‘Today, after over twenty years, the human race returns to Mars. This would be a cause for celebration regardless of which nation had got there. But it isn’t, I am sure, jingoism to suggest that we are all particularly glad that it is the United Kingdom that got there first.’ – applause – ‘Twenty years ago, the British space programme was a clear demonstration that our country still had the know-how to be a world-beater. I was a young man when Grosvenor and Guest planted the Union Flag at the foot of mighty Olympus Mons. My heart still swells to think of it: British astronauts staring up at the mightiest feature of the solar system, a mountain almost three times the size of Everest’
‘London. This is Mars Lander. We’re down and safe.’
So, ‘The Dying Days’ is the final Virgin New Adventure book to feature the Doctor (the series continued for a while with Benny) – the BBC having taken the licence back in the aftermath of the TV Movie. The story fits after ‘Lungbarrow’ and also after the TV Movie – although to my mind I prefer to think of it as an alternative Eighth Doctor introduction story (the Big Finish adventure ‘Storm Warning’ also fulfils this role admirably). What feels like an age ago, I covered the ‘TV Movie’, as positively as I could, I could equally on a different day have posted something very similar. I think my perspective on the ‘TV Movie’ comes from years of enjoying the Eighth Doctor at Big Finish and at least some of the books. If ‘The Dying Days’ is what we could have had instead, well I take it all back – give me some of this please, as it exactly the sort of story I love – contemporary Earth, an invasion of London, echoes of ‘Ambassadors of Death’ and future echoes of ‘The Christmas Invasion’.
‘The Dying Days’ is set in swinging 90’s London, features an Ice Warrior invasion of Britain, lots of political intrigue and action, Benny, the Brigadier and a politician who bears a strong resemblance to Francis Urquhart from ‘House of Cards’. It is terrific stuff and British to the core – in many ways it is by design the anti-TV Movie. I could imagine it as a 90’s TV mini-series – maybe striped in instalments across a week like Torchwood ‘Children of Earth’ or a British version of ‘V’. The title is redolent of a few things – the end of the Virgin range (‘Licence Revoked’ was another possible title), an original version of the story that would kill the Doctor, the dying days of the 20th century and a Tory regime, but also the dying days of Mars a planet with more past than future and a race whose days are numbered without access to new resources. It could also refer the dying days of empire – there is more than a whiff of Brexit about this story – more later.
‘Things can only get better’
To talk about ‘The Dying Days’, I feel that I have to talk a bit about 1997, about what that year meant – because well, the story is suffused with the 90’s and manages in some ways to pre-figure what was about to happen a month after its release. The timing is almost as perfect as ‘Monster of Peladon’ and the ’74 miner’s strike. This feels very relevant to the book for me, but it is also quite self-indulgent (again), so skip if you want to:
Back in 1997, a band that later included the future Professor Brian Cox told us that ‘things could only get better’ and to be fair they only could. Let me paint a picture of Britain at this time – a chronically underfunded rail system – which would eventually lead to people dying pointlessly in a series train crashes and derailments, winter after winter where the health service couldn’t cope and people died on waiting lists or on trolleys waiting for a bed, city centres full of homeless people, towns and cities in the north of England, Wales and Scotland where generations had been put out of work, without the hope of a better future. Everything was ‘efficient’ in the sense of it cost the taxpayer less, but nothing actually worked, even the things that did still just about work had no resilience and fell apart at the slightest sniff of a problem – a problem that took years to make better and is really becoming an issue again now. That year, many years too late really, Britain voted for change. To be fair aspects of the country had improved a bit since Thatcher had been deposed, but it was a hideously slow process under Major. Many of us had grown up despising and detesting politicians. In Doctor Who terms, I would have been with the crowd of the oppressed masses on the roof in ‘The Sunmakers’, cheering as Gatherer Hade was chucked off a very tall building. Not especially proud of that – but I mention it because it illustrates the strength of feeling against these people – they were evil and were considered as nothing less than the enemy.
