Dr. Ninth by Adam Hargreaves (BBC, 2017) As if inspired by a particularly insipid Terrance Dicks novelisation, Hargreaves doesn’t so much attempt a mash-up here as a clumsy retelling of Rose’s first story. The text is belaboured and even the pictures offer little. Jack Harkness is a middling highpoint.
Tag Archive for Doctor Who
Doctor Who: Find and Replace
Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles – Find and Replace by Paul Magrs (Big Finish, 2010) This short, tightly plotted story makes clever use of both Huxley (an alien narrator) and Iris Wildthyme (quasi Time Lady, owner of a transdimensional bus) in transporting Jo Grant back to the 70s and giving her one last scene with the Doctor.
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks by Eric Saward (BBC, 2019) At last, lagging thirty-five years behind the TV serial, former Doctor Who script editor Eric Saward has novelised Revelation of the Daleks. If only he’d spent some of that time learning to write! This is BBC-endorsed beige-wallpaper fan fiction without the heart.
Dr. First
Dr. First by Adam Hargreaves (Puffin, 2017) Doctor Who purists may not approve of this playful rewriting of the programme’s origin story. There’s no denying, however, that the characters are beautifully drawn – from Susan, to William Hartnell’s cantankerous purple and grey Doctor, to the jiving, sports mascot, continuity-defying Cybermen!
Dr. Sixth
Dr. Sixth by Adam Hargreaves (Puffin, 2018) Poor Colin Baker. Hargreaves captures something of the Sixth Doctor’s voice, and also his rather planless propensity towards grandiloquent bluster as a means by which to defeat evil (in this case, the Rani). Unfortunately, the illustrations in this volume are rather bland.
Jago & Lightfoot & Strax: The Haunting
Jago & Lightfoot & Strax: The Haunting by Justin Richards (Big Finish, 2015) A lightweight but very funny adventure. Just as they supported the Fourth Doctor in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, here Victorian pathologist Professor Lightfoot and theatre impresario Henry Gordon Jago afford Strax (the gung-ho, incomparably befuddled Moffat-era Sontaran) a lease on the limelight.
Dr. Tenth: Christmas Surprise!
Dr. Tenth: Christmas Surprise! by Adam Hargreaves (BBC, 2017) Having misappropriated elements from the Ninth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor Christmas specials, Hargreaves then dresses the Tenth Doctor in nothing but sneakers and an unfortunately placed collar and tie, giving the distinct impression of David Tennant as a stripper. Ta-dah! Christmas surprise!
Zero Space
Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter – Zero Space by Adrian Poynton (Big Finish, 2018) There are some nice SF ideas serving as backdrop, but again the mandate seems to be characterisation. All well and good; however, the plot progression of Jenny and Noah arriving, delivering an uplifting pep talk, then running away is already wearing thin.
Dr. Fifth
Dr. Fifth by Adam Hargreaves (Puffin, 2018) In both illustration and storyline, Hargreaves gently sends up the school excursion bickering and pantomime villainy of the Fifth Doctor’s first season. Again, the text reads like a first draft, but in the Mr Men canon this seems par for the course.
Neon Reign
Jenny – The Doctor’s Daughter: Neon Reign by Christian Brassington (Big Finish, 2018) Trite premise, clumsy exposition, heavy-handed on the agenda. The saving grace here is the characterisation of Jenny (who’s inherited some of the Tenth Doctor’s traits) and her companion Noah (who carries himself with a naïve sangfroid that curiously echoes Paul McGann’s Eighth).