Heritage

Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: Doctor Who: Novels: Seventh Doctor: Heritage
Synopsis: The Doctor and Ace spend a few days on a dusty ex-mining planet.

Thoughts: Well, OK, so they discover that Sweetness is a good girl, and Bernard is a bad dolphin, and that a few years ago the neighbours did in Mel and her husband cos the colony wanted to become rich and famous thanks to Professor Wakeling creating the first human clone (Excuse me. This is the 61st century!) and Mel was a bit pissed off that it was HER clone (aren't we all), but basically Heritage is so excruciatingly boring that it would have been impossible to give a toss even if the Companion in question hadn't been someone I've spent years fantasising about killing. And may I suggest that Dale Smith sees a psychiatrist immediately, because as obsessions go, having one about Sylvester McCoy's eyeballs - those alien grey slate grey ice-cold wise inhuman grey unsmiling crystal orbs, like grey pools, like grey pinpricks in infinity - is really worrying.

Courtesy of Emily

Roots: Bad Day at Black Rock. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. Yojimbo. The Simpsons episode "Night of the Dolphin" (Bernard). Mark Twain's "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg."

By Emily on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 5:36 am:

To elaborate on the numerous things wrong with this hideous excuse for a book...

1) Sorry to be predictable, but...it's sexist. It's the 61st or whatever century and people are going round saying things like 'Hayworth was sick of the village so he took his wife to the flats.' Excuse me - was she in a wheelchair or something, and therefore incapable of taking herself anywhere? And didn't she get a vote on the move?

2) Whilst I can fully understand and sympathise with everyone's desperation with the situation on Heritage – a few pages into the book I was almost ready to rip someone to pieces myself if that meant I could escape – surely, rather than destroying an innocent man (a neighbour, a FRIEND) - in this fashion, and then spending another several years eating dust and praying nobody would find out and keeping their fingers crossed that Wakeman's experiments would eventually lead to lots of people coming to Heritage and (presumably) giving the planet a good vacuuming...where was I...oh yes, wouldn't the more simple, rational response to 'God, I hate Heritage' be to PICK UP THE BLOODY PHONE AND ASK FOR A LIFT TO THE NEAREST INHABITED PLANET?

3) Talking of hitching lifts, why did the Doctor take a spaceship rather than the TARDIS? No explanation was given, unless you count a mention that the Doctor had started using local transport. And it wasn't exactly vital to the plot (seeing as there WASN'T a plot) – were we supposed to get all excited by the pilot's murder? Oh. Sorry.

4) The morose Seventh Doctor was a bad, baaaaaaaad idea. It was OK for five minutes in The Eight Doctors (ironic, given that it's about the only thing that WAS OK in The Eight Doctors) but it was thoroughly tedious dragged out to novel length. Especially as I didn't have the foggiest WHY he'd apparently been acting this way for months. Only at the end, with the mention of him digging up graves, was my memory jogged about Ace's supposedly imminent demise. Prime Time was YEARS ago! And not very good. How am I supposed to remember what happened in it - even if I had any idea where all the confusing Seventh Doctor/Ace PDAs were supposed to fit in with each other, the NAs and the TV series.

5) The dust. Goddess help me, that dust. If you thought Dust was a dusty planet, you ain't seen nothing yet. I realise that having two mentions per page of how the dust gets everywhere is positively restrained in comparison with the number of times the Doctor's eyes pop up, but nonetheless it's EXTREMELY annoying. Though at least I'll never complain about Drift's snow, ever again.


By Mike Konczewski on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 7:38 pm:

Wow. What a boring, pretentious, over-written piece of twaddle. There was enough plot here for maybe a short story, but Mr. Smith managed to pad it out with numerous references to the Doctor's eyes, Bernards inner monologues, and descriptions of red, red dust.

If the Doctor hasn't seen Mel since "Dragonfire", and has no idea how she arrived on Heritage, how did he know to visit her?

Did Mel program the Fussies on the off-chance that she'd be murdered AND that the Doctor would visit?

