| MATRIX by Robert Perry & Mike Tucker |
| Story ? Synopsis: The Doctor is in a melancholy mood when he is attacked. Landing on Earth in 1963, he and Ace find a world radically altered, and that the origin concerned Jack the Ripper. They then land in 1888 London, but the Doctor nearly kills Ace, finally stopping himself and urging her away. She begins to degenerate into her Cheetah tendency. The Doctor, meanwhile, is evading his enemy by feigning ignorance. Called Johnny, he is taken in by Joseph Liebermann, a mysterious but kindly Jew. Ace ends up killing a cantankerous old woman, and finds herself in the clutches of Jacques Malacroix, malevolent circus owner, who has obtained the TARDIS, and the telepathic function to it that the Doctor desperately threw away. He threatens her with the police, unless she 'performs' in the ring, by changing into the cat form. She manages to escape, heading for a church for sanctuary. Strange golem creatures are sent to hunt Johnny down, and he finds Ackroyd, one of Malacroix's kindlier staff, who has obtained the telepathic circuit, which knits the Doctor together. He tracks his enemy to a church, where he realises that it is the Valeyard returned, now called the Ripper, who used the Doctor's body to commit ghastly murders. The Ripper intends to use the Dark Matrix to achieve apotheosis, at the expense of the Doctor's TARDIS. Ackroyd manages to save Ace, who had fallen into the Ripper's hands. The Doctor is forced into a confrontation with the Ripper, which ends when the latter is struck by lightning. As the TARDIS reasserts itself, the Doctor and Ace head for safety, leaving the world to recover. |
| Review:- The 2nd Perry/Tucker opus is a 6-parter set in changed Londons, as the terrible age of Jack the Ripper is a nexus point from which the Doctor cannot escape... After the rather choppy opening, and the short interlude with an alternate Ian and Barbara, the meat of the story concerns the dingy gloom of Whitechapel and the nasty circus of Malacroix. As Ace changes for the worse, the Doctor tries to hide from the inevitable, which allows his enemy to commit foul acts with his body... so to speak. The 6-part structure works well, once the story reaches Whitechapel, and the world described is well shown, and populated with believable and interesting characters, albeit with a fistful of cliches, such as the supposedly mute strongman (cf. Grun in The Curse of Peladon). The idea that Ace's Cheetah possession may be worth exploring further seemed to elude the writers of the New Adventures, so its appearance here seems fresh and imaginative. Her struggle to remain herself create great pathos, sadly annulled when she applies for a job with all the charm and subtlety of a breezeblock. As for the Doctor, he comes off worse. Whilst stuck for a lot of the time as the simple Johnny, who falls foul of a chicken pit before being rescued by the strange Mr Liebermann, it seems his body is taken over by the Ripper in order to commit the famous Whitechapel murders. Well, personally, this is just too extreme an idea, and quite an insult to the real killer's real victims. Whereas suggesting the Doctor caused the Great Fire of London may arguably be a bigger sin, it's somehow more acceptable in the great scheme of things. That the infamous chess-player manipulator should be someone else's pawn and forced to do such uncharacteristic horror takes it over the line. Malacroix turns out to be a bog-standard, yet still fiendishly distinctive, villain, and his hapless whelp, Jed Barrow, gets a lot of exposition for such a worthless cipher. Ackroyd and the freaks do a little better, though Tiny Ron is too indicative of Little Ron (from kids TV show Maid Marian and her Merry Men) to be original. The elusive Mr Liebermann gets rather a lot of page-time, and even a meeting with the 8th Doctor, but his truth is never divulged, which is another example of childish excess. Whoever he really is, he at least provides a useful excuse to keep Johnny hidden until the time comes. The climactic finish with the Dark Matrix returns the book to the OTT drivel of its opening, and the return of the Valeyard is hardly the stuff of excitement, especially as he is so easily outwitted. The final strike against him does at least provide a memorable exit, to be fair. Overall, whilst probably the best of the Perry/Tucker series, that's not saying a lot. When it fails, it really stinks. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |