| RETURN OF THE LIVING DAD by Kate Orman |
| Story 53 Synopsis: Bernice meets someone who fought alongside her father, Isaac, on his last mission, and summons the Doctor so she can check it out. They witness his vessel, the Tisiphone, disappear into a warp, and the TARDIS follows, landing in Little Caldwell, 1983, where Isaac runs a drop-in place for relocating stranded aliens. Soon after, a Lacaillan goes AWOL, and the TARDIS goes missing. The Doctor gets attacked in Newbury by a couple of Caxtarids who blame him for mucking things up on their planet. He's rescued, but they're kidnapped by people working at a secret base. These people are xenophobic and manage to kidnap Chris. Having already killed the missing Lacaillan, and the two Caxtarids, it takes a concerted effort to track Chris down alive. The Doctor then finds the real thief of the TARDIS is Isaac's aide, Albinex, a warmongering Navarino, who manages to force the Doctor to reveal the codes for the world's nuclear weapons. The Doctor exposes Isaac as being in on it, to Bernice's disgust. Isaac plans a small war to ensure humanity defeats the Daleks in 2154. But Albinex is working for the Daleks. The Doctor manages to stop him, and the missile is diverted to destroy the Dalek scoutship in orbit. The Doctor pulls strings to make sure Little Caldwell's operation remains unaffected. |
| Review:- Just when you thought you'd finally seen the back of Bernice Summerfield... The dilemma with own-generated companions in series like these is that the writers become too fond of them to let them go. This is a mistake, and this book shows how and why. Less a plot than a collection of contrivances, Bernice comes back to the fore when she finally tracks down her missing father. Rather than leave this detail as a loose end, we get a whole book where the Doctor thinks Isaac is up to no good, and would you believe it? He's right! So it turns out that in a sleepy English village, Isaac Summerfield runs an operation to send home stranded aliens, often the results of the Doctor's own efforts to prevent alien takeover. Despite this having gone on for 20 years, the Doctor has never known about it. Hmm... Fluke follows fluke in this book, perhaps simply more obviously than is usually the case in this range. Bernice just so happens to meet someone who knew her father before he disappeared, allowing her to call in the Doctor, despite surely having been able to do so at any point during her stay in the TARDIS! This then leads to 1983, and an alien goes missing, the TARDIS goes missing, and a peculiar ghost-hunter turns up, who just so happens to be a xenophobic nit who worked at the establishment which held the Doctor captive way back in 1969, in Kate's first NA, The Left-Handed Hummingbird. This nodding back is something that happens repeatedly in this book, as if someone suddenly felt so niggled by accusations of loose ends that they decided to tie things up. There are also heavy references to the TVM, since that effectively spelt the end for this book range. Probably of more value is the continuation of the relationship between Chris and Roz, as they make plain their feelings for each other. Of course, whilst Isaac isn't as kosher as he claims, he's being duped as well, by the naughty Navarino, Albinex. Amusingly, we are asked to believe he's working for the Daleks, who were notoriously absent from the NAs because Terry Nation wouldn't let them be used. They're only referred to sparingly, so it sort of works, and the inconveniently launched missile is used to put a stop to them. Isaac is taught his lesson, Bernice and Jason make a new base, and the Doctor, Chris and Roz return to their travels and the psi-powers mystery, which is about to really heat up... As a valid story in its own right, this book is too meagre to satisfy. As a self-indulgent bunch of in-jokes, and gratuitous waving to friends in the audience, this book is an insult. The promising and imaginative writer seen in earlier NAs seemed to have lost her edge. Sadly, there were still more to come from her... |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |