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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

9 Comments

  1. Matthew Celestis
    June 8, 2011 @ 8:22 am

    I have not yet attempted Wheel in Space. I tend to find all the monsters and bases of the Troughton era a bit boring, so I expect I wouldn't like this one. Maybe one day.

    Reply

  2. Aaron
    June 8, 2011 @ 8:32 am

    You're not going to do the repeat of Evil of the Daleks as an entry? I could imagine you saying some interesting things about the relationship of the show to repeats, the fact that the show now defines itself by the monsters Zoe might meet, something about the missing episodes, etc.

    Reply

  3. landru
    June 8, 2011 @ 10:41 am

    I don't think I have a recon of this, but I managed to get through it with the audio once. It's a bit hard to judge, frankly. The question why are they invading the Wheel eludes me, frankly.

    Of what does survive, we get a very weird mix of characters. Also, the cheapness is fun. I will say that I kind of like all the stuff of them on the tiny spaceship and the pin-scatched film lazer beam affects we used to do as teenagers on super-8 film.

    Reply

  4. Nick Campbell
    March 18, 2013 @ 3:25 am

    While I’m not sure how meta- David Whitaker intended this story to read, I wholeheartedly agree with your review, and goodness, wasn’t I surprised to! This story has an awful reputation because it’s slow and the Cybermen aren’t in every scene. In actual fact, Whitaker simply plays to their strengths and minimises their weaknesses.

    I think the tension you talk about is, surely, what comes of a good dramatist writing a story from a bad outline – the main problem being that the Cybermen seem to generously manoeuvre themselves in awkward positions to suit the concept of base under siege. It’s quite telling how LITTLE their bits of the story sense, compared to the otherwise credible set-up (and the background to Zoe’s character).

    And I’m beginning to suspect that the production team are deliberately avoiding the body horror which essentially defines the Cybermen, making them Daleks with legs. If it weren’t for that, this story would be absolutely terrifying and, perhaps, better remembered.

    Reply

  5. orfeo
    April 13, 2013 @ 8:29 am

    Thank you for articulating some of what makes the first episode so different. It really did make me sit up and pay attention. Personally I think it's somewhat reminiscent of the film 2001. Although, having just checked dates, one wonders whether it was possible for them to be reminiscing about it!!

    I did enjoy the story as a whole, and didn't mind the more subdued pacing, but yhe remaining episodes don't seem anywhere near as noteworthy as the first one. The characters of both Zoe and Gemma are nicely done. It's a pity that some parts of the plot don't make a lick of sense – an exploding star affecting meteors is one of the stupidest notions yet, and it gets repeated multiple times. And those Cybermen sure do know how to take the indirect approach.

    Reply

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  8. William Silvia
    January 24, 2015 @ 12:20 am

    Continuing my trend of re-reading these entries as I watch these episodes for podcast, purposes…
    Pedler is an optometrist with a flair for creating "hard SF" premises
    Perhaps it's because of your "enlightenment" reading, but I find it hard to consider anything about the Cybermen to be "hard SF". They're more like a mythological monster, a dark side of humanity come to conquer a version of humanity that is balanced between two views and force them to one side, than any sort of serious Science Fiction concept. Their origin story is "remember that laughable concept from 'Dalek Invasion of Earth'?"

    The rest of your article i quite agree with, although this definitely helps me with my wondering why we get a trio of stories in which Peddler gets writing credits followed by two stories in which he gets "from a story" credits. This is the only place I've heard of "The Moonbase" being a co-writing credit, though.

    Reply

  9. John Binns
    November 6, 2023 @ 9:55 am

    It’s sectional air supply, sadly.

    Reply

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