Another anniversary today, another Friday the 13th... the 45th anniversary of the release of Black Sabbath, the first album by the band of the same name, and the birth of Heavy Metal.
Which may not seem like a very Doctor Who subject, but bear with me. Metal has a strong association with horror, fantasy and SF, going right back to the beginning - Black Sabbath refers to the title of a Mario Bava film.
So... time for some album title adventure hooks, drawn from assorted top ten lists as well as some personal favourites...
Black Sabbath: Archaeologists unearth a sleeping Daemon under a church abandoned centuries ago. It’s dormant right now... but for how long?
Master Of Puppets: A new pill that seems to cure the aging process... Oh, and makes the users subject to possession by the creators.
British Steel: Cybermen! Working side-by-side with the Army on the front line of a UN peacekeeping mission? Willing to take point and risk setting off mines? Why are they being so helpful?!
Among The Living: The victim of a notorious murder reappears a year after dying, apparently alive and well with no memory of the time since...
Rust In Peace: An alien invasion fleet... wiped out on their way to attack Earth. Who did it, how and why?
Vulgar Display Of Power: Okay, last time you stopped by modern Earth, flying people who could lift cars were fictional...
Seasons In The Abyss: A prison planet where winter lasts nine months... so how are prisoners dying of heat stroke?
Paranoid: “He claims to be a thousand-year-old alien who travels through time in a telephone box. Clearly a severely deluded mind. But we can cure him. After all, we have the very best doctors...”
Holy Diver: Deep under the Mediterranean, the ruins of an ancient temple, and one of the saints in the mosaics looks a lot like one of the travellers...
Ace Of Spades: The travellers find themselves in Deadwood on the night Wild Bill Hickock is supposed to die... and doesn’t.
Nevermind: The first A.I. created by humanity is the target of an assassin from the future.
Pretty Hate Machine: Movellans! If they’re here, working undercover, can the Daleks be far away?
Number Of The Beast: The Daemon returns... seeking the travellers’ help to fight its ultimate enemy... an angel?
There are some excellent hooks here, as usual. The one that most captures my attention, for some reason, is "British Steel." Though it riffs on an existing story with its echos of "Victory of the Daleks," there's something about the contemporary setting, the image of bomb-disposal Cybermen working on the front lines in a modern war zone, that's engaging.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI was thinking of Victory as I wrote it. To make it different, the Cybermen aren't pretending to be something else. What are they planning... if anything?