Harvest of Time and Gardeners' Worlds

Earth is under attack again. The skies are opening up and dropping water from other worlds into the oceans, and in other places the seas are being swallowed in great swaths - all of this heralds the arrival of an army of glass crabs called the Sild. Their mission is to locate the Master. Under lock and key at a high security prison, the Master couldn't be safer, but he is becoming unpicked in time, and everyone is forgetting who he is save the Doctor and Jo. And at the centre of the whole affair is a massive spaceship called The Consolidator, presumed destroyed in the far future and all its contents gone with it - contents that the Doctor and the Master know of and both realize could be of deadly consequence to them and time itself.

This is what happens when a science fiction writer gets his hands on Doctor Who: you get something brilliant. It's a bit of a style evolution here for what would be called a "past Doctor adventure" or PDA had the BBC Books novels continued on their course; when the BBC took the novels back from Virgin Publishing the general view was that quality suffered given that the tone of the novels was a bit childish and simple with the odd breakthrough novel like The Indestructible Man or Combat Rock. When the line sort of returned with The Wheel of Ice there was a newer harder science fiction edge to the books, and here Harvest of Time is no exception. It's set during the UNIT era with the Master still in prison after being captured at the end of The Daemons so the continuity of that plot detail is maintained, as is the Doctor's exile to Earth and the current UNIT team roster. And while the narrative detail of the story is far more complicated and rich than a Terrance Dicks Target novelization there is never really a sense of a disconnect from the stories around it; the characters are all spot on and believable and can be recognized for who they are.

Things are kept interesting by splitting the story a few different ways; the usual formula of the Doctor and companion - this time Jo Grant - being separated is eventually employed but a lot of the action takes place on an oil rig in the North Sea with the beleaguered Edwina McCrimmon (no relation to Jamie) trying to make sense of the breakdowns across the rigs her family business runs and eventually fighting for her life against the invading Slid. Edwina's - Eddie like on Ab Fab - development is not just for the sake of some dead end or semi-companion character; this all does go somewhere eventually and it's all pretty clever, although a bit obvious eventually.

I read the paperback of the story when it first came out some years ago but this time decided I could get through it a bit quicker if someone read it to me while I did the dishes and petted my cat so I grabbed the audio version read by Geoffrey Beevers. Beevers played the Master on screen once in 1980 and has since become the regular voice of the Master for Big Finish audios, and he does a rock solid job evoking Jon Pertwee's third Doctor on audio but I felt like sometimes he was projecting a bit of his own Master onto the Delgado version which is featured here. Roger Delgado's Master was the model for them all to follow - dignified, self assured and thoroughly malevolent; Anthony Ainley would keep that alive in his time and then when the character returned to screens in the new series he was more manic and zany, and then was eventually a shallow mad and zany female character. The future versions of the Master actually get some page time here, including a mention of a female version years ahead of it actually happening on screen.  

Its a shame that we can't get more novels like this especially in the classic eras; it's one thing to latch onto the current on screen version and be all topical for a few minutes but it's something quite different to return to the classic eras and see things a bit differently and add to the older narratives. Big Finish manage this quite well on audio but there's nothing quite like a long story told well either on page on on audio.

Speaking of...

GARDENERS' WORLDS

A news story about strange goings on in a small village attracts the attention of the Doctor, Jo and Captain Yates. At first the Doctor is not interested - small beans for him - until they go and see and find the village gradually being overrun by strange plants. Alien plants. Contact with them has a profound effect on whoever gets close. But this isn't just a case of weeds to be pulled - these are far more dangerous and could cause the end of the world if left to their own devices.

First thing I want to say is how drab Big Finish makes the covers for these Short Trips. Well, made them for a while, I've seen some newer ones out there and they have put a bit more effort into them, but there are only so many portrait style pictures you can use before the covers start to look dull.

The contents are rarely dull, though, and Gardeners' World moves along at a good pace telling a slightly creepy tale of invading plants from outer space. Of course alien plants are a fun scifi go-to ever since Day of the Triffids and Doctor Who goes there a few times but this one is not as vast and sprawling of an epic of invasion as would have been fun. Gardeners' Worlds is just like short trips - small, over in a relatively short time (it would actually be the length of a TV episode) and is just fun. This was my first time hearing Tim Trealor as the Third Doctor and I was well impressed to hear him, I'm looking forward to some full on adventures with him as the Doctor paired with Katy Manning as Jo Grant.

But now back to the TV. And some old enemies making a long overdue return.

NEXT EPISODE: DAY OF THE DALEKS