when you’ve seen as many ages as I have, you won’t use that term so freely.
My Target readthrough has brought me to The Tenth Planet, and the end of the First Doctor's era.
It's a drum I've been beating for a long time, but I miss companion overlap, a lot. And it's something that's stuck out to me as I've read through the First Doctor's adventures -- it's such a fun dynamic, having first Susan showing off to the bewildered Ian and Barbara how much she knows about time travel, and then down the line the now-comfortable Ian and Barbara showing off to a confused Vicki, who goes on to show off to Steven, who eventually can't resist showing off to Dodo. It's also a great way to highlight how much character growth everyone goes through -- Steven goes from
'This ship may have a way-out design but a time-machine? That's ridiculous!'
in The Time Meddler to
'You don't know what you might have found out here. No gravity... poisoned atmosphere... all sorts of things.'
in The Ark; it's a pretty common development among companions (first time dealing with the Doctor: time travel isn't real! a few episodes later: yeah, we're clearly not on Earth and we could be at any point in history, it's cool, whatever), but it just stands out so much more when you have that continuous chain of companions and not the much sharper division of later years.
(That said, the chain isn't completely continuous even through the First Doctor's era -- there's a very sharp divide between Dodo and Ben/Polly. Ian Stuart Black does try, I think, to soften the harshness of Dodo's exit in the novelization, but there's only so much anyone can do when the original serial's writer apparently went "Oh, we're not renewing Jackie Lane's contract? Okay, uhh, I guess Dodo can go live in the country, who cares?")
On that note, The War Machines is possibly the best of the First Doctor novelizations in my opinion; it's got a brilliant atmosphere, much more coherent motivations for everyone, Ben and Polly come across very well and Dodo gets a little more to do than she does in the actual serial. There's several novelizations where, according to author's notes and/or Wikipedia, the authors were very eager to improve upon the limitations of the low-budget filming of early Doctor Who but The War Machines actually pulled it off.
The Gunfighters, on the other hand, was possibly the worst. This is an unpopular opinion, judging by Goodreads, but I really loathed the invented-for-the-novelization narrator and it dragged down the whole book for me. (And I like the Gunfighters as a serial, which is another unpopular opinion.)
Due to the format, the character arcs a little distorted. The worst part is the authors who seem convinced that their readers have never heard of Doctor Who before and therefore spend the first chunk of each book explaining who the Doctor is, what the TARDIS is, who the companions are, and how those companions ended up on the TARDIS. (The worst offender of these is, of course, Doctor Who And The Daleks, which not only wastes a bunch of pages explaining things the reader most likely knows already (did a lot of non-Whovians pick up these novelizations?) but wholesale inventing a new backstory for all four major characters that threw out their existing motivations and personalities. Booo. It was written by David Whitaker, who also wrote the novelization for The Crusaders -- which doesn't rewrite everyone's backstories, just awkwardly recaps them in unnecessary detail, but it does refer to the Doctor as "Doctor Who" throughout and the TARDIS as the Tardis (italics not mine). Whitaker, what were you doing?)
It's not anywhere near the same scale, but I also found myself annoyed by the smaller subset of authors who felt the need to include worldbuilding details that hadn't actually been established at the time the serials originally aired. This is so petty and personal and there's nothing objectively wrong with it, but I found it strangely disorienting to read about the First Doctor being called a Time Lord and thinking about his upcoming regeneration and musing about how his dual hearts or lower body temperature come in handy. No, that wasn't canon yet! ...this is such a dumb thing to get annoyed about, I'm sorry.
But even with those problems/limitations, you can still get a pretty good sense of how the Doctor changes due to his companions, and how he changes his companions in turn. Barbara remains my favorite character and likely always will, but I was surprised by how much more I loved Steven after reading through his run -- I've always liked him but now he's vying for a spot on my favorite companions list. He and his character arc are very endearing.
(Also, Ben and Polly, I love Ben and Polly. They've only got three adventures with the First Doctor, and only two of those as technical companions, but they're so memorable and fun and I really regret that The Smugglers is completely missing.)
The era ends, of course, with the Doctor regenerating for the first time. The novelization of The Tenth Planet basically ignores the televised version of the regeneration (Wikipedia informs me it was written mostly from the original script) and has it happen completely differently -- and it's very effective:
'Hold on, Poll. Look!' He pointed at the Doctor's hands, which were folded over his chest. The Doctor had long, thin, sensitive, rather boney hands. Of late, they had become white and transparent, the blue veins showing through the skin: the hands of a very old man.
But Ben was pointing in amazement at two completely different ones. They were shorter, thicker set, reddish-the hands of a much younger man.
Polly drew back, hand to mouth. 'Oh Ben! Do you think...'
'We'll see,' said Ben grimly. He reached forward gingerly and pulled back the edge of the cloak. The face under the cloak was not the Doctor's. It was the face of a much younger man-a man in his early forties. The Doctor's long, silver locks had been replaced by short dark hair, and the newcomer had a swarthy, almost gypsy, appearance.
As Ben and Polly drew back aghast, the man slowly opened his eyes and turned to looked at them.
'Hello,' he said. His eyes were blue-green-like the sea. Although friendly, they had an elusive, slightly mocking quality. 'You must be Ben and Polly?' he continued.
Ben nodded.
'And who are you?' asked Polly boldly.
[...]
'I thought it was quite obvious.' Again, he smiled his gently mocking smile and winked at them with his blue-green eyes. 'Allow me to introduce myself then. I am the new Doctor!'
