Doctor Who – Delta and the Bannermen, by Malcolm Kohll, Target 1989. Number 135 in the Doctor Who Library. 142 pages, paperback. Cover art by Alister Pearson. Original script by Malcolm Kohll, BBC, 1987.
This adventure features the 7th Doctor and Mel.
SPOILER WARNING
This review contains spoilers including revealing the ending of the book.
SUMMARY
While traveling through a particular region of space, the Doctor realizes their route will take the TARDIS through a tollport. Landing the TARDIS to pay their toll, he and Mel find what appears to be an abandoned station only to be surprised when they are congratulated as the ten billionth customers to tollport G715. Their prize is a week in Disneyland in 1959. Deciding that a vacation is in order, Mel takes the space and time traveling tour bus while the Doctor follows in the TARDIS.
In another part of space, the Bannermen, led by Gavrok, have destroyed all but one of a race of people called the Chimeron. Delta, last of her race, escapes in a Bannerman fighter craft with an orb. Her flight takes her to the tollport where she abandons the craft and just makes it on board the tour bus as it departs. The Bannermen arrive right behind her and Gavrok kills the stationmaster. They continue to follow Delta to Earth.
When the bus hits an Earth satellite, the Doctor saves it and the passengers but they are knocked off course. The bus lands in 1959 but near a Welsh holiday camp called Shangri-La. Murray, their bus driver, drops the crystal that would have repaired the navigation system and strands the holidaymaking Navarinos. The Doctor offers to stay while growing a new crystal. They decide to make the best of it when camp leader Burton welcomes them.
On Earth, American government agents Hawk and Weismuller have lost track of the satellite they were in charge of tracking. They do see the Bannerman ship land. They are captured but don't know anything yet Gavrok lets them live.
At Shangri-La, a young handy man named Billy falls in love with Delta, not realizing his friend Rachel, Ray as she prefers, is in love with him. Mel makes friends with Delta and learns her secret just as the orb cracks and a baby Chimeron hatches out. Billy steals a tube of the superfood Delta has been feeding the baby, which growing at an incredible rate, and eats the food, changing himself into a Chimeron.
All things eventually lead to a confrontation between the Doctor and the people of Shangri-La and the Bannermen. Gavrok is determined to wipe out the Chimerons. Using Billy’s sound system, they pipe the young Chimeron girl’s (she was a baby just hours before) song through the speakers, and paralyze the Bannermen. Gavrok is killed by the trap he set on the TARDIS.
All ends well with Billy leaving with Delta, giving his motorcycle to Ray, to bring the Bannermen to justice and to repopulate the Chimeron homeworld with Chimerons that were hidden on a brood planet. The Doctor and Mel leave for another adventure.
OPINION
I found this one to be a bit campy but not so much that I didn't enjoy the story. It was fun, if the love story plot seemed somewhat contrived and sappy. I was horrified when Gavrok destroyed the bus full of Navarinos. I thought using the honey and the bees with a little over the top. This story was both silly and humorous. So Delta and the Bannermen is a funny, campy adventure with a good mix of real threat to keep it interesting. I thought it had a good pace. Malcolm Kohll wrote a good narrative with fun characters. I think I like this more than I expected to. Happy reading!
IMAGE SOURCE
The Doctor Who Reference Guide http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_7f.htm