pyat | Entries tagged with fandom

For years, I've had dim memories of reading Robert Bloch's last published work, in Omni magazine. The horror author was one of H.P. Lovecraft's penpals, and the writer of Psycho. Part of me thinks Lovecraft would have sent Bloch an angry letter about Psycho.

The essay was significant, first of all, because it was message from a dead man, about his approaching death. Bloch wrote it a just days before he died, and he knew he was dying. It was published just days after his death.

Secondly, it was significant to me, because I remembered him raving about inferior races of humanity in it. And I went around telling people that Robert Bloch was a racist. Just now, I used the net to look up the date of the issue, and then went down to the basement to dig around for it. Lo and behold, it was the sitting right at the top of the box, ready to hand.

And, it turns out that Robert Bloch was not a racist, at least not in this essay. He just made a single wry comment about how he's an elitist and didn't think all men were equal, except under the law. Not the same thing at all.

My brain had embroidered that single statement extensively over the last 15 years.

The late Clive Exton wrote a number screenplays for British television, perhaps most memorable being the Jeeves and Wooster dramatizations, as well some of the Poiroit adventures.

The late George MacDonald Fraser wrote the excellent Flashman series of novels, as well as a variety of lively historical pieces.

Together, they wrote Red Sonja.

Sadly, this combination of talents was not a "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" situation.

Darth and Droids is a web comic based on the idea that the Star Wars prequels are actually a SF RPG. I like the way they've been working the real world personalities of the supposed players into the game. For example, Jar-Jar is the creation of the GM's young niece. ("He's purple, and he has a head like a pony, and bunny ears, and heesa talky like-a theesa!")

The player portraying Amidala is a power gamer named "Jim", while Annakin is being played by "Anne", who is former drama arts major. She has been trying to get the other players to actually play a character. The other players constantly slip out of character, which is just one reason they're always calling her "Annie."

Of course, her tendency to work in characterization has injecting a good bit of pathos into the narrative of late.

As a side note, some of the players in the supposed game are the same ones as those who endured the GM from the similar web comic, DM of the Rings. That comic was more an example of bad and/or easily distracted players trying to slog through an epic campaign, and the humour was very dependent on jokes about hit dice and ignoring the GM.

Whereas, in Darth and Droids it's pretty clear that the GM is actually pretty good, and working hard to adjust his world to match the unpredictable actions of the players. And, the players themselves have evolved as the game progressed - initially treating the game as D&D in space.

_{Bill Hoyt, one of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor players(Photo by Pioneer Press: Chris Polydoroff)}

The original D&D players carry on their campaign, 39 years and counting.

I've just returned from seeing the new Star Trek film with

mar2nee, Daniel, and their kids. I largely liked it. I give it a... mmm.... 7.25/10?

What didn't I like?

Well...

( Spoilers! )

D&D co-creator Dave Arneson died last night, aged 61. Arneson was credited as co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. He also ran the very first tabletop RPG games, starting in 1969, I believe.

I intend to have my next "Pyat's Fortress" ep, wherein I visit some of the places where D&D was written and first sold, sometime this weekend.

A local member of the furry fandom took his own life yesterday. I won't mention his name in an open post, not until his LJ is locked up. He happened to be

mwbard's (Morgan) housemate, and Morgan had the misfortune to find the remains late this afternoon/early evening. Some friends had not heard from the fellow since Sunday, and asked Morgan to check on him.

I heard all this when I happened to check out the local furry fandom IRC channel. The person in question was still listed as logged in, so it took me several minutes to realize that Morgan was not engaging in some kind of odd joke. The police were in the house, and the computer had been left on.

wggthegnoll and I went in to keep Morgan company.

When I arrived, around 12:30 AM, the police (and the body) were still in the house. We sat in a coffee shop for about 30 min, and talked about a range of subjects, including inquiring about some practical details of informing family (just one parent living, in Alberta) and speculating on the cause, etc., and what would be done with the effects, and what it would mean for Morgan's finances. We also talked a lot about SF books.

