By Simon Guerrier

Obverse Books, out now

A missing TARDIS, a mostly missing story…

When John Peel novelised the second Patrick Troughton Dalek story, it was the longest Target Doctor Who book, and only beaten in recent years as the novelisation of the show with the highest word count. Matching this, Simon Guerrier has produced the longest of the Black Archives so far, looking at this seminal story in considerable detail – and making you wonder by the end if we’ll ever really know what this tale was truly like.

Once the preliminary recount of the plot is out of the way, Guerrier’s introduction immediately tackles the problem of the source material for any discussion of a wiped (or mostly missing) serial. This ties neatly into mention of a play from the same era as that in which the majority of Evil is set – The Bells, by Leopold Lewis – whose genesis and performance by Henry Irving was something that Evil actor Marius Goring had a particular interest in, and which becomes increasingly relevant as Guerrier’s text goes on.

Guerrier names his four chapters after the time periods that they discuss, beginning with the opening episode, which is mainly “contemporary” for the audience… although as he reminds readers, it was actually set some months earlier. He starts with a detailed analysis of the first six minutes of the story, going into almost obsessive detail on what’s revealed (or rather what isn’t) by the telesnaps and other pictures taken at the time. There are quite a few surprises in this section alone, and you almost wish that Guerrier would continue in this vein.

However, here’s where the analysis of the story kicks in, with a look at the Doctor’s contemporary adventures up to that point, the “revolving door” of the TARDIS with the changes in companions around this time, and the crew working on the serial. The then-current fascination with Victoriana – from the Beatles to The Forsyte Saga – is examined, before Guerrier talks about the music (linking it to an unlikely cinematic source) and the intriguingly titled “Sherlock Holmes Vs the Daleks.

Chapter 2 jumps back to Canterbury 1866… and then even further, to 20,000 BC in a discussion of David Whitaker’s original outline, before the psychology of the individuals involved in the story come under the microscope – both the actors and the characters, with some fascinating material about both Marius Goring and Theodore Maxtible. The treatment of women and race in this story and in wider fiction of the time (both the 19th and 20th century) is the next topic, before Guerrier talks about the derivation of the Daleks’ positronic brains, as well as Maxtible’s claims regarding static electricity, and the contemporary fear of brainwashing (which neatly ties in novels upon which three famous movies were made).

This is the point at which most Black Archives are winding down, but Guerrier’s just warming up. Chapter 3 deals with Skaro and its most famous denizens, the Thals… no, not really. The background of Terry Nation’s desire to move the Daleks across to the States is given as well as the… intriguing… working relationship between Nation and David Whitaker, with cross-reference to the material in the recent Vworp Vworp issue 3, and the odd wild theory (something which the Black Archives are becoming renowned for incorporating). There follows some interesting links between the Daleks and the Doctor in real life and in the fiction of the series.

Chapter 4 covers “Earth, 1967 to 2017” – i.e. the period between the show’s broadcast and now. There’s more detailed coverage here of the telesnaps and other photographic material than I’ve seen anywhere else, as well as the extant audios, and the creation of urban myths regarding the story as errors were compounded. The different releases of what remains are analysed – in particular the narration differences between the cassette and the CD – as well as the contents of the BBC Archives’ holdings on the serial. There aren’t any appendices; a lot of the material that might otherwise go there, such as a discussion of the novelisation, is relevant to the thrust of Guerrier’s arguments.

Guerrier makes these arguments clearly and you end the book with a much deeper understanding of everything surrounding this fifty year old story. Now, where did I put that CD of the soundtrack…?

Verdict: Was JNT right? Does the memory cheat? Another excellent and weighty addition to The Black Archive. 10/10

Paul Simpson