Time Trips: The Anti Hero by Stella Duffy

This latest Time Trips short story features Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor and his companions Jamie & Zoe. The TARDIS takes them to the Museaum at Alexandria but as usual something weird is going on.

The story revolves around the Muses from Greek myth and it's the typical Doctor Who thing of explaining myths through science-fiction. 

The three leads are portrayed reasonably well and Zoe feels more like an equal than she often did on the screen.

The big problem here is the length. The Time Trips series are short stories and Duffy almost has enough material for a whole Doctor Who novel here. The plot is whizzed through and it would have been nice to see the characters explore more of the interesting setting.

It's far from the worst of the series and it's great to see the Second Doctor team again but I would have liked to have read the story in a longer format.

A Message From the Doctor

Peter Capaldi made this message for a 9 year old autistic boy whose grandmother had just died. What a man!

Review: Silhouette by Justin Richards

One of the first Twelfth Doctor novels, this book sees Peter Capaldi's Doctor and companion Clara head to Victorian London to investigate a mysterious power spike. Inevitably they meet up with the Paternoster Row gang, Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax as they investigate a series of murders. 

I always think a sci-fi story set in the Victorian era works rather well and this is another example. The story is mostly set around a Frost Fair and Carnival of Curiosities, a magical setting which is so perfect for Doctor Who. The villain is rather good, a properly despicable Victorian villain that you really dislike. Although there's no monsters as such there are some interesting characters with special abilities, all of which are fantastic creations, yet somehow not outrageous. 

I felt at times that the character of the Twelfth Doctor wasn't particularly accurate, but I suspect the author had little to do on and managed a decent if not entirely successful attempt. Clara is good here which is nice to see although I did feel the Paternoster Row trio weren't needed here. In the TV show there's always been a strong reason for them being in the episode, that they affect the story in some way, but here it feels like the plot would have been pretty much identical without their presence. They are well characterised though and as usual Strax has some really funny moments. 

The first set of novels for a new Doctor also suffer from the author only knowing the basics to what the new character is like and how the series will feel but actually Richards gives us a really enjoyable Victorian Doctor Who story.

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.

Foxes performs "Don't Stop Me Now"

This is the full performance from Foxes of the Queen song "Don't Stop Me Now" from Mummy on the Orient Express. It also contains scenes from the rest of Series 8.

Doctor Who Unlocked: Mummy on the Orient Express

Every episode of Doctor Who has much more than meets the eye so I like to put together a little post exploring links to the past and other things you might not have known about! 

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

The Doctor tells Clara that there have been many attempts to entice him to the train and says “He even phoned the TARDIS once”. This happened at the very end of The Big Bang (2010) when the TARDIS phone rang and the Eleventh Doctor can be heard saying “An Egyptian goddess loose on the Orient Express, in space? We’re on our way!”.

The Doctor inevitably says to the Foretold “Are you my Mummy?”. He is of course referenced what the reanimated Jamie says in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (2005). The Tenth Doctor also says the phrase when wearing a gasmask in The Poison Sky (2008).

Comedian Frank Skinner plays Perkins in the episode. Skinner is a huge Doctor Who fan and made a cameo appearance in The Five Doctors (Reboot). You can see visible joy on his face when Peter Capaldi introduces himself as the Doctor.

Professor Moorhouse is played by Christopher Villers and has been in Doctor Who before, as Hugh Fitzwilliam in Fifth Doctor story The King’s Demons (1984). Janet Henfrey, who plays Mrs Pitt, is also a returning actor having played Miss Hardraker in The Curse of Fenric (1989).

The singer is played by grammy-award winning singer Foxes (aka Louisa Rose Allen). The full version of the song, complete with accompanying clips from Series 8, can be seen here.

The fact that she sings Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” continues something of a running joke where people in the future completely mess up when selecting songs from the past. Don’t Stop Me Now was released much later than the original Orient Express was around in the same way that few would consider Britney Spears “Toxic” a classic like it is described in The End of the World (2005).

It is not the first time a mummy has appeared in Doctor Who. In The Pyramids of Mars (1975) the Fourth Doctor faced robots disguised as mummies and the Eleventh Doctor more recently faced a mummy-like creature in The Rings of Akhaten (2013).

The Doctor offers Moorhouse a jelly baby, something he has done regularly since 1967’s The Dominators. The Fourth Doctor offered jelly babies many times but most of the Doctor’s incarnations have offered the sweet at some point. 

Doctor Who Unlocked: Kill the Moon

Every episode of Doctor Who has much more than meets the eye so I like to put together a little post exploring links to the past and other things you might not have known about! 

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

The Doctor says that Courtney will marry a feller called Blinovitch. The Blinovitch Limitation Effect refers to at least one principle of time travel and was introduced in Day of the Daleks (1972) and mentioned again in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) and Mawdryn Undead (1983).

This is not the first time the Doctor has used a yo-yo to test local gravity- he did the very same thing in his fourth incarnation in The Ark in Space (1975). The Fourth Doctor then regularly used for fun.

The Doctor says that “the Earth isn’t my home”. He used those exact words in The Pyramids of Mars (1975).

Tony Osoba plays Duke and has previously appeared in Doctor Who as Lan in Destiny of the Daleks (1979) and as Kracauer in Dragonfire (1987).

Filming for the episode took place on the Canary Island of Lanzarote. It is the second time Doctor Who has filmed there- the first was in 1984 when it doubled for the planet Sarn in Planet of Fire. 

Vortex manipulators are mentioned in the episode. These are wrist-straps from the future of Earth which allow the user to travel through time. Both Captain Jack Harkness and River Song have used them but the Doctor disproved of them, called them space hoppers compared to his sports car.

The Doctor mentions how humans will still be around at the end of the universe, something we saw evidence of in Utopia (2007).