Review: Lights Out by Holly Black

An e-short was published last year, one for each Doctor so now that we have a Twelfth Doctor played by the wonderful Peter Capaldi there's an e-short for him too. This one is written by Spiderwick Chronicles author Holly Black. 

The story is set between the first two episodes of Series 8, Deep Breath and Into the Dalek and sees the recently re-generated Twelfth Doctor go to an intergalactic coffee house to get some coffee for Clara. When bodies start appearing he grabs the story's narrator "Fifty-One" to help him investigate. 

In my mind this is just as good as the best of the other e-shorts. It's very dark and manages to contain a real surprise in it. The tone fits in with that of Series 8 really well and Black manages to capture the Twelfth Doctor's character well too, which is impressive given how little of the incarnation she must have seen when she wrote the story. 

As ever there are some continuity nods, mostly in the form of cameos and mentions from various Doctor Who races. I'm pretty sure Black must have set a record for number of Doctor Who alien species mentioned in a short story. 

A short but fantastic story which fans of the new Doctor will love.