Doctor Who and the Underworld: 4th Doctor Novelisation

Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #67

by Terrance Dicks, Louise Jameson (Reader)

Louise Jameson reads this novelisation of a classic TV adventure for the Fourth Doctor, Leela and K9.

The TARDIS materialises on a spaceship at the edge of the known universe, and the Doctor, Leela and K9 encounter a group of astronauts searching for the lost gene bank of the Minyan race. The craft plunges into the heart of a recently formed planet, wherein the Doctor discovers an awesome secret: the descendants of a previous Minyan expedition have become enslaved to a powerul computer!

A dangerous quest leads to a confrontation with the Oracle, at the heart of a fabled crashed spaceship, the P7E.

Louise Jameson, who played Leela in the BBC TV series, reads Terrance Dicks's novelisation of a 1978 serial by Bob Baker & Dave Martin.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Novels, Media Tie In, Time Travel, Adventure

1 pages, Audio CD

First published January 24, 1980

About the author

Terrance Dicks was an English author, screenwriter, script editor, and producer best known for his extensive contributions to Doctor Who. Serving as the show's script editor from 1968 to 1974, he helped shape many core elements of the series, including the concept of regeneration, the development of the Time Lords, and the naming of the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey. His tenure coincided with major thematic expansions, and he worked closely with producer Barry Letts to bring a socially aware tone to the show. Dicks later wrote several Doctor Who serials, including Robot, Horror of Fang Rock, and The Five Doctors, the 20th-anniversary special.
In parallel with his television work, Dicks became one of the most prolific writers of Doctor Who novelisations for Target Books, authoring over 60 titles and serving as the de facto editor of the range. These adaptations introduced a generation of young readers to the franchise. Beyond Doctor Who, he also wrote original novels, including children’s horror and adventure series such as The Baker Street Irregulars, Star Quest, and The Adventures of Goliath.
Dicks also worked on other television programmes including The Avengers, Moonbase 3, and various BBC literary adaptations. His later work included audio dramas and novels tied to Doctor Who. Widely respected for his clarity, imagination, and dedication to storytelling, he remained a central figure in Doctor Who fandom until his death in 2019, leaving behind a vast legacy in television and children's literature.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the benefits of novelised Doctor Who is the unlimited budget, especially as this serial is notoriously bad for the poor CSO effects.

The story itself is a simple futuristic retelling of Jason and the Golden Fleece, a nice take on the Greek mythology.

"The Quest is the Quest"

One aspect I really liked was Dicks inclusion of a prologue, fleshing out the world building of Time Lord intervention and the loss of the Minyans.

Overall the simplistic plot makes this a quick brisk read.
Dicks really captures the TARDIS regulars on the page, especially when it comes to K9!
A much more enjoyable experience over watching the episodes again.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novelization of the fifth serial of the fifteenth season of Doctor, which featured the fourth, most popular incarnation of The Doctor, along with his companion Leela and K-9, the robotic dog. Terrance Dicks, the preeminent adapter of the Doctor Who teleplays, wrote the book, which is based on the script by Bob Baker and Dave Martin. It's a mythic quest story, set on a generation-starship, and is a thinly-veiled retelling of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece. The broadcast version suffers from inferior effects and has never been highly regarded, but Dicks' brings the vast cosmic sweep of the immense distance and passage of time to life, as well as adding some detail to the history of the Minyans and their relations with the Gallifreyans. The Doctor is clever and witty yet compassionate, Leela is ruthless and barbaric yet pleasantly perky, and K-9 is always the life of the party. It's one of the better Doctor-as-true-science-fiction stories.

[F.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m reading novelisations of old DOCTOR WHO stories which have the reputation of being utter crap, as I feel I’ll get more pleasure out of the unalloyed Terrance Dicks version.

There are so many great ideas here in this tale of a space age society crumbled in on itself. It’s just a shame that most of them aren’t developed. But then a short TV novelisation is never going to be the best place to develop the ideas - even if it is undoubtedly better than the TV version.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting self contained story! I heard its a novelisation of a TV episode, but as i haven't seen that i can't compare, but from just reading the book i really enjoyed myself, love when you have a story with 4, Lela, and K9 thats when you know pure adventure is bound!

[Mikes Dw Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the reasons I really enjoy reading the target books is because for some stories, particularly stories that aren't liked by fans, it can make them much better, fixing problems or expanding them to much better potentials. Terrance dicks does exactly that here. Making a meh story with interesting concepts and cheap looking fx, actually a really fun read.

Were treated to a break down lore of what the timelords did to the minayons race and how they eventually caused them to destroy themselves after playing god. Which in turn made them not intervine in others affairs. I really enjoyed this whole segment and the time we spent on the ship with our characters as it was a really interesting concept. Terrance gives you enough time to just get into the heads of the charactes on there endless search for the lost ship with there future cylinders. There's one segment where he explains it as a ghost ship of hell, thow there constantly looking for a ship that might not even exist anymore, while dying and regenerating constantly. Some even wish that it would of them and to not be cursed with life. It was very enjoyable and I think this kind of concept with the background of the timelords is something the new series could really do well. Here sadly it is pushed away for the final parts.

Which saldy is the weakest part, it becomes a run around of a reblion against a mysterious oracle and ends with a big battle. But unlike in the tv story whe're it's rather cheap looking and just dull. Here, it's actually quite enjoyable to read. Terrance even makes the more ridiculous looking costumes of the gold metal masks/heads sound more spooky looking. Overall this book is much better than its story story.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

あらすじ

ドクターがターディスの内装を自分好みにしようとペンキ塗りをしていると、ルーラがなぜターディスが動きを完全に止めているのかと不安そうに尋ねてくる。どうやら宇宙の一番はしっこにきてしまったらしいとドクターは推測。すると暗闇しか映し出していなかったモニターに光らしきものが映り、それがスパイラル星雲と判明。ターディスは強い引力に引っ張られ星雲の中に呑まれてしまうところ間一髪で緊急移動する。移動しら先は数千年前に滅びたはずのミノス星のパトロール船の中だった。ミノス星はかつてそこの住人がタイムロードを神と崇め、タイムロードもさまざまな知識や技術を成長の助けになればと進んで提供していた。しかし、やがてタイムロードに反発を抱いたミノス人にタイムロードは虐殺され、タイロードはその時より一切干渉しないという方針をもつようになった。一方、タイムロードの手を離れたミノスは戦争の末、滅びてしまう。ミノス人たちは滅びる前に種族存続の希望として、DNAやテクノロジーなどミノス星に関するすべてのデータをのせたP７Eを自分たちの植民惑星に向けて飛ばしていたが、P7Eはそのまま行方不明に。ターディスが降り立ったのは、P7E探索の任務を負ったパトロール船だった。しかし、このパトロール船も引力に引き寄せられ、新星の核の中に巻き込まれている状態だった。



感想

タイムロードが良かれと思ってもたらした豊富知識と技術がこのミノス星にとって吉と出たのか凶とでたのか、ミノス星の中でも判断が分かれている。タイムロードがすべて悪いとする派と災いは自分たちで巻いた種とする派。そのことでドクターとパトロール船の乗組員たちの協力関係が当初ギクシャクするが、新星の核の中でオラクルという神に徹底奉仕する専制社会との戦いに巻き込まれていく中で、なし崩し的に乗組員たちと協力体制になる。最終的にはオラクルの正体はP7EのA.I.で種族バンクを何があっても守るというコマンドに従って、ミノスの子孫たちにP7Eの機能を存続させるための燃料を供給させていたということで、パトロール船の乗組員たちも任務完了めでたしめでたしで幕をとじる。ドクターとK９がいなければ彼らがコンピューターの支配からも新星のコアからも脱出できなかったわけだから、タイムロードとして善行ができてよかったねということになるのか。そのあたりのことを考え出すと眉間に皺がよってきてしまうので、とりあえずドクターのスリリングな冒険譚の一つということで。

[Jason Bleckly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s odd, but I’ve never thought this was a particularly good story when I’ve watched it. But this novelisation was an excellent read. It could be that the heavy use of greenscreen in the caves where the action and scenery didn’t quite match put me off.

I liked the addition of the Prologue. It provided more detail of of the Time Lords involvement and history than in the TV version. It was also interesting to see the Doctor referred to as a renegade. As with the TV version I find the Jason reference at the end a bit heavy-handed. Doctor Who is normally more subtle than that.

As always Terrance has stayed close to the script with easy to read prose. Given there’s a lot of running around in this book which takes time visually, but is covered quickly in prose, there was scope for more detailed motivations from the characters. I think Terrance add nice additional depth in the right places.

All things considered, I think this book is a slight step up on the TV episodes.

