Single Fiction reviews (iii)

The Fifth Doctor Collection

The Twelve Doctors of Christmas: At Five, Gold Rings (Steve Lake) reaches a state where style over substance is achieved. The plot, a half-arsed sequel to Inferno, contorts to make the title relevant and the Christmas angle barely consists of an afterthought but this plotless runaround is so damn fun - and evoking the excitable chaos of Christmas morning - it manages to be a triumph in spite of itself.

Far more festive is Adric's First Christmas (AbbyRomana) where the young Alzarian discovers the Doctor is one of Santa's helpers. It's a sweet idea, but the characters are all wrong, the continuity deranged (Adric has faced Daleks and Cybermen?) and the overall structure could use work. Still, points for effort.

Release (Simon Skupham) is interesting for seeing how the Season 19 crew would cope with the author's usual impenetrable format - certainly Tegan and Adric wouldn't mutely accept whatever the Doctor did - but it's still a rather awkward tale of a cult of space people (I think) wanting to remove a chest-burster like alien that they worship as a god from the chest from the unwitting host John Clarke (no relation) in a 21st Century hospital (I think). But the Doctor's quest to get involved is vague, contradictory and unclear whether he wants to stop it, make sure it happens or something else. He doesn't murder anyone for the greater good, but legging it and leaving a man to bleed out (albeit in a hospital trauma ward where he can be helped) does not sit right.

The same author provides Voyage of Discovery, an unusually easy-to-follow in media res story about attempted regicide on a train. The characters, motivations and plot are refreshingly straightforward but silly alien names turn the prose turgid ("The Prince stared down at Awlax's body, then he up at his assailant who held aloft a hunting knife associated with the tribes of the Saqqal, used in a hunt to sliced through even the bones of the Ultap.") and again, it seems sympathetic original characters are difficult for Skupham to come up with. Still, the Doctor remains murder-free.

In what would be the first - but, surprisingly, not the last - alternate-Fifth-Doctor-continuity-with-Mary-Sue-new-companion-shagging Nyssa, Peter Jeremy supplies the first three installments of The Raven Series. Whether or not the titular cad was intended to leave at the end to preserve Season 19, we'll probably never know.

Things get off to a reasonably good start in Demon On Deonisia where the TARDIS crew encounter a deadly tree on a paradise planet and Raven woos Nyssa and impresses the Doctor by repeatedly bullying Adric. You'd think such abusive behavior would turn them against Raven but no. However, by the end of the next story Time Trap - wherein the Master's cunning plans end up with Raven and Nyssa forced to have sex at gunpoint by aliens, the lucky swines - doubts are starting to form. The unwitting finale, pseudo-historical Teardrops or the Rain, shows the Doctor, Tegan and Adric are now against our suave Raven which... presumably led to something. Maybe. All in all, if you like Nyssa being a glorified sex doll to be argued over, or think Season 19 needed a love triangle to add to its soap opera elements, this is well worth a read. Possibly.

The Hall of Memories (Mark Simpson) is a 1000-word take on the Doctor mourning for Adric and his other lost companions. Well, that's the idea. In actuality, it's a description of the Doctor maintaining a dozen creepy shrines like a serial killer in their basement. Thus this is hilariously bad rather than heart-breakingly poignant.

Firestorm (Mark Simpson) was later pitched to Big Finish with a more interesting plot than the one here. The Doctor and Nyssa are on holiday when a volcano erupts on their paradise island. They help the guest characters not be burned alive. The end. There's not much to complain about, or praise either. The only novelty is the plot revolves around a natural disaster with no returning villains or anything like that. Meh, as they say.

The Invasion that Never Was (Kaye Redhead) is another Dad's Army crossover because god knows we need these things. In this case, it's more than just a brief cameo but a vague attempt to prevent the alien Vusso from doing something naughty. Hence the name. Avoidable.

Heart of the Sun (Mark Simpson) picks up on the author's fetish for the Doctor helping his past selves deal with the simplest of problems, in this case Five and Nyssa help Two, Jamie and Zoe with a cruise ship flying into, oh, if only there were words to describe it that weren't in the title... More efforts put into the French Farce of two TARDIS crews bumping into each other than the main plot which is just Firestorm on a spaceship, come to think of it. I'm not saying this story has no merits, but certainly none spring to mind at the moment.

"Can Help Slimming..." (James Stewart) is simply Partners in Crime with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa taking on the Adipose. A 1000-word challenge to use the most obscure of villains, you have to wonder who'd consider the Adipose villains in the first place. The scheme in PiC wasn't their usual tactics, you know! And given how little the Tenth knew of them, why does the Fifth realize everything from a single advert? Sheesh!

