Deep Blue (novel)

Deep Blue
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Tegan, Turlough
Featuring:	The Brigadier, Yates, Benton
Main enemy:	Xaranti
Main setting:	Tayborough Sands, 1970s
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Mark Morris
Release details
Release number:	19
Release date:	1 March 1999
Format:	Paperback Book; 4 Chapters, 288 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-55571-8
BBC Past Doctor Adventures
← Previous	The Wages of Sin
Next →	Players

Deep Blue was the nineteenth novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Mark Morris, released 1 March 1999 and featured the Fifth Doctor, Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough.

It also featured UNIT, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Mike Yates and Sergeant John Benton. Also, it sees a character development for Tegan, with her falling in love in this novel.

Publisher's summary

When a lighthouse keeper reports seeing a ball of light plunging into the sea off Tayborough Sands, UNIT sends Mike Yates to investigate. The last thing he expects to find there is an old friend — with a new face...

The Doctor and his companions arrive on a pleasure beach in the 1970s, hoping for time off after their latest adventures. But they do not get to relax for long. Violent incidents are at an all time high in the area and people are going missing — or else changing into something more than human...

The Doctor soon realises a sinister presence lurks in the cold seas off Tayborough Sands — a presence with sinister designs on humanity.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Fifth Doctor
• Tegan Jovanka
• Turlough
• Brigader Lethbridge-Stewart
• Captain Mike Yates
• Sergeant Benton
• Derek Etkins
• PC Andy Weathers
• Tony Maybury
• Imogen Maybury
• Charlotte Maybury
• Chris Maybury

Worldbuilding

The Doctor

• The Doctor refers to his third incarnation as "arrogant" and "overbearing".

Spacecraft

• The Xaranti ship is a Morok battle cruiser with some amount of Kraal technology.

Technology

• The Doctor explains that the TARDIS has an in-built function that allows it to home in on suitable areas for materialisation, which is why it never materialises in solid rock or under water.
• The Xaranti virus or plague, which they call "Xaranti energy," is psychological: people infected think they're becoming Xaranti, so they physically mutate.

Foods and beverages

• The Doctor buys a 99 ice cream with glittering purple shells.
• Tegan orders a glass of white wine in the Captain Cook.

Notes

A Xaranti

• With references to a Pleasure Beach and attractions such as a ghost train, Tayborough Sands features many similarities with the town of Blackpool.
• This story takes place 10 or so years before Tegan's time, no more than 12, so circa 1974. Mike tells the Doctor the year. See UNIT dating controversy.
• A Xaranti is pictured on the back cover of the novel.

Continuity

• It's been 6 months since UNIT dealt with the Global Chemicals incident. (TV: The Green Death) with the Third Doctor currently off on his own while Mike Yates is recovering from his brainwashing.
• The Xaranti warred with the Zygons, destroying their planet. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
• The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are spending a vacation in order to recover from the events of Sea Base Four. (TV: Warriors of the Deep)
• Turlough is still trying to make amends after working for the Black Guardian. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
• Tegan last saw her grandfather just before he was about to move house and had promised to visit him as soon as she returned from Amsterdam (TV: Arc of Infinity) and thinks of asking the Doctor to visit him. (TV: The Awakening)
• Tegan thinks about staying in the 70s, but even if she did, she couldn't prevent the Master from killing Auntie Vanessa. (TV: Logopolis)
• Turlough sees cobwebs in the TARDIS but has never seen spiders. Benny will later pass by whistling spiders in the TARDIS. (PROSE: Sky Pirates!)
• The Doctor uses the IRIS machine again, though reluctantly as the last time he did so someone died. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
• The Doctor tells Mike Yates that he has regenerated twice since he last saw him. (TV: Planet of the Spiders, Logopolis)
• Turlough is worried that he might meet the Brigadier now, but the Brigadier didn't recognise him later when he turns up as a pupil at the school where he teaches Maths. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
• Tegan remembers being possessed by the Mara, and implies it's the only time she's been possessed, the Xaranti being the second force to do so. (TV: Kinda, Snakedance, PROSE: Mark of the Medusa)
• Turlough laments not being given a TARDIS key. (AUDIO: Devil in the Mist, The Kamelion Empire)
• The Thirteenth Doctor will later encounter another scorpion-like race of scavengers led by a queen in a stolen spaceship. (TV: Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror)

External links

• Deep Blue at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Deep Blue at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Deep Blue