Fish Fingers and Custard - Doctor Who Fanzine - Issue 13

“It won’t last a couple of months”

INSIDE: The Snowmen: Reviewed. The Doctor Who Fan Translation Guide. The Pescatons. RIP Ray Cusick. It Could Have Been A Spin-off.

A Horrible History. And Much More!

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

Looking Forward, Looking Back I’m not one to make controversial statements, but I felt a bit dirty the other day by admitting that I’m more looking forward to Mark Gatiss’ An Adventure In Space and Time, than the new series and even the 50th Anniversary Special.

Of course, by the time it comes around, I’ll be as excited as anyone for the anniversary special, but after hearing about the casting, filming and the general feeling around this docu-drama about the making of Doctor Who, I can’t help but admit that this intriguing look into the origins of Doctor Who will do more to celebrate the programme than any special episode ever would.

I think it’s fair to say we’re in safe hands.

The fanzine has poked a bit of fun at Mark Gatiss and his ratio of writing perceived ‘good’ Doctor Who episodes in the past (1 good un’ in 5! – controversial?), but when it comes to being knowledgeable about Doctor Who, he’s very much the top person there is. I honestly don’t believe that there’s a better person to bring this period of television history to life and if the balance of drama and comedy (there WILL be comedy) is enough, we could be in for a real treat. Best of all though – we still don’t know ANYTHING about the plot. Yes, we know the cast, who’s writing, producing and directing it. But I think its appeal is even greater when we know nothing, that way people will be

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intrigued and tune in. Imagine if that was transferred to Doctor Who itself, the 50th Anniversary? Going into it, knowing nothing but excitement, no cheap publicity doing the rounds in magazines and television. It’ll be great, won’t it? I know, it’ll never happen. But it’s great to dream!

Seeing as I’ve been in a mood of ignoring anything ‘new’ Doctor Who, writing this editorial has brought me round to thinking, what is it about Doctor Who that keeps me coming back? I’ll be honest and give you a very detailed answer – I really don’t know! The premise of the series is attraction enough, but I don’t re-watch each episode 4 times in a week like everyone seems to do and I much prefer to listen to an audio or read a book. I still love watching new Doctor Who, I think it’s great, but when it’s off the screens, I switch off and write this rubbish.

Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older I’m no longer the fresh-faced 20 year-old who used to run to the computer after every airing and post about episodes on forums. I can still remember posting about how good the make-up job on Sarah Parish was, after The Runaway Bride. It’s a personal thing, that’s life, I know, but I’m hoping that other people feel the same, just to prove to myself that I’m not going insane.

It’s amazing to think that ‘new’ Doctor Who has its own history now. It’s actually been in production for 10 years!

Even some fans watching the show now, were crawling around, making incomprehensible words in 2005. This is 2005, not 1975! It’s those 2005 babies that are the ones who are enthusiastic about the programme now, as they sit at their computers, posting about episodes.

And still being as incomprehensible as ever.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 Hopefully I’ll fall in love with Doctor Who again. Like a punter and his brassy prostitute in Game of Thrones, I’m sure I will. The Eleventh Hour did that for me (and kick-started this fanzine!) and I really hope The Bells of Saint John will do similar. Although one mediocre fanzine from me is enough for now!

programme/actors/fandom, please get in touch!

As ever, if you fancy contributing to the fanzine, please drop us an e-mail at fishcustardfanzine@googlemail.com seeing as it’s such a big year, we’d love more contributions from as many different people as possible. If you want to say anything about the

There never seems to be an in-between with Doctor Who!

Other than that, enjoy the new series and prepare for a rollercoaster year that will either delight us Doctor Who fans or make us vomit on the pretty girl/boy that you’re sat next to.

Cheers!

Danny

This Issue of Fish Fingers and Custard is sponsored by Los Pollos Hermanos – food so that good, it’ll put a smile on your face. Permanently.

Editor: Daniel Gee Contributors: Colin Fox, Mike Pearse, Kieron Moore, Tim Gambrell, Jay McIntyre, Matthew Kresal, MOB and Canny Dohen Doctor Who is ©BBC Apart from The TV Movie, which is owned by about 10 billion different companies. We’ve no idea why. It’s not exactly The Ark In Space, is it?

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

The Snowmen: Reviewed

Doctor Who Christmas specials are a hit and miss affair. Under Russell T Davies, the theme was generally “another invasion of contemporary London. At Christmas.” Steven Moffat revamped this by having Matt Smith’s specials based on classic Christmas stories, with festive themes of family and love and all of that central to the story. The first, A Christmas Carol, was definitely a hit.

The sloppy second, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, was definitely a miss. This year’s was once again named after a well-known story, but that wasn’t the main feature of its marketing, or even much related to the actual plot of the episode at all. With Amy and Rory still eternally trapped in a timey-wimey plot contrivance, The Snowmen was hyped as the introduction of a new companion in the shape of Jenna-Louise Coleman.

Coleman’s Clara, a Victorian governess and part-time barmaid, first met the Doctor when she noticed strange things afoot – snowmen appearing out of nowhere across London. But the Doctor, embittered by the loss of the Ponds, was

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no longer willing to help humanity and refused to investigate. More unusual events led Clara to the mysterious G.I. institute and the sinister Doctor Simeon, to the Doctor’s friends, and, eventually, into the TARDIS. This story definitely had, like Amy Pond’s introduction, a fairytale feel, with the Doctor retired to the skies above snow-covered Victorian London.

“There’s a man called the Doctor,” Clara tells the children she looks after, “he lives on a cloud in the sky, and all he does, all day, every day, is to stop all the children in the world ever having bad dreams.”

Yet despite this festive magic, the plot, compared to the Eleventh Doctor’s previous specials, wasn’t heavily Christmassy. The Snowmen felt like an interesting hybrid of the Davies and Moffat styles, with Christmas itself often playing a background role to the central conflict against the mysterious icy villains and against the Doctor’s depressed state.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 There were two main concerns I had before I saw this episode. One was that the cast would be too large and certain characters wouldn’t get enough screen time. Besides the Doctor and his new companion, we had the return of A Good Man Goes to War’s Vastra, Jenny and Strax, Richard E. Grant’s Doctor Simeon, Ian McKellen as an Ice Moriarty, Tom Ward and his kids as the archetypal posh Victorian family, and an ice lady. Who have I forgotten? What Moffat did with this cast, however, was create a rich, gothic world – a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-style Victorian London with fantastic monsters hiding in the shadows and danger lurking on every corner. All in all, this worked, though I would have liked Richard E. Grant, who was born to play a Doctor Who villain, to have had more screen time and character depth. Vastra and Jenny are great returning characters, who I look forward to more adventures with, though I’m still not a fan of the new look Silurians – they’re too humanoid, and at least the eyes should be more reptilian. Strax the Sontaran, meanwhile, was a brilliant source of comic relief throughout. Unlike other fans, I have no problem with the send-up of the Sontaran race. Why not? Because, frankly, it’s very funny. And they were never taken too seriously as villains, anyway. My only problem with Strax was the disappointing lack of an explanation for his resurrection. “Another friend of mine brought him back” will not suffice.

That is not an explanation; that is a sentence devoid of content.

The other concern I had was the idea of the Doctor going into retirement. After the dreariness of David Tennant’s Doctor never getting over Rose and dickishly crying about her into poor Martha’s face for a whole series, I wasn’t optimistic about another mopey Doctor.

But, as a development which lasted for one story only, it worked well. “Over a thousand years of saving the universe, the one thing I learned – the universe

doesn’t care” the Doctor grumbled from beneath his mawkishly jaunty top hat, and, you know, maybe he has a point. At his age, and after the tragic (if nonsensical) loss of Amy and Rory, he does have a right to be a little grumpy once in a while. And that’s where, bringing in the recently explored theme of the Doctor’s need for a companion to keep him on the right path, we bring in Clara to save him. He’s back now!

Doctor Who can continue! And through this, grumpy Doctor also served the function of making Clara immediately a strong and likable character through her renewal of the Doctor's enthusiasm for life.

From her first episode alone, Clara already has an energetic dynamic with the Doctor, and one refreshingly different to Amy and Rory’s. I am still worried that she may be a little too much on the sassy side, and this may get annoying eventually, though I did find her flirtatiousness less of a problem in this episode than in Asylum of the Daleks. I am also concerned about the hints of sexual attraction between her and the Doc. That never works out. Plus, he’s married – River’s still around and we certainly don’t need another love interest so soon. However, the way in which Clara slowly turned the Doctor back to his normal self was touching and elegantly played, making it all the more tragic when the icy bitch lady threw her to a surprisingly non-mushy death. After losing Amy and Rory, having another companion die on him so soon would be the ultimate tragedy for the Doctor and would almost certainly send him back into mopey mode for at least anther century. It’s also pretty morbid for those two kids, watching their beloved governess die when they should be asleep waiting for Santa. Luckily for the Doctor, he realised that there’s some connection between the late Oswin Oswald and the late Clara Oswin Oswald and ended the episode running off with a renewed vigour to find a living

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 incarnation somewhere. I’m already fascinated by this mystery and can’t wait to find out more. No happy ending for the kids though. Christmas will never be the same again for them.

At least they can find solace in the fact that they saved the world. Considering that a massive proportion of the episode was focused on Clara trying to cheer the Doctor up so that he could save the world again, with the conclusion being the Doctor all cheered up and giddily screaming “I’m gonna go save the world again”, I find it heavily underwhelming that the Doctor did not, in fact, save the world. The family did, by crying, and thus telepathically melting Ice Moriarty’s plans. This isn’t the first time that I’ve felt a Doctor Who plot resolution has been rushed, messy, and too reliant on the telepathic projection of emotions. That ending got tiring when it happened for half of the series 6B episodes…

Up until this resolution, however, the story was an enjoyable mystery. With funny moments, including a knowing Sherlock pastiche, a series of scary set pieces and a great reference to a classic series villain, we can forgive Steven Moffat for the occasional hammy line (“Tomorrow, the snow will fall and so will mankind”). It is Christmas, after all.

