With the launch of the first four Black Archive titles imminent a blog about my entry on Rose; to explain why I chose it and the thinking behind my approach. None of the actual analysis though, you'll have to give the frankly sexy and beautiful Obverse Books your cash to get that...
Originally I was thinking in terms of my favourite stories;
a fair number of them being those that congregate around the top of the polls
along with more idiosyncratic choices (I pretty much considered every McCoy era
story aside from Time and the Rani). I
soon realised that it was the wrong angle to approach such a choice from; it’s
not your affection for a story but how much you have to say about it that
counts. In that sense a lot of the most interesting stories aren’t the most
successfully realised but ones where ambition has clearly exceeded grasp. So I scrapped my original train of thought
and cast around for ideas.
The final choice of Rose was partly a question of timing and
partly a question of what the story meant to me personally. The first solicitations for The Black Archive
series took place in early 2015 and the early part of the year naturally saw a
lot of material about the tenth anniversary of the new series with Rose being a
particular focus. Most articles swerved between nostalgic and adulatory but few
really analysed just *why* Rose had been so successful. It’s
the start of the mythologizing of the RTD era; it’s distant enough for the
details to blur and it to become part of the show’s history. Rightly so too, in
Doctor Who production terms ten years is forever; there are vast differences
between An Unearthly Child and The Time Warrior or The Horns of Nimon and
Survival. We’ve had four season of RTD and five of Steven Moffat plus numerous
specials since that first episode. Much of the analysis had a narrow focus too;
on the episode itself rather than the wider context of the TV landscape or why
creative decisions made by Russell T Davies and those involved in the
production of the show ended up being spectacularly validated. I was looking to put what was achieved with Rose into the
context of the show’s own history and the popular culture of 2005.
On the personal front the episode meant everything to me as
a fan too. It catapulted the show back
to the heart of British popular culture to the point of it being a default
reference when talking about SF; to add to the excitement the production of the
show was based five minutes from where I was living at the time. I passed the
studio every day on my way to and from work and even saw Eccleston and Piper
rehearsing outdoors in late summer. For
a long-term Who fan the combined thrill of proximity and success was something
it was difficult to put into words. The
pinch yourself wonder of having Who back; not only having it back but having it
back on Saturday night and achieving ridiculous ratings. I wanted to capture that thrill in the book;
the essence of success that we’re all quite blasé about in the wake of the
show’s subsequent success. I said
earlier that much of what’s interesting about Doctor Who are the heroic
failures but Rose is an exception; in terms of what it sets out to achieve it’s
unarguably the most successful episode in the show’s history.* Not only in
terms of the initial impact in its own country but it’s the most frequently bought drama of the past 40 years for BBC Worldwide. More successful on that
front than Eastenders, Howard’s Way, House of Cards, Dennis Potter’s most acclaimed
works, State of Play, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Call the Midwife, Happy
Valley, This Life, Casualty, Our Friends In the North… It appealed on a
national and international basis. What
was fascinating about it was why it had such universal appeal; why the revival
of a 42 year old series struck such a chord.
With that overarching theme of the rebirth of the series in
mind I sent Phil a proposal for the structure of the book; what seemed the most
fascinating aspects of the rebirth. He
agreed them with minor modifications and some excellent suggestions for further
investigation. In keeping with the tone
of the new series I was aiming to blend my analysis with a relatively light
tone; reflecting the story it examined.
Fast forward to December and just before Christmas and after
some excellent feedback from beta readers (thanks, in particular to Geoff
Wessel for a couple of excellent points), a some thoughtful notes from the
editor which added clarity to certain areas, depth to others and generally tightened
the manuscript it was ready to be sent to the publisher. Fast forward another couple of months and you’ll
see an author bouncing happily up and down after having seen the gorgeous cover
artwork from Blair Bidmead and Cody Schell and having read through the
beautifully put together ebook.
At the time of writing the first four volumes in the Black
Archive series are at the printers and on target for their early March release
date. It’s been a privilege to be part
of the launch of a series I’d be delighted to read even if I wasn’t involved;
quite aside from my own title I've read an early draft of Dark Water/Death in
Heaven (a breathtakingly fine set of essays) and I can’t wait to read The
Massacre and The Ambassadors of Death both for the stories chosen and the
authors. Similarly the remainder of the
year promises a strong selection of writers and stories which I’ll be pre-ordering. You can give Obverse your money for the first four titles here,
Now all that’s left is the always nervous wait to see what
everyone makes of it. Time to see if
fingernails can be gnawed down to the bone then…
* Not necessarily in terms of the actual episode but in successfully relaunching Doctor Who. There's a decade's worth of TV, spin-offs and foreign sales on my side here.
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