Saturday 10 November 2018

The Good Doctor.

Well, here it is. The first adventure novel featuring Jodie Whittaker's interpretation of The Doctor, along with her chums Graham, Yasmin and Ryan. It is a timey whimey tale by Juno Dawson about how The Doctor's short stay on the planet of Lobos affected its development and history and certainly not for the better. It is a theme which is not entirely unfamiliar to the regular canon and the not so regular books and comics and audios which have woven the fantastically rich history of the Whoniverse.
                                "I'd rather be, all out at sea,
                                 Sunk for the rest of me life.
                                 I'd still feel better,
                                 Down fifty feet wetter,
                                 Than home with the kids and the wife."
These are the words of a sea-shanty sung in a waterfront pub that Ryan finds himself in while trying to find his way back to his companions after seperate adventures on this messed up planet. Its an amusing detail in a pleasantly created scene in a low waterfront dive. Lobos is a well imagined planet in that thanks to the richness of our collective imaginations as we are not limited by BBC budgets and Juno Dawson's writing is descriptive enough to visualise the various locales. its another world they are on and a lot of writers are cottoning on to the notion that other planets probably have more than one enviroment, with different regions, different weather systems and climates. Not so much a snow world, then a desert world etc. Also for the continuity buffs the current production team left room between broadcast adventures for stories set in other mediums. Providing nothing happens as radical as say Graham losing a foot or any other limb for that matter.
             Its a nice read this one. Juno Dawson must have been given insights in advance as to how the different characters would approach their roles, as they are pretty bang on. Read it now while the aura of newness still hangs around the show.
             The show made for children which adults adore.
(I wish we had got to see more of The Doctor and her companions on then surface of the junk planet. The idea of a junk planet really appeals to me. Maybe it has to do with spending so much time in second hand book stores.One never really knows what one will find.)