Pictures at an Exhibition
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SUNDAY TV 13 September SERIAL 7Z After eight weeks on location, the cast and crew retired to the CBC Toronto studios to film Pictures at an Exhibition. This serial was to be the budget saver, featuring a small cast and no location work. However, the production crew took care that this short story would not suffer because of this. Filmed third, Pictures at an Exhibition debuted second, as a single forty-five minute episode on September 13, 1992 where it got respectable ratings of 7.8 million viewers. This story was remarkable in that not one word of dialogue was spoken, and the main feature of the story was the musical score, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Pictures at an Exhibition first appeared in September 1993 in Myth Makers 2 and was included in the Trenchcoat 1&2 Omnibus Reprint in January 1995. NEMO The Doctor brings Ace to a mysterious art gallery and finally puts her in the picture… Doctor Who, BBC1 7:30pm 9.15pm A Very British Coup Harry Perkins invents a distinc- tive chicken coup, much to the chagrin of French farmers. 10.05pm House of Cards Having problems stacking your 7.30-8.20pm Doctor cards? This hour-long self-help documentary will turn you into an Who expert builder of card houses be- Starring Edward Peel-Smith fore the show is over. In Pictures at an Exhibition An adventure by JAMES BOW LETTERS An alien art gallery proves to be Greetings! Spotted your ad the key to resolving Ace’s child- in issue 44 of Enlighten- hood demons. ment. Generally, I try to Ace ....................... SOPHIE ALDRED avoid fanzines written by only The Doctor ... EDWARD PEEL-SMITH one person because of the risk Sad Man .......... GEOFFREY PALMER involved: if the writing is bad, Audrey ................. COREY PULMAN it’s bad all the way through. Chad Boyle ..................... SAM MEAD However, I was so interested Manisha .................... KISHORI VARU from your ad that I decided Dorothy ............... JASMINE BREAKS to make an exception – the relationships and the story Stunt Arranger TIP TOPPED hints sound really good! En- Incidental Music LONDON SYM- closed is $15 US for a copy PHONY ORCHESTRA of Trenchcoat. Costume Designer RICHARD CROFT Make-up Designer PALOMA PICASSO Chris Kocher Script Editor PATRICIA SMITH * Dallas, PA (Order #1) Designer MARTIN F. PROCTOR * Producer NATHAN TURNER-JOHN 11.10pm Gloomwatch Director ALAN WEARING Repeats: * - true credit Today the Mouse CEEFAX SUBTITLES By JERRY MAVIS An intelligent mouse leads an or- 8.25pm Eastenders ganized rodent revolt, while tak- Too Many Drops to Drink ing to wearing little red shorts. A new episode by BORIN MANN 12.05am Who in Review The annual ale-guzzling tourna- Replays: The Miscue ment at the Queen Vic pub com- The TARDIS crew meets Vicki, bines with a plumbers’ strike, with and Bill Hartnell flubs his lines. tragic results in Albert Square. 1 PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION Written by James Bow he building rose six stories above the brick sidewalk and asphalt Ace shrugged. This Doctor maintained one of the more annoying street. Twenty marble steps led up to the three story characteristics of his predecessor. He hadn’t told her where they were or Tneoclassical entrance. Three heavy oak doors stood evenly why they were here. Yet he expected her to go into this naff building spaced between four Corinthian columns. without question. As with his predecessor, she knew there was no getting On the sidewalk before the edifice, a blue box materialized out of thin around him when he wanted something done. She shouldered her rucksack air. No one was around to see this strange sight. The mid afternoon sun and trotted up the steps into the building. shone brightly upon the TARDIS from over the cornice of the building. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the sight that greeted her as she The door to the TARDIS opened entered the lobby. Grey-white marble and a young woman stepped out, walls stretched six stories to a ceiling shouldering a battered black rucksack. of stained glass. The sun shone through She brushed light brown bangs from this glass, colouring everything in her forehead and stared irreverently brilliantly joyful hues. Across from at the tall building before her. Ace her, corridors barely twelve feet high didn’t like pomposity. The building stretched into the building’s depths. looked like a museum, or a government Works of art hung at eye level on the house. She was glad she was wearing lobby walls, in the corridors, and on her old leather jacket with all its the balconies above her. badges. That, her rucksack, and her Ace was impressed, but disgusted. worn black jeans would be perfect to Art and art galleries weren’t meant to make this place feel more human. go together. Art was something she She looked to her left and right for enjoyed, but why did it have to be people, but saw no one. Beyond the stored in places that intimidated you building, neatly trimmed lawns and compelled you to keep a reverent stretched to the horizon. Ace raised silence? It just wasn’t fair. her eyebrows, and then stared cockily She looked for the Doctor and at the overdressed structure. No found him at the entrance to one of wonder no one was around. Well, if the corridors. He was staring at her this place wasn’t going to welcome oddly but before she could call out, people, particularly her, then she’d he ducked back and was lost in the impose herself. She’d be a blot of darkness of the hallway. imperfection on its perfect halls, at Ace frowned. She strode across least until someone turfed her out. the lobby, her boot-heels loud on the The door to the blue box opened polished floor, to where she’d last seen again and a tall man stepped out. Ace him. She peered along the corridor. looked up at the Doctor as he locked Marble walls, lit by an endless series his disguised time machine and of gas lamps, stretched to the straightened his grey trenchcoat. Even vanishing point and along these walls after a year with this man, she framed paintings alternated with satin reflected, she still hadn’t gotten used draperies. The Doctor was nowhere to his new appearance. She winced as she recalled the traumatic events of to be seen, though Ace could see no place where he could hide, nor a side his death. corridor where he could run. To see her mentor riddled with bullets until little remained was bad Why had the Doctor run away from her? One thing he hadn’t lost enough, but to watch him change before her eyes, taking on this form he from his previous incarnation was a tendency to sometimes do the strangest, had now, that was truly frightening. Worst of all, for six months after, he most infuriating things. Was this some stupid game of hide and seek? If so, had been so sickly that she didn’t know what would have happened to knowing the Doctor, he’d use some sneaky trick to make her lose. She him had she not been there. could go back to the TARDIS instead, but that idea repelled her. It would During that time, the mysterious, dark yet cheerful and erratic man she have meant admitting defeat. In the twenty-three years of her life, she had knew was gone. She’d hoped this persona would return as soon as he never admitted defeat by anything. recovered from the post-regeneration trauma, and when this didn’t happen, She strode along the gas-lit corridor, passing masterpieces to right and she was disappointed. The Doctor settled into a completely different left. At first she gave them only a passing glance, but after a few minutes persona for his eighth body. she found herself lingering at each one. As Ace stared up into the sombre, high cheekboned face of the tall Ace’s favourite works of art weren’t boring, stately portraits, but man, she knew she couldn’t help liking him. Since his recovery, he had pieces depicting people or other things interacting. Picnics in the park tried his utmost to re-establish their close friendship. She trusted him, he charmed her, though she’d never admit it in public. Lovers kissing, though was the Doctor after all, but in this character the mysterious and dark sappy, still offered more life than static poses. Depictions of oncoming nature of his previous incarnation remained, while the cheerful exterior storms or other threatening action thrilled her. disappeared. It had been replaced by fragile, sombre melancholy. She She found herself staring at a painting of a ship at sea. The sky missed his seemingly indestructible old body. Certainly, she couldn’t call was black and the waves were capped with white. Sheets of rain him ‘professor’ anymore. obscured the small vessel. More than a mile away, the lights from a The Doctor smiled at her; always, she noted, there was a sad twinge to distant harbour beckoned. his lips. He patted her shoulder reassuringly and trotted up the marble Ace looked on appreciatively. She glanced near the frame to see who steps to the oak doors of the building. had created the piece, but could find neither name nor title. She shrugged 2 Season 28: Pictures at an Exhibition Trenchcoat and stared at the painting again. The blue-white ship leaned at a rakish distant horizon. angle, beset by whitecaps, but still it withstood the attacks. Its mast jutted As she stared at the man, his head lowered and she could see his eyes triumphantly up from the deck.