Around 1 AM, an officer came in and rather casually informed Morgan that the body had been moved, and he could go back home... but not to the second floor of the house until further notice. We did go with him back to the house for a few minutes, to ensure the doors were locked, etc. We admired Morgan's meticulously painted minis, chatted about his fursuit, and his impressive SF collection, but did not venture or look upstairs.

We then went to a late-night greasy spoon, where Morgan had a late supper, and I had a cheese dog. The conversation turned entirely to fandom and SF, and we had a good talk about computational singularity and the evolution of external memory storage throughout history. We also looked through some Heinlein 1st editions Morgan had brought along. In another other context, this would have been a thoroughly pleasant visit.

I left Morgan and

wggthegnoll around 1:50 AM, and got home a few minutes ago. Morgan is back home, and doesn't have to work until Wednesday.

Please spare a good thought or prayer for

mwbard, and the friends and family of his housemate.

Aaron Allston, a small god of my formative gaming years, has suffered a major heart attack. He had a quadruple-bypass in Dallas last Thursday and is currently in intensive care. He's 48 years old. Mr. Allston has no health insurance.

Allston has written a great many novels, and in the 80s he was a freelance game designer/writer. Most notably for me, he was the first listed author for the Justice Inc. roleplaying game. In fact, he and fellow authors Steve Peterson and Michael Stackpole, are featured on the cover of the game sourcebook.

This is a detail from the cover. Allston is the man in the centre of the picture, with the curly hair and beard. I would not be lying if I told you that, in the late 80s, my friends Bill and Dan and I spent hours identifying the characters on the cover. And also wondering about the identities and fabulous lives of the three men in t-shirts. Clearly, they were game writers, and involved with Champions as well as Justice Inc., and therefore the luckiest men in the universe.

Allston is 48.

Blood donors are being solicited, for those of you who happen to live in Texas, and some kind of benefit will be set up to assist with medical expenses. For more information on how you might be able to help, check out:

http://community.livejournal.com/allston_info/

An essay I wrote for the IMC web zine, back in December 1999. Written about the 6-year-old me. My oldest daughter is about to turn 6.

12/13/99: Living in the Land of Spare Oom
A reflection on 20 years spent Ignoring Reality.
by Pieter van Hiel

Less than three weeks until 2000. Soon we'll be in the last year of the 20th century, or the first one of the 21st century. Whatever the case, I'm sure you're quite sick of hearing about it.

So instead of looking ahead, let's roll back time. Saunter back to 1980, the year that I discovered the joy that could be found in illusionary realms. Picture a small brick town house in Southern Ontario. Inside, there is just enough room for a young family.

My parents (mid-30s), me (aged 6), my older sister (10), and my baby sister (1 1/2). We just moved here from Montreal, Quebec, where my parents had worked as Salvation Army pastors. The home is sparsely furnished, but comfortable. It's late November and snow is falling. My older sister is at church choir practice. Dad is working late. Baby sister is in bed. It's just me and mom awake and at home, and we're in the living room. There I am, six years old, curled up in one corner of the couch. Mom is on the other end of the couch, reading out loud.

The book is The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Lucy has just met Mr. Tumnus the faun, after traveling through the wardrobe in the spare room into the silent snowy land of Narnia.

"Daughter of Eve, from the far land of Spare Oom, where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?," read my mother, doing a passable Mr. Tumnus impression. I couldn't help myself. I started giggling, which got my mother laughing. And of course I joined in. I can't remember laughing so hard or so long at anything before or since.

There was more than just humor in those words, though. As my mother read about the land of "Spare Oom" and the city of "War Drobe," I imagined them as places. I saw a city with gold towers in a valley, with a river flowing beside it. Later that night I thought about the sort of people who might live in that city, and what it might be like to live there. Maybe better than living in the real world.

