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modernzorker's review
4.0
The Visitation features my absolute favorite opening scene from any Classic Who novelization. It opens not on people, but on animals:
Before we actually reach the people who live inside said manor, we've witnessed the owl successfully hunt a field mouse, tearing into it with beak and claw, and Saward tells us, "It was the first kill of the evening." A beautifully innocuous foreshadowing as we're introduced to the small family inhabiting the manor house, mainly seen through the eyes of a brilliant young woman named Elizabeth as she observes a stellar phenomenon while she's recording her thoughts of the day in her diary. Just a few pages later, however, and Elizabeth, her brother Charles, her father John, and the family servant Ralph, are loading powder into their guns and defending their home from an other-worldly siege. The four of them meet a bitter end at the hands of a remorseless adversary, though not without bumping off one of their enemies first. It's the last we'll see of the family, though not their home, within the pages of this story, and it's a testimony to Saward's skill as a storyteller that the deaths so such minor characters feel so needlessly cruel. Re-reading it today, almost thirty years after I first paged through it as a child, I still feel a sense of remorse. Elizabeth would have made for a phenomenal Companion, but she never got the opportunity, and more's the pity. But now it's over to the Doctor and the real companions so the rest of the story can continue.
Following the events in the previous book/episode Kinda, Tegan has decided she's done enough time traveling and would like to go back to normality. The decision has lowered the spirits of fellow companions Nyssa and Adric, and even the Doctor isn't immune to his own emotional swings. Despite this, he's promised to deliver her back to Heathrow Airport, right around the time he originally picked her up in Logopolis, so she can resume her life as an airline stewardess.
Of course, if there are four words which could sum up much of the Fifth Doctor's adventures, they would be, "Right place, wrong time," and The Visitation is no different. While the Doctor has managed to guide the TARDIS to the right place just outside of London, they have arrived there about three hundred years too early. Tegan, already on edge, blows her top and storms out of the TARDIS. The Doctor follows her to apologize, but it's a bad time to be a stranger in this part of the world as the group are set upon by the local citizenry who are convinced outsiders are behind the miasma which has fallen over the countryside.
Fortunately, before any harm can come to them, another player intervenes. Richard Mace, a rather charming if portly thespian who has been watching the goings-on from up in a nearby tree, fires off his flintlocks, scaring the attackers away in a display of theatrical bravado. Descending to meet his new acquaintances, he explains that this area of the country has, of late, been afflicted with a devastating plague, one possibly brought on by a recently-passing comet, and suggests the Doctor and his friends make all due haste in leaving.
The Doctor, unaware of any plague which should be despoiling England or any passing comets due at this time, decides instead to investigate. What he uncovers is a small group of aliens, the Terileptils, who escaped from their life-long prison sentence and wound up on Earth. Rather than attempt to live in peace, they've decided genocide is the better option, and have bio-engineered the plague currently affecting the village. Once they've bred enough rats, they'll send them out across the countryside, and eventually all of humanity will come down with the disease, leaving the planet free for the rogue aliens to colonize and terraform to their Soliton-breathing needs.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Terileptils are top-notch android builders. The one in their employ is currently tasked with scaring the local population by donning a death's head costume and slapping control bracelets on the local leadership. It's impervious to any arms which 17th century peasants could possibly deploy, and carries energy weaponry against which no armor is potent enough to stand. And while the Doctor and his companions may manage to win the day, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat might mean unleashing a frightening calamity of a different kind on the London citizenry...
* * * * *
There are well over one hundred and fifty different Classic Who novelizations to pick from in the Target lineup, but if you're currently quarantined, practicing self-isolation and social distancing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, then Doctor Who and the Visitation, number 69 in the Target library, is a most a propos selection. A "visitation", as defined by Merriam-Webster, is "a special dispensation of divine favor or wrath" or "a severe trial", and Earth at the hands of the Terileptils is certainly facing both of those. Who doesn't want to escape a real-life plague by using a fictionalized one? :)
All kidding aside, The Visitation ranks as one of my favorite Fifth Doctor novelizations mainly because Eric Saward (who was script editor for the series at the time) wrote the original screenplay from which his own novel is derived, and knew exactly what he wanted to do. The story marks a major change for the series as a whole, as Saward (acting on instructions from producer John Nathan-Turner) had the Doctor's ever-present sonic screwdriver destroyed by the Terileptils. The scene, and the Doctor's reaction to it ("I feel as though you've just killed an old friend," he says, mostly to himself), are both wonderfully understated. In addition, the book features Richard Mace, who is one of my all-time favorite non-Companion characters from classic Who. I read The Visitation long before I saw the actual episode, but Saward captures the essence of Michael Robbins' portrayal of the would-be highwayman perfectly. Interestingly also, Mace is one of the few people whom the Doctor invites on his travels to turn down the invitation--something you didn't often see in the Classic Who era. In one sense, this is a shame as he's a complete delight of a character. On the other hand, the TARDIS was feeling tightly packed (Saward has a devil of a time coming up with things for Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric to do while the Doctor's doing his own thing, and of course 'getting captured' is the go-to choice for the early part of the story), so having him as a one-shot is a much better choice.
