The Making of Doctor Who, by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke — I

The Making of Doctor Who by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks — their names in that order — was published in paperback by Piccolo on 20 April 1972. It was the first book with Terrance’s name on the cover, but I decided not to begin this series of posts on his 236 books with it because it’s not really his “first book”. 

Terrance certainly didn’t think so:

“The Auton Invasion [published in January 1974] was the first book of any kind I’d written, and I worked very hard on it.” TD interviewed by Peter Griffiths, “Author! Author!”, Doctor Who Magazine #273, cover date 12 January 1999, p. 46.

In April 1976, Terrance mentioned in a letter to Harvey Unna — the agent he shared with Hulke — that royalties on The Making of Doctor Who had always been split 3:1 in Hulke’s favour. But that doesn’t mean Terrance did 25% of the writing. So what did he do on this book?

Hulke mentioned in a letter while working on The Making of Doctor Who in September 1971, that Terrance was due to interview the show’s original producer, Verity Lambert, about the early days of the series. Hulke, meanwhile, interviewed Donald Wilson and corresponded with Sydney Newman and David Whitaker. (The correspondence with Newman survives, and includes a transcript of the interview with Wilson.) 

That suggests that the bulk but not all of the material here on the origins of Doctor Who was researched and compiled by Hulke. In the process, Newman’s account of first conceiving the Doctor as, “a senile old man 745 years old from an un-named planet” (Newman to Hulke, 28 September 1971) was changed to the kinder, more heroic, “Let’s make him a crotchety old man … at least 745 years old” (p. 3). We don’t know if it was Hulke or Terrance who made the substitution, but Terrance used “crotchety” again in both The Doctor Who Monster Book (1975) and the revised version of The Making of Doctor Who (1976).

I suspect that Terrance also conducted the interviews with then-current cast members Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Roger Delgado, Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin and John Levene, as well as with former Doctors Who William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, and with Jack Kine of BBC Visual Effects. Their contact details would have been kept on file by the Doctor Who production office, where Terrance worked as script editor, so it would have been relatively quick and easy for him to ring round — perhaps a morning’s work.

(Hulke interviewed Donald Wilson and made contact with Newman in September 1971, so Terrance probably rang Hartnell and Troughton around this time, too. One of them, surely, mooted the idea that perhaps the actors might like to reappear in the series. Then, at the end of February 1972, writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin attended studio recording of their Doctor Who story The Mutants and Terrance must have raised with them the prospect of a new adventure involving all three Doctors. On 3 March, they duly sent Terrance an outline for Deathworld, eventually made as The Three Doctors.)

As well as conducting a share of the interviews, Terrance facilitated some of Hulke’s research, such as loaning him the production office’s scripts of all previous Doctor Who stories — Terrance wrote to ask for them back on 23 November 1971, in a letter included among the PDFs on the Season 9 box-set (10-03 — Frontier in Space production documentation, p. 2). Hulke’s sometime partner Lauraine Palmeri worked through these scripts, making summaries of plots from which Hulke then wrote his in-universe narrative of all of Doctor Who so far, as recounted by the Time Lords and by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the 24-page chapter “The Travels of Doctor Who”. 

This is by far the biggest chapter in the book, accounting for just over 20% of the 115 pages. Add to that the in-universe chapters on everything we’ve learned about the Doctor (13pp), an account of his trial (4pp) and a doctor’s report on his physiology (3pp), and just over 38% of this non-fiction guide to the making of Doctor Who is, er, fiction. 

What’s more, this stuff is riddled with small errors. The first chapter quotes a line of dialogue written by David Whitaker that was never used in a broadcast episode (p. 8). The book claims that the Cybermen originate from Telos and “first appeared on television on February 11th, 1967 in a Doctor Who story set on the moon” (p. 14), entirely ignoring the existence of and events depicted in The Tenth Planet (1986). The “Travels of the TARDIS” section correctly says Cybermen feature in The Tenth Planet, but adds that events take place in the year 2000, not 1986 (p. 49). 

On 30 May 1972, fan Richard Landen wrote to Hulke and Dicks listing such errors over two pages, in the hope they could be corrected in the next edition. Terrance kept a copy of this letter and, indeed, corrections were made to the manuscript of the 1976 version. This is the first example I’ve found of fans advising Terrance on Doctor Who history and lore.

Hulke was on steadier ground writing the 19-page chapter “Diary of a Production”, since its about the making of his own story, The Sea Devils, which was in production at the time he wrote this book. He provides information not found in other sources — exactly what he was briefed to write by Terrance and producer Barry Letts, the changes made at different stages of commissioning, details of elements that were lost such as the Doctor waterskiing. He also shares passages from otherwise now-lost original storyline and scene breakdown for the story. 

It’s a shame there isn’t more of this — longer excerpts from paperwork, more detail on exactly what happened and when, with dates. There’s an interview with Jack Kine about making monsters (4pp), but it might have been nice to hear, directly, from director Michael E Briant and other members of the cast and crew about what was involved day-to-day, in the thick of production.

Instead, we get a chapter exploring some real science and philosophy suggested by Doctor Who, entitled “Could It All Be True?” (9pp), in which Hulke — an atheist — cites the books of Joshua and Ezekiel. This is followed by what’s basically a sermon, contributed by the Rev John D Beckwith AKC, Chaplain to the Bishop of Edmonton. This has caused me a bit of a headache.

The see of Edmonton was new, having been created in 1970, with Alan Rogers appointed as first bishop. Prior to his appointment as chaplain, the Rev Beckwith, born c. 1933, had been senior tutor of Ijebu-Igbo Great School and Molusi College in Nigeria (1960-62), assistant curate of Bedale (1962-63), Mottingham (1965-69), house tutor at Eltham College (1964-69), and chaplain of St Andrew’s Gothenburg, with Halmstad and Jönköping, Sweden (1969-70) — source. 

He had worked in schools, so had some qualification for contributing to a book aimed at children. But he doesn’t seem to have made a habit of this sort of thing, such as writing for other publications or appearing in the media. Sadly, the current Bishop of Edmonton doesn’t hold records going back to 1971 (I did ask!), so I’m a bit stumped as to how Hulke might have known the Rev Beckwith. Do please write in if you know.

(I’d also be grateful for any information about Charles Bowman and Catherine Dale, who are named at the top of the page of Thanks.)

While I don’t know the connected between Hulke and Beckwith, I can guess why Hulke might have wanted a closing word from such a figure. In early 1971, Doctor Who had been widely criticised for being too scary and unsuitable for children. Then, as Barry Letts detailed in his memoir, his boss Ronnie Marsh, Head of Serials at the BBC, objected to the “blasphemous” use of a church in The Daemons, requiring last-minute rewrites to a story already in production. I think Hulke effectively tried to head off this kind of criticism by obtaining the church’s blessing for Doctor Who.

I also think he was keen to show the scientific and social value of the series because The Making of Doctor Who had originally been conceived by science-fiction writer George Hay in light of the success of two books published in the US: The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry (1968), and The Making of Kubrick’s 2001 by Jerome Agel (1970). These were both aimed at adults. Subsequent editions of the Star Trek book sought to reach more widely than fans of science-fiction by claiming to be,  

“The book on how to write for TV! … The only book of its kind! The complete history of a top TV series — how a television show is conceived, written, sold and produced.”

The book on 2001 also took a broad view, digging into the ideas in and related to the film — at once making-of and quest for meaning. Jerome Agel had form in this, having previously worked with Marshall McLuhan on both The Medium is the Message and War and Peace in the Global Village, as well as cowriting I Seem to Be a Verb with Buckminster Fuller. 

Hulke, I think, fancied some of this chin-stroking stuff. His final, short chapter, “The Shape of Things to Come”, shares some hints about that might be coming up in future stories, hinting that the Doctor might recover the use of his TARDIS. But the title of the chapter is from HG Wells, a 1933 novel — then a film — that laid out a future history spanning hundreds of years, in some ways a kind of fictional sequel to his non-fiction A Short History of the World. 

There’s something of this long view of history in Hulke’s approach to “The Travels of Doctor Who”, which is largely related by the Time Lords — who are very like the super-elites favoured by Wells.

George Hay was, like Wells, interested in the idea of using fiction as a kind of blueprint for the future. I recently wrote about the book he edited, The Disappearing Future (1970).

So all of this stuff went into the mix, and I think helps explain the structure. But the result is not very much about the actual making-of Doctor Who. The cover, showing a photo of Jon Pertwee and a Sea Devil, is from a TV story that had only finished being shown on TV on 1 April 1972; the book was published just over two weeks later. It promises Doctor Who of the immediate now but that isn’t what this book is.

It also isn’t exactly a how-to guide for wannabe writers or crew. There’s no tacit encouragement to readers to try and get into the industry, no tips for young readers who might write their own adventures. That’s notable given Hulke ran a course for writers, had edited two editions of the Writers’ Guide for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and would go on to write the hugely influential guide Writing for Television in the Seventies. 

But I’ve spoken to a whole load of people who now work in TV and publishing for whom this book lit a spark. For them, it was a blueprint for the future. Job done.

And then Terrance rewrote it, without Hulke, for Target. We’ll get into that in Part II — but maybe not for a few days as I’m off doing things this weekend.

The Official Doctor Who Fan Club vol 2, by Keith Miller

This second volume of correspondence and fanzines covers the period 1974 to 1978, and most but not all of the era of Tom Baker as the Doctor. It also charts the burning out of the author's passion for Doctor Who, increasingly frustrated with the direction of the series, the more strained and/or “business-like” attitude of the production team towards him, and the activities of other fans.

As with the first volume, it is absolutely fascinating, sometimes very funny and sometimes cringe-inducing. The best thing about it is how honest and raw it all is, the source documents reproduced in full.

There are reports from the set of three Doctor Who stories - Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons and The Masque of Mandragora - as well as various bits of interview with cast and crew, alongside letters they sent Keith. We hear what he thinks of episodes and novelisations as they came out, and follow the exhausting business of running an officially sanctioned fan club that the BBC continued to support but at ever more of a remove.

For my purposes in researching the life and work of Terrance Dicks, a number of things are really striking. First, there's Keith's description of the Doctor Who production office in Room 505 of Union House, Shepherd's Bush Green, on 16 February 1975. Keith had been there several times before (as detailed in the first volume, the last occasion in April 1974), when it was the domain of producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance. 

The scene he describes here gives a vivid sense of the dramatic change brought in under new producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes:

“The whole place looked totally different. Gone were the piles and piles of paper. Where walls had once been covered in newspaper-clippings, notes, white-boards etc, now there was barely anything covering them. All the props had been removed. The office reflected the new occupant — very business-like. Ordered.” (p. 18)

What paperwork I wonder, what treasure, got chucked in the bin? 

Miller then shares a transcript of the conversation over lunch at the BBC restaurant, where he spoke to Hinchcliffe, his secretary Ann Burnett and actors Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter. In among the gems here, Hinchcliffe claims that Target books were at the time printing, “25,000 [copies of each Doctor Who novelisation], then a reprint of 50,000”, but that the publishing company had not been aware until he told them of the two Doctor Who exhibitions - at Blackpool and Longleat. This was missing a big opportunity to sell books as, according to Hinchcliffe, 

“Something like a quarter of a million boys and girls went through the exhibition [singular] last year!” (p. 22)

Miller responded to this by saying that Jon Pertwee had hired the London Planetarium a couple of years previously, for a well-organised event involving him answering questions posed by attendees. Hinchcliffe thought this was worth putting to Tom Baker (who Keith tells us was absent for this bit of the conversation, having gone to the loo).

But it seems that by this point Miller already had plans for an in-person event at the Planetarium, because he reproduces a letter sent to him that same year from Juliet Simpkins, Press Officer at Madame Tussaud's (of which the Planetarium was part), responding to “your letters [plural] of 12th February”. That is, four days before he raised the matter with Hinchcliffe (p. 45).

Simpkins had spoken to Hinchcliffe, who wrote to Miller on 22 May 1975, saying that both the Doctor Who production team and the Planetarium were too booked up through the summer to organise an event, but that he would consider the idea again either later in the year or perhaps in early 1976. Note the word Hinchcliffe used for any such event:

“I have heard that you have been in touch with the Planetarium about the idea of a Doctor Who Convention as we discussed when you came down earlier this year” (p. 46).

There had been science-fiction conventions for decades. But the idea of a Doctor Who event being called such a thing was surely inspired by the success of the UK's first Star Trek convention, held at Abbey Motor Hotel in Leicester over the weekend of 28-29 September 1974, with guests George Takei and James Doohan (source). 

In fact, that event directly inspired a group of other Doctor Who fans to organise something similar: the Doctor Who Appreciation Society '77 Convention was held on 6 August 1977, with both Pertwee and Baker in attendance (but not at the same time). It's interesting to see the idea for this first ever Doctor Who convention in the ether so early, and being considered by the production team.

I'll note two more things of particular interest to me. On p. 92, Miller reproduces a handwritten list of Doctor Who novelisations in preparation, supplied to him by Graham Wellfare. The first title listed is [Doctor Who and] The Green Death by Malcolm Hulke, to be published August 1975 at 35p [in paperback]. That implies that this list was written before publication of that book on 21 August but after publication of the previous Target novelisation, Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons by Terrance Dicks, on 15 May.

At this point, 15 books were in preparation, with a schedule of monthly publication up to October 1976. (No book was listed for December 1975 but two were listed for February 1976, and no publication date was given for the last book in the list.) In fact, the books were published at a slightly less rapid rate, and not in the order given here. The suggestion is of issues with particular titles, and perhaps authors. I'll address some of this in my forthcoming post on Doctor Who [and the] Revenge of the Cybermen.

Lastly, thrillingly, Miller shares a letter from Liz Godfray, Children's Editor at Wyndham Publications, with responsibility for the Doctor Who novelisations. On 24 August 1976, she responded to a letter from Miller, answering his questions. That included a query about the author of the very first Doctor Who novelisation. She replied:

“David Whitaker has been in Australia for the last two or three years - in fact he was back on a visit to this country only two months ago, and he called in to the offices here” (p. 91).

Whitaker had been living in Australia for a little longer than that, since early 1971. But the mention of a visit to London matches another source. On 28 July 1976, the Daily Mail reported that Whitaker had been seen dining with his ex-wife, actress June Barry, and asked what his new wife might think. 

June lived in a large house on the Barnes side of Hammersmith Bridge. I'm struck by the thought of David seeing - perhaps even staying with - her, then ambling over the bridge to pop in and see the Target team at 123 King Street, on the off-chance of some work. 

On the way, he'd pass Riverside Studios, where lots of his BBC work had been made, including several Doctor Who stories. Among them were The Dalek Invasion of Earth, David's final production as story editor, and which he helped adapt for the big screen. Indeed, the TARDIS materialised under his feet, in the shadow of the bridge.

According to the “in preparation” list mentioned above, the novelisation of this story was due for publication in July 1976, the month David was in London. In fact, the book wasn't published until March 1977. 

So I like to imagine David turning up at Target, unannounced, and politely asking how the team were getting on. 

“Oh, fine, but we're having a spot of bother with one particular story...”

Deep Space Nine: Outside In Can Live With It

I am one of the 171 authors in the newly announced Outside In Can Live With It, an anthology of perspectives on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The book is out on 24 July and available to pre-order now, with proceeds going to the charity Against Malaria.

My contribution, “Red Flags”, is focused on episode #168, ’Til Death Do Us Part. By chance, I wrote it while working on the script for our documentary Terror of the Suburbs, which refers to the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part (1965-71), and I had to pay close attention to the order of the “us” and the “do” in each case.

Which has got it right? 

Well, in fact, neither. I mean, both appear in the solemnisation of matrimony, depending which editions of The Book of Common Prayer and other prayer books you check. But if you’re an awful nerd and feel compelled to trace the phrase back to earliest historical source, you reach the 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and it says something else.

I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to holde from this day forwarde, for better, for wurse, for richer, for poorer, in sickenes, and in health, to love and to cherishe, til death us departe: according to Goddes holy ordeinaunce: And therto I plight thee my trouth.

The suggestion is that it was written as “departe” but heard as “do part”; the sense of being together until death mutating into one of being together until death forcibly separates us from each other. That is subtly different but I think slightly more romantic, which may explain why it caught on.

The “do us part” is surely a latter correction so as not to split the infinitive. 

I decided this wouldn’t do for my entry in the Deep Space Nine book so inflict it on you here.

The DNA of Doctor Who - The Philip Hinchcliffe Years

I've just received my copy of this handsome new book, to which I contributed an essay on the 1975 Doctor Who story Planet of Evil and what it draws from classic works of science-fiction.

The obvious influence, of course, is the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, which the BBC broadcast at 6.35 pm on Wednesday 6 November 1974 - just right to inspire the development of the Doctor Who stories that became Planet of Evil and The Brain of Morbius. I dig into that and also how the same film influenced early Doctor Who as well as other sci-fi such as Star Trek (citing the excellent ‘Gene Roddenberry’s Cinematic Influences’ by Michael Kmet from 2013) and Star Wars (see the 2012 Wired interview, ‘Ben Burtt on Star Wars, Forbidden Planet and the Sound of Sci-Fi’ y Geeta Dayal).

Hinchcliffe says on the documentary made for the DVD release of Planet of Evil (by my friend Ed Stradling) that he suggested the ‘flying eye’ drone seen in the story, having read of something similar in a science-fiction story at the time. The Dictionary of Surveillance Terms in Science Fiction at the Technovelgy site helped me suggest some candidates for that story.

I also mention Isaac Asimov’s own timeline-of-the-future for his various short stories and novels, which I drew from ‘A page from Isaac Asimov’s notebook’, Thrilling Wonder Stories, vol. 44 #3 (Winter 1955), p. 63.

Edited by Gary Russell and published by Gareth Kavanagh at Roundel Books, you can buy The DNA of Doctor Who - The Philip Hinchcliffe Years from the Cutaway Comics site.

Doctor Who Magazine #602

The new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine is out in shops now, with lots of information about the TV series starting next month. I've written a bunch of things for this issue, too:

pp. 26-27 Who crew: A head of schedule

An interview with executive assistant Sophie-May Twose.

pp. 28-34 Script to screen: Stooky Bill and family

An in-depth feature on the development of the puppets seen in last year's special episode The Giggle, in which I speak to executive producer Joel Collins, production designer Phil Sims, head of department modeller and fabrication manager Barry Jones, director of Automatik VFX Seb Barker, puppeteers Olivia Racionzer and Eliot Gibbins, and actress Leigh Lothian who played the voice of Stooky Sue.

pp. 36-37 Gallifrey Rises

My report on last month's Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles, including interviews with programme director Shaun Lyon, Star Trek writer David Gerrold, and fans Erika and Katarina.

The Trouble With Tribbles, by David Gerrold

As with Craig Miller, I chatted to David Gerrold at the GallifreyOne convention last month and bought his book when I got home. The Trouble With Tribbles charts the development of the first script he sold to TV, which is a classic episode of the original Star Trek. We follow how David first approached the production team, the initial story ideas he sent in, the more detailed storyline and notes he got back, and continue on through to a shooting script - reprinted here in full. There are then his notes on what happened during filming and the response his episode got.

First published in 1973 (mine is a reprint by Virgin Books in 1996), it's naturally of its time, the jokes on set between filming include cast members playing their roles effeminately, while David tells us which women in the cast and crew he thinks beautiful. At one point, he blushes during lunch shared with star Nichelle Nichols when,

"she dropped some cottage cheese down into the cleavage of her skimpy costume." (p. 235)

But this leads to something more insightful as he discusses how meeting Nichols changed his sense of how to write characters from other races and cultures, and the significance of featuring Sulu and Chekhov in this prime-time American show - though not in the same episodes, because Chekhov was brought in while actor George Takei was away filming The Green Berets. This is admirable though I suspect David wouldn't phrase some of this in quite the same language today. Of course, that's inevitable in a book written 50 years ago - and about events from five years before that. But I'm struck by this juxtaposition of an imagined, progressive future couched in a language so much of the past.

Another detail from history is the problem of David's IBM Selectric Typewriter typing 12 characters to the inch when most TV scripts were typed in what he calls "pica", or 10 characters to the inch. The effect was that David typed,

"an extra three words per line, of fifty words per page." (p. 134) 

When his first draft script was copied into the correct format, it came out at 80 pages rather than the required 66 and needed extensive cuts. In my first professional jobs as a scriptwriter, duration was still generally judged by number of pages, and a couple of my early scripts which had lots of quick-fire exchanges, each speaker saying just a few words at a time, ended up running short. Now I'm much happier with a word count: 9,500 words pretty much always comes out as an hour of audio drama.

In fact, a lot of David’s other comments on writing chimed with me, too. On page 10, he tells us he was effectively prepping for his work on Star Trek long before the series was even created, as he'd been a devoted reader of sci-fi for years. Such prep, he says, is essential because it means we're ready to respond when opportunity arises. As he says (p. 15), opportunity knocks only softly - his allusion is to a moth at the window - so we need to be alert as well as ready to respond. I wish I'd read this when I was starting out.

Then there's what he says is the key to breaking into television:

"You're competing with the pros now. You have to be better than they are. ... You have to do something outstanding to make the producers notice you. You have to do it on merit alone, because you have no previous credits and nothing else working for you." (p. 49)

On Star Trek specifically, and ongoing series more generally, he says the usual rules of storytelling don't apply. He'd learned before working on Star Trek that, in movies, novels and plays,

"the importance of the story was that the incident it tells is the most important event that will ever happen to this character."

But heroes having weekly adventures can't sustain this kind of drama.

"You can't run your characters in emotional high gear all the time. You'll burn them out, they'll cease to be believable." (p. 47) 

The trick, he says, is to avoid falling into formula stories; by doing something different, you stand out. But I wonder if your story can be about the most important event in someone's life - that's what your guest characters are for. 

Another telling insight into Star Trek is producer Gene Coon's note on David's story premise, dated February 1967, for what became the Tribbles episode. David originally envisaged it involving a new company on an alien planet going into competition with a huge, well-established corporation over the production of grain. The grain element survived into the broadcast story, but Coon wrote in pencil:

"'Big business angle out. One planet against another.' Translated, this meant: 'On American television, big business is never the villain. Make the conflict between two different planets instead." (p. 55n)

In addressing this, David suggested involving aliens from an episode in the first year of Star Trek; the producers decided to include Klingons in three episodes of the second year, including David's episode. The veto on bad business therefore led to a major development in the wider lore of Star Trek.

On the whole, this is a fascinating and insightful deep dive into the making of Star Trek, and gives the impression of a really fun and supportive show to have worked on. David is an enthusiastic, witty guide, honest about his own shortcomings so that we might learn from his mistakes. He's awe-struck by his experience - and the result is that so are we.

Two additional thoughts. First, this particular edition includes a plate section of black-and-white photographs that is really odd. Two of the photos are from The Trouble with Tribbles itself, and there are a few from other episodes of the time and of cast members more generally. But there are also some pictures of cast members out of character - William Shatner seen with his wife, Leonard Nimoy seen with his wife and with his son. There are then photos from the movies Star Trek V, Star Trek VI, the casts of spin-off series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and a picture of the USS Voyager - none of which get mentioned in the text. I suppose the intention was to make the book appeal to fans of contemporary Star Trek in 1996, but I think they might have felt a little short-changed. It's odd, because David wrote a new introduction to this edition but doesn't mention his work on the first Star Trek movie (in which he briefly appears) or as a writer on The Next Generation. There's no mention of that year's Deep Space Nine episode Trials and Tribble-ations (in which he again cameos), with which this edition was surely meant to coincide. I wonder what happened - and will ask David the next time we meet.

Secondly, via Genome, I looked up when The Trouble With Tribbles first aired in the UK: on Monday, 1 June 1970 (two days after Episode 4 of the Doctor Who story Inferno). It has been repeated on the BBC 10 times since then, on the last occasion in 2007. 

Of little interest to anyone else but I think I first saw it at 6pm on Thursday, 28 November 1985, when I was nine and a half. That's brought back vivid memories of being sat with my brothers at the kitchen table eating jacket potato and having special permission from my mum to have the TV on at the same time. I remember saying to my dad, though probably not about this particular episode, that Star Trek didn't seem old like episodes of Doctor Who that sometimes got repeated. It felt on the same level as new episodes of The A Team and every bit as glamorous.

