| THE YEAR OF INTELLIGENT TIGERS by Kate Orman |
| Story 45 Synopsis: The TARDIS has landed on an island world called Hitchemus, where the Doctor plans to take part in a concert. Fitz is enjoying the music, but Anji is bothered by tigers. This proves wise as they take over, taking music teachers hostage. The Doctor tries to forge a peaceful solution but the human settlers want nothing of peace, so he heads off to talk to the Tigers, whilst Anji and Fitz try to keep the peace. The Tigers have a mixed reaction to him. They show him their Storehouse, and he soon realises their forebears had machines to control the weather, from a 2nd Storehouse in the human city at Port Any. He manages to reach the other controls, as the humans and the Tigers fight for supremacy. During a lightning display, he admonishes both sides, and warns them that unless they work together to crack the Storehouse codes, their planet will be destroyed within 10 years - working apart, they will never succeed. He then leaves with Fitz and Anji. |
| Review:- Though the first EDA not credited to both Orman and her husband, Jonathan Blum, he is credited with helping devise the plot and writing some of it. Either way, it's not quite the usual fodder from Dr Who's foremost female Aussie writer. The musical motif creates a framework for a mild study in racism, as the humans and Tigers each jostle for superiority. In a sense, it compares with Superior Beings, but whereas that had layers of intrigue, and a quest, this doesn't. The idea that the tigers have been playing dumb for years, ready to usurp their visitors and reclaim their planet has an interesting moral question to it. The Doctor siding with the tigers is no different to other occasions in the past, but whereas there's nothing wrong with him not backing the humans, here there's no edge to the tigers' revolution. They weren't mistreated, and they appear physically superior. So two of the usual keys to sympathy are gone. That presents a problem for a writer who simply presents issues in black and white. Anji and Fitz are both keen to help the humans regain control, whilst Longbody the Tiger feels the humans are a pest and Big's searches in the Storehouse are futile, and she is keen on stopping the Doctor or killing him if she can. Ultimately, it alls comes down to the Doctor doing his "deus ex machina" routine, with added violin playing. In what, with hindsight, is an amusing echo of The Sound Of Drums, the reader is expected to believe that the Doctor has been plagued by a piece of music for perhaps all the time since his amnesia, and this story cures it. Ha de ha ha. Even more of a two-fingers to the audience is the Doctor's line "I hope I never remember!", a futile attempt to silence those who think the amnesia plot is ludicrous and should stop. Amusingly again, it took television to settle that one. So what remains is a pretty dreadful tale of music and culture-clash, in which the Doctor leaves the people of Hitchemus in a worse state than they were when he arrived, and facing armageddon. Well, thanks for nothing. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |