DOCTOR WHO: SHADA
THE LOST ADVENTURE BY DOUGLAS ADAMS
Adapted by Gareth Roberts
Published by BBC BOOKS
Reviewed by Scott Weller
“I’ve been nearly too clever by three-quarters.’
The Doctor
Fans of the enduring legacies of the much acclaimed fantasy writer Douglas Adams and the always fantastical worlds inhabited by CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO will be thrilled with the new book adaptation release of a lost adventure from both forces, as Adams scripted but never completed production of the ambitious 1979 story Shada makes its publishing event landmark premiere. A very special story, finally given the literary life it deserves.
His one year script-editing stint on the show during that year may have been subject to both controversy and adoration in equal measure from the shows die-hard fans, but there’s no question that Douglas Adams, who had prior contributed a striking script to DOCTOR WHO several years earlier (the now classic adventure THE PIRATE PLANET, helped into development by previous script editors Robert Holmes and Anthony Read: both of whom saw the potential in the writer), was an incredible talent and overall plus for the show, becoming a major league literary and science fiction/fantasy star that year with the suddenly stratospheric release of that little book of his you may have heard of- THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY- which went on to sell millions of copies and soon made Adams a veritable household name, what with his soon trademark wit, seemingly boundless imagination and charming eccentricities. Adams full-time work on WHO’s Season Seventeen was an early indication to the ultimate success of HITCHHIKERS: colourful and entertaining, ultimately populist stuff- a universe of eccentrics, and weird and wonderful monsters alongside WHO’s crazed galaxy threatening megalomaniacs, put against big central ideas and comic strip/sci-fi hybrid worlds and spaceships of the best seventies realisation. Shada adds to that vocabulary for WHO with such concepts as time rams, invisible ships, mind stealing killer spheres and life threatening computers.
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| The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Lalla Ward) go punting in Cambridge in the opening episode of the lost WHO story Shada. All images: BBC |
Despite all the huge time pressures and responsibilities in making the show, Adams fertile and humorous imagination at work on WHO, original and re-writing, was spirited and ingenious (in many ways, Adams had a huge personality that could have been the Doctor in real-life!), unleashing infectious ingredients that the series lead star, the equally intelligent and naturally witty Tom Baker, quickly picked up on and enjoyed, alongside his co-star and lover-to-be, the exquisitely classy Lalla Ward playing Time Lady, and almost equal, Romana, as he began his sixth and penultimate year on the show. Shada was to have been the culmination of that lively period of WHO bravura, involving a terrifying alien humanoid named Skagra, in his mad quest to enslave the universe, travelling to Cambridge, England on planet Earth to find a powerful and ancient Time Lord book with location details for one of their races most notorious criminals, Salyavin, who possesses powerful mental abilities ripe for the taking. Soon encountered by our Time Lord heroes, alongside their trusty metal pooch K-9 and accompanying young human allies (scientists Chris Parsons and Clare Keightley), can even their indomitable talents stop Skagra’s deadly ambitions from coming to fruition…?
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| Professor Chronotis (Denis Carey) is attacked by Skagra's sphere. |
Though he may have ultimately relegated Shada to the drawer marked one of his lesser, and very rushed works, literally put together in a crisis after the then show’s producer, Graham Williams, kept rejecting his initial ideas of an intriguing story involving the Doctor abandoning his career in saving the universe and becoming a hermit living on a barren planet, the planned six-part story created in its place, had it been completed, and from the impressive footage shot by director Pennant Roberts that has survived in preservation within the BBC vaults, would surely have been a fine end to the writers year long WHO association, as well as that of the departing Williams, no doubt relieved to escape what had been an equally very difficult, incident packed and stressful three year period of his production life working on the hit series. Instead, its eventual and undeserved cancellation, due to legendary BBC union strike action, became a sad and ignoble end to their hard work, as well as a brief, bleak period for the rest of the shows dedicated cast and crew who recognised such a potentially successful endeavour.
