The Death Pit

This is the first in a new series of Doctor Who books under the title "Time Trips". It features the Fourth Doctor landing on a golf course in 1978. In terms of chronology to the TV show this is during the short time the Fourth Doctor is travelling by himself, between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil.

The story is essentially about a golf bunker which eats people. It's a bit silly but it kind of works. There's some of the best, most well-rounded characters I've ever seen in a short Who book given to us in Bryony and Patterson. They both seem very real and very Doctor Who-ish at the same time. Everything about this story is good except the basic fact that the monster is a golf bunker which eats people. It just doesn't quite feel like much of an epic story!

The style is brilliant, it really fits well with the Fourth Doctor and feels kind of Douglas Adams-esque. As much as I can kind of imagine it as a TV episode, this works brilliantly in the written form as it delves into the thoughts of the characters, including the Doctor. It's always a challenge to get into the mind of the Doctor and A.L. Kennedy does a good job by not going into too much depth.

All in all this is a great start to the new series and although the monster is good fun it is a little underwhelming. Great fun!

The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

This is the e-short for the Tenth Doctor and sees him travelling with Martha Jones. From what I could gather from the references it is set somewhere towards the end of Series 3. In it the Doctor and Martha arrive in a place that looks strangely familiar to Martha, and she soon realises that is because it looks like the setting for a book she read as a child. It seems the Doctor and Martha are in a land of fiction- although not the Land of Fiction that the Second Doctor visited!

This is not the strongest of the e-shorts, largely as the plot feels a bit rushed, but it does everything these e-shorts should do- good characterisation of the Doctor and companion and a few cheeky references to the Doctor's era (here we get a quote from "Blink" and a nod to "The Shakespeare Code").

A good effort from Derek Landy for this e-short with a Famous Five-style start and a modern version of The Mind Robber to finish but one of the weaker ones of the series.

Plague of the Cybermen

This book sees the Eleventh Doctor face his old enemies the Cybermen. It is not entirely clear exactly where it is set in the Doctor Who continuity but it sees the Eleventh Doctor companion-less so it is probably after The Snowmen.

The Doctor arrives in a 19th century village to discover the locals dying of a plague or being taken away by "Plague Warriors" and the dead apparently walking from their graves. It's obvious from the title what the real cause of all this is and it soon turns into a generic Cybermen story. It's certainly a good story but it doesn't really cover any new ground. A big chunk of it was based on "Tomb of the Cybermen" which is certainly no bad thing. In fact if you are a fan of that excellent Patrick Troughton story there are a few little treats for you in this book.

As someone who has been writing Doctor Who books since the series returned in 2005, Richards has no problems in characterising the Eleventh Doctor. In fact I would say this is the most accurate prose version of the Eleventh Doctor out of all the books starring him I have read. We have a one-off companion here named Olga who makes a decent companion, although she is pretty much a copy of Clara.

Overall a good quick read for Doctor Who fans but not the most innovative Doctor Who book you can find.

4 Stars

The Beast of Babylon

Charlie Higson has created my favourite e-short so far. In it the Ninth Doctor picks up a girl called Ali and they head to Babylon, under the rule of Hammurabi, to face a god-like power.

The Ninth Doctor is captured perfectly, in his speech and in his characteristics. Higson uses the Ninth Doctor's cheeky grin to brilliant effect and I couldn't help but feel transported back to 2005 when a 12 year old version of me sat watching the first episode of the revived series.

The story is also great in many ways. Higson gradually reveals more as the story goes along and everything you think you know at the start of the story is wrong. He also does a good job of putting a bit of history in, with an appearance by Hammurabi and the Doctor mentioning how he stood for law and order. Plus this e-short is perhaps the most tied-in with the series as it is set during Rose.

Fantastic!

Shada [Novelisation]

Shada was originally going to be a six-part Doctor Who serial to end series seventeen but thanks to strikes at the BBC only half of Douglas Adams' story was filmed and the story was never broadcast. There have been various attempts to complete the story but this is the best one by a long way.

The story sees The Doctor, Romana and K9 attempt to stop the villainous Skagra from taking over the universe using an ancient Time Lord book stolen from Cambridge Professor Chronotis, who happens to be a retired Time Lord. It is quite complicated for a Who story of the age and with the addition of students Chris Parsons and Clare Keightly, obviously in love but yet somehow not together, it almost feels like too much. This is probably because it was intended to be a six episode story, rather than the more common four-episodes, and often these six episoders have to complicate the plot to make it last for the extra episodes and Shada does this.

Many elements of the story are classic Douglas Adams, from the forgetful retired Time Lord Professor Chronotis to Skagra's desperate to please spaceship. It is also a particularly original story being a Time Lord story yet not being set on Gallifrey and the revelation about what Shada actually is, is wonderful.

Credit must be given to Gareth Roberts here though for turning it into such an effective book. He matches the Adams style well and manages to fix a few of the weaker plot points. There's a very late '70s feel to the setting and lots of fun mentions for die-hard Who fans from the Doctor and Romana's past adventures to a few subtle nods to the revived series.

Overall this is a really successful novelisation of the missing story and compare it to the likes of The Creature from the Pit, a story from the same series, and it is wonderful. But for a work by Douglas Adams it is a little disappointing- this story is nothing on the virtually perfect Doctor Who serial City of Death. It remains a must read for all fans of this era of Doctor Who though!

