Nightshade

Essential reading.

Mark Gatiss has a bit of a mixed record on Doctor Who. He wrote a few rather ill-regarded stories for the Revived Series, and a few that are generally pretty liked, but not exactly loved. But here, in 1992, he wrote what is in my opinion his greatest contribution to Doctor Who. It is for his work on this that I forgive a couple of his televised duds.

When Tom Baker took on the role of the Doctor, as wonderfully as he did it, he did have a certain "invincible" feeling. The Hinchcliffe/Holmes stories tended to keep him grounded by constantly putting him through the ringer, putting him in intense pain, burdening him, life-or-death situations, gods, monsters... And then in the Graham Williams era that seemed to stop. By the time JNT came on-board and was challenging him again, it felt weird that Tom's Doctor was capable of being vulnerable. (The melancholy vibe Tom had during season 18 certainly helps this; whether you believe this was intentional or not.)
Peter Davison then went on to have it pretty easy for most of his run, and Colin and Sylv had something of a deification going on. Mark Gatiss, it seems, isn't into that sort of approach, despite it being the fashionable tack in the VNA range; Mark wanted to really challenge the Doctor. Really get Sylv's Doctor vulnerable. Like the early Tom days, like Caves of Androzani, like the Troughton era, like Daleks' Master Plan...

And boy, did he succeed.

The most direct precursor to Doctor Who is Quatermass; a trilogy of 6-part science fiction serials broadcast in weekly half-hour parts in the 1950s. (The Quatermass Experiment in 1953, Quatermass II in 1955, and Quatermass And The Pit in 1958/59. There was also a 4-part serial for ITV in 1979, but it wasn't very good.)
Mark Gatiss is a long-time admirer of the creator of Quatermass, Nigel Kneale, and in fact as I write this, it was still pretty recent that Mark took to the stage to play the lead role of Professor Bernard Quatermass in the 70th anniversary rehearsed reading of the complete scripts for 1953's Experiment. (Particularly notable since, like a lot of early Doctor Who, there are no surviving recordings of the last four episodes of Experiment. The latter two serials, however, survive in full.)

Why am I telling you about Quatermass? Well, for one thing, this book is partly a tribute to Quatermass. One of our lead characters, Edmund Trevithick, is essentially a stand-in for if William Hartnell had played Professor Quatermass, and hadn't suffered quite so terribly from arteriosclerosis. He's a somewhat bitter old man, longing for the old days...

Nostalgia.

In a way, that is the villain of Nightshade. There's a plot here to do with an ancient evil (somewhat reminiscent of a Hinchcliffe/Holmes monster), and the monster preys on the wistful, bitter, and painful nostalgia of our principal players. Yes, even the Doctor. The Doctor begins this story in an unusual bout of melancholy, and in a sense, this whole book is about grief, melancholy, a longing for the past, and how this can strangle us, destroy us, and stop us from really living.

Ace gets a great showing in this story, standing on the other side of things to the Doctor. Her past has been traumatic, and from that, she's learned to look forward.

What does all this amount to? A bloody good book, that's what.

Timewyrm Revelation explored what Doctor Who could be with limitless budget and time... You could almost imagine a version of the story presented as a mid-budget TV movie in the '90s, shot on film, co-financed by an American distributor as a show to compete with the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This book, meanwhile, is more interested in running with what Doctor Who for adults looks like. Similar to Warhead, the big draw isn't necessarily the unlimited budget and time (although Warhead certainly would be nigh on impossible to shoot for TV, even today), but rather the draw is for a complex, layered, deep, emotional story. Mark knew this book would only really be read by adults, and older teenagers, so he wrote something for adults.

It's layered, it's sad, it's fun, it's melancholy, it's deep, it's human. It's beautiful.

This may be my favourite of the VNAs so far... It and Revelation stand together, at least, as the two heavy hitters.

Essential background: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (season 2)
Extensive background: Cat's Cradle: Warhead (VNA #6)

In my reviews, particularly of the Virgin New Adventures, I prefer to use a 4-tier system of grading:
Essential reading - If you want to read all the best VNAs, get all the most memorable story arc beats, and generally enjoy the VNAs without having to trudge through the mediocre/bad books, or perhaps even if you just want to pick up a good Doctor Who book with no intention of reading the entire series, look for this rating.
Worthwhile for extensive reading - Not outstanding, but I won't outright tell you to skip it if you want a sense of the VNAs overall. If you're determind to only read the best, skip these, but for a read-through of the series, I wouldn't skip them. They're the worthwhile, good-but-not-amazing books. You'll get a stronger sense of character arcs, story arc beats, and the growth of the VNAs as a range if you read these, but it will also take you a lot longer.
Not recommended - Not very good. If you really want to maximise your experience of the VNAs, you could read this, but it's definitely not advised.
Avoid at all costs - An irredeemable lump of human fecal matter. Do not waste your time with this insult to the franchise.

In addition, I list Recommended background that you may find necessary for understanding the story in full, as well as Extensive background for some additional details you may find interesting.

Virgin New Adventures

#008. Nightshade ~ 10/10

◆ An Introduction

Is it any wonder that so many people crave retirement? The opportunity to say goodbye to a lifetime spent dealing with petty office politics, horrendous workloads, and not having a personal life because you’re too tired after working a twelve hour shift. A chance to spend your dotage relaxing with the people you care about, to move into a tiny cottage in the countryside with a log-burner and a big old Newfoundland.

Most people crave their retirement, but what happens when your long and illustrious career has involved saving the universe from all manner of spatio-temporal threats? What happens when the Doctor decides to retire?

◆ Publisher’s Summary

"I have done enough!"

Ace has never known the Doctor so withdrawn and melancholic. He is avoiding her company, seeking solace in the forgotten rooms and labyrinthine passages of his ancient time machine.

Perhaps he will find the peace he yearns for on his favourite planet, Earth, in the second half of the twentieth century — in the isolated village of Crook Marsham, to be precise, in 1968, the year of peace, love and understanding.

But one by one the villagers are being killed. The Doctor has to act, but for once he seems helpless, indecisive, powerless.

What are the signals from space that are bombarding the radio telescope on the moor? What is the significance of the local legends from the Civil War? And what is the aeons-old power that the Doctor is unable to resist?

◆ The Seventh Doctor

The Doctor spends the majority of this novel in a manic depressive state, contemplating if his constant saving of the universe has actually helped anyone. The universe is weighing heavily on his conscience, and he doesn’t want to get involved any more… unfortunately, he really doesn’t have any choice in the matter. ‘Nightshade’ features one of the most interesting takes on this incarnation.

Of late, the Doctor had grown irritable and sulky, fond of pacing the console room and the corridors of the Tardis with hands thrust deep in pockets, mumbling and sighing. In all their adventures together Ace had never known him so moody and sullen. He seemed guarded and defensive whenever the subject of his room was raised. Would it be full of mementos? Home? Childhood? Family? Or did the Doctor have too many memories to keep track of? After all, he did claim to be over nine hundred years old. You’d tend to amass quite a bit of junk after all that time. He claims to remember the day Durham Cathedral was finished (Ace never knew whether the Doctor’s tales were serious or not). The Doctor had been thinking lately as to whether he’d really done any good… all these years of roaming about, righting wrongs, interfering. He wondered if he had the right to take it upon himself. To act as self-appointed judge and jury. He informs Ace that a day doesn’t pass where he doesn’t think of Susan. He admits that he misses his family. In whatever sense of the word. There’ve been so many over the years. Ian and Barbara. Sarah. Jo. Dear Jamie… he whisks them up and gives them a quick turn around the universe but they all go in the end. And he is left… ultimately alone. The Doctor has been seriously contemplating taking up his retirement and settling down somewhere, for a few centuries at least. Somewhere away from death and disaster. Far from the madding crowd. He thinks about going back home to Gallifrey. Perhaps he should try and sort things out back there. It’s corrupt and it’s a bureaucratic nightmare but its heart is in the right place. He thinks it is time he stopped shirking his responsibilities. Scientist, explorer, philanthropist, general do-gooder. That’s him! Abbot Winstanley believed that the Doctor seemed so wise, so much older than he appeared. Like a man standing on the bank of time, unconcerned by the furious flow of the years. Confronted with a phantom of Susan, the Doctor became overwhelmed with a tide of regret and grief. Instead of trying to confront his insecurities, like any rational being, he had buried them deep in his psyche. He was the Doctor, after all, and expected to be immune to such things. Above such trivial matters as emotion and longing… and love. It was only a matter of time before all those repressed feelings flooded his system like poison from an untreated wound.