Visually, the episode made good use of both its icy theme – the teethy snowmen, the frosty governess and the ice zombie Richard E. Grant making kids never want to go out in the cold or near Richard E. Grant again – and its Victorian setting – from the Doctor’s lush purple coat and top hat to Clara’s pretty dresses and Richard E. Grant’s steampunk office. The Snowmen looked fabulously gothic and was a triumph for the design department.

Except, that is, for what’s probably the most important piece of design in the episode. Trying to move on from Amy and Rory, the Doctor had redecorated the TARDIS. To quote the Second

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Doctor, I don’t like it. The previous TARDIS was vast and mysterious, with its glass floor and its staircases. The new TARDIS feels closed in, restricted, depthless. The previous TARDIS was warm and friendly. This TARDIS feels cold and harsh – which perhaps suits The Snowmen’s locked away Doctor but I can’t imagine working as we follow the back-in-action Doctor’s friendship with Clara. It’s more retro, and so fitting with the upcoming fiftieth anniversary, yes, but that doesn’t excuse it being rubbish.

Surely some of the previous TARDIS’ wonder could have been carried over?

This is just a fridge with a spinny bit.

I do like the new title sequence, though.

It’s a daring step away from the time vortex of the last seven years and a sexy smorgasbord of pretty space colours and Matt Smith’s pretty face.

All in all, The Snowmen doesn’t quite live up to the standards set by A Christmas Carol, by far the perfect Doctor Who festive special, but it’s a damn step forward from last year’s mess. As a companion introduction story, it sets up a great mystery and immediately brings a likeable new dynamic, but, similarly, it doesn’t quite live up to the standards set by The Eleventh Hour. Nevertheless, like the best Who stories, it’s got a mix of great elements, including humour, horror, mystery, emotion, and, to add to that, it’s a bit sexy. Do all these elements hold together? Not all the time, no, but when they do, it’s a great lot of fun.

Plus, there wasn’t anything else good on telly this Christmas.  KIERON MOORE - http://thisisgoodisntit.blogspot.co.uk On The Edge (of a snowy) Cliff At first, I found it difficult to write a review of The Snowmen. Not because it was

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 rubbish, but because I felt it offered nothing but set-up for the upcoming series. We’re on the edge of a cliff, and the end will only push us over or leave us running away with joy. I do hope it’s the latter!

Cosmetically, the episode looks and feels fine. I really like the new TARDIS interior – we have something that actually LOOKS like the idea of an alien ship, not the inside of a fishbowl or some 70’s art-décor bedroom, where some weirdo hippy lived/squatted in. The constant Victorian settings are starting to grate on me a bit, but the look of them is great. (Obviously because every other episode is set in that time!)

The story wraps itself around the Troughton-era, what with the return of The ‘Great’ Intelligence and the call-back to The Web of Fear, with The Doctor giving his former self some work to do in the London Underground! The story is fine, the snowmen just seemed to be fodder in the end, designed for us to get to the real character of the episode – Clara. The fanzine went to great lengths into preaching how much of a positive casting Jenna is – and you can’t deny she’s already doing a decent job, despite not actually travelling with The Doctor yet! I could come up with reams of explanations as to why she’s decent, but I don’t want to use words that I don’t fully understand (like most reviewers do) so I’ll just say – watch the scene when she’s giving her one-word answers. No words needed to explain how good that scene is.

I was a bit wary of the return of the trio of characters from A Good Man Goes To War. Beforehand, I felt that they weren’t needed and offered nothing. After watching the episode, I do understand their role – giving The Doctor a base, a conscious if you will, to work from.

Otherwise, how do you explain someone

who wants to avoid everything, not get involved with anything and anyone, going to a place where he knows people and knows that trouble won’t be far behind? I thought that it was a good plot-point to show that even if The Doctor is sick of his life, somewhere inside him, he WANTS to be the person going around, saving worlds and people.

It’s what he is.

The story with Clara has got more intriguing and left us with hopes of a City of Death-type character, spilt over time through some bizarre accident (or maybe on purpose). I really hope it is it’ll be very apt to call back to one of the best Doctor Who serials in it’s big year, but somehow I reckon Moffat has his own plot in mind. I just hope all the hype, all the build-up, will be worth it. During the Moffat-era so far, could you honestly say that the pay-offs have been as good as the set-up? I don’t think they have, personally. It’s been like going on a long drive to a theme park, going on some epic adventures along the way, before arriving at the theme park and finding it closed. Kids are in tears, you’re pissed off at going through all that and now facing the prospect of cheering the kids up and driving all the way back and finding something else to do.

As mentioned above, this episode sets up a year or two of Doctor Who that could leave us proclaiming it to be the best ever, or leave us bitterly disappointed. All the tools are there and it’s up to Moffat and the team to put them to use Overall, The Snowmen was a decent enough episode. Not one to live long in the memory, but something that could yet be the start of the best era of Doctor Who. (Or the worst!)

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

William Hartnell: THE Doctor There’s many aspects of Doctor Who that I’m sure we don’t agree with. One that I think needs highlighting more than most, is the fact that William Hartnell doesn’t get enough love from fans. He’s often portrayed as this aloof, angry and even, a racist, individual. But as we all (should) know about generalisations of people – the truth has somewhat been lost.

Patrick Troughton, quite rightly, gets a lot of credit for making the show a hit, due in no small part to his performances being so good, which helped to make the ‘renewal’ from Hartnell a success. But people do seem to like listening to generalisations it seems, because A) Ratings were actually falling by the time 1969 ended and the programme was very nearly cancelled (which is probably why nobody was cast for regeneration scene) and B) Without Hartnell taking on the role so seriously, Doctor Who would have been cancelled long before that anyway. People forget that Doctor Who was only supposed to be on for a couple of months. Hartnell, being the dreamer he was, said that the show was so good that it would run for 5 years. If only he knew!

It’s interesting to read people’s comments about his characterisation of The Doctor being this ‘grumpy cruel old man’. People forget about his mischievous side, be it lying about fluid links, to unwittingly entering into a marriage with a Aztec woman. His comic timing comes to the fore superbly and his experiences of playing authority figures helps to draw the character for us even better. You can see those characteristics in every Doctor since and I don’t think that it’s no exaggeration to say that it was Hartnell who laid down the foundations for successful Doctor Who, not Troughton, or Tom Baker, as other people like to say. It’s funny, as if you look at the series today, then it’s Hartnell’s ‘grumpy, cruel, old man’ that looks much more like the alien than any of the more recent 3 Doctors, who are so engrained in people’s minds when they talk about Doctor Who. True, these 3 are the most recent, so they WILL be in people’s minds, but similar to Hartnell, I feel that Christopher Eccleston has become a somewhat forgotten relic, people in general citing David Tennant as the man who made Doctor Who popular and not the man before him, who had laid down those foundations with his performances during that difficult, but successful, first year back.

Another thing that I don’t think helps, is the lack of information about Hartnell and his life.

His Granddaughter (not Susan, his actual Granddaughter) wrote a biography about him in 1996 but is only available in second-hand hardback and at a very expensive price. th Wouldn’t it be a good idea to reprint it in paperback for the 50 anniversary? All we seem to hear about him is the stereotypes mentioned above. All I can say to that, is if you believe the stories, if Hartnell was such a horrible, bigoted, prejudiced, bitter old man, why would

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 he bother working on this project with ‘a woman and two foreigners’ in the first place? It wasn’t as if he needed the work, what with his steady career and all, he just wanted to work on a series that he found intriguing and something, he thought, would inspire children and educate them. Like us today, he was a very much product of his time, knowing no better and if we just write these people off without bothering to try and understand, instead relying on stereotypes and hearsay for information, then we’re no better than the bigoted people we like to point out.

To illustrate Hartnell further, here’s a copy of the interview will Hartnell’s widow, Heather, from a issue of DWM in 1983.

I will always remember that first telephone call. Terry (William Hartnell’s son-in-law and agent) phoned me up from London saying that he was coming down to the cottage because he had this most incredible script that he wanted Bill to read and tell him about. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to say, but it’s for a children’s serial’. I was a little taken aback and asked if it was a tough guy part. ‘No, it’s an old man with long white hair, an old professor who’s a bit round the bend’. Well, I said ‘Bill will love it’, but Terry still remained a little apprehensive. Anyway, he turned up that evening with the script. Bill took it and sat in absolute silence, reading it through from beginning to end, and eventually said ‘My goodness, I want this part!’. He saw immediately that there was something so different about the whole idea, and once he had got the part he loved it from the very beginning.

“The only thing that I was sorry about when he started was that they made him a rather grumpy old man. He was furious that the school master and mistress had discovered the TARDIS and got into it, he was absolutely livid and the fact that he took them off on that first trip was really noting but spite!

Bill would have liked to put more comedy into it, and to some extent tried with his coughs and splutterings. But even so, he loved it from the very beginning and had absolute faith in that show and was completely hooked on it from reading that very first script.

“I was so pleased that more or less the last thing that he was able to do should be something that has lasted and lasted throughout the years. He put a lot of himself into it, because Bill has always been the sort of person that didn’t suffer fools gladly and that came out very strongly in the character of the Doctor. Bill, of course, always adored children. I think he should have had a family of about six, instead of one daughter.

“One of Bill’s favourite stories was ‘Marco Polo’. In fact, it was one of his ideas. At one time they were walking around asking everybody for ideas, and that was one of them. Mind you, he enjoyed doing so many of them. His one regret was that the programme was in black and white, because of the costumes, they were so colourful. Like all actors, he loved dressing up and it seemed such a shame that the viewers couldn’t see all those wonderful sets and costumes in all their glory.

“The first Dalek story I remember there was a bit of trouble over. It was in the script that when the Dalek was incapacitated or exterminated, they were to have some oozy blood coming out of the base of the machines and a lot of them, Bill included, said ‘No, that’s too nasty for children’, so they cut it out. After that, Bill used to really enjoy the Daleks, because they were something for him to hate. In a way, they were the real black monsters of the time because, then, we hadn’t had bad Time Lords brought in. So the worst enemy that he ever came across were the Daleks and he really enjoyed fighting them and he knew the kids loved the Dalek series.

“One of the two films was made while he was still playing the part on TV, and although he would have dearly loved to have had the role of the Doctor in it, he just didn’t have the time. The programme was on for forty-eight weeks of the year, and when his four weeks holiday came, I can tell you, he jolly well needed it. By the time the second film came along, his ill health prevented him from working anywhere.

“I’ll always remember he opened a big annual fete at Pembury Hospital in about ’64, ’65, and a great friend of his had a lovely pre-1914 war car, a real veteran. Anyway, this friend drove the car into Tunbridge Wells where he met Bill, who had changed into his Doctor’s costume complete with wig,

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 stick and cape that the BBC had lent him. Bob pulled up in this open tourer and Bill got in front and I in the back, and off we set for the hospital. By the time we had gone three odd miles to the fete, there was a stream of kids and cars and bicycles behind us. It was fantastic. We went into the grounds of the hospital and everybody went absolutely mad. They made more money that day than they had ever done before or since on their open days.

“When the time came for Bill to leave the show, purely because of his ill health, it broke his heart.

Having told the press that it was going to run for five years, he was determined to play it for five years. But he couldn’t remember his lines, plus his legs were beginning to give way at times. Between the end of 1966 and when he made ‘The Three Doctors’ in 1972, he got progressively weaker mentally and physically. That’s the awful thing about arteriosclerosis, as the arteries close up the flow of blood is not only weakened to the limbs but to the brain as well. When he did ‘The Three Doctors’, he couldn’t remember a single line, but he was still able to read it. The BBC were ever so good over that.

“With Patrick Troughton taking over the show, we were delighted, because Bill had suggested him for the part and he was number one choice of the names that came up. We’d known Pat for years, he’s a darling person. But after a time, Bill stopped watching it, because it upset him emotionally. Even so, he was very pleased with Jon Pertwee’s interpretation. He hardly saw any of Jon Pertwee’s stories, but was tickled pink to think that the show had gone on and when he did ‘The Three Doctors’ he glowed again as if it had taken ten years off his illness.

“My most precious possession is a tiny little solid gold TARDIS that Bill had made. He designed it himself and went to a top London jeweller, and had it made on a gold chain complete with a tiny, green emerald for the light. It’s my most precious possession because I know it is the only one in the world.”

William Hartnell isn’t ‘The First Doctor’, he IS THE Doctor. Hopefully this is something that An Adventure In Space and Time will get across, giving fans, young and old more information on the man who made Doctor Who what it is. In the meantime, whack on a First Doctor episode and enjoy the performances of the man who gave us all the opportunity to moan about , write about and even make Doctor Who!  DANIEL GEE

KEEP ROSE AWAY PARTY (K.R.A.P) With the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who coming up, we’re currently working away, trying to stop this person from returning and ruining their exit all over again. We feel that she’s had her time, a number of times, and has already ruined the end of one Doctor’s era. PLEASE DON’T MAKE IT ANOTHER. Please support us to keep this abomination of a character away from Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary. Thank-You.

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

Big Huge Magnificent Ideas This is what shows like Doctor Who are made of. Big massive beautiful bloody great oceans of ideas that blow you away. These ideas make you spit out your coffee and rewind the part you just saw. These ideas make you babble to your friends at work, school, online. Oh my God, did you see? I can’t believe they did that with those! And then when she stepped out in the light and ….

These are the stock in trade of the show.

These are the wonderful revealing exciting dramatic daring and downright brilliant ideas that we all love and expect out of the show. Yet somewhere along the way, instead of the universe being kept alive by mathematicians or London being invaded by Cybermen or the Doctor deciding not to destroy the Daleks in their infancy we get Dinosaurs on a spaceship, a title whose clichéd reference points to a vaguely remembered memetic internet viral joke based on a movie based on a joke gives us exactly that, a tale full of noise and thunder, signifying absolutely nothing of any entertainment value or cleverness whatsoever. And I hate to say that. I really do. I’m a fan. A huge fan. I’ve been a follower of Who since I was a child in the 1970’s and I’ve watched it mostly steadily (I took a leave of absence around the time that Colin Baker did but I came back full speed for Sylvester’s glory days, got involved in fandom with articles and fiction and a local group full of like minded characters and we had many a great evening out drinking and sessions of watching who episodes in each other’s houses) since then.

So let me repeat that I’m a fan and I love the show and enjoy it tremendously. I am delighted that it’s become a staple for so many new fans and casual viewers, reclaiming it’s rightful position

as a British icon and capturing whole new generations of viewers with the continuing adventures of Gallifrey’s Time Lord adventurer with the two hearts and the police box disguised Time/Space travelling ship. But as a fan, one has to take the bad with the good, I know that.

But it amazes me when in the last half season we have five stories and out of those five, one is good, one is average and two are terrible and one is appallingly written. The Daleks having a lunatic asylum, fantastic. The Doctor on a wild west themed planet with clichéd characters all around and a crap resolution, not so fantastic. The Doctor on a spaceship filled with dinosaurs and co-starring two blokes from Harry Potter and the single most dreadful ending to any Moffat story ever, just …no. Then we had the big denouement where we had a whole bunch of time travel Back to the Future III style nonsense, a story that made no sense whatsoever when examined for more than four seconds, angels made out of cherub statues, giant angels, angels who somehow messed up Rory and Amy so bad that they could never leave 1940’s New York or something but they could still live together happy. Again with the no.

So for, possibly the most hyped up season so far with huge American promos and Convention publicity, cosplay interest, comics sales booming, and this is what we got. Just rubbish with one good episode. If Chris Eccleston’s first few shows had been like this season, the show wouldn’t have lasted.

Now, like I said, I’m a fan and I’ve been the Moff’s biggest supporter, loving his writing style and the direction he’s taken Matt Smith’s doctor in but something went terribly wrong with the last few episodes and I’m hoping it’s just a temporary problem with quality. Because you just can’t write TV that bad, in any

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 genre, for long and keep your base, let alone keep adding new viewers. And Who fans, whilst forgiving because we’re so in love with the overall show that we’ll look the other way when a few dinosaurs wander into our beloved show’s view.

We’ll cough and look away whilst insipid plots are papered over with colorful deus ex machinas and doctors with hair gel and a cheeky Scottish wink. We’ll even shamefacedly watch whilst our much loved companions Rory and Amy are whisked off into a timewarp of amateur hour not even fit to be fan-fiction plotting, leaving the magnificent ‘Brian’ behind to pick up the pieces, muttering to ourselves that it was just one mistake, one error in judgement and that it wouldn’t happen again. Or perhaps it IS just a tv show, just another intellectual property to be used and abused by those in power whether they feel inspired or not. But I don’t believe that, any more than I believe that the next season will have as many blunders in it.

Because I’ve been watching this show for so long that I can look at the last few episodes and still take something good out of them like Mark Williams magnificent portrayal of a normal man, the quintessential normal English Dad and middle aged man- the left behind ‘victim’ of the Doctor’s somewhat cavalier approach to those who travel with him and who are inevitably dropped off back where they came from. I know the show will continue on and I know it will get better because Moffat is a great writer and great writers do not continue to write or produce nonsense like what

we have been lately served up. I know this and yet I still worry when I see things like a terribly clichéd Western town with a Sherriff and jail and saloon, because it’s just far too small for this show, my show. This show is so vast in scope and so immense in the depth of ideas that it would take to flood it that tiny little mean-spirited stupid localized stories like dinosaurs on a spaceship just don’t belong. Big huge magnificent brilliantly genius ideas are what we stay around for and what I’m looking forward to. Just because I draw some attention to the bad doesn’t mean I’ve turned cynical about the show or genre. Quite the contrary- I’ve turned hopeful for Who and many other properties like Battlestar Galactica or Blakes 7 which is why I want to be honest about the dreadful episodes so that we can all try to ensure that they don’t happen again. This is our show, it’s a part of all of us fans, and something that brings us all together and helps keep us young, passionate and enthusiastic for this great huge crazy brilliant mix of eccentricity, action, humor and insane plots that we’ve come to know as Doctor Who or for those of us who are far too old to still be enjoying the show so much, just ‘Who’ will do. So just do us a favour, Moff, and lay off the dinosaurs in spaceships and old west pastiches and get back to doing what you do best. Thank you for what you’ve given us so far and for what you’re preparing for us in the future.  COLIN FOX

Lowther and Deardon: Tainted Gold A Book, co-authored by Fish Custard Contributor, Jay McIntyre The city of Lanteius is divided between three rival nations. A grim mercenary and a cynical bard are thrust into an investigation to uncover a conspiracy that threatens the balance of power. Swords and sorcery, magic and crime, intrigue and betrayal.

Available from Lulu.com

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Hello Dolly! Revisiting Pemberton, Pescatons and Piccolos...

Doctor Who and The Pescatons is cracking. End of. Next!

What? (tuts) OK, OK, I need to put more effort in, I know. I’ll start again.

In many ways this 1976 LP was the programme’s first ‘Greatest Hits’ package. Agreed, it’s hardly Abba Gold and there’s no familiar monsters or old friends clambering into vinyl immortality here, but there’s no arguing about the popularity of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane at the time and Pescatons’ story telling technique is based around ‘moments’ which tend to capture the essence of what Doctor Who had become over the years: moments of drama, moments of menace, moments of lengthy exposition (narrated to avoid long dull dialogue scenes with expensive supporting characters!), moments of monsters and moments of mad music. In a progressive step there’s also a flashback sequence, the like of which we wouldn’t get on TV until the JNT years.

