Wednesday 13 June 2012

They say "never apologise, never explain"...

... I'm sorry, but what's their reasoning?

Just popping up very briefly to say I've enjoyed reading responses to my Doctor Who story The Revenants online but there's been a suggestion a couple of times that it contradicts the following TV story The Rescue by adding too much time between The Doctor's farewell to Susan and that story, and, you know what, that's probably the one criticism I'd disagree with.
You see, if you go into the expanded fiction, there are already a full novel and at least four short stories in that gap and even if you don't bother with the books, there's already been some kind of gap. The Doctor has changed cravat. That's how mind-bogglingly long the break is.

The dialogue in The Rescue taken to put this story close to its TV predecessor has the Doctor briefly expecting Susan to with them in the TARDIS and then Ian and Barbara discussing that moment later on.
Ian says "all the old associations are still in the Ship" and they can't expect the Doctor to "say goodbye to Susan and forget her the next minute".
That's the nearest we come to a problem- how you choose to interpret that idiomatic expression. Yes, I imply a lot longer than minutes have passed in my story but I hope I've also hinted that the length of time the Doctor will remain emotionally involved with his travellers is surprisingly long and that Ian and Barbara have come to realise that.

I've actually tried quite hard to tie into the beginning of The Rescue. My story ends with the Doctor back in the TARDIS after some time from it, back with "the old associations" for the first time in years and deliberately prefigures the shared humorous glance between Ian and Barbara after the Doctor warns them not to open the TARDIS doors while in flight in their opening scene. I've even suggested an origin for that oh-so-mysterious new cravat!
I absolutely agree that David Whitaker envisaged no gap for new adventures between these TV stories when he wrote The Rescue, but I do think there's a gap there to exploit (enough of us already have), and I hope you'll forgive me making Ian's remark a little woolly retrospectively to slide another story into it.

Anyway, in the end it's all interpretation and it's all pretend. Thank you to all of you who've taken the time to listen to the story and comment on it, I've found everyone's views interesting. I hope those of you who disagree with my reasoning here can at least understand it.

2 comments:

Tony said...

Thanks for that explanation of the one point that bothered me (see my review here. Not completely convinced though, but that's my problem!

I thought this was an excellent story, Sharon Small was wonderful as well as William Russell and congratulations to ou

elvwood said...

Hi, thanks for the story - and thanks for this post! I shall look forward to your follow-up. Meanwhile, you might like to read my three-part review, beginning here.

John