World Distributors The 1970 Annual

Published

1969

Starring the second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe

• A Review by Finn Clark
• A Review by Ewen Campion-Clarke

A Review by Finn Clark 7/2/04

The weakest Dr Who annual so far. It's not actually bad, unlike the likes of the second Hartnell collection, but I actually preferred that to this. Connoisseurs o' badness would walk barefoot over ten miles of razor blades for the 1967 Dr Who Annual. You ain't seen bad if you ain't seen World Distributors bad. No, this is worse than bad... it's self-plagiarising and, worst of all, dull.

As with the other Troughton-era annuals, it's fairly obvious that the story-writing duties were shared out among different writers. At one point I wondered if World Distributors might at last be getting a grip on the 2nd Doctor and his companions. Jamie talks with more Scots dialect than he did on TV! But then it's all undone in Man Friday, where Jamie cries "Sizzling satellites!" and storms out of the TARDIS because he wants to swim and sunbathe. Continuity elements return from previous annuals, e.g. more Atmospheric Density Jackets, contra-gravity suits and Dr. Who's "music-stick". [Why did they never call it a recorder? Did they think children would get confused?]

As usual there are lots of robots and super-sized animals, not to mention aliens who hate noise (by now a World Distributors cliche). Having stumbled a few books ago upon the narrative technique of starting in media res, preferably with the TARDIS crew hypnotised or at gunpoint, that gets wheeled out too.

But most extraordinary is the self-plagiarism. The Vampire Plants isn't quite a remake of the previous year's Freedom by Fire, but they're both six-page comic strips in which Dr. Who uses fire to defeat some mysteriously flammable man-eating plants. [Last year we met the Kraals, while this year it's a Galea Tentipocus on Venus.] Similarly Grip of Ice is reminiscent of the previous year's World of Ice, except that this time it's Dr. Who destroying killer robots on an iceworld instead of Victoria. Did the writers run out of time or something? Okay, The Vampire Plants is an improvement on Freedom by Fire, but that's not saying much. Couldn't they come up with something new?

In fairness there's still that wacky Dr. Who imagination. This is a universe where aliens could be anything, not necessarily air-breathing, macroscopic or even mortal. There's a startling moment in The Mystery of the Marie Celeste where Dr. Who gets nervous about something as commonplace (in the eyes of us long-term Doctor Who fans) as boarding a flying saucer. As he says, there could be anything inside. It's been too long since we had that kind of fresh perspective. The Singing Crystals and A Thousand And One Doors give us a wild view of a strange counter-intuitive multiverse, while The Dragons of Kekokro and Robot King show us an Earth transformed beyond all recognition.

The Singing Crystals is probably the best story, being genuinely mind-bending. However after that I'm hard-pushed to name one I particularly enjoyed. Most of my entertainment came from silly observations, e.g.

(a) Jamie can fly the TARDIS! (See Run The Gauntlet.)

(b) The Dragons of Kekokro gives us intelligent dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurs with guns!) and cavemen coexisting before the Ice Age, scant months before Doctor Who and the Silurians hit our screens. It fits rather well and fleshes out the TV story's backstory, in a brain-damaged World Distributors kinda way.

(c) The Mystery of the Marie Celeste uses the word 'seamen' rather too often for an innuendo-alerted reader to keep a straight face. ["Then the strange grip over their muscles relaxed. There was a crowd of seamen in this room."] Good British seamen, down these villains!

(d) Why Arcturus? I've noticed two sets of Arcturans in the Dr Who annuals so far and I'm still on the Troughton era.

My files suggest that David Brian drew these comic strips, but if so he must have completely changed his style to something scratchier and more reliant on photoreference. The result is better likenesses; whoever the artist was, they drew a good Zoe! This isn't a bad collection, but it only has one interesting story along with a bunch of also-rans. [No utter bug-eyed crap, though.] It's okay, I suppose, but this is probably the least entertaining pre-Tom Baker Dr Who annual. Mainly a 'curiosity value' collection, sadly.

