REVIEW: The Black Archive - Midnight by Philip Purser-Hallard

Obverse Books' Black Archive range is something of a marvel. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to find a book's worth of material to say about each and every Doctor Who story, but here we are, at the 69^th volume. Philip Purser-Hallard (The Pendragon Protocol, The Vanishing Man, Of the City of the Saved...) delivers his fourth entry in the series with Midnight, analysing the 2008 episode widely considered one of modern Who's finest hours (or at least, one of its finest 43 minutes). It's even more impressive to create an engaging full-length piece on a single episode, although that this is even possible shows the depth of many of Doctor Who's 21^st century episodes. Midnight itself is an episode that is crying out for a dissection like this, so it's surprising it's taken so long for the range to reach it.

In spite of episode's simple storyline and production, a consequence of the need to produce an episode cheaply and quickly before season four's big finale, it's a narrative filled with questions and room for exploration. Purser-Hallard delves into the traditions of the script, both televisual and theatrical, drawing fascinating parallels with productions both within the series (such as The Edge of Destruction) and without (Arthur Miller's The Crucible). Purser-Hallard analyses the social commentary within the episode, delving into each character's background, taking them apart to show remarkable depth for what, at first glance, may seem like sketched-in characters. He notes that the script's author, Russell T. Davies, picks out easily recognisable archetypes to populate his story, but that this adds depth and complexity without the need to spell everything about the characters out. Some of the analysis of the character names seems to be taking things a little far, though, seeing parallels that unlikely to be deliberate. Similarly, the seemingly counter-intuitive name for the planet and story, Midnight, was probably chosen for no deeper reason than it sounded cool.

Purser-Hallard takes a very writerly perspective on the episode, viewing it in context with the traditions of storytelling. As well as more contemporary forms of story, he adroitly links Midnight, with its nameless horror that steals the very voice of the protagonist, to fairytales and folklore. Even then, he brings it bang up to date by comparing it with the most recent Doctor Who episode, The Church on Ruby Road, with its own take on fairytale monsters. From a fan perspective, some of the most interesting parts of the book deal with the fiction itself. After all, with the possible exception of Listen, Midnight features the most obscure and unknowable monster of any Doctor Who story, simply asking for an essay discussing just who or what it is. Equally intriguing is the later section dealing with the Doctor's character in this episode, one which takes him to task for his many flaws; again, Purser-Hallard's essay reflects the story itself while also looking at it through the lens of the most recent Doctor Who episodes, in which David Tennant returned as an older, more refined version of his Doctor.

As effective as the main essays are, the part that was most informative for me was the appendix, which details the three stage productions of Midnight. This was news to me, and it was fascinating to read the differences between the productions in their approaches to performance and casting, backed up by interviews with some of the creatives involved. Altogether, a very strong entry to the Black Archive, giving the reader plenty to think about next time they watch this acclaimed episode.

Doctor Who: The Christmas Specials

Available now is my overview of all thirteen Christmas specials from 2005 to 2017, featuring the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, each one rated for story strength and Christmassy-ness. A nice bit of nostalgic festive rewatching before Doctor Who returns to the Christmas Day schedules with the Fifteenth Doctor.

Read it now at Television Heaven.

WHO REVIEW: Once and Future 5 & 6

So, you may notice that I haven't reviewed the 3rd and 4th instalments of Big Finish's Once and Future anniversary series. This is because I haven't bought or listened to them. Release 3, A Genius for War, sees the Doctor shift into his seventh self, played by Sylvester McCoy, to face Davros at the height of the Time War. While that sounds like it might be a strong story, the Seventh Doctor vs. Davros and the Daleks again is just.. old hat. We've seen it before. So it didn't pique my interest.

Still, it sounds an awful lot more interesting than release 4, Two's Company. The Sixth Doctor, the Two (an earlier version of the Eleven), Lady Christina, Harry Sullivan and Jackie Tyler? Why? Whatever led anyone to put that random selection of characters together? Particularly Jackie, who seemed to be in almost every BF release in August. I assume Camille Coduri was at a loose end when these were recorded, and is presumably cheap.

So I may well have missed a couple of important points, but that's where the TARDIS Wiki, for all its eccentricity, is your friend. The important question answered: yes, the Doctor's clothes are regenerating (or degenerating) along with him, and in release 5, The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50, we learn that even his screwdriver is changing with him. This story also reveals that the Doctor's degeneration is able to shift him into future incarnations, which is how Stephen Noonan's teeth-grating impersonation of the First Doctor is able to suddenly turn into David Tennant, as what I assume is the Tenth Doctor (but with all the Tennant Doctors running around, who knows?)

Given that to make the story work the Doctor's memory is shifting backwards and forwards, giving them knowledge seemingly at random, you've got to wonder why they didn't just set this series in the show's "present," instead of the Time War.

Anyway, Planetoid 50 is good fun. The Paternoster Gang are always good value, and it makes sense for them to be running around the invasion from The War of the Worlds, even if this isn't really London (it's not even Woking). I liked Hannah Genesius as the Doctor's one-off companion, the beautifully named Jessamy Moore. But the real draw of this episode is the inclusion of Missy, giving us the opportunity for Michelle Gomez to play against Tennant. They absolutely fizz together, with the gobbiest Doctor up against a version of the Master even more glib and self-obsessed than he is. 

It seems that the Master is suffering from the same degeneration issue as the Doctor (presumably they're actually in their Yana incarnation? I'm not sure anymore), and while Missy and the Doctor part company, it's not long before they're reunited in release six, Time Lord Immemorial. This episode sees the Doctor and the Master's unending frenemyship linked to an chaotic event that threatens the entire universe. So, the stakes are getting a lot higher.

The real draw here, though, and the reason I wasn't going to miss this release, is the team-up between Christopher Eccleston and David Warner as the Ninth and Unbound Doctors. The very last appearance of Warner for Big Finish, and, I believe, his last performance before he died last year, it's a significant moment, and having the Manc Doctors together is a treat. Yet, it's actually rather a sad listening experience. Warner is clearly unwell, his voice so altered he's almost unrecognisable at times, making this a very bittersweet experience.

Plus, we get our first chance to see the Ninth Doctor go up against the Master... and they decided they'd degenerate into the Lumiat. This is a bit of a bizarre choice, giving us the good version of the Master rather than the Doctor's archenemy for this historic event, but Gina McKee's incarnation actually works very well against Nine. (Eccleston, McKee and Warner have experience working together, and it comes across.) The Lumiat remains just as obsessed with the Doctor as when she was the Master, and her desperate need to get the mission done before she shifts back to a hostile incarnation adds something new to the story.

Solid as always is Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka, again, rather randomly included but providing a welcome dose of sanity to the proceedings. An odd choice is the hiring of Robert Powell as the eponymous Time Lord Immemorial; he's another acting legend, but his voice is modulated to the point he could be anyone. The cast is uniformly strong though, giving weight to some occasionally shonky dialogue.

All that's left now is for the Doctor to find The Union in the seventh release, where Paul McGann will once more take the lead alongside every Doctor BF can get their hands on, and finally discover what's actually going on in this peculiar series.

Notes: Strax reveals that he is familiar with the Eleventh, Twelft and Thirteenth Doctors ("A cheery 'boy' with yellow hair").

When the Ninth Doctor and Unbound Doctor find themselves face-to-face, they both assume the other is the future incarnation, before very quickly realising that they're from alternative universes. Makes you wonder why the conversation didn't go that way between Thirteen and the Fugutive.

For Liv, this is set before the Ninth Doctor Adventures adventure Hidden Depths: Flatpack, as she doesn't recognise the Doctor in his Eccleston incarnation. For the Paternoster Gang, I couldn't hazard a guess.

WHO REVIEW: Wink (Out of Time 3)

The third, and officially final, release in Big Finish's Out of Time series (although I'd be astonished if Tennant doesn't return with McCoy, McGann or Even Eccleston in the future), is "Wink," a clever response to the 2007 classic "Blink" and subsequent stories featuring the Weeping Angels.

Having faced the Daleks with his fourth incarnation and the Cybermen with his fifth, you might expect that the Tenth Doctor would face another classic Who monster alongside his sixth self. However BF instead pit them against the Angels, further  cementing their status as the top monster created for the revived series. It's not the first time BF have used the Angels, and they still seem a difficult and strange choice for audio.  Lisa McMullin's "Wink," though, utilises them in a genuinely inventive and effective way. 

The story sees both Doctors arrive on Lucidus Silvara, a planet that is bathed in all-encompassing white light that blots out everything else, rendering anyone who arrives there essentially blind. The colonists on the planet have therefore developed into a civilisation that doesn't even have a concept of sight. McMullin puts real thought into how such a society might function, including a fascinating art gallery based entirely on immersive soundscapes. The people's use of a vague, undefined sense called "intuit" is a bit of a handwave though. Props, though, for crafting a script in which the dialogue is as natural as it is here, without any of the "point and describe" style that Big Finish so often falls victim to.

Such a place would seem like a perfect hinting ground for the Angels, but it's more complex than that, and the beings are fleshed out in some interesting ways. The Angels have been drastically overpowered in return appearances, but "Wink" makes some of the these abilities a strength, notably including their use of a dead victim's voice in a far more dynamic and effective fashion than originally managed in "Flesh and Stone." We're also given a fascinating insight into the Angel's reproduction, a cleverly high-concept development from their previously seen abilities. 

Putting the Sixth and Tenth Doctors together was bound to result in something of a stand-off. Pitting the Sixth Doctor against the only incarnation who's more full of himself than he is could have been explosive, but Six behaves with remarkable restraint. Baker gives a strong performance, while Tennant occasionally veers into the self-parody he was guilty of in his alter episodes. It does lead to some fun sniping between the two incarnations, who are more similar than they might like to admit. 

Together with fine support from Joanna van Kampen and Ayesha Antoine as one-off companions Estra and Padilla, and Clive Hayward as the Angel Dax, "Wink" works very well and is ultimately the strongest of the Out of Time line. 

Placement: The Tenth Doctor appears to be on his runaway side-trip between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, but isn't spouting on about Time Lord Victorious stuff so probably nearer the latter. For the Sixth Doctor, more uncertain, although Ten gives him the idea of dressing in blue so before he first does so in Real Time. Given that he's travelling alone, perhaps just before he meets Evelyn in The Marian Conspiracy.

WHO REVIEW: A Little Help from My Friends/Alternating Current (Houser, Ingranata, Angiolini)

With the new series, Doctor Who: Flux, just a week away, it seemed a good time to review these two lovely trades from Titan Comics. The first goes by the full long-winded title of Doctor Who: A Tale of Two Time Lords - A Little Help from My Friends, and comprised the entire Thirteenth Doctor: Year Two run in the States, published in Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS in the UK. This was followed by Alternating Current, the first story in Doctor Who Comic as the series was renamed. This leads directly into Time Lord Victorious: Defender of the Daleks, which was supposed to be published after but ended up being published some months earlier due to various delays. But that's the COVID era for you. These things happen. One oddity that has arisen from the changes is that both these books are labelled as volume one, which is one of those silly little nothings that will annoy me every time I see them on the shelf.

Both stories are written by Jody Houser, illustrated by Roberta Ingranata and coloured by Enrica Eren Angiolini. These ladies are pretty much the DW comics dream team by now, and Houser really has the Thirteenth Doctor down to a tee. In fact, I don't think there's a writer out there who portrays her as well as Houser. Admittedly, we're dealing with comics, which are a totally different skill to TV script or prose writing, but still. 

The big draw, though, is that these stories team up the Thirteenth Doctor with the Tenth, bringing back a host of popular characters and monsters while they're at it. It's easy to be cynical about this; recent sales of Doctor Who material have been flagging a little, and Ten remains one of the most popular Doctors ever. It's a transparent attempt to get fans buying material with Thirteen in that ties into the current programme. But so what? This is not a new idea. We also have Doctor Who: Edge of Reality just out, a video game that features both Whittaker and Tennant providing voices for the Doctor. You have to wonder why they don't go the whole hog and have Tennant turn up in the TV series. (That's assuming they haven't done that anyway. We'll know for sure in no more than seven weeks.)

It's fanwank to the highest degree, but if you can't do this sort of thing in the comics, where can you do it? The comics can legitimately use any character from any era in any setting, unbridled by budgetary constraints (excepting certain copyrights) and without having to worry about actors growing old, disinterested, or dead. Plus, Ten and Thirteen work well together. Whittaker's performance is clearly influenced by Tennant's, and they both have that exuberant energy hiding loss and loneliness, but Thirteen lacks the self-absorbed moping of Ten and seems more self-aware (and, as she points out here, is older and wiser). 

A Little Help from my Friends is the better of the two, taking advantage of a specific period in Ten's life when he was stranded in one location and then dropping Thirteen and the fam on him. The TARDIS is diverted to London in 1969, when Ten and Martha had been zapped back to by the Weeping Angels in "Blink." Not only do the current team have to try to investigate why they were sent back without accidentally nobbling the Doctor's personal history, they have to contend with a cadre of Angels and, for extra fun, Autons. The pick-and-mix approach to the revived series' monsters makes for a visual party, with the Nestene Consciousness appearing much as it did in "Rose," and of course the Autons and Angels are both very visually-based monsters. They're a good fit for the medium. 

The strength of the story is in its character interactions though. The Doctor tracks down Martha while Yaz leads the rest on a mission to keep tabs on Ten. Laying low and keeping things secret doesn't last very long, and while Ten and Thirteen get on pretty well by multiple Doctors' standards, the differences in their outlooks come to the fore. Thirteen, being newly female, much more experienced and with the benefit of hindsight, is baffled by how Ten could have missed how Martha felt about him, and finds herself apologising to her friends and repeatedly cutting Ten off when he's about to go all nostalgic over adventures with Rose. 

It's a fun, pacey story, ending on an effective cliffhanger as Thirteen takes her team home by jumping forward to 2020, only to find London in ruins. This leads nicely into Alternating Current, revealing that all that crossing time streams has led to a timeline shift, with humanity being conquered centuries before as a ripple effect on the Doctor's timeline. It's probably too complex an idea to run with very often, but the TV series could play with this idea to great effect. Changing history is a hazard in Doctor Who all the time, but what's rarely considered is the cumulative effect of the Doctor's actions on each other as they constantly cross their own history.

Again, there's a grab-bag approach to continuity on display here, with the divergence occurring in "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror," which in this version of reality didn't involve the Doctor at all. Result: Tesla was abducted by the Skithra, who built their technological powerbase, accidentally woke up a Sea Devil colony and teamed up with them to conquer the Earth. In this reality, Rose leads a resistance group, with Pete and Jackie Tyler both alive, well and married. The fanwank perhaps goes a bit overboard here, but you know, why not? Having Ten team up with a different version of Rose, one who's never met the Doctor before, offers some interesting interactions, but we're robbed of "our" Rose being reunited with the Doctor in a new incarnation, which would have been fun. Then again, every time we return to Rose on Pete's World it robs a little impact from that story, so perhaps this new version is best. The standout character, though, is a sympathetic Skithra Queen who allies with Thirteen to help right the timelines. It's another fun story, not quite the level of the previous one, but it works. It also leaves some interesting scope for future stories to follow up some of the characters and ends with a great hook for the next serial.

PLACEMENT: For the Thirteenth Doctor, this must be after Spyfall, since everyone is fully au fait with the idea that she used to be a man. For the Tenth Doctor, the first story takes place during "Blink," but the second story must be sometime later since he has his TARDIS back and is seemingly travelling alone. It apparently leads into Defender of the Daleks which is part of the Time Lord Victorious arc, so the best place is probably between "The Waters of Mars" and The End of Time.

WHO REVIEW ROUND-UP: The Gates of Hell (Out of Time 2)

The first volume in the Out of Time trilogy gave us the irresistible team-up of Tom Baker and David Tennant. Now we get something we've seen before: Tennant teaming up with Peter Davison. The last time, way back in autumn 2008 (which seems like yesterday but was actually almost thirteen ruddy years ago), there was a wonderful frisson from having Tennant meet his favourite Doctor on screen. In "Time Crash" Tennant was clearly sharing the screen with his hero, remaking his role as his own and paying tribute to it (along with a script from Steven Moffat, who also cites Davison as his favourite Doctor). Now, though, there's even more of a buzz to it: for the first time, father-in-law and son-in-law share a Doctor Who adventure playing their own versions of the same character.

As such, there's a different feel to The Gates of Hell than to "Time Crash." This is two men who know each other well, playing off each other in a familiar, comfortable way. Both are, by now, so well established as their Doctors that they slip effortlessly into the roles. It all feels terribly cosy.

Nonetheless, this is a better story than Out of Time. David Llewellyn provides a gripping script that utilises the Cybermen effectively (and after the Daleks last time, it was inevitably going to be the Cybermen). The Cybermen are basically a technological version of the living dead, so putting them in a crypt - the catacombs beneath Paris - just works, the same way that having them stomp through graveyards in "The Next Doctor" worked, or having them emerge from graves in "Death in Heaven" did. Cleverly, he uses the two Doctors overlapping timelines as a threat, rather than an awkward social situation, with the collision of two timestreams destabilising history and allowing the Cybermen to rework history to their own design. We end up exploring Paris in various periods of history, from the 14th century to the French resistance, as the Doctors try to undo the damage to the timeline.

Llewellyn's not afraid to chuck in a few fanwanky references. It's fun that the two Doctors remember meeting each other in "Time Crash," and, being in Paris, we could expect the Doctor to reminisce about visiting the city with Romana. I wasn't expecting the Fifth Doctor to mention his previous self's visit to the catacombs in the comic series The Forgotten, though. 

The guest cast in this one are very good, with Mark Gatiss putting in an insidious turn as the villainous Joseph Delon. Glen McReady does a fine job as both his father Marcel and King Charles the Mad. With Gatiss being one of the core group of Doctor Who writers and performers, both for Big Finish and on television, and McCready being a prolific BF semi-regular, it's a bit of an inside gig and a boy's club - and that's before you factor in Nick Briggs, the company's director, once again voicing the monsters. Thank goodness, then, that we have one significant female guest role, and someone pretty new in the role. Shelley Conn has been in one BF release before - Situtation Vacant, eleven years ago - but by BF standards that's practically unheard. Her character, time agent Tina Drake, makes a very likeable pseudo-companion. The only thing that was slightly off-putting was her faux-American accent - not because it was particularly bad, but because it sounds almost exactly like Nicola Bryant's in some scenes, and when the episode opened I just assumed Peri was travelling with the Doctor.

Altogether, a solid bit of Cyber-action, livened up by the interplay between the two Doctors. 

Placement: Both Doctors are travelling alone, and both remember the events of "Time Crash." The Tenth Doctor seems to imply this wasn't too long ago for him, so probably between "Voyage of the Damned" and "Partners in Crime." Finding any alone time for the Fifth Doctor is a challenge, but The Compleat Adventures suggest a gap between The Awakening and Frontios where these stories can happen and that'll do (unless the Doctor really does bugger off for years while he's meant to be dropping off the Gravis).

WHO REVIEW ROUND-UP: SHORT TRIPS

Before I get on with the review of the very exciting new release The Ninth Doctor Adventures, I thought I'd step back and review some of the releases in the Short Trips series I've enjoyed lately, including two adventures for the Ninth Doctor from prior to Eccleston's return to the role.

BATTLE SCARS

First we go back to series nine of Short Trips, from 2019, for the first appearance of the Ninth Doctor in the range. Written by Selim Ulug, who joined Big Finish's roster of writers on the strength of his winning entry in the Paul Spraggs Memorial Story Competition, it's one of those stories designed to plug a hole in the canon. Back in "Rose," we saw a picture of the Ninth Doctor with the Daniels family, who'd mysteriously not travelled out on the Titanic and lost their lives in 1912."Battle Scars" tells that story, with the Doctor arriving almost literally on the Daniels' doorstep, injured and insensible. 

We find the Doctor very soon after the Time War and his regeneration, possibly right afterwards. It could easily have been nothing more than a fanwanky gap-filler, and while there's nothing wrong with that, it's far more. There are elements of this, of course, with the Doctor even picking up his "Fantastic!" catch phrase, but it's fundamentally an exploration of the futility of war, the damage it causes to an individual and others in their lives, and the difficulty of moving on. There's an extraterrestrial influence as well, but that's just colour. Young Connie, the pseudo-companion for the story, is the standout character. Like all BF's Ninth Doctor stories until Eccleston returned, this is narrated by Nick Briggs, who gives as solid a reading as we've come to expect. His Ninth Doctor is sometimes dead on, sometimes a bit parodic, but overall one of the better stand-in Doctors. Altogether, an excellent trip.

Placement: Very soon after The Day of the Doctor.

HER OWN BOOTSTRAPS

Onto series ten from 2020, and we have another Ninth Doctor story, this one by Amy Veeres. This one tidies up some trailing continuity threads from "Rose" as well, looking at why the Doctor was at Krakatoa just before it erupted (both Krakatoa and the Titanic have been visited by so many iterations of the Doctor and other time travellers it's amazing there's room for any actual historical people at either event). However, it's mostly a standalone story which sees the Doctor tidying up after the Time War and trying to prevent a young scientist from being remembered as a terrible war criminal. Althea Bryce actually ends up being a quasi-companion character, and while it's all wrapped up in a neat paradox, it's a fairly strong character piece.

Placement: Not long after "Battle Scars," with both thematically linked by having the Doctor clean up old Time War weapons. Authorial intent puts the final scene with Rose just after "The Long Game."

DELETED SCENES

Stepping back from the revived series is this Second Doctor story from the tenth run of shorts, a charming little story of fin de siecle filmmaking. It's 1908 and the Doctor and Jamie have arrived in gay Paris, stumbling into the life of one Celine Tessier. Naturally, anyone from such a fine and storied lineage is a boon to any story and it's long overdue that a Tessier is the centre of a Doctor Who adventure. More tragic events lead on from the first meeting, in a gentle but affecting story by Angus Dunican. Cinematic pioneer George Melies also has a major role in the story, and it outdoes "Her Own Bootstraps" by having an entirely different Doctor follow up on events in the epilogue.

Placement: The Doctor is travelling with only Jamie and no lady companion, so presumably between Fury from the Deep and The Wheel in Space, unless it's much later on in the "Season 6-B" era.

FREE SPEECH

Finally we have the last story from series ten, Eugenie Pusenjak's winning entry in last year's Paul Spragg Memorial contest. It's a high concept science fiction story which sees the Tenth Doctor arrive on the planet Skaz, where speaking costs money. Pusenjak takes this seemingly simple concept and explores its every repurcussion. The primary character Aymius finds himself under arrest, having to recount the events of the story under interrogation, but rapidly running out of funds to do so. While he tries to keep things concise and not waste words, if his account runs dry he will be automatically silenced by a tongue chip, a catastrophic result in his situation.

It's an ingenious conceit that allegorises how the voices of the poor are ignored while those of the rich and powerful are always heard. It's a thoughtful but pacey story which sees the Doctor as the instigator of change but doesn't pretend that he has overturned the status quo himself. Jacob Dudman, the main man when it comes to 21st century Doctors for BF, gives a strong and spirited reading of an excellent story.

Placement: Could pretty much happen anywhere when the Tenth Doctor is travelling alone, but dialogue hints it might be shortly before "Smith and Jones" since the Doctor mentions an adventure with Benjamin Franklin in both.

WHO REVIEW: All Flesh is Grass (Time Lord Victorious)

Well, this is the big one. It's the epicentre of the Time Lord Victorious storyline, the return to full length prose by the Eighth Doctor, the unprecedented team-up of the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors and a right royal monster mash to boot.

In the the cliffhanging final scene of The Knight, the Fool and the Dead, the Tenth Doctor, beginning his crusade against the Kotturuh and death itself, is confronted by the Eighth Doctor on a Dalek warship, and the Ninth Doctor on a vampire coffin-ship. This ties in with the DWM comic strip and with the Big Finish audios, the latter of which I haven't got round to yet, but it's all easily pieced together with the brief exposition from the Eighth Doctor and Brian the Ood. You could enjoy this plenty as a prose-only event, but grabbing the other formats builds a bigger picture. I'm less clear from the story here how the Tenth Doctor comics and the Dalek cartoon fit in, but I think they're knock-on effects of the Tenth Doctor's disastrous alteration of history here, which has brought his earlier selves back to fight him.

Una McCormack is one of the most prolific modern Who writers. With this novel, she's written for eight incarnations of the Doctor, I think (plus a ton of Star Trek novels and some Blake's 7 material). She gets the Doctor down to a tee, notably the differences and similarities between his incarnations. It's fun having Eight, Nine and Ten together since, while being successive (well, almost) they have wildly different ways of approaching things. The Eighth Doctor here is still fundamentally optimistic but sarcastic as hell, the Ninth Doctor is tending his war wounds and the Tenth is so fundamentally full of himself he knows he's his own worst enemy. I mean, he's literally his own worst enemy in this one, but you know what I'm saying. Yet they also work so brilliantly together. It isn't long before Ten stands down and the three Doctors try to work out a way to get out of this mess without making things worse (and just possibly making things better), and they work tremendously well as a team.

There's a lot of colour in this novel. The Ninth Doctor gets a short-term companion in the form of Ikalla, a vampiress who develops considerably throughout the novel (or perhaps the Doctor just learns to see her differently). Eight doesn't have a companion really, but is accompanied for a good portion by Brian, and also Hector, a spider plant (so that's where he came from! Monstrus Beauty now makes perfect sense). He has some great interplay with the Daleks, particularly the Prime Strategist who's become such a persistent character in Time Lord Victorious. Ten saddles himself with some galactic mercenaries but can't help feeling sorry for them and overpaying. It's like he's trying to prove he's the big bad God of Time but can't help feeling a bit bad about it all the time.

It's a rattling good read, anyway. I mean, it's got a vampire Dalek in it. How can you not love that? 

Placement:

For the Eighth Doctor, uncertain. It's straight after the BF Time Lord Victorious audios, but while they and this show him in his Time War costume, he reads as much younger and more positive here. He's perturbed by the idea of a universe without Gallifrey, but not distraught, so this is surely before the first destruction of Gallifrey in The Ancestor Cell (most new series books would ignore this but given the cross-pollination of ranges going on here I can't believe McCormack didn't at least consider this). I could happily see this placed during the earlier EDAs, especially as he mentions Romana and K9, tying back to the Shada webcast, which is very early on. 

For the Ninth Doctor, in between the penultimate and closing scenes of the DWM comic strip Monstrous Beauty, while Rose is recovering. Some time between "The Long Game" and "The Empty Child," most likely (could be either side of "Father's Day").

For the Tenth Doctor, immediately after The Knight, the Fool and the Dead, itself immediately after "The Waters of Mars."

WHO REVIEW: The Knight, the Fool and the Dead (Time Lord Victorious)

This novel is part of the already quite sprawling Time Lord Victorious event, and while some of these different elements seem quite tenuously related the main strand, this is right in the very centre of it all. Picking up pretty much straight after the Doctor goes all power mad at the end of The Waters of Mars, it sees him travel back to the Dark Times at the very dawn of the universe simply because there's no one around to stop him.

It's a bit of a retcon, the whole concept of this crossover, since on screen the Doctor appeared to get the stuffing knocked out of him by Adelaide Brook's death and renounced his Time Lord Victorious ways... but then he did shoot off for a victory lap around the cosmos rather than go face his fate when the Ood showed up. So while it doesn't quite fit to the letter of what we saw, it does fit the ethos, with perhaps the most arrogant of Doctors (yes, even more than Six or Three) throwing his weight around. 

The BBC could have got someone a bit more... daring, I guess, to write this essential novel, but then, I suppose you want a safe pair of hands for something like this, and Steve Cole is a good choice in that regard. His prose is solid and easy to read, he has a good grasp of the Doctor's character(s), and he has a lot of experience. He was the range editor for the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and Past Doctor Adventures novels for a good while, wrote a bunch of them (often under pseudonyms Michael Collier and Tara Samms), came back for the New Series Adventures, did a whack of Big Finish audios, some Iris Wildthyme short stories, about a hundred comic strips for Battles in Time back in the early days of the new series. Basically, he's got form, and while some of his work is pretty forgettable, he's also responsible for some of my very favourite Who stories.

The Dark Times turn out to be a lot brighter and more lively than we might have expected from previous glimpses (something even the Doctor notices). This is an era before the invention of death, when everyone is immortal, barring accidents. It's a fascinating concept, and I wish there'd been scope for more exploration of how societies would evolve in such a fundamentally different universe. After throwing around Dark Times concepts in the other stories and showing us glimpses of the Kotturuh, this book brings them front and centre. They're truly nightmarish, Lovecraftian creations, and for reasons of their own, have given themselves the mission to assign limited lifespans to all of the universe.

It interesting seeing the Doctor confronted with what something that's part of his established ancient history, only to be reviled at the visceral personal cost of it. It's a great inversion of the situation in The Fires of Pompeii, and it's good to see the Doctor on the wrong side of destiny. Of course, this is the Doctor, who can overthrow empires when he's in a good mood. In a bad mood, he starts his own crusade against the Kotturuh and vows to rewrite the entire history of the universe. In spite of Cole's background on the BBC EDAs, this novel reads a lot like the New Adventures, with a frighteningly powerful Doctor facing threats from the dawn of time and meeting aliens with bizarre names, complete with interludes showing the First Doctor (and the Eighth and the Ninth, for that matter).

The Doctor finds himself working with Brian the Ood, an absolutely lovely creation; an Ood assassin with a split personality who places all his worst impulses in "Mr. Ball." I can see why Brian's been picked as a recurring character in TLV. The incidental characters are pretty solid, but none of them really stand out in the same way as Brian.

The book ends on one hell of a cliffhanger, with the Doctor taking on the mantle of the Time Lord Victorious once again and sets out to remake the universe to his own design... before two familiar faces turn up. While it's not the standout work of Doctor Who some of the hype built the TLV novels up to be, this is a solid novel with some powerful moments that sets up even more exciting things to come.

WHO REVIEW CATCH-UP: Out of Time

Out of Time is the first in a trilogy of audios from Big Finish, which are each going to be released a year apart - pretty restrained for the company, who normally chuck out a major box set every couple of months when there's something significant to shout about. Each one features the Tenth Doctor teaming up with a classic series incarnation, and a fan favourite monster. Next year we'll have The Gates of Hell with David Tennant and his father-in-law against the Cybermen, followed by Wink in 2022 with Colin Baker and the Weeping Angels. 

First though is Out of Time itself, which sees Tennant team up with Fourth Doctor Tom Baker. This is, of course, a big thing, with the two most popular Doctors by any reasonable measure joining together for an adventure. This doesn't, however, automatically mean it's going to be any good, although you'd at least expect it to be pretty entertaining. Which, in all fairness, it is. It's a slight story, more of a runaround than anything, but then again, does a release like this need to be anything else?

The Tenth Doctor pops in for a visit at the Cathedral of Contemplation, a huge, mysterious structure outside of time where anyone from any era can attend for solace. He's in a mood because he's avoiding his impending regeneration, and has gone there on his big holiday before facing The End of Time. However, the Fourth Doctor is already there, having picked up a temporary travelling companion in the form of Private Jora (Kathryn Drysdale), a young deserter from the 26th century.

There's some enjoyable farce as the Tenth Doctor avoids (poorly) letting on who he is to his earlier self, while secretly hoping he'll work it out. It doesn't take Four too long to get the measure of him, and he pretty quickly squashes Ten's sulk about the future. Four's meeting himself in a new form, and for him, it's confirmation that he'll survive, whereas for Ten regeneration is death. 

However, Jora's space commander dad turns up looking for her, followed by a phalanx of Daleks, leading to the two Doctors working together to run rings around them as they plan to use the temporal powers of the Cathedral to invade the Earth and win the war. The Doctors' eventual victory is pretty cunning. 

While there's nothing really unusual or outstanding here, it's a pretty fun little adventure, livened up by some wonderful chemistry between two beloved Doctors who, for the most part, keep on the right side of self-parody while doing a bit of a best-of performance. And after all, isn't that why we're here anyway?

Best Lines:

 "More like apres-deva-vu: knowing what's going to happen but only after it does. Maybe it's always like this when I run into them... well, I wouldn't remember."

"Old school? I prefer to think of myself as classic!"

Placement:

For the Fourth Doctor, in the period between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil. For the Tenth Doctor, during the gap between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, but presumably after the Time Lord Victorious period. For the Daleks, the 26th century, in the Second Dalek War that followed Frontier in Space - except that they're Time War Daleks, so presumably travelling back along their own timeline, which ties into the events of the novel Prisoner of the Daleks.

WHO REVIEW: Time Lord Victorious comics

The massive, multimedia crossover event Time Lord Victorious is already a bit of an overstretch for most of us fans. I'm torn between the excitement and intrigue of such an expansive storyline, and the money-grabbing enormity of it all. I never like the huge crossover events that Marvel an DC periodically do, where you have to buy three dozen comics to understand what's going on and it costs you a fortune. On the other hand, this is new ground for Doctor Who and it is my number one fandom, so the excitement is there. So I'm going to pick and choose and and where I can.

Some people are questioning why they're focusing on the Tenth Doctor and an event from his era of the series, and apart from the obvious popularity of the incarnation, there's the fact that the BBC can't make it appear, intentionally or otherwise, that any purchase is necessary to follow one of their broadcasts. So tying into the current series with the Thirteenth Doctor is a no-go. Even then, she's not entirely absent from the proceedings.

 DEFENDER OF THE DALEKS (Titan Comics: Time Lord Victorious)

The first of two comic strips opening the event is this, Titan's latest miniseries, released as two monthly issues. In it, the Tenth Doctor is pulled into a divergent timestream whereupon he is forced to aid the Daleks in their fight against a terrible power from the dawn of time. 

This is Jody Houser's story, following on from her work on the Thirteenth Doctor comics, where last we saw the Tenth Doctor involved in his own future (but I've not read that one yet). It's well-written enough, but for all the shouting about it, it's not all that much of an event. The Doctor reluctantly teaming up with the Daleks has been done before, and better, although at least the Dalek Prime Strategist, a new character, adds an air of sophistication. The Golden Emperor appears as well, harking back to the early "Dalek Chronicles" days of the tie-in comics. He's had a bit of an updated design but he's still iconic, and this sets up the Daleks! animated series nicely.

My main problem is the villains, the Hond. Although there's an interesting concept behind them - the sort of metaphysical idea that used to show up in the New Adventures days - design-wise they're just mud monsters, and that's really not all that interesting. Also, while I understand this crossover is designed to be expansive, we're already expecting another terrible threat from the Dark Times, the Kotturuh to threaten the universe. Do we need to introduce another? Still, there is a similarity with the Ancestor Cell, from the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel lie, which suggests the Hond as another potential identity of the Enemy. With Faction Paradox suddenly being mentioned in other prose stories lately, this might not be entirely trivial. 

Altogether, the adventure is fine, but underwhelming. Nice artwork by Roberta Ingranata.

MONSTROUS BEAUTY (DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE #556-558)

Doctor Who Magazine jumps in on Time Lord Victorious with a three-part comic story featuring the Ninth Doctor. DWM has skipped the comic strip for a few months to save money - the impact of COVID on sales - and makes an event out of bringing it back. We haven't had a past Doctor comic in DWM since the nineties, I believe, and while it's back to business with the Thirteenth Doctor next month, this does make it rather stand out. Like Defender of the Daleks, this features a threat from the Dark Times, but this is something we know and expect. Nine and Rose find themselves back at the dawn of time in the middle of the Eternal Wars, when the Time Lords fought the Vampires. 

It's a clever way of having the Ninth Doctor meet the Time Lords - although according to this, it's so early in their history that it's before they were time travellers. They're the Space Lords of Gallifrey, led by an angry female general who we learn is an early incarnation of Rassilon. It seems that every Time Lord must have a new regeneration with a different ethnicity or gender these days - and I'm all for it. Better than all those endless old white blokes in big hats.

I'd had an idea to write about a Vampire ship years, ago, and never used it, but in my mind it was something organic and far more like a perverted form of TARDIS. I love what Scott Gray and John Ross have done though - flying castles and crypts! The vampires themselves are disappointingly traditional, with only a brief appearance of a Great Vampire storming through the black, but it works pretty well. I particularly like the use of Cucurbites - blood-drinking space weapons - that first appeared back in the Eighth Doctor comic "Tooth and Claw." (The story also reference the episode "Tooth and Claw," just to mix things up.)

It's a pretty solid adventure with some vampire tropes being exercised, but it's the glimpse of the ancient Gallifreyans that's the most interesting. 

Doctor Who: The Final Lockdown

So, Emily Cook's lockdown extravaganza has come to a close, after a host of special stories and video events. I haven't talked about "The Descendants of Pompeii" or "The Zygon Isolation", which are really just little asides to bring some of the actors back for their respective episodes' watchalongs. It's the final two stories, written by the two previous showrunners in their last ever Doctor Who stories, honest, but I'll believe that when I don't see it.


"The Secret of Novice Hame" acts as a sequel to "Gridlock" from series three, released after the New Earth double-bill watchalong. It's a rather beautiful final memoir from Novice Hame, the redeemed Cat Person who cared for the Face of Boe, with Anna Hope reprising the role after thirteen years. Murray Gold is back to provide the music, and David Tennant lends his voice as the Doctor.

It's a sweet coda for a character who inhabits a world that's the most fairy tale RTD's Doctor Who ever got. There are all manner of races inhabiting New Earth now, five billion and a whack years in the future. My favourite element is Hame reminiscing about all the other Doctors she's bumped into over the years, men, women and animals. Maybe Paul Hanley's Silurian Doctor can exist after all. JuanMao's artwork is really lovely and absolutely matches the feel of it.

Placement: During the Doctor's fairwell tour in The End of Time.

"The Best of Days" is the last of the lockdown specials and would have gone out after the "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctors Falls" watchalong, except that was scrapped due to all the horror going on in the news. Perhaps the fridging of a black companion, however temporarily, wouldn't have been the right message right now. Still, the story itself is uplifting and topical, and I don't care what you say, Doctor Who is intrinsically political and you can't escape that. Of course Bill is going to talk about the pandemic and BLM marches, for crying out loud. Doctor Who exists in a sort-of parallel world where current events from the real world happen, but are usually overshadowed by fictional events. Real life is what carries on when the Doctor's away.

I love the idea that Nardole and Bill kept in touch after the Doctor vanished into the Vortex, with Bill living her long afterlife with Heather (even if they are on a break) and getting back to some normality after seeing the stars together. Hearing that things are pretty quiet near her is funny though. Bill's uni was in Bristol, and the story was released shortly below the protesters there righteously tore down Edward Colston's statue and dumped it in the harbour.

And that woman with beautiful eyes who Bill has a crush on - she has to be the Thirteenth Doctor, right?

Placement: After "The Doctor Falls" for Bill and Nardole. After "The Ghost Monument" for the Doctor?

The Time Lord Victorious

This is a bit exciting: the BBC has announced a major new series of releases under the umbrella title Time Lord Victorious. So far, it's been the Beeb and Big Finish who've released the initial info, but it's set to include material and experiences from everything from comics to escape rooms. The main press release gives some information, while the teaser trailer is pretty nothing-y.

It's not set to start till September, which might actually be a little optimistic if they're pushing live experiences like escape rooms, given we might still be under lockdown then. We'll see though. If it is as broad as it sounds, it will likely be very expensive to buy all the different media and experiences for the story, but hopefully there'll be a solid core story that can be enjoyed without breaking the bank. It puts me in mind of the huge comicbook crossovers that Marvel and DC do from time to time, that require buying several issues from multiple titles to follow the overall story, and are almost inevitably disappointing. On the other hand, it's exciting to have various different ranges, which are usually quite separate, working together on a storyline. The last time there was a concerted effort for spin-off material to work together was probably in the mid-nineties when Doctor Who Magazine tied its comics directly to the New Adventures novel line. (It also means I'll probably end up re-subscribing to DWM after letting my sub end for the first time in almost twenty years.)

I'm very excited to see the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors involved in a story together, which is a combination we've never had before. It's very rare that 20th and 21st century Doctors meet in expanded media (Eight isn't exactly Classic Series and he's more 21st century than 20th but he did arrive in 1996 and his licensing is mostly tied up with the original run.) I expect we'll have audioplays featuring both McGann and Tennant, hopefully together, although I highly doubt that Eccleston will be involved in any way. It would be an amazing and welcome surprise if he was though, and having Nine facing Ten, even just in prose or comics, is something to look forward to.

Given the title, and the scary, beaten-up Tenth Doctor in Prydonian robes, I think it's safe to assume that this involves the Doctor at the end of The Waters of Mars, possibly going off on a tangential timeline rather than getting to grips with himself. The official Doctor Who site's story page even has a placeholder entry for it after Waters which is a unique step, so it's safe to say this ties into the Doctor's crazy dangerous turn in that episode. I imagine we'll see Eight and Nine confront Ten rather than simply working with him, although I'd put money on everything being reset at the end so it can proceed to The End of Time and the regeneration. And defending "the universe from a terrible race"... that's got to be the Time Lords, hasn't it?

Doctor Who Lockdown - More Shadows

Doctor Who alumni continue to spoil us with new stories and performed texts to accompany the watch parties that have been running throughout the lockdown. As I said before, new Doctor Who by Paul Cornell is a good thing, and he has followed up "The Shadow Passes" with two narrated stories, "Shadow of a Doubt" and "The Shadow in the Mirror", to form a "locked-in" trilogy.

When Human Nature was published back in the 1990s, it made a huge splash among fans, as did most of Cornell's New Adventures novels, and its reputation was such that it became one of the novels made available for free on the BBC website. It was no surprise when Cornell adapted his own book into the script for the episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" in 2007 for the Tenth Doctor and Martha. The original got a new lease of life in the last few years with Lisa Bowerman - Bernice Summerfield in the Big Finish audio series - narrating the BBC audiobook release off the back of the 50th anniversary.

The two versions of the story, one with Ten and Martha, the other with Seven and Benny, had a lot in common but also some huge differences, being written for different central characters, different media and a different century. To those of us who like our Doctor Who to fit together into a seamless whole - which is impossible, but never mind - it was hard to see how both versions of events could have happened to the Doctor. The new stories not only follow up the Doctor's inhumanly harsh judgments in the TV version, but also nod at how both versions can still be "real" in Doctor Who's multiverse.

The Tenth Doctor's punishment of the Family of Blood was his most alien moment in the series, and the whole story saw him act both cruelly and cowardly. Perhaps, though, this wasn't his inhuman side, but his most human nature coming to the fore. It depends how you look at it. Either way, his imprisonment of Daughter/Sister-of-Mine in the realm of mirrors was both fantastically evocative and horrifying, and has inspired multiple incidences of fan fiction (all still valid in this storyline) to see the Doctor coming to terms with their actions. "Shadow of a Doubt" sees Benny encounter the alien girl in the mirror, with Bowerman performing, and "The Shadow in the Mirror" sees the Thirteenth Doctor, a more compassionate incarnation, fresh from her own isolation in "The Shadow Passes," finally take pity on the girl. Lor Wilson reprises her role as Daughter-of-Mine almost thirteen years on to read the story.

They're both excellent, and I love the little nods at other versions of the Doctor - future, past or parallel - that hint at every story being a valid as every other. The girl mentions both the Seventh and Twelfth Doctors, but also a "thin, white aristocrat" (I want to say Lance Parkin's 42nd Doctor, but it could be any number of versions, most probably the Shalka Doctor since it's Cornell); "the one who couldn't walk" (the child-like version in a wheelchair glimpsed in RTD's novelisation of Rose) and "the one with red hair who thought he was the last." That final incarnation being the Doctor who will become known as Merlin, whose presence was felt throughout the New Adventures and hinted to be the Doctor's ultimate future.

As Parkin once wrote for the Doctor to say: "...one of the things you'll learn is that it's all real. Every word of every novel is real, every frame of every movie, every panel of every comic strip."

FICTION: "The Orb of Amarella"

I've been sifting through my old files and emails for certain bits and pieces, and while naturally I can't find what I was actually looking for, some interesting bits have popped up. I wrote this story twelve (!) years ago, for a young lad called Edward. My mum used to work as a teaching assistant, and Edward was one of her pupils. I think he'd have been eight or nine at the time, but it was a long time ago so I'm not 100% sure. I met him on one occasion I dropped in to see mum (might have been a bit of voluntary work there now I think of it, but again, this was a long time ago). He was a huge Doctor Who fan, so naturally we hit it off. He was having a hard time of it back then,so I wrote a little story for him in the hopes it would cheer him up. By all accounts, it worked, and he loved it.

I thought this was long gone, but I'd attached to an email which was still sitting in my drafts folder. It's very much written for kids, and not particularly original to be honest, but reading it back I think it works pretty well. If you happen to stumble on it Edward, I hope you're doing well. You'll be around twenty now, I guess, not far off my age when I wrote this for you. I hope you enjoy it again.

The Orb of Amarella

Edward Thomson was pretty bored. Winter could be like that. There wasn’t much on the telly this time of year, with all the good stuff being saved for Christmas, and it was too cold and damp to go outside. A little snow would have been better – the cold never mattered so much if it was snowing – but the closest the weather got was a layer of frost on the cars first thing in the morning. It was enough to melt into a film of icy water by lunchtime, so that all the hard, frozen ground would be turned into sticky mud and ensure that no one was allowed outside during playtime at school. It wasn’t even wet enough to be proper mud weather. You couldn’t go out in your wellies and jump in muddy puddles; there was just about enough mud to make sure you slipped over and fell flat on your face.

So, on the weekends, when his homework was done, there was little for Edward to do but let his imagination wander. It was that or think about school – and he didn’t like to think about that any more than he had to.

It was on a Sunday night, as another dreary and drizzly weekend drew to a close, that Edward forgot his boredom and drifted off to sleep. He found himself woken some time later. What had disturbed him? Edward realised that he could hear something – a faint sound, a whistling, like in old Looney Tunes when a character fell from a cliff. Only, this was getting louder.

He got out of bed, and rushed to the window, pulling aside the curtains. He saw, in the sky, a glowing dot of light, brighter than the moon. It burned with a golden light. As he watched, it grew from a point to a sphere. It was getting closer. At first, he thought it was headed towards him, but he realised it was angled downwards, and that it would land further away. As he watched, the glowing orb sped into his back garden – crashing, not with a loud bang as he’d expected, but with a dull thump.

Edward rushed out of the house, not caring how cold he was or about the feel of frost against his feet. He gingerly approached the glowing orb, sitting, undamaged, on the lawn. It was about the size of a tennis ball. The glowing softened, until it appeared simply as a shiny golden ball. Carefully – would it be hot? – Edward reached out, picking it up in his hands. It wasn’t hot, merely a little warm. Rushing back indoors, Edward went into his room.

He decided he’d keep his discovery a secret for now – no one else had woken up, and who knew what this might be? He’d have to take it with him to school, to make sure it wasn’t found while he was there. Carefully, Edward put the orb into his schoolbag, a jumper stuffed around it to keep it from producing a suspicious lump.

Eventually, despite the mystery and excitement, he fell asleep.

Later, the next day, after the school bell had rung for the long-awaited final time, Edward trudged out of the school gates, the orb still in his bag. He could feel it there, pressing against his back, the slight heat of it just perceptible through the fabric. He looked around for his mum, hoping to get his new find back to home to safety as quickly as possible. What he saw was not his mum. It wasn’t even human. Standing over the other side of the road, large as life and twice as ugly, was what could only be called a monster. It had to be seven feet tall, and at least three wide. It was roughly the shape of a man, but was incredibly bulky, with the sort of proportions that would dwarf a sumo wrestler. Its body was a deep, metallic green – something like a tank’s hull, or maybe more like the shell of a beetle. In fact, a beetle was what it reminded Edward of most. Its head was little more than a shallow lump between its huge shoulders; two dully glowing red eyes were facing him, beneath stubby antennae.

Edward gasped – the eyes were facing directly at him. The monster was looking right at him!

It began to stride over towards him – moving quickly, despite its bulk. It ignored the other children who stood around, stuck with fear and awe, and made straight for Edward. What should he do? What did it want? The answer came to Edward quickly – the creature had to be after the orb he had found. What else could it want with him? What should he do – hand it over to him?

A car screeched around the corner. The man driving it was going far too fast, and couldn’t brake quickly enough. Edward saw the look of shock on his face as his car smashed straight into the monster. The car buckled in the middle, as the driver opened his door, toppling out as he tried to escape. The creature was still standing, oblivious to the children screaming all around it, its attention momentarily taken by its collision. It didn’t look hurt – but Edward bet it was pretty angry.

Then, Edward did something possibly very brave, or possibly very foolish. He ran. He turned on his heels, and legged it as fast as he could in the opposite direction to the monster. He bumped and crashed into kids in his way, pelting down the road as quickly as he could. What was he doing? Wouldn’t the monster come after him? Why shouldn’t it have its orb back? However, something within him told him he had to keep the orb safe – and it wasn’t safe with the monster.

He snuck a look behind him – the monster had started coming after him. It wasn’t running, simply walking, calmly and purposefully towards him. It didn’t need to run. It would catch up with him eventually. Puffing, Edward continued to run – this was worse than cross-country!

He was concentrating so firmly on his running, that he didn’t notice a man step out in front of him from around the corner of the road. He ran straight into him , knocking the man back a bit. The man grabbed Edward by the shoulders, forcing him to a halt.

‘Whoa, steady on there, fella!’ said the man. Edward looked up at him. He was youngish, tall and skinny, with sticky-up brown hair. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit with a shirt and tie, underneath a long, brown suede coat.

‘What’s the hurry? You late for your tea?’ the man had an enthusiastic voice, with a bit of a cockney accent.

‘There’s – there’s a monster after me!’ panted Edward.

‘A monster?’ said the man, then seemed to notice the creature that was approaching for the first time. ‘Oh, that monster – no worries. I’ll sort him out.’ The strange man pulled some kind of tool out of his jacket pocket – a thin, silvery instrument, sort of like a wand. He pointed it at the rapidly encroaching monster, and activated it. A blue light shone brightly from its tip, and an ear-torturing, skull-splitting whine filled the air.

The monster fell to its knees, clutching at its stumpy head. Edward felt like doing the same, but the man grabbed him by the hand and went running down the adjoining road. They swiftly came to a blue box, bizarrely just standing in the middle of the pavement.

‘In here – quick!’ he shouted.

The box was just about big enough for two people to squeeze inside, but it seemed better than no cover at all, so Edward followed the man through the narrow doorway…

… and into a vast golden cavern, in the middle of which stood some kind of futuristic machine, glowing from within with a blue-green light. Elegant crests of coral linked the floor to the ceiling. The man slipped off his coat and flung it casually onto a crook in one of the coral branches, dashing up a metallic gangway to the unfathomable device in the centre.

‘Go on, then,’ said the man, as he began to fiddle with buttons and levers on the machine. ‘Say it.’

‘Say what?’ asked Edward.

‘ “It’s bigger on the inside.” It’s what everyone says when they first come in.’

‘It’s fantastic!’ said Edward. ‘What is it?’

The man turned around to face him, a huge grin across his face. ‘It is fantastic, isn’t it? It’s called the TARDIS. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It’s a sort of space-and-time-ship. It can take you anywhere, and anywhen. Brilliant, isn’t it?’

‘It really is,’ said Edward. ‘Um… am I allowed in here? I mean, I’m not really supposed to go with strangers.’

‘Very good policy,’ said the man, ‘but this is a pretty unique situation, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Yes, but… who are you?’

‘I’m called the Doctor. What about you?’

‘Edward. Edward Thompson.’

‘Edward! Ed. Ted. Eddy-boy! Pleased to meet you!’ The Doctor dashed forward and shook his hand vigorously. ‘Now, before you ask, that thing outside is a Normanite. It’s from the planet Norman. Yes, it’s a ridiculous name, but it means something thoroughly grand and impressive in Normanish, I’m sure.’

‘What does it want?’ asked Edward, although he was sure he knew the answer already.

‘Same thing as me,’ said the Doctor, once more attending the strange central machine. ‘I’m looking for something very valuable. It has to be around here somewhere – I’ve been tracing it, tracking it across the Galaxy. I’ve been to Valuensis, Lonsys, Magathoria, Viltvodle Six, Baragwin… spent three weeks stuck in the Great Fellasorian Republic on Mannaton Three, after I took a wrong turn in the Sylvannic Wastes… got locked up for a month on Slarn, and totally lost the blooming thing. Finally got another trace on it, and where did it finally land? Only Earth! Can you believe that? Of all the places, on all the planets, in all the star systems, it lands in England!’ He finally stopped to take a breath. ‘Not entirely sure where, though, but it can’t be far. In fact, I think I’ve got its location traced… very strong signal… incredibly strong! In fact… it’s in here!’

The Doctor spun round to face Edward. ‘It’s in your backpack, isn’t it?’

Sheepishly, Edward removed the bag from his shoulders, and fished out the orb, still glowing gently.

‘Where did you find that? said the Doctor.

‘It landed in my garden.’

‘And you had to go and pick it up! Honestly, humans, have to go and have a poke… still, can’t whinge really, I’m the same. But, I’m afraid I’d better take that right now.’ The Doctor held out his hand, expectantly.

‘What is it?’ asked Edward, handing it over, a little reluctantly.

‘Only the most powerful object in this Galactic Cluster. That, Eddy-boy, is the planet Amarella.’

‘How can that be a planet?’ asked Edward, confused. ‘It’s tiny.’

‘Well, so’s the TARDIS on the outside. But it’s just huge on the inside. Amarella’s sort of the same.’ The Doctor sat down in front of Edward cross-legged. ‘You see, the Amarellans are an incredibly advanced race. About a million years ago, they developed psychokinetic abilities unparalleled in this Universe since the Carrionites and Hervoken wiped each other out in the Dark Times. It was practically magic – as close as you can get to magic in the real world, in any case. Of course, all the other species in the Galaxies wanted this for themselves. So to stop everyone trying to invade them, the Amarellans shrunk their planet down to the size of a tennis ball, enclosed in a protective sphere, trapped a baby sun inside to keep them warm and suntanned, and set it shooting off around the Universe. Clever, eh?’

‘So, what do you want it for? Are you after the power too?’

‘Me? Power! Nah, I’m just trying to keep it safe. After it swung back round into this Galaxy, I knew someone would get wind of it. Sure enough, the Normanites got a whiff of its power trail and set off after it. Found it had landed here just about the same time I did, it seems. Fortunately, you found it before them. I shudder to think what they could be capable of with that kind of power. Right bunch of thugs, the Normanites. They invaded Trion once, went around smacking the Trions with half-bricks in socks. Anyway,’ he took another deep breath, ‘I’ve got it now. Just need to get it back into the intergalactic void and away from trouble. Then I can nip back and send the Normanites packing.’

The Doctor leaped up, returning to the bank of machinery at the centre of his ship. ‘All I need to do…’ he said, flicking a series of switches, ‘… is dematerialise, and rematerialise somewhere between the Andromeda and Triangulum. Should be plenty far enough.’ The glowing object in the dead centre of the ship began to rise and fall, a noise like a warped trumpet rising from the depths. The movement stopped with a sudden clunk.

‘Now, wait a minute…’ said the Doctor, under his breath. ‘This isn’t right…’

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Edward, a bit worried about the idea of an alien spaceship going wrong with him in it.

‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ said the Doctor, as he frantically pressed levers and twiddled with buttons. ‘Come on, old girl, what’s wrong?’

‘Doctor,’ said Edward, getting a mite panicky, ‘what is wrong?’

‘We’ve materialised on a planet,’ said the Doctor, straightening and sweeping his hair back. ‘A planet where there shouldn’t be a planet. And now the TARDIS is refusing to leave. Something is keeping her here, and I don’t understand what…’

He grabbed hold of a computer screen that protruded from the central machinery, swivelling it round to face him.

‘That’s impossible…’

‘WHAT?’ shouted Edward, and you couldn’t really blame him.

‘The planet we’ve landed on,’ said the Doctor, looking surprised, and a little dumbfounded, ‘is Amarella.’

‘But, that’s the planet you’re holding!’

‘Yeah, that’s right. So, the TARDIS is on Amarella, and Amarella is in the TARDIS.’ He broke into a huge grin. ‘Brilliant! Only, a bit of a problem really. No wonder we can’t take off – infinite recursion. A’s inside B but B’s inside A… we’re stuck in a loop. The Amarellans final trick… it’s a space-time trap.’

To be continued…

Who Novelisation Quest 10: "The Christmas Invasion" by Jenny T. Colgan

Jenny Colgan has been one of the surprising hits of the Doctor Who book line lately. A huge fan of the series but coming from a completely different genre of work, she's provided a new voice in the increasingly predictable novels line. So it's no surprise that she was chosen to write one of the novelisations in the new range, being, in fact, the only non-television writer to do so.

With The Christmas Invasion Colgan has probably the least momentous story of the four. It is, of course, the first Christmas special and the first story for the tenth Doctor, which is quite significant, and blimey, it seemed like the most important thing on TV at the time. Looking back at the episode through the novelisation, and it's surprising how little actually happens, and just how long it is we have to wait to really get to know the new Doctor. Reading it retrospectively, when we already know Ten and he's a fixture of the past, it doesn't have the same impact when he finally arrives.

However, this is a solid retelling of an enjoyable story, extremely easy reading and a real pleasure. It's by far the most straightforward adaptation of the four new novelisations, but that's not a bad thing. And it's not to say it doesn't add something to the story; in particular, the lesser characters are expanded considerably. Daniel Llewellyn of the Guinevere project is especially well-rounded, coming across as a full character now, and even enjoys the beginnings of a romance with UNIT secretary Sally. The entire Guinevere project is expanded and given context, and UNIT seem far more vital to the plot than before.

There are some nice touches - the chapter titles are all Christmas songs, for example - and some extra scenes are included to give some more context for events. For example, the idea that the tenth Doctor picked up his accent from Rose is reinstated from a cut scene, and the Children in Need mini-episode that introduced Tennant is incorporated. The novel really gets into Rose's head and the mix of emotions she feels having seen her friend suddenly transform. For all RTD's reputation for emotional drama, there's a lot more to the novel than the original episode when it comes to human feelings.

The only real downside to including The Christmas Invasion in the line-up is the similarity between it and Rose. It's two stories featuring Rose, Mickey and Jackie set largely on the Powell Estate in the same time period, and this makes it seem less exciting. The fact that the audio versions of both books are read by Camille Coduri drives this similarity home (and I'm not much inclined to one book read by her). It just makes things a little too samey in a very short series.

On its own merits though, this is a lot of fun and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon or two.

Data: 
First published by BBC Books (Target imprint) in 2018
Based on "The Christmas Invasion," first broadcast in 2005
Audiobook read by Camille Coduri

Who Novelisation Quest 11: "The Day of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat

Perhaps the most anticipated of the new Target releases, The Day of the Doctor is the first novel by Steven Moffat, surprisingly for a writer who has become so prolific. Although initially asked to novelise Twice Upon a Time, Moffat instead decided that this was the one he absolutely had to write, especially considering the dreadful time he had writing the actual episode. I get the impression that this revisitation was a much more enjoyable experience for him.

If you don't care for Moffat's approach to storytelling, then you won't much like The Day of the Doctor. This is timey-wimey throughout, one of the more complex tellings in the Doctor Who line, certainly the most complex of the novelisations, jumping back and forth in time and between different characters' viewpoints. Well, that's at first glance, but the vast majority of the book is told from the Doctor's perspective, in one of his many incarnations, each chapter being delivered as a separate document by an omniscient narrator with a unique perspective on the overall story. Three guesses as to who that is. There's a chapter that's told from a human perspective, until you realise actually, it's a Zygon, but otherwise this is the Doctor's story through and through. And rightly so, because no other story in the TV series' history has ever been as much about the Doctor's own experiences and his views on his very long, eventful life.

The episode leapt about quite a lot, but the book is even more jumpy, and is presented in an order that never quite makes a logical progression clear. It opens with Chapter Eight, which adapts "The Night of the Doctor," the eighth Doctor's last minutes of life, before continuing with Chapter Eleven, the opening to the actual anniversary episode with Clara and the eleventh Doctor. Focusing on the numbering will lead you astray, though, and it's nothing as simple as chapter = Doctor, although the fact that Chapter Nine is redacted in a pretty funny decision, surely a snub to Christopher Eccleston for declining to appear in the episode. In fact, he's in this even less than the actual broadcast, since one of the very few elements not expanded upon is the War Doctor's regeneration, which is sadly relegated to occurring off-screen.

The broadcast episode was primarily the eleventh Doctor's story, given that Matt Smith was the incumbent star at the time, but Moffat has said that he views this version more as the War Doctor's story. In practice, however, so much more prominence is given to the Elizabeth/Zygon storyline that in effect it becomes the tenth Doctor's story for much of its telling. Things are particularly complicated (but ingeniously told) when all three Doctors are locked away together, with the tenth Doctor sandwiched between his suppressed past and his unwelcome future. Cleverly, Moffat doesn't resort to referring to the Doctors by number, but drops in little descriptors instead, which can be entertaining, albeit a little confusing, when the viewpoint is switching between incarnations. Given that this is original author reworking his own material, the dialogue is surprisingly altered, but what author can resist tinkering with their own work even after it's ostensibly finished?

As with Davies and Rose, Moffat takes the opportunity to expand the story in various ways. Satisfyingly, we find out just why and how the tenth Doctor made his way into Elizabeth's affections, cementing the feeling that the other Doctors barged their way in part way through another adventure. There are a number of extra elements inserted; River Song turns up, perhaps not surprisingly, in a bit of backstory; the twelfth Doctor is made more important to the heavily revised climax; and the thirteenth Doctor makes an appearance. The grand "all thirteen!" finale is very different, but perhaps even more satisfying, with Moffat realising that what works as a surprise and a visual treat onscreen won't work the same way in prose five years later.

The Day of the Doctor is one of the most enjoyable Doctor Who novels I've read, and believe me, I've read a lot. It stands up as one of the very best of the novelisations and makes me hope that someday Moffat will turn his hand to novel writing again.

Some fun observations from the novel:

The Doctor's first two incarnations were apparently colourblind, something the Doctor didn't realise until the Time Lords corrected this with his second regeneration. So, all that time we were watching the episodes as the Doctor would have seen them.

A. M. Thompson's amazing fan cover

Moffat reinstates something he was dying to include in the broadcast episode, but couldn't due to rights issues: the Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing exist in-universe as depictions of the "real" Doctor's life. He isn't the first author to suggest this, but he runs with it farther than others, even having the tenth and eleventh Doctors take time out from the proceedings to watch both films and then go back in time to fetch Cushing so he can make another one. It's a pretty hilarious way to explain how he can turn up in a new Star Wars film years after his death...

The potion given to the eighth Doctor by Ohila was just "lemonade and dry ice." So it's true the Doctor was just using this transformation as a way to excuse his behaviour during the War. (I'm still convinced he was cured of his half-human DNA during this regeneration though.) He also mentions Fitz during his companion rundown, fittingly given this is now a prose story.

The War Doctor half recognises Clara from her voice, referencing the later episode "Listen" which had her speak to his childhood self.

Coal Hill headmaster Mr. Armitage is completely in on the Doctor's existence, having been tipped off by governor Ian Chesterton.

Data: 
First published by BBC Books (Target imprint) in 2018
Based on "The Day of the Doctor," first broadcast in 2013
Audiobook read by Nicholas Briggs

WHO REVIEW: Four Doctors by Paul Cornell

Multi-Doctor stories are a tradition. A tradition that either marks an anniversary event, a charity telethon or an opportunity to get the fans to spend a few more quid on something that might just be unmissable. We've had the The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors, The Eight Doctors and The Four Doctors (already), plus many more that don't include numbers in their names. Four Doctors was touted as Titan Comics' big event for 2015, ostensibly for American audiences (not that getting the issues elsewhere is a challenge) and has now been reprinted both in the UK marketed Doctor Who Comic and in trade paperback collected format. A multi-Doctor story is basically an excuse for an knees-up, with overgenerous helpings of continuity and a few set pieces stringing it together. Occasionally, we get something with a little more substance, such as the fiftieth anniversary film The Day of the Doctor. This graphic adventure doesn't quite reach those heights, but it walks the line between fanwank and proper story well, something Paul Cornell has always been able to manage. He's also been a master of timey-wimey stories before Stephen Moffat came up with the silly term, so it's not surprise that he handles multiple Doctors and overlapping timelines very well indeed.

Some vaguely familiar people

The first question is which four Doctors will be featured, and early publicity suggested we'd have a team-up for Ten, Eleven, Twelve and the War Doctor. This isn't quite what we get here, for the War Doctor's appearance is little more than an extended cameo that supplies some background for the ensuing adventure. Everything that occurs here is fallout from the Time War, with some races, such as Voord, considering themselves considerably better off in the war-ravaged timeline.

Ah, yes. The Voord. Including the rubber-suited nasties in a story is guaranteed to make me smile, and their presence here, not as a joke but as a major adversary, pretty much sells the comic for me altogether. Again, Cornell has form, having turned the Vardans into a threat for the New Adventure No Future, but he takes the Voord reasonably seriously here, rethinking them as a formidable gestalt that genuinely threatens to defeat the Doctor. Fan-pleasing moments like this are never far behind, with the Blinovitch Limitation Effect coming into play and bringing Cornell's own creation, the Reapers, in to provide an arresting cliffhanger. However, the inclusion of Gabby and Alice - comicbook companions for the tenth and eleventh Doctors respectively - keeps this feeling fresher and not just a rehash of TV elements.

Swonnk

Four Doctors would seem to be, on the face of it, a perfect opportunity to bring the ninth Doctor back into the mix. Titan evidently have the rights to use the character, what with them publishing a series for him, and he does, at least, make a cameo. Still, it does seem like a missed opportunity. Three Doctors in the hero position is perhaps as much as a story can really handle before collapsing in on itself. As for the fourth Doctor of the title... his identity is a little more unexpected, and while hardly an original direction, works well with the conceit of the story.

The story does, by issue five, start to run out of steam, but the resolution is so rarely as satisfying as the set-up. Neil Edwards's artwork isn't entirely successful either, ranging from spot-on to unrecognisable within a single page.They can't all be The Day of the Doctor, but they needn't be Dimensions in Time either. Four Doctors has enough in its favour to mark it as a winner, if not quite an unmissable event.