December Is The Cruellest Month

A Waterboys reference for a grey and very stormy morning up here. I had planned to go by bus to Brodie Countryfare outside Forres but, even with three layers, I'm too cold and the lack of daylight is making me gloomy.

 I might cut my losses and go to the pictures  instead to see the Spidey animated movie. My flat is so draughty, it's like The Haunting of Hill House.


Today, I wanted to gather my thoughts on the end of the first season of the Whittaker/Chibnall Thirteenth Doctor- and my Big Finish listening on my walk to work, of course.




We know now that rumours about the new star and her producer pal's departure were just that. We also know that the next series won't be screened until  the space year 2020. For my money, the best episode this year was The Witchfinders. Genuinely spooky, with Jacobean zombies and a fruity thesp turn from Alan Cumming ("Are you...actors?"), the Doctor's new gender was a plot point and she had a Doctor-y moment for the first time, I'd say. The pacing was a bit off and the alien element actually unnecessary but it was much better than It Takes You Away.

 I was baffled by this hygge take on Pan's Labyrinth. The comical sentient universe/frog entity only reminded me of  the deranged Psychomania and the behaviour of the blind girl's father seemed highly improbable.


Graham's reunion with Grace could have led into his revenge trip in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, the season finale. But it didn't, really. Instead, this story seemed vaguely to be about religious extremism and elevated Tim Shaw (sigh...) into a ranting movie-style supervillain, like Steppenwolf or Apocalypse. It was largely tension-and-drama -free although one might say setting it in a gravel pit was appropriate. Yet again, Yaz had nothing to do and was completely superfluous.




I think I'll review the Ne'er Day special, the first issue of the Titan comic and the children's book The Secret of Vault 13 at the beginning of January. In the meantime, I feel it hasn't been a very satisfying season: bland, with a passive Doctor and paper-thin dilemmas. I think it's massively important that the first official female Doctor Who has the best possible stories. Chibnall echoes the insidious Tories when he talks about families. Does family entertainment have to be quite so toothless?  However, I really disliked the dark, Capaldi Era at first and grew really fond of his Doctor in the end. Anything could happen to my indifference in the months that lie ahead.

In book form, the Thirteenth Doctor's exploits have been a mixed blessing. Molten Heart by Una McCormack reminded me of Marvel's Crystar, the Shooter/Macchio/Gruenwald fantasy title which earned a toy line ( the reverse of Micronauts or Rom). Heart is well-written but slender, with a quest storyline reminiscent of those Mutants from 1964.

Combat Magicks is much better, involving #Teamtardis with Attila the Hun. I used to find Steve Cole's Who books very hard work, especially when he wrote as Michael Collier ( Longest Day, but also Timeless and Vanishing Point). I have liked his twenty-first century work better- The Monsters Inside, Art of Destruction- and this book was the most enjoyable of the three this year. I think the alien witches should have been the Carrionites from tv but the use of The Fires of Pompeii was clever.






Red Planets from Big Finish is also by Una McCormack. It's a lengthy and unsatisfying story of a Cold War, Communist parallel earth and its Mars Base ghosts. (1/5 Talmars) I much preferred The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, another vehicle for the remarkable impressionist talents of Jake Dudman.

I was quite surprised how pleased I was to hear the "dum-tish-AAAAAH" 11th Doc theme again.The short stories reuniting the young fogey Time Lord with Dorium Maldovar and Amy Pond are a bit forgettable. I enjoyed the one where Kazran Sardick's ancestors live in a perilous giant Christmas tree. The final story, False Coronets is complex and far-reaching and deserved two episodes. It features another parallel Earth but shame on BF for forgetting that the First Doctor previously met Jane Austen in the very first Companion Chronicle,  Frostfire! (3/5 Talmars)






I bought UNIT: Cyber-Reality on the strength of the charm of Derek Jacobi's Master but it's fairly slow-going. The UNIT theme is predictable and a bit self-important. And where is Elizabeth Klein, exactly?


The mysterious Auctioneers, a Kirby-esque organisation that plunders xenotech. kidnaps secret agent Sam Bishop ( the doughty Warren Brown) and Kate Stewart's team visit a parallel Earth (again?!)  via Virtual Reality. Soon, the stomping, silver inhabitants of this Earth invade ours and only UNIT's new scientific advisor - the War Master - can save us.


I haven't listened to a UNIT box set since Extinction but I don't appear to have missed anything. This series was listenable but inessential. Jacobi only turns up at the end of the third episode. Ingrid Oliver's Osgood is really the star of the production but I'm really warming to Sam, fortunately... ( 3/5 Talmars)

Lady Christina is a box set starring the aristo cat burglar from Planet of the Dead, the first-and-only Easter special episode of Dr. Who, from nearly a decade ago. Lady Christina is a larcenous Emma Peel and the erstwhile Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan  has appeared previously on audio in the Tenth Doctor Chronicles. She's the Companion Who Shouldn't whom I wanted to see more of with Tennant's Ten.




Here, she is accompanied by Sylvia Noble, Donna's "difficult" mum and UNIT's Sam Bishop in stories that range from the Riviera to Edinburgh Castle via stately homes and street markets. Sixties caper movies like The Italian Job and