So if the murder victim hadn't been Mel, the Doctor would have left Heritage and the mystery behind. Yeah, I believe that.

The Doctor's mood and his attitude make no sense unless you read "Loving the Alien." If you dare...

What happened to Bernard?

Please BBC Books, no more Doctor Who westerns! It's a terrible idea! SF and Westerns do not mix!

Why was Mel so opposed to having a clone?

Menopause is not a "rare medical condition."

Note to Mr. Smith--people do not purr, especially when they are speaking.


By Emily on Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 12:35 pm:

The Doctor HAS seen Mel since Dragonfire. They had a run-in in Head Games. (You know...it's on the cover. A truly delightful picture of the Doctor threatening Mel with a bloody big gun.)


By Mike Konczewski on Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 1:47 pm:

Chronologically, he hasn't seen her yet. "Head Games" takes place long after "Heritage" for the Doctor. Remember, he's travelling with Benny, Chris and Roz in "Head Games."


By Emily on Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 3:09 pm:

Oh. Yeah. This NA/Seventh Doctor PDA stuff does my head in worse than Festival of Death. One day I shall have to reread Head Games, bearing in mind that the Doctor not only fails to drop any 'Don't go to Heritage' hints to Mel, but doesn't even experience the faintest twinge of conscience about not doing so...


By Mike Konczewski on Sunday, May 16, 2004 - 2:37 pm:

We're talking about Mel here, Emily. If I were the Doctor, I'd hand her a travel brochure and a coupon for 50% off for a ticket to Heritage. ;-)


By Daniel OMahony on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 6:28 pm:

When the Doctor does magic tricks for Li'l Mel, the book refers to him producing objects from various of her unspecified "orifices". Am I alone in finding this a bit worrying?

This is quite blatantly 'Doctor Who does Bad Day at Black Rock', which is great because it means I can imagine Spencer Tracy as the Doctor and he's a lot better than Sylvester McCoy.

This is probably over-extended as a novel but would have worked perfectly as a novella. It's definitely one of the few PDAs I've read recently that actually feels like some thought has been put into its conception. Sadly, it's one of the books that 'Sometime Never...' spits on.


By Mike Konczewski on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 8:11 pm:

I'm sure by "orifices" the author meant nose and ears, but I can see your point, Daniel.

I think a short story would have been sufficient; even a novella would have been too long.

I don't know that I would say "Sometime Never" spit on this book. Frankly, I was relieved to find that Sarah Jane, Harry, et all probably didn't die meaningless deaths.


By Emily on Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 6:18 am:

THOUGHT? THOUGHT??? THOUGHT!!!!

(Yes, sometimes a Colin Bakery attitude CAN come in handy!)

Unless you count the thought that went into describing McCoy's eyeballs in fifteen thousand different ways, no thought whatsoever has been put into this thing. A five-year-old could have picked holes in the plot - all the more remarkable, given that there WASN'T what one generally understands to be a plot.

Short story? I think it'd've made a great drabble...


By Daniel OMahony on Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 12:12 pm:

It's more of a mood book than a plot book, which is why I think the novella format would have suited it...


By Emily on Sunday, August 22, 2004 - 7:55 am:

Hmm. Supposing everything HAD miraculously gone to plan vis-a-vis ripping Mel n'husband to pieces, rearing the brat*, proclaiming the invention of cloning, and having thousands of people turn up to gawp and spend tourist dollars. Surely the first thing the tabloids, biographers AND scientists would do would be to poke around in Sweetness's background? And hence discover that her mysteriously-disappeared parents had in fact been murdered? And promptly haul the population of Heritage off for a very public trial and (one would hope) execution?

*Yes, Mike, I AM making an effort to stop referring to kids as brats, but this is mini-Mel we're talking about, so I hope it's allowable, just this once...


By Daniel OMahony on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 4:42 pm:

Well if she was a clone, they wouldn't be looking for parents... though obviously finding out the cell donor has been horribly murdered would be a bit of a setback. Until the investigators realised it was Bonnie Langford.

Actually, post-'Sometime Never...', what does happen on Heritage?


