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Read Richard's other BoA column Room 101
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As promised last month, here is part II of our special two-part text interview with leading British cryptozoologist Richard Freeman. In Part One we covered straight Cryptozoology, discussing everything from Alien Big Cats to the British Bigfoot. In this installement, however, we're going to concentrate on the 45 year long relationship between monsters and Freeman's other obsession ... the Sci-Fi World of Doctor Who. Don't worry, that won't stop us discussing some Esoterica along the way ...
Richard Thomas: Welcome back! Thanks for agreeing to do part II of this special two-part text interview. Part I for Room 101 got a lot of great feedback so I'm sure the BoA readers will be looking forward to this one.
First, in part I, you said that Doctor Who, the Jon Pertwee era in particular, played a huge part in you becoming interested in Cryptozoology and other Fortean type subjects. What do you think was your favorite Doctor Who monster growing up and why?
The god awful series V in the 1980s also stole the idea as did the mind bendingly unimaginative Star Trek Voyager in the episode Distant Origins.
None of these feeble imitations can hold a candle to the Sea Devils.
Richard Thomas: The cult series, of course, is famous today for its alien monsters. However, the show was originally envisioned as a semi-educational series for children. The idea being that kids would lean about history via the Doctor's adventures back in time. With this in mind, why do you think the monster stories quickly killed-off the more straight historical dramas like The Aztecs and The Romans?
Richard Thomas: Here here!
The two most successful monsters have to be the Daleks and Cybermen. What are some of your favorite stories featuring them and did you get goose bumbs like me when they finally faced off in Doomsday?
The best Dalek story for me is still Genesis of the Daleks as it introduced Davros. Along with The Joker from Batman, I think Davros is the most effective fictional villain ever. The Nazi symbolism in the story is quite disturbing as well. The implication being that we are the real Daleks.
The best Cyberman story I think was the recent Rise of the Cybermen / Age of Steel. They finally looked like they could actually do some damage for once, rather than just looking like men in silver suits. Once again, of course, the woefully poor Star Trek ripped off another Doctor Who monster with their pathetic looking Borg. The Cybermen have been around since 1966 and would kick the Borg's collective arse!
I loved Army of Ghosts / Doomsday. The return of the Daleks at the end of the first episode is my favorite cliffhanger in the show's history. The fight was a forgone conclusion though. We all knew who would win in a Dalek / Cyberman punch up. The bitchy banter between them was great!
Richard Thomas: One of the best remembered monsters of the black and white era has to be the Yeti robots of the Great Intelligence. Later in the series, the Loch Ness monster appeared in Terror of the Zygons. Personally I think this is great because it gets the young viewers interested in these topics, but as a cryptozoologist what are your thoughts on mixing fact with fiction?
There have been a couple of really bad Loch Ness programs. One built up the idea of the monster as a prehistoric marine reptile then tried to make itself look clever by saying how such a creature could not live in Loch Ness. Ergo the program's message was that the monster, if it existed, had to be a plesiosaur. Plesiosaurs could not live in Loch Ness so there was no such thing as the Loch Ness Monster. This is bollocks. Nobody who has seriously studied the phenomena thinks the monster is a plesiosaur. The smart money is on some kind of huge fish possibly a giant eel.
I think the Russian Caucasus Mountains will be the place where a hominid will first be discovered. I think I may have come to within 12 feet of one on an abandoned farm at 2.30 am last summer. The almasty seems to approach human habitation in this area. People do not shoot at or hunt the creature so it has little fear of them. Here I think here is a chance of some level of integration with a relic hominid.
I would write a Doctor Who story where dragons are a race of ancient reptiles that existed in the Universe before our own. To escape its destruction they projected themselves through time to our Universe. The Time Lords saw this as a crime against time (something from a past Universe existing in the modern one) and tried to hunt them down. The Time Lords were badly defeated and the dragons went into eons long hibernation after the battle. They now occur in the legends of every culture in the Universe and have spawned cults that worship them (much like the Elder Gods of HP Lovecraft). Some of them are beginning to awaken.
As for a setting there could be many choices. I could base it around the Chinese legend of the Ying-lung, a winged dragon who killed the Chinese god of war (distorted memories of the battle with the Time lords). Or I could set it in modern day Japan as a tribute to the Godzilla films. Huge dragons rampage through Tokyo and create thought form servants that recall the yokai (ghosts and monsters of Japanese legend) such as the kappa, tengu, mouryo, oni, yunki-onna and so on. Or I could set it in rural England where a Wicker Man style cult worshiping a slumbering dragon plan to awaken it.
Richard Thomas: We're probably in agreement there. The more I look into the the topic of UFOs the more I think they're Earth based rather than from outer space. Though probably in some other dimension or time like you say.
Mac Tonnies, of course, is also known for his book on Mars anomalies. The Ice Warriors of Mars are one of the big four recurring Doctor Who monsters (with the Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarians) what do you think of the idea that intelligent life could have once existed on the red planet?
Richard Thomas: That's probably the most likely scenario but I wouldn't rule out the idea that Mars might have been colonized by an advanced civilization millions of years ago. Kind of like the backstory to the Pyramids of Mars. Why not remind our readers again about your upcoming books and stuff.
You can follow my cryptozoological expeditions at www.cfz.org.uk
Richard Thomas, BoA UK Correspondent and Columnist.
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