BBC New Series Adventures

#032. The Slitheen Excursion ~ 10/10

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◆ An Introduction

Ancient Athens had grown so rich the citizens lived comfortably, with enough leisure time to invent the structures of drama and democracy still recognised in the world today. Everything from modern mathematics to medicine owed a debt to the ancient Greeks. In some ways, it was the birthplace of the world we know today… making it the perfect location for a cheap package holiday!

Historic sites swamped with gobby tourists who’ve got absolutely no appreciation for culture. All they care about is topping up their tan by the coast, whilst getting a few tasteless holiday snaps and tacky souvenirs.

Thomas Cook were notorious for these package holidays, but I think the Slitheen Family might be about to beat them for the title of “Worst Travel Company Ever”!

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

1500 BC — King Actaeus and his subjects live in mortal fear of the awesome gods who have come to visit their kingdom in ancient Greece. Except the Doctor, visiting with university student June, knows they're not gods at all. They're aliens.

For the aliens, it's the perfect holiday — they get to tour the sights of a primitive planet and even take part in local customs. Like gladiatorial games, or hunting down and killing humans who won't be missed. With June's enthusiastic help, the Doctor soon meets the travel agents behind this deadly package holiday company — his old enemies the Slitheen. But can he bring the Slitheen excursion to an end without endangering more lives? And how are events in ancient Greece linked to a modern-day alien plot to destroy what's left of the Parthenon?

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◆ The Tenth Doctor

The 2009 Specials are easily my least favourite part of the David Tennant era. His incarnation positively thrived when he was bouncing dialogue off of his companions, so having him travel alone honestly felt like a huge mistake. I’m glad that the expanded universe has shoved him with companions to make things more interesting – Anya and Mark in the audio adventures, Gabby and Cindy in the comics.

The books attempted to pair him with some temporary companions too, and I’ll be covering them throughout these reviews. Suffice to say, the Tenth Doctor absolutely thrives alongside this book’s interloper (more on June later). Guerrier really manages to capture the voice and mannerisms of the incarnation throughout ‘The Slitheen Excursion’, making this a really enjoyable read.

The Doctor was very tall and gave off waves of confidence, like being up close to a huge stack of explosives was something he did every day. He appreciated that June was studying simply for the love of it. The Doctor claimed that there is always struggle. The struggle to do what’s right. The struggle to provide for a family, to learn, to make things better. It wouldn’t be life if it wasn’t hard work. But things do get better. The Doctor’s got a few skills. Make a great curry. Got those long skinny arms if you lose anything down the back of a radiator. Oh, and he can stop the Slitheen’s earthquakes.

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◆ June

Having recently wiped his best friend’s memory to save her life, the Tenth Doctor is travelling alone, aside from a couple of interlopers. These can range anywhere from utterly brilliant (Jackson Lake, Charity Wentworth) to the absolutely diabolical (the entire cast of ‘Planet of the Dead’).

Allow me to be first then to congratulate Simon Guerrier, because his interloper companion tops the lot of them! June instantly proves herself to be courageous and compassionate, not hesitating to help the Doctor when she witnesses him being threatened by a gang of aliens. She also shows initiative and a useful ability to think on her feet throughout the book. A truly brilliant companion substitute, and one I’d happily see return some day.

June could ask for food and drink and hotel rooms fluently, but she wasn’t up to flirting in Greek. In the two weeks she had been in Athens, she had learnt to despair of other tourists. They stopped to take or pose in photographs, but not to simply look at the monuments. She wanted to tell them to slow down, to shut up, to think about where they were. But these people were bustling around the site like cattle, grabbing pictures and tacky souvenirs as they passed, muttering about the lack of a coffee shop. June was upset that her holiday was over, but also at the desolate state of what had once been so great a place, how it had been ravaged by time. She felt so small and insignificant beside the great weight of history around her. Gazing down at the broken, weed-ridden, dusty bowl of the theatre, she felt stupid for almost wanting to cry. From her accent alone, the Doctor could tell that she’d lived most of her life in Basingstoke. But now she was living in Birmingham. June is studying Classics at university. She had got a little tired of people asking her why she didn’t do a proper subject. Seemingly stranded in 1500 BC – in the shadow of what would one day be the Acropolis, with a Time Lord who appears to be suffering some sort of nervous breakdown – June decides to roar at three approaching lions whilst flailing her arms about like some mad woman! I’m not sure whether to class that as incredibly brave or suicidally stupid. Seeing her new friend being throttled by a Slitheen, June threatens that if it doesn’t let him go they’ll leave a bad review, pretending to be intergalactic travel journalists!

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◆ Story Recap

The Tardis has materialised in the mist of the Acropolis, where a group of aliens have planted a bomb powerful enough to level Greece! The Doctor’s arrival didn’t go unnoticed though, and he is soon assisted by a courageous young woman named June – a university student whose chosen subject is Classics.

The Doctor offered to show her the Acropolis when it was brand new, as a way of thanking her for helping with the previous crisis, but they’re drawn off course by a distress signal from the same area in 1500 BC.

The Slitheen Family have taken up residence in the local area, and are offering package tours to visiting aliens with large bank balances – they get to tour the sights of a primitive planet and take part in local customs… which also includes slaughtering humans that wouldn’t be missed.

Unfortunately, that’s far from the biggest issue here. These package holidays threaten to derail the course of human history, as humanity grow more dependent on the Slitheen for survival, rather than developing for themselves.

The Slitheen have created a theme park, with human atrocities as the main attraction, and it’s up to the Doctor and June to shut the operation down.

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◆ Don’t Just Book It, Thomas Cook It!

My family booked an all-inclusive to Sharm El-Sheikh in the summer of 2014, and it remains the worst holiday I’ve ever had the displeasure of going on.

Thomas Cook royally screwed up the booking at the hotel, meaning we only had a single room apartment. The hotel staff tried to make me sleep on a wicker sun-lounger from the pool! We went back and forth between reception and the room, and they only put an actual bed in the room for me after I’d vomited all over the polished marble floor of the main lobby.

My experience with package holidays is best described as grim, but it could have been much worse. I could’ve been forced into slavery by members of the Slitheen family, who wanted to monopolise human suffering for the sake of some rich alien tourists! But let’s go back a bit and discuss why the family targeted Earth specifically for this money-making scheme.

The Platonic War was fought around the 347th century between humanity and several alien species. It began following the failure of a peace conference and ended with a decisive victory for humanity. For many years afterwards, there was deep resentment towards the human race. The Slitheen family took advantage of this by setting up their time travelling tourist agency. One of their attractions was having native humans dress up as aliens to be slaughtered by other humans.

But the package holidays throughout history were just the means to an end, as the Slitheen’s true intention was to make humanity completely dependent on them for food. Mankind would remain primitive hunter gatherers, never progressing into farmers or establishing cities. Human civilisation would be stopped dead in its tracks, erasing the Platonic War from the timeline.

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◆ Conclusion

“And if we stop doing this, if we stop bringing tourists, all the humans round the Mediterranean will starve.”

The Platonic War began following the failure of a peace conference and ended with a decisive victory for humanity. For many years afterwards, there was deep resentment towards the human race. The Slitheen family sought to take advantage of this post-war climate of fear and suspicion… by creating package holidays into the depths of human history! But this was just the means to an end. By taking advantage of the famine ravaging ancient Greece, mankind would become dependent on them for food. Human civilisation as we know it would cease to develop. Once more, it falls to the Doctor to stop this criminal family in their tracks!

Simon Guerrier has long been one of my favourite writers, but I’d never experienced one of his books before. Glad to say that I wasn’t disappointed. ‘The Slitheen Excursion’ is a fantastic little romp around ancient Greece, and it actually makes the titular crime family a credible threat (rather than just a joke about farting that goes on for way too long).

Not only does Guerrier expertly capture the essence of the Tenth Doctor, he also introduces us to a single-adventure companion who I would love to see return one day. Academics have always worked exceptionally well in the Tardis (Ian, Barbara, Evelyn) and June is no exception. A university student currently studying Classics… whisked away to ancient Greece for an adventure like no other. Excellent at thinking on her feet, copes well under pressure, and had an instant connection with the Doctor. Please, bring her back one day!

‘The Slitheen Excursion’ is the first book that I’ve managed to finish the same day I started reading it, which is a testament to how magnificently written it is. Highly recommend this one.