By Mike Konczewski on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 10:29 pm:

I'm guessing that Mel never made it to Heritage in the post SN world, but was returned to Earth with Ace (as kind of indicated in "Head Games").


By Emily on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 2:35 pm:

Great! Absolutely great! So not only did I have the excruciating tedium of reading this book, but it now didn't happen so I needn't've bothered! (You'd think I'd be used to this feeling, after all those alternative universe EDAs...)

Incidentally...how did Head Games indicate this happened? My dim memories of it imply it took place not long after Mel parted company with Glitz, i.e. long before Mel got married and inexplicably settled on loser-planet.


By Mike Konczewski on Friday, August 27, 2004 - 4:32 am:

I went back and rechecked the book. Turns out the Doctor took her back. She'd requested that it be sometime in the 1990s. I'm pretty sure he got it right, because Ace went with her. If it'd been the wrong time, Ace could have used her time hopper to get her home.

"Head Games" took place years after Glitz dumped her on some backwater planet.


By Graham on Friday, September 17, 2004 - 3:00 am:

Finished reading this and am in complete disagreement with Emily. Just for once :)

It's not only a mood book as Daniel mentions but a character study as well. It's what the old NA writers used to do except this is actually a talented author doing it for reasons of the story rather than merely attempting to show their cleverness. Some of the descriptive language used is wonderful and made it a pleasure to read.


By Emily on Friday, September 17, 2004 - 3:35 pm:

What what what what what what WHAT!!!!!!!!!!

What characterisation?

(Cos 'Hey, look at me, I'm miserable' really doesn't count as characterisation, for the Doctor OR for all those dreary non-entities the book was populated with.)

What story?

(Cos 'Oh look, Mel was murdered!' really doesn't qualify as a STORY.)

And what wonderful descriptive language?

(Though I'll give him points for trying. No human being has EVER attempted to describe dust OR eyeballs quite so many times in one book.)


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Saturday, February 16, 2013 - 4:15 pm:

'Ace is still under the influence of her cheetah side...has a tendency to snarl and hiss when provoked: she's a tiger when her dander's up' - DWM. If that's the case (and obviously I wouldn't remember), why ONLY on Heritage? Where the hell is this Cheetah side during her hundreds of OTHER PDAs, NAs and audios?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Thursday, September 11, 2014 - 1:48 am:

Dale Smith in the DWM Preview: 'I think Heritage actually resembles the "Doctor arrives in a small English village to find something is terribly wrong" stories - Pyramids of Mars and Horror of Fang Rock especially.' - There were no small English villages in Pyramids or Horror (plus, they were good).

'And I wanted to bring something of the idea that the Doctor actually is thousands of years old' - er...he's not.

'And I'm a New Adventures kid! There's more and more of us as time goes on, you know. One day there'll be a book written by someone who's never even seen the TV series' - the HELL there will! Ye of little faith!


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Thursday, March 17, 2022 - 12:54 pm:

'Oh look, Mel was murdered!' really doesn't qualify as a STORY.

Especially given the fact Instruments of Darkness states that Mel returned to her parents' home from her travels in space in 1991...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Monday, September 12, 2022 - 12:52 pm:

'Oh look, Mel was murdered!' really doesn't qualify as a STORY.

Especially given the fact Instruments of Darkness states that Mel returned to her parents' home from her travels in space in 1991...


Never mind Instruments of Darkness, there's the most hideous rumour vis-a-vis the filming of TennantDoc's latest opus...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, October 23, 2022 - 3:11 pm:

'And I wanted to bring something of the idea that the Doctor actually is thousands of years old' - er...he's not.

OK, fine, SHE IS, whatever.

Never mind Instruments of Darkness, there's the most hideous rumour vis-a-vis the filming of TennantDoc's latest opus...

Actually Mel's appearance in JODIE!'s last opus was surprisingly unpainful (by which I mean delightful) and SCREWING HERITAGE was just an added bonus.