◆ Ace

I could genuinely imagine ‘Nightshade’ being made for television, because it would have been a perfect conclusion to Ace’s storyline. Mark Gatiss writes superbly for the girl from Perivale, and I only wish that this was her final adventure… because Darvill-Evans would begin decimating the character from the next novel onwards.

Ace had never been one for feathering nests, even back on Earth, and the hectic pace of her life with the Doctor precluded any thoughts of making a real home in the Tardis. On one of the rare occasions when she and her mum hadn’t been at each other’s throats, they’d talked about what it must be like to live forever. Her mum claimed that she wouldn’t be able to bear it. All those friends, all those people you’d love. You’d have to watch them all get old and die. And you’d just go on and on. Start all over again. The thought made Ace shudder. She was a striking young woman with clear, soft skin and a heart-shaped, almost Edwardian face. Her thick brown hair flowed down the back of her t-shirt. Ace saw an article in the local paper about glamorous actress Sharon Tate… who would be found murdered by Charles Manson only a year later! This made her feel suddenly uncomfortable with her knowledge of the future, like some ancient seer cursed with the gift of prophecy. Ace spent the entire novel growing close to Robin, genuinely falling in love with him, to the point she decided it was time to leave the Tardis. Then came the ultimate betrayal. Having accompanied the Doctor on one last trip to vanquish the Sentience, he promised to take her back to Crook Marsham in 1968… but instead landed on an alien world. Ace would never see Robin again.

◆ Story Recap

The year is 1968, and the past twelve months have been incredibly turbulent. The headlines have detailed the atrocities of the Vietnam War, the chaos of the Paris Student Riots, the tragedy of Martin Luther King’s assassination, and the triumph of Apollo Eight orbiting the moon.

None of this effects the inhabitants of a friendly, picturesque community nestled deep within the Yorkshire Dales. Crook Marsham is a retirement village where nothing ever happens, until recently that is.

The village-folk have started seeing ghostly images of people from their youth; old lovers, long dead siblings, and sometimes the nightmares that frightened them as children. These encounters with the past prove to be fatal.

The Tardis has recently arrived in the village for a surprising reason – the Doctor has decided that it’s time to retire, to hang up his question mark umbrella for a couple of centuries and settle down. Meanwhile, Ace has started to develop feelings for one of the locals, and is considering parting ways with the Doctor… but can he really let her leave?

One thing is certain, someone is going to have their heart broken at the end of this adventure.

◆ The Curious Case of Mark Gatiss

‘Nightshade’ has gone down in history as a fan-favourite novel. Mark Gatiss is one of the most prolific contributors to the franchise, and one who often gets a bad rap from the fandom – often from the people who have only seen the worst of his television stories, like ‘Victory of the Daleks’ or that abysmal episode where Amy and Rory get shrunk and placed into an alien doll-house or something equally as stupid. His work for the expanded universe on the other hand is often pretty marvellous, which leads me neatly onto this novel – his first official contribution to the world of Dr Who.

◆ Professor Quatermass? Never Heard Of Him!

The plot of ‘Nightshade’ is honestly unimportant, but only because it serves as a vessel for some of the greatest character work you will ever experience in a Dr Who novel. I’ve already spoken at length about how well Gatiss has written for our regulars, but he makes a conscious effort to flesh out the village-folk of Crook Marsham too.