This wasn't my introduction to Trek. Earlier in the year, for my ninth birthday, we rented the VHS tape of The Search for Spock which had just come out, because (to me) the cover looked like Star Wars. While I was captivated, my two school friends got bored and went out to the garden to play. My mum told me join then, reminding me that this didn't mean I'd miss the film; I could watch it later. Video was still a novelty. 

Anyway - all a bit self-indulgent but this book has given me a bit of a rush, my own ancient past woven into this vision of the future.

The Autobiography of Mr Spock, edited by Una McCormack

My last night out in London before lockdown in 2020 was to attend a signing for my chum Una's book Picard: The Last Best Hope, which ably bridges the gap in events between the movie Star Trek: Nemesis and the TV series Star Trek: Picard. Last month, back in London for the first time in more than a year, I met up with Una and got her to sign a copy of her latest genius effort.

The Autobiography of Spock is another extraordinary thing, perfectly weaving together the different threads and revelations from a great multiplicity of texts on screen: stuff revealed about Spock's background in the original Star Trek TV series, all the stuff about his dad in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the never-previously mentioned brother in the movie Star Trek V, the never-previously mentioned sister in Star Trek: Discovery, the stuff in the 2009 reboot movie and bits gleaned from Star Trek: Picard. In the acknowledgements, Una mentions a number of Star Trek books and novels she's borrowed from, too, and the essays on Romulans by Michael Chabon and on James T Kirk by Erin Horakova. I'm sure there's more, and part of me would love to see a version of this autobiography with footnotes that cite all the sources.

But that would perhaps break the spell. Given so much material to choose from, some of it contradictory or at least inconsistent, it's remarkable how cohesive this book is. That's partly due to the structure, each chapter focused on someone that Spock loved, enabling Una to focus on particular, telling moments in the long life in which Spock prospered. Given such a famously logical, aloof character, a focus on his love life is initially surprising but it really works, in part because this is love in the broadest sense - the subjects include Spock's parents, his sparring partner Dr McCoy and even the starship Enterprise. But it also works because it's at the heart of what the book is addressing: Spock coming to accept his hybrid nature as half-human, and his emotional side. There's a lot on searching for and accepting the truth - of situations, or events, of ourselves. Spock is honest about failure, about when he's got things wrong. There are passages in this that change my sense of what's happening in the things I've seen on screen.

The point is that it doesn't feel like a jigsaw. There's fun to be had in spotting the sources - when mention is made of the expression on Kirk's face on seeing Spock mind-meld with a whale, I know exactly what that's from and exactly that expression. But this is not simply a list of references to events in episodes and movies. It's a story, Spock's story, full on fresh insight and perspective - and lots of original material. We find out what happened to other characters from these episodes and movies, the aftermath of events seen on screen. I'd love to see more of Saavik and Valeris on screen after what we're told about their later lives here.

Una says in her acknowledgements at the end that, for all the many actors who have portrayed the character,

"There would of course be no Spock without Leonard Nimoy, and I hope his voice sounds true upon these pages."

It really does, and the result is like hearing again from an old friend. In spending time inside the head of this beloved character, I've come to know him better, and to feel his loss all the more.

ST:TNG 3.16 The Offspring

This is the third of 12 episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation recommended to me. First there was 1.13 Datalore, then 2.9 The Measure of a Man.

We start with a very effective trick: Geordi, Troi and Wesley walking and talking through the corridors of the Enterprise, making the place feel big and busy and real. The dialogue isn’t as crisp and effervescent as Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing - but then that started nine years after this episode was broadcast. The point is how fresh and exciting the direction feels here. I looked it up, and this is the first episode directed by Jonathan Frakes, better known as the actor playing Riker. That explains why the captain’s log at this start feels the need to tell us that Riker is away on personal leave. Frakes js still directing episodes of Discovery and Picard, and clearly has a knack for sci-fi given this panache with corridors.

Since the last episode in my list, there’s been a makeover of the Enterprise wardrobe. Uniforms now have collars, are more formal and less like gym-wear, and seem to zip up at the back. I wonder if that means the crew need assistance putting them on, and imagine them having to pair-up before breakfast, the pairings carefully coordinated around their rostered shifts.

Anyway, Wes, Troi and Georgi are the three people Data trusts enough to confide what he’s been up to: making himself a child. This he presents as a fair accompli rather than at 12 weeks, directing our attention to an odd-looking small person in a machine. The being has neither clothes nor gender, but Data is clear that this is, “my child” and calls the process “procreation”. Apparently, this new project - and progeny - is the result of Data having just been at a cybernetics conference where a “new submicron matrix transfer technology” was introduced that Data “discovered could be used to lay down complex neural net pathways … I realised for the first time it was possible to continue Doctor Soong's work.” No one else has been able to make this leap because it needed Data to transfer stuff from his own brain into the child. For reasons we’re not given yet, and which no one asks at the time, Data has named his child “Lal”.

Our heroes report the matter upwards to Picard, who is not does not delight in the news. Yet, as Data tells his captain, no one else on board is required to ask permission to procreate. There’s an implicit, insidious question over Data’s right or worthiness to have children, a moral judgement based solely on the fact that for him procreation is more complex than a fuck. It brought back the cruel interrogations the Dr and I went through during IVF and adoption. Anyway, Picard’s response is in stark contrast to the position he took in 2.9 The Measure of Man - just note his use of pronouns:

“I insist we do whatever we can to discourage the perception of this new android as a child. It is not a child. It is an invention, albeit an extraordinary one … I fail to understand how a five foot android with heuristic learning systems and the strength of a ten men can be called a child.”

Data is, understandably, surprised by this denial of personhood but Picard goes on to explain that a “real” child is not just for Christmas and can’t be deactivated simply. Given Picard’s previous empathic management style, this is massively tone deaf is not outright offensive. I suppose there’s a case that Picard is just wary of the consequences of this “stupendous undertaking” and knows the trouble it will bring; his reaction comes of trying to help and protect his friend. But it’s a fundamental right that he’s daring to question.

Meanwhile, Lal can identify crewmembers as male and female, and says, “I am gender neutral [which is] inadequate.” Data, meaning well, responds, “you must choose a gender, Lal, to complete your appearance.” He has always tried to emulate humanity but this conversation sounds a lot like it’s making a moral judgement: that it is wrong to be different. Data also tells Lal to, “Access your data bank on sexuality, level two. That will define the parameters.” But gender and sexuality are not the same thing. When Troi says that whatever Lal chooses will last for Lal’s lifetime, that clearly isn’t true either - even if Star Trek fails to acknowledge transitioning, Lal can evidently choose once so why not choose again? “This is a big decision,” says Data - and it is, which is why it’s so alarming Lal is so badly advised.

They narrow the options down from several thousand composites to four physical specimens, which Lal then seems to be expected to choose from based on visual appearance. Yes, it’s Naked Attraction but with clothes on, which doesn’t seem the most brilliant idea. There are three different species represented by the four specimens on show and it’s meant to be Lal’s free choice. Yet Troi can’t chipping in that she finds the human male attractive and likes the human female. We’re told that Lal taking the form of an Andorian female would make her the only one on the Enterprise, while as a Klingon she’d be one of just two (“a friend for Worf,” says Troi, dictating how Lal should behave and bond). It’s concerning these made the final four given that the point of the exercise is to help Lal better integrate with the rest of the crew. How much less suitable were the other composites?

What Lal has decided to be a human female, Data attempts to home-school her. This is (he says, staring wearily away into space) not easy, but getting Lal to define the meaning of “home” is uncomfortably like the students groomed by Thomas Gradgrind to define a horse. Victorians reading Hard Times were horrified by such crude, old-school education. As well as learning the facts by which to judge the artistry of a painting, Lal is taught to blink so that she can better fit in with the flesh lot onboard. That’s stepped up when she goes to the school on the Enterprise, where things are handled in what Offsted would surely deem inadequate. The other, fleshy children are wary of this much new student who looks so much older than them but is so far behind them. They are mean and laugh at her. But the schools of the future don’t seem prepared for students with special educational needs, and when Data is called in to discuss what has happened, the teacher - Ballard - clearly feels that Lal is the one at fault. The new girl excelled academically but, “Lal couldn't understand the nuances of how [the flesh kids] related to each other.” For this first offence, in a crime so heinous as social etiquette, she is invited to leave full-time education.

