Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts. Barclow - an Earth-type planet on the fringes of space at an inestimably distant point in the future. Two factions have laid claim to it: humans from the nearby colony world of Metralubit, and a small group of Chelonian troopers. But in nearly two hundred years of conflict not one shot has been fired in anger, there are regular socials in the trenches and the military commanders are the best of friends. The Doctor, Romana and K-9, arriving in the midst of these bizarre hostilities, find there's real trouble to come. A crucial election on Metralubit is looming, and K-9 is forced to begin a new career as a politician. Meanwhile, Romana meets an old friend and the Doctor discovers that a sinister hidden force may be attempting to alter the war's friendly nature. What are the plans of Galatea, the leader of the beautiful robotic Femdroids? Who is killing soldiers on both sides of the battle lines? And will K- 9's oratory save the day? Featuring the Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K-9, this adventure takes place between the television stories Shada and The Leisure Hive. The book has been serialized on the BBC Doctor Who website. Released: April 1997 ISBN: 0 426 20506 5. For over a century human and Chelonian colonists have officially been at war over the planet Barclow, but a committee set up on Metralubit to look into the situation has yet to come to any conclusion, and as a result not a shot has been fired since the "conflict" began. Admiral Dolne and his opposite number General Jafrid have developed a healthy respect for each other's abilities, and are as close to being friends as enemies can be. After a failed series of peace talks on Metralubit, Dolne returns to Barclow to learn that an artist touring the disputed territory has returned with a wild tale about a missile strike wiping out his escort. Although contact has certainly been lost with the patrol, Dolne and his subordinate Hans Viddeas are sceptical of the artist's claims, and place him in confinement to prevent him from alarming the men. After all, why would the enemy possibly wish to open fire on them? While exploring the TARDIS, Romana finds a device capable of forcing an emergency materialization just as the TARDIS impacts with the edge of the Time Spiral -- the furthest point of the Vortex, beyond which no TARDIS can safely venture. The Doctor uses the device to avoid destruction, and although puzzled by the odd coincidence, his curiosity is piqued by the distance he has travelled and he sets off to explore. The TARDIS appears to have arrived in a war zone, but the half-hearted nature of the missile strikes suggests that they are simply being fired for show -- at first. A genuine attack separates the Doctor from Romana and K9, and while trying to find his way back to them he finds the remains of human soldiers, their bodies coated with a preservative slime. He is then captured by a Chelonian patrol led by First Pilot Seskwa, who accuses him of conspiring to develop biological weapons and shows him the slime-coated body of a dead Chelonian soldier. The Doctor studies the body and concludes that the slime is the secretion of a predator which is meant to preserve the body for later consumption -- but Barclow has no native animal life. Back on Metralubit, as Premier Harmock prepares for the forthcoming election, he receives unexpected and unwanted news from his personal Femdroid, Galatea; after a century of deliberation the Phibbs Committee is finally ready to publish its report on Barclow. Worried, Harmock contacts Dolne to warn him that his troops may be ordered into combat at any moment. Rabley, the Leader of the Opposition, is out touring the disputed zone to show support for the troops, but Dolne is unable to contact and warn him of the new situation due to a communications failure. The environment controls in the base are also malfunctioning, and the base is uncomfortably hot and swarming with flies. As the engineer sent to repair the environment controls has not yet reported back, Viddeas attempts to clear what appears to be a paper jam in the base's photocopier himself -- only to be killed and reanimated by a dark force which desires to escalate the war. K9's sensors have been damaged by the bombardment, and as he and Romana search for the Doctor they stumble across the patrol escorting Rabley just as another bombardment begins. K9 tries to warn them of the danger, but Rabley doesn't comprehend that he's really under threat until it's too late. When the dust settles, Rabley is dead. Romana and K9 are taken back to the human base for questioning, but the hostile Viddeas throws Romana into prison. There, she is surprised to meet Menlove Stokes, the artist whom she and the Doctor met during the Xais incident. Stokes had himself placed in cryogenic suspension to await the inevitable acceptance of his genius, and he has found what he seeks on Metralubit - - and now that the