Victor Pemberton was a curious choice to write a Doctor Who audio adventure at the time. Yes, he’d had a year or so with the programme back around 1967-8 but this was nearly ten years down the line and he’d not been invited back since his Troughton dalliance. He’s competent, if unashamedly marine-minded, and a lot of the time he gets the Fourth Doctor pretty much spot on. He has his fair share of eccentric moments on TV so why shouldn’t he suddenly burst into song to rescue Sarah Jane and the baby? The odd moments of piccoloplaying and aren’t so much a Second Doctor-throwback as the production saying ‘this is us, we’re like the TV version but different and this is how we do things’ – like the 1960s Dalek films and the early Frederick Muller novelisations. And that’s the great strength of Doctor Who and The Pescatons: it’s a very confident work, confident with itself and with its own medium. It deliberately takes on a Bmovie style invasion story that it knows the TV version could never convincingly portray, and then plays to the strengths of audio by focussing on big scenes and dramatic moments played out for all they’re worth, allowing exposition and supporting characters to be carried by Tom Baker’s delicious narration. The whole thing whips along at pace through the length of two TV episodes. Do we miss not meeting Professor Emerson, the eminent astronomer, in person? I don’t think so. We all have our own imagined versions of what an eminent astronomer looks and sounds like; he assists The Doctor and Sarah rather than locking them up or trying to kill them so it’s clear that with limited time available they’d skip to the monsters and the action and leave Emerson to his telescope. Radio paints the best

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 pictures, so we’re told, and part of the joy of listening to this is filling in those gaps ourselves: it’s an interactive experience, people!

Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen are on fine form as always. There’s no hint that they may be treating the recording as anything less than ‘the real thing’. This is particularly admirable of Sladen who doesn’t get an awful lot to do. I suspect nowadays they’d have given Lis her own sub-plot to narrate, leaving Tom to concentrate on the main story. Yes, the voices have a very studio-bound sound, but we’ve been spoilt by the output of Big Finish and more recently the BBC Fourth Doctor ‘Nest Cottage’ adventures so these days we’re used to a fuller, more dynamic soundscape for our audio Who. The sparseness of sound often works to great dramatic effect though – particularly on the beach at the beginning where it’s very spooky.

Like the TV Doctor Who of the time, though, it’s not without its faults. It’s difficult to picture exactly how big the pescatons are supposed to be at times – half man half shark, but possibly considerably larger than both. The production doesn’t have budgetary worries limiting its choice of locations yet it still presents an invasion of London as an invasion of Earth - although you could argue the familiar settings make it more scary and accessible to its main expected audience. As with the Kraals in The Android Invasion it’s not clear how the roaring, munching pescatons could build and pilot intricate spaceships. It’s also not clear how or why Zor evolved as uber-pescaton when his death meant that all bog-standard pescatons would also die - other than it being a convenient way out of having to leave a load of them swimming around in the Thames forever (Frontios used a similar idea some years later but was sensible enough to do it on a distant planet and allow the innocent tractators to carry on living without the Gravis). Nothing is

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made of their strange ability to pluck the TARDIS from space either – something else the pescatons share with the tractators – it’s just a narrative device to have the Doctor in the right place at the right time and doesn’t seem to worry him in the slightest.

Zor is little more than a scary voice and an obscure description at the end of the day, but Bill Mitchell does well enough with his four or five lines. He was never going to be a Broton or a Sutekh, but he’s what the story needs him to be with his passing resemblance to an enormous marine Morbius. Zor does much unacknowledged work behind the scenes, though: plotting and planning, ensuring the story has a purpose and is not simply an ‘invasion-for-the-sake-ofhaving-an-invasion’. The pescatons need water (and oxygen?) and want to survive, so it’s really a shame that they landed in the Thames estuary and not in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s also a shame that they plucked the TARDIS out of the sky when it was passing by and brought disaster on themselves. I bet if that scout had survived he’d have got a damn good dressing down from Zor for successfully jeopardising the mission and the species.

I remember the first time I heard The Pescatons (on cassette at my grandparents) and thinking ‘they’ve got the same Dr Who theme seven inch record as me, I recognise the sections they’ve used for the titles rather than the twinkly TV version’. The same couldn’t be said of the TARDIS materialisation sound effect which has very little Radiophonic key-on-piano-string action here and climaxes with a hollow wooden ‘clump’, matching Pemberton’s obscure obsession with having the TARDIS land and take off as a visible, physical cabinet – like at the beginning and end of Fury From The Deep. Kenny Clayton’s incidental score is a tad more experimental than the TV programme was indulging in at the time and some of

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 its more atonal sequences wouldn’t be out of place in Season 9 alongside Malcolm Clarke and Tristram Cary’s work. I would often wonder if it was my dodgy cassette player to blame so I was gratified to find that both the 1990s Silva Screen and the more recent BBC Audio versions have the mangled music intact.

As with most aspects of this production there’s just enough music to be effective.

It’s sparse and adds to the atmosphere and pace but is never out of place. You never wish it wasn’t there, but then you also never wish there was more of it – unless that early weird-sounding synth stuff is really your kind of bag (baby).

The obvious next question is ‘should Argo have made more of these LP adventures?’ I won’t deny that I’d have liked to have heard more – at the time I got The Pescatons I didn’t have access to videos of old Doctor Who so this and Genesis of the Daleks was as near as I could get to my favourite Doctor. But I also believe that much of the charm of The Pescatons comes from the fact that it’s a lone original, sitting there in the

mid-70s when the programme was amazingly popular and doing what it did very well on TV - but once only on record. So the effect never wore thin, the story-telling technique never lost its power, the Doctor never ran out of song and dance routines to distract the monsters and Sarah Jane never snapped the Doctor’s piccolo for unnecessarily attracting said monsters.

We love it because, as with so much Doctor Who, it’s a bit crap and a bit brilliant all at the same time, and often for the same reasons!

Of course, the death of Elisabeth Sladen means that Big Finish will never be able to explore Season 13.5 during which the Doctor can show a sudden nervous tendency to always play the piccolo. One also can’t help wondering whether Tom Baker ever received any offers of musical theatre parts after his virtuoso performance of ‘Hello Dolly’ with a hot shoe shuffle..?  TIM GAMBREL

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The Fanzine MOB (Moaning Old Bastard) In a regular series this year, a mysterious fanzine contributor (identity withheld in case they’re accosted at a Convention) will hold up a magnifying glass to look at the state of today’s Doctor Who fandom and try to sum up how things have changed.

In this Issue, we’ll be looking at THE INTERNET & COMMERCIALISM with that statement, others may not.

That’s what makes a fandom as massive as ours so diverse.

never had an internet. We actually talked to people. I know that might sound a bit ironic coming from someone who has asked to have their identity withheld, but I’d prefer not be abused for being honest. But hey, that’s the kind of world we live in these days.

Leaving those controversial thoughts aside, I’m sure most of you reading this regularly visit Doctor Who sites on the internet, or are a user of social networks.

If so, I’m sure you come across some of the mindless abuse that is aimed at the show, Steven Moffat and even Matt Smith. You may say that things like this doesn’t really matter, it’s only words, but it actually descends into some really foul (and personal) abuse that shows these people up for the idiots that they are.

But why does it upset me? It’s because they call themselves Doctor Who fans (or Whovians). I don’t want to be in the same club as them. If they spout that sort of abuse in the real world, in an actual club, they’d get glassed in the face.

As you may have gathered, this fanzine sometimes like to make fun out of Doctor Who fans for their constant over-the-top reactions to the programme and the people behind it. Many of these people refer to themselves as ‘Whovians’, which surprises me as they spend most of their time hating the show. Personally, I’m of the school of thought that believes that a fandom like ours doesn’t need a label to identify itself. Why should it need one?

We’re fans of Doctor Who. That’s it.

Labels are there to be picked at and to be flogged to the highest bidders. If you’re a reader of this fanzine, then you’ll know the general thoughts about how the commercialism of Doctor Who is getting out of hand. I happened to agree

I read a few fanzines and most of them try to make the point that they’re a collective voice of Doctor Who fans, away from the lure of the internet and heaven forbid, the outside world. I’ve learnt that as fans, we love the programme - not particularly for who’s in it - but for what it is, where it goes and what it represents. It’s about a man, a different man, who stands up for what is wrong and helps to put things right for anyone who is in peril. Other than that, Doctor Who can be about anything and be set anywhere. That’s why it’s so successful, that’s why it attracts all sorts of people from all walks of life, from different countries all around the world.

It isn’t perfect - but we’re not perfect

When I was in my youthful pomp, we

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 either - that’s why we love it. After embarking on the internet fandom, I expected people to share the same beliefs but it’s mainly moaning and abusing those people who work extremely hard to present us with the show we have. Sometimes people have enough, disconnect themselves away from fandom and then drift away from Doctor Who altogether. It’s very sad when that happens - and it shouldn’t happen.

We live in an age where it’s piss-easy to gain access to almost anything you would ever need. You don’t even need to go out of the house for anything now.

You can eat, shit and work from home.

But instead of furthering themselves, using the internet as a tool to educate, it seems most people use the internet to pretend to be someone that they’re not.

Be it a pretend-bodybuilder looking for an exotic Eastern European wife, or a pretend-bodybuilder who will beat you to death with his bare fists if you don’t agree with his opinion on the new Daleks. It’s quite incredible to see the amount of people who believe they know better than a professional television writer who has been working in the industry for the best part of 20 years and has a number of successful credits and contacts to his name. Okay, you don’t like the direction the show is going, but some people (a lot actually) do. I don’t understand why people can’t be respectful and not lower themselves to writing on public forums or on social networks how ‘crap’ Steven Moffat is and how he is ‘ruining Doctor Who’.

What do you know? Don’t watch it if it makes you so hateful, come back when the figure you so despise buggers off to do something else. It’s okay finding some constructive criticism and offering your own personal view on how it can be better, but tweeting the utter crap you do (sometimes to the actors) is just wrong.

Can you imagine if you recently discovered Doctor Who and decided to check out the show online? You’d

probably be a bit put off by the rank negativity and never bother to watch it again.

Maybe it’s a sign of the times, where writing a tweet is more quicker and easier than sitting down and thinking of a constructive way of presenting your point of view on how Doctor Who can be better? This is what Fanzines are for and in this very important year of Doctor Who, I’m hoping more people take the time to go about the constructive route.

Maybe start your own fanzine? I’ll definitely read it!