Edmund Trevithick is this washed up old actor spending his dotage in Dalesview Residential Home – bitter and sarcastic, but ultimately very charming. Trevithick found fame during the 1950s for his portrayal of the titular professor in the BBC science fiction series Nightshade. Considering the old serials were being rebroadcast on the newly launched BBC2, the old man was looking forward to becoming popular and famous again… but he would never get to meet his new fans as the Sentience began devouring the villagers’ life forces.

He became involved in the fight against the entity, which manifested itself to him in the form of the alien insectoids from one of the Nightshade serials. He boldly sacrificed himself to hold off the attacking apparitions, allowing the Doctor and Vijay to retreat to safety.

◆ Yorkshire Lover

Robin Yeadon is the other stand-out character when it comes to the Crook Marsham locals. The son of the local pub landlord, he quite rapidly falls head over heels in love with Ace. The romance between Robin and Ace is genuinely very touching, and you get the feeling that they could genuinely be very happy with each other… which makes the conclusion of this novel all that more depressing!

Bit of trivia for you about the character as well. He was played by Samuel Barnett in the audio adaptation. You might expect me to be over the moon that BigFinish cast my favourite actor and celebrity crush to play Robin in the adaptation, but Barnett genuinely can’t do a Yorkshire accent. It probably didn’t help that I spent the entire time listening to the audio adaptation just expecting Robin to break character and say something extremely camp like “Hello sailor!” and reveal himself to be Norton Folgate on some mission. But enough about that for now (I’ve got to have something to talk about when I review the adaptation).

◆ “Grandfather…”

I’d like to move onto the main antagonist of ‘Nightshade’. An ancient and powerful force, the Sentience was present during the creation of Earth and was trapped inside the planet as it formed. It subsisted on a diet of energy, including that produced by humans. However, it couldn’t feed on them directly, instead needing to latch on to strong memories, such as regrets or desires. The Sentience would then create phantoms from the memories and try to interact with its target. The stronger the belief in the memories were, the more powerful the copy was and the easier it would be for the Sentience to feast. After coming into contact with its target, the Sentience would feed on all the energy inside, leaving behind a dessicated corpse that would disintegrate with a touch.

For billions of years, this entity was too weak to interact with its surroundings – the low population of the Yorkshire Dales meant that there was little for it to feed on… until a group of Royalists stumbled across it during the Civil War, essentially becoming breakfast for the Sentience! In 1968, a radio telescope was built on top of where the Sentience was, increasing both the population and the amount of energy flooding into the Dales. This might as well have been humanity ringing the dinner gong; announcing a bottomless brunch for the Sentience to gorge itself on!

Considering that the Sentience can create apparitions based on memories, I’m genuinely shocked that Gatiss decided against inflicting more mental trauma on Ace (she could have easily been forced to face off against a vision of her mother). Instead, he decides to save the mental trauma for the Doctor… by having him confront a vision of none other than Susan. The Sentience has only made one appearance in canon, but it really is a fascinating villain.

◆ Conclusion

“I have done enough!”

The village-folk of Crook Marsham are plagued by ghostly images of people from their youth; old lovers, long dead siblings, and sometimes the nightmares that frightened them as children. These encounters with the past prove to be fatal. This would usually be where the Doctor swoops in to save the day, brimming with sarcasm and witty retorts… but the weary old time traveller is trapped in a manic depressive mood, contemplating his retirement. Then you have Ace, who has rapidly fallen in love with one of the local villagers… a romance that will almost certainly end in heartbreak.

‘Nightshade’ is the dictionary definition of a fan-favourite novel. The actual plot isn’t all that important. What you really need to focus on is the exemplary characterisation and atmosphere woven throughout the entire narrative. Gatiss wants you to understand and, to some degree, care about the inhabitants of the village. Whether it be the bitter and retired actor living up at the old folks home, or the Yeadon family who run the local boozer, everybody is fleshed out and given a personality and a background.

A little paperback novel released in the summer of ‘92… who would have thought that it would help to catapult its writer to global stardom? To all those people who continually bash Mark Gatiss and call his work crap, purchase a copy of ‘Nightshade’ from eBay and realise how wrong you have been all this time.