BASIC PLOT
In the midst of turmoil, the people of New York cry out for their gods, but now it seems that their gods have answered. Steven wants to believe, but the Doctor is more sceptical. And a schoolgirl named Dodo has just stumbled upon a police box that wasn't there that morning.

DOCTOR
First.

COMPANIONS
Steven and Dodo.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Wimbledon Common (seen at the end of The Massacre)

Outside a laundrette on West 25th Street, Manhatten, New York.

PREPARATORY READING
None, although it helps to be familiar with the events of The Massacre.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 9 "The nearest she could manage to a southern accent" After rehearsals were complete, but before recording, the producers of The Ark were told by their superiors that cockney accents were not allowed on the BBC. Consequently, Jackie Lane's accent varies throughout her first full story.

Pg 10 "That John Smith's gear! [...] But those Common Men are to die for!" John Smith and the Common Men was the band Susan listened to in An Unearthly Child.

Pg 35 "She raced gratefully across Wimbledon Common, towards the police box." This is the final scene from The Massacre. Dodo's backstory is given here and the rest of the adventure slots between that scene and the opening of The Ark. But see Continuity Cock-Ups

Pg 41 "In New York City, after only twenty minutes" In The Ark, Dodo is surprised that the TARDIS has travelled in time, which allows this adventure to happen, as it only travels in space.

Pg 45 "Dodo had sensed some tension between the pair" The Doctor and Steven have just had a big falling out about the conclusion of The Massacre.

Pg 48 "She was growing up. She had her young man to take care of her." The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Pg 58 "The Daleks had destroyed New York in the mid twenty-second century." The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

"He had looked out over the city from the top of what had become, once again, its tallest building." Steven looking out from the Empire State Building is an in-joke referring to Morton Dill, also played by Peter Purves, being on the top of the Empire State Building in The Chase.

Pg 59 Reference to Daleks.

Pg 60 Reference to Daleks and Cybermen and a synopsis of The Massacre.

Pg 61 "His one friend during that long period was a stuffed panda bear called Hi-Fi. [...] The eventual arrival of the Doctor with his zeal for justice and his astonishing space/time machine" The Chase.

"This morning Steven had walked out of the TARDIS forever." The Massacre.

"He needed [...] A place where he might be able to help, on a small scale at least." This eventually happens in The Savages.

Pgs 63-64 "But then he had found more credible evidence - metal monsters at Shoreditch in London, strange goings-on at Corman in Nevada." Remembrance of the Daleks, First Frontier.

Pg 65 "Not to the man who had battled Daleks and Mechanoids and alien schemers with incredible technology." The Chase (and Dalek Masterplan), The Time Meddler.

Pg 83 Reference to Susan.

Pg 120 "He had seen too much pain caused by religious dogma, most recently in France." The Massacre.

Pg 133 "Of note is Peter Cushing's portrayal of the mysterious government advisor Doctor Who. Alas, Cushing's endearingly eccentric professor is as fictional as the rest of Prey for a Miracle." Peter Cushing played an endearingly eccentric version of the first Doctor in the two films.

Pg 141 "Do I look like a Tzun or a Dalek?" The Doctor is making broad references, but to General Marchant they clearly refer to the events of First Frontier and Remembrance of the Daleks (see pages 63-64).

Pg 145 "Yes, yes, there are some evil creatures in this universe, and they must be fought." This is the first Doctor's version of the famous speech from The Moonbase.

Pg 160 "He thought of [,...] Mechanus and the Daleks." The Chase (and possibly The Dalek Masterplan).

Pg 161 "Did the Doctor not kill Anne Chaplet?" The Massacre. Also, note that the spelling here is the same as Dodo's surname (as per the scripts), correcting an error from page 26 of Lyons' The Completely Useless Encyclopedia.

Pg 163 "Steven thought of an earth prepared for the Daleks' invasion." The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Pg 164 "You, who championed the people of Greece, and yet left those of France to be massacred? You, who burnt Rome and yet sabotaged your friend's attempt to save the Aztec race? You, who cold-bloodedly arranged for Rebecca Nurse to die, and dragged Katarina into a conflict she could neither understand nor survive?" The Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Romans, The Aztecs, The Witch Hunters, The Dalek Masterplan.

Pg 175 "Watch this space." Possibly a reference to one of John Nathan-Turner's lines about the show's future.

Pg 178 "Or to summon the construct from interstitial time" The Time Monster.

Pg 181 "I know more about time than you can ever hope to learn - have learned it the hard way indeed" In The Aztecs, the Doctor makes reference to having tried and failed to do something similar to what Barbara attempts.

"In France we couldn't do anything in case it altered history." The Massacre.

Pg 226 "Now listen here, young man, this body of mine may be wearing a bit thin" The Doctor says something similar just before he regenerates in The Tenth Planet.

Pg 271 "What does she think the TARDIS is, some sort of advanced aircraft?" Reference to Dodo's surprise that the TARDIS has travelled in time in The Ark.

Pg 272 "I still don't agree with you about Anne, though." The Massacre.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
General Charles Marchant, Kathy Marchant, Professor Byron Carter, Alexander Lullington-Smythe.

The empathic aliens, although only Joseph may retain any personality or memory by the end.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Pg 94 "If he hadn't been in such an infernal hurry to be leaving, I could have given him a key to the TARDIS." The Doctor says that he will give Steven a key on page 245 of The Empire of Glass.
2. Pg 144 "Aunt Margaret? It's Dorothea." When Dodo phones home to her aunt, there isn't even a mention made of the death of Mr. Millar to whom Dodo was last seen leaving to visit and subsequently and abruptly disappeared from the London scene! Millar's body must've been found and questions asked, surely? (With thanks to Tim Snelling.)

PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]

1. The Doctor never gets around to making an extra key.
2. Aunt Margaret suspects that Dodo killed the man and so hid the body herself to protect her niece.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Unnamed aliens, who shape themselves to people's expectations.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
London, at and around Wimbledon Common, March 1965.

Manhatten, New York, March-April 1965

The Land of the Gods, an extra-dimensional reality.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
There's little that's tangibly wrong with Salvation, but it feels all off. It has some nice moments - Dodo flicking an inviting lever on page 183 is hilarious - and there's some clever stuff with the setting and Dodo's introduction, but the main story isn't particularly strong. The unnamed aliens don't come across as mysterious, just underdone almost to the point of laziness. There's a lot more that could have been done with the themes of hope and expectations shaping our worldview than we get here.