situation on Barclow seems to be deteriorating he wants to return as quickly as possible. Dolne has them released, as the testimony of the survivors confirms Stokes' claims and proves that K9 attempted to save Rabley's life. As a result, the law of constitutional privilege gives K9 the opportunity to take Rabley's place as Leader of the Opposition -- and K9 chooses to accept, on the grounds that a position of power will better enable him to assist efforts to find the Doctor. Meanwhile, Dolne -- certain that the bombing was just a tragic error -- tells Viddeas to lightly bombard the Chelonian lines just to show willing, but Viddeas initiates a heavy artillery bombardment which wipes out a number of outlying Chelonian patrols. Seskwa takes the Doctor to the Chelonian base, where he learns that these Chelonians, descended from a group of colonists stranded on a barren planet by a temporal anomaly, have long since lost their aggressive tendencies. Jafrid feels that Dolne is not foolish enough to start a shooting war, particularly one he knows he cannot win, and therefore allows the Doctor to analyse the slime from the dead Chelonian's body. The Doctor finds proof that it was genetically engineered, which supports his growing theory that a third party is trying to escalate the war. Jafrid allows the Doctor to contact Dolne with his findings, and Dolne puts him in touch with Romana and K9 -- who is now committed to run in the election and cannot back out. Seskwa agrees to take the Doctor to the human base to negotiate a new peace accord, but on the way back Seskwa tries to drive the tank over a cliff, and the Doctor realizes that Seskwa is dead, his body reanimated by the third force. The Doctor escapes from the tank just in time, but the Chelonians detect the tank's destruction and Jafrid concludes that the Doctor has betrayed them. Meanwhile, Viddeas -- now nothing more than a walking cadaver buzzing with flies -- attacks and kills Dolne. The Darkness then passes from Viddeas into Dolne, who returns to the command centre and orders a missile strike. The Chelonians respond in kind, and the war begins in earnest. Romana, K9, and the desperate Stokes have already departed for Metralubit, where K9 begins his political campaign. Harmock is horrified when the colonists appear to respond favourably to K9, but news of the war soon reaches Metralubit, and K9 and Harmock find that panic-stricken riots are breaking out all over the world despite their pleas for calm. Romana, meanwhile, is puzzled by certain technological discrepancies she has noticed; the Metralubitans possess Fastspace technology but do not have transmat capabilities, and the Femdroids appear to operate upon exactly the same principles as K9. Hoping to find an explanation in the history of the planet, Romana soon makes a terrifying discovery -- every two thousand years a planet-wide civilisation has collapsed amidst destruction and death beyond counting, and the last such disaster took place two thousand years ago. Romana takes her discovery to the Femdroid Liris, who insists that she must be mistaken -- and then secretly reports to Galatea that the great plan is in danger. Meanwhile, Stokes tries to leave the government building to rejoin his friends and admirers in the city beyond, but finds that he cannot remember the way out -- and when he tries to force his way onwards, he descends into a trance and is taken by Galatea and Liris for further mental processing to reinforce his conditioning. The Doctor falls into an underground cave system while trying to avoid the bombardment, and there he meets Fritchoff, a political protestor who, as far as he's concerned, represents the interests of the proletariat of Metralubit. When the Doctor searches for Fritchoff's fellow protestors he finds them dead, their bodies coated with preservative slime -- and is then confronted by a buzzing swarm of flies, and realizes that he has travelled so far into the future that the flies have evolved into a group organism capable of telepathy and telekinesis. Forced out of their ancient feeding grounds by the Time Lords, the Hive has been manipulating this isolated human colony for millennia, creating a cycle of death to provide themselves with carrion on a regular basis. The Doctor takes Fritchoff to warn the others of the true threat, but they are captured by the Chelonians and taken back to Jafrid. Fritchoff is dismissed as unimportant and manages to stay out of the Chelonians' way, but the Doctor stands accused of conspiracy and betrayal, and is placed in the Web of Death -- a torture device designed to stretch his limbs until they separate from his body. Galatea realizes that Romana will not abandon her investigation, and attempts to erase the memory of her discovery. Romana, however, only pretends to fall victim to the conditioning, and as soon as she is released she takes K9 and Stokes to warn Harmock of the conspiracy. Galatea, telling the disturbed Liris that she is acting