Happy Endings (novel)

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Happy Endings is the fiftieth Virgin New Adventures novel. It is a celebration of many of the elements of the series and features the return of many original New Adventures characters. It therefore has a certain commonality with The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, televised episodes that include significant characters from an entire era of Doctor Who, and The Flood, a comic story which ties a narrative bow around the Eighth Doctor's run in Doctor Who Magazine.

It centres around the the wedding of Jason Kane and Bernice Summerfield. Much of the humour of the novel derives from the reactions of her wedding party — which includes Pakhars, Silurians, Ice Warriors and several other species — to ordinary life in an English village. Amongst the set pieces of the novel are two quintessentially British competitions — the pub quiz and cricket. Both get long, multi-chapter attention. Indeed, despite the fact that it is a Seventh Doctor story, its depiction of the friendly between the local villagers and Benny's mostly non-human wedding party is the longest and most detailed depiction of cricket in all Doctor Who fiction.

Publisher's summary

"Doctor, this is my fiancé. Please don’t kill him."

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Mr Jason Kane and Professor Bernice S. Summerfield, to be held in the village of Cheldon Bonniface in the year 2010.

If everything works out, that is. Between rows, fights and pre-emptive divorce proceedings, there may not be a wedding at all. Especially if there really is someone who wants to prevent it happening.

Everybody’s coming: from Ice Warriors to UNIT veterans, a flirtatious Ace to a suspicious Hamlet Macbeth -- and a very confused trio of Isley Brothers. The Doctor has to organise a buffet, Roz has a mystery to solve, and Chris has a girlfriend who used to be the Timewyrm.

Chapter Titles

  • Prologue
  • Pre-Titles Sequence
  • The Unformed Heart
  • The Power of Cheap Music
  • In Dreams
  • Frocks
  • The UNIT Family
  • The Adventure of the Curious Landowner, Chapter One
  • Bona Earth Reptiles
  • Writing in the Sand
  • Cut to the Chase
  • The Adventure of the Curious Landowner, Chapter Two
  • Interlude
  • Neville Cardus, Do Not Touch Me
  • Oops! It's the Bishop
  • Knees Up, Mother Earth
  • Yes, They're Back!
  • The Adventure of the Curious Landowner, Chapter Three
  • Blake's Heaven
  • Hens and Stags
  • Meanwhile, Inside the Charrl's Other-Dimensional Homeworld Contained Within the Doctor's Original TARDIS Standing on the Village Green
  • The Wedding
  • A Slight Interruption
  • The Wedding, Slight Return
  • A Warm Reception
  • Everybody's Welcome at the Wedding
  • They Think It's All Over ...
  • Happy Endings

Characters

Wedding Participants

References

Anatomy and physiology

Artefacts of Rassilon

Books

Communications technology

  • Sherlock Holmes gets annoyed when they first arrive in 2010 because he can't work out what satellite dishes are for.

Foods and beverages

Gallifrey

Individuals

Locations

Music

  • The Doctor regrets attending a Bucks Fizz concert.

Personifications of concepts

  • The Doctor introduces Emily to Time, Death and Pain. Time curtseys at Emily's feet and says, "Hello again, Grandmother."

Planets

Religion

  • The Travellers come and perform a ceremony with Bernice, Jason, the Doctor, an Ice Warrior and others, where they all end up in a field naked.
  • Death and Time are referred to as gods on Gallifrey. At least a quarter of Gallifrey's population worship them.

Species

Sport

  • There is a photo in the pub in Cheldon Bonniface of the Fifth Doctor following winning the local cricket league cup.
  • Roz doesn't know what cricket is.
  • Neville Cardus is a writer of books about cricket.
  • John Watson and P. Cooke's innings were not out.

TARDIS

Theories and concepts

Time travel

Vehicles

  • John Benton owns (and drives to Cheldon Bonniface) an electric Bentley.
  • Hamlet Macbeth drives an "ancient" yellow 2CV.

Notes

The Wedding of Mr Jason Kane and Professor Bernice Bernice S. Summerfield
  • When the novel was first published, you could send away to Virgin and get a poster of the front cover.
  • The introduction is a poem written by Vanessa Bishop, while the end of the novel has words and sheet music entitled Opposites Attract.
  • The inside back cover features a larger version of the front cover "wedding photo" illustration.
  • Marked as the fiftieth release of the New Adventures line, this book introduced a new cover design. Among the changes, the Doctor Who logo on the spine, originally rendered as it appeared during the opening credits of the TV series, was replaced by an outline drawing of the logo.
  • A Goth girl briefly meets Benny and is said to have met her twice before; this is a reference to Neil Gaiman's character Death of the Endless and Benny's own brushes with Death.
  • The Seventh Doctor makes his final appearance on the cover of a New Adventures novel until the publication of PROSE: Lungbarrow in 1997.
  • Despite being published in 1996, this novel features Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart coming down with a terminal illness and having only a short time to live by 2010, eerily mirroring Nicholas Courtney's own battle with pancreatic cancer and ultimate passing away on 22nd February 2011.
  • Donna Noble, Amy Pond and Rory Williams also marry in 2010. (TV: The End of Time, The Big Bang)

Continuity

Happy Endings references more or less every New Adventure featuring Bernice Summerfield (and some more besides) to date and beyond.

External links