This event was comparable to the opening of a flood-gate. A few months after my mother read The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe to me, I set out on reading another book in the series by myself, Prince Caspian. It was the first novel length book I'd ever tried to read, and it took me a long time to finish. I wasn't disappointed, though. Once again, the words worked their magic in my imagination and transported me to a world of castles, talking animals, and Aslan.

Soon after I started reading anything I could get my hands on, provided it dealt with the fantastic new worlds. I started living in the land of make-believe, and a fine and interesting place it was, I can tell you.

At first it was dependent on the shape of the real world I lived in. The local geography would be mentally exaggerated or altered just enough to suit the needs of my internal world. Just south of the dreary town-house subdivision was an old cemetery. Beyond the cemetery was a wooded ravine, with a creek and a wooden foot bridge. North was the two lane road, and on the other side and down a ways the shore of Lake Ontario.

Thus, I had my ocean (suitable for pirates, sea-monsters, and giant sharks), my forest primeval (home to witches and gnomes), and that cemetery... well... The cemetery was off-limits, I think, but that didn't stop me. The graveyard fence that bordered the subdivision was in disrepair, and I thought I was very clever when I found a place where I could crawl under the links without getting dirty. Passing underneath was rather like passing through the wardrobe to Narnia. The real world was all mud, rusted swing sets and cracked tarmac. Climbing under the fence transported you to a quiet green world shaded by giant pines and enormous maples.

The asphalt footpaths that threaded their way past enormous Edwardian-era tombstone became roads that lead me, the weary pilgrim, to distant castles, some friendly, some home to robber barons or evil kings. There was some real thrill of adventurous danger here as well. The groundskeepers would probably have ignored me, but I was afraid that I was trespassing on private property and so I always hid from them.

Much worse than the workers was the local bully and his friends. He either had known about my way in all along, or had seen me crawling under the fence. Whatever the case, one day they followed me in and chased me with sticks. I hid in a bush until they gave up. Not the most heroic solution maybe, but the only one I could think of.

Usually though, I was free to indulge in my own private games of siege or kingdoms. One place was particularly special.

In the center of the cemetery was a low hill surrounded by a small iron fence. Inside, in the shade of an oak tree, was a patch of ground that was the last resting place of the some rich family of 19th century settlers. The tombstone of the patriarch dominated this private area, and indeed the entire graveyard. It was a large stone Celtic cross that rose 20 feet. Around it were arrayed two dozen small mossy crosses.

The solemn stillness and hush there was almost too much for me. I used to sit there for a while and listen to the birds, or watch the squirrels carrying nuts from tree to tree. I could never think of what sort of place it could represent in my imaginative geography, and so I let it remain as it was. It was the tomb of some important man, a king maybe, and his family. That was enough.

My private jaunts into this unnamed fantasy world laid the ground for a life-long interest in the original worlds that I could create, and in the creations of others. Most certainly, if I had spent my time playing hockey with the bully and his friends I wouldn't be writing this right now.

That is not to say that I would have been unhappy -- in many ways my childhood would have been much easier, for example, and I might have been able to discover the wide world of dating before I was twenty -- but I would have been much poorer in other ways for not indulging my fancy. My childhood games of let's-pretend, and later my more sophisticated games of Dungeons and Dragons and Marvel Superheroes, opened up access to worlds beyond the ken of most of my classmates and family. In turn this broadened my reality.

That's why fantasy of all types is so attractive. It enhances what we have. The author George R.R. Martin once wrote, "Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy is habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices, and hear the songs the sirens sang."

In those few sentences, he expresses what I've been trying to say for the last 1100 words.

This morning, on a whim, I drove out to my old house and the cemetery, for the first time in 17 years. The rows of townhouses are pretty much the same, and the swing-set is still rusted. I don't know who lives in the old place, but they had an off-colour bumper-sticker stuck to their mailbox calling for the elimination of French as Canada's second language. Still the same old somewhat dreary place, just a little smaller in my adult eyes.

The cemetery is the same as well, and the contrast between the two places is as extreme and welcoming as it was all those years ago. It too looked smaller than it did all those years ago, but the hush, the still green trees, the giant Celtic cross, all the same as I recall.

