4,5
http://www.planocritico.com/tag/doctor-who/ ( )

This is an excellent presentation of a 6-part story-that-never-was from the early days of Doctor Who, featuring an encounter with Alexander the Great. And it comes complete with the literary equivalent of DVD extras:

So Near, So Farhi - An updated version of a Doctor Who Magazine article recounting the progress of the script and Farhi's involvement with Doctor Who.

Farewell Great Macedon - The 6 episode script, reproduced from the original typed pages (including x-ing out and scribbled corrections), interspersed with faux Radio Times listings, featuring a dream cast.

The Time Team - The Doctor Who Magazine feature where the team analyse all of the broadcast episodes, blow by blow, from the viewers pov - here adapted slightly, to have them apply the same technique to the script.

Nice Roles In Alex and Alexander Denied - Two more conventional story reviews.

Babylon's Burning - A more in depth appraisal of the script's strengths and failings.

King Of The World - A look at the historical Alexander and a few of the liberties that the script took with his life.

The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance - A bonus script! A one-episode Doctor Who script that Farhi wrote as a demonstration piece.

Bibliography and Filmography.

The script is very well written with a strong grasp of the characters and of the limitations of a 1960s studio-bound drama. But there are some interesting idiosyncrasies when the script is looked at from a 21st century perspective:

The overtly religious statements of the regular cast jar somewhat (even for me!). Although the Doctor has rarely been the logical-positivist sceptic that some fans feel he schould be, only Paul Cornell could get away with some of the dialogue in these episodes. It is interesting that The Masters Of Luxor (another nearly-made script) has similar characteristics.

And then there is the early attempt to explain the ability of the regulars to be able to communicate with everybody they meet, by means of a hypnotic language machine (complete with tape decks and electrodes). That seems very twee today, but is absolutely in keeping with the 'food-pellet machine' that actually did make it into the early episodes.

The script works well as an early episodic drama, if a little morbidly, with each episode leading to the death of one of Alexander's friends. It is also philosophically quite mature with a strong but not preachy message of equality and racial integration. The downside is that the regular cast are little more than observers, unable to change anything, nor do they really become embroiled in the plot to any great extent. The drama would function quite well without any of them. And there isn't really a happy ending, as the baddies (or at least one of them) basically win. The bonus script too has a lovely philosophical idea at its centre. But its ending, also, is far too downbeat for Saturday tea-time.

But two very readable scripts, well presented. And both due to be released (in slightly altered form) as audio plays from Big Finish in November 2010. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1351154.html

This is a fascinating might-have-been, a six episode script for the first season of Doctor Who telling the story of a murder conspiracy against Alexander the Great, by Moris Farhi. It is moderately thrilling stuff: the plot is tight; the characterisation of the Tardis team, Alexander and his generals very good; the sense of historical predestination also consistent with Who as it developed.

But it could never have been made. It's not because of the numerous hostages to continuity offered by Farhi's script - language-teaching machine in the Tardis, the Doctor's belief in God, Susan's statements about their home time - these would have been weeded out in the editorial process. It is not even that the Tardis crew don't really impact events (though that is a weakness of the story). It is simply that it is too sad: Alexander's three closest friends all fall victims to the conspirators, followed by Alexander himself, leaving his realm to be divided between the complicit Seleucus and the loyal Ptolemy. As one of the commentaries in this edition puts it, Barbara and Susan shed more tears in this script than Rose Tyler does in her entire career.

We also have a bonus here, a single episode story (or perhaps the last episode of an unwritten longer story), The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, in which the Tardis crew visits a planet where one of the locals literally dies of love for Barbara. It is also too sad to ever have been turned into a broadcast story, but I think that today's fanficcers would love it - it's totally in tune with the idea of takiing the show's characters to places that the show's writers never could.

So this is strongly recommended, though for slightly different reasons than I thought it might be: good emotional character-driven writing, and a glimpse of how Doctor Who mght have been. ( )