| BAD THERAPY by Matthew Jones |
| Story 57 Synopsis: London, 1958. The Doctor has brought Chris here for a rest, and to get over Roz's death. He finds a man attacked outside the TARDIS, and fails to save him. He learns from a local police officer that several deaths have happened recently with no apparent connection, thought the Doctor soon realises the victims were all similar. Chris stumbles on an operation to bring aliens to Earth, but is confused by the circumstances. The Doctor learns that the victims are actually highly sophisticated Toys, designed to empathically mould themselves to another person. They came from a psychiatric instituion in Healey, where Director Moriah is trying to mould a Toy to resemble his lost wife, Petruska. He came from Krontep, which is revealed when Peri follows his path and explains his motive. The Doctor throws a party to try and get the rescued Toys to find new friends. Chris is not impressed by events. The Doctor is persuaded to let the Toys find their own way. He uses Peri's memories, to create a Toy that will resemble Petruska, which he then takes to Moriah. But Moriah's insecurity turns it against him. His Institute is destroyed, along with him and some of his earlier failed experiments. The Doctor takes Peri to the future, to pick up her old life. Chris and the Doctor head off again. |
| Review:- After the blockbuster conclusion to the psi-powers arc, a more small scale struggle with the painful emotion of loss... Chris has understandably taken Roz' death badly, and soon loses himself in the apparently small time struggles of Patsy and her friends. By coincidence, the Doctor is also involved, though neither realise it until quite late in the story. He gets to play detective for a change, tracing a number of victims to a sinister black cab, and an even more sinister operation using genetic material to create new life. Though the violent Gordy Scraton seems the villain, he is clearly in thrall to another. And vital background on that person comes from the interludes in which Queen Gilliam embarks on some archaeology, that key NA pastime. Anyway, since Gilliam is obviously Peri under a new name, it's easy to understand both her true desire (escape home) and also that she is following in the footsteps of predecessors Moriah and Petruska. The fate of the latter probably makes her more desperate to get away from Yrcanos (last seen, to any great degree, in Mindwarp). Moriah's plan is understandable because the loss of a loved one is hard to bear, as both Chris and the Doctor have recently learnt. That his Toys should be too successful for him is an added blow, and their escape makes for quite an emotional book. The return of Peri from the dead leads the Doctor to try and find the best solution for Moriah, but he would never have been satisfied, and his death at least solves his creations. I thought that it was clearer the first time I read it that Gordy's new brother Carl was also an escaped Toy, but that seems not to be mentioned at all. Huh, the memory does cheat. Though inevitable that Chris will leave with the Doctor, the story does at least allow them some space to grieve, and by their next appearance, they're putting it behind them. But there's still more trouble to come... On the whole, not really a bad book at heart, even if some of the trappings are a bit dreary, and the inclusion of the gay scene is just as dull as if it had been any social group. The blatant need to rescue Peri and reference the whole Yrcanos set-up is sadly a sign of a lack of imagination, though, and the frequent tendency of this range to change characters to suit itself, rather than leave them be. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |