"Who Discovered America?" by John Lucarotti

Doctor Who Magazine #184
"Who Discovered America?"
Written by John Lucarotti
Illustrated by Paul Vyse
Published: 20th February 1992

What's It All About

John Lucarotti returns to Doctor Who with "Who Discovered America?", originally published in February 1992 inside Doctor Who Magazine. Although I'm unsure if this is a completely new tale written by the writer at the time or, like "Rennigan's Record", written during the Sixties but not released until the Nineties.

Regardless, this is the second Lucarotti story we've seen in this marathon. When the writer has been responsible for Marco Polo, The Aztecs and The Massacre it's not much of a surprise to learn that this is going to be a historical story. Although I was surprised upon reading up about him, that Lucarotti actually wrote the first draft of The Ark in Space!

On with the story and the TARDIS has broken down once again, much to the annoyance of the Doctor and his companions. Instead of a "malfunctioning" fluid link or a blown circuit, we have a plutonium leak. Fortunately, the TARDIS has just happened to land in Greenland during the 11th century, just as the Viking Leif Ericson (aka Eric the Red) is about to depart into the unknown and discover Newfoundland, which just happens to be the one place that the Doctor can find a new source of plutonium from.

Bounding out of the TARDIS, the Doctor manages to browbeat Ericson into taking his long boat out past the "end of the world", but taking aboard the four travellers for the week long journey. Once they arrive in Newfoundland, the Doctor is easily able to obtain some plutonium but is caught in a bit of a bind when Ericson insists the travellers remain behind to stake the Viking claim. Using his knowledge of tides, however, he is able to convince Ericson and the Vikings that he can part the seas and prevent them from leaving. Naturally, the terrified warriors agree to take the travellers back to Greenland and the TARDIS.

The Doctor and his companions face another adventure...

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A four-page story by John Lucarotti is a real treat for me. He wrote some of my favourite Doctor Who stories, so having him back for one more is fantastic. As can be expected in such a short story, the story and plot might be a little thin, but the characters feel as well-rounded and real as those he created for Marco Polo. Eric the Red is portrayed as a bit of a coward (indeed a Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz as Susan sees it), who is easily cowed and swayed by the Doctor into undertaking the endeavour in the first place!

Indeed, the Doctor is at his very best in this story. Initially blustering and insulting to Ian when the TARDIS breaks down, but suddenly turning on the charm when confronting Ericson, where the Time Lord is happy to procrastinate until the Viking's arms grow tired from holding a sword above his head. At that moment he has Ericson on the back foot at least until they reach Newfoundland when the Viking grows in confidence. Even then, the Doctor is able to outwit the warrior and manage to achieve the outcome he desires.

Even the companions get a few moments, with Ian's toying with the Doctor a little as well as his knowledge of Newfoundland coming into play. In a call back to Marco Polo, it is Barbara who first becomes suspicious of Ericson's intentions once they reach Newfoundland. Susan isn't as well served, although she does make the comparison to Ericson and the Cowardly Lion as well as initiating a good old sing song during the long boat's trip to the Americas.

In summary then, a cracker of a story that manages to pay homage to the historicals in the era that this story is set. Perhaps not so surprising when Lucarotti was the man the wrote most of them. A rare treat.

6/10

Gallifrey to Trenzalore #19: Brief Encounter: Playtime by Vanessa Bishop

Doctor Who Holiday Special 1992
"Brief Encounter: Playtime"
Written by Vanessa Bishop
Illustrated by Brian Hudd
Published: August 1992
Read: 23rd February 2016

"Playtime"

Alas, we reach the end of our two-week journey into the pre-An Unearthly Child era. It has been quite the adventure and I'm glad I got my hands on the complete Short Trips collection before I progressed too far into the marathon. We've had some brilliant adventures, with my favourites being "Indian Summer", "The Price of Conviction" and Hunters of Earth.

That's not to say that we won't someday return to this era. After all, Big Finish are releasing dozens of stories a year and it's only a matter of time before The Companion Chronicles or perhaps even The Early Adventures return to this era.

Before we return to the adventures of the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara we pay one more visit to 76 Totter's Lane on the very evening that this whole adventure began. Only this time, our story involves a young girl named Sarah Jane Smith.

Sarah Jane is on a day trip to London with her Aunt Lavinia when she gives her carer the slip and stumbles into I.M. Foreman's Scrapyard: a perfect playground. Even at the age of twelve, Sarah Jane has decided she wants to be a journalist and decides to practise her interviewing technique on the creepy shop window dummy propped up in a corner.

Quickly realising that there will be hell to pay when her aunt captures up with her, she makes a dash for it, but not without noticing the rather large police box. As she makes it back to her Aunt Lavinia, Sarah notices a car pull up and another girl entering the Scrapyard and mutters to herself: "Oh, that's not fair. Why is she allowed the adventure?"

One wonders what will become of this Sarah Jane Smith and whether she'll get to have an adventure of her own.

Next Story

The Daleks

Gallifrey to Trenzalore #16: Brief Encounter: Echoes of Future Past by John Summerfield

Doctor Who Magazine #181
"Brief Encounter: Echoes of Future Past"
Written by John Summerfield
Illustrated by Paul Vyse
Published: 28th November 1991
Read: 25th February 2016

"Echoes of Future Past" once again sees us taking up residence in I.M. Foreman's Scrapyard at 76 Totter's Lane on a cold and frosty night, and the Doctor is outside the TARDIS waiting for Susan to return home from school. As we wait with the Time Lord, the prose gives us a rare insight into the Doctor's thought processes. His feelings about Susan and how she's adapting to life in the 20th century as well as his worry for his own mortality and how he only has a century left (presumably until his regeneration).

Most interestingly, it is indicated that the Doctor is suffering from some form of amnesia, perhaps brought on by a defence mechanism inside the TARDIS, and has forgotten about his previous life on Gallifrey: all he can recall is his travels with Susan. It seems to me that this is being used to explain the Doctor's sporadic control of the TARDIS throughout the early years of the program, a different take is given to that in Hunters of Earth.

However, the Doctor has his memory jogged a little by the arrival of another man in the scrapyard which he instinctively knows is one of his future regenerations. He has brought with him a large casket which the First Doctor knows is linked to Omega and it triggers the memory that he was a pioneer among his own people at one time. The Future Doctor entrusts the casket to the First Doctor and then proceeds to leave Foreman's Yard.

"Echoes of Future Past" is a very short story, as indeed are many of the Brief Encounters series, yet it is still an interesting story. For the first time in this marathon we get to see the Doctor interact with another version of himself and, unlike many multi-Doctor stories, we see it from the perspective of an earlier Doctor. It must be disconcerting for the First Doctor to study the Seventh and note the sadness in his eyes. A haunting little tale, well told.

7/10

Next Episode

Hunters of Earth

Continuity Corner

• The casket that the Seventh Doctor leaves with the First is obviously the Hand of Omega, and so this story serves as a prequel/sequel to Remembrance of the Daleks. Interestingly, The Beginning suggests that the Hand followed the Doctor and Susan into the TARDIS as they departed Gallifrey, contradicting this story.

Gallifrey to Trenzalore #13: Operation Proteus by Gareth Roberts

Doctor Who Magazine #231-233
Operation Proteus
Written by Gareth Roberts
Art by Martin Geraghty
Published: 28th September 1995
Read: 18th February 2016

Part One

One of the great ironies throughout the whole history of Doctor Who is that while it is a program about an alien who can travel across the entirety of time and space, he has longed to live a normal life, settled in one place and one time. Indeed, the Tenth Doctor said as much to Rose in "Doomsday" and similar thoughts have been shared before and after.

However, it's easy to forget that the Doctor did live on Earth for an extended period during the early 1960s. Considering we quickly left the period by the end of the very first episode, perhaps it is easy to see why this was forgotten. Indeed, few stories in the expanded universe have explored this era of the Doctor's life in depth: the Telos novella Time and Relative, the Hunters of Earth audio (which will be covered shortly) and Operation Proteus.

Operation Proteus is very quick to plunge us back into the look and feel of what we left behind at the end of "An Unearthly Child". The dark and foggy London of that earlier story is evoked and fully fleshed out to take us to various locales across the city from Soho to King's Cross Station to the murky depths of the bunkers near the London Underground.

Not only is the atmosphere of "An Unearthly Child" evoked in this episode as Susan is brought back to her roots before all the screaming and crying. The "unearthly child" in Susan is once again dug out as we see her wandering the streets of London at night, visiting bars in Soho as "the lives of young people in London are fascinating".

The Doctor isn't quite as abrasive as he was in his earliest appearance, yet the best version of the First Doctor is used. The inquisitive and resourceful Doctor who is keen to solve a mystery and save humanity, yet is still protective of his granddaughter. One thing I did enjoy is that there is a hint that the Doctor has been up to no good in London what with a working knowledge of the Underground as well as his possession of a skeleton key for the entire city which is never explained.

Looking at the main storyline of Operation Proteus and there is certainly enough to keep us guessing for the next two parts. A young man turning into a monster in front of Susan's eyes, a group of students gathering underground, a government minister patched into some kind of alien technology, a scary butler and a creepy alien in the basement who seems to know the Doctor.

Where will it all lead? And what is Operation Proteus?

Part Two

While Part One of Operation Proteus seemed to evoke the atmosphere and spirit of "An Unearthly Child" for me, the second part does an absolute gear shift and turns into an episode of The X-Files. A comparison I wouldn't have made a month ago, but the arrival of the new series in the UK, coupled with watching the First Season on AmazonPrime, I couldn't help but see the resemblance. Considering the story was written in 1995, two years after The X-Files premiered, perhaps it's an accurate comparison.

All of the elements of a typical X-Files episode are there: the government, having "rescued" an alien from a downed spaceship, then put that alien to work in advancing humanity genetically to become superior to "the other side" (presumably the Communist Bloc) and group of students being convinced to become test cases for a measly £500 to pay off their student loans. Of course, the government has failed to mention that they risk mutating into an alien creature, but still, £500!!!

Taking the X-Files analogy to the next level and we have to paint the Doctor and Susan into the roles of David Duchovny's Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Dana Scully. On the surface at least, that analogy works well, the Doctor as Mulder putting himself at the centre of the web of intrigue and facing off with the alien, Raldonn, so he can learn of his dastardly scheme. Meanwhile, it is up to Susan's Scully to wonder around the darkened underground tunnels and prepare to extract Mulder from whatever mess he's bungled himself into.

Examining the motives of the British government, it certainly sends a shiver down the spine. They want to advance humans to the next stage in evolution to become better than "the other side". One cannot help but think of a certain race of beings we encountered a couple of weeks ago in this marathon on the planet Skaro. To think that Earth could have had it's very own Davros is enough to give me nightmares.

However, in a twist which I have yet encountered in any X-Files episode, the alien Raldonn has actually been playing the British government for decades. Instead of genetically manipulating humanity to the next level, he's been working on adapting some humans to mutate into his species so that he can have a co-pilot so he can return to his home planet. Naturally, things haven't gone to plan with the test subjects like the one Susan encountered at the beginning of Part One, so he's decided to mutate a larger percentage of the public starting with the city of London.

Will Raldonn succeed in mutating the population of London? Who was talking to Susan in the London Underground tunnels? Is the truth out there?

Part Three

Throughout its three episodes Operation Proteus has moved from evoking "An Unearthly Child" to The X-Files, and now we're moving on to an homage to Doctor Who itself, most notably the monster invasion of Earth stories from the late Troughton and early Pertwee years. Indeed, it's really not much of a stretch to re-imagine this story as a Pertwee story with really very little tweaks. However, seeing that this issue was released on Doctor Who's 32nd Birthday, perhaps this explains it.

The opening panel of the comic strip is probably the strongest tip of the hat as we see a milkman strolling down those famous steps near St. Paul's Cathedral: an iconic shot from The Invasion which has been called back to on numerous occasions, most notably in Series 8's two-part finale "Dark Water" and "Death in Heaven". Following on from that we're treated to various scenes across London of people slowly mutating and running amok, scenes which evoke memories of the Auton attacks in Spearhead from Space and "Rose" as well as many other episodes. The supernatural being rooted in the mundane has always been Doctor Who's bread and butter, and it's no less effective here.

Below the surface and Raldonn can only despair as his plan to create a co-pilot is going spectacularly wrong. Despite his dastardly and monstrous scheme, I can't help but feel sympathetic toward Raldonn. He's a lonely alien cut off from his own world and is attempting to "grow" a new co-pilot so he can get back. It's unfortunate that we don't get to see Raldonn redeem himself as he is set upon and killed by his own mutated butler.

Naturally, it is the Doctor and Susan that save the day, and humanity, once again. Using all of the advanced equipment that Raldonn had assembled over the years, they are able to create an airborne stabilising device and release it along the Underground tunnels and up into the city above. It's all wrapped up into a neat little package really: Raldonn is defeated, the surviving students walk free, Londoners have little memory of the outbreak and are fed guff about a poisonous fog and the Doctor gets to have a go at a government minister. Still, no time to clean up, as the Doctor says to Susan "today is a school day and you're late."

