Polystyle Publications Ltd The 1974 TV Action Annual

Published	1973
SBN (not ISBN)	85096 037 1

Starring the third Doctor

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 18/8/04

Countdown was a noble experiment, but it didn't last. In 1973 it merged with TV Action shortly before giving up the ghost altogether and letting Doctor Who return to TV Comic. However that doesn't make TV Action a failure. On the contrary, I greatly preferred this TV Action annual to the two preceding Countdown ones! No Hanna-Barbera, less Gerry Anderson and instead lots of spies, criminals, detectives, soldiers and cowboys. All that science-fiction was getting tedious, so instead we have more down-to-earth stories that grab you immediately and sometimes even have (gasp) plot twists.

The comic strips are all good, with The Persuaders, Hawaii Five-O, Dad's Army, UFO and more all turning out to be well worth reading. The Persuaders in particular have downright intricate plots, with unknown agendas and mysterious bad guys. I like! Hawaii Five-O has a villain (Lee Chow) who looks like Fu Manchu. These are action stories, but there's more to them than just action.

Dad's Army is the daftest story in this book, at times verging on 'Allo 'Allo. "What is my mission, Herr Generale?" Private Walker takes a parachute from a probable German spy and doesn't notice that it's decorated with the eagle and swastika, so turns it into ladies' undergarments to sell to Captain Mainwaring! I'm laughing just describing it. Again, I like. Above all Dad's Army has a strong cast and isn't afraid to use it, going out of its way to create lots of character moments for the TV regulars.

There's a kiddie strip, Droopy, but I even liked that. Sadly the main drag factor in this book is the short stories, which are nearly as weak as last year's. I enjoyed Alias Smith & Jones and its Wild West setting, but dear Lord above, the prose. Check out the following, from The Protectors: 'Under the idling blades that blew her well-groomed hair into a frenzy, she accepted the firm grip of Harry Rule's right hand and climbed into the cramped cockpit. "Phew!" she gasped as the helicopter rose. "I only just made it. Now, Harry Rule, would you mind telling me where we're going?"' Note the compulsive overuse of adjectives: idling blades, well-groomed hair, firm grip, right hand, cramped cockpit, etc. Note the unnatural dialogue. This snippet doesn't actually have bad grammar, but trust me, that's present too. Need I go on?

The Doctor Who story is another Jim Baikie eight-pager, The Hungry Planet. If nothing else, it's a must-read for one of Polystyle's greatest lame expletives for the Doctor: "Great Venusian vegetables!" The dialogue gets even dodgier, but this is actually quite a fun tale in which the menace isn't a bad guy but a bad planet. Yuppers, the planet's alive! The Doctor and his new chum gratuitously kill the thing at the end when they could have simply escaped, but in fairness it was an interstellar menace.

As always in the Countdown era, it's worth reading this book just for the painted art. I particularly loved the Doctor's gorgeous "Here Be Dragons" book of star charts, with copperplate writing and suns with hand-drawn faces. (The Doctor appears to think he's three light-years out from 'Calliopf', but judging by the star chart that's a printing glitch and the name should be 'Calliope'.)

Things I learned from reading this book:

1. Armour-plated helicopters are invulnerable to bullets when pulling off a million-dollar robbery halfway through the story, but one shot can disable them on the last page when the baddie's escaping.
2. World War Two double agents could change clothes for no reason in seconds while being held at gunpoint.
3. A master-criminal's chief identifying feature is his hand.
4. Not all British soldiers during World War Two realised that parachutes marked with the eagle and swastika might be suspicious in some way.
5. If aliens stick a needle in your neck and all your words turn into gibberish, then the cure for your condition is as simple as pulling the needle out again.