Tombs of Skeggria (Mark Simpson) is a generic and inoffensive Sontaran runaround as their hunt for the Rutans leads them to spoil an archaeological dig. The Doctor and Nyssa are poorly-written and crudely-characterized, suggesting this is one of Simpson's earlier works because he really is capable of much better than this.

Tarnished Future (Kaye Redhead) brings back the Great Intelligence, the Yeti and the Tomorrow People in this prequel to Downtime. It manages to cheapen all of these things with a complete lack of rhyme or reason, and is so utterly vacuous it leaves me in a black mood. Nothing in this story merited writing down, let alone reading.

Time's Edge: Prison of the Cybermen (Mark Simpson) and you know the deal. Thomas Brewster plus NuWho Silurians plus 80s Cyberman multiplied by the Silence and Older Amy from The Girl Who Waited (resurrected on the spurious excuse they needed a character to make up the numbers). The end result is a reasonably novel Cyber story that works better without the framing narrative. It doesn't really synch up with the relevant BF series, but that can only be counted as an improvement.

Lost And Forgotten (Steve Blair) is a simple snapshot of a tourist in Amsterdam remembering when he was first in the city as a little boy, who meets the Doctor and Nyssa. Yeah. That's it. Not terrible, by any means, but there's virtually nothing to it.

Long Ago (Sarah Taplin) is the inevitable Time-Crash-from-the-Fifth-Doctor's POV but sadly doesn't provide anything worth reading beyond that pitch. The Doctor whines to Nyssa and Tegan about looking fat and old when, um, he doesn't. And technically never will. Self-indulgent self-pity. Avoid.

Whom Gods Deploy (Guy Moon) is another 1000-word tale, a challenge written around an obscure line of dialogue (in this case "Not Nyssa, celery!") which turns into a quiet philosophical contemplating of the universe heart-to-hearts with the Doctor and Tegan. Better than you'd think.

Parts Per Million (Simon Skupham) intends to be a straightforward race against time for the Doctor to find a cure for a disease killing Tegan, but the ridiculous formatting problems with all the paragraphs blurring into each other even with different POVs render it borderline unreadable. Which is unfortunate, as it's the most uplifting and optimistic story he's done so far. No murder at all! Yay!

Memories (Mark Simpson) is presumably set before The Five Doctors as it has the Doctor getting all broody about Susan. It seems to be part of some "locked TARDIS room" trilogy including Hall of Memories and The Haunting, suggesting that most rooms in the time machine are haunted by the spirits of those were there. No wonder the Doctor keeps welding the doors shut...

The Legacy of Sutekh (Mark Simpson) is a straightforward semi-sequel to Pyramids of Mars as the titular buildings are explored by unsuspecting space archaeologists. Luckily, the TARDIS crew, fresh from The Five Doctors and with Kamelion-as-Nyssa, are here to save the day. It's functional and unsurprising, but the characters are of course perfectly captured and the end result is hard not to enjoy.

Borrowed Time (Nix Nada) is, without doubt, the best use of Kamelion in any form. No one before or since has tackled the character with anything like this intelligence or emotion. It's a short, concise glimpse into the shape-shifting android's mind, its wasted hopes and thwarted dreams, which in turn throws light on what the Doctor thinks of the silver C3PO and why they're friends. If any of these fictions deserved to have been part of the original TV series run, then it's this. I can't recommend it enough.

Shifting Sands (Simon Skupham) sees the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough recovering from Seabase 4 visiting the futuristic planet of Quandale in the 31st Century, enjoying its newfound freedom as the Earth Empire finally collapses. Except, of course, without the Empire's influence, the planet's economy will have to survive on its own. If you thought The Mutants would be better with less giant insects and more unemployment statistics, then this is your cup of tea. The ending is upbeat, if unsatisfying, but another bloodbath right after Warriors of the Deep would presumably have just been gratuitous, thankfully.

Sharing not only a similar name but the same author and TARDIS crew, The Sand Trap involves the Doctor helping a man called Durlag confront MechTech, an insurance company that seems to have gone evil and is kidnapping and killing people. Why? No idea. Nor do I understand how MechTech personnel can vanish and reappear at whim, how the Doctor can defeat them, if they are defeated... But there's a happy ending. Eventually. Somehow. Probably. Oh, if only these were ever given a second draft!

Protect and Survive (Steve Lake) continues the Decades series with fifties Cold War paranoia and a sinister English village where the locals are under the spell of something very insidious and not necessarily alien. Extended into two episodes gives the narrative and characters time to breathe, with some classic vitriol between Tegan and Turlough as they endure each other's company. It reminds me of The Awakening, in a good way.

Clones, Cricket & Cups of Tea (Kaye Redhead) turns the author's surreal, would-be comedic view on the shattering ending of Resurrection of the Daleks with those wacky wise-cracking middle-class eccentrics Dr. Who and Turlough quip about mass slaughter, Dalek carnage and of course have no feelings whatsoever about Tegan so when they bump into her Dalek duplicate, well, hey-ho-pip-and-dandy! In fairness, the actual idea behind the plot is good and there are some genuine funny lines from Turlough but for crying out loud, take some thing seriously Kaye!