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| Problems for the Doctor, Romana and human student Chris Parsons (Daniel Hill) |
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| Metal super-pooch K-9 assists Romana. |
But, with WHO, and a format concept where time is always relative, there is thankfully no such thing as lost forever, as the incomplete adventure would eventually be released on now extinct VHS tape with specially shot linking footage from Tom Baker in 1992, followed by a successful revamped in audio form adaptation featuring Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, with Lalla Ward again as Romana, for the BIG FINISH company. Now, however, we return to the roots of Adam’s written material, preserved back to the original Fourth Doctor era in which it was originally set, as popular writer/novelist Gareth Roberts takes the adaptive and challenging reins of bringing it to literary life in a way that will please Adams and WHO fans. It’s a herculean task and one that will no doubt raise the critical eyebrows of the most die-hard fans of not only CLASSIC WHO but also those who jealousy love and protect the words and worlds of the late Adams (who sadly passed away in 2001).
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| Lalla Ward and Christopher Neame (playing the evil Skagra) enjoy a filming break. |
Thankfully, though, I’m happy to report that, after thirty-three years in limbo, it’s been worth the wait. BBC BOOKS have done a sterling job getting the rights and permissions together from the Adams estate, and who knows where else, to get this book to fans, whilst Roberts, himself a witty and clever WHO raconteur, proves a worthy choice of adaptor.
Shada is ultimately a fine novel, and a welcome addition to the prior legend of DOCTOR WHO TV episodes in the kind of printed adaptation form once made prime famous in the seventies and eighties by TARGET BOOKS. Douglas Adams memorable characters (including the likes of the doddery and charmingly eccentric Time Lord living in Cambridge, Professor Chronotis, the menacing, if badly dressed, Skagra and his chilling mind-absorbing sphere), despite some changes and additions here and there (and some occasional changes and improvements by Roberts) survive their translation to the printed page as the author captures the charm, intelligence and fun of that era shard in a nice, easy to read prose style, whilst Tom Baker’s larger than life, the universe and everything’s compulsively addictive on- screen presence is well satiated.
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| Soon to be a real-life pairing in 1979, Tom Baker and Lalla Ward enjoy a classic book on location in Cambridge. |
Working from several versions of the script, production and other archival notes, Roberts further fleshes the story out with shadings of his own often larger than life personality in this generally skillful translation, and with an Adams-esque tribute writing style. The original writers genius and talent for unleashing brimming over ideas, clever dialogue and humour ultimately, and deservedly, outshines the adaptor, though, as many of the books best laugh out loud dialogue and moments remain uniquely Adams (I know, I have the original scripts to compare!). Roberts can be commended for skillfully and keeping such legendary qualities alive and preserved for the most part, whilst his own well-known pen chance for the Doctor and Romana relationship puts him in good stead - the man being a veritable media time capsule for 1979 WHO, an era which he clearly loved and admired in his formative years. The essential British-ness of it all - having used them successfully in one of his earlier writing career WHO Missing Adventures novels of the nineties, which also well captured the style and tone of the distinctive Baker/Williams/Adams era.
Die-hard fans will also enjoy the vast majority of Roberts tributes and mostly harmless references to other Adams work both in and beyond WHO, as well as some sly and welcome tributes to the TARGET books most prolific adaptors, Terrance Dicks.
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| The very classy Lalla Ward, as Romana, poses for a publicity image. |
Shada’s most memorable scene-of the Doctor and Romana punting down a Cambridge lock- will, of course, be remembered by fans for its inclusion as part of the then show’s twentieth anniversary story, The Five Doctors, and there were other lovely moments of filmed fun and suspense in the worlds of academia and deep space to be enjoyed with its eventual VHS release, too. But it’s a warm treat to see it in complete prose form, especially linked to the majority of the story’s intriguing second half that was never completed, where we finally get some proper visual description for the climactic action, though of a bigger scale here than what would probably have been seen in the final episodes had they been completed. (In his back notes for the book, Roberts tells the readers that he wanted to do the kind of adaptation that would have done Shada and Adams proud, with the kind of big budget sensibilities seen in MODERN WHO, but he forgets that the original classic series was often mightily ambitious despite its small budgets and restricted video taped studios. I’m sure intriguing small screen wonders could have been done in that unmade second half of the story by the then proud and dedicated film and TV makers at the BBC had it ever have been completed.)
