Time Can Be Rewritten 3: The Plotters (Gareth Roberts, Virgin Books, 1996)
Time Can Be Rewritten is a recurring feature in which stories written in later years that were intended to be retconned into previous eras are analyzed in the context of their presumptive eras. Today we look at Gareth Roberts 1996 novel The Plotters.
So here’s the thing about Doctor Who that we may not have talked about quite enough yet. It has fans. Exactly when it acquired this potential affliction is hard to pin down, but the answer probably has something to do with 1980. And it’s been a solidly mixed blessing. If it weren’t for fandom we wouldn’t have, well, Doctor Who from 2005 on. But, on the other hand, if it weren’t for fandom, we wouldn’t have had Doctor Who from 1985 to early 1987. Which might have been nice.
But Doctor Who has fans. It has fandom. And it’s had it for a really long time – indeed, at this point for a majority of its existence. In fact, given that Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat are two of the biggest anoraks on the planet, as is David Tennant. Seriously, track down the old Podcast commentary for Forest of the Dead with Davies, Moffat, and Tennant just geeking out over Doctor Who in general and basically ignoring the actual episode. Aside from the fact that it is in no way a commentary track, it’s the best commentary track ever.
So the fact of the matter is that we’re now at 21 years in which fans have been running the asylum, versus at most 26 where they weren’t. We’re nearing the point where fans have run Doctor Who more than normal people have. (In fact, due to events we’ll cover when we get to season 20, arguably we’ve already crossed that point.) And one consequence of an extreme and chronic case of fandom is that tastes have changed.
Which is why things like the Missing Adventures are so interesting. Because this is a book written in 1996 that is about the pleasures of a TV show from 31 years earlier. By a writer who was 28 at the time. So the one thing we can safely conclude about Gareth Roberts’ take on late second season Doctor Who is that it is not in any way based on the experience of actually watching late second season Doctor Who in 1965. Further making this interesting is that Gareth Roberts is one of the writers of the new series, having contributed four episodes thus far with a fifth on the way. So this novel is actually, ignoring some stray comics and short stories, the earliest-set piece of Doctor Who by a writer to have written for the new series. Giving Gareth Roberts the interesting distinction of having the widest span of Doctor Who writing – 195 televised stories take place between this novel and his season five episode The Lodger.…