Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation

The Ribos Operation is the start of the very groovy epic Key to Time sequence. Here, the Doctor meets the White Guardian, and is told what is in store for him.

He is told he is going to get some help, and Romana the unpronounceable quickly appears, settling on being called Romana. Luckily, he still has K9 to protect him from the woman who at the times seems to be wavering a little towards the harridan end of the personality spectrum.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/02/doctor-who-and-ribos-operation.html ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/763482.html

What I remember most about the TV version is just the sense of cold; this is a snowy city on a chilly planet. Really very little sense of that in the novel. The intial set-up between the Doctor and Romana is changed substantially, and in my view not for the better; in the TV version, the White Guardian tells the Doctor that he will be assigned an assistant, and the Doctor when he encounters her spends the first few minutes practically hiding from her behind K-9. Marter's novelisation has Romana's arrival as a total surprise, and puts the two characters on a more equal footing, but somehow doesn't sparkle the same way. The final battle is much more gory in the book; but that's as we expect from a Marter novel. ( )