Doctor Who Reviews: 'The History of the Doctor'

If a decade ago you were to ask a Doctor Who fan to imagine a UNIT spin-off, then I dare say that most would envisage a quaint little series set back in the “Blood and Thunder Days” of the 1970s, that would see the likes of Sergeant Benton, Captain Yates and even Cor-poral Bell fending off the incessant advances of miscellaneous monsters. And so in late 2004, when the long-mooted spin-off finally materialised as an ultra-modern, cutting edge...

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It was the production team’s original intention that the UNIT stories were to take place some time in the audience’s “near future.” Some contemporaneous publicity placed Spe-arhead from Space in the 1980s, and Sarah Jane even hinted that she might be from 1980 in Pyramids of Mars. Mawdryn Undead would forcefully retcon such a far-flung setting (as if the fashions on display hadn’t already), but to this day the question still burns – did the UNIT stories take place on or around their dates of broadcast, or a few years later? Are you a David Bishop man, or a Gary Russell? A UNIT Revisionist, or Classicist? And how do you feel about...

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You might think that I’m taking the piss, but I’m not: there are few Doctor Who stories that give me as much pleasure as The Chase. An infamous six-parter shining boldly at the end of Season 2, this serial contains so many moments of sheer del-ight that I always put it on whenever I’m feeling low. I cannot think of many Doctor Who stories that make as many fundamental mistakes as this one, yet struggle on regardless...

Taking its name from an early 1990s reference work, The Gallifrey Chronicles harbours as much love for Doctor Who and its multimedia spin-offs as any work of fiction possibly could. Within the space of just 281 pages, Lance Parkin ties up most of the long-running threads that defined the latter years of the eighth Doctor’s BBC Books adventures...

The prospect of any adventure set before the very first episode of Doctor Who is one that instantly captures the imag-ination of any fan, particularly when that adventure is produced by Big Finish, performed by a member of the original cast, and written by the man who wrote our earliest...

Just like The Dæmons a year before, The Time Monster was penned by the team of Barry Letts and Robert Sloman (but this time credited to the latter, BBC rules once again preventing the producer from taking any on screen credit), and so as one would expect it echoes The Dæmons in a number of ways. Ho-wever, The Time Monster is a much richer piece, fusing...

‘Bristol Boys’ Bob Baker and Dave Martin can boast a number of extraordinary Doctor Who feats on their curricula vitae. They united three Doctors, wrote out Sarah Jane Smith and even created K-9 - but unfortunately they must also hold their hands up to having written what must be regarded as one of the most terrible Doctor Who productions of all time...

Much like its Season 17 fellows, The Horns of Nimon is a serial that boasts quite a devoted following - yet I can’t for the life of me see why. As huge fan of Douglas Adams’ work, I’m desperate to fall in the love with the season that he infamously script-edited, but beyond the peerless City of Death and ill-fated Shada, whatever people find so dazzling...

With all of time and space to explore at the cost of flushing a toilet backwards, one doesn’t really expect to come across a ‘bottle show’ in this medium, but that is exactly what Relative Dimensions is – four characters trapped inside the TARDIS for Christmas with the walls (quite literally) closing in...

Following on from novella-length experimentation in Mi-ss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate, the purveyors of horror and high campery, Obverse Books, return Iris to her preferred short story format in Iris: Abroad. The title gives it all away...

The eleventh Doctor’s third audio exclusive adventure, The Jade Pyramid, sees the alien robot-filled world of the Doct-or and Pond clash with the noble and distinctive culture of feudal Japan. Brimming with of Shoguns, Samurai, dispossessed Ro-nin and poisoned shuriken, Martin Day’s story is a veritable mel-ting pot of genre staples...

For many years now, actor-writers John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch’s only contribution to Doctor Who has ran-ked amongst my least favourites. Meglos is certainly not without its novelties, but at its heart it seems to be little more than a poor man’s pantomime about a comically cruel cactus; some swarthy desperados; and a society that personifies the old...

Amongst this last Christmas Day’s stocking fillers was a copy of what could be considered the first Doctor Who graph-ic novel, and what is definitely my first Doctor Who comic book – The Only Good Dalek by Justin Richards and Mike Collins...

After the frosty environs of A Shard of Ice, the Doc-tor’s Demon Quest is warmed by the heat of x-ray eyes in the saga’s fantastic fourth instalment, Starfall. A lively lampoon of superhero comic books, this decidedly playful yarn sees a meteorite crash in 1970s Central Park, where it imbues fretful literary secretary Alice Trefusis with incredible powers...

The final chapter in Paul Magrs’ Demon Quest saga, Sepulchre, is a much quieter and more intimate release than the four that it follows, yet it boasts every bit as much horror and spectacle. For the first time in the series, we pick up...

The Doctor’s book-bound adventures beyond Sometime Never… are an interesting bunch of tales. Each stands on its own, afraid to start any more plates spinning in case there isn’t time for them to stop, yet some are unable to resist dipping into the rich continuity of the range and giving those...

The Tomorrow Windows comes with a pronouncement from its author, Jonathan Morris, that it isn’t a pastiche of Doug-las Adams’ work. He’s wrong - it is, but fortunately it’s a bloody brilliant one. The prose is almost as sharp as the acclaimed Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author’s, and...

Martin Day’s Sleep of Reason is one of the range’s most aberrant titles, and as a result it’s also one of its most admired. There is no complicated continuity at work here; no story arc to speak of. Even the TARDIS crew are sidelined for about a third of book, only to take a back seat to Day’s heroine when they...

Whilst his stories can sometimes be a little too trad-itional for their own good, one thing that Trevor Baxendale has always excelled at is conveying horror and gore in all its grisly ugliness, and here he wields his special skill with a force that outdoes even The Janus Conjunction. The Deadstone...

Of every Doctor Who novel that’s ever been written, I can’t think of one borne of a dafter, more fannish conceit than this one. By Stephen Cole’s own admission, he wrote To the Slaughter to explain away the Doctor’s apparent astronomical ignorance in Revenge of the Cybermen - and...

Our review of To the Slaughter finally brings us up-to-date. We can now claim

to cover every full-length Doctor Who story from 23rd November 1963 onwards!

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