Tag: polly wright

Fanfiction Master Post

I know I’d mentioned before that I write fanfiction, but I thought I’d include a master list of it in case anyone was interested in reading it.

One-shots:

Something I Said : Zoe unintentionally offends Jamie and tries to make amends. (2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe)

Up to Snow Good : The TARDIS lands in a snowy wonderland. A snowball fight ensues and Jamie learns another thing or two about dressing for the weather. (2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe)

Home for Christmas : It’s Zoe’s first Christmas on the TARDIS and she’s not all that happy about it. The Doctor and Jamie try to make her feel more “at home.” (2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe)

Starting Over : Not long after she’s first come aboard the TARDIS, Zoe has become frustrated by Jamie’s treatment of her. After a confrontation that turns a bit more emotional than either of them expected, they manage to find common ground. Takes place between The Wheel in Space and The Dominators. (2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe)

Father’s Day : On Father’s Day, the Doctor thinks about the meaning of the holiday, remembering times spent with his former companions and cherishing those with his current ones. Takes place sometime before The War Games. (2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe)

Easier With Time : Shortly after her father’s death, Victoria prepares for another bad, sleepless night on the TARDIS. Things end up not as badly as she was expecting. Takes place between The Evil of the Daleks and The Tomb of the Cybermen. (2nd Doctor, Jamie and Victoria)

Multi-Chapter:

You Can’t Go Home Again (Or Can You?) : After losing Clara, the Doctor is crushed and the TARDIS wants to help. He is reunited with some old friends, but as the saying goes, “You can’t go home again.” … Right? Prequel to the Time With A Twist of Tartan series. (12th Doctor, Jamie and Zoe)

Series:

Time With A Twist of Tartan : Jamie had been inadvertently dropped off in late twentieth-century London by the 12th Doctor. This series follows his adventures with some familiar faces as well as some new ones. Directly follows “You Can’t Go Home Again (Or Can You?)” (Jamie, Ben, Polly, Victoria, Zoe, 3rd Doctor, UNIT, 4th Doctor, Sarah Jane, Harry, 5th Doctor, Adric, Tegan, Nyssa, Original Female Characters, Original Male Characters)

  1. Waylaid In London : With the 12th Doctor’s help, Jamie inadvertently ended up in 1970s London instead of reuniting with his family in 1700s Paris. While there, he stumbles upon some familiar faces as well as meets some new ones … And manages to find trouble while he’s at it.
  2. Of Castles and Hairy Beasties : Much to UNIT’s relief, things have been relatively quiet lately. That is, until the Doctor reads about strange goings-on at a castle in Scotland. While touring this castle, Jamie comes face-to-face with an old foe and things get very personal as someone close to him becomes threatened.
  3. Just Like Old Times : A disaster perpetrated by a renegade Time Lord finds the Doctor being forced to work with his past selves to resolve it. This Time Lord has not only placed his very existence in jeopardy, but also Time itself. The Doctors may be a bit in over their heads with this one, but the help of a certain companion surely can’t hurt. Takes place during (and is a slight reworking of) The Three Doctors.
  4. The Lair of Grom : Not only has Jamie had to adjust to the Doctor’s new face, but his honeymoon has been interrupted and he’s left with a discontented bride … who, along with Sarah Jane, has now gone missing. Set not long after The Ark in Space story arc.
  5. Reunion : In the years since the Grom situation, Jamie has settled down with a family of his own and has been working with UNIT on a barely occasional basis. However, he soon finds himself thrown back into the world of the Doctor, thanks to a surprise visit from an old friend who brings a dire warning. Takes place soon after Castrovalva.

Review: The Macra Terror (DVD)

I recently got my copy of The Macra Terror on DVD and sat down to watch it. I decided to write up a little review. Note that I just have the plain old DVD set, not the Blu-Ray one. I don’t think there’s too much of a difference in extras, though.

I’m not going to do a review of the actual story as lots of fans before me have already posted their thoughts. The animation itself was very well done. The likenesses of the Doctor and his companions are quite good and their movements (as well as that of the other people) seem very natural. I know fans have complained that their movements looked quite stiff and unnatural in previous animations, especially in The Power of the Daleks and The Ice Warriors. I’ve noticed that myself and I think they’ve improved it quite a bit in this one.

The intro starts off at the end of The Moonbase, and this is in black and white on both the black-and-white and color versions of the animation (more on that later). Interestingly, they’ve got Polly with her cropped haircut here instead of where it shows up the first time after her “shampoo” early in Episode 1. I assume they did it for simplicity’s sake though, and to save a bit of time. Such was the case for the omission of the scene where the Doctor gets his “makeover” and then gets his old look back, as well as Ben and Jamie getting their “treatments.” Fortunately, we can still see this scene in the original episode reconstructions that are provided as an Extra on the set. I also noticed that Jamie is wearing his light-colored turtleneck shirt which he started with in the beginning of the episode instead of changing into that odd uniform like Ben. Again I assume it was done to save time and for simplicity, and perhaps for emphasis on Ben being brainwashed by the Macra.