The emotionless Data fails to be outraged by this. Unlike his tribunal, there are no fleshy friends to defend him or be angry on his behalf. There’s no sense that perhaps the “normal” children need educating in etiquette, and the adults, too. Lal doesn’t even get a formal warning. There’s no tribunal, no sense of the dangerous precedent being set, and that’s traumatic for Lal. This tyranny of normalisation is especially concerning given that the next episode on my list is all about the horror of assimilation. We can’t all be individuals if we must all be the same.

Data claims not to be affected, and says he’s incapable of love - but Beverly Crusher doesn’t believe him and there’s evidence that she’s right. The name he’s given his daughter is, we’re told, a Hindi word meaning “beloved”. But unlike her father, Lal is affected by emotions - and the difference between her and Data is underlined by the fact that she can use contractions. I mentioned my misgivings about this cliché of sci-fi last time, but now wonder what else Data can’t do: does he insist on pronouncing the “h” in herb, too, and is it “a” or “an” before “hotel”? But it’s a shame to be distracted from the point of this difference between them, which is profoundly sad: Data was unique and alone so built himself a daughter, but she is alone, too.

Since they’ve been failed by the educational establishment, Data instead enrols Lal in work that might teach her something, in the bar on the Enterprise where she can observe the behaviour of humans and other flesh-based life forms. This meets with surprise and resistance from Data’s friends, and he asks if they're questioning his ability as a parent - and, in effect, his rights as a sentient life form. That there are concerns at all made me wonder what kind of den of iniquity they think Ten Forward is. That line of thinking isn’t helped Riker’s makes a cameo appearance and cops off with this child. It’s fun to see Frakes direct a scene at his own expense, but blimey. As a general rule, don’t do light comedy about grown men hitting on children.

Then Data and Lal talk together, and Lal takes her father’s hands, trying to copy the behaviour of those round them - and, in doing so, to please him. We’re told that Data has already, “Mastered human behavioural norms.” Has he? So often the joke is that Data hasn’t understood an idiom or behaviour, that he isn’t normal. It’s still an issue decades later in the series Picard, questioning Data’s ability to love.

Just as in 2.9 The Measure of a Man, an admiral turning up on the Enterprise can only mean bad news. This one, in rather fetching gold braid to show he’s either someone important or on his way to a disco, underlines the puritanical view hinted at before, that it’s really not suitable for a young woman to be work in a bar, even the corporate-feeling one on the Federation’s flagship? I hanker for Guinan’s reaction to this slander. But I don’t think Admiral Haftel is one for considering the views of woman. When Lal tells him he’s not very respectful, Haftel ignores it to talk about her - while she stands there - with Picard. He then tells Lal that Data hasn’t taught her enough selective judgment, and when she responds he starts to say that he hadn’t meant to ask her opinion. Picard now cuts in: “In all these discussions, no one has ever mentioned her wishes. She's a free, sentient being. What are your wishes, Lal?” It’s about time someone asked.

This is, then, a return to the moral debate in 2.9 The Measure of Man, which was clearly not settled in the finding of the tribunal. In that episode, the discomfort was felt by Data’s crewmates while Data - for all he protested his rights - was unaffected emotionally. Here, though, Lal is a victim, made so anxious by her predicament that she seeks help from the ship’s counsellor. “I feel it,” she tells Troi. Troi, I think, she be the one to defend Lal to the authorities, reminding the admiral that feelings matter in this version of the Enterprise. Sadly, she doesn’t get a chance.

Meanwhile, the boys are still arguing about Lal’s best interests - without her. There’s another curious argument when Haftel says it is dangerous for Data and Lal to remain on the same starship together. The implication is that the Enterprise is a precarious place forever facing the risk of destruction. True, 26 weeks of the year it does seem to have some crisis going on, but it’s weird to hear that acknowledged - especially when there’s a school with young children on board. Again, I find myself wondering about Star Fleet’s duty of care. (Note, too that Haftel says Data and Lal are the “only two Soong-type androids in existence,” meaning everyone assumes Lore is dead and gone.)

Really, Haftel wants Lal for himself to study, just as Maddox did with Data. All this philosophical footwork is about depersonalising her, making her an it, a thing. Data argues against this persuasively, expressing his and Lal’s wishes clearly but politely. Picard backs him, and will go over Haftel’s head if need be. “You are jeopardising your command and your career,” Haftel tells him, which seems odd given the precedent of the tribunal. But Picard holds his ground:

“There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience but you ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to hand his child over to the state? Not while I am his captain.”

Surely, surely, Haftel doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and I wonder what his superiors would make of his predatory interest in this child. As before, Data is willing to work with Starfleet on research into the workings of his own brain, if only they’d proceed in less unseemly haste.

But it’s not to be. Troi calls Data and the others to an emergency. Lal’s anxiety - exacerbated by the admiral but as much the result of the Enterprise crew - has caused her to malfunction and break down. Haftel has literally broken a child and realises his mistake, offer to help Data try and fix the problem. He’s the one who tells us that Data’s hands move too quickly to see in his efforts to save his daughter. Haftel is clearly devastated by the loss of Lal but his words - “It just wasn’t meant to be!” - hardly acknowledge his own role or culpability. I wonder if the death of Lal will jeopardise his command and career. (I checked, he’s not seen again in the series.)

Everyone is upset except Data, who absorbs his daughter’s memories and goes straight back to his job on the bridge of the Enterprise. It’s a really affecting ending, but I think because it’s so wrong. Star Fleet has (again) badly served Data. It failed him. The most haunting thing is that emotionless android expects nothing else.

Next episode: 3.26 The Best of Both Worlds

ST: TNG 2.9 The Measure of a Man

This is the second of 12 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation recommended to me. The first one was 1.13 Datalore.

We begin 2.9 The Measure of a Man with a game of five-card stud, our heroes discussing the mechanics of poker as if they’ve never played before - at least not together. Like the stilted joke about sneezing last time, there’s something awkward and unnatural here. It’s not just the nerdy conversation, but also that I’ve seen the Bond movie Casino Royale where the poker game is full of tension and excitement. In Star Trek’s post-money utopia, this game has no stakes, an intellectual exercise without much feeling. The point of the scene is that Data doesn’t comprehend that he is being bluffed - he lacks the psychological insight that his neurotypical crewmates take for granted. It underlines his Difference.

Meanwhile, Picard is in a space cafe meeting an old flame he’s not seen in 10 years. Phillipa Louvois suspects that Picard would, “Like to bust a chair across my teeth,” and informs him - because he did not already know - that she was forced out of Star Fleet as a result of their last encounter. That was when she prosecuted him in the court martial following the loss of a ship called the Stargazer. She says now that she was just doing her duty, following the procedure when any ship is lost but Picard says she enjoyed it. Louvois calls Picard a “pompous ass”.

My sense from all this was that Louvois knew a younger, more reckless and perhaps even violent version of Picard, in line with the revelations of his past from 6.15 Tapestry (which I’ve seen). But looking up the details, the events on the Stargazer were played out in 1.9 The Battle (which I’ve not seen), and Picard was not only faultless but saved the lives of his crew. If we know that previous episode, we immediately take against Louvois here: she is prejudiced against Picard, rather than the wronged party. I was wrong, but I think the central wheeze of this episode depends a lot on how much we’ve seen of the series so far, especially how much we’ve warmed to Data.

The Enterprise is visited by Admiral Nakamura and, trailing in his wake, a cyberneticist called Bruce Maddox. I already knew Maddox from his appearance in Picard (where he’s played by another actor), but you wouldn’t think he was important in his first scene here, where he doesn’t even speak. That means it’s a surprise when we learn he and Data have history. Maddox is sneeringly antagonistic, not only disputing that Data is sentient but also now wanting to dismantle him. Who is this murderous racist - and why the hell does Admiral Nakamura nod along to his proposal? It’s shocking because we’ve grown to like Data as a regular character in the series: we have history with him, too. But it’s also shocking in the fiction of the series because Data has served with Star Fleet for 18 years, working up the ranks to his current position as Lieutenant Commander. In all that time, has no one really ever considered this serving officer’s status and rights as a person? Did it not get addressed when he signed up, or each time he was promoted, or at his regular appraisals? It’s a massive oversight by Star Fleet HR, who surely wouldn’t award promotion to a something they considered a machine.

