Verdigris (novel)
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Verdigris was the thirtieth BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel. It featured the Third Doctor, Jo Grant and Iris Wildthyme. This was the first full length past Doctor novel to feature Iris Wildthyme. She had previously appeared in the full length Eighth Doctor novels PROSE: The Scarlet Empress and The Blue Angel.
Publisher's summary
Jo Grant had no inkling of the ship that revolved in orbit like a discreet, preposterous thought in the mind of someone serene but bonkers.
High above London and its crust of smog, stretched tall above the soapy atmosphere of the Earth, is a ship the size and exact shape of St Pancra railway station.
On board, the Doctor and that mysterious lady adventurer, Iris Wildthyme, are bargaining for their lives with creatures determined to infiltrate the 1970s in the guise of characters from nineteenth-century novels.
Without the help of UNIT, the Doctor and his friends face the daunting task of defeating aliens, marauding robot sheep, the mysterious Children of Destiny and... the being who calls himself Verdigris.
Plot
to be added
Characters
References
Alcohol
- The Doctor, Jo, Tom and others drink Chardonnay, whiskey and multiple gin and tonics.
- The Doctor prefers lime rather than lemon in his Bombay Sapphire Gin.
The Doctor
- Iris refers to the Doctor travelling with a blonde woman and a metal dog which will not occur until later in the Doctor's personal timeline, specifically during his fourth incarnation.
- In the future Iris and Jenny help (a future incarnation of) the Doctor to defeat the Dalek Supreme in the Crystal Mines of Marlion.
Individuals
- The Master makes a cameo at the end, intending to head for Skaro.
- Verdigris travels to the anti-matter universe and makes Omega aware of the Doctor (thereby leading to the Doctor being freed from his exile).
- Iris was once a member of the Sisterhood of Karn.
- Following her impersonation in the Sisterhood, Iris was time scooped to Gallifrey where she and her other incarnations battled the Zarbi, Voord and Mechanoids in the Death Zone.
- Iris met the Brigadier during a conflict in Venice involving the Celaphopods.
- Iris has met the Terrible Zodin on Mars.
- Jo Grant is trained in lock picking and escapology.
- Iris describes her companion Jenny Winterleaf as the "butch dyke traffic warden".
- Tom has been travelling with Iris for about a month. He's gay, but has a paranoid moment when he meets his mother and thinks he's destined to impregnate her.
- Verdigris kisses Jo whilst wearing a mask which makes him look like the Master.
Locations
- The Doctor takes Jo to his country house, which is thirty miles from Thisis.
- He had also taken Jo to his house in Kent, his flat in London and a caravan he has in the highlands of Scotland.
Planets
- Iris summoned Verdigris from the planet Makorna.
- The Doctor and Iris agree that the Nurses of Ionicaiy Six would go to the trouble of kidnapping humans simply to play doctors and nurses.
- In Tom's first trip with Iris she took him to the planet Calgoria.
Species
- The Saldisians are hand-bag shaped aliens.
TARDISes
- The Doctor wants to steal Iris' TARDIS so that he can escape his exile on Earth.
- Iris mentions the time that the Doctor's TARDIS fell off a cliff on Peladon.
Notes
- Paul Magrs crafts Iris Wildthyme as a sort of 'anti-Doctor'. She drinks, smokes, and generally kidnaps her companions. Also her companions are more or less opposite to the Doctor's: Jenny, the lesbian traffic warden who "got the runs" as they went through the vortex, and Tom, the black gay guy whom she also kidnapped.
- Then there are the adventures she had which are similar...but not to the Doctor's.
Continuity
- Iris mentions the occasion when the TARDIS fell off a cliff on Peladon. The Doctor says that that has not happened yet in his personal timeline. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)
- Iris was on Karn when the Fourth Doctor visited the planet. She was then a member of the Sisterhood of Karn. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)
- Iris has an adventure in the Death Zone remarkably similar to TV: The Five Doctors.
- The Master leaves Earth at the end of this story, having escaped from prison in TV: The Sea Devils, and aims for Skaro, which leads to his next appearance in TV: Frontier in Space.
- At the end of the novel, Verdigris travels to the anti-matter universe to assist Omega against the Doctor. This sets up the events of TV: The Three Doctors.
- Iris recalls her encounters with the Fourth Doctor while he was travelling with Sarah Jane Smith (PROSE: Old Flames) and, later, with "a blonde girl" and "a robot dog" (PROSE: Suitors, Inc.).
- Jo recalls being dragged to the future to face the Daleks (TV: Day of the Daleks), tussling with "fish people", (TV: The Sea Devils), being tied to an altar to be sacrificed to the Devil (TV: The Dæmons), facing "a malign alien consciousness that disguised itself variously in the form of shop dummies, plastic daffodils and trimphones" (TV: Terror of the Autons) and visiting Atlantis (TV: The Time Monster).
- The Doctor mentions that the Cybermen once had a base on the Moon. (TV: The Invasion)
- Jo and Iris would later meet again in December 2010. (AUDIO: Find and Replace)
Timeline
Placement of this story is complicated given the various references throughout the book.
- Iris mentions when the Doctor's TARDIS fell off the cliff (see continuity), which means in theory this occurs before TV: The Curse of Peladon.
- However, the Master is not in prison so this story must take place after TV: The Sea Devils.
- Verdigris occurs after COMIC: Target Practice.
- Verdigris occurs before TV: The Three Doctors.
- At the end of the novel Verdigris travels to the anti-matter universe to make Omega aware of the Doctor, leading to events in The Three Doctors.
