| THE EIGHT DOCTORS by Terrance Dicks |
| Story 1 Synopsis: The Doctor is zapped by the TARDIS console, and loses his memory. The TARDIS guides him to Totter's Lane, London, where he meets a young girl named Sam, and is mistakenly arrested for possessing drugs. He slips away from the police, returning to the TARDIS and taking off. He visits each of his 7 previous selves, learning along the way about his past. Meanwhile, the Time Lords are observing his journey from a distance with alarm and curiosity. An attempt is made to kill him, but it backfires. After completing his journey, and regaining all his memories, he returns to Totter's Lane, where he plants the drugs on the real dealer, and finds Sam sprint aboard the TARDIS, on their way to a new adventure. |
| Review:- May 1997, and the BBC's ending of Virgin's licence to produce Dr Who adventures led to their own range, starting with this: a pretty cheap run-in between the latest Doctor and his 7 predecessors, in brief vignettes that illustrated the show's past through a distorted mirror. What results is more a collection of short stories than a single adventure, for apart from the occasional linked section as the Time Lords observe the Doctor breaking the laws of time and wonder if his intentions are good or ill, there is no connection from one trip to the next. Another problem is the disparity in length between his trips. His time with the 1st and 7th Drs is very brief, his time with the 2nd & 5th Drs is not much longer, and that with the 3rd, 4th & 6th seems to drag on interminably. Whilst I appreciate Dicks has taken the given opportunity of fitting these meetings into stories with which he had involvement (such as The War Games and The Five Doctors), it just seems to add an unnecessary over-complication to what is at heart just a very simple plot. He learns about UNIT, the Master and life on Gallifrey, and there's time for an appearance by the Sontarans, but it doesn't really cohere. I appreciate this book was written more to show off the past as well as looking to the future, but it falls between the two intentions. Perhaps suitably, the more interesting section is the framing plot in Shoreditch, which gives a brief introduction to Ms Sam Jones, and an early indication of what her character is. Sadly, there's not much to this, nor is there much to the Doctor, either. Besides an occasional commanding presence, and a steely pragmatism, there's nothing much to distinguish him by as the book ends. This would be a cause for concern in subsequent books, too. On the whole, it's far from essential, and a gear change from the Virgin years. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of the book. |