As with 1.13 Datalore, there’s a telling thing in the use of pronouns, Maddox insisting - big old racist that he is - on referring to Data as “it”. The word objectifies Data, but it’s not clear how consciously Maddox is using it as a ploy to exert ownership and rob Data of the right to self-determination. The less threatening argument made by the admiral is that he respects Data and simply wants to reassign him/it to a new experimental project. But Maddox is vague about the risks involved and doesn’t seem particularly concerned that Data should survive. It’s chilling.

Yet Data then has to explain his objections to his captain (and friend) before Picard attempts to help him. When Picard goes to see Louvois, she also struggles to understand the problem: when Picard says that Data has rights, she responds, “All of this passion over a machine.” If this were a standalone drama, we might sympathise with that view but we’re 35 episodes into the series and we know and like Data - largely, I think, because actor Brent Spiner is so charismatic even playing a man with no emotions.

Meanwhile, Data is in his quarters packing to leave the Enterprise in what’s surely a case of constructive dismissal. Among his possessions are a 3D hologram of the late Tasha Yar - who was killed off in 1.22 Skin of Evil (I vaguely remember that one from its broadcast on BBC Two on 6 March 1991). The hologram effect is nicely done and I wondered if actress Denise Crosby had come back for it especially - but apparently not. The hologram is subtly deployed in the scene but important: the emotional connection we feel to Tasha, and to her relationship with Data, means that it’s even more of a violation when Maddox brusquely strides into Data’s room without asking - declining to afford even the most basic respect he would presumably show to any other serving officer. Again, Data says that Maddox’s experiment is dangerous - an existential threat to Data. Maddox counters that Data is a found object, the property of Star Fleet. His “life” is unimportant.

Picard gets Louvois to agree to a tribunal to judge whether Data is a person and therefore has rights. It’s astonishing that this question should even be asked of a long-serving and well-regarded officer. But then, ahem, I sat in on a recent tribunal where it seemed astonishing there was any question to be probed. Louvois agrees to the tribunal on condition that Riker acts as prosecution - just as she was once required to prosecute Picard. This is really odd. It’s some kind of revenge on Picard, or point-scoring, or proving a point. But Riker is Data’s friend, and Picard - as defence counsel - has a history with Louvois as the judge. It’s hardly impartial. I believe the phrase used by my learned friends is that it would open to challenge.

Yet I was hooked by what follows. There’s a spectacular moment as Riker builds his case and finds something he can use - Jonathan Frakes perfectly conveying without words his thrill and then his guilt. In the tribunal itself, it’s brilliantly horrible when Riker asks to remove Data’s arm as evidence that he’s not a person and then uses the off-switch from 1.13 Datalore to show he’s not a real boy. “Pinocchio is broken,” he says of the friend and crewmate slumped across the desk. “Its strings have been cut.” Note the pronoun, used to devastating effect.

There’s then a break in proceedings and Picard takes solace in the bar. Here, wise Guinan makes explicit what this story is about: removing Data’s personhood and replicating him will mean, “an army of Datas, all disposable, [so] you don't have to think about their welfare.” When she speaks of, “whole generations of disposable people,” Picard responds, “You’re talking about slavery.” Guinan denies it, though of course that’s the allusion. I think this is all sensitively done but Guinan then says this connection to slavery isn’t the issue anyway - and Picard seems to agree.

Back at the tribunal, Picard makes a case for Data’s personhood, using as evidence his possessions, his friendships, his intimate relations with the late Tasha Yar. In fact, Data doesn’t want to be drawn on that relationship having given Tasha his word not to speak of it. His loyalty and manners, all of this stuff, make a compelling case appealing to our emotions. But Picard then pivots to confront Maddox’s central argument that Data is not sentient and therefore can be treated as property rather than a person. As Picard argues, sentience is a difficult thing to define - I thought of Alan Turing’s imitation game, predicated on the idea that we assume intelligence on the part of people we talk to. There’s a good argument here: that Maddox should have to prove his own sentience before casting aspersions. But that’s not where Picard goes.

He argues that Data is the first of a new kind of android, one that Maddox and others seek to replicate. The judgment of this tribunal will define how all those androids are treated in the years to come. Picard makes the link to slavery explicit here: “Are you prepared to condemn him and all who come after him to servitude and slavery?” The point is not what Data is but the behaviour of Star Fleet and the precedent set for the treatment of a whole new class of life. Picard quotes from the the mission statement of the Enterprise - and the series, since it’s given at the start of each episode - is “to seek out new life and new civilisations.” So the discussion here is fundamental to Star Trek. It's not about Data specifically but a wider-reaching principle of tolerance and respect for the different. It is fundamentally wrong, Picard argues. to treat some others as if they matter less. Cor, I thought, that’s really something.

Two things still bother me. First, this determination so fundamental to the series and to the Federation’s future is made by one judge with a personal score to settle with the defending counsel, while the prosecutor she appointed is a good friend of the defendant - known to socialise with Data, such as in the opening scene of this episode. It would surely be easy for Maddox to demand a retrial with more objective participants. As they acknowledge here, he very nearly won the case. Rather than settling the matter, the fact that the question was even asked about Data’s personhood is unsettling.

Then there’s Louvois’s concluding remarks:

“We have all been dancing around the basic issue. Does Data have a soul? I don't know that he has. I don't know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself.”

Why bring in a spiritual dimension at all? It’s not the point Picard has made and puts the onus back on Data. It lets Star Fleet off the hook for treating him so badly by forcing him to go through this grisly business at all.

After the judgment, Data says he is still intrigued by Maddox’s research and may yet help him if they can mitigate the risks. Maddox is surprised by this gesture, admitting, “He’s remarkable.” That pronoun is important but it’s a shame our attention is drawn to it explicitly, as if the production team doubt that the sentience of their audience. The use of “he” suggests Maddox won’t be back demanding a retrial (and he's not seen again until Picard). Data and Riker are also reconciled, again the onus on Data to make it all okay when he's done nothing more than have the temerity to exist.

Then Picard and Louvois head off for drinks, reconciled themselves. It's a happy ending all round, the matter of Data’s personhood settled for good. Isn’t it?

Next episode: 3.16 The Offspring

ST:TNG 1.13 Datalore

I enjoyed the recent first series of Star Trek: Picard but was very aware of missing the references as I've not seen all of Star Trek: The Next Generation - and most of that when it was first on. Helpfully, @GDgeek and @ScottKAndrews came up with a list of 12 essential episodes:

1.13 Datalore
2.9 The Measure of a Man
3.16 The Offspring
3.26 The Best of Both Worlds
4.1 The Best of Both Worlds part 2
4.2 Family
4.3 Brothers
5.23 I, Borg
6.26 Descent part 1
7.1 Descent part 2
7.25-26 All Good Things…

So, to begin with…

1.13 Datalore

"But... but... but..."

How achingly young everyone is - and how new the whole enterprise. It’s all so new that the Captain’s log at the beginning has to explain to us that Data is an android.

Wesley Crusher, doing work experience on the bridge of the Enterprise while everyone else is in uniform, seems to be dressed as the Thirteenth Doctor Who.

Colds have been eradicated from this utopian future but there’s some silliness about sneezing. The tone is odd; the silliness stilted - less laugh-out-loud as somewhat amusing. I know from other episodes that these actors are good with comedy, so it’s just the material here not being very funny.

I’m horrified to hear the Enterprise whoosh past the screen in the opening titles, despite the silent vacuum of space. This is Star Trek as fantasy, as lacking in scientific credentials as Star Wars. But Star Wars makes no claim to get the science right.

Another shock as our heroes beam down to an alien planet realised entirely in studio, the forced perspective background looking especially cheap. I remember this "new" iteration of Star Trek when it first arrived as sumptuously rich and extravagant. Here it looks like Time-Flight.

On this alien world we learn about Data’s origins: he was discovered here 26 years ago, he says. Geordi is able to see clues no one else has - which is really odd. Given how strange and precious Data is, did no one think to conduct a proper survey?

Having found a secret base, they recognise the name of a famous Earth scientist - Dr Noonien Soong. But they don’t immediately connect him to Data, or the fact they look so alike. Has no one really never noticed?

