Ian Millsted

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3839363.html

I thought this was one of the better Black Archive books. The chapters are as follows:

- an introduction, in which we learn that writer Terence Dudley actually pitched a story to Doctor Who at the very beginning, under Verity Lambert;
- the story's roots in Agatha Christie, Murder Must Advertise and Jane Eyre;
- the roots of the horror elements of the story in Frankenstein, The Elephant Man, and the presentation of mental illness and disability in Jane Eyre (again), The Woman in White, East Lynne, The Secret Garden and also other Doctor Who stories;
- class, race and (briefly) colonisation in Black Orchid and in Doctor Who as a whole;
- cricket in Doctor Who as a whole, and how Black Orchid successfully rises to the challenge of making it look interesting in a short TV story, despite awful weather on the day of filming;
doubles in Doctor Who, from The Massacre to Osgood, circling back to Black Orchid;
- a brief note on two-part stories in Old Who and 45-minute stories in Who generally;
- an appendix asking if Black Orchid is a true historical story (answer: more or less);
- another appendix on the Cranleigh family in spinoff fiction, most notably in Justin Richards' The Sands of Time (which I loved);
- a final appendix responding to critique of the story by the "Watcher" column in Doctor Who Magazine (but mostly agreeing).

Like I said, one of the better Black Archives, with a lot to think about for a very short story.… (mehr)