Spore

In this e-short the Eighth Doctor arrives in the Nevada Desert to find a nasty pathogen killing the inhabitants of a local town. He soon realises what it and that Earth is in terrible danger.

It's a simple story really but the idea of what the pathogen can do is great, making it a real menace for humanity but no real problem for the Doctor. Scarrow had a difficult job of writing the Eighth Doctor book with little material to go on, just the TV Movie. Yes, there are lots of Eighth Doctor audio stories but their canonicity is debatable and most new fans won't have heard them.

Scarrow characterises the Eighth Doctor reasonably well but he is probably the most bland Doctor so actually virtually any of the incarnations could have been shoved into this story. Still, it is set in the USA and the Doctor mentions his Mother so it does feel quite Eighth Doctor-y. The e-short is one of the few occasions a one-off companion actually works quite well, she is needed otherwise the Doctor would have no humanoid to talk to for virtually the entire story, although why he becomes a little attached to her I can't fathom.

An enjoyable story for the Eighth Doctor, Alex Scarrow does a good job of writing the most difficult story!

Who is Peter Capaldi?

Yesterday the identity of the Twelfth Doctor was revealed to be Scottish actor Peter Capaldi. Join us for a special edition of Time Vortex as we investigate who Capaldi is imagine what sort of Doctor he may be!

 

First of all I must mention how wonderful Capaldi is as an actor and the fact that the Doctor Who fanbase has largely accepted him into the family shows you what a great Doctor he will be! Now Capaldi is not that well known outside of the UK Doctor Who fans will know him as Caecilius from the Series 4 episode The Fires of Pompeii, a clip of which can be seen below.

And that wasn’t his only part in the Whoniverse! He also played John Frobisher in Torchwood: Children of Earth, although things didn’t end so well for that character. Some people have complained that he shouldn’t be the Doctor because he has already been in the show before but these people are wrong. Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, was in the show before he was the Doctor as were Freema Agyeman and Karen Gillan (Karen is also inThe Fires of Pompeii). It’s no real issue and there are so many people in the time and space that look like different incarnations of the Doctor anyway!

Peter Capaldi is best known though for playing the sweary spinster Malcom Tucker in political sitcom The Thick of It and it’s spin-off film In the Loop.

You may also recognise Capaldi from the recent zombie film World War Z where he played W.H.O Doctor. What a coincidence! If you want to check out Capaldi in a genre role he is the Angel Islington in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere TV series which is really worth a watch.

I’ve been trying to work out what sort of Doctor Peter Capaldi will be. His age means he will certainly be very different from the Eleventh Doctor. Capaldi is 55 years old, the same age as William Hartnell, the First Doctor, when he took on the role. Capaldi will only be 64 days younger than Hartnell on their respective debuts- that is if the regeneration does take place during the Christmas special and we are not given a surprise regeneration in the 50th anniversary special.

I initially imagined Capaldi’s Doctor to be a bit like Patrick Troughton’s incarnation but realised the Eleventh Doctor is quite Troughton-esque so that is unlikely. It seems very unlikely too that Capaldi will be much like the First Doctor because that would just be a step away from the character we know today. I imagine the Twelfth Doctor to be a bit like Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor but with a hint of the grandfatherly feel Peter Cushing gave in his film version of the Doctor. Then again maybe Capaldi will manage to bring something completely new to the role!

When Steven Moffat was asked what sort of Doctor Capaldi would be he had this to say:

“Magnificent! The truth is, we don’t know. I’ve seen him do ‘Doctor-ish’ stuff and it’s worked. I’ve seen him deal with the technobabble, I’ve seen him deal with the nonsense… I wrote scenes [for the audition] that were deliberately impossible -- deliberately impossible dialogue, just to see, ‘Can you do the impossible, even without gunk being poured on you?’ and now we’re going to pour gunk on you, and throw a lizard at you, and ask you to say all this stuff and explain the plot… So we don’t know [what he'll be like] yet, we’re going to work on that. Matt developed hugely as he approached the part over the first few episodes and we’ll do the same with Peter.

As for the outfit I’m stumped. Moffat answered the question of what will the twelfth Doctor wear by saying:

“Clothes. Anything else would be just really shocking!"

Having an older actor playing the Doctor will be interesting in terms of how it affects the Doctor’s relationships. River Song’s story is pretty much finished but I expect her to make an appearance or two with Capaldi’s Doctor and don’t imagine their relationship changing much. Alex Kingston is only five years younger than Capaldi so it will feel perfectly normal.

Clara’s relationship with the new Doctor will be interesting. Clara and the Eleventh Doctor have been quite flirtatious but we don’t really know how they feel about each other. It’s difficult to imagine Jenna Louise-Coleman being as flirtatious or even in love with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. Now the Doctor is always hundreds of years older than his companion so technically it shouldn’t make much difference. But surely someone in their twenties in a relationship with someone in their fifties doesn’t feel right. I guess we will have to see how Clara copes with the regeneration- it should be pointed out that as she has been down the Doctor’s timestream she at least knows about the idea of regeneration and probably saw the Twelfth Doctor so it the process itself won’t be as much as a shock as it usually is to the companion!

In summary, lots to look forward to and Peter Capaldi is a fantastic choice for the Doctor!