1997 would change all of that (at least for a while), the sheer thrill of it – that night when all of the votes were spread along a table and it was clear that future of the Tory right -Michael Portillo (best known for his documentaries about train journeys these days – but a politician who was widely reviled at the time – a man whose father had supported the Spanish republic and despite that his son became a Tory) had been soundly beaten by a much younger Labour candidate Stephen Twigg. The Tories weren’t just out of power for the first time since I was 10 – they had been completely annihilated.
Why is that relevant to the ‘Dying Days’, well the spirit of that year suffuses the story and more directly, well somewhere on election night sat Tim Collins, a massive Doctor Who fan (he of the Earthshock DVD ‘Putting the Shock into Earthshock’ feature) and Tory MP (how does that work – answers on a postcard, talk about missing the point) reading ‘The Dying Days’ in an attempt to read all of Virgin New Adventures while there was still a Tory government. Yes, that’s right, the steadfastly left-wing and terminally ‘right on’ Virgin New Adventures – square that circle if you can. His world fell apart while reading this book. Even that attempt to salvage something from the General Election would end in defeat, as later that month, the much delayed ‘So vile a Sin’ was finally released – perhaps that was Ben Aaronovitch, whose father Sam was secretary of British Communist Party, final victory over the Tories?
So, in May 1997 the Blair government breezed in on a wave of optimism and Britain was suddenly hip again. Social occasions at No. 10 had guests like Noel Gallagher and Jarvis Cocker and one of my heroes, Alan McGee, head of Creation records – home to most of my favourite bands. This is all reflected in ‘The Dying Days’, not least at the party at the National Space Museum set off Trafalgar Square to celebrate British astronauts setting foot on Mars for the first time since the ‘Mars Probe’ days. Is there anything more 1990’s than a society event with the Spice Girls? Well yes, one that also includes Gillian Anderson, Jarvis Cocker and Chris Evans. Oh and the scientists Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and his wife Lalla, Oh and Patrick Moore being interviewed alongside Bernard Quatermass, while Ralph Cornish looks on. Bernard is a curmudgeonly about the space programme as he was in the final instalment of the Quatermass and had his own brand of Martian to deal with in his time. These scenes are joyous – the Doctor even gets to talk to Jeremy Paxman!
‘The Dying Days’ is part ‘Ambassadors of Death’, part ‘V’, part ‘House of Cards’, part ‘X-Files’ and with a bit of Bond action thrown in. It is also a 90’s version of ‘War of the Worlds’ – a Martian war machine in the home counties – red mist substituted for red weed. Like the other Virgin novels that I have reviewed in this thread, it is a signal of something to come – in particular its use of contemporary news readers and reporters, it’s setting right in the heart of the capital and even some of the action set pieces feel very much like an influence on Russell T Davies’ earthbound stories. ‘The Dying Days’ is also that rarest of beasts – ‘Doctor Who’ for the 1990’s and it feels very much part of that decade – and I rather love it.
Life on Mars
‘My crew were killed by Martians.’ Alexander Christian paused. ‘I was the only survivor. I ran back to the capsule and launched it, leaving behind the bodies of my crew. I radioed Earth, warned them about what I’d seen. And when I got back I was arrested and thrown into a mental institution.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Do you know how difficult it is to get out of a mental ward when you have to convince two doctors that you are sane, but you’re too stubborn to let them hear what they want? I did see a Martian city. I’ve never doubted it for twenty years, not once. Of course they think that I’m mad. You have to help me convince the government that there are aliens out there. But you think I’m mad, too, don’t you?’ He looked up at Alistair again, frowning. ‘You don’t think I’m mad. Why not?’ ‘The British government has known about the existence of extraterrestrial life for over a century. Twenty years ago I was the commanding officer of a United Nations task force that tried to contain alien incursions. Describe these Martians,’ the Brigadier ordered quietly.
