Mystery on the Supermax
This is the type of Doctor Who story I liked, namely the ones that were set in space on board a spaceship or an asteroid of some sort. There were not many of them (probably because doing a story set entirely in space was not the easiest, or cheapest, of episodes to make, though when one comes to books that is a different story). Some suggest that Doctor Who is little more than 'Monster of the Week' but I would see it as one's weekly dose of Science-fiction. That is what I saw Star Trek: The Next Generation as being, though I never really liked Star Trek.
This book stars Romana II, the Fourth Doctor, and K9 and they arrive on an asteroid that has been turned into a supermax prison. On the asteroid they meet up with a detective who is investigating a murder of survey team. The method of death suggested a criminal that was on the rock, however the catch was that this criminal had been executed three years ago. As one can expect with Doctor Who, not everything is as it seems, and when one comes to alien powers, the proverbial sky is the limit.
This book brings back the Ogrons. Their only appearance in Doctor Who was in the episodes the Day of the Daleks and The Frontier in Space, where they were used as the Dalek's grunt force. The Ogrons are basically big hulking humanoids that seem only good for war and guard duties. The Daleks on the otherhand are a race of creatures that were on the brink of destruction during a war on their home world, and they survived simply because a scientist invented a way of removing their brains from their bodies and inserting them into machines. I originally believed the Daleks were robots, but they are not. If anything they are cybernetic organisms, sort of like if we were to remove our brains and insert them into our cars, so that we become one with the car.
There is always the joke about the Daleks not being able to climb stairs, and we even had one silly Doctor Who episode where he runs up stairs to escape them only to discover that they can levitate. In the original episode (Doctor Who and the Daleks), they could only glide along metal roads, however they later developed the ability to cross rough terrain. As for their levitating ability, I would suggest that they have had that ability for a while, it was just not possible with the budget and the special effects at the time of the original series to have them act in such a way. These days, in the new episodes, the Daleks basically fly, and even travel through space without the need of a spaceship.
It seems that I have drifted off to talk about Daleks when this book does not involve them. None of the Virgin books seem to deal with Daleks, though they do exist in the background. There is mention of the Dalek War that is fought between the humans and the Daleks in the future, however no specific book was written around them. I believe that it is because they did not have the rights to use them.
While the books themselves are not canonical, it really does come down to the interpretation. Also, while it might be interesting to turn some of these stories into an episode, to remain faithful to the series it would be very difficult, particularly since at least three of the actors that played the Doctor are now dead, and others are simply too old. Tom Baker, when he retired from the role, did not want to have anything to do with Doctor Who again, to the point that in the Five Doctors the creators used stock footage to represent his appearance (as they also did with the first Doctor, who at the time, was dead).