Soong, they all know, was Earth’s foremost robotic scientist, “Until he tried to make Asimov’s dream of a positronic brain come true.” Isaac Asimov was still alive when this episode was broadcast, but also admitted that the positronic brain he devised in stories written 50 years earlier weren’t exactly a practical idea. So it’s Star Trek linking itself to a lineage of science-fiction rather than of science. (Daleks have positronic brains in The Power of the Daleks (1966) and The Evil of the Daleks (1967), suggesting they and Data are related.)

Then our heroes find the dismembered parts of an android body just like Data, including his bare bum. It’s an incongruous detail, depersonalising him and his dismantled brother. But perhaps that’s the point.

It’s also odd to have Data then observe but not help in the assembly of his brother. Does he not want to be involved? Is he not allowed? It seems to be a question of etiquette. Despite the 26 years since Data was discovered, people are still awkward around him. There’s some fun in the discomfort

But I like the awkwardness of the crew in asking Data questions about all of this - the social niceties, the strangeness, of a friend and colleague you can make. But the scene in which Data confides in Beverely that he has a secret off-switch is really odd. Would the medical officer on the Enterprise not have full access to his schematics? If not, the suggestion is that’s he’s seen as a piece of engineering rather than a person with medical needs.

Data’s brother Lore says that he was made to supersede - to replace - the imperfect Data, and given the etiquette and awkwardness we’ve just witnessed, this seems cruel. We’re immediately put on our guard about Lore because he’s been mean to Data, though no one else has noticed.

There’s more awkwardness from the human crew, but Picard apologises to Data for his misuse of pronouns in referring to androids as “it”. My suspicion is that when they made this episode they weren’t thinking of trans rights, but that’s surely the association we make watching it now.

Now Data is suspicious of Lore, and Lore uses the word “brother” to make a connection. He is, unlike Data, programmed to please humans, he says - but it’s all very manipulative. My thought was of the algorithms of social media that seek to keep us hooked by playing to our (worst) emotions.

But I really like the walk-and-talk scene in the corridor of Data and Lore together. Just like Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers, Brent Spiner makes the two characters distinct individuals, so it doesn’t immediately register that this is a trick shot. Again, Lore is manipulative - suggesting that the emotionless Data is envious or jealous. It’s nicely played, and this early into the series we don’t know Data well enough to be sure about him.

Data tells Lore how he got his Star Fleet uniform: “four years at the Academy, another three as ensign, ten or twelve on varied space duty in the lieutenant grades”, taking up at least 17 of the 26 years since he was discovered. What happened in the years before he joined the Academy? And also - as we will see - it is appalling that after 17 years of service in Star Fleet, the organisation still isn’t sure about Data’s status, rights or personhood.

I’m also unconvinced by the sci-fi cliche that Data can’t use contractions or crack jokes. Word processing software and predictive text can deploy contractions - the rules are simple enough. A child can grasp jokes. It plays, I think, into an insidious myth about autistic people that they don’t understand jokes and are taciturn, unfeeling, somehow lesser than neurotypical people. I don’t know if the production team meant to link Data to these supposed traits of autism, but now I’ve made that connection it makes me very uneasy to see how they’re deployed.

After their conversation, Data leaves and Lore is left alone, reading a computer screen. It’s innocuous enough, but sinister music tells us he is up to something - though we’ve not seen him be naughty yet. We are being manipulated.

On the bridge of the Enterprise, security chief Tasha Yar asks Picard how much he really trusts Data. The crew are shocked, and Picard’s response is really interesting:

“I trust him completely. But everyone should also realise that that was a necessary and legitimate security question.”

As when he apologised to Data about a misuse of pronouns, this is Picard’s compassionate management style, in sharp contrast to the ruthless, selfish Gordon Gekko kind of businessman in Wall Street, from the year before this was broadcast. It’s there, too, in the corporate culture of the Enterprise - with a ship’s counsellor so respected she has a seat on the bridge (if not a uniform), and (as well see in later episodes) organised entertainments that mix up different ranks socially.

Lore opens a bottle of Champagne, which begs the question whether androids can get drunk. In fact, it’s been poisoned and Lore finally shows his true colours. Suddenly the episode kicks into gear, and what follows is tense and involving.

Even so, there’s a very odd scene on the bridge, where Lore pretends to be Data and no one notices except Wesley. The telling detail is that Lore doesn’t understand Picard’s order to “Make it so” - a catchphrase already, just a handful of episodes into the series. When Lore has gone, Welsey tries to share his concern but first Picard and then Wesley’s own mother tell him to shut up. Well ha ha, Wesley is a bit precocious and annoying - but this is the captain of the flagship of Star Fleet snapping at a child in front of everyone on the bridge. A child, I might add, whose dad is dead and whose mum seems to have history with the captain. Where is the sensitive management style now? It’s particularly galling because Welsey is right!

Lore then uses Wesley, who still doesn’t fall for the trick. He helps the real Data, and there’s a fight. When Picard and Dr Crusher arrive, Lore threatens to kill Wesley - again, manipulating them through his understanding ofd emotions. But luckily our heroes are able to teleport him away. We’re not told where he goes: the implication is, I think, that he’s been beamed out into space where he won’t survive. Wouldn’t they check?

Picard doesn’t apologise to Wesley - who was completely right about Lore - but expects to see him back on the bridge. Again, ha ha, how funny that Picard won’t back down and its at Wesley’s expense. It’s a really odd, unsatisfying ending to an episode that’s otherwise about respect for other people’s feelings. If I were Wesley, I’d be going straight to the ship’s counsellor to discuss workplace harassment.

But blimey, on the subject of abuse of staff by Star Fleet, next up is 2.9 The Measure of a Man…

• See also: my review of Picard: Last Best Hope by Una McCormack

Picard: The Last Best Hope, by Una McCormack

This extraordinary novel by my friend Una McCormack is something really special: the best tie-in novel I've read in an age, a great novel in its own right, and disturbingly, horribly timely.

The brief is simple enough: to bridge the gap between our last sight of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (in the 2002 movie Nemesis) and the start of his new TV series, Star Trek: Picard, which itself follows on from the destruction of the planet Romulus in the 2009 reboot movie Star Trek. Una sets out her mission on the first page, beginning, as does the new TV series, with retired and elderly Picard at home on his vineyard in La Barre. Only Una has him picking over exactly what led to him being here.

It's so much more than just joining the dots between movie A and television series B. The prose is immediately arresting, the scene poignant and moving, the great Picard now,

"One more outcast, cast adrift. Prospero, on his island. An old conjurer, his magic spent, nursing old grievances." (p. 3)

This is a perfect association for Picard, played all these years by Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart. There is dignity, even majesty, in his fall from grace. Having established that sense of him, Una then has Picard settle on, "the moment when everything changed" - the day he left his beloved Starship Enterprise. 

We cut back to that day, and Una swiftly lays out the Great Problem that Picard is tasked with - a refugee crisis that involves old enemies who are too proud to ask for help. Picard is promoted to Admiral and takes charge of a new ship and crew to boldy go sort things out. Nicely, Una also has him take his leave of old friends, especially those who've not (yet) had cameos in the new TV series. One conversation with an old friend is like a knife through the heart.

"[Picard] had never quite summoned up his courage, when it came to Beverley Crusher." (p. 20).

Picard must also argue the case for the officer he thinks should succeed him on the Enterprise, and much is made of the significance of Captain Worf, a Klingon, taking the helm of the Federation's flagship just 100 years since the enmities of 1991 movie, The Undiscovered Country. That works well, but oddly it's relayed through other people's responses. We barely glimpse Worf at all; he's given no dialogue. I assume there's some contractual issue, or some other spin-off has bagsied Worf's perspective, but still.

One other thing seems missing: I've still little sense of how Picard knows Laris and Zhaban, the Romulans working for him at the start of the TV series. They get no more than a name-check in the book. Again, I assume that's a story for another time - or something I missed in the series. [ETA, Laris and Zhaban apparently feature in the comic mini-series Countdown.] But that and the silence of Worf are hardly complaints, just the sole two moments where I thought, "Wait, what?"