The book as I said earlier tied into ‘Ambassadors of Death’. The story starts with the British Mars probe missions. The last of these British national hero, Alexander Christian arrives back with a crew that he had apparently slaughtered. He is quietly sentenced to life. The Mars probe programme stops and the message is sent that Mars is a dead world and not worth anyone exploring further. In fact, Christian, a former comrade of the Brigadier has been framed for the murder and as the book unfolds we begin to find out why and what happened on Mars in the 1970’s/80’s (delete where applicable). His story intersects with the Doctor and Benny as the flight he is being transported on crashes near their house in Kent. Later he meets his old CO, the Brigadier and later again gets to face the man responsible for his time in prison – Greyhaven.
House of Cards
‘Everything is wonderful, Staines. There’s an Englishman on Mars, the FT index is up ten percent on the day and I’ve just been interviewed by a lovely American girl younger than my granddaughter who gave me her telephone number.‘
Something else that is brilliantly 1990’s is the character of Lord Grayhaven and his affair with the American TV reporter Eve Waugh (bit too on the nose that for me!). This is very much based on Francis Urquhart in the original BBC series ‘House of Cards’ and his relationship with the young journalist Mattie Storin. I can really imagine Greyhaven being played by Ian Richardson. Greyhaven also has something else added into the mix – a very Doctor Who villain – Tobias Vaughn. Like Vaughn he is smooth and urbane, he has a plan relying on an invading alien race, a plan to dispose of them when he is finished, which then doesn’t quite go to plan. Grayhaven is a mixture of scientist, entrepreneur and politician, he manipulates everybody – the home secretary Staines, the astronauts landing on Mars and in the orbiter, the British people and even the Ice warriors.
A Very British Coup
At the heart of the book is a coup. This is lead by Greyhaven and his second in command, Staines, who use the Ice Warrior’s arrival in the skies above London on a pre-text of avenging the desecration of Martian graves by the British astronauts, to take power. In a similar ploy that ‘Aliens of London’ uses (I’m sure Russell has read this?) the Prime Minister is killed and the cabinet away – so Staines takes over. The Royal family are smuggled away to Canada (by Ancelyn from ‘Battlefield’) and as the Ice Warrior leader Xznaal takes the throne, Greyhaven becomes Prime Minister. The EU, US and Britain’s supposed allies stay clear once they realise that the Martian Invasion is only of Britain. This setup echoes Mac Hulke’s original script for what would become ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and has very similar influences.
I think that the coup by the forces of the right fascinates us, partially because of the ‘what-if’ of a Nazi invasion in 1940/41, but also because Britain is traditionally very stable politically. No extreme right group has ever had any traction for example, even UKIP never had a single MP and Mosley having been a Conservative and Labour MP before forming the BUF, ended ignominiously, his black shirts defeated at Cable St and with him interned during the war. These coups tend to be represented in British fiction by the reactionary rather than the fascistic – making Britain great again, tying in with the post-war decline of the country’s influence, financial, cultural and political power. Maybe this focus on the reactionary is because of the (as it turns out true) rumours of a plot to launch a coup against the Wilson government, supposedly placing Mountbatten in charge of the country or possibly this relates to the alternative history of the Second World War where the appeasement posited by Halifax succeeds instead of Churchill. Whatever, it is a much-mined, fertile area for fiction.
The events following the arrival of the Martian ship are all to plausible. Dissent and rebellion in the North, a conscious echo of the English Civil War – York is referenced, tacit acceptance by those whose lives haven’t changed that much. An international community, relieved by a new government which is ostensibly acting reasonably and aliens who only seem to be interested in Britain, lulled into complete inactivity. While behind the scenes the atrocities and reprisals start. Luckily, in the absence of the Doctor – missing presumed dead in a Martian chemical attack, there is someone ready to ‘take his country back’ in. a way that I wish we currently could from the clowns who used that phrase in 2016.