on behalf of a higher power, sends a squadron of Femdroid assassins to kill Romana, and K9, still damaged from the battering he received on Barclow, is unable to defend her. The panic-stricken Stokes tries to escape and finds his way to the Femdroid control centre, where he fulfils a promise made some time ago and smashes it to bits with a hammer. Femdroids all over the city collapse, and as they expire, so does the holographic illusion of the outside City, which in reality is completely deserted. The results of the phone-in polls, the news broadcasts and the images of the rioting population were all faked by the Femdroids, and K9 was unable to perceive the truth due to the damage to his sensors. A recorded message from Galatea is activated, revealing the truth; Stokes was in fact found and partially revived centuries ago by a team of scientists who analysed the memories within his dormant brain and thus made a quantum leap in their planet's technology. Even the Femdroids were created based on his memories of watching Romana repair K9 on the Rock of Judgement. This unexpected event broke the cycle of death caused by the Hive, as this civilisation was the first to develop artificial intelligences capable of discovering the Feeding Cycle and deducing the reason for it. Under Galatea's guidance, the Femdroids constructed a mass transmat, sent the population of Metralubit to safety in another solar system, and then put in motion events which would lead to the destruction of the Hive. The conflict on Barclow and the supposed riots on Metralubit were apparently leading to the collapse of civilisation once again -- but once the Hive descended upon Metralubit to feed, the Femdroids intended to have the soldiers on Barclow bomb Metralubit and thus destroy the Hive forever. Now, thanks to Romana, the Hive will realize that it has been deceived. Horrified by what she has done, Romana sets off back to Barclow to put things right, accompanied by Harmock, K9 and the disillusioned Stokes -- who realizes that he was lied to when promised he would find a civilisation which truly appreciated his art. The failure of the Femdroid control centre has caused a complete communications breakdown on Barclow, and Dolne leads his troops out for the final battle -- final in every sense, as the furious Hive has discovered the truth and is preparing to devour every living thing on Barclow. As Jafrid departs to face his enemies, he salutes the agonised Doctor's honourable death; but Fritchoff, who had been unwilling to interfere in the Chelonians' due legal processes, nevertheless opposes the concept of honour in war and thus releases the Doctor. The Doctor rushes to the battlefield and points out the Hive as it descends upon them all, and Jafrid realizes that the Doctor has been telling the truth all along. The Darkness within Dolne attempts to possess the Doctor in order to gain access to his TARDIS, but K9 shoots him, causing the flies in his body to scatter temporarily. As Stokes flees in terror, the Doctor uses K9 to transmit a message to the people of Metralubit, telling them to destroy their transmat system to ensure that the Hive cannot use it to transport itself to a heavily populated sector of the galaxy. The Hive picks up the transmission and immediately sets course for Metralubit, but before it arrives the Doctor is able to remotely reactivate Galatea, whose power source and memory chips are self- contained and operate on the same frequencies as K9's. Following the Doctor's instructions as relayed by K9, Galatea inverts the co-ordinate settings on the transmat, and when the Hive descends upon Metralubit it is thus transported it into interstitial space, where it will remain until the Doctor can dispose of it with the TARDIS. All seems resolved, but the Doctor is concerned by the level of coincidence at work, and is beginning to feel as though he's been manipulated. Humans and Chelonians should not exist in any recognisable form this far in the future, and the fact that there are plausible explanations for their presence only serves to heighten the Doctor's anxiety. When Romana reveals that Menlove Stokes is present, this only convinces the Doctor he is right, and he rushes Romana and K9 back to the TARDIS to collect and dispose of the Hive before the trap is sprung -- unaware that this act is itself the final part of the trap. Stokes, desperate to escape from the Hive, has already located and entered the TARDIS, and once inside, has accessed its data banks and learned that he is destined to become a professor of art at St Oscar's University on the planet Dellah. Following the instructions whispered from a crystal provided by his benefactor, Stokes sets the co-ordinates for Dellah in the 26th century -- and when the Doctor bursts in, he is in such a rush to escape that he picks up the Hive without checking the co-ordinate settings first. When he does so, he realizes that they are locked off; he cannot materialize anywhere but 26th-century Dellah, and doing so will release the Hive upon the heavily populated past. His trap sprung, the Black Guardian materializes on the scanner screen and confirms that he has manipulated events to put the Doctor in a position where he must either release the Hive upon the galaxy or accept eternal exile in the Time Vortex, never to materialize again. The Black Guardian transports Stokes to Dellah as promised, and settles back to await the Doctor's decision -- but much to the Guardian's shock, the Doctor chooses to operate the emergency cut-out switch and take the TARDIS out of real time and space altogether, possibly never to return. The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts. 