'Why can't we go somewhere nice for a change, Doctor?'
Unrelated to the Flux, I've read two more PDAs.
The first involves the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa in a sequel to the Fourth Doctor adventure Planet Of Evil, set shortly after Earthshock.
I regret to say that I'm just not this book's target audience. Planet of Evil has never been a favorite for me and this isn't one of my favorite TARDIS teams. I kind of struggled with this one. Also I don't expect scientific accuracy from Doctor Who (to paraphrase William Hartnell, the Doctor isn't a scientist, the Doctor is a wizard), but, uh,
'Exposure to anti-matter hybridises the genetic structure, regressing the victim back down the evolutionary scale.'
What is this. Half the plot's tension comes from 'when anti-matter and matter meet they can't coexist and they'll cause a massive implosion!' and half of it comes from 'we're literally sewing anti-matter inside of people and causing them to evolutionary regress'. What.
(I do not blame Messingham for this, to be clear, this all comes from Planet of Evil, he did what he could with the source material and very gleefully called out "You must harness the movement of planets" for the bullshit that it is.)
I'm also not a huge fan of the whole 'for plot reasons our main characters must act OOC for large chunks of time', which was the case here as well.
This one was just....not for me.
I don't want to be relentlessly negative, though; one thing I did really like was the undercurrent throughout of the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa all dealing with their grief over Adric in different ways. That was very well done.
She thought about other days on other lakes.
Yet another person she hadn’t got to know.
And then for a change of pace we have the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria in a political drama/base under siege adventure. In spaaaace.
This was more my speed! One of my favorite TARDIS teams trapped on a space station under pressure to figure out a sensitive political situation, while a team of soldier drones heads their way to slaughter everyone on board if they don't figure it out. The supporting characters were interesting, the plot twists were fun, I figured out before the reveal on the Kesar was actually dead and the guy in the mask was an imposter but didn't figure out who he actually was until the end. Jamie's continuing insistence on treating everything like the kind of war that he's familiar with -- and therefore if everyone would just let him run out there and fight, he could totally help! -- was very sweet (that feels weird to say, but that's how it felt), and Victoria gets several good moments.
The Doctor is the real star of the show, getting to be disarming, silly, and a manipulative mastermind all at once.
You say a lot of things, Doctor.'
The Doctor sat back, laughing suddenly. 'Do I?'
'But words are cheap.'
'Aren't they?' The red glint was back now. 'But then life is very cheap to you, isn't it? The life of Remas, once he was no further use to you. Sponslor's life, too. The lives of your VETAC troops, if life they have. It seems to me that you have no conception of the real value of these things. And that's a pity.'
A wonderful ride, from start to finish.
The first involves the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa in a sequel to the Fourth Doctor adventure Planet Of Evil, set shortly after Earthshock.
I regret to say that I'm just not this book's target audience. Planet of Evil has never been a favorite for me and this isn't one of my favorite TARDIS teams. I kind of struggled with this one. Also I don't expect scientific accuracy from Doctor Who (to paraphrase William Hartnell, the Doctor isn't a scientist, the Doctor is a wizard), but, uh,
'Exposure to anti-matter hybridises the genetic structure, regressing the victim back down the evolutionary scale.'
What is this. Half the plot's tension comes from 'when anti-matter and matter meet they can't coexist and they'll cause a massive implosion!' and half of it comes from 'we're literally sewing anti-matter inside of people and causing them to evolutionary regress'. What.
(I do not blame Messingham for this, to be clear, this all comes from Planet of Evil, he did what he could with the source material and very gleefully called out "You must harness the movement of planets" for the bullshit that it is.)
I'm also not a huge fan of the whole 'for plot reasons our main characters must act OOC for large chunks of time', which was the case here as well.
This one was just....not for me.
I don't want to be relentlessly negative, though; one thing I did really like was the undercurrent throughout of the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa all dealing with their grief over Adric in different ways. That was very well done.
She thought about other days on other lakes.
Yet another person she hadn’t got to know.
And then for a change of pace we have the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria in a political drama/base under siege adventure. In spaaaace.
This was more my speed! One of my favorite TARDIS teams trapped on a space station under pressure to figure out a sensitive political situation, while a team of soldier drones heads their way to slaughter everyone on board if they don't figure it out. The supporting characters were interesting, the plot twists were fun, I figured out before the reveal on the Kesar was actually dead and the guy in the mask was an imposter but didn't figure out who he actually was until the end. Jamie's continuing insistence on treating everything like the kind of war that he's familiar with -- and therefore if everyone would just let him run out there and fight, he could totally help! -- was very sweet (that feels weird to say, but that's how it felt), and Victoria gets several good moments.
The Doctor is the real star of the show, getting to be disarming, silly, and a manipulative mastermind all at once.
You say a lot of things, Doctor.'
The Doctor sat back, laughing suddenly. 'Do I?'
'But words are cheap.'
'Aren't they?' The red glint was back now. 'But then life is very cheap to you, isn't it? The life of Remas, once he was no further use to you. Sponslor's life, too. The lives of your VETAC troops, if life they have. It seems to me that you have no conception of the real value of these things. And that's a pity.'
A wonderful ride, from start to finish.