Old friends and old soldiers
‘He fixed her with those eyes of his. ‘We were alone in your tent, on a planet called Heaven. The Hoothi had been destroyed. You were packing, ready to leave. There was a Japanese fan in your hand. I asked if we could be friends and put my hand on your shoulder. You asked me not to touch you. You said that I was very tactile, but you weren’t and that you’d prefer it if I didn’t.’
One of the things that ‘the Dying Days’ gets right is that there are enough old friends to ease the new Doctor in. This is a trick that ‘Robot’. ‘Spearhead from Space’, ’The Christmas Invasion’ and ‘Deep Breath’ all use. Other introduction stories go against this – particularly the ‘Eleventh Hour’ to great effect, but here after the shock of the new of the TV Movie it works very well. We see the new Doctor, not just through the eyes of Benny, but also his oldest friends – The Brigadier. It is also justified here, as the story has to wrap up the ‘New Adventures’ and set Benny on her way to her own solo series.
Actually, there are pretty big similarities with ‘The Christmas Invasion’ and this story in other ways – the British space probe, a long absence of the Doctor, allowing things to get out of hand, but also giving big plot strands to Benny, the Brigadier, Bambera and also the forces against them – Lord Grayhaven, his toadying Home Secretary Staines and the Ice Warriors – particularly their leader Xznaal. The triumphant return of the Doctor, believed lost, to defeat the invaders on a massive spaceship hanging above London is another similarity and is a triumph precisely because his prolonged absence has shown us what the world is missing and allowed the coup/invasion to succeed. There are also parallels with ‘Aliens of London’ – an assassinated Prime Minister, a cabinet away and an interim Prime Minister who takes over in the chaos of an alien spaceship over London. ‘Dying Days’ is considerably better though in my opinion.
Taking our country back
‘I am the commanding officer of the force that will liberate London. Not just from the Martians, but from those that betrayed you to the Martians. I serve Xznaal, Greyhaven and the rest of their Provisional Government notice: this is their last day in office. Our army is already mobilised. It is a small force, but it is larger than Henry’s at Agincourt, and we have right on our side.’
The speech finished, the broadcast cut to live coverage of the Queen’s address to the United Nations. She had been informed of the effort to retake London and had given it her blessing. Her speech began by wishing Lethbridge-Stewart and his men luck.’
There is also a part of this book that might well be my happiest Doctor Who moment. Brigadier Alasdair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, retired head of UNIT, a man bypassed for promotion to General for political reasons, leads the forces to recapture London,. The moment where he addresses the oppressed nation and serves notice on the provisional government just makes my heart so glad – I almost cried. He was my childhood hero you see and in my imagination I could just picture Nicholas Courtney reading this speech.
Prior to this he has galvanised the remaining troops, many of whom regard him as a joke and relic of the past in a way that their current leader just couldn’t and in a way that mirrors the galvanizing effect he had on the beleaguered troops in the in his very first story ‘Web of Fear’. It is in the same vein as that moment in ‘The Poison Sky’ when Colonel Mace, after being the subject of a succession of disparaging remarks from the Doctor calls in the Valiant to disperse the Atmos gas and takes charge, leading his troops against the Sontarans. Here, the Brigadier is magnificent, but still ultimately has to rely on the Doctor to defeat the invaders. He also gets to save the country (and the world) in the full glare of the public, no hiding behind D-notices. He is a hero pure and simple and it is time that the rest of the world knew it.