Maybe it’s just me who feels this let down though, because that’s exactly how I feel. I want my Doctor to grin at me from the telly and take me on adventures in time and space, I don’t want him to be the figurehead of something that I despise, because my enjoyment is being affected by people who’ll be looking for any little thing in an episode to use as a weapon to beat the writer with.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t understand fandom any more. Apart from foaming at the mouth every time River Song appears, or when there’s a cheeky gay reference, or The Doctor kissing a woman, these same fans seem lap up everything that is presented to them with a Doctor Who logo on to prove what a BIG fan they are. The BBC did themselves no favours last year when they spilt fandom down the middle with their overpriced and overhyped OFFICIAL Convention and like the sheep we are, we snapped up tickets like our lives depended on it.

All that did was to tell the powers that be that it’s okay to fleece us - and it’ll continue until Doctor Who goes on the wane (because it will, sooner or later).

Meanwhile, those that can’t afford it (and children, as they’re ‘not advised to attend’) are left looking over the fence in envy. Not just that, but honest, decent, hardworking fan-run conventions are

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 struggling to make ends meet, because fans aren’t supporting them (presumably because they’re not OFFICIAL). It’s these events that are worth going to, it’s these events that you can’t afford to miss, because they’re made for you, they are not made to make money for executives sat in their ivory towers, willing you to stump up your cash, with a ravenous look in their eyes and a holiday home to pay off.

inclusive for all. And when you’ve got warring fans and ‘official’ outlets thinking that it’s okay to rip you off, I can understand why people start to wonder if Doctor Who is worth bothering about.

And for the record, it is! You just need to look at the countless people it has inspired over the last 50 years. Today though, all this commercialised age is doing, is teaching people how to abuse others, how to spend vast amounts of money on things that you don’t really need and how to be someone that you’re not. (Then again, reading that back, that’s a problem for the entire world, not just Doctor Who fans, to be fair!)

But is all of this negativity and ripping fans off, really the fault of the internet though? As the saying goes – it’s the people that press the buttons, they don’t press themselves.  MOB

I’m not professing to be the voice of authority on all of this, because I’m quite clearly not. As a fan who loves Doctor Who and what it stands for, it’s my personal view that The Doctor wouldn’t stand for this at all. I just want Doctor Who to return to what it once was –

(Whatever happens this year, we here at Fish Fingers and Custard hope that it celebrates everything that is great about Doctor Who. We’ll be here offering our services for you to air your views, positive or negative. Just make it constructive and more than 142 characters, please! – Ed)

Back Issues – Download For Free!

If you’re feeling bored and/or a little bit drunk, then you can download or read online all our back issues, stretching from June 2010, until the present day. Unless you’re reading this in 2099, when everyone who has written for us is dead. www.fishcustardfanzine.co.uk 18

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The Internet-fan Translation Guide A Internet Fan

A Normal Person

Doctor Who is rubbish and confusing – I don’t know how you can stand this rubbish

I don’t understand some of the plots in modern Doctor Who, but I’m pleased that so many people do. Maybe I should apply myself further in order to get a better understanding of the narrative?

I’m going to piss £20 away by buying a tacky tshirt from an unscrupulous internet company, just so I can look like a superfan.

I’m going to further prove what a BIG Doctor Who fan I am by maxing out my credit card so I can stand in a warehouse in Cardiff for 4 hours to queue for a man’s signature on a photo and then see live what I’ve already seen on Doctor Who Confidential. And Children aren’t allowed.

I believe David Tennant to be devilishly handsome, so therefore I am extremely biased towards his Doctor because I’m a shallow, self-centred human being. Here’s my tongue.

Being a fine judge of character (and not in any way, sick and tired of any odious David Tennant fangirls), I believe that Matt Smith is better than David Tennant in the role of The Doctor I’m on drugs and I need help.

Alex Kingston is that good of an actress, that her characters can come across as so vindictive towards me.

Although Steven Moffat has some very interesting ideas, personally I’m not really keen on the direction the show is taking Because I’m insanely jealous at today’s kids having the opportunity to watch this multimillion pound-funded Doctor Who at any time, I’m going to start up a vendetta against the new series because it isn’t good as the classic series. All the classic series. Every single episode.

Because I don’t understand what is going on, but still want to look good in front of my (internet) friends, I’m going pretend to understand the complex narrative of Ghost Light We’re going to throw our toys out of the pram because we didn’t get an invite to the big party. Pity us. And share us.

Ooh look, a t-shirt with a quote from the latest episode on. I MUST buy it, it’s so cool!

Ooh look, an OFFICIAL Doctor Who convention! When are tickets on sale? My credit limit should be okay. Can we get a babysitter?

David Tennant is better than Matt Smith :P

Matt Smith is better than David Tennant

Rose Tyler is THE best companion River Song is SUCH A BITCH!

Steven Moffat is crap, blah, blah, blah

I hate new Doctor Who!

Ghost Light is a great story

They didn’t invite us to the press screening, so here are some spoilers. Suck on that BBC!

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Doctor Who: A Horrible History For someone who spent the vast majority of my school days pissing about, I do actually quite like learning. Like most people, I’ve learnt most things I know from outside the school environment. I know now though that I really should have listened in class, but having a short attention span is an aliment of most school children I’d imagine. To be honest though, it wasn’t the best funded or staffed and looking back now, I do wish I should have tried harder.

But then again, if I knew last week’s Lottery numbers I wouldn’t be writing this. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is, since its invention I honestly believe that most people have learnt most of what they know through television. A shocking statement I know, but just think about it. How do you speak or behave? Could you have picked some of those things up from the telly? It’s a pretty frightening thought really. Considering the amount of shit that a television screens.

Since I was young I’ve always enjoyed hearing stories about history. Kids aren’t exactly the most academic where I live, but sit them down in front of a programme about a 900 year-old murder or two whales reproducing in poetic bliss, and they’ll be glued to it. The successful Horrible Histories books have, for the last few years, been made into a television programme for kids and have been extremely successful. There’s just something different to learning when it’s not in the environment of a school. No matter how fit you think the teacher is, or whether she thinks you’re a little bastard after you may or may not have been involved in breaking her husband’s ankle in a PE lesson. Which was a complete accident, by the way. Sorry, got carried away there.

Sorry Miss.

Let’s look back into history, 50 years in fact. Doctor Who was started in 1963 as a children’s educational program. It would learn them a bit about life, science and even whisk them to points of interest in history. I didn’t know anything about Marco Polo, or the Fire of Rome. This was established history, not the bollocks you see in 99.9% of films churned out by Hollywood. (Well, apart from the bit about The Doctor starting the fire!)

Today, Doctor Who is all about drama and kissing and everything else and I think we’ve lost something in that. Has Doctor Who lost its heart(s)?

When the programme was conceived, the producers were very much against introducing aliens or monsters. Sadly, they didn’t really have anything else finished by the time week 5 came around, so the serial The Daleks was made and the rest they say, is ironically, history. I’m not saying Doctor Who shouldn’t have these types of stories, as most of them are genius and it allows creative people to come up with new ideas and concepts that are so good, they’ll be ripped off countless times in the future! But I feel history (and science

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 for that matter) have taken a backwards step and we barely see anything that could be described as educational. Yes, we’ve had the odd Roman, Edwardian or Victorian story, but those are time periods that have been done to death and in the end, it isn’t really a challenge for the writer to write (and research) it, nor the viewer of the episode to invest themselves in this world, as we’ve seen it all before and are used to it. We need more stories that are set in a time and a place that aren’t often repeated. I also feel that not just British history, but world history is being overlooked. The Shakespeare Code was an opportunity to present us with life in Tudor times, but despite a nice set and costumes, it was a real disappointment on the whole.

And that brings me to another question, do we really need aliens in historical stories ALL the time?

How more sinister would The Shakespeare Code have been if someone human was purposely trying to knobble Will? Did we really need those witches (who were supposed to be aliens, not the stereotype we’ve come to know), cackling and screaming their heads off? In the end, they looked less scary than the women who knock about in a nightclub at 3am. The argument that’ll probably get brought up is that ‘anything else would be boring’. Look through the history of Doctor Who and normally you’ll find that the best villains are people. People who are out for power and will do anything to achieve it. Just like people from real history. Kids wouldn’t mind that, as long as the character is well-written and played. Maybe it’ll help them to understand that bad people look just like you and me, instead of a big green monster. I’m no Dr. Spock, but the way Doctor Who is featuring children in nearly every episode these days, clearly shows that the main target audience IS children. So why isn’t it trying to offer some education, presented by their television hero whose every word they hang on by? I’m sure families would love a swashbuckling episode with The Doctor taking you through a little-known historical event, helping out the inhabitants there.

Oh I’ve just remembered ‘it’ll cost too much’.

Better give those Victorian and Second World War-period costumes another dust down!  DANIEL GEE

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The Zagreus Celebration stalwarts Alan Barnes and Gary Russell (who also directed), was released as three episodes, each taking up a full CD, and lasting nearly four hours in total. The result was one of the largest, and longest, Doctor Who stories ever produced as well as being another milestone for Big Finish in that it was the fiftieth release of what has become known as their main range.

It is also a story that received a mixed reception and continues to have a mixed reception nearly a decade later. Why is that? Why is a story that should be an anniversary celebration such a divider of fan opinion?

With

the build-up to the fiftieth anniversary in full swing, fans are eagerly two different specials in two different mediums to mark the occasion.

The one that will undoubtedly get the most attention is the one that will be on television that, at time of writing, is being kept by and large under wraps. The other special will be from Big Finish Productions, the company that has been producing Doctor Who audio adventures since 1999, called The Light At The End which is to feature all five Doctors currently working with the company along with a whole slew of companions and even the Master as played by Geoffrey Beevers. With all this, it is easy to overlook the fact that a decade ago Big Finish marked the last major anniversary with an epic audio adventure of its own. That story was Zagreus.