The reveal at the end was completely lost on me as a child, since I wasn't all that familiar with 17th century British history, but now, being older and a little more wordly, I can enjoy it for what it is. On the other hand, while I'd very much love to award this story five stars (it really is one of my favorite novels of the Davison era), I'm still deducting one since Saward, as the original script author, got to novelize his own story but didn't take the opportunity to add much to the narrative. As it turns out, this is because he was supremely stressed and over-worked already from his job with the show, and heaping on the added toil of writing what was his first novel did not help. As quoted in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine from May of 1989, Saward said:
That Saward managed to turn in such a fine story despite the difficulties he faced is a testament to his skill as a writer, and The Visitation is all the richer for it. It's easily in the top 3 of my most-re-read Target novels, and completing it again was well worth the trip. I look forward to doing so many more times in the future.
Four sonic screwdrivers (R.I.P.) out of five!
It was a warm summer evening. The rays of the setting sun bathed the old manor house in subtle shades of red and gold. Evening stars appeared as the light continued to fade. From a high branch, a sleepy owl watched a fox break cover and silently pad toward the west wing of the manor house. Night was awakening.
Before we actually reach the people who live inside said manor, we've witnessed the owl successfully hunt a field mouse, tearing into it with beak and claw, and Saward tells us, "It was the first kill of the evening." A beautifully innocuous foreshadowing as we're introduced to the small family inhabiting the manor house, mainly seen through the eyes of a brilliant young woman named Elizabeth as she observes a stellar phenomenon while she's recording her thoughts of the day in her diary. Just a few pages later, however, and Elizabeth, her brother Charles, her father John, and the family servant Ralph, are loading powder into their guns and defending their home from an other-worldly siege. The four of them meet a bitter end at the hands of a remorseless adversary, though not without bumping off one of their enemies first. It's the last we'll see of the family, though not their home, within the pages of this story, and it's a testimony to Saward's skill as a storyteller that the deaths so such minor characters feel so needlessly cruel. Re-reading it today, almost thirty years after I first paged through it as a child, I still feel a sense of remorse. Elizabeth would have made for a phenomenal Companion, but she never got the opportunity, and more's the pity. But now it's over to the Doctor and the real companions so the rest of the story can continue.
Following the events in the previous book/episode Kinda, Tegan has decided she's done enough time traveling and would like to go back to normality. The decision has lowered the spirits of fellow companions Nyssa and Adric, and even the Doctor isn't immune to his own emotional swings. Despite this, he's promised to deliver her back to Heathrow Airport, right around the time he originally picked her up in Logopolis, so she can resume her life as an airline stewardess.
Of course, if there are four words which could sum up much of the Fifth Doctor's adventures, they would be, "Right place, wrong time," and The Visitation is no different. While the Doctor has managed to guide the TARDIS to the right place just outside of London, they have arrived there about three hundred years too early. Tegan, already on edge, blows her top and storms out of the TARDIS. The Doctor follows her to apologize, but it's a bad time to be a stranger in this part of the world as the group are set upon by the local citizenry who are convinced outsiders are behind the miasma which has fallen over the countryside.
Fortunately, before any harm can come to them, another player intervenes. Richard Mace, a rather charming if portly thespian who has been watching the goings-on from up in a nearby tree, fires off his flintlocks, scaring the attackers away in a display of theatrical bravado. Descending to meet his new acquaintances, he explains that this area of the country has, of late, been afflicted with a devastating plague, one possibly brought on by a recently-passing comet, and suggests the Doctor and his friends make all due haste in leaving.