[Leo H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better than it's reputation would have you believe, although that's a fairly low bar to clear. There are some interesting ideas going on here (the Minyans as the reason the Time Lords have a non-intervention policy, the weariness of a one hundred thousand year quest, regeneration as a curse rather than a blessing), but none are thoroughly explored, sadly. I've not seen the televised version, but by all accounts it's pretty bad, having run out of money building the spaceship sets, all the cave sections were shot using CSO (70s green screen) and look fairly ropey, so at least you're spared that in the book. Dicks does an admirable job of keeping this exciting and engaging, clearly his weariness at writing these didn't set in for another couple of years. Worth a look.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable quick story of the 4th Doctor and Leela. It has an interesting premise of a society uplifted by the Time Lords that then self destructs. It is a cautionary tale of expanding in means before morals.
The sci-fi of the story has lots of interesting bits. The setting is at the edge of the expanding universe with new galaxies, nebulas, solar systems, and planets forming all the time. Any big bit of mass, like a space ship, can form the core seed of a planet. So it is that one did and another ship is able to survive a crash landing and sink deep into the young planetoid around the other ship.
The world and society of the planet is classic Who.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

the episode this is based off suffers from not enough of a plot being stretched across 4 episodes with probably the smallest budget of any doctor who episode. the book reacts to this very well, and adds some backstory that expands the universe and is genuinely cool, cuts out all the corridor surfing and instead changes a 6/10 story to a 7.5, and 6/10 is my biased rating, because this episode is not favoured by the fandom. if you didn't enjoy the episode, this book does a lot for it. if you've never seen it, this could be quite generic

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Who and the Underworld (1980) by Terrance Dicks is the novelisation of the fifth serial of the fifteenth season of Doctor Who. The TV serial was called Underworld.

The Doctor, Leela and K9 materialise on a spaceship crewed by the last survivors of the Minyans. The Minyans were aided by the Time Lords and things went poorly. Their planet was destroyed but before then two ships were sent out as a sort of ark to re-establish their civilisation on another planet. The ship The Doctor, K9 and Leela are on is looking for the other ship.

It’s a reasonable Doctor Who serial.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's one of the most infamous stories in the 4th Doctor's canon, but thankfully Terrance Dicks takes some time & much skill to compensate in print for this story's terrible television incarnation. He can't completely save it, but in Mr. Dicks' hand "Underworld" becomes a far more competent & engaging story. If you've never seen the television episodes, you might want to read the novelization first, before subjecting yourself to the original on DVD.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

The good: I appreciated the added prologue, the fact that the cave system feels weightier and more easy to navigate than the limited CSO of the original allowed.

The bad: really leans into the 'haha Leela's stupid' stuff which I loathe, fails to conceal how much running back and forth there is, and after a while it does feel like Dicks has gone back to his by this point default position of just having reams and reams of dialogue without much else.

[Ian Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ok retelling of an unloved story but one that also has a lot of importance to me personally. The references to Greek mythology, the lore it adds to the mythos of the show… all this combined to create a superb epic in my head. The fact that Dicks manages to make this a fairly gripping tale doesn’t hurt, either.

[Damon Habbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of the TV stories I remember very well but this book is okay again lots of tunnels instead of corridors to run down.

Another computer gone rogue so not the most inventive story plot.

A good ending as well.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little book. Most of the Target novels are.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com...

[Phil Wujek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing "heavy" about this tale. Good for fans of the story line. Call it a "beach read" or a "long ride" book. I read this strictly for fun, and that's what I got out of it.

[Jennifer Baratta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you for giving us on more information Minuos survivors besides the Cybermen and the Fourth Doctor and Lyeela and K9. I throughly enjoyed this story.

[Zach Cleland · Rating 5 out of 5]

first dr who book i have read and it was a delight. it js exactly what you would expect from an old scifi book based on a old scifi show.

it is a very quick read and feels like watching old episodes

[Angela C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly not my favorite doctor who plot, but still the same charm and humor nonetheless!

[Julian White · Rating 3 out of 5]

pdf of the paperback - 98 pages

A straight retelling of the script with a little expansion of the Minyan/non-interference policy. It's fun working out the 'original' names of the crew but that only goes so far - and the science is, as usual, somewhat suspect in several places. However, we are spared the over-use of CSO which plagued the filmed version.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the few novels from the Tom Baker/Louise Jameson era of classic Doctor Who I had in my original Target books collection. It was only because I somehow kept missing the serial -- whether it was my PBS station skipping it in the rotation or just plain not setting the VCR right to catch it when it was repeated (ask your parents, kids).

So, for a long time, my only impression of this story came from Terrance Dicks' adaptation of the Bob Baker and Dave Martin scripts. And that probably helped things a good bit because, quite frankly, Dicks seems a bit more invested in this fourth Doctor story than he is in many of the others he adapted.