Nine Lives: Passengers (Simon Skupham) is not much of an improvement on the previous installments, but at least Turlough's relationship with the Doctor post-Tegan gives a rationale to their presence. I'm none the wiser if this story is set on Earth, if we're meant to recognize the characters or be pleased or upset at their fates. Most notable is the Doctor's meta-commentary on how Skupham resolves his plots: "Some part of the Doctor's mind was quite cross with himself. He was above this, he should be able to better deal with criminals than through violence. But another part said - Let's have this!" Quite...

I was the resurrection (Chris Pollard) is an odd title for an odd story, with the Doctor writing a letter to Tegan to let her know how he and Turlough are getting on. Lots of points for originality, but it goes nowhere.

Playing God (Simon Skupham) would presumably be more accurately called Playing Gak, as the story is full of ridiculous and hard-to-remember-let-alone-take-serious names - Sakastal, Plazdak, Jenk, Antak, Scokan, all of them gun-toting zealots devoid of any distinguishing personality. Infuriatingly in media res with no interest in explaining how we got here, the Doctor attempts to act as the voice of reason to an anti-GM extremist group while Turlough keeps out of the way with some well-written cynicism. Alas, we're back to murder-and-running-away as the only way to resolve a plot, but given it's impossible to give a damn about any characters, is that a bad thing?

Land of Dreams (Kaye Redhead) starts off with a crossover with Allo Allo and then, inexplicably, gets worse. Given the author's fetid fetish for crossing over with every other franchise imaginable, suddenly bringing in the cast of Lexx as proof this is the Land of Fiction is bizarre. There's a clever ending, but by that point I hated the smug prose and comic characterization too much to care.

The Paradoxes of Time (Mark Simpson) is another of the author's story where a future Doctor needs to travel back to save his past self from having to actually be clever or resourceful. This time, when the Fifth Doctor and Peri accidentally leave the TARDIS to sink with the Titanic, the Seventh Doctor and Ace give them a lift. Sheesh! I might be more forgiving if there were any actual paradoxes in the plot...

Ring of Lies (Kenny Davidson) is a clever, characterful tale of a bitter man trying to change his own past by framing an innocent man for murder. Luckily, the Doctor and Peri are on the case. There's something reminiscent of Steven King about ordinary, petty Americans using nigh-supernatural powers for their own selfish desires, and the existential horror that follows. Thoroughly recommended!

Speedbird Concorde 002 (Mark Simpson) feels like clutching at straws for a plot, as the Doctor and the three pilots from Time-Flight celebrate the decommissioning of the ugly aircraft. Well, they bump into each other, exchange a few pleasantries and then wander off. The fact that Peri and Erimem don't actually appear during this story, set during their time in the TARDIS, robs us of any new perspective on the story. I imagine Erimem, for example, would want to know what the hell all that Kalid business was all about...

All That Jazz (Mark Simpson) sees the Doctor take Peri to wartime London to get Glen Miller's autograph. But if you're expecting this to be a celebration of that mysteriously-vanishing musician, be prepared to wade through a boring collage of the Gods of Ragnarok, the Brigadier's father, and the old use-jazz-music-to-defeat-the-enemies trick from Silver Nemesis. Pretenious but mercifully brief.

The Living Rock (Stephen Brill) is another tale by the visually-challenged writer as the Doctor and his not-seen-before-or-since companion Tara encounter a sentient mountain that turns people to stone. Um, points for effort, but this is really very poor in terms of consistency, coherence and plot.

Broken Dreams: Making Time (Daniel Iveson) is a nice quiet moment with the Fifth Doctor and an original character, but any connections with the ongoing series totally escape me. Maybe that's why Iveson gave up on the whole thing? It seems to be just random Doctors saying "Nice day, isn't it?" more often than not.

The Idol (Eric Bakke) is an oddly-structured tale of the Doctor and a hitherto unmentioned friend getting drunk and using the TARDIS to steal the statue of the title to try and ruin a religious practice of child-sacrifice. However, more effort is put on the Doctor's dislike for alcoholic beverages than the plot and it ends up confusing. The attempt to create a new regular companion is irritating as well.

The Haunting (Mark Simpson) is set just before The Caves of Androzani and explains the Doctor's doom-laden foreboding attitude in his final story. What? You mean the Doctor doesn't have a doom-laden foreboding attitude in his final story? But then that means this glorified jump-scare of Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric, Kamelion and the Watcher is a completely worthless waste of words! And you'd be right.