A Review by Ewen Campion-Clarke 29/4/04

The earliest non-factual non-novelization book about Doctor Who was the 1970 Doctor Who annual. It is a book I treasure to this day, as it summons up a wealth of nostalgia mainly about my own life and brooding Sunday afternoons when I actually got a chance to read it. The cover - a COLOUR shot of the Second Doctor brooding over a book with a sleepy "What you lookin' at, Jamie? I'm fine to drive. Hic" expression on his face - stood out. Indeed, his bleary stature suggested the book he's reading is, in fact, this annual. Even then, I did not consider the stories within 'canonical' (or whatever term I used at the time). Although I only got my brain round a few of the text stories and the comic strips, it was quite clear this was done by someone who didn't watch the series much - the Doctor (or doctor, or Dr. Who) travels in a Tardis on some kind of science expedition with companions who are clearly only with him for the skiing opportunities. Nowadays, I look at it and can enjoy some of the whacked out ideas in the annual, which is thick with scientific facts, odd illustrations and odd games featuring giant spiders, mad computers and the sinister suspicion the people behind this can't tell the difference between Zoe and Victoria.

The only sign of reality in the contents and title pages, where the artist seems to catch a glimpse of television - we see the Dominator's mining machine and a claw-handed white robot firing blasts from its eyes as the Doctor (who, as he often does in the annual) wears his stovepipe hat. Due to the size of this ridiculous garment, it really creates tension - how can the Doctor escape to the TARDIS when that hat won't fit through the doors? And it only now strikes me that the white robots look a bit like Cybermen.

The first story is The Dragons of Kekokro - immediately, hopes drop. Jamie, the ignorant Scot from 1745, knows all about dinosaurs. Zoe, the brilliant mastermind, needs the Doctor to explain what the big scaly things are. And the Doctor is delighted to see the past of "their" planet, as he is "human" and wants to tell everyone about it when he "gets back". Sheesh. However, the story isn't that bad and clearly resonates with the next series of Doctor Who. Here, we see that prehistoric Earth was the site of a massive war between primitive apemen and annoyed dinosaur/reptiles, whose battle shall be cut short as the Jurassic Period ends. However, this idea is quickly sidelined as the time travelers are mistaken for spies by the fanged apes and have to try and prove their innocence before giving up and running like hell. There is also a total lack of miracle translation: "Dr. Who" is amazed he can't understand ape noises and has to mimic them.

Things improve in The Singing Crystals. It opens part way through the story, showing the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe stuck in a planet covered in fast-growing stalactites and stalagmites that are clearly intelligent. The tension mounts as they discover they are not alone on this planet, but it seems they're stuck there - crystals are growing inside the TARDIS as well... Apart from featuring the only appearance of the TARDIS console in the artwork, it evokes the weirdness of The Web Planet, the usefulness of a good scream from Fury of the Deep, and has a wonderful moment when the Doctor is trapped alone in the TARDIS and considers just taking off an abandoning his companions - just like The Mind Robber. The enemies of the piece are extremely sinister, as is the fact they aren't defeated. Our heroes just manage to escape with their lives.

The Mystery of the Marie Celeste has had more Doctor Who-related solutions than the lost city of Atlantis and frankly, this story could have worked a lot better with another ship (the Flying Dutchman?). When I was young, I tried to novelize this story just from the illustrations. I'd hate be vulgar and compare it to the actual story, but I think they're on the same standard. The Doctor finds that Arcturan aliens (who, like the ones in ,a href=amba.htm>The Ambassadors of Death, cannot live in human-friendly conditions) have kidnapped the crew. Jamie kills the aliens. Our heroes leave, letting the crew meet an untimely end. The crew we meet are clearly not the same characters we saw in The Chase, and are grizzled, near-pirates who believe in sea serpents which the Doctor regularly explains don't exist. When the aliens' ship is attacked by one (which looks just like the Skarasan from Terror of the Zygons), the Doctor admits he was wrong, but no one is very upset that the crew are scared out of their wits, choked with ammonia and then crushed to death.