I'm trying to express more than basic, end-of-millennium, faux 20-something nostalgia here. This article is a tribute to all the hours that I've spent ignoring reality. In some way they were worth it. They have given me a place to go to when reality becomes too dry. They represent springs from which I may draw a life-restoring draught of imagination.

As I write this, I have here at my side the very same copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that my mother read to me from that night. I dug it up to look up the exact words that Mr. Tumnus used when speaking to Lucy. Flipping through it I've noticed for the first time in years the dedication. What better way to close this piece than with the words of C.S. Lewis himself?

"My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already to old for fairy-tales, and by the time it is bound and printed you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and to old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be,

Your affectionate Godfather, C.S. Lewis."

I would like to think that Lewis intended this sentiment for all of us. May we never be too old for fairy-tales.

Pieter van Hiel is currently planning to consume his body-weight in Christmas tuck before the millenium.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably familiar with the Lemon Demon song, “Geeks in Love.” It was made into a popular flash animated video that was making the rounds a couple of years back. The lyrics themselves are fairly amusing, though the video bothers me a bit, containing as it does a great deal of hatred for “mundanes.” And while I often feel that way after a brush with marketing staff or alarming people on the bus, I recognize it as more a response to being uncomfortable with people who have different outlooks and goals and background than I do.

I should say that I don’t actually dislike the song, and I don’t want to seem like I’m over analyzing it. However, after getting the song stuck in my head a little while, I realized what else I disliked about it. The geek couple in the video is portrayed as liking random bits of media, and this seems to be the primary criterion of being a “geek.”

And when they hear our favorite bands, they wish that they were geeks in love.
We rattle off our in-jokes while they wish that they were geeks in love.

Novelty bands and in-jokes! That’s what it’s all about. And LOLcats, and dressing up like anime characters. Unfortunately, these are all very shallow things. Basically, if it has a wizard, robot, or superhero in it, or it was drawn in Japan, it’s “geeky.” Or Cthulhu. Cthulhu is geeky.

I think though, that the fan culture as a whole confuses the shibboleth for the substance. People will pile on identifiers and tags indicating that they are a member of fandom, but then not evidence any actual deep interest or critical appreciation of the things they are allegedly fannish about. To use the example of Cthulhu, I once met a man with a personalized Cthulhu license plate and t-shirts and plushies, who had never read Lovecraft, nor even played the RPG based on his works. His “Cthulhufandom” was a sort of formless, amorphous blob at the centre of his being, madly piping out references without context to a meaningless universe where…

… sorry.

I guess I am a geek. The biggest thing I’m fannish about it table-top RPGs. Rarely does a day pass in which I do not make reference to this interest. I know more about the history of the hobby than most people, to the point of taking road trips to look at otherwise nondescript houses in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. This is a fandom I developed through active participation and development.

The second biggest thing I’m fannish about? I have no idea. I don’t watch television. I read a single comic book, and it’s a comic book about table-top RPGs. I’m certainly not up on current SF and fantasy novels, though I did just re-read the Elric books. I don’t play video games at all, though sometimes I go though periods where I play an awful lot of Civ IV.

I shall make a list.

1. Table top RPGs. As noted.

2. George Orwell. I’ve read all his published works several times, along with some biographies and collections of his personal correspondence and BBC memos.

3. Steampunk, sort of. In the sense that I like and read 19th century speculative fiction. I suspect most Steampunk cosplayers don’t know H.G. Wells from Orson Welles.

4. Rumpole of the Bailey! Yes, really.

5. Hard-boiled crime fiction, or at least private eye stories from 1920 till 1955 or so.

6. Victorian England, and Imperial England in general, possibly related to #3.

7. Hard SF, though I rarely read anything written after 1990.

8. Historical curiosities, particularly technology

9. Furry media that intersects one of the preceding things.

So, like, if someone were to write a roleplaying game adventure about Rumpole’s grandfather (a badger) who travels to British colonial Burma to help youthful Imperial Police inspector Eric Blair (aka George Orwell, perhaps a kind of ferret) solve a murder, with the evidence based a curious idiosyncrasy of a Gestetner No. 6 typewriter, that might just be best thing ever.

