things.

In the Pirate Planet, the search of the six segments of the Key to Time² brings the Doctor, Romana and K9 to the planet Zanak, which confuses them because they were aiming for an entirely different planet. Equally puzzling is the fact that the ground is littered with precious gems such as diamonds, emeralds, and oolions. The story is peppered with Adamsian humour ("You'll never get it open, it's impossible." "Ha! Impossible? That means it will take 73 seconds.") and touches by David Bishop such as the Pirate Captain's violent premonitions.

There are a few special features such as a guide to the material which is from the original scripts and didn't appear in the televised story (Deleted Scenes) and the original Author's notes from the paper version. The book's also available in PDF format, if that's your thing.

For further reading, check out Paul's entry on the book.

Now I have some time off work, I should be able to catch up a bit on my todo list. :)

¹ Shada's canonicity is arguable since the TV story was never completed and screened, but I give it the benefit of the doubt.
² Which looks like a cuboid puzzle made of crystal and has the power to reshape the entire universe.

Previously: TSV 41

TSV issue 41 is now online, completing the 1994 set.

Of particular note this issue is Why the Nimon Should be our Friends, a piece defending The Horns of Nimon, which was reprinted in the book License Denied, published by Virgin. There are loads of other articles as well, including Cthulhu in the New Adventures, K9, and a Script-To-Screen for Vengeance on Varos, plus more New/Missing Adventures reviews, artwork, etc.. The review of First Frontier marks roughly the halfway point of the New Adventures up to The Dying Days.

I feel compelled to explain a bit about this piece of artwork. I had the vague idea of redesigning the Robot (from the story of the same name). I'm not sure why, exactly, I opted to add fins to the design, or the fact that it otherwise it looks almost exactly the same as the original design, but there it is.

Next Paul's sent me more material for the Another Time and Space eBook.

Previously: TSV 40

Over the weekend I got TSV issue 40 online. The major item this issue is an interview with Andrew Cartmel, script editor for the Sylvester McCoy era. The first ever interview with him about his time on the show, in fact, and it was later reprinted in Doctor Who Magazine. It's also notable for the sheer amount of artwork, much of it from Tim Hill, including many items related to the stories made during Cartmel's years on Doctor Who.

There's lots of other stuff, of course, like the first Missing Adventures review published in TSV, some neat cartoons including the return of Tardis Tales with a New Adventures themed strip, a Script to Screen on Ghost Light, covering material cut from the story before transmission, and lots of other goodies.

And also I fixed the back end for my music page, so I'll be able to start adding CDs to it again. I haven't added anything to it since APRIL, so I've got a bit of a backlog...

Issue 39 of TSV is now online. This issue was published in 1994. The cover, as you can see right, featured the current New Adventures TARDIS crew of Ace, the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield. It'd be cool if Benny could turn up in the new series someday...

There's a bunch of post-TV series articles in there, with an article by Kate Orman on her book The Left-Handed Hummingbird, an introduction to the Missing Adventures (updated to note which books were put in which gaps), a speculative article on how the show might have gone had it not been cancelled, and more reviews of the then-current New Adventure series. The first Missing Adventures review pops up in issue 40.

There's an exploration of the violence in Vengeance on Varos, a history of the planet Mars (no less!) and one of the contributions I made back then which I don't cringe at now: an article on how the various references to Atlantis fit together.

I also managed to stump Jon Preddle with a question in Doctor's Dilemma, which I'm quite proud of. :)

A huge swath of material from TSV 38 is now up on the site.

Included are interviews with director Michael Hayes and New Adventures author Gareth Roberts. There's also the fourth and final instalment of Paul Scoones' series on the Novelisations, covering this time the second Doctor. The Novelisations series never covered Doctors four, five or six, because five stories were never officially novelised (the NZDWFC versions are gradually going up on the site too!).

In amongst the comic strips (including the return of Tardis Tales after a one-issue absence), is Lesser-Known Who-Gear, the first of many pieces by Peter Adamson which the zine published. Another first is the first Script to Screen covering Dragonfire, which has the alternate ending in which Mel stays on as companion. :)

Now days you can buy remote-controlled Daleks, but back then Stephen Prichard built his own using a Sevans Dalek kit and wrote an article on it. I wonder if he ever did make the accompanying Davros he mentioned...

Right! What's next? :)

Edit: As usual, Paul's put up a far more elegant write-up!

There are two reasons I've been quiet recently: I've been catching up on DVDs madly, and I've also been getting the "Doctor Who and Shada" novelisation ready to go online. Shada was never completed by the BBC*, nor was it published in book form by Target**, which lead Paul Scoones to write it in 1989. Although it's been reprinted a few times, now it's online as an ebook. Hopefully this should make the many people who've asked about it very happy. :)

As well as the book's text, there's a number of extras, including extensive author's notes, a comparison of material with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and a behind the scenes article. Also the Making of Shada article in TSV 26 has been revisited and rewritten. Kudos to Paul for assembling an amazingly detailed amount of information for this story!

