The beginning of lockdown was quite busy for me. As well as a book all about Doctor Who monsters – Doctor Who: The Monster Vault, out very soon, you can look at some of the pages on Amazon – in a couple of months I wrote five audio scripts. One of them has, sadly, been shelved (and it was probably the best one, isn’t it always the way?), but I think most people would agree that four adventures by Jonathan Morris is more than enough to be going along with. For now!
So, after Lightspeed, Ghosts and The Queen of the Mechonoids comes Genetics of the Daleks. It’s just been announced by Big Finish and has even been reported by the Radio Times. Tom Baker joins Time Lord Victorious! So it’s story which, for the fourth Doctor, is a prologue to it all, but for the Dalek he encounters it’s a kind of epilogue. A bookend, if you like. And, in a way (though I didn’t realise it at the time) that’s what it’s about – the Doctor and the Dalek seeing a story from two different ends; for one it’s in the past, for the other it’s all in the future.
I’ve been interviewed about it in various places, so expect me to turn up talk about it in Doctor Who Magazine and Vortex. The main thing you need to know is that if you’ve followed Time Lord Victorious or visited the Escape Room (‘A Dalek Awakens’) this story will serve as a lovely bonus, but if you have done neither, it’s such a clear and complete standalone story you won’t feel you are missing out on anything at all. If you just want an exciting Doctor Who story with the fourth Doctor and the Daleks, you will not be disappointed.
The other exciting thing about it for me was that I got to hear it being recorded. Remotely, over the internet. Normally I have to travel up to London or across to Tunbridge Wells, but this time I could hear my words being acted from the comfort of my own settee (the former property of a Doctor Who companion so it’s kind of my Doctor Who settee). I can see this way of recording being adopted even after the plague has passed; I am sure directors will be happy at the thought of Jonny being far, far away in a different room during the recording.
So, yes, check out the other interviews and previews, and the story can be pre-ordered here.
During those hectic days of lockdown I also wrote a couple of articles for a Doctor Who Magazine Special on Production Design. I wrote an overview over how design changed when the series returned in 2004 and a jokey bit at the end pointing out how Doctor Who recycled sets and costumes from other shows and films. But never mind my bits, they are merely the walnuts in the cake, there’s all sorts of amazing other things in there, previously unseen design drawings and fascinating interviews with the previously uninterrogated. Indispensible!
It should be available in WH Smiths and all good newsagents but if that isn’t an option for you then you can simply order it online here.