So, I've uploaded the photos I took today on my outing with

commanderteddog, and I think we clearly have a match for the NexisCorp building in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and the Esselte Building on Front and Yonge Street in Toronto. Observe:

Image from the movie. Note the support pillar, circled in red.

Taken today. Though taken from a dramatically different angle, you can see the same pillars.

Fingal meets his mother... sorta.

Notice the brackets on the railing, used to hold the fake plants in place, as well as the metal railing itself. I think I can be pretty sure this was the place.

Now, on to my next theory. Terry Gilliam watched Overdrawn at the Memory Bank before he filmed Brazil. Admittedly, there is far less evidence for that, but compare some screen shots:
( Read more... )

I’ve been reading a fair amount of classic noir detective stories lately, and I’ve decided to put down in writing a couple of common elements I’ve noticed. I’d noted these before, but never sat down to think about them.

Dentists and Drugstores!

Pick a crime novel from the 20s, 30s, or 40s, and there’s a very good chance that one or the other (or both) will show up at some point. Why? Well, let me speculate.

Dental offices are a common setting in crime fiction. The hardboiled detective often has an office in a building full of two-bit dentists and seedy insurance brokers. Dentists fairly regularly show up as underworld doctors, drug peddlers, sinister killers, and as the “brains of the outfit.”

This is because dentists were the lowest class of legitimate medical professional in the 1930s, mainly because their licensing and training regulations were ridiculously slack. While there were certainly respectable dental programs at colleges and universities, a given dentist might have received his medical credentials by mailing five dollars to a degree mill. In some areas of North America, it was still possible to be a dentist by simply calling yourself one.

Despite this, dentists were generally respected as professionals and educated men. So, one could easily gain a portion of that inherent respect by becoming a dentist, or pretending to be one. And since any reasonably capable person can handle the bulk of tasks performed by a 1930s dentist – cleaning teeth and yanking out bad ones – even a con artist with no training whatsoever could put on a white coat and make a good show of it.

Unfortunately, the lack of strict licensing meant that there was a great deal of competition. Even well-trained and legitimate professionals had trouble standing out from the crowd, never mind the dodgy types. So, many dentists – legitimate and otherwise – paid the rent with crime.

The most obvious source of shady income was from the sale of narcotics. Dentists were authorized to prescribe drugs, and authorized to keep a supply in their office. Narcotics like Demerol could be sold at a profit, and made to look legal by cooking the books. Stronger stuff – like morphine – was often sold in-office on a “per injection” basis. Drug sales of this kind were even legal, to some extent. If a patient complained of intense pain in his jaw, it was not the responsibility of the dentist to ensure that the patient was telling the truth – at least not under the laws of the 30s. So long as a dentist made sure to tie each prescription or injection to a patient with a “legitimate” complaint, he could operate under the radar of the law.

Of course, from the quasi-legal sales of regulated drugs it was sometimes a short step to trafficking in entirely illegal stuff. While this was riskier, it was fairly easy to hide hard drugs in amidst the legitimate supply.

A crooked (or desperate) dentist could also make money by offering medical services. They had surgical tools, painkillers, first aid supplies, general anaesthetics, and an examination room. A trained dentist (or experienced phoney) has a good grasp of simple surgery. These are ideal traits for an underworld doctor. When Bugsy gets a slug in his shoulder, you can count on Doc Yanktooth to get it out, no questions asked, cash on the barrelhead. Sure, it might be a little messy, but you get a nice shot of morphine to take the edge off.

A dentist might even take on this kind of work for noble reasons, like treating homeless people who can’t afford a hospital. Some dentists offered backroom abortions of a kind that were at least cleaner and safer than the sort generally available in those days. This is actually mentioned in some of the grittier pulp noir stories.

