The Dr Who Annual 1966: "The Monsters from Earth", illustrated by Walter Howarth

The Dr Who Annual 1966
"The Monsters from Earth"
Written by [unknown]
Illustrated by Walter Howarth
Published: September 1965

What's It All About

"The Monsters from Earth" represents the sort of story I expect to find in these annuals that are produced mainly for a child audience. The basic set-up is there in that two children, Tony and Amy, as well as their dog Butch stumble into the Tardis while playing a game of hide-and-seek on Earth in 1966. That seems fair enough, although I really can't see the Doctor leaving the door open to allow the children to enter while he wandered about trying to get his bearings. Still, it's a means to an end.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Out of the three stories from this annual I've read so far, this story probably has the most exciting visuals and the addition of some companions also seem to liven things up as the previous stories, especially "The Lost Ones", had the Doctor talking to himself about how he invented the atmospheric density jackets while he was slowly asphyxiating from lack of air.  Indeed, the visual of having the TARDIS caught in a giant spider's web and being menaced by said giant spider is probably more terrifying that Pertwee's encounter with "The Great One" in Planet of the Spiders.

Like the previous story, this one features an alien race from the show's first season. No, it's not the Daleks. Nor the Voord. It's the Sensorites! The illustrations are terrible, but the Sensorites weakness for loud noise and darkness is mentioned and exploited in this story, yet their telepathic abilities go unmentioned. This story is presented as being the Doctor's first contact with the Sensorites, however, I'm sure that he had never encountered the Sensorites before The Sensorites. Maybe it's my faltering memory. This story also adds a dash extra to the Sensorites by suggesting that they worship the giant spiders in the caves and to hurt them is blasphemous.

My favourite part of the story has to be the Doctor trying to convince the Sensorites to throw him back in the cave where the TARDIS is located by suggesting numerous ways of exterminating the spiders, only for the Sensorites to turn around and say that they could not expose the spiders to such blasphemy and a being that could cause so much harm to them.

Overall, an improvement over the first two stories, and we get to see the very first companions. As for his promise to get Tony, Amy and Butch back to 1966 at the exact moment they left...

7/10

Continuity Corner

• This story represents The Doctor's first contact with the Sensorites.