| THE BODYSNATCHERS by Mark Morris |
| Story 3 Synopsis: The Doctor lands the TARDIS on the banks of the Thames, in Whitechapel, London, 1894, where he and Sam witness a terrified man attacked by some strange monster. After reporting to the police, they drop in on Professor Litefoot, who agrees to let them stay with him. The remains of the man they met are brought in by the police, and Litefoot does the autopsy, which the Doctor attends. The corpse is half-eaten. Learning of the late man's recent dismissal from a bottle factory, the Doctor pays a visit, to find the proprietor behaving oddly. He also meets the owner's daughter, Emmeline. He, Sam and Litefoot pay a return visit to the factory, but nearly meet a sticky end. Then they return, via the sewer, and find a way down into a spaceship, which the Doctor eventually identifies as Zygon. But they've walked into a trap. Sam and Litefoot are duplicated, but the Doctor defies analysis. The Zygon warlord, Balaak, plans to change Earth into a new homeworld for his race, and sends the Doctor with a scientist, Tuval, to fetch the Doctor's time machine, with Sam and Litefoot as hostages. But Litefoot gets free when his Zygon double is killed. The Doctor traps Tuval in stasis. He returns to the Zygon ship, introducing a serum into the food chain to make the Zygons sleep. He finds Litefoot gone, but frees Sam, and they return to the TARDIS. Tuval is freed, and they head for the Zygon ship. But the Doctor has erred, and the Zygons are dying. Balaak tries to sting the Doctor in revenge, but fails to make it lethal enough. He then commandeers the TARDIS with Tuval, but they only return it to its earlier location on the riverbank, where Litefoot arrives, shooting Balaak dead. The Doctor and Sam free the other Zygon hostages, and then the Doctor sets the ship to self-destruct. Narrowly, they all make it to the surface. But Balaak's dying plan was to unleash all the Skarasen. With help from Tuval, the Doctor lures all the Skarasen into the TARDIS, transporting them all, with Tuval, to a new homeworld. The Doctor and Sam leave Litefoot and the others to resume their lives. |
| Review:- So, a long overdue return for some classic monsters, and it's the (re)turn of the Zygons! The problem with shapechanging creatures in a book range (and indeed, any case of a character being possessed) is that the author has to let on that something is amiss without somehow making it completely obvious. The front and back covers make the presence of the Zygons obvious, so it's merely a case of waiting until the Doctor can catch the reader up. Here, the setting allows not just for a sequel for the Zygons, but also a sequel to The Talons of Weng-Chiang, one of the most popular of the original TV stories, inasmuch as the character of Litefoot is brought back (Jago, correctly, would be irrelevant to the plot, and is correspondingly off-screen). Once the Doctor and Sam have witnessed a gruesome sea monster, and palled up with Litefoot, it's a hop, skip and jump to checking out Seers' bottle factory, and the suspicious change of behaviour of its owner Nathaniel. Before you can say "convenient", the Doctor, Sam and Litefoot are making a trip down into the Zygon ship. The brief demise of the sonic screwdriver is rather silly, and the Doctor's prevention of being scanned (cf. Sting of the Zygons) forces Balaak to give him a little freedom. That proves a mistake, although the Doctor's doomed attempts to broker a peaceful solution are rather harshly exposed when he ends up killing them all by mistake. If nothing else, this puts previous Doctorial meddling in a new light. Sam doesn't get all that much to do, besides feel jealous of Emmeline, and get stroppy when the Doctor tries to protect her from the horrors they face. On the evidence of adventures like this, it's hardly surprising that she became such an unliked companion. Litefoot, on the other hand, comes out well, despite perhaps going through more physical exertions than is credible. His destruction of Balaak is the crowning moment for him in a book where his medical expertise draws him back into the mysterious world of the Doctor, from which few men ever remain sane. Balaak is rather too dogmatic and one-dimensional to be anything other than a cliched gibbering maniac. Tuval, by contrast, comes out rather better, though simply through being reasonable. Well, there's a message there. One real fault with the book is the pacing. It takes almost half the book for the Doctor to realise that he's dealing with Zygons, and after 3/4 of the way, he's already dealt with the Zygon threat, albeit in error. This leaves the escape from the doomed ship, a trip across London avoiding Skarasen, and then rounding up the huge monsters in a rather daft way. "Tacked-on" doesn't really cover it. A fair book, highlighted by the good use of Litefoot and average run-out for the Zygons, let down by the tiresome Sam and the choppy plot. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of the book. |