By Brad J Filippone (Binro_the_heretic) on Thursday, February 22, 2024 - 5:26 pm:

Surprisingly, the online reviews I found for this one were mixed. There were just about as many loving it as hating it.

Heritage drinking game. Take a drink every time the planet's red desert is described. See if you make it past the first two or three chapters.

I would describe this one as atmospheric. Like what the atmosphere is like at the top of Mount Everest--very thin!

There were aspects that I liked. I thought that Bernard was an interesting concept, though I found it hard to imagine how a dolphin would operate the walker he went around in. And it's a bit annoying that we are not told his fate. He's in a bad way, and can't communicate. I'd like to think that Cole finished him off, but we aren't told.

The first time I came across the name Sweetness in the book, I assumed it was an affectionate nickname, like when you address a child as "honey," or "dear." But then I came to realize it was the girl's actual name! Who would be so cruel to a child as to give her that name? Can you imagine a child having that name and growing up to be a leader of some big corporation, or perhaps a political party leader and having to say something like, "Vote for me! I'm Sweetness of the Labour Party!" (or any other party). Would the voters take her seriously?
Seriously, if your name was Sweetness, wouldn't you want to change it?

My biggest issue with this one is the casual killing off of an established Companion from the TV episodes.
This note was added at the end of the entry for Heritage on the Doctor Who Reference Guide:

"Mel’s fate appears at first glance to contradict the New Adventure Head Games, in which the disillusioned Mel returns to late 20th-century Earth after meeting a darker Seventh Doctor and Spacefleet-soldier Ace. The short story Business as Usual confirms that Mel returned home to Pease Pottage after her travels with the Doctor. However, Head Games has yet to happen at this point in the Doctor’s life, and during the course of Heritage the Doctor admits that he doesn’t know how Mel ended up in this time period and speculates that he may meet her again in the future. Presumably at some point after her experiences in Head Games, Mel travelled in time once again, but the details have yet to be revealed. It may be worth noting that if she travelled with the Doctor again, then he likely dropped her off in the future knowing full well what her fate would be -- ironically, reinforcing the reason she took her leave of him “forever” in Head Games."

Okay, well, I can't comment on Head Games as I'm still three NAs away from reading it, but as the Reference Guide hasn't been updated since 2013 (a shame really--I wonder if the writer of that excellent site just got tired of it, or passed away), there is also no mention of Mel appearances in recent episodes. Are we to assume that Mel returned to our time, and then at some future date traveled to the 61st Century and got married, and then got killed. Since Heritage deals with clones, I prefer to think that it was a clone that got killed and not the "real" Mel, but of course, there is nothing in the book to suggest that.

All in all, I would have to say that Heritage does give us some interesting characters (except for Wakeling's two henchpersons, Ed and Christa--they were boring), but didn't give us enough of a story to enjoy them.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Friday, February 23, 2024 - 12:03 am:

Heritage drinking game. Take a drink every time the planet's red desert is described. See if you make it past the first two or three chapters.

Funnily enough, I could almost-take the painful obsession with every sodding grain of sand. It was the Doctor's-eyeball obsession that drove me into a foaming frenzy.

I thought that Bernard was an interesting concept

To anyone who hasn't read numerous Steve Lyons Selachian books, anyway...

The first time I came across the name Sweetness in the book, I assumed it was an affectionate nickname, like when you address a child as "honey," or "dear." But then I came to realize it was the girl's actual name! Who would be so cruel to a child as to give her that name?

Mel Bush and anyone who'd MARRY Mel Bush, that's who.

Her previous boyfriend was literally a genocidal maniac, remember.

My biggest issue with this one is the casual killing off of an established Companion from the TV episodes.

Yeah, but it's MEL so the main problem is not showing us all the gory details...

(Dammit I've gotta try to stop hating her, haven't I. If THE DOCTOR found her worthy to be his bigeneration handmaiden...)

as the Reference Guide hasn't been updated since 2013 (a shame really--I wonder if the writer of that excellent site just got tired of it, or passed away)

Yeah, TARDIS Wiki is great but for accurate detailed info the Reference Guide was way better...


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