Zagreus was an epic in many ways. The story brought together all four Doctors that Big Finish was then working with (Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann respectively) for the first time as well as every companion that Big Finish had worked with at that point. Written by Big Finish

Partly, it’s because Zagreus isn’t just a story to mark the fortieth anniversary of the series. It also follows on the events of the previous eighth Doctor audio story Neverland, released more than a year earlier in June 2002. Zagreus begins with a recap: one that’s approximately eight minutes long. The reason for the lengthy recap is that the events of Neverland (itself the culmination of two years’ worth of stories) plays heavily into where the Doctor and his companion Charlotte “Charley” Pollard (played by India Fisher) find themselves at when the story begins proper. Yet even with the eight minute recap, listeners may find themselves a bit lost as the story goes along (being my own first foray into the world of Big Finish back in 2007, I can certainly vouch for that being a possibility). Whereas other anniversary stories had perhaps been aimed at entertaining the general public as well as fans, this story was (by the admission of Russell himself in an audio making of documentary/preview given away with Doctor Who Magazine) most certainly not.

There’s also the fact that the story is effectively the bridge between the first

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 two “seasons” of eighth Doctor audio stories and the beginning of what was to become known as the Divergent Universe arc, itself another source of controversy. Zagreus may use the events of Neverland as its starting point, but throughout are references to “the Divergence” and the final scenes of the story effectively launch a whole new story arc. In an interesting side note, Robert Shearman, author of the first Divergent Universe story Scherzo, revealed in an interview in The Doctor Who Podcast #130 that at the time Scherzo were being recorded, Zagreus had yet to be written. This would perhaps explain why Zagreus lays on the references quite heavily in an attempt to set up a story arc that had already been recorded well in advance.

This story then isn’t so much an anniversary story then a launch pad to pastures new.

So then does Zagreus celebrate the show’s fortieth anniversary? There are two answers to that question. Both have added in their own way to the story’s controversial reputation.

The first is in its large cast and what the story does with them. Barnes and Russell, seeking to avoid having to contrive a story in the vein of The Five Doctors, decided on putting the various Doctors and companions into different roles as both an opportunity for actors and actresses to do something different while also being a nod to the fans. This idea had been redone to a certain degree a decade earlier when BBV produced various videos such as the Who inspired series The Stranger (which cast Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant into not dissimilar roles) and the non-Who environmental thriller The Airzone Solution (which saw the various living Doctor’s, minus Tom Baker, playing very different roles). What they would do though was different…

This takes the idea even further, recasting everyone but the eighth Doctor and Charley. The results are interesting to say the least that range from Peter Davison as Reverend Matthew Townsend who is attached to a scientific project in 1950s Britain, Colin Baker as the vampire Tepesh during a segment on ancient Gallifrey, Sylvester McCoy as Walton Winkle (better known as Uncle Winky) who finds himself in his own theme park at the end of the universe as well as Nicholas Courtney plays an holographic representation of the TARDIS itself and even a posthumous cameo from third Doctor Jon Pertwee (via audio taken from the fan film Devious).Numerous other actors who’ve played companions show up as well in various roles in the segments centered on the Doctor(s) they’d been with plus “proper” appearances from K-9, Lella and Rassilon (with actor Don Warrington reprising which he had played in previous Big Finish stories).

The problem seems to be though in the very fact that the vast majority of them have been put into different roles at all.

Many would (and indeed have) argue that the whole point of having all of them back would be to see them reprising their roles, not just to have them showing up. While the idea certainly allowed Barnes and Russell more latitude in the story they could tell, as well as giving actors and actresses a chance to do something different, it also seemed to merely serve as the act of having giving half a checkmark to the “include everyone we can” item on their list. Indeed, despite the idea having been suggested as a possibility for the fiftieth anniversary in some circles (and indeed by at least one former Doctor), it is an idea that nobody seems in any hurry to revisit as evidenced by announcements made about The Light At The End. The second way that Barnes and Russell decided to celebrate the show’s

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 anniversary was in the references and uses of the show’s mythology. Perhaps nothing else about the story has been as controversial regarding the story. Not only does the story pick up where Neverland left off, the four hours that follows is heavily entrenched in continuity. This ranges from simple references to plot points and indeed the very segments themselves, especially when the story becomes anchored to Gallifrey and/or its Matrix (the sixth Doctor cast centric segment on ancient Gallifrey and almost the entirety of the final disc/episode).

Continuity is something that is an automatic divider of fans in terms of its purpose and usage and Zagreus has proven to be something of a lightning rod in that regard as it has both those who praise and scorn it for those very things.

The nearly four length of the story has also been a source of criticism as well.

As mentioned above, the three episodes of the story total nearly four hour in length while individually coming in at around the seventy or so minute mark.

The story starts out slow, with the eight or so minute recap of Neverland certainly not helping matters and takes the better part of the first episode before it begins to pick up pace. As the story goes through its various segments, it does pick up pace at an increasing rate though even then the story seems to drag in places. Zagreus then is like many other Doctor Who stories of extended length such as the six or more parters of the old series in regard to how its pace out in length.

Do all the things mean that Zagreus is a disaster? Do they mean that the fortieth anniversary story isn’t worth a listen, a poor celebration or even worse? Of course it doesn’t. For all those things, there is more to it than that.

As said earlier, Zagreus isn’t really a fortieth anniversary story but a story that ends one era of eighth Doctor audio’s

and begins another. Looked at it that context, Zagreus is, in the words of reviewer E.G. Wolverson, “a regular eighth Doctor story with one hell of [a] guest cast”. Indeed it is the guest cast that really shines through in this story as they are given a chance to do something above and beyond their usual roles.

There’s Nicholas Courtney as the TARDIS for example which goes on one of its most remarkable journeys in this story, including a remarkable scene in the final episode where the Doctor and the TARDIS discuss friendship. There are also strong performances ranging from Peter Davison’s Reverend Townsend to the much maligned Bonnie Langford who actually plays quite an effective villain at one point. Even those with less showy parts are given the chance to do something different ranging from Sarah Sutton and Mark Strickson to the cameo appearances by Anneke Wills and Elisabeth Sladen. The results are never less than interesting.

The real stars of the guest cast though only show up towards the end of the story. When the story shifts to Gallifrey, the story receives new cast members in the form of Lalla Ward’s Romana (now Lord President of the Time Lords as established in other Big Finish audios), John Leeson as K9 and (in her Big Finish debut) Louise Jameson as Leela.

The four of them give the story the boost as it races towards its finale thanks to the combination of writing, performances and indeed chemistry between them.

That combination of elements also meant that Zagreus was destined to help launch Big Finish’s acclaimed Gallifrey spin-off series as well, where all three of them were to play a large part.

That isn’t to forget the main Doctor and companion of the story though. Paul McGann’s eighth Doctor is in an interesting place in this story as he finds himself battling not an alien race or invader but by Zagreus: a creature of anti-time, born out of the hatred of the

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 race encountered in Neverland that has possessed him with the intention of destroying the cosmos. For a Doctor who is arguably the most human of the lot we’ve seen so far, there is something unsettling about listening to him ranting, raving and being generally unpleasant to Charley, the TARDIS and one or two others he encounters. The story also finds the eighth Doctor in a dark place: imprisoned by Rassilon, being consumed by Zagreus and being forced to turn what is left of the physical TARDIS (melted down by Rassilon) into a blade. Is it any wonder than that Barnes and Russell then invert one of the most powerful scenes of Neverland and have the eighth Doctor beg Charley to kill him? It is a scene just as powerful as that in Neverland, if not more so.

While the Doctor goes through all of that, Charley has had her own journey.

Guided by the TARDIS, Charley is taken through a series of what turn out to be holographic recreations of events related to the Divergence with the TARDIS using its memories of Doctors and companions to play roles as needed. As she does so, Charley is also coming to terms with what happened in Neverland: the Doctor’s possession by Zagreus, the very real possibility that as a result of that she be trapped in the TARDIS forever more and the fallout from her and the Doctor admitting their love for each other. The result is that the story is as much Charley’s story as the Doctor’s with both storylines reaching a crescendo in the aforementioned scene and the outcome being made all the more heartbreaking.

That scene is the beginning of the end of the story. We finally get the proper meeting of all four of the stories various Doctor’s (a scene with dialogue where Barnes and Russell seem to be having a precognitive wink at the story’s

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criticisms) plus the wrapping up of various plot elements before heading off into the final scenes. The last twelve minutes or so of the story are amongst its best moments as the Divergent Universe arc is effectively launched with the Doctor being effectively exiled due to the lingering anti-time infection, his attempt to say goodbye to Charley that doesn’t end well followed by one of McGann’s single best moments as the Doctor as he says an almost bitter goodbye to Gallifrey, a world that he hope to never see again. As the TARDIS heads off into the Divergent Universe and out of our universe for perhaps the last time (with Charley stowed away on board), it is left to Leela in to sum the Doctor and his legacy, a summing up that also speaks to the “wilderness years” in which Zagreus was created as well: “Everywhere you go they tell tales of the Doctor. There are galaxies far away from here where children sleep more soundly, knowing he’s out there, fighting off the demons. And the demons twist and turn in fear, knowing that their enemy awaits. So long as the stories are told, he’s never really gone.”

Ultimately that is what Zagreus is about.

For its successes and failures, this is a story about memory and legacy created at a time when new Doctor Who on television seemed unlikely and those were all that Who fans had to go on.

Zagreus is a story by fan for fans, a story that requires a certain amount of knowledge and indeed Big Finish’s own ongoing storylines of the time. Zagreus then is indeed a fortieth anniversary celebratory story, if a highly unorthodox one, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  MATTHEW KRESAL

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

Targeting The Romans & The Creature From The Pit My picks of the pack this time around are both by the authors of the original TV episodes.

Cotton how he novelised his story, as I think it’s fair to say you wouldn’t get a very accurate depiction of what was shown on TV from this book.

If I had to pick a criticism of it, the only thing I could say is that at 128 pages it’s too short.