The original time travelling archeologist
‘On Heaven, in her tent, the Doctor had pleaded with her. Ace had just left him. His voice was trembling and urgent at the same time. He couldn’t travel the universe fighting monsters alone, he had told her: the magic dragon couldn’t be brave without the little boy. Without his companion, he had nothing to be brave for. In that moment, Benny had seen the real Doctor. Behind all the tricks, behind all the plans and dark expressions and all his righteous indignation there was a little man who thought the universe ought to be a friendlier place. Dorothee had never seen that, or if she had she hadn’t understood it. She’d have laughed: ‘Yeah, sure, Professor, everything would be great if we were all nice to each other. Very profound’. It’s easy to be cynical, but it’s hard to be nice. The Doctor had been a man who once in a while needed protecting from the universe he was protecting. The Doctor needed looking after, he wasn’t carefree. And he certainly didn’t have sex appeal and boyish charm. And now that little man had gone forever. The new Doctor looked up at her and waved, grinning. Benny smiled back, trying not to look like she was spying on him.’
Benny is also back and she gets some great stuff in this story. Her knowledge of Martian culture and history comes in particularly useful. She gets to be the expert and UNIT and even the Doctor bows to her superior knowledge of Martian history and culture. We also get to see the new Doctor through her eyes, Lethbridge Stewart of course has seen it all before, but whilst Benny understands regeneration, she hasn’t yet met a Doctor quite like the Eighth. Her Doctor is gone and replaced by a handsome, dashing, but more haphazard replacement. So, whilst she is less impressed by his lack of Machiavellian plan to defeat the coup and invasion, she also thinks phwoar! Her presence neatly wraps up the 7th Doctor’s adventures and sets the new Doctor on his way. It is also a reminder of what a terrific character Paul Cornell created all those years ago – a fully rounded person – someone who despite being an archaeologist from the future who we instinctively know – someone who likes a drink and laugh, who is brave and clever and intuitive, but also vulnerable and fallible. The device of her diary is inspired and makes us privy to her private thoughts and works extremely well as a framing device. There is even an in-joke as one of the other guests at the party assumes that she is Emma Thompson – who’s character in ‘The Tall Guy’ was one of the main influences on Benny (that film also features one of cinema’s great sex scenes by the way – certainly one of the funniest).
The Ice Lord and the Haywain
The portrayal of the Ice Warriors in this is really quite interesting. Xznaal in particular is simultaneously a thug and an aesthete. We are privy to his thoughts and his senses. We view the ridiculous aspects of British culture and tradition through his eyes – the coronation ritual or parliament for example. We also feel his reactions to the temperature, humidity and gravity of the planet, the smells of London and the life bursting out of the planet, in contrast to the dead world Mars. Ultimately though Xznaal is a warrior without honour – resorting to chemical weapons and the firepower of the Martian ship. Under Xznaal’s regime, prisoners are rounded up and used in experiments involving the red gas – which feels like the scenes from ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ involving the homeless. Having shown an interest in British culture, he starts to appropriate items from the National Gallery (in an echo of Goering – or possibly the British Museum), one of which is Constable’s ‘The Haywain’. Later in the story, having grown bored of it, he uses it as a tea tray, which cleverly echoes the fate of the Haywain as an image adoring tea trays and place mats!
Martian life is nicely sketched – the rival clans and the history of Mars – the decline in natural resources and the vigour of the species. Again, we get hints that Xznaal and his Argyre clan are acting alone – the others, once informed, rally against them. Even in his own ranks, his chief scientist rebels against the genocidal use of the red gas. Lance Parkin very cleverly manages to make the Martians brutal and sympathetic at the same time. An intelligent species, which like humans has both good and bad aspects, where individuals are complex, not one-dimensional. As a result, Greyhaven’s revenge against Xznaal is horrific and brutal in its own right.
Absence of the Doctor
After an initial burst of action, the new Doctor is held back until the ending in a very similar way to the way the 10th Doctor is treated in ‘The Christmas Invasion’. His impact is similarly striking. In a number of the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures, I struggle to see Doctor that Paul McGann created. No such problem here, he is brilliantly sketched in – a young, dashing, charming, slightly ramshackle adventurer, with a strong moral sense. He is brilliantly conceived as an antidote to the increasingly Machiavellian, hawkish Seventh Doctor. I can’t imagine that was a deliberate choice by Phillip Segal and Mathew Jacobs, but it works brilliantly – not just here or in the ‘TV Movie’, but also in ‘Storm Warning’ and it continues in Big Finish to this day – the Doctor who is a hero – dashing, good-looking and fun, but will not fight in the war.
