‘Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma’ – Eric Saward (Target)
This is turning into a bit of a ‘Doctor Who Old-School Target Novelizations Week’; I’m not quite sure how that happened but here we are so lets see where we end up… ;o)
A large part of my book buying problems is that I am easily distracted these days. I’ll buy a book with every intention of reading it, only to spot another read, that suits my mood better, and the next thing I know, it can be anything up to years later and the original book has been left unread the whole time. It’s not the worst problem to have, I just need to stop buying books for a bit and try to catch up ;o) Anyway…
I’ve been following Adam Whitehead’s coverage of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ serials and my eye was caught by his comments on Season 21, particularly ‘The Twin Dilemma’. Sure enough, there was a copy of the novelization, lurking in a box under my bed (and unread since I picked it up a few years ago) I had to give it a read…
The Doctor has regenerated, having sacrificed his fifth persona to save Peri’s life. But things are not going well…
On this occasion the process of regeneration is by no means smooth, for the even-tempered , good humoured fifth Doctor has given way to a rather disturbed and unsettled successor.
In a particularly irascible moment, the new Doctor comes dangerously close to committing a shocking crime. Overwhelmed with guilt for his violent behaviour, the repentant Time Lord decides to become a hermit…
Every so often, I’ll have a crack at summing up a plot myself but more often than not, I’ll just copy and paste the blurb on the back of the book. What? I’m tired ;o)
Well, that’s what I did here and it says a lot about ‘The Twin Dilemma’ that the blurb above focusses on the Doctor’s regeneration and stays well clear of mentioning twins or any kind of dilemma whatsoever.
It also says a lot that as I read through the book, it became really clear that Eric Saward took any opportunity he could to pad the book out with talk of the twins father (who gets more ‘page time’ than his sons), the history of random bits of machinery and even attempted tourist fraud on a planetary scale. I’ve never read a ‘Doctor Who’ novelization quite like it and while that made for an interesting read, it really highlighted that the actual plot was either just not engaging or even non-existent in places. I finished ‘The Twin Dilemma’ out of sheer bloody-mindedness rather than anything else.
The after-affects of the Doctor’s regeneration made for slightly more interesting moments but not enough for a whole book. I can’t remember watching the original serial but it hasn’t come across well here… I love building up collections of books so ‘The Twin Dilemma’ will stay with me, I can’t see a re-read happening though, not for a long time.
The Doctor has regenerated, having sacrificed his fifth persona to save Peri’s life. But things are not going well…
On this occasion the process of regeneration is by no means smooth, for the even-tempered , good humoured fifth Doctor has given way to a rather disturbed and unsettled successor.
In a particularly irascible moment, the new Doctor comes dangerously close to committing a shocking crime. Overwhelmed with guilt for his violent behaviour, the repentant Time Lord decides to become a hermit…
Every so often, I’ll have a crack at summing up a plot myself but more often than not, I’ll just copy and paste the blurb on the back of the book. What? I’m tired ;o)
Well, that’s what I did here and it says a lot about ‘The Twin Dilemma’ that the blurb above focusses on the Doctor’s regeneration and stays well clear of mentioning twins or any kind of dilemma whatsoever.
It also says a lot that as I read through the book, it became really clear that Eric Saward took any opportunity he could to pad the book out with talk of the twins father (who gets more ‘page time’ than his sons), the history of random bits of machinery and even attempted tourist fraud on a planetary scale. I’ve never read a ‘Doctor Who’ novelization quite like it and while that made for an interesting read, it really highlighted that the actual plot was either just not engaging or even non-existent in places. I finished ‘The Twin Dilemma’ out of sheer bloody-mindedness rather than anything else.
The after-affects of the Doctor’s regeneration made for slightly more interesting moments but not enough for a whole book. I can’t remember watching the original serial but it hasn’t come across well here… I love building up collections of books so ‘The Twin Dilemma’ will stay with me, I can’t see a re-read happening though, not for a long time.
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