I usually read comics at such a breakneck speed that I hardly take the time to appreciate the story, dialogue and often beautiful artwork that goes with it. However, reading and analysing Operation Proteus has really given me a greater appreciation for all the work that goes into the medium and I can't wait to visit more comic-based adventures as this marathon moves forward.

Looking at Operation Proteus itself, and for Gareth Roberts first of many appearances in the marathon, I'd say he's done rather well. Creating a story set before An Unearthly Child when the Doctor and Susan are living on Earth is a mammoth task as there is only so many directions that you can go with it, even less than the Pertwee years as they are attempting to keep a low profile. Roberts' route was to have the otherworldly visit Earth and have our heroes working to put a stop too it.

With few pages in which to craft a story it's difficult to take the time to flesh characters and locations out, but the joy with setting a story in London is that half the work is done for you. As I stated earlier, Raldonn is a sympathetic villain, a well-realized character that unfortunately is given short-shrift in the final part as I would have loved to have seen him assist the Doctor in undoing the harm he'd done. Some of the other characters don't come off as well, most notably the students, who I felt nothing for even when some of them starting mutating.

An enjoyable story and I look forward to experiencing more stories by Gareth Roberts.

Next Story

"Losing the Audience"

Continuity Corner

• Raldonn states that he sensed the Doctor and Susan's arrival in London "four months earlier". Interestingly, Raldonn is convinced that it could only be the Doctor arriving with no reference to other time and space travellers.

Gallifrey to Trenzalore #11: Urrozdinee by Mark Gatiss

Doctor Who Yearbook 1995
"Urrozdinee"
Written by Mark Gatiss
Published: September 1994
Read: 17th February 2016

"Urrozdinee"

In "Urrozdinee" and we have Mark Gatiss' first of many stories within the marathon, and he actually succeeds in crafting an interesting and entertaining tale in just four pages of the Doctor Who Yearbook. The TARDIS lands in a bizarre city, it's buildings displaying many different architectural styles and it is dominated by a huge white castle and a monorail system. Naturally, the Doctor and Susan are keen to investigate and brazenly knock on the door of the castle and are held at gunpoint by the Minister of Poverty.

Dragged to a small prison cell, the Doctor and Susan learn that they are in the city of Urrozdinee, somewhere in Europe, in 2134. The Minister comes up with a few threats but ultimately descends into boasting about the fact that he is going to assassinate the ruler of Urrozdinee, the Eminence and assumes his role. Following this, the Doctor and Susan manage to escape and use the monorail to get back to the TARDIS and abruptly leave. As the TARDIS dematerializes, behind it appears the logo of a mouse's head and fireworks erupt into words spelling "when you wish upon a star".

Immediately after the traveller's departure, the Minister of Poverty is preparing for his role of Eminence as the Dutch assassins that were hired are about to strike. Of course, he can't resist entering the Eminence's chambers and try on the ceremonial robes which he would be wearing for good the very next day. Unfortunately, he is soon shot at point blank range by the assassins as the Dutch had been given no picture to identify the Eminence. Just a description of what he'd be wearing that day.

Having just watched Marco Polo, it's impossible not to make comparisons between Tegana and the Minister of Poverty, and they actually have a lot in common. They both border on being a pantomime villain, they both have a penchant for killing underlings, they are both out to kill the king and, ultimately, both make a hash of things. Obviously, Tegana feels like a more rounded villain, but that is because his story played out over seven 25-minute episodes as opposed to a four-page story.

Looking at the Doctor and Susan and there isn't much to be gleaned here than what we've already seen (or heard). They are both curious to explore the strange city and are equally as keen to bugger off back to the TARDIS when things get nasty which is very much in keeping with their early personas. There is a strong hint that 1960s London is going to be their next stop as the Doctor speaks about setting down roots.

A very slight story with a predictable twist, yet I still found it an enjoyable piece. The history of Urrozdinee is quite fascinating, having started off as Euro Disney, the city became home to thousands of refugees and by the early 22nd century it had grown to engulf the city of Paris itself. The throwing around of titles such as the Minister of Poverty and the Minister of Death suits only to add to the mystery, yet very little is explained. Ultimately, it's a four-page story so one can hardly criticize it for being a four or six part television story. Gatiss did a great job, crafting a story that intrigued me and, more importantly, made me laugh.

Next Story

Quinnis

Continuity Corner

• The TARDIS' chameleon circuit is still functioning as the ship takes the form of a shed upon arrival in Urrozdinee.