Finally, we get our second Mary-Sue-bonks-Nyssa ongoing saga that has far more effort and ambition than Raven getting his end away. Though things go a tad out of control towards the end when everything post-Time-Flight is overwritten with a BBC-Books style adventure of the Doctor on the run from Romana and the Time Lords without his TARDIS and a radically-changed companion to worry about. It stopped abruptly in its second potential season, which might signify the author realizing it wasn't working as a premise, lack of audience interest, or merely boring but its clear "Robbie Bainbridge" is the pet of Mark Ritchie and will linger as one of TimeLord Single Fiction's most notorious (or at least most-used) creations.

Who is Robbie anyway? Well, we're denied a meeting with the character, just dropped into the first story, Patterns of the Sky, where we find he's a slightly violent 21st Century comics geek who is held in high esteem by both the Doctor and Nyssa and also impervious to lethal weapons. No author wish fulfillment there, no sir. The first-person writing style is obviously just a coincidence.

No Lullaby gives us the now traditional gatecrash-historical-music-event (see Live at Birdland and All That Jazz) as Robbie's attempt to go on a date with Nyssa to see the Beatles is ruined by a generic alien invasion scout. We've all been there, buddy. All That Matters is a Black-Orchid-style 1930s murder mystery at a high society mansion but the hardest pill to swallow is the Doctor revealing he was taught English at a student as Oxford. Um... really? Oh, and Robbie gets his leg over Nyssa and has dreams that he's really a bloke called Prospero who's a space-age warlord, because he wasn't already special enough, poor dear.

A trip to Mars in Thunder Falling On Grass thankfully becomes a ham-fisted September 11 analogy, because at least it stops Robbie being clever-clever and constantly insisting Star Trek has better aliens than Doctor Who. Those oh-so-worthy rants about Bush and terrorism are at least less teeth-grindingly bathetic as having the Doctor huff that the Cybermen came before the Borg. Bhudda in a blender!

Robbie gets a bit more backstory in Just A Dream where we learn he's a British university student guitar-playing borderline-hipster loner whose best friend is a millionaire, and has irrefutably-correct opinions on everything from Terry Prachett on Desert Island Discs to Goodfellas and Jethro Tull. Even Bernard Quatermass thought he was awesome and wanted to hang! Mein gott, if only we were all as cool as Mark, I mean Robbie!

That aside, the story's very well done as Robbie is apparently abandoned on a desert island to go mad, thanks to the Ruin (memory parasites hard not to imagine as the Dream Crabs from Last Christmas) filling his mind with fantasies. Yeah, it's a total rip off of a certain DS9 episode - surprised Robbie doesn't complain about that, too - but it successfully undermines any confidence in what counts as "real" or "imagined" as Robbie's reasons for being with the Doctor aren't the ones they both remember. It's clever all right, but when your own Mary Sue critiques the format for being "like something out of a bad John Rackham novel", maybe it's a sign from the subconscious?

The Die Is Cast marks the point where Ritchie decides he doesn't need so-called canon in this story where 2004 might as well be 2084 with military spy satellites shooting at each other, secret agents and fake personas are rife, young men have their personality revised and even friendly generic Brigadier substitutes can't be trusted. Soon the Doctor's spouting about Faction Paradox and Pythia, oh and the Time Lords are on a war-footing. It seems to have taken five years, but suddenly BBC Books are suddenly being embraced in thought if not deed.

The first season ends with the not-at-all-pretentiously-entitled Light Out of the Darkness has the Doctor discover those dastardly Ruin have killed all the Time Lords and left a psychopathic Romana ruling a post-apocalyptic Gallifrey (and I do mean psychopathic, as Romana destroys the TARDIS, tries to kill the Doctor and then executes Leela and puts her head of a spike because shut up, that's why!). Meanwhile, Nyssa and Robbie are left on 31st Century Ganymede which just happens to be the site of a Cyberman war and Robbie is recruited to use his awesome psychic powers to fight the silver bastards! And Nyssa wants to marry him!And then he gets mindwiped and turned into a genocidal telepathic supersoldier destroying whole planets! He's like Ace Rimmer and Chuck Norris combined!

With talk of rewriting history more than once, and a cameo from the Seventh Doctor and Benny, it becomes a wait to see if mainstream continuity will ever be restored. Excommunication, however, simply is a letter written by the brain-damaged Robbie to his long-dead drug-dealing friend. Ex-communication, get it? No? Oh well. Next up is The Greater Good, doesn't add much more to the status quo except for Nyssa's understandable descent into alcoholism after all they've been through. The saga comes to an abrupt end in All The Day where it seems things have all gone a tad Firefly, as the Doctor, Nyssa and Robbie become gun-slinging space cowboys delivering sheep to desert planet and needing money. If this is all this has been aiming towards, the fact that the next story - Valentines - was never written can probably be notched down as a positive.