#christopher baker

TL;DR – It understands that when you cast Don Johnson, you give the man a monologue. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3.5 out of 5. Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film. Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress. Unit 234 The Lock Up Review – One of the more interesting shades of drama out there is the surprise trapped. You are going about…

Joanna Hogg

- Archipelago

Before we begin! Remember to get a copy of the Forgotten Lives Omnibus at this link! I believe pre-orders are open until the 1st of September, you may miss your chance to get this book - don't miss out!

It's no secret to any Classic Who fan (or even modern Who) that the BBC failed to maintain classic stories, with a many missing episodes reanimated to fill these spaces and a majority of Who's third season completely lost to time. Of course, without Doctor Who at home, fans had to find other places to have the Doctor's adventures at home. In 1964 we'd see the first Doctor Who novel released, alongside something much more important to today's discussion - the TV Comics.

I originally made the claim that Christopher Baker (1937-2011) had no proper ties to the show, but I was actually wrong about that. While he wasn't tied down by Doctor Who like other Morbius Doctors were, he was a Production Assistant at the BBC during the 70s. He also went on as a director for shows like Emmerdale and Star Cops later in his career during the 80s.

While the Doctor himself is certainly interesting, I think it's more interesting to discuss his companions for this story. Rather than running into a companion surrogate on an adventure, the Doctor travels with his two children - Jilly and Cedric. As one of the few Doctors in this book with a definitive final story, we get to experience the lives of Jilly and Cedric fully as they travel with their father through time and space.

We've never had the opportunity to meet the children of the Doctor before, so this presents a unique chance to learn more about the Doctor without pulling away the curtain. The idea of the Doctor travelling with two of his children may feel familiar to fans of the TV comics, which introduced us to John and Gillian Who, two other grandchildren - the TV Comics were unable to use the television companions for a time, so instead had the 1st and 2nd Doctors travel with two other grandchildren on adventures. Getting to see more of the paternal side of the Doctor was refreshing, a side that I'd argue we haven't seen since Hartnell's care for characters like Susan, Vicki and Dodo. Cedric and Jilly present a fun dynamic with their Doctor, where he can try and raise them to follow some of the lessons he's taught himself while they offer him a relationship he rarely has the luxury for.

There is other notable things about this Doctor that I personally love. Have you ever read a classic sci-fi from 50, 70, 90 years ago only to find it makes some radical prediction of the future that never came true? This story does much the same thing, with the astonishing year where man has managed to make it to Venus being 1975. For a story written as if it came out in the 40s, 1975 helps it both fit with the fiction of the time's improper predictions while also... honestly just being fun.

The design for the Doctor stands out due to his Pilgrim aesthetic, a nice way of making him seem more anachronistic than even some later Doctors after him. It also nicely contrasts with the design for his TARDIS - the metal pillars give it a feeling reminiscent of the 8th Doctor's TARDIS, while the overall design feels like a cathedral. Considering the subject matter of his first story, The Cross of Venus, it feels apt.

I'm going to be more candid than usual, because the Third Doctor has a personal importance to me. I want to be a writer someday and I'd wanted to write for Doctor Who since I was a kid, but I had fallen out of my passion for both since starting uni and struggling with mental health for a while. Last year, before my second year of uni started, I chose to pick up Forgotten Lives 1&2 because the money went to a good cause (please support Alzheimer's Research). All of the stories in these books helped pull my love of Doctor Who back out, even prompting me to bring out all my old DVDs and start collecting again. As much as my renewed love for the show is thanks to Obverse Books and everyone else involved, my love for writing and storytelling was brought about by "The First Englishmen". It's hard for me to properly explain, but it was @pluralzalpha's story that specifically made me write again, telling the first proper story I had since I was in school. So as dopey as it is, I have immense gratitude both to him and everyone else who worked on Forgotten Lives for getting me to create again. And it's why, so long as pre-orders are open, I'll insist anybody with interest should pick up this book. Support the release and raise money to fight Alzheimers.

For more insight into the creative process of every author that worked on Forgotten Lives, you can go to @forgottenlivesobverse and find interviews from everyone involved across the books. If you're looking for insight on how the outfits were designed, you can go to Paul Hanley's Patreon and find what went into designing each Doctor.

Here's what to expect from the Third Doctor's adventures, travelling time and space with his son and daughter. Expect to see a saboteur on Venus and covered up history.

THE CROSS OF VENUS by Andrew Hickey

THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN by Daniel Tessier

RETROGENESIS (Part Three) by Philip Purser-Hallard

SWAN SONG by Andrew Hickey

Daniel Tessier's 'The First Englishmen' is the first of the volume's two adventures for the Christopher Baker Doctor and his children. Dan has this to say...

What made you want to write for Forgotten Lives 2?

Two reasons. Firstly, I've always loved the mystery surrounding the Morbius Doctors, and I never for a moment bought the idea that they were anything other than the Doctor's past faces, so the opportunity to flesh one of them out was irresistible. More importantly, the first volume was so good I was absolutely dying to be involved in the second, and practically begged to be considered.

What's your story about?

The Christopher Baker Doctor and his children enjoy an adventure in a prehistoric England that never was.

What did you most enjoy about writing for this version of the Doctor?

I loved what Andrew Hickey did with this Doctor in the first book by giving him a family. Having the Doctor travelling with his two young children gives the story a different feel to most of Doctor Who. The closest is probably the old comics which had the Doctor travelling with his grandchildren John and Gillian - who in my head are either Cedric or Jilly's children - but it's more invested than that. There's no doubt that this Doctor really loves his children, and this part of his life really stands out.

What were the influences on your story, and what genre were you writing in?

I was going for an educational adventure, just like Doctor Who started out, but one that was deliberately dated and incorrect by modern standards. I reasoned that Baker's Doctor would have been the current version in the late 40s, maybe very early 50s, and that got me thinking about what sort of inaccurate ideas might have been put forward in his stories.

I've long been fascinated by the Piltdown Man, a famous palaeontological hoax which was purported to be the missing link between man and ape. Piltdown is just up the road from where I grew up so it has a particular place in my heart, and I just love the idea that someone faked a fossil hominid and got away with it. I love even more that it went on for decades, because no scientist would back down and accept the evidence it was fake and so admit they'd been fooled. Especially since it 'proved' that England was the cradle of humanity, and quite right too! It wasn't conclusively proven to be a fake until 1953, so would have been presented as fact in a fictitious historical Doctor Who story before that time.

While I was researching the time period the Piltdown Man supposedly lived in, I was relieved that it was an interglacial - a warmer period between the extremes of an ice age. We're technically in one now. Each interglacial has a name, generally taken from the location key fossils were found, and I was thrilled to discover where this period got its name. That became my very favourite line in the story.

Aside from the one you've used, which of the Forgotten Lives Doctors is your favourite?

The Robert Banks Stewart Doctor -- my Doctor's immediate predecessor -- is probably my favourite. He feels the most fully fleshed in, I can so easily imagine him in his stories. They're all fascinating, though. It's amazing how distinct and well-realised each incarnation is.

Can you describe your story's Doctor in three words?

Archipelago (2010)

Dir. Joanna Hogg