Though his earlier in the season written City of Death (under the pseudonym of David Agnew (writing alongside Graham Williams) is still Adams best overall story for the series- an artistic and television triumph in every sense of the word- that same sense of ambition and challenge, of fun and adventure, was ultimately planned for Shada. And Roberts adaptation reminds us and celebrates a lot of those terrific Adams qualities that were present in that final story, as well as the cruelty of its ultimate production status: that we were all well and truly robbed of a strong finale to that years season, before the dawn of a new and different science fiction era for WHO in the 1980’s.
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| Tom Baker gets his head down into a good book within Professor Chronotis's library. |
Despite such high quality in the adaptation, however, one cannot ignore a few irritating niggles here and there. Though there are mentions of Time Lord history and continuity to past stories within, the 1979 Shada as conceived by Adams remains an original work. In it’s book translation, though, Roberts uses other parts of the shows huge continuity-Classic and New, as well as personal theories and observations, to sort out plot holes and inconsistencies within Adams story, some of which, I ultimately feel, didn’t need to be bothered with, and whose solutions occasionally bog the novel’s pace down in a few places (the books final chapters, in particular, despite an attempt to put in some Adams-esque camouflage, is also pretty heavy on explanatory exposition).
The MODERN WHO TV series use of pop culture references, which was something you rarely ever found in CLASSIC WHO, works in some places to describe the 1979 environs of which the story is set, but there are other times when its descriptively used that feel a little lazy to this reviewer. Away from Adams, there’s also the very occasional, subtle hints here and there of what has been described as the new shows so-called “Gay Agenda” making its way into the book, alongside some equally slight but noticeable adult humour (Skagra’s Ship computer, altered by the Doctor’s technological savvy, seemingly has several Carry-On movie style “ooh-er” orgasms every time it goes in and out of the time vortex), in a way that ultimately doesn’t fit the original series ethos or pay tribute to the original scripters more intelligent work with regards to humour. Such devices may be used as an extra selling point by the writer/BBC BOOKS to win over new adult WHO fans watching the current series, but, in my book, MODERN WHO writers should keep such obsessions only to the new series, and its spin-offs like TORCHWOOD. Despite a few small mountains getting in the way here and there, the Classic WHO TV series is still very much in my mind a clear and relatively innocent road for young children/families to travel along and enjoy, even the stories that showed a greater sense of scripted intelligence and adult overtones from the likes of Adams and other story-making icons like Robert Holmes.
Whatever the flashy new bells and whistles attached to it, though, that very special legacy that is the talent of Douglas Adams can once more be enjoyed and appreciated for a long time to come. The story of Shada ultimately concerns a very special book, and this adaptation has ultimately proved itself as being equally special. Like the environment of which so much of the story is set, it’s best read in the warm-hearted confines of a shabby old house library full of books and smelling of papal decay, alongside a roaring fire and a small but delectable table full of tea and muffins waiting to be buttered and jammed. It’s a fine piece of CLASSIC WHO, too, that’s truly indicative of the show and its endless imagination, to be discovered and savoured anew in what will hopefully, if this book is successful, lead to the eventual complete run of original 60’s to 80’s WHO novelisations being finally achieved. (Of which only a mere three remain unadapted (including the other adored Adams story, City of Death, and the two popular Eric Saward written WHO Dalek stories from the 80’s: Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks.)
KOOL TV BOOK RATING: a very worthy 4 out of 5
SHADA is available as a book, on Kindle and as audiobook CD version from BBC BOOKS. Get it here: Doctor Who: Shada: Amazon.co.uk: Douglas Adams, Gareth Roberts: Books
A feature on the lost story: BBC News - The Doctor Who story you never got to see
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| A super animated scene rendering from the recently completed animated fan project version of Shada. Image: Ian Levine/FACEBOOK |
SHADA will eventually be released in some form on official BBC DVD in 2013, but it has also been recently recreated as a partially animated film, from WHO super fan Ian Levine. Check out the news story and intriguing images from the project here: Doctor Who and the Shada Man - Sci-Fi Movie Reviews, Movie News, Comics, Books and Gaming and
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