Donald Cotton’s The Romans is, in my view, one of the best Target books and one of the best and most original Doctor Who reads full stop. Is it an adaptation of his TV script? Not really. The story is totally reimagined through the print medium, purporting to be an account ‘gathered’ by the historian Tacitus, and featuring journals, letters and memoirs from Ian Chesterton, Ascaris, Poppea, Nero, Barbara, Locusta and The Doctor himself.

It’s a whole lotta fun from start to finish.

Various aspects of the story are curtailed in the book, or just completely missing – probably to keep to the page limit. This style of narrative and presentation is not economical when faced with a low maximum page count (compare with Inferno or Full Circle for example, where they pack in the prose with a smaller font to get maximum story-telling per page), so as a consequence Cotton has had to change some things. Much precise detail is missing through avoidance for the most part of dialogue or any spoken word. But then there’s a nice scene at the beginning with Ian checking on access to the TARDIS that’s fallen down the ravine, as per the cliff hanger at the end of The Rescue. Cotton has our four heroes meeting up in Rome in this version – which is a shame in one respect as we lose the humour of them all meeting up back at the villa when all is done and dusted – although I’ve often thought Ian and Barbara are too quick to laugh off their recent experiences in the TV version. Cotton also has The Doctor starting the great fire, rather than Nero.

There’s no obvious need for this change, other than it gives The Doctor one final farcical encounter with the assassin Ascaris, who it turns out is Locusta the poisoner’s unloved son.

I’m not a big fan of the TV version, I have to admit. I find it all a little bit too silly, although I admire the way the party splits and the Doctor and Vicki almost but not quite meet with Ian and Barbara’s story in the glorious tradition of farce. I’d be interested to know if the existence of the episodes in the BBC archives dictated to

Where the author particularly succeeds, though, is in the various tones and voices he uses for each ‘writer’ contributing to the whole. From the pleading letters of Ascaris, desperate for his mother’s approval, to the self-centred scrapbook jottings of Nero, from the increasingly frustrated journal entries of Ian Chesterton, to the modest

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 self-importance found in the extracts from The Doctor’s diary. These are always such fun to read that it almost doesn’t matter what story is being told. The fact that they all come together to enlighten a continuing narrative is a bonus.

This is a book which offers the reader a complimentary take on the TV version, and a whole world of literary playfulness and enjoyment. For those who like their Target books to be faithful script-to-screen-topage adaptations I can only say this: stay away!

Not having any pre-conceptions about The Romans at all, I had plenty going in to The Creature From The Pit. David Fisher had, according to what I’d heard, used the print medium to fill in some background detail on the planet Chloris and develop his ‘world’ more than could be managed on screen. There are a few mentions of the social and political status of the planet as a whole, and some footnotes on flora and fauna, but otherwise, frankly, this book was a great disappointment to me.

Unlike The Romans I adore the TV version of this story. It’s lavish, fun, it has a giant green penis monster and one of my favourite cliff hangers (episode three – brilliantly played by Myra Frances). I had a week of reading the Season 17 Target books, of which there are only four. They’re mostly by Terrance Dicks and all very short affairs, with no real effort to expand the stories, characters or situations beyond what was shown on the screen and every effort to curtail the performance excesses of the cast. The results are a set of books that can be read very quickly, and are enjoyable but somehow lack the energy, the joie de vive and the brilliance of the TV versions.

Unfortunately David Fisher treats his Creature From The Pit in the same way as Terrance Dicks does the other writers’ work. Yet it struggles at times – you can sense the text is desperate to expand and grow, as if the author was deliberately restraining himself, which is a real shame.

It could also be that Fisher was cautious of the ‘Douglas Adams effect’, of flexing

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himself too much and creating a narrative full of asides and digressions akin to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. One can see how that would be easy to emulate in a book like this. Yes, there are some minor expansions on detail appropriate to the book, but there are also aspects of the story that are curtailed or missed out which more than make up for the additions. We lose the Tibetan climbing scene – possibly because it would show that the Tibetan the Doctor speaks on TV is just gibberish. But we also lose my favourite moment, the villain-in-danger reverse cliff hanger of episode three. It could be that the author thought this would be difficult to recreate atmospherically on the page, so it’s just avoided completely, but personally I think it’s a defining moment for Lady Adrasta and the text gains nothing by leaving it out.

Madam Karela probably comes out of this book the best. We get quite a bit of her inner schemes and thoughts. But otherwise it’s pretty standard fare from the time; just stretching to over 100 pages, plenty of attention given to part one and then a decreasing page count per episode as the story progresses until it’s all a big rush to finish. And that’s my biggest bone of contention with this book and the other Season 17 Target books: they run low on the page count and there’s a ridiculous rush at the end. David Fisher seems to have been desperate to end on a punch line – the Doctor’s lucky number. He must have believed this to be a top gag. It’s not.

It’s a decent gag but not a show-stopper.

We get the gag in the TV version of course, but then there’s the epilogue scene afterwards to wrap things up nicely. Maybe the production team insisted on that and added it in, so Fisher opted to leave it out.

Perhaps. Funny as the punch line may be this book needs a proper ending, an epilogue to tidy things up or at least guide the reader into the next exciting adventure.

As it is it feels like it stalls mid-scene, midbreath and it’s a bit uncomfortable for the reader.

So much more could have been done with this book, it’s a real shame. Fisher obviously had a desire to adapt his own material for the page, since he parted with

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 his previous agent upon realising he’d been denied the opportunity to adapt his two Season 16 stories for Target. But this book really does read like it was fired off in a couple of days between other projects, not lovingly thought through or crafted.

There’s a further 20 pages he could have used before he’d reached the (annoyingly

low) maximum page number for the time, and even this token room for development and digression would have made some difference and taken this book above the purely average.  TIM GAMBRELL

Ray Cusick There’s a few people that, quite rightly, get held up by high praise for their work on Doctor Who. Then again, there are many who aren’t appreciated as they should have been. Raymond Cusick was such a figure.

If you think about it, without his contributions, Doctor Who would have probably been cancelled long ago and become a long-forgotten 60’s show that would have had all of its episodes missing.

Terry Nation was the man who created The Daleks, but is that fully correct? Yes, it IS Terry’s concept and he’s quite rightly praised for it, but you could argue that it was Ray who actually created them. After replacing Ridley Scott as the in-house production designer, Ray created that iconic design which have scared children witless for 50 years.

When the words ‘Doctor Who’ is mentioned, ‘Daleks’ aren’t far behind. They actually only account for less than 10% of Doctor Who’s episodes - it just seems like they’re always in it!

That’s how much of an impact they make. There’s a famous story were he’s sat in the canteen with Bill Roberts, the BBC’s visual effects designer at the time, and Ray is demonstrating how the Daleks should move. ‘They should glide like this’ he explained, whilst pushing a salt or pepper pot (he could never remember which) across the table.

That idea must have stuck somewhere, as a Dalek is basically a salt/pepper pot (that screams EXTERMINATE and gets you)! Sadly his hopes of putting a ‘sinister claw’ on that first design was vetoed by the budget – and replaced with a plunger!

It’s very sad to learn that he was a somewhat forgotten relic of television history. He never even got a penny in royalties, whilst Nation sold his Daleks for almost anything you could name. For me though, just like Sydney Newman’s name should be on the credits for every Doctor Who episode, Ray needs to be honoured in some way too. Sadly, it’s too late for the man himself, but fans and the viewing public in general need to know this man’s part in the greatest television show ever made.

Thanks to the design, The Daleks was a success, it put Doctor Who in the public consciousness and every time the series needed viewers – his creations were brought out of their mothballs and went on to scare people, both on and off screen. Without his design, his ideas and professionalism, Daleks, and indeed Doctor Who, would have differed enormously from what it is today. Perhaps it would have been that forgotten 60’s show.

Thank-you Ray

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

It Could Have Been A Spinoff…

(The Spinoff) With Canny Dohen Hello from the worldwide office of the BeeBeeCee. Once again we have cobbled together ideas for new Doctor Who spin-offs. As you know, we always like to listen to our viewers, but in the meantime here are some ideas we’ve already judged and passed a verdict on, without your valuable input.

The Sliver Cloak - The adventures of the crime-busting OAP’s led by Bernard Cribbins and June Whitfield, in their roles as Wilf and Minnie respectively. In the first episode, Wilf turns up with his new squeeze and Minnie gets jealous. Will there be murder on the dancefloor at the bi-monthly Chiswick Golden Age Tea Dance? Yes. There will be.

Verdict: You know what we think about people of a certain age doing comedy. What we need is youngsters being all young and making ‘hilarious’ jokes about trying to bed their partner (or as they’re known these days, bitches), or middle-class homely sitcoms with a message that ALL viewers can pick up on - REJECTED

Lippy Prisoner - Pilot episode. River Song is a woman that has been banged up by the army. But don’t let that get you down, this prison-set comedy sees the adventures of the loveable rouge as she, for a laugh, uses her surprisingly-undetectable poison lipstick to escape for the day to go for a brew at the local Starbucks, before turning the place over for STILL being dodgy (even in the far future). Whilst the law descends on the place, River (or Prisoner 90210-69, as she’s known) waltzes back into her cell, lays down on her luxury bed and smiles, smugly at the camera. Potential further episodes will see the introduction of her bumbling guards (they must be somewhere) and a love interest in the shape of a space-travelling hunk - Captain Jack Harkness.

Verdict: It’s full of nods to Doctor Who, terrible ideas and a rip-off of Porridge COMMISSIONED (but only on condition that Karen Gillan stars in each episode as a different prisoner, just so we can do a yet another ‘cheeky nod’ to the fans. They love that crap. And best of all – buy the DVD and merchandise).

The Cybersex Diaries – If you’re a fan of The Vampire Diaries, Twilight or the recent zombie flick, Warm Bodies, you’ll love this new romantic series, which sees a teenage girl fall in love with a Cyberman, which used to be her boyfriend. Well, before he dumped her for that slag, anyway. Sadly, Cyus (as he’s known) isn’t interested in offering his quite well-toned, barely-believable, steroid-riddled torso for the young women to lay her delicate and completely-innocent head upon - he’s more interested in capturing people and brutally murdering them with his cold, steel mitts if they fight back. That doesn’t stop true love (on her part) though, but Cyus will have a bloody good go at stopping it!

