By Rob McCow

The Gift
 

The Collector

The Gift was presented in Doctor Who Magazine from #123 to #126, wrapping up the months of April to July of 1987.
 

The World Shapers

Script – Jamie Delano

Art – John Ridgway

Inks – Tim Perkins (Part four)

Letters – Richard Starkings

Editor – Sheila Cranna
 

Fellow Travellers

At last, Peri has her holiday! They start the story sunbathing on Hacya, Peri in an outrageously skimpy bikini, the Doctor in stripy shorts and short-sleeved shirt. Frobisher prefers parties to relaxing.

Peri, pretty in pencil

For their trip to Zazz, Frobisher wears a pair of Peri’s sunglasses and later borrows a gangster hat. Peri wears an outrageously short 1920’s style cocktail dress, with a bead necklace and a headband. Peri is good at singing and entertains the Katz of Zazz by repeatedly singing Porgy and Bess. She’s also familiar enough with Robert Browning’s poem ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin’ to quote it at length. She thinks the Doctor’s plan to save Zazz is crazy and accepts some of the Lorduke’s ‘anaesthetic’ alcohol to calm her nerves.

Frobisher is not so good at singing. In this story he belts out the theme tune to Fireball XL5 as well as Space Oddity by David Bowie. His technical competence is also used as he makes some alterations to a rocket. He dictates these alterations while relaxing in a deckchair. His shape-changing skills are used only once in this story as he turns into a penguin-styled hang-glider.

Penguins can't fly!

Also appearing in the story is the Lorduke of Zazz, a three-foot tall dapperly dressed mob leader with impressive sideburns. His brother is Professor Strut, a wild-haired, egocentric scientist complete with labcoat and glasses.
 

The Deal

Bored with their holiday, the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher follow an old invite to the Twenty First Birthday Bash of the Lorduke of Zazz. The TARDIS lands on the island of Professor Strut, the Lorduke’s brother. Strut is preparing a rocket to take him away from the childish world forever. Before the TARDIS crew leave for the party, Strut gives them a present for his brother.

They arrive at the Kotn Klub in Harlm Town, where the party is in full swing. The Lorduke reveals that his brother, Professor Strut, was exiled because one of his rockets destroyed the Hi-De-Ho Klub. The Doctor presents the Lorduke with his brother’s present. It turns out to be a pyramid-shaped robot with a dozen long, spidery legs that promptly steals all the metal in the room and runs away. Annoyed, the Lorduke orders that Peri, the Doctor and Frobisher sleep overnight in his club while he decides what to do.

They are woken by the Lorduke, whose music machine has been destroyed by the robot. But when they all go to look outside, they find that hundreds of robots are taking the city apart. Lorduke takes Peri hostage and orders the Doctor to sort out the mess. He heads to Strut’s island and remonstrates with the Professor. The Doctor learns that one of Strut’s rockets brought the robot back from the moon in a soil sample.

The Doctor heads to the moon in the TARDIS. He travels back in time to see a creature named Monektoni Shug’s cargo ship crash land. In attempting to repair the ship, a Servotron replicates itself. The Doctor skips forward in time to observe that after twenty generations, its robot descendants have built a civilisation. However, their city is destroyed by meteor strike. The Doctor notes that the robots are drawn back to hide in their meteor shelter by an alarm signal.

Venturing out in a NASA space suit, the Doctor is attacked by some of the surviving robots, but their laser power is low. The robots draw their power from the sun, but meteor dust has blocked out the sunlight.

The Doctor heads back to Zazz with a plan. Frobisher has been annoying Strut with his singing. The Doctor tells Frobisher to supervise the Professor in programming the ship to land on the moon. He also tells him to install a transmitter inside the rocket that will copy the robot’s meteor strike alarm signal.

Returning to Harlm, the Doctor finds that the robots have been taking the city apart. Peri has been entertaining the Katz of Zazz with her singing. They wait for Frobisher to activate the signal, but when nothing happens the Doctor realises that the signal is too weak. Seeing the robots building a copy of their lunar city, Peri is reminded of the rats in the Pied Piper of Hamlin. This inspires the Doctor with a new plan. He composes a tune to copy the meteor alarm and gathers together all the musicians in town.

The Doctor’s tune lures the scavenging robots to the coast, where they pick up Frobisher’s signal and head out to Strut’s island. Everyone follows in Lorduke’s steamboat.