'Destroy them! Destroy them all - now!' Barclow - an Earth-type planet on the fringes of space at an inestimably distant point in the future. Two factions have laid claim to it: humans from the nearby colony world of Metralubit, and a small group of Chelonian troopers. But in nearly two hundred years of conflict not one shot has been fired in anger, there are regular socials in the trenches and the military commanders are the best of friends. The Doctor, Romana and K-9, arriving in the midst of these bizarre hostilities, find there's real trouble to come. A crucial election on Metralubit is looming, and K-9 is forced to begin a new career as a politician. Meanwhile, Romana meets an old friend and the Doctor discovers that a sinister hidden force may be attempting to alter the war's friendly nature. What are the plans of Galatea, the leader of the beautiful robotic Femdroids? Who is killing soldiers on both sides of the battle lines? And will K- 9's oratory save the day? Just what is going on? Publication Date: April 1997. Notes: *Featuring the Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K9. *A Virgin Books 'Missing Adventures' novel. *BBCi also published this story as an eBook on the official website. *The E-book has an introduction and chapter notes by Gareth Roberts, plus new illustrations by Daryl Joyce, and a Target Books-style mock cover: *A Version of this story was subsequently released as a full cast audio play by 'Big Finish Productions' in May 2015: 'The Well-Mannered War' (2 Parts) by Gareth Roberts, adapted by John Dorney. 'Destroy them! Destroy them all - now!' Barclow - an Earth-type planet on the fringes of space at an inestimably distant point in the future. Two factions have laid claim to it: humans from the nearby colony world of Metralubit, and a small group of Chelonian troopers. But in nearly two hundred years of conflict not one shot has been fired in anger, there are regular socials in the trenches and the military commanders are the best of friends. The Doctor, Romana and K-9, arriving in the midst of these bizarre hostilities, find there's real trouble to come. A crucial election on Metralubit is looming, and K-9 is forced to begin a new career as a politician. Meanwhile, Romana meets an old friend and the Doctor discovers that a sinister hidden force may be attempting to alter the war's friendly nature. What are the plans of Galatea, the leader of the beautiful robotic Femdroids? Who is killing soldiers on both sides of the battle lines? And will K- 9's oratory save the day? Just what is going on? Tom Baker ( The Doctor ), Lalla Ward ( Romana ), John Leeson ( K-9 ), GUEST CAST TBA. Directed by Ken Bentley. Notes: *Featuring the Fourth Doctor, the Second Romana, and K-9 MKII. The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts. The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts. BASIC PLOT In the very far future, humans and Chelonians are engaged in a war that isn't, because someone has created a very complex plan. And, outside of that, someone else has created a very complex plan. And, outside of that - would you credit? - someone else has created a very complex plan. What a coincidence. COMPANIONS Romana II and K9 Mark II. MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT Pg 26 On Barclow. PREPARATORY READING The Romance of Crime is helpful but not essential. CONTINUITY REFERENCES Pg 9 "He can't delay the election much longer." The Well-Mannered War was published in the same year that Tony Blair won the UK general election against John Major and was thus quite topical. Pg 16 "Romana looked down at her new outfit. She had chosen a red velvet smoking jacket and a frilled shirt with a bow tie, which she had found discarded on a hanger in the wardrobe room." Romana is dressed as the third Doctor. See also Continuity Cock-Ups. Pg 21 "The central column was rising and falling noisily but smoothly enough." The Doctor notes that the column is being more noisy than usual in Logopolis. Pg 25 "We don't want you regenerating again, do we?" Destiny of the Daleks (in which Romana regenerated for no reason) and Time and the Rani (in which the Doctor regenerated because the console room, as on this occasion, took a bit of a buffeting; thus, for no reason). Pgs 25-26 "Right at the end of the Humanian era. After the destruction of Earth" The Telemovie gives us the former. The Ark and The End of the World give us the latter. Pg 26 "'Not a word to the High Council when you get back to Gallifrey.' Romana bristled. 