And that’s not to mention the role of dental torture (“Is it SAFE?”) in the nastier stories…

Now, then… drugstores. Gangsters and hardboiled detectives are constantly walking into drugstores, meeting in drugstores, and having shoot-outs at drugstores. If you’re imaging this action taking place in the 1930s equivalent of a Shoppers Drugmart, you might be understandably confused.

Drugstores of the kind described in noir and pulp stories were not like modern drugstores. They were like combinations of restaurants, pharmacies, and convenience stores. A large drugstore would have a juke box, cigarette machine, a bank of pay phones, a lunch counter, a soda fountain, a selection of dry goods, and a druggist in the back. Most sold alcohol – though it could not be consumed on the premises.

They were often open 24 hours, and might be only place for miles around open in the middle of the night. Phillip Marlowe and Sam Spade were constantly ducking into drugstores to use the pay phone, Rocky Sullivan almost gets ambushed in one in Angels with Dirty Faces.

They were ideal places for a midnight rendezvous, or just a place to pick up a pack of smokes and bottle of rye. You could spend hours in a drugstore, if you were quiet and kept ordering coffee. Their payphones were private affairs, with a door and often a chair and a pad of paper. These payphones served as a kind 1930s equivalent of a cellular phone for people who couldn’t afford a phone of their own. A down-at-the-heels lawyer or salesperson might use one as his de facto office, even paying the store clerk to take messages.

You know those modern action movies in which the hero and the villain exchange barbs while scowling into a handheld phone? All those scenes have equivalents in movies from the 1930s, and usually one of the participants is sitting in a drugstore phone booth, hollering into the receiver while a comical Italian stereotype tells him to “keepa downa noise!”

And, of course, you can’t have a drugstore without drugs. While they were actually more stringently licensed than dentists in many areas, a druggist (or even the soda jerk) could certainly make some cash on the side by selling handfuls of painkillers or whatever to people with ready cash. And, if you can’t get that slug in your shoulder to Doc Yanktooth anytime soon, a dozen over-the-counter aspirin will dull the pain enough for you to fall into a restless sleep on your pull-down Murphy bed…

Fifth Doctor
Quote: (Uttered while desperately trying to rewire a mine elevator as it plummets into the Pit) “If I can’t reset the polarity of the mag locks, we’re in for a short, sharp …" (Sparks fly from the ruined control panel) "BLAST! Hold on, Adric!” (Episode ends)

Number of Episodes and Response: Four, though the script is clearly padded upwards from a two-parter, with lots of unnecessary running around in corridors and technobabble arguments between Teagan and Adric.

Ep. 1: Impossible Planet
Ep. 2: Mines of Death
Ep. 3: Devil World
Ep. 4: The Banishment

The storyline receives rave reviews for the first three episodes, as critics gush about the intelligent dialogue and sly references to Jewish mysticism, quantum theory (Schrödinger’s Base!) and Shakespeare. Sadly, the climax features a giant inflatable Satan that slays the delicate suspension of disbelief, and the storyline acquires an unjustified bad reputation. Twenty years later, most fans re-evaluate the story and decide that it was actually pretty good.

Leap of Faith?: Not entirely – the elevator fall replaces the Leap of Faith in the plotline. Adric is able to work out a circuitry bypass to restore power to the elevator just before it lands in the bottom of the Pit. The Beast rises, only to be forced back by Hadronic Wave Radiation from the Doctor’s rewired sonic screwdriver. The Pit closes, and the planet falls apart. The Doctor rescues everyone in the TARDIS.

Sixth Doctor
Quote: Doctor: “Spooks, goblins, devils, and now this! Mankind looking for a scapegoat on which to pin his failings! ”
Satan: “Obey me! Or the girl dies!”
Peri: “Doctor, please! Help!”
Doctor: “I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL!”
Satan: “Nooooooooo!”

Number of Episodes and Response: The BBC contracted for a four part story, and received a six part script. Budget concerns meant that the entire storyline was compressed into two episodes.