Otherwise, the book's use of established, TV-derived lore is exemplary. So much tie-in fiction is about playing in the margins, at a discrete distance from the primary source. But Una includes scenes that I've watched in the TV series, adding to them, extending them, offering more context and insight. It's more than simply access to the production team and the episodes well ahead of broadcast: there's evident care and trust and parity of esteem in the relationship between production team and writer for this to dovetail with the series so perfectly. The result is that I'm engaged in and am enjoying the Picard TV series more because I've read the book.

Again, it's not just about joining the dots. Una creates her own characters - indeed, a whole ship under Picard's command, the Verity. Two characters are so well drawn that we really feel their loss when they die. I also found ambitious politician Olivia Quest particularly easy to visualise, as Emma Thompson in Years and Years. Characters new and established feel psychologically real: there are few out-right villains, just people with conflicting views about what should be done in the face of vast and awful crisis.

I think there's something of the TV series Chernobyl in this response to - and denial of - calamity. We're also told that the people of Earth long solved its climate crisis, and then Picard despairs of those refusing his help:

"But there must have come a point - long past - when it was clear that something on Romulus was going horribly wrong. Yet many people - even among the elites, most of whom have been privy to the information - seem not to have believed the evidence of their own eyes. They seem to have wantonly refused to connect the dots between the increasing heat, the storms, the floods, and the freak weather pattern. I struggle to understand why. Perhaps some truths are simply too much to face." (p. 253)

Una couldn't have known it, but much of her novel feels horribly pertinent right this minute, as we square up to Corvid-19. Politicians and experts argue over the correct response to an unprecedented crisis. There's selfishness and denial from ordinary people, not sure what to believe in the calm before the storm. But, fast becoming reality, there is suffering and death on a barely imaginable scale...

We know from the opening page of the book that things do not turn out well for Picard or those he pledges himself to save. I'd already seen the episode of the TV series which flashes back to the day Picard resigns from Star Fleet. Una includes that, and shows us his resignation. He fails. Then she concludes with some thoughts, from Picard, on the cruelty of history.

Bloody hell. It's a book that's changed my sense of the TV series, and the world outside my door now.

AAAGH! and the Teselecta

Another AAAGH!, this from last week's Doctor Who Adventures, issue #233. As always, the strip is illustrated by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission for me to post it here.

Issue #234 - currently in all good shops - features another AAAGH! by me, with a Peg Doll and a dog called Bernard. You can also catch up on all my previous AAAGH!s.

Books finished, October 2010

High Rise by JG Ballard is told from the point of view of three men living at different levels of a block going to war with itself.

It's set in a grim future familiar from early 70s films – people living surrounded by concrete and fab gadgets, but where women still know their place and wait for husbands to come back from the office. Like the grim futures of Escape From The Planet of the Apes or A Clockwork Orange, violence seethes barely out of sight of their thick make-up and dinner parties, and suddenly the most respectable figures – think Margot and Jerry Leadbetter – are peeing in the swimming pool, murdering dogs, and caught up in cannibalism and incest.

It's a depressingly cruel and stupid story, playing out scenes of ever more brutal, primal violence in a dispassionate tone. There's little to differentiate our three protagonists apart from the levels at which they live in the building. There's little wit, irony or insight, and a lot of mention of exposed breasts and heavy loins. And yet its easy to get caught up in the collapse, the infantile misanthropy really striking a chord as I read it squodged in among other commuting livestock.

The book also includes various snippets of review, including the following gem:

“Ballard is neither believable or unbelievable ... his characterization is merely a matter of “roles” and his situations merely a matter of “context”: he is abstract, at once totally humourless and entirely unserious...”

That sounds rather damning until the next sentence:

“The point of his visions is to provide him with imagery, with opportunities to write well, and this seems to me to be the only intelligible way of getting the hang of his fiction.”'

Martin Amis, New Statesman, quoted in JG Ballard, High Rise, p. 1.

Unbelievable, humourless, abstract... and this is him writing well.

I read Robert Rogers and Rhodri Walters' How Parliament Works (6th edition) in preparation for a job interview. It's a comprehensive, insiders' account and nicely up-to-date (to 2006), with some good thoughts on the future of the Houses and their procedures which stood me in good stead. I got the job, so woot.

“Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them; while on the other hand, to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgement upon any of them.”

Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo's Dream, p. 329.

Galileo's Dream is a decidedly odd book. About half of it is a historical novel about Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), from his first hearing about the invention of telescopes and endeavouring to build one himself, through to his death under house arrest for daring to suggest, via the evidence of his observations, that the Earth orbits round the Sun.

Robinson is, as ever, expert at explaining the science bits and making them a vivid, thrilling part of the story. He's good at the petty jealousies and court politics that surround Galileo, his struggles with his family and commitments, his need to get funding for his work. It never quite needs be spelled out how little the practicalities of research have changed since Galileo's time.

A lot of this is especially enthralling as I'm studying GCSE Astronomy, and was making my own steady progress through the mathematics of lenses and focal lengths at roughly the same rate as the book. There's some interesting stuff about Galileo, the first man ever to gaze at the magnified moon, drawing prominent features bigger than they really are so that future observers would look out for them (p. 38). Observation, he realises in the book, is itself a level of magnification.

Robinson has a knack for getting into the heads of especially clever people. Galileo himself is a richly drawn character, brilliant and bombastic and impetuous. He makes a lot of enemies early on by winning debates rather rudely and not sparing egos. He's blind to how his actions affect others, estranged from family and former lovers. This all set up his enemies' revenge when they accuse of him of being a heretic.

“Galileo kept defending himself, in print and in person ... Whenever he was healthy he begged Cosimo, through his secretary Curzio Pecchena, to be allowed to go to Rome so that he could defend himself. He was still confident that he could demonstrate the truth of the Copernican hypothesis to anyone he spoke to in person. Picchena was not the only one who doubted this. Winning all those banquet debates had apparently caused Galileo to think that argument was how things were settled in the world. Unfortunately this is never how it happens.”

Ibid., p. 153.

Robinson is again good at teasing out the characters and global politics involved, as the new and liberal Pope finds himself undermined by the Medicis and needing to look strong. A war between two Catholic nations is deftly shown to play it's part in bringing Galileo to trial, while we hear of secret documents and meetings long before they play their part in the story.

The trial itself is, I think, a major stain on the history of the Catholic Church, but Robinson shows admirable restraint in depicting the many pressures on those involved. I expected the final judgement to make me angry; it just left me sad. The last part of the book, as Galileo struggles against infirmity and the deaths of loved ones, make this an effective tragedy. As a historical novel, it's quite a treat: clever, compelling and moving while at the same time an education.

And yet, that's only half the book. For the other half, Galileo travels epileptically (p.235) to the distant future, where humans are busy bothering alien life on Jupiter's moons – the very moons Galileo was first to see. This allows some rather po-faced future people to comment on and contextualise Galileo and his times, muttering about his treatment of women and his role as the inventor – and first martyr - of scientific method.

It's a little like the trick of Life on Mars, where adding a present-day policeman to a 1970s precinct lets you do all that fun cop stuff like out of The Sweeney while tutting at its prejudice and clichés. But I sighed inwardly every time we jumped to the future for another interminable debate about whether we ought to make contact, or if it would have been better for society had Galileo been burnt at the stake.

There's lots on the development of science after Galileo's – and our own – time. He is brought to the future by something called entanglement which is couched in scientific terms. But this made-up science and the made-up future politics do nothing but disservice to the real man and his accomplishments. The book suggests Galileo – and also Archimedes – achieved great things because of what time travellers had told him. It's an insult to the man and his work, otherwise brought so vividly to life.

We discover that the story is being narrated by the Wandering Jew, himself a traveller from the far future, and telling the story as he awaits execution during the Reign of Terror. It's all in highly questionable taste, and is less profound or insightful as it is portentous. It reminded me too often of dreary sci-fi shows in which dreary characters plod dreary corridors earnestly discussing dreary plot. It's a not very good episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, or any episode of the new Battlestar Gallactica. And this is all the more galling because the other half of the book is so good.

I found John Osborne's Look Back in Anger gruelling when I read it at sixth-form half my life ago. Now it just seems painfully arch, two well-to-do young women falling for the same frustrated loser. It reminded me most of angry tirades from my fellow writers about the world failing to provide for their needs. It's not that I don't do that myself from time to time (sorry), but it's no fun to sit through and not exactly profound. The women - and the audience - would be better off walking out.