'Who said anything about going back?'" She gets the call to do so in Meglos. Pg 63 Viddeas is attacked and consumed by a photocopier. This is remarkably similar to something that Russell T Davies would write; think Adipose. No wonder he hired Roberts. Pg 82 "The lettering was angular and jagged, the notation reminding him of trips to the Orient on Earth" Marco Polo and probably others. Pg 87 "Remote Tellurian colony, sited in the Fostrix galaxy, settled in the fifty-eighth segment of time." Tellurian was Eric Saward's word for humans, first used in The Visitation. The Ark occurred in the fifty-seventh segment of time. Pg 95 "She considered using the sonic screwdriver to pick the lock of the cell." We saw Romana's sonic device in The Horns of Nimon. Pg 96 "She and the Doctor had encountered him not so long ago in their own relative time-stream, during an encounter with the villainous Xais in the twenty-third century." The Romance of Crime. Gloriously, this continuity reference is actually given a footnote, pointing the diligent reader in the right direction to catch up on the back-story. Can you imagine if they did this every time there was a continuity reference? The Quantum Archangel would be nearly three times its current length. For which no one would be thanked. Pg 97 Reference to Spiggot, again from The Romance of Crime. Pg 98 Menlove Stokes ends up at the end of the universe: "It's a beautiful place. A utopia." Hmmm: a utopia at the end of the universe which seems wonderful. That sounds familiar. (If in doubt, see Utopia.) Pg 122 "I'm an old hand with webs." The Web Planet, The Web of Fear, Planet of the Spiders. Pg 124 "Stokes made a fist and slammed it against the wall, which wobbled." Almost as if this was made at the end of Season 17, when there was no money left. Pg 130 "My men and I claim descent from the lines of Nazmir and Talifar." The former is used as a kind of swear word or oath in The Highest Science. Pg 131 "He threatened you with the Web? Stupid boy." This is a (rather silly) reference to Dad's Army, which was itself referenced in No Future. Pg 140 "She dismissed the thought, as she dismissed all thoughts of returning home nowadays." Again, predicting what would happen in Meglos. There's another reference to the Humanian era from the Telemovie on this page as well. Pg 142 " But Gallifrey is gone. " This story is set in the far future, and Virgin postulated that Gallifrey was in the far past. It might make sense that the reason the far future is prohibited to Time Lords (as in Frontios) is precisely because Gallifrey is gone. It would also be quite nice to tie this into the Time War and to note that, once that's happened in the new series, the Doctor frequently heads this far into the future. "It well remembered its attempts to sneak into the wastes of the vortex, all of them thwarted by the defences erected by those miserable, thin- blooded, infertile, self-crowned gods, the Time Lords." All pretty fair. The reference to them being infertile is from Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and Lungbarrow, and is kind of contradicted in Cold Fusion. Pg 168 "The last time we met, as I recall, he brought precious little peace." The Romance of Crime. Pg 169 "He pulled out a pamphlet and started to read. Its title was So You're Caught in a Rocket Attack ." A homage to probably the silliest bit (against some stiff competition) in Destiny of the Daleks. Pg 170 "Our boys on Barclow are risking their lives to save all of ours, to protect a way of life that allows Mr K9 to pontificate in his unusual manner." The use of a war to win an election was probably, at the time of writing, a reference to the Falklands, but is horribly prescient of the Iraq War. Pg 186 "'It started off as a protest.' 'Most things do.'" The Doctor's departure from Gallifrey, as seen in Lungbarrow. Pg 187 "'What time do you make it?' 'Er, about ten billion AD.'" This fits almost precisely with the timelines in the new series, especially The End of the World. Pg 195 "We fled the Time Fleets." Sounds like the Time War. Pg 236 "Retrieve data from our last encounter with Mr Stokes, on the Rock of Judgement." The Romance of Crime. Pg 252 "Like trying to close the Eye with a finklegruber." The Eye of Harmony from The Deadly Assassin et al. A finklegruber was mentioned in The Invasion of Time. Pg 259 "Until his hand closed around an oddly shaped chunk of clear crystal." Stokes' means of communication with the Black Guardian resembles Turlough's in Mawdryn Undead etc. Pg 260 "History hangs in the balance out here, remember?" The Doctor and Romana have travelled further forward in time than they should have done, as in Frontios. Pg 267 "Heat death would lead to levels of chaos and decay imperceptible