Ep. 1: The Impossible Planet Problem
Ep. 2: The Devilish Pit

Cost overruns, script problems, and criminally incompetent editing doomed this one from the start. There are gaping plot holes, and the supporting characters are either mute or 2-dimensional. None the less, Colin Baker turns in a vigorous performance that seems to grow on you as time passes.

Leap of Faith?: Peri is thrown into the Pit by a maddened Ood, and the Doctor falls after her in an attempt to save her. Happily, they are saved by a net at the bottom of the Pit. The resolution – in which the Beast is destroyed because the Doctor refuses to believe in him – caused national eye-rolling when it aired, though many fans now believe it deserves a second chance.

Seventh Doctor
Quote: Ace: “Professor… is there really a Devil down there?”
Doctor (chewing his umbrella): “Yes, Ace.”
Ace: “But, how do you know?”
Doctor: “Because I put him there…”

Number of Episodes and Response: Four episodes, broadcast in the final season.

Ep. 1: Slave Mine
Ep. 2: Doom World
Ep. 3: Eternity Pit
Ep. 4: Time Forge

The storyline received high ratings for the first two episodes, but viewer numbers dropped sharply in coming weeks, as show was broadcast at the same time as the series premiere of Nickers & Phart, the new Ben Elton comedy. Reviews are mixed, and most critics felt that the BBC FX department was overreaching itself, particularly with the construction of the animatronic Beast. The creature was impressive enough in repose, and in publicity stills, but was decidedly wobbly on film.

Leap of Faith?: The Doctor, knowing that he is responsible for the Beast being chained into the Pit in the first place, insouciantly leaps into the depths after doffing his hat to Ace. The setup (The Beast serves as a kind of ultimate weapon to be unleashed against the Singularitons from beyond the Black Hole) is interesting, but the writers seemed to have painted themselves into a corner by episode 4. In the end, everything is solved by the judicious application of Nitro-Nine. Kaboom!

In The Satan Pit, the Tenth Doctor comes face to face with the Devil, after taking a literal leap of faith into a black pit on an impossible planet. It was a two part story, with lots of shooting and monsters – kind of a combination of Doom, Aliens, The Ark in Space, Event Horizon, and The Black Hole. I won’t hand out too many spoilers, but I was wondering how the other Doctors would have dealt with The Ultimate Evil.

I think it would go a little something like this…

First Doctor
Quote: “The Devil? Indeed? You don’t say. Super…superstition….” Looks around vaguely. Ian Chesterton silently mouths something. The Doctor nods, and tucks his thumbs in his lapels. “Yes, superstitious nonsense. Hmm?” Silence. “Chesterton, stop m… stop, stop, stop mooning about, and go down that hole, would you?”

Number of Episodes: 12 episodes, including a lengthy subplot (written by Terry Nation) in which the characters are put on trial for murder and fight evil robots on the Sun.

Ep 1.: Doctor Who and the Impossible Planet
Ep 2: Doctor Who and the Space Slaves
Ep 3: Doctor Who and the Pit of Doom
Ep 4: Doctor Who and the Ultimate Evil
Ep 6: Doctor Who and the Moon Emergency
Ep 7: Doctor Who and the Sun-Bot Invasion
Ep 8: Doctor Who and the Revenge of the Sun-Bots
Ep 9: Doctor Who and the Trial of the Sun-Bots
Ep 10: Doctor Who and the Return to The Pit of Doom
Ep 11: Doctor Who and the Devils from Time
Ep 12: Doctor Who and the Rocketship Escape

The BBC will later destroy the tapes to make room for their Ask Pickles archive. Fans who reconstruct the storyline from Radio News production stills and 40-year-old memories will alternately declare it “the greatest plotline ever” and “incredibly boring, with a subjective viewing time of nine-billion hours.”

Leap of Faith?: No. The Doctor sends Ian into the Pit, where Ian wrestles with a “Time Devil,” a man in a clumsy rubber costume. Ian knocks the Time Devil down a shaft, and it dies. That would be about all, because Black Holes had not yet entered popular SF.

