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.
In our last installment our new quartet came together though they have yet to full become a team. Meanwhile, the enemy is finally going to show us how powerful he is and how desperate the measures will be to stop him. I apologize for nothing. I needed an intro.
Since I’m not sure what else to say and I need a bit more padding to the intro, let’s talk William Hartnell. Officially on TV there have been two other actors to play the First Doctor, not counting body doubles. Hartnell passed away in 1975, his last appearance being in “The Three Doctors”, with his Doctor stuck in a “time eddy” due to his failing health not allowing him to do more than sit and recite lines. Richard Hurndall would take over for “The Five Doctors”. He was a bit taller and didn’t quite have the same presence as Hartnell, but he did a good enough job under the circumstances. David Bradley did a better job, as he had just previously played Hartnell himself in the biopic An Adventure In Time And Space, which chronicled the making of the show. It’s also where they got the First Doctor’s TARDIS set, having been built for the TV movie and the original set long gone. He also joins Colin Baker, David Tennant (though non-canonized thanks to the live-action series restarted, he was a random voice in “Scream Of The Shalka” an animated serial on the Doctor Who website), and Peter Capaldi (who he worked with in his first Doctor crossover) as having done roles on Doctor Who prior to becoming the Doctor. There’s also Stephen Noonan in the Big Finish dramas, who did better in actual clips from the story than in early promotional clips. I think Bradley has taken over but I’m not as informed on Big Finish as I want to be.
The fact that Chris Chibnall tried to take his spot as the first chronological Doctor in order to retcon his spot into Who lore is a travesty, and I don’t care how good friends they are, Davies not fixing this is just another in a long line of mistakes.
We’ll get to the Companions in later installments. It’s time to get back to the story.
There are two scenes in this chapter, one I don’t remember from the recent BBC posting on YouTube I used for the Saturday Night Showcase prior to starting the book adaptation. I have seen only so much of what remains of the unlost episodes from Hartnell’s period, and only once until that posting outside of the DVD boxset I have of “An Unearthly Child” and the first Dalek appearance. Tubi no longer has the whole thing up on demand and Sling’s offering is spotty. Maybe I could bump into it on the 24/7 livestream or on antenna channel Retro (which is the only one showing episodes in order along with other shows and is currently in the Tom Baker years with Romana and K9) so going by that I have to conclude this is original to the book. After all, it has things the show wouldn’t in the 1960s.
The scene starts with Ian and Barbara walking around the ship, which is too big a set for the budget the BBC was giving it. For another, the “Greenhouse Effect” was a clear addition, not being around in the 1960s but was there in 1987. Back then we were either supposed to cause what we now call global warming from too many pollutants in the air or blow ourselves into a permanent winter from nuclear war blocking out the sun. Those of you in 2026 may notice neither of those things happened, though we’re still told we have little time left. I mean, based on previous predictions we should all be dead, but that’s going off-topic. Point is, this is clearly added, but a good addition.
Vicki makes peace with Barbara and learns (though doesn’t believe) that the TARDIS travels through time as well as space (wait until she sees the inside) or that the Doctor isn’t human. Actually, our two teachers (and during conversation they remind themselves they had another life prior to meeting the Doctor) note that they know little about him. They say he’s from another world, but even the writer’s room back then hadn’t confirmed that. The part about him being from another civilization they do know about, and that’s it. Being from another universe? I didn’t realize when I wrote that intro complaining about the “Timeless Child” nonsense that I was foreshadowing that comment and nobody was thinking that until a few years ago our time. What did you know, Ian Marter? What secrets did you take with you?
Sandwiched between that conversation and Barbara spotting two “silvery” people at the start of the walk around is a scene we do know was in the episode. The Doctor forces his way into Bennett’s room, but there’s no Bennett. He finds the recorder, the listening devices he’s using to keep track of Vicki, and a secret doorway. He goes through the door while, having returned to the part of the ship Vicki’s been living in, Ian is worried the Doctor has been with Bennett too long and goes to make sure everyone is okay. The Doctor is gone and when he returns to Vicki’s space she and Barbara are gone. Sucks to be Ian right now.
So what happened to everyone? We’ll find out next time. As for this time, the added scene–again, probably to pad out the novelisation–was a good addition as the mystery gets deeper. Something funny is going on but unless you watched the episode or read ahead in the book you’ll have to wait to see what it is.
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