to the lived experience of any creature, however long-lived." Predicts Logopolis. Pg 272 "Professor of Applied Arts at St Oscar's University, planet Dellah." This is how the MAs tied into the Bernice NAs, as Stokes ends up in them. Pg 277 The chapter title is "The Official End of It All", which is a reference to the fact that this is the final MA and the last book to be published by Virgin. Pg 281 "The voice had delivered what it had promised: a lengthy, untroubled early retirement, thanks to a convenient time storm that had whipped him and his men here from their rightful place thousands of years before." Dragonfire and The Curse of Fenric. Pg 282 "Doors are an irrelevance to some people." A vague reference to The Ribos Operation. Pg 284 "The Key to Time. The same substance." The Ribos Operation through The Armaggedon Factor. Pg 288 "I was at your side when you fought the wizard of Avalon, when you united the Rhumon and the Menoptera against the Animus, when you brought down Lady Ruath and her vampire hordes and when you fought the Timewyrm on the surface of the moon." Probably Battlefield, The Web Planet, Goth Opera (thus linking to the first MA) and Blood Harvest and, finally, Timewyrm: Revelation (thus linking to the series that opened the NAs). Pg 292 "'The emergency unit,' she exclaimed. 'You won't use that.'" The Mind Robber. Pg 293 "Once I ended up in the fictional realm. I suppose it wasn't such a bad place." The Mind Robber again. "The lighting returned to normal. It could have been another ordinary day in the TARDIS, ready to begin another adventure." Lovely. Final reference to Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans. OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES Menlove Stokes, from The Romance of Crime. The Black Guardian from The Armageddon Factor, who'll also pop up again later. In the audio version, he's played by David Troughton, which is another continuity reference, albeit of a rather different type. NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES Humans: Premier Harmock, Cadinot, Hammerschmidt, Codie, Teer, Pallis, Fritchoff. The Femdroids: Galatea. Back Cover "Barclow - an Earth-type planet on the fringes of space." Except it's not, even slightly. Barclow is about 400 miles in diameter, has no life other than that which has arrived, only supports said life on the equator anyway and is, basically, a barren, empty rock. It's about as far from Earth-like as the Moon. Metralubit, by comparison, is pretty Earth-like. Someone got confused. "But in nearly two hundred years of conflict not one shot has been fired in anger." In the novel itself, it's 125 years. I am, at the time of writing, 41 years old. I would not describe myself as nearly 100. Pg 16 "Romana looked down at her new outfit. She had chosen a red velvet smoking jacket and a frilled shirt with a bow tie, which she had found discarded on a hanger in the wardrobe room." Romana, as played by the comparatively diminutive Lalla Ward, apparently fits the clothes of the not-at-all diminutive Jon Pertwee. Pg 109 "It was only now he noticed that Viddeas wasn't sweating." And, indeed, he hasn't been. Except on pg 95, where Romana notes that "his uniform jacket was soaked with perspiration". Pg 153 "Intelligence levels among the manual labourers are low because of your policy of decreasing funds for public education." Yes, we get the satire, but it doesn't quite work like that. Knowledge and contextual understanding would be low, and ability to apply intelligence would be similarly affected, but actual intelligence would not. Pg 269 "INFORMATION SYSTEM: READY FOR ENTRY." Except, in a few stories time, in Castrovalva, it's called the INDEX FILE. Poetic explanation: Barclow is being fought over; in order to win hearts and minds, its qualities are being exaggerated. Prosaic explanation: As the license from the BBC collapsed, the last NAs and MAs were rushed into production, thus the lead time from Roberts writing the back cover to completing the book meant that he probably wrote the back cover before even the beginning of the prologue. Things change. (See also the back cover of The Sword of Forever.) Poetic explanation: It's another exaggeration for propaganda reasons. Prosaic explanation: makes no sense. You can understand Roberts redesigning a world for the plot to make sense (and an Earth-type world wouldn't have done), but changing the length of time is most odd, since it makes no difference. The TARDIS wardrobe room clearly adjusts clothes to fit the wearer. Otherwise there's no way that the seventh Doctor would have fitted the fourth's costume in Time and the Rani. Viddeas being dead is having a variety of different effects on him. At the point Romana sees him, his cooling body is attracting condensation. None of it's true anyway, and Harmock would believe anything that he's told. Actually, this explains why it's so difficult to find in Castrovalva: the Doctor, appalled by how easily Stokes accessed his own