As an aside, one thing I hate about the story being missing is that we didn’t get to see Jamie doing his “Highland Fling.” They did recreate this for the animation, though, and part of me wonders how close it is to the original. 😉

As for the extras, there is a good selection of them on this set. First, I like the fact that you can choose to watch in color or the original black and white. The audio commentary is quite good, too, featuring Frazer Hines (Jamie), Terrence Lodge (Medok), Maureen Lane (one of the majorettes in the dance scenes), Anthony Gardner (Alvis) and the director John Davies. Frazer reveals that his and Michael Craze’s uniforms were actually orange and not blueish (as they were here), with tight Bermuda shorts. He also did a quite funny impersonation of Patrick Troughton during a scene or two featuring the Doctor and Polly. Terrence Lodge shared some interesting info on the motivation for his portrayal of Medok, namely that he’d done some pretty high-brow theater earlier on and so made Medok overly dramatic at times.

There are two photo galleries: One with set photos and photos of the guest cast taken during production of the serial; and the other an animation gallery showing character sketches and pictures of various scenes from start to finish. There’s a little film called Animatics, basically showing how the animation came together. The “behind the scenes” film is a little “Follow that Dalek” type silent production made circa 1967 that’s basically a tour of various props from different Doctor Who stories, including the Macra, with some more recent narration. The surviving footage which had been previously included on the “Lost in Time” DVD set is included here as well, featuring cuts that had been made for Australian TV broadcasts from Episodes 2 and 3 (of note, Ben and Polly grappling with the Macra, and Jamie encountering the Macra down in the mines).

Finally, there’s the “mini episode” from The Wheel in Space. It’s basically about 11 minute’s worth of Episode 1 of this story, featuring the Doctor and Jamie. I thought this was very well done, although the animation (especially the look of the characters) is a bit rough and rudimentary compared with that of The Macra Terror. I’m assuming they fine-tuned it a bit for the latter. If something similar were to come of this if they ever decide to animate the missing episodes of The Wheel in Space, I’m all for it.

All in all, it’s a good set. I found it very interesting how they tried to recreate this missing story from just the soundtrack, production photos, short deleted scenes and the telesnaps. I think they did a very good job. Now we’ve got The Faceless Ones and Fury from the Deep to look forward to. Hopefully the treatment they receive will be just as good as this one.

“The Roundheads” – A Doctor Who novel

I received this classic Doctor Who novel by Mark Gatiss as a gift last Christmas and only got around to finishing it now (I have a real backlog of books … what can I say?).

I haven’t read many Doctor Who novels as it is, and the last ones I had read were both Nu Who stories starring the 9th and 10th Doctors. The Second Doctor and his companions are among my favorites in Classic Who, so I decided to give this a read. This isn’t so much of a long, extensive, detailed review as it is mainly my general thoughts on it.

Basically, the Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie end up in London in December, 1648 during the war between Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads and the Cavaliers who supported the King Stuart. This story is set in between The Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones. I have to say I was impressed. Gatiss does very well with the characterizations of the 2nd Doctor and his companions. Their interactions with one another and the other characters are much what I’d expect. There is a scene I enjoy very much where the Doctor and Jamie are held prisoner in the Tower of London. A watchman and jailer are interrogating them and the Doctor, thinking quickly, decides to tell them that Jamie is a seer who can tell how their situation is going to end up. He refers to him as “The McCrimmon” of Culloden and begs the “great McCrimmon” to tell them how this war will end up for them. Jamie goes along with it, appearing as if he’s in a trance and moaning, wiggling his fingers, the whole act. Their captors fall for it and the Doctor exclaims “The McCrimmon knows all!” I enjoyed their interaction which is right on par during this point in Jamie’s travels with the Doctor.

Ben and Polly of course end up getting separated from them. Polly befriends a young woman whose father is heavily caught up in this business. She then befriends a young Cavalier named Whyte, is recruited to help him and is crushed when she has to betray him in the end. Ben himself ends up at sea on the ship of a Polish captain headed for Amsterdam. He meets an interesting character named Sal Winter, an assertive female captain with a false nose who’s out for revenge against the Polish captain.

There’s a running thread of the Doctor not wishing to change history as you’d expect, and he tries to stick to that as much as possible, even when it appears they might not get much of a chance to pull it off. Even though he and his team are off in their own separate threads, they all come together in the end to set things right. I enjoyed reading this book. It really held my interest and as I mentioned, the characterizations were very good. I know this book isn’t new by any means (it was published in the early 2000s), but if you haven’t read it yet I’d quite recommend it.