The Doctor, unaware of any plague which should be despoiling England or any passing comets due at this time, decides instead to investigate. What he uncovers is a small group of aliens, the Terileptils, who escaped from their life-long prison sentence and wound up on Earth. Rather than attempt to live in peace, they've decided genocide is the better option, and have bio-engineered the plague currently affecting the village. Once they've bred enough rats, they'll send them out across the countryside, and eventually all of humanity will come down with the disease, leaving the planet free for the rogue aliens to colonize and terraform to their Soliton-breathing needs.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Terileptils are top-notch android builders. The one in their employ is currently tasked with scaring the local population by donning a death's head costume and slapping control bracelets on the local leadership. It's impervious to any arms which 17th century peasants could possibly deploy, and carries energy weaponry against which no armor is potent enough to stand. And while the Doctor and his companions may manage to win the day, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat might mean unleashing a frightening calamity of a different kind on the London citizenry...
* * * * *
There are well over one hundred and fifty different Classic Who novelizations to pick from in the Target lineup, but if you're currently quarantined, practicing self-isolation and social distancing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, then Doctor Who and the Visitation, number 69 in the Target library, is a most a propos selection. A "visitation", as defined by Merriam-Webster, is "a special dispensation of divine favor or wrath" or "a severe trial", and Earth at the hands of the Terileptils is certainly facing both of those. Who doesn't want to escape a real-life plague by using a fictionalized one? :)
All kidding aside, The Visitation ranks as one of my favorite Fifth Doctor novelizations mainly because Eric Saward (who was script editor for the series at the time) wrote the original screenplay from which his own novel is derived, and knew exactly what he wanted to do. The story marks a major change for the series as a whole, as Saward (acting on instructions from producer John Nathan-Turner) had the Doctor's ever-present sonic screwdriver destroyed by the Terileptils. The scene, and the Doctor's reaction to it ("I feel as though you've just killed an old friend," he says, mostly to himself), are both wonderfully understated. In addition, the book features Richard Mace, who is one of my all-time favorite non-Companion characters from classic Who. I read The Visitation long before I saw the actual episode, but Saward captures the essence of Michael Robbins' portrayal of the would-be highwayman perfectly. Interestingly also, Mace is one of the few people whom the Doctor invites on his travels to turn down the invitation--something you didn't often see in the Classic Who era. In one sense, this is a shame as he's a complete delight of a character. On the other hand, the TARDIS was feeling tightly packed (Saward has a devil of a time coming up with things for Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric to do while the Doctor's doing his own thing, and of course 'getting captured' is the go-to choice for the early part of the story), so having him as a one-shot is a much better choice.
The reveal at the end was completely lost on me as a child, since I wasn't all that familiar with 17th century British history, but now, being older and a little more wordly, I can enjoy it for what it is. On the other hand, while I'd very much love to award this story five stars (it really is one of my favorite novels of the Davison era), I'm still deducting one since Saward, as the original script author, got to novelize his own story but didn't take the opportunity to add much to the narrative. As it turns out, this is because he was supremely stressed and over-worked already from his job with the show, and heaping on the added toil of writing what was his first novel did not help. As quoted in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine from May of 1989, Saward said:
To be frank, I found it a tremendous inconvenience. I also felt I wasn't doing it very well because I just couldn't give it the time, which annoyed me. Christine Donougher was editor at Target then and she was very tolerant and patient, but at one stage I didn't want to continue. She urged me to go on and I finally finished it but it really happened at the wrong time. That's why I didn't do Earthshock - it would have been too much."
That Saward managed to turn in such a fine story despite the difficulties he faced is a testament to his skill as a writer, and The Visitation is all the richer for it. It's easily in the top 3 of my most-re-read Target novels, and completing it again was well worth the trip. I look forward to doing so many more times in the future.
Four sonic screwdrivers (R.I.P.) out of five!
saroz162's review against another edition
3.0
A nice straightforward novelization of a nice straightforward TV adventure. I remember this being one of the very first Targets I read as a kid, when I really didn't have access to the TV show. I can see why it pulled me in: the evocative first chapter does a great job of setting up the mystery, and if the somewhat spare prose of the rest of the novel occasionally veers into "he said/she said," there's enough humor and light action to keep it interesting. It has a slightly anticlimactic ending, but otherwise, I think this would be a good book for a kid who liked Doctor Who even today.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1060883.html#cutid1[return][return]I may have unconsciously been avoiding this one, given how generally hostile I feel about Eric Saward's impact on the programme. But in fact it is a perfectly decent narrative; good character moments especially for Nyssa and for the actor / highwayman Richard Mace (who is consistently described as "portly" which is at variance with the TV version). Better than I had expected.
wealhtheow's review against another edition
2.0
Nyssa, Tegan, Adric and the Doctor end up in England, 1666 and prevent an alien from spreading plague. I love this batch of Companions--they interact with the easy, prickly intimacy of siblings. And some of them are actually useful in a crisis!
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