The Doctor In The TARDIS

There are some stories that are born of inspiration and broad themes. There are some stories born of an obsession with the format and a desire to delve deeper into the genre. Then there are stories like this.. A story designed to plug a hole in a season that had vastly overspent and needed to keep things simple. On the one side, The epcoh-making Daleks. On the other side, the lavish Marco Polo. But there were two episodes that needed to be filled and very little money in the pot in which to make it! Step forward story editor David Whittaker who, over three days and two nights of solid writing, came up with the cheapest episode ever made in the history of the show...

With this gestation you would be well within your rights to fear the worst. Yet you could not be more wrong. This is a fabulous little tale. Like all good stories, the premise is very simple; after a fault on take off, the TARDIS appears to turn against the crew - or is there a more malignant force at work? Woven into this is a story of paranoia, a Doctor apparently bigoted, plotting against his human companions, the fear of a normally stable and reliable environment turning hostile and dangerous.

This worked superbly as a two episode story, with brilliant performances by all of the lead protagonists but therein lies our second problem. How do you pad this out into a full novel? Again, this concern is groundless. Nigel Robinson does a wonderful job, extending the tension, providing exquisite detail for each of the characters and describing the steady mental disintegration caused by the claustrophobic and tension-rich atmosphere. Add into this, William Russell's superb reading (what a fine actor he is), and what you have here is a real little treasure. If you, like me, adore these early stories then this is an absolute must have. I managed to pick it up for £6.50 and I promise, it is worth every penny! (its only the price of two Macdonalds Big Mac Meals or 4 sausage and egg macmuffins - surely a bargain).

I absolutely love this story. Never experienced it beyond the episodes, but it really is a great 2 parter and though you know its just filler, it never feels like it. There are some bits that are slightly random and don't make the most sense, but that is coupled with a decent script and some strong acting. I'd definately like to listen to this and hear how it plays out with a fleshed out story so I may just invest over the weekend.

I pretty much agree with all of this. I'd like to give it a listen at some point :)

I was never too keen on this story. It was good enough I guess but it made very little sense. It seemed like there was a potentially very good story in there trying to get out, but not enough room for it within the confines of the two episodes. It has probably benefitted a great deal from being fleshed out in the book.

It is definitely one to check out; it is radically different in scope and motive to the original episode. I often find that the classic novels quite often 'tidy up' little plot holes and oversights that were present in the actual stories - never is this more apparent than in this novelisation!

Right, it is on order. The order page tell me I should have it by Friday and I am going to get straight into it on saturday afternoon if it is actually here by then. Cheapest I could find was Amazon for £7.65. Play were trying to offload it for £12.99 :o

Thanks to a very, very generous donation, I now own a copy of this and I have to say it is absolutely brilliant.

I have lots of audios and adventures that I listen too often, but my knowledge of the classic audio books was pretty limited up to now. If this is anything to go by though I shall definately be investing. As well as being brilliantly narrated by William Russell, the story takes you to places that the episodes it is based upon didn't and couldn't, either for time or budget constraints. Its wonderfully tied in to the episodes that surround it, specifically stuff from An Unearthly Child, building upon what is an already great story. The drama and suspense is turned up to eleven throughout and once you start listening its very hard to stop. One of my main concerns was that it would feel padded or strung out, after all, the televised story amounted to less than an hour of screen time, but this absolutely never feels like there is anything missing and the extra stuff that has been incorporated never feel squeezed in or out of place. Utterly brilliant I thought, and I would reccomend it to everyone.

I think that between you and the OP, this has been summed up brilliantly! I couldnt agree more