Terence Dudley (1919–1988)

This Doctor Who Christmas book is not very festive. K9 and Company novelizes the first and only episode of the television programme of the same name, "A Girl's Best Friend." It takes place in the week prior to Christmas, climaxing on the winter solstice; there are a couple of vaguely Christmassy events happening-- kids home from school, soirees to attend-- but otherwise few Christmas trappings. (K9 does sing a carol. In the show it's "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," but here it's "While show more Shepherds Watched Their Flocks," though we only get the first line. I wonder if John Leeson did more of the song when he recorded the audiobook?)

All that said, it's utterly dull for the most part. Sarah Jane is vaguely concerned something is going on, and looks into it, but doesn't discover much, again and again. There are also a lot of boring conversations between K9 and Sarah's aunt's ward, Brendan, a pretty misconceived 1980s geek character. The only good part is the lead-up to the climax, a nighttime chase scene across the countryside. Otherwise there's not much to recommend here, and we can all remain grateful it remained a one-off special (the titles are especially charmingly terrible), though at least the pairing of Sarah Jane and K9 was maintained into the new series. show less

When I first read Terrence Dudley's novelization of his two-part "Doctor Who" story more years ago than I care to count, I was struck by how Dudley took a simple, two-part story and added something to it. In many ways, "Black Orchid" as a novelizations as pre-cursor to what the Target range would later become--a chance to really expand "Doctor Who" stories beyond the small screen. A chance to fill in gaps, flesh out charcters, fully realize details. It's a novelization I have very fond show more memories of reading and always one I cite as one of the better novels of the Target range.

So, when I heard it was coming out on audio CD, I was eager to revisit it.

Only to find the memory can and does cheat.

It's not to say "Black Orchid" is a bad novel. It's still a splendid little book and it does a lot of justice to the Dudley's two-part script. But a lot of what I recall as expanding the story really boils down to extended sequences playing cricket (which I appreciate the attempt to explain the game more, though I really still don't grasp it) and the Doctor wandering along corridors for endless sequences.

Part of it is that "Black Orchid" is an interesting little Doctor Who story. It's a hybrid of a lot of various elements from the series past and it works well enough on-screen when you can buy that there are lots of doubles floating around. On-screen, it's easier to buy the mix-up of who is who with the dopplegangers of Nyssa and Anne. In the novel, Dudley has to work harder to keep the fun going, allowing the reader to know who is who while other various character aren't quite sure. Also, the visual tell of Anne having a mole that Nyssa doesn't really doesn't translate as well to the printed page or its audio version.

As I listened this time, I found that Dudley had expanded things, but maybe not enough. The novel assumes the reader hasn't seen the TV version and that works both for and against the story. Dudley doesn't give away the central mystery in the story until the exact right moment, though if you're paying attention it's not terribly difficult to pick up what's going on. But in a story where it's assumed most readers have seen the televised version, it might have been more interesting to hear more about George's trip up the Amazon and the discovery that led to his downfall. Or to hear more about how Lady Cranleigh reacted upon his return and the news of what happened to him.

I guess part of it is being spoiled by the New Adventures where sidetrips like this were allowed and encouraged. It seems like that despite all the pluses for this novel (and there are enough to keep it as head and shoulders above a lot of the Target line, though not in the elite class of novels like "Ghost Light" or "Remembrance of the Daleks"), there are still some missed opportunties in the story.

Not a bad telling of the story. Just not as great as it was in my memory show less

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Two-part stories give a lot of space to add more to the narrative when it comes time to write the novelisation, and this has been done well (Ian Marter) and badly (Nigel Robinson). This is definitely more at the Marter end of the spectrum. Dudley adds much detail about the cricket match (as incomprehensible to me as to Adric and Nyssa) and roots the story in the class structure of the Britain of the period, the Dowager Marchioness coming show more across as a particularly memorable personality. He even succeeds in giving Adric a couple of memorable character moments.

It's a good book - my favourite Fifth Doctor novel so far - but let down by lousy proofing: repeated references to "Portugese" and "Venezuala" (and by the way, the first is not actually spoken much in the second); also we have someone dressed as "Marie Antionette". A shame that Target couldn't take more care.

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Still my favourite Fifth Doctor novelisation, though I like the comics of the era and the later Big Finish audios rather more in general. Dudley came very close to making me understand cricket. (But still did not quite succeed.) show less

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Long, long before Torchwood or the Sarah Jane Adventures, the BBC made a pilot for a possible spinoff series, K9 and Company, which lasted for precisely one 50-minute episode in December 1981. The novelisation, by Terence Dudley who also wrote the script, wasn't published until 1987, as the third the last in another series of spinoffs, Target's Companions of Doctor Who (the two earlier books being Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma and Harry show more Sullivan's War). I picked it up the other day as a quick leisure read (more my thing than Elizabeth Spencer).

Dudley also wrote novelisations of his two other two-episode Who stories. Doctor Who - Black Orchid is possibly the best Fifth Doctor novelisation; Doctor Who - The King's Demons is one of the worst. Of the three stories as televised, Black Orchid was OK, K9 and Company dull and The King's Demons pretty dire, so I was curious to see how Dudley would manage turning this one into print.

It's not too bad, in fact. The beginning is a bit ropey, with Dudley insisting on giving us the exact age of each character, and some dubious descriptions of Sarah's problems in an Ethiopian village; but it settles down and has a lot more oomph than the original. Sarah is explicitly a 'girl' (as compared to Elisabeth Sladen's svelte but mature 33 when this was made). She is tough; she sometimes prays; she has a black belt in karate; she loves driving her MGB (and there is a great chase sequence absent from the original TV version).

Some other things done to continuity: Aunt Lavinia has become an anthropologist rather than a virologist, which gives her an excuse for writing to the newspapers about witchcraft; Brendan is explicitly 14, so the reference to him doing three extra O-levels has been dropped. (As indeed O-levels had been by 1987.) The red herrings of the original (Aunt Lavinia's mysterious disappearance, the not-so-sinister Bakers) are retained without further explanation. For some reason K9 sings 'While Shepherds Watched' rather than 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' at the end.

So, more towards the Doctor Who - Black Orchid than the Doctor Who - The King's Demons end of the spectrum, and without the silly mistakes that marred the former. show less