On the island, Strut expecting to be the first man on the moon and is shocked when hundreds of robots arrive and board his rocket. The rocket is set to take off, but it will destroy the island when it does. Frobisher and Strut race to the roof balcony, where Frobisher saves Strut by turning into a giant hang-glider. They land safely on Lorduke’s boat. They escape just in time, but everyone is soaked by a tidal wave. Lorduke and his brother start to argue. Peri and the Doctor are exhausted. To their dismay the Lorduke declares a celebration party!

The TARDIS team boogie down with the Katz of Zazz
 

TV Action

The Trial of A Timelord was well and truly over when this was published. Nicola Bryant (Peri) had left the show months ago and Colin Baker’s replacement was announced halfway through this story.

With its 1930’s American style, a story like this might have worked on TV. It could have fitted the foreign location slot that was becoming regular during the 1980’s. In some ways it recalls the art-deco style of Terror of The Vervoids.

Despite being a popular sci-fi idea, a planet being over-run by self-replicating robots has never been attempted on Doctor Who. The costs would probably have scuppered any serious attempt at such a story. The closest they came was probably Power of The Daleks, where three Daleks become a Dalek army. In cardboard.

At one point the Doctor uses his TARDIS to see the development of the story from another perspective. The only occasion this really happened on the old show was in Pyramids of Mars, but it’s more comparable to The Runaway Bride from the new series, where the Doctor performs a similar trick in observing the formation of the Earth and the arrival of the Racnoss.

As usual, the Doctor and Peri are similar to their TV counterparts, except that they don’t bicker quite so much. Peri even wears a selection of skimpy outfits, presumably to keep the dads reading. Although this version of Peri is not averse to drinking alcohol, something that would never have been allowed to do on screen.
 

4-Dimensional Vistas

Although the artwork is mostly at its usual high standard, there are some parts of the strip that look a bit sketchy, mostly in episode one, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the rush job for Kane’s Story. Whereas the middle of the story is illustrated with Ridgway’s usual organic scratchy lines, in episode four Tim Perkins’ inks lend a cleaner, more traditional comic book style. The inks take the edges off Ridgway’s style, but it makes it less distinctive as well.

Episode two is particularly atmospheric, with the brief appearance of Monektoni Shug who is a lumpy octopus covered in mouths and eyes. The Servotron’s sojourn on the moon and the Doctor’s NASA outfit are lovingly drawn. The robots’ invasion of the city is superb, as they steal baths and bicycles to make their new hive.

When you said it was quicker to go by bath, I didn't mean...
 

End of The Line

Wow! This is some party! Both the lead characters were leaving under enormous black clouds at the time. So it’s very warming to see them having a party and enjoying themselves here. Although by the comic strip standards, it’s still quite straightforward and sober.

It’s a witty and warm story, the characters are breezily drawn and the conclusion is quite satisfying – although at the end of episode three makes you wonder how they can keep this going for another whole month. The Pied Piper trick is slightly over-familiar, but its well reasoned and fits in with the context. Best of all are the Katz of Zazz, who have a memorably comic little society. Zazz looks like a great place to visit. Also, Monektoni Shug is the greatest bit-part character in any comic strip ever.

There’s a complete digression in episode two, as the Doctor travels back in time to discover the history of the robots. It’s strange to see the Doctor using his TARDIS in this way. For once, the title of Time Lord seems appropriate. It’s a neat trick, giving the story a bit more atmosphere and depth.

This might be the last great story of the Colin Baker era. It’s certainly the last story of the era that shows some semblance of sanity.
 

Follow That TARDIS!

Stargate SG-1 has ‘done’ self-replicating robots. Bully for Stargate SG-1.

Where did the Doctor pick up the invitation to Zazz from? The Lorduke doesn’t recognise him and neither does anyone else.

The Doctor’s NASA spacesuit has a neat little Stars and Stripes flag sticking up out of the backpack.

Lorduke’s steamboat is amusingly called ‘The Sea Sharp’.

The Doctor plays a trumpet and is capable of composing a musical score.

In the season poll published the same time as this story, Nature of the Beast came first, followed by Voyager and then Changes.

Monektoni Shug composes a poem as he is about to crash into the moon. ‘I’m a lonely load-lugger on the high-ways of infinity; My thoughts are full of you my love, and our relative proximity; Though space is wide, you’re by my side; As I face the great Divinity.’ Yes, I quoted this in full when I ‘etceteraerd’ Wordsworth last time. Ner.