biography, made it much harder to access. FEATURED ALIEN RACES Chelonians, who are actually quite nice, this time around. The Femdroids, who aren't technically alien, but kind of qualify. They're based on K9, but are somewhat sexier, unless you have a metal dog fetish. The Darkness, a composite being made of evolved flies, who meander through space looking for feeding grounds. They are not particularly pleasant. FEATURED LOCATIONS The (pretty worthless) planet Barclow (which is also a bomb). The (rather pretty) planet Metralubit (which is also a lie). It's in the Metra System and its capital city is Metron (which is not desperately imaginative). The Time Spiral (pretty dangerous). The (not at all pretty) interior of the Darkness (which is unpleasant). Briefly, Dellah, 2593 (which is pretty wet). IN SUMMARY - Anthony Wilson Simply stunning. The plot is marvellous, intricately detailed and quite brilliant. The characters are very clever, the jokes work marvellously, the combination of Hinchcliffe horror and Williams humour masterful, and the series of twists at the end are stunning. In this, the final Missing Adventure, the line finally reached the peaks of the complexity, style and wonder of the NAs. And I can't think of a higher compliment to pay than that. The Fourth Doctor: The Well-Mannered War & Damaged Goods. by Gareth Roberts , John Dorney , Russell T. Davies. Browse related Subjects. A set in luxury packaging collecting these two Doctor Who novel adaptions with a fifth disc of exclusive content: Doctor Who: The Well- Mannered War by Gareth Roberts (adapted by John Dorney). The Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive on the planet Barclow, where in two hundred years of hostilities not a shot has been fired, and the opposing combatants are the best of friends. But tensions are growing. Someone, somewhere is trying to make this well-mannered war very angry indeed. Doctor Who: Damaged Goods by Russell T Davies . Read More. A set in luxury packaging collecting these two Doctor Who novel adaptions with a fifth disc of exclusive content: Doctor Who: The Well- Mannered War by Gareth Roberts (adapted by John Dorney). The Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive on the planet Barclow, where in two hundred years of hostilities not a shot has been fired, and the opposing combatants are the best of friends. But tensions are growing. Someone, somewhere is trying to make this well-mannered war very angry indeed. Doctor Who: Damaged Goods by Russell T Davies (adapted by Jonathan Morris). Investigating a new narcotic in 1987 London, the Doctor, Chris and Roz arrive at a housing estate. But what links a Christmas Eve pact long ago with an apocalyptic nightmare erupting today? Big Finish worked with top Doctor Who TV Producer Russell T Davies, and Doctor Who screenwriter Gareth Roberts on this release. Damaged Goods star Michelle Collins is best know for her time as Cindy Beale in Eastenders, and then a later time in Coronation Street. Tim McInnerny is probably best know as Captain Darling in Blackadder Goes Forth. CAST: The Well Mannered War. Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), John Leeson (K9), Tim McInnerny (Admiral Dolne). CAST: Damaged Goods. Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Travis Oliver (Chris Cwej), Yasmin Bannerman (Roz Forrester), Michelle Collins (Winnie Tyler), Denise Black (Eva Jericho). Read Less. All Copies ( 1 ) Audiobook ( 1 ) Choose Edition ( 1 ) Book Details Seller Sort. 2015, Big Finish Productions Ltd. Waterfoot, LANCASHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM. Edition: 2015, Big Finish Productions Ltd Audiobook CD, Very Good Details: ISBN: 1781784418 ISBN-13: 9781781784419 Publisher: Big Finish Productions Ltd Published: 2015 Alibris ID: 16694760688 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: €3,65. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Jacob Licklider: Reviews. The Key to Time season of Doctor Who had the Black Guardian as the villain of the final story and it seems to me that Graham Williams intended to bring him back in the future, but it never really happened. There was also this jarring transition between the final season of Williams’s time as producer, Season 17, and the first season of John Nathan-Turner’s run as producer, Season 18. The tone immediately shifted over from extreme overt humor to a series run on subtle humor and hard science-fiction. Now the Virgin Missing Adventures, The Romance of Crime and The English Way of Death , by Gareth Roberts are set firmly in the Season 17 era of the show, but for the final Virgin Missing Adventure, Roberts sets The Well-Mannered War at the end of Season 17. He means it to be the ending of the Graham Williams era and to be honest it feels like a transition. The story itself is humorous for the first half or so, but then about halfway through it takes a turn for the dark when the villain of the story is revealed in its glory and the tension ramps up.