Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
Last time we finished episode one of the arc, “The Powerful Enemy”. Now we start “Desperate Measures” with one exception. I’m guessing that one scene will be here and like with the Doctor and Ian stumbling on an old trap, will connect scenes originally set to a cliffhanger. I miss the serialized Doctor Who of the past. Seasonal arcs just aren’t the same thing. It extends the important story too far and while it does allow for a more contained episode to give characters a bit more focus, it’s just not the same to me.
Note that while we are bridging between two parts of a two episode serial we are not yet halfway through the book. There are 15 chapters and while the odd number makes it harder to split (the epilogue is two pages and I’ll do that with the final chapter) the halfway mark should still be chapter seven or eight. That’s nitpicky for me. I haven’t read this since I got it many, many years ago so the pacing could be right for the book, like not using the cliffhanger between chapters, so take that comment for whatever it’s worth. I’m trying to pad the intro on the homepage.
With that, let’s check in with Barbara and Vicki as they give Bennett a surprise.
Okay, I forgot Bennett did see Barbara, which is where the first episode ended their part of the story. So it’s all part two from here. Bennett wakes up from the shock of seeing Barbara alive, since Koquillion said he killed them all. I know I posted the episode in Saturday Night Showcase but by Chapter By Chapter rules I’m really looking forward to the reveal later. That’s going to be a long installment instead of the shorter ones these usually are. Barbara wants to overpower Koquillion, but nobody’s asking why he’s killing the rescue crew and keeping these two safe from his alleged people who want to kill all the Earthlings. Nobody’s questioning this and that’s where I’m having issues with this part of the story. There’s something odd here and nobody ever brings this up. This may not be a mystery story but there are clear clues that get ignored. He’s also packing an attitude and then suddenly being all nice until something else sets him off. Injured or not, they aren’t finding that bizarre? Or is it just the hindsight talking?
The next two segments are the scene where Barbara destroys the creature. It’s an extended moment compared to the episode as we see Vicki collecting water from a broken pipe that used to bring water (possibly from the mountains according to the narrator) to wherever they are now. We are given evidence of the destroyed civilization in more detail. Even the creature’s death throws are more than the actor could have done in that costume, with the special effects not living up to its head being engulfed in a fireball. Not in 1960s TV regularly and certainly not on this show’s budget.
Once again, advantage of being a book is taken to give more drama to the scene, but Marter is kind of lying to us. In the show this is the same creature that stalked the Doctor and Ian, with the surprise reveal that it wasn’t actually dangerous harder to believe in how Marter describes the creature. It just doesn’t fit that Vicki’s “pet” is supposed to be this kind friendly animal when the narrator keeps telling us how hungerly it acts. Maybe he thought Ian and the Doctor were going to give him food, or maybe Vicki’s the only one he won’t eat. I want to give him points for upping the tension but it goes against what we learn in a moment.
At this point Ian and the Doctor reach the same cave exit the creature did, and the Doctor finally recognizes the creature as harmless from his previous trip. And yet the narrator tried so hard to not just make it look like he could be dangerous to the guys but actually made it seem as dangerous as it looked to us. Again, maybe he just really wanted some jelly babies but it was written like he’d prefer the real thing. It makes it hard to sympathize with Vicki over losing her friend because my mind’s eye still sees it as a threat.
Meanwhile, the door they were looking at before seeing the cave exit opens and Koquillion comes out, notices the footprints of Ian and the Doctor, and is rather upset about this. As he leaves two more beings come out, which we know from the episode pop up a couple of times until they’re revealed. We’ll have to talk about them later as well.
Overall it’s a good chapter and surprisingly there was a lot to bring up, but we were lied to about poor “Sandy” and that’s something that doesn’t work. The narrator tried to hard to make it seem more vicious than it was, so when the truth is revealed it’s harder to take in that he wasn’t bad after all, even considering the twist was the point in the episode. Actually, I’m not sure why the episode took time for this. We’ll see Barbara forgiven pretty easily in the episode, but maybe Marter is going to make this a continuing issue? I guess we’ll find out as the book continues. By the way, NOW we’re in the middle of the book.
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