Verdict: If the media today can involve a vampire – a soulless, dead, bloodsucking, rapist monster in a love story, then anything can work – PILOT EPISODE COMMISSIONED

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 Bonnie Women – Bonnie Langford hosts this straight-to-DVD feature in which she chats to the women of Doctor Who and asks them about their tips for health, fitness and general life as a woman. Tips include ‘not to drink too much’, ‘always wear flats’ and ‘make sure you have a minder when you’re at a convention’. Later, Bonnie will take you through a specially-arranged aerobic routine, which has been designed so that anyone can follow. (Even those bloody men, who will enjoy the wrist exercises). Each DVD box also contains Bonnie’s own Carrot Juice recipe, so you too can drink like a Doctor (and his companion).

Verdict: In the normal world, this could possibly be the worst idea for a spin-off video. But this is Doctor Who, so we’ll give it a spin - COMMISSIONED

Brian’s Logs – Think of the X-Files, but with a middle-aged gentleman, armed with only a laptop and his own wits, as he investigates mysterious happenings, whilst trying to avoid the detection of UNIT, who are constantly getting pissed off with someone interfering with their own investigations. Also starring Kate Stewart in the ‘Scully role’ (but without looking like she’s upset all the time) Verdict: It sounds almost-workable, better than Torchwood in fact, so you can shove it REJECTED

Red, White and WHO – An American Doctor Who documentary series, where Chris Hardwick and his bouncy bandwagon wastes his (and our) time in going around America asking people about Doctor Who and why they love it so much. Expect over-excitable, self-styled geeks, in extremely impressively-detailed costume, popping up with their ideas which include: “BRING DAVID TENNANT BACK!!!”, “I think X’s American accent was terrible” (even though the actor was actually American) and insightful comments such as ‘Amy has a firm fanny’ and ‘Samuel L. Jackson should be the 12th Doctor’. Failing this, he’ll just send cameras to Gallifrey One, where the interesting and informative views from the fans there will be edited to look like the above-mentioned excitable nonsense.

Verdict: The object of this exercise is to prove that America is a bottomless money pit for us to exploit. Like the cunning colonial foxes we are, we could dress up any kind of tat up in a long scarf and we’ll be dollars in. Bollocks to giving these loyal fans something entertaining – it’s far too expensive – COMMISSIONED

DragonFire’s Den – Inventive programme where a number of hopefuls, wannabes and charlatans face up to a panel made up of the BBC’s finest minds to pitch new and exciting ideas for the betterment of the Doctor Who ‘brand’. The first episode will deal with spin-off ideas. First up is Russell T. Davies with ‘Rose Tyler: Earth Defence’.

Verdict: Here’s a budget, go and make it. Only you can think it’s a crap idea – COMMISSIONED

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

NuWho’s Story Arcs: Complication/Cleverness is not the issue Previously, I’ve spoke of RTD, and mentioned Moffat’s over-reliance on story arcs. In this issue I will deal with the story arc problem, Moffat and RTD alike, directly.

truly arc-free, it would only be the first time in NuWho that this has happened.

It would be long overdue; and more, it should continue to be arc free for several years to come.

The problem of NuWho’s season long (or longer) story arcs is not whether they are overly clever or complicated (though they are often not nearly as clever as advertised, and especially in Moffat’s case, prone to plot-holes). The problem is that they are beating a dead horse, as the old saying goes.

The argument has been made that ratings are higher in arc based seasons; to that my answer is, we won’t know if that’s true until we have a season without an arc. I seriously doubt any meaningful number of viewers would turn off the show without one.

When RTD did the “Bad Wolf” arc in his first season, it was understandable. And while somewhat dippy, it worked well enough. But that should’ve been it.

There should not have been any more story arcs after that until, perhaps, Moffat’s first season. Or better yet, the upcoming 50th Anniversary.

In all of Classic Who, there have been two season long story arcs; The Key to Time (RIP Mary Tamm) and The Trial of a Time Lord. There was also the ESpace Trilogy, which took up part of a season. Throughout the classic series, there were character development arcs for companions, especially during the early JNT era; but they were not scheduled by season, nor did the seasons of the show revolve around them.

It is not entirely clear whether the upcoming season of single-episode stories will, in fact, have no arc, or whether the arc will be more subtle and hidden in the background until the conclusion, a la RTD. But even if it is

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But perhaps the most important point is that individual stories should be able to stand on their own, and not be part of a larger arc. Some might say the stories do stand on their own, but tying them to a story arc undermines that argument, at least partially.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if NuWho reverted to the Classic Who episodic format; shorter episodes but longer, multi-part stories. There is no reason this could not be done; if the series format can be abandoned entirely as it was during Tennant’s last year and seems that it will be again during the 50th anniversary for a handful of specials, then shorter episodes but longer stories could also work. And again, if people are afraid this would hurt ratings, we’ll never know unless we try.

Let’s leave the season long story arcs behind, at least for the time being, and return to Doctor Who’s core; self contained adventures in time and space.  JAY McINTYRE

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

Hot Or Not Each month we consider two characters from Doctor Who and try to decide who’s the sexiest, who would people most want to date – who’s hot and who’s not?

This issue’s eligible bachelors are Harriet Jones MP and The Brains of Morphoton.

Harriet Jones, MP: First appearance Aliens of London (2005), most recent appearance The Stolen Earth (2008). 

Additional luggage space in the bags under her eyes for those intimate weekends away.

Cons: 

Looks tired: Most dates will assume she wants an afternoon nap, not a roll in the hay.



Unadventurous dress-sense: Younger dates may feel like they’re going out with their mum. This may, however, have niche-market appeal to some...



Unlikely to put out on a first date: Times were different in them days when she were a lass.



Having to constantly remind her that yes, you know who she is. This will get wearing very quickly.

Pros: 

Government job: good wage, pension and support network.



Inquisitive – likely to want to get to know you.



Pushy: won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, particularly where Flydale North is concerned.



Pushy: won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.



Knows hidey-holes in 10 Downing Street for sneaky Slitheen-watching and ‘adventurous amours’.



Contacts within Torchwood: could be dangerous if you’re an alien or a prude.



Contacts within Torchwood if you need alien intervention support or any number of sexual experiences (all comers catered for, apparently).



Likely to get mistaken for Simon Pegg’s mum from Shaun of The Dead, or Richard Briers’ wife in Ever Decreasing Circles.



Mature: knows what she wants from a relationship. Not old enough to get free travel but post-menopausal for those who demand emotional stability and no-strings-attached sex.

Verdict: Pushy, middle aged sex HOT. Yes, we know who she is constantly NOT.

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13 The Brains of Morphoton: Only appearance to date The Keys of Marinus (1964).

Pros: 

Mind control: they can make anyone do anything they want – massive humour value for practical jokes and likelihood of free stuff.



There are several of them, so one at least should always be available for dates etc.



Low maintenance: not clear that they eat or excrete at all.



Bell jars are wipe-clean so accidents and spillages are easy to mop up.



Has humanoid slaves: great for those who enjoy being waited on, or for anyone with broader sexual requirements.



May have a key of Marinus: Can be used to curry favour with Arbitan, or for petty blackmail in general.

Cons: 

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Mind control: you may find yourself doing things you didn’t want to on the first date.



Just a brain with eyes on stalks, in a glass jar. That.



Can’t move unaided: dating anywhere other than at their place would be a hassle for all.



Doubtful they can kiss, or engage in physical love, so expect a one-sided sex life.



They live on Marinus: This is outside the bus and tube network.



Have to be taken around in a belljar.



Naked: clothes & accessories shopping will be a real drag for them so don’t expect them to be supportive while you choose that gorgeous outfit for later.



Humanoid slaves: this may cause moral dilemmas for some.



May have a key of Marinus, which could attract attention from passing Voord. Anyone who isn’t comfortable with confrontation should avoid.



Dates should always take a cloth in case the bell jar needs to be wiped down.

Verdict: Low maintenance hot, physical love not.

Overall verdict: More Come Dine With Me than Snog, Marry, Avoid. Both are best left to niche market lovers and risk takers.

 TIM GAMBRELL

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

Mambo No. FIVES 5 Things We’ve Lost Since Last Year     

Our minds Value on a Target book, thanks to a bookshop stamping it Respect for anyone with ‘MP’ after their name Our Comic Sans font A tenner on Colin Baker to win I’m A Celeb @ 20/1

5 Scribes Who’s Work We’ve Been Reading Recently     

Tacitus Terrance Dicks David Wellington Stephen King Kelly, 19, From Brighton

5 Films That REAL Men Enjoy 5 Things That’ll Make a Great 2013 For Doctor Who     

There’ll be conventions affordable and attendable for all Big Finish’ The Light At The End will be as good as it sounds More series’ of Doctor Who are confirmed Matt Smith stays Paul McGann is cast

5 Ways You Can Tell That Someone Is Evil     

They actually enjoy watching The End of Time They think that the Daleks ‘have a point’ They think that Torchwood is ‘brilliant’, whilst SJA is ‘rubbish’ They ‘like’ their own Facebook posts They don’t like Dirty Dancing

5 Deceased People Who Should Write A Doctor Who Story     

HP Lovecraft Arthur C Clarke Ray Bradbury HG Wells Arthur Conan Doyle

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The Wizard of Oz (1939) Ghost Casablanca The Sound of Music Zombie Strippers

5 Sontarans     

Lynx Strax Staal Styre Rupert Murdoch

5 Unscrupulous Characters     

Hamburglar Rich Uncle Pennybags Shredder Dr. Claw ‘Rouge Cyberman’ on Twitter

5 Ways You Can Contact Us     

E-mail (fishcustardfanzine@googlemail.com) Twitter (@fishcustardzine) Facebook (Facebook.com/fishcustardfanzine) All of the above on our website (www.fishcustardfanzine.co.uk) rd

On the wall, 3 cubicle, men’s toilets, Euston Station

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Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 13

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