The first comic strip story, The Vampire Plants... doesn't leave much of an impression. The Doctor and Jamie arrive on Venus to see the Dr. Vane's Botanical Gardens to solve the disappearance on an Galean plant, the not-at-all-ominously-named galea tentipocus. The plant has simply crawled off into the wilderness and is growing into a large tree. So the Doctor and Jamie set fire to it. The end. Honest. Zoe, despite being very interested in the situation, is told to stay guard beside the TARDIS. Dr. Vane's assistant Regan (another character to appear in Season 7) is dressed as a gameskeeper and, despite working in a botanical garden and looking for a plant-napper, doesn't recognize the plant when he finds it and even taken aback at its presence. A bit of tension forms when the plant attacks him and throws him over a cliff - but his cry attracts help in seconds and he only sprains his ankle. Apart from eating the local cactii, the tentipocus isn't the most evil or nasty villain - there is only one of it and it doesn't actually drink blood - the Doctor ever encounters and simply reinforces the fact introduced species shouldn't be introduced.

The next story, Grip of Ice is about, oddly enough, an icy planet and is set after a missing story The Escape From The Ravaging Robots On The Nightmare Planet Of Korad. The Doctor is busy fixing the TARDIS console (a practice unheard of before the Pertwee era) while Jamie and Zoe put on Atmospheric Density Jackets (or silver jumpsuits) and explore, only to be swallowed up like a snowstorm. There is a more Doctor Whoish feel to this story - the planet's not out to get people, it's being controlled by the three-armed, cone-headed alien Cosmos. The Doctor is more like his TV counterpart - brave, determined, compassionate. From spending the first few pages mucking about under the console to his outrage at Cosmos' crimes, this is the man we watch the show for - not the spaced-out, scaredy-cat explorer-then-run-away-er of the other annual stories.

Man Friday is without doubt, the worst story in terms of characterization and plot, made all the more tragic by having a good idea at its core. A sequel to another missing story, set in Galaxy G (which is the annuals' version of Metebelis 3), it is set on an island known as "The Island of [nasty thing]", harking to The Dominators in both setting and the use of two sets of aliens on a planet, one with formidable robot servants. The story shows the Doctor determined to stop the evil Devils by enlisting the aid of the depressed, seal-like Creels. Instead of a bloody battle, the narrative stops abruptly when it appears the Devils just want to be friends. The Doctor's total suspicion of the cave-monster Devils and their giant, one-legged robot called Blikk (who we only ever see from the waist down, oddly enough) may prefigure the revelation in ,a href=cursp.htm>The Curse of Peladon about the Ice Warriors, but it's done a hell of a lot better there. The fact that the Doctor needed to meet the Creels and learn they were nice before he overcame his belief that 'beauty isn't skin-deep' is just depressing. However, his argument with Jamie is stomach churning:

Jamie groaned. "Just our luck!" he moaned. "And I was looking forward to sunbathing on the beach and bathing in the surf."

Dr. Who looked round at him, and a sardonic smile flickered across his whimsical face. "Sometimes I wonder why I ever chose you as a companion for my journeys," he said. "Here is a new world of scientific interest and discovery to be explored, and you talk of sunbathing and swimming!"

Jamie grew pink around the ears. "Well, I'm young!" he said hotly. "I spend half my life cooped up in your ship, don't I? What wrong with wanting a bit of relaxation?"

Dr. Who answered icily: "Then go out and have your relaxation! But don't blame me if you get bitten by those carnivorous plants! Or maybe the Devils will jump out and eat you!"

Jamie was a spirited lad. He could take only so much of taunts like this. "I'm going for a dip in the sea!" he stormed, and swung on his heels.

From the door of the Tardis, Zoe watched the young man striding down the beach, kicking up sand in his ill-temper. She went back to find Dr. Who with his coat off, working on the space selector. "It is because you are two strong-willed men that you have silly quarrels!" she announced firmly.

The Robot King is the second comic book story, the last of the annual and the last one to feature Jamie, Zoe and the Second Doctor himself. Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and coloured in purples and browns, the artwork is very atmospheric. The Doctor and his mates travel 5000 years into the future - luckily, they get to where they're aiming for. 1000 years earlier and they would have been caught in an atomic war. They are stunned to find "Hope City" in ruins and discover the only thing alive is an arrogant, telepathic Bender-like robot calling itself the Robot King. Most of the interest comes from the fact that the robot is the only survivor of the war (and, implied, the only living thing left on Earth) and seems to have gone mad, killing anything that looks too "irresponsible to survive". The story ends when the Doctor hits a switch on the Robot King's arse and shuts him down. Considering he seemed to spend his life sitting on rubble, this isn't a tragic end for the machine - but a story showing humanity wiping itself out is a bit grim, all told.

