World Distributors The 1983 Annual

Published	1982
SBN	7235 6653 4

Starring the fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan and the Master

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 31/3/04

An offbeat little collection and more peculiar than you'd guess from its Season Nineteen TARDIS crew and sometimes childish-looking illustrations. I'm not totally sold on the prose, particularly the overexcited exclamation marks, but there's a sinister kind of cumulative horror about some of this writing. With hindsight, I wish this 1983 annual could have swapped artists with one of the early Tom Bakers. This rather jolly, cartoonish art is just what they needed circa 1979-80, while letting Paul Crompton loose on these horrors would have been a sight to behold. We could have traumatised a whole generation.

The short stories star the 5th Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan, though Adric returns briefly for the comic strip. Its name is In The Planet Isopterus and it probably made Matthew Waterhouse consider cosmetic surgery. There's something unappealing about Glenn Rix's potato-faced renditions of the Season 19 regulars, though in most other respects it's quite well-drawn. As a story it's fine.

The collection as a whole is slightly fannish, with references to Time Lords, Gallifrey, old companions and the Doctor's dual respiratory system. At its worst (The God Machine) it grinds intriguing ideas down into dullness. Danger Down Below could have been better too, especially since I had trouble believing in the monster's life cycle. Let me explain... Migrators eat like mad bastards, with just one of 'em single-handedly bringing a high-tech colony to the brink of famine and rebellion, but they normally only land on uninhabited worlds. This one only landed on Aronassus 49 because it suffered an accident. What does "uninhabited" mean? No life forms? If so, what do they eat? I'm still wondering about that one.

However there are good stories too. Night Flight to Nowhere is Time-Flight done right, with Ainley oddly written as Delgado. The Haven is chilling, creating sinister atmosphere with nothing but courtesy and good manners. However the standout stories are The Armageddon Chrysalis and The Penalty, in which the TARDIS lands nowhere and the Doctor meets no one. Even his companions get sidelined. The Armageddon Chrysalis sees the TARDIS falling under the influence of Voorvolika, an energy-devouring monster that's one of the most terrifying foes we've ever seen. The Doctor is driven to extraordinary lengths in his fight to survive, overdosing on near-lethal drugs and venturing out in a spacesuit into the belly of the beast. He seems to be driven to the brink in a way we've never seen before. At one point we're told that "Voorvolika wanted the energy of the names". What does that mean? I don't know, but I sure as hell didn't want to find out.

Then there's the literal nightmare of The Penalty. It's like a counterpart to 1975's The Battle Within, but more fractured and disturbing. This isn't a narrative but a prose poem, lurching between dreamscapes without warning or reason. Even the art becomes less cartoonish, at one point creating a montage of leering faces that reminded me of 1930s horror movies. Is that Bela Lugosi up there?

Apart from its fiction, the 1983 annual is also notable for having the first behind-the-scenes filler articles on the making of Doctor Who. We've been reading this stuff for decades now, but even twenty years later these articles are still fascinating. They don't focus on writers or actors, but instead various BBC departments... visual effects, costume design and set design. Here are photos of the original costume designs, not sketches but little collages of cloth and card. The set photos of Castrovalva are beautiful too. The day in the life of John Nathan-Turner is less compelling, but these are interesting articles with a behind-the-scenes viewpoint that you won't quite find anywhere else.

Overall this is one of the better annuals from World Distributors. The fiction is interesting and for once the filler articles are well worth reading. Don't believe anyone who says everything went downhill in the eighties. This is good stuff, and not a little sinister.