Second Doctor
Quote: “A Black Hole, Jamie. A hole in time and space. Nothing can escape from it – not even the TARDIS!” (This is followed by a comic bit with the recorder.)

Number of Episodes and Response : Six. All copies are supposedly lost during the great Goon Show teleplay shelf-space reassignment, but a kinescope copy is later discovered underneath the grease trap of the BBC cafeteria.

Ep. 1: The Incredible Planet
Ep. 2: The Hole in Time
Ep. 3: The Cosmic Evil
Ep. 4: The Abyss
Ep. 5: The Old Enemy
Ep. 6: The Great Escape

Younger fans are terrified by the possessed Ood. Questions are raised in Parliament about the need for stricter broadcast regulations, and the Archbishop of Canterbury expresses “concern” about the occult content of the show.

Leap of Faith?: Yes, but the Pit is only 20 feet deep, and he doesn’t so much leap as stumble. While down in the Pit, the Doctor finds out that the Great Intelligence is behind everything, and they have a psychic battle.

Third Doctor
Quote: “No sentient creature has the right to enslave another, Jo. The only Devil here is mankind’s inhumanity to the Ood.”

Number of Episodes and Response: Four. Released on VHS in the 80s, and now available in a deluxe DVD edition.

Ep. 1: The Impossible Planet
Ep. 2: The Slaves of Space
Ep. 3: The Revenge of the Ood
Ep 4: The Pit of Satan

It’s a midseason storyline, fondly remembered by most. Stodgier critics cringe at the strident antislavery message, preferring their entertainment devoid of social commentary. A BBC exec later quotes the Doctor when announcing the decision to cancel The Black and White Minstrel Show.

Leap of Faith?: No, but Jo accidentally trips and falls into the Pit as a cliff-hanger, only to be seen clinging to a vine about five feet down in the next episode. The entire story would be about how the Doctor Teaches the Ood About This Thing You Call Free-Dom. The man with a gun would get a snoot-full of Venusian Aikido. All the weirdness is caused by a mind-control ray built by the Master, who escapes at the last second.

Fourth Doctor
Quote: “Satan? Really? How extraordinary. I always thought they’d done you a disservice in Faust…” “SILENCE!” “…but Paradise Lost, now there was a…” “SILENCE!” “You heard the Devil, K-9, do be quiet now, there’s a good fellow.”

Number of Episodes and Response: Four, partially written by Douglas Adams.

Ep. 1: The Doomed Planet
Ep. 2: The Pit of Death
Ep. 3: The Ultimate Enemy
Ep. 4: The Guardians of Evil

Leap of Faith?: Sort of. The Doctor abseils down the side of the Pit with his scarf, but falls part of the way. Some impressive chroma-key effects are used to create a giant blotchy red energy-being that calls itself Satan. The Doctor decodes the weird writing, and discovers that the Ood were the guardians of Satan. He smashes a clay vase, and releases them from servitude, and they use their mind-powers to entrap Satan in the pit again.

It couldn’t be, but it was. Casper Gutman, the fat man of the Maltese Falcon caper!

Looking at the unholy trio there - Joel Cairo, the little Levantine still as oily and smiling as ever and still fragrant, Marvin, a sullen-faced, hollow-eyed youth as near Wilmer’s double as anyone could expect to find, and Gutman, spruce as ever in his black cutaway coat, black vest, and grey striped trousers – you’d have thought nothing had happened since then, not even the war.

The grayness at Cairo’s temples only made his baby-face look more babyish, and about Gutman nothing was different except his watch chain. A curious, jewel-encrusted ornament dangled from it, shaped like a claw.

“You seem surprised to see me, sir! And no wonder. One is always surprised to see a ghost, especially such a substantial ghost! Aha ha… Suffice it to say, sir, that the bloated and unpleasant object the police dredged up from San Francisco Bay and identified as myself was some other poor soul.”

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