* Although Big Finish recorded it as an audio play with the eighth Doctor recently.
** Target novelised most of the original Doctor Who series, bar the five stories which the NZDWFC subsequently novelised.

When TSV 37 first popped through my mail box back in 1994, it gave me a huge surprise to find that a picture I'd drawn of a Dalek had ended up on the front cover (I'd drawn it to accompany a story I'd written for the issue called The Last Words). I was also proud of my picture of the secondary TARDIS console which is to date the only piece of artwork I'd done for TSV that I was completely happy with.

In fact, that issue's artwork was generally well praised in the next issue's letters column. I like Chris Girdler's illustration for the New Adventure Shadowmind. Illustrations for the novels (outside of the covers of the books) seem to be rare, which is a shame because I like seeing how other people have visualised the characters and events.

I also got a cartoon published called Good Omens which suggested we should watch out for things like flying pigs and hell freezing over to signal that the BBC was bringing Doctor Who back. Sadly, Russell T. Davies has somewhat taken the wind out of that by actually making new episodes. I intend to write him a letter of complaint.

There's also a couple of piece resulting from Jon Preddle's trip to the UK: an interview with Gary Russell and some behind the scenes for the 30 Years in the TARDIS documentary (he stumbled on the filming!).

There's lots of other cool stuff too, like another installment of Beyond the Book covering three of the New Adventures, and Graham Howard on Witch Mark, so go read! :)

Tonight I got Time/Space Visualiser issue 36 online. A celebration of the show's thirtieth anniversary, the issue included a story guide and a history of Doctor Who related events covering the time the show had been off the air. In an article somewhat topical to now (with the release of "The Beginning" as a box set) titled An Unearthly Pilot Episode, Jon Preddle examined the differences between An Unearthly Child and the version as originally filmed.

On the book front, there are more reviews for the New Adventures from Deceit through to The Left-Handed Hummingbird, and a major article on the creation of Timeframe written by David Howe.

As Paul points out, TSV 36 is the halfway mark in archiving issues online, at least until issue 73 comes out later this month!

I've basically got the whole of the NZDWFC site converted to XHTML! The only thing left is the Editor's Log which is still using the default Wordpress template - I still need to find out how templates work in Wordpress...

So last night I got TSV 35 online - you may note the new format for the index page (you can view either a segregated mode or a straight print listing). Please let me know if you have any problems with it.

As usual, there's some pretty cool stuff: a feature on the Titan Script Books, a piece by Kate Orman on the writing of The Left-Handed Hummingbird, the welcome return of Tardis Tales after a couple of issues absence, and the launch of a new regular column titled Beyond the Book, which delved into the background of some of the New Adventures. In TSV 35, Beyond the Book examines Lucifer Rising and White Darkness.

There's also yet another opinion piece suggesting Doctor Who should rest in peace as a series. He he he :)

So, now I have issue 35 online, I can look at going back and turning the earlier issues into XML and cleaning them up some so they all look spiffy! That should keep me out of mischief. :)

As you may have guessed from the title, another issue of TSV has gone up on the NZDWFC site. TSV 34 came out in mid 1993 - the "It's Back!" on the front cover referred to the ill-fated production The Dark Dimension which never really got off the ground.

One of the features of this issue was the publishing of the results of a short story contest won by Nicholas Withers with a Quatermass crossover. Then's also a feature on the amazing Kandyman costume which won the Judges Choice award at DefCon 1993, and another speculation on the future of Doctor Who.

Also, as you can tell from the artwork page Tim Hill produced a large amount of the artwork for this issue, but that quantity is dwarfed by the couple of dozen pieces he had in TSV 40!

Next up I will be upgrading the NZDWFC site to XHTML and updating the style. :)

The latest issue to hit the TSV archive is The TARDIS Tales Collection, a special issue which included every installment of Graham Muir's comic strip up to The Final Chapter in TSV 32, and added the epic 10-page Sauceron. As well, Graham provides commentary on the strips, and some of his pre-TARDIS-Tales comics are printed, such as this excellently funny one-page summation of the first episode of Death to the Daleks.

Of course, The Final Chapter wasn't the last TARDIS Tales, so there are more comic strips to come in future issues, though the next one isn't until TSV 35...

On a related note, Paul relates how the NZDWFC site was recently visited by award-winning NZ author Keri Hulme!

Issue 33 includes: the influence of the Bible, Norse mythology, and Quatermass on Doctor Who, Kate Orman's opinion piece on the New Adventures, an examination of Terrance Dicks' writing style, the last installment of the Novelisations covering the seventh Doctor's books, a list of actors who've been in both Doctor Who and The Prisoner, and The Box, which describes how dimensional transcendentalism works.

Though this was dubbed the "Alden Bates issue" in the next issue's letters column because of the amount of stuff I had in it, (only 7 items, really...) I much prefer the articles other people had printed. Particularly the items I've mentioned above. My excuse is that the stuff I wrote in this issue was done during my foolish teenage years, though since this issue was published in April 1993, I'm not going to be able to use that excuse for much longer. :)

The back cover also has one of my favourite pieces of artwork of the Master. Is that not great?