Of course, this being a Baker and Martin script, there has to be the attempt at a catchphrase with "The quest is the quest." Thankfully, Dicks keeps inclusions of this to a minimum and they never feel quite as forced upon the consumer as they do on-screen. I have to be honest and say my only memories of this one are the connection to the Time Lords and some dodgy CSO that was done to cut the budget. Dicks wisely puts the Time Lord connection front and center with a prologue that feels right out of his Jon Pertwee era novels and then minimize the amount of time the novel spends corridor running down various CSO corridors. The final episode feels fairly condensed on the printed page, possibly because it's just so many battles between various parties that can be easily summed up in a paragraph or two.

I can't help but feel like this one takes one of the themes of classic Star Trek with a computer that is bent upon keeping and maintaining its power and status within a society that seems to be stuck in neutral. Indeed, the Doctor pulls his own version of Captain Kirk using illogical logic to defeat said computer in the final pages -- though in this case, it's the Doctor pulling the old switch the McGuffin trick instead.

Looking past the dodgy CSO, there's actually a pretty decent story here, even it's a retelling of a Greek myth in space (though give the script credit for pointing this out in the coda). Dicks does a decent enough job adapting it for the page and the story hums along at a good enough clip to keep the pages turning. Or in the case, the audiobook moving. Once again, Louise Jameson does a nice job bringing the story to life. Her Leela is, of course, spot-on and her impression of Tom Baker has its moments. As with other audiobooks in this range, the special effects and music really help create a good sense of atmosphere, though I will admit I'm it's becoming a bit more obvious that they're using the same set of sound effects in these books.

This may be a sign that I need to take a break from the Target audiobooks for a bit as a bit of a palate cleanser. But with a couple of promising entries on the horizon and some gaps in my listening, I doubt that I will be able to stay away for too long....

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay story, but not particularly gripping for me, despite some quite good ideas / echoes of certain myths and legends.
We get to see a bit more of Time Lord history here, with a good explanation given as to why they are non interventionist.
Despite those strengths though, the antagonists in the piece are somewhat one dimensional, somewhat stereotypical, and while there is some interesting tension with some of the 'good' one off characters earlier in the piece, it is pretty quickly resolved, but without any real reason for it to be resolved.
Likewise, while some interesting scenes at times for the Doctor, Leela and K9, there is no particularly strong moments for them, so really felt a run of the mill sort of adventure, not bad, but not memorable.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doctor Who and the Underworld is a Tom Baker and Leela adventure and I have to say it was totally enjoyable. The book restored my faith in Terrance Dicks as a Doctor Who writer. The novelisation had lots of interesting back story about the Time Lords deciding to play god with a humanoid race they came across and how it all went terribly wrong! For an old who there was quite a bit of interesting philosophy here. The Time Lords had given a race technology and they used it to destroy themselves, but before they did they sent off two spaceships, one full of genetic material to rebuild their society, and another to take that ship to their new planet. But things went terribly wrong and they'd lost each other for 100,000 years when the Doctor and Leela arrived. This book did remind me what a great companion Leela was, totally capable, a little bloodthirsty and quite fun. I liked this ship full of people who'd been regenerating for millenia and hated it, the planet full of slaves (even if the mad computer was a touch original Star Trek)But all told I thought it was interesting and fun and I shall definitely have to watch the episode.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having never read any Doctor Who before I don't really have much to compare this offering to. As a science fiction book it's pretty mediocre. The seemingly rushed nature and enormous coincidences within the story make it feel more like a first draft of a television episode rather than a novella in its own right. Imagining Tom Baker running around doing the deeds described makes the whole thing more bearable, but this probably wasn't the best use of my Saturday morning.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1007902.html[return][return]Doctor Who and the Underworld is a bit less embarrassing than the TV original, but this is not saying much. The fact that we are not distracted by the disastrous special effects means that we can see the inadequacies of the plot rather better.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not your typical 'Who' story, but not entirely successful attempt to try something different. Feels more the kind of thing you'd expect to see more in 'Star Trek', as the Doctor helps a space ship crew on a quest get where they are going,

[stormhawk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of my favorite episodes ... another megalomaniacal computer, another race in thrall, another ancient quest. This isn't to say that Dicks did a poor job in writing it, just that he had iffy material to work with, in my opinion.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Who's revolutionary zeal is pretty apparent in this book, in which he overthrows a slave planet and also ends a millenia-long quest by a very creepy starship crew.