99 red balloons
The ending is brilliant – the new young Doctor battling with Xznaal on the Martian ship kilometers above London. All life on Earth is at stake and in the final battle, he shows a degree of ruthlessness. ‘The Dying Days’ culminates in a brilliantly absurd action sequence with the Doctor falling from the exploding Martian ship high above London, on his way down to earth he constructs a parachute and crash mat, using only some bin bags and curtain rings! It is brilliantly improvised and exactly the sort of action sequence that belongs in ‘Doctor Who’ – very silly and thrilling at the same time.
Elsewhere it is time to wrap the stories of the various characters. The Brigadier finally gets the recognition he deserves from a grateful nation and monarch, Benny gets a new job and well let’s just say she finally gets to do something that she has been thinking about for the whole story!
‘Queen Elizabeth sat on the coronation throne, the Imperial State Crown on her head, restored to its former glory. The Recoronation would clear the constitutional way for the election of a new Parliament.
Representatives of every nation on Earth were calling ‘God save the Queen’. The European Union, the United States and the Japanese had made generous reconstruction grants, although Britain would continue to remember their inaction during the Dying Days for some considerable years. There was a great deal that needed doing, especially in the northern cities. Things were changing, there was a new sense of optimism, of hope for the future. Perhaps it would get worse before it would get better, but everyone knew that it would get better.
Behind the various ambassadors and heads of state stood the senior military men and other heroes of the Invasion. Outside, the crowds were cheering again, the sound percolating through the thick walls of the Abbey.
‘It’s a shame the Doctor couldn’t be here.’
‘Oh but he is, Doris.’
‘Where?’
‘See that chap with the scarf and the tin dog?’ Lethbridge-Stewart pointed across the aisle.
‘Oh yes. Is the blonde girl with him?’
‘Judging by her dress-sense, I would say so.’
A couple of people leant over, stern looks on their faces. Alistair smiled back at them. When they recognised him, they mumbled their apologies and returned their attention to the ceremony. Montserrat Caballe had taken her place in front of the choir and now began to sing the Recoronation Aria, the specially-commissioned piece by Lord Lloyd-Webber. Future historians would count this as the first moment of the New New Elizabethan Age, when British art and literature entered a brief, but prolific resurgence.
Alistair glanced over at Brigadier Bambera. His successors were going to do sterling work, probably even better than him. But he liked to think that he’d set a high standard for them. Hopefully in years to come, people would say that he had lived up to his illustrious ancestry, and that by and large he’d done a good job. He knew that he’d had a good innings, and despite the old saying, he’d neither died nor faded away. Retirement wasn’t so bad, not on those terms. And that’s why, in the middle of a packed Westminster Abbey on one of the most important dates in British history, despite everything that had happened, General Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart found himself roaring with laughter.’
“The Dying Days’ – exactly the sort of ‘Doctor Who’ we should have had on our TV screens in 1997. It is a brilliantly 1990’s Doctor Who story and a fitting end to the New Adventures Doctor Who range. Benny would spin off into her own adventures, but the Eighth Doctor would resume in the BBC books range (with ‘The Eight Doctors’) and in the excellent DWM comic strips. Years later in 2001 Big Finish would pick up his story in ‘Storm Warning’. The spirit of 1997 couldn’t last, it didn’t, we are stuck again with a Tory government. Times change, but the same mistakes are being made all over again – which I suspect is just the curse of getting old. Sir Alastair may have gone permanently to Geneva, but his daughter is going strong – fighting the good fight with UNIT. And elsewhere, the Eighth Doctor is still out there – travelling with Liv and Helen or with Bliss – still refusing to fight in the Time War.
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A Journal of Impossible Things 