Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [143]
Meanwhile, we already know that there are cats and mice on Gallifrey, and tafelshrews first turned up in Time's Crucible as laboratory specimens on board one of the first Gallifreyan timeships. In Paul Cornell's Happy Endings, we learn that there is a Loom of Rassilon's Mouse. But in The Invasion of Time, that load of couch potatoes, the capitol-bound Time Lords, are terrified of being cast out into the wilderness. Maybe it's the centuries of urban living that make them uncomfortable with the uncontrol able wildness of nature. They'd rather watch it on a screen.
We're back to David Attenborough again. Even so, the remote Houses have orchards and formal gardens, presumably tended by the Drudges, and we know that the Doctor used to high-tail it up the mountain to visit Mount Lung's local hermit.
I do like this image of looking up the chimney, staring up at a tiny disk of sky which must seem as remote as an unreachable planet.
The end of this chapter, with its revelation of what has befallen the House and its inhabitants, was the original end of the tv version's first episode. And as Innocet points out, a large part of the blame lies with the Doctor himself. All that being mysterious is final y catching up with him.
Chapter 14
The original TV storyline was a three-parter set exclusively inside the House of Lungbarrow, just as Ghost Light never ventured outside Gabriel Chase. It was a Seventh Doctor and Ace story, so none of the other companions in the book - Leela, Romana or the K9s - appeared. Chris Cwej is in the book by proxy as the Doctor's current companion, and a lot of his story was original y designated to Ace. The parts of the story set at the Capitol are only in the novel - the expanded book version was an excuse for plenty of political intrigue and conspiracy theory (at the time, we were all in the depths of X-Files mania.)
Romana has spent quite a while with the Tharils in E-Space, so the leonine time sensitives are her obvious choice to serve as the first alien ambassadors to Gallifrey for thousands of years. Haven't things changed a lot since the Fourth Doctor refused to take Sarah Jane Smith home with him?
The two K9s were a pretty irresistible idea. The Tharils must have overcome the problems that stopped Romana's K9 (the Mark II version) from leaving E-Space. So here they are, both wittering the obvious in those supercilious tones to anyone within hearing distance. K9's best feature is his ability to speak the unspeakable, unconstrained by the human vices of politeness and consideration. It's an endearing quality shared with Daleks and Cybermen if they're written properly and with the adorable Anya in Buffy. Two K9s are even better than one. Fortunately we're spared Sarah Jane turning up with her model as wel .
Leela has been having quite an effect on Andred, leading him not just up the garden path, but right out into the woods where all sorts of things can happen to an unsuspecting Time Lord. When Andred says that their physical relationship is the sort of things that other Time Lords watch on screens, has it occurred to him that he and Leela might also be the subjects of higher scrutiny? He can have no conception of the importance of their liaison. And talking of conception, Romana and her retinue have al been sitting round the screen with their fingers crossed.
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The courtroom visited by the Time Lord in black is the heart of the CIA's domain. It's also probably the chamber where the Second Doctor was tried at the end of The War Games. The courtroom in The Trial of a Time Lord was on that massive space station - or was it a time station? At least here, we are spared an inquisitor dressed as a wedding cake, complete with rampant doily as a ceremonial col ar of office.
There was a sort of inevitability that Leela and Dorothée should team up. Two strong women, both fighters skil ed in their respective weapons. But of