It's a drum I've been beating for a long time, but I miss companion overlap, a lot. And it's something that's stuck out to me as I've read through the First Doctor's adventures -- it's such a fun dynamic, having first Susan showing off to the bewildered Ian and Barbara how much she knows about time travel, and then down the line the now-comfortable Ian and Barbara showing off to a confused Vicki, who goes on to show off to Steven, who eventually can't resist showing off to Dodo. It's also a great way to highlight how much character growth everyone goes through -- Steven goes from
'This ship may have a way-out design but a time-machine? That's ridiculous!'
in The Time Meddler to
'You don't know what you might have found out here. No gravity... poisoned atmosphere... all sorts of things.'
in The Ark; it's a pretty common development among companions (first time dealing with the Doctor: time travel isn't real! a few episodes later: yeah, we're clearly not on Earth and we could be at any point in history, it's cool, whatever), but it just stands out so much more when you have that continuous chain of companions and not the much sharper division of later years.
(That said, the chain isn't completely continuous even through the First Doctor's era -- there's a very sharp divide between Dodo and Ben/Polly. Ian Stuart Black does try, I think, to soften the harshness of Dodo's exit in the novelization, but there's only so much anyone can do when the original serial's writer apparently went "Oh, we're not renewing Jackie Lane's contract? Okay, uhh, I guess Dodo can go live in the country, who cares?")
On that note, The War Machines is possibly the best of the First Doctor novelizations in my opinion; it's got a brilliant atmosphere, much more coherent motivations for everyone, Ben and Polly come across very well and Dodo gets a little more to do than she does in the actual serial. There's several novelizations where, according to author's notes and/or Wikipedia, the authors were very eager to improve upon the limitations of the low-budget filming of early Doctor Who but The War Machines actually pulled it off.
The Gunfighters, on the other hand, was possibly the worst. This is an unpopular opinion, judging by Goodreads, but I really loathed the invented-for-the-novelization narrator and it dragged down the whole book for me. (And I like the Gunfighters as a serial, which is another unpopular opinion.)
Due to the format, the character arcs a little distorted. The worst part is the authors who seem convinced that their readers have never heard of Doctor Who before and therefore spend the first chunk of each book explaining who the Doctor is, what the TARDIS is, who the companions are, and how those companions ended up on the TARDIS. (The worst offender of these is, of course, Doctor Who And The Daleks, which not only wastes a bunch of pages explaining things the reader most likely knows already (did a lot of non-Whovians pick up these novelizations?) but wholesale inventing a new backstory for all four major characters that threw out their existing motivations and personalities. Booo. It was written by David Whitaker, who also wrote the novelization for The Crusaders -- which doesn't rewrite everyone's backstories, just awkwardly recaps them in unnecessary detail, but it does refer to the Doctor as "Doctor Who" throughout and the TARDIS as the Tardis (italics not mine). Whitaker, what were you doing?)
It's not anywhere near the same scale, but I also found myself annoyed by the smaller subset of authors who felt the need to include worldbuilding details that hadn't actually been established at the time the serials originally aired. This is so petty and personal and there's nothing objectively wrong with it, but I found it strangely disorienting to read about the First Doctor being called a Time Lord and thinking about his upcoming regeneration and musing about how his dual hearts or lower body temperature come in handy. No, that wasn't canon yet! ...this is such a dumb thing to get annoyed about, I'm sorry.
But even with those problems/limitations, you can still get a pretty good sense of how the Doctor changes due to his companions, and how he changes his companions in turn. Barbara remains my favorite character and likely always will, but I was surprised by how much more I loved Steven after reading through his run -- I've always liked him but now he's vying for a spot on my favorite companions list. He and his character arc are very endearing.
(Also, Ben and Polly, I love Ben and Polly. They've only got three adventures with the First Doctor, and only two of those as technical companions, but they're so memorable and fun and I really regret that The Smugglers is completely missing.)
The era ends, of course, with the Doctor regenerating for the first time. The novelization of The Tenth Planet basically ignores the televised version of the regeneration (Wikipedia informs me it was written mostly from the original script) and has it happen completely differently -- and it's very effective:
'Hold on, Poll. Look!' He pointed at the Doctor's hands, which were folded over his chest. The Doctor had long, thin, sensitive, rather boney hands. Of late, they had become white and transparent, the blue veins showing through the skin: the hands of a very old man.
But Ben was pointing in amazement at two completely different ones. They were shorter, thicker set, reddish-the hands of a much younger man.
Polly drew back, hand to mouth. 'Oh Ben! Do you think...'
'We'll see,' said Ben grimly. He reached forward gingerly and pulled back the edge of the cloak. The face under the cloak was not the Doctor's. It was the face of a much younger man-a man in his early forties. The Doctor's long, silver locks had been replaced by short dark hair, and the newcomer had a swarthy, almost gypsy, appearance.
As Ben and Polly drew back aghast, the man slowly opened his eyes and turned to looked at them.
'Hello,' he said. His eyes were blue-green-like the sea. Although friendly, they had an elusive, slightly mocking quality. 'You must be Ben and Polly?' he continued.
Ben nodded.
'And who are you?' asked Polly boldly.
[...]
'I thought it was quite obvious.' Again, he smiled his gently mocking smile and winked at them with his blue-green eyes. 'Allow me to introduce myself then. I am the new Doctor!'