Adam Graham

A New Take on a Masterful Episode

Revisado: 01-01-22

The Novelization of the Series 1 stories Dalek is one of those books that really shouldn't work. Writer Rob Shearman breaks a lot of Novel writing rules with his constant digressions from the main story as we're given multiple flashback scenes.

However, these vignettes actually are intriguing and keep the story going. His story of what a Dalek's infant's life is like is brutal, but never ceases to be engaging. The core story is the same as on TV but there are also a few changes as Van Staten becomes more key to the storyline.

Nicholas Briggs does yeoman's work with the reading, capturing all the raw emotion and numerous voices and all the emotional turmoil.

The one thing to wonder is how this book would land with those who hadn't seen the TV episode. The original Target novels served to introduce younger readers who hadn't seen the TV show to Doctor Who. It's hard to imagine this doing the same job.

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A Good Start

Revisado: 08-23-19

Jeremiah Bourne is a teenage boy who discovers that he has the ability to time travel without a time machine or any other sort of devic. He realizes this when he finds himself in 1910 Victorian England with no idea how he was able to get there and no idea how to get back.

To be honest, Jeremiah is a character that took me a while to warm to. He starts the story as a bit whiny, and thrown to sounding like he's throwing a hissy fit. He often seems to lack good sense. However, the character does develop through the story and we do see his strength in terms of memory and his ability to eventually work his way out of the problem.

The Victorian characters are probably more fun, particularly the elderly Lady Phyllis Stokes who becomes Jeremiah's first friend and her friend the nudist magistrate Sir Roger whose "forward thinking ways" actually seem to create trouble for his staff. The two are so lovable that they carry the story at the beginning and really are a delight throughout.

The plot itself was pretty good as its focus is rightly on Jeremiah's learning to understand his abilities and coming of age a bit. The Victorian plot (such as it is) serves this worked nicely. The series keeps several of Jeremiah's secrets close to the vest and reserved them for later series. So we don't get definitive answers to the series' biggest question. If the series isn't continued, we may never find out wy exactly Jeremiah how these powers and how specifically they work.

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Farewell, Steven Taylor

Revisado: 01-02-16

The final screen appearance for Steven Taylor and it's a surprising solid story. At the beginning, I thought we would get something akin to the, Caveman scenes of 100,000 BC Instead, the story takes a turn as we learn the nearby society has built it's prosperity on stealing the life force from "Savages," another race they argue are inferior.

There's a wonderful core story here and it's helped by a great final performance from Peter Purves as Steven is given a great chance to show his heroism one last time. The Doctor has a great speech to the council. The story is not without faults, hurt by a bit of padding in the early episodes and a contrived change that's key to the outcome of the story. Still, this is fitting send off for Steven.

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The Weeping

Revisado: 04-20-14

This was just an okay Doctor Who Story set on a frozen planet with strange Creatures. Mostly typical but okay. Freema Agyeman does a competent job as the material gave no opportunity to do otherwise and the writer does a good bit picking up the Doctor-Martha interactions.

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Father Brown on the Radio

Revisado: 03-29-11

These four radio dramas recapture the joy of the Father Brown mysteries. The Blue Cross, of course remains a favorite, and one of the most memorable detective stories of all time where the original readers had no idea who the detective was until the end of the tale. I will say that the end got a little messed up and elongated to accomodate linking it directly to, "The Secret Garden." But such was the necessity of a regular broadcast.

That "The Secret Garden" and "The Queer Feet" were perfect pitched of the original stories and connected together well. They managed to capture the social commentary of the original very well in "The Queer Feet."

"The Arrow of Heaven" while not tying into the other three stories was still well-told and actually gently corrects an error by Chesterton. Chesteron in writing, "The Arrow of Heaven" described Father Brown as never having been to America, seeming to forget a decade before Chesterton wrote a short story describing Father Brown's time as a Prison Chaplain in Chicago. Authors perhaps weren't as fussy about continuity back there. In this play, the the Colonial Theater has Father Brown, rather than saying he'd never been in America, mention the time as a prison chaplain. Altogether, works well in an entertaining preformance.

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