Slave of Shran starts off in the middle of the story, with the Doctor brainwashed as a slave of the alien Garvanes and their 'god' a hypnotic computer Shran. It's all a bit like The Dominators again - boorish alien invaders enslaving the people of a planet and Jamie coming to the rescue with a well-placed boulder. Any sympathy we have for them is dispelled when we learn that the Garvanes only stopped to fix their engines but now plan to use an atom bomb to blow it up because they don't like it very much. The rest of the story is the Doctor's escape from the Garvanes with his pal Ekk, who is a giant cockroach. The sight of the Doctor and his insectoid pal escaping in a hot air balloon pretty much sums up the story - the Doctor is a lot nicer here than the annoying bigot in Man Friday.

Run the Gauntlet is similar to that horrible story - once again, the Doctor and Jamie have an argument, but this time the Scot stays in the TARDIS while the others explore a dark jungle. The Doctor and the completely ignorant Zoe (she thinks Oliver Cromwell was a Scottish friend of Jamie - but how does he know about Cromwell anyway?) put on contra-gravity suits and fly around until they are captured by some blunderbuss-waving baboons who think that our heroes are androids of their enemy, the Jaibohs. The Doctor (using a Galactic dialect this week) tries to explain they aren't robots so the baboons decide to dissect them to be sure. The Doctor shows off his recorder (sorry, music-stick) and calls it a weapon. The baboons believe him and run away. Jamie arrives, having managed to use the TARDIS to rescue them. Since Jamie appears to be able to work the ship better than the Doctor, you wonder why the Time Lord's so beside himself with rage. They all run for it as the real Jaibohs arrive and wipe out the baboons. And this appeals to readers because? We think baboons in lab coats look cute? Why? Why? WHY?

The final story of the annual and the Second Doctor is the intriguingly titled A Thousand & One Doors, which shows the time travelers landing on what appears to be the Australian outback (like The Vampire Plants). Except it has zero gravity. And two suns. As they fly around (like Slaves of Shran), they are caught by a giant net by mysterious, leather-suited, four-armed (like Grip of Ice), bowl-headed aliens who are exploring dimensions via 'doors'. Curious, they plan to dissect the time travelers for the sheer hell of it (like Run the Gauntlet), and the Doctor attacks one of their number (a bit like The Robot King). The creature inside dissolves on contact with air (like The Mystery of the Marie Celeste) and the Doctor finds his companions (like Grip of Ice) and they leave, knowing they have discovered a whole new realm of life (like The Singing Crystals) that no one will ever believe (like The Dragons of Kekokro). A shockingly original story all things considered.

The rest of the annual is padded out with science features, which ranges from the predictable (Space Quiz and A Matter of Gravity) to the downright insane (Are We Alone? and Unconquerable Space). Are We Alone? is definitely worth checking out - featuring illustrations of flying saucers leaving pine tree plantations and deep-sea divers finding the remains of an underground city. The text is written in a very conspiracy-theory type way but, interestingly, at no point admits to being speculation. It's official, people - UFOS are just Atlanteans checking up on our use of atomic weapons. It rattles on a list of UFO sightings and other such weird facts which I have never heard of before or since. Did people actually believe this at the time? Unconquerable Space is also intriguing, with illustrations of Einstein, spaceships and a scene clearly inspired by The Seeds of Death. Littered with captions like Time Waits For No Man and The Loneliness of Man, its clear the author was sure space travel was happening no time soon. Also, check out the two-page technophobia of Will The Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machines Take Over? or, to you and me, a frantic rave about machines making humanity obsolete. The illustration of hordes of robots advancing at the behest of their satellite-shaped master computer (with everything boasting reels of magnetic tape) probably scared the hell out of contemporary child readers. Of the rest, few grab my attention apart from the curious True or False and learning that stars are not red-orange/yellow but, in fact, bright blue. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

All in all, the annual is very entertaining and its wonderful back cover - a moody, painted image of a police box in a forest - sums up the gloomy, late Sunday afternoon atmosphere of the book. Its sheer volume of fiction makes it worth buying if you spot it. Don't waste your mortgage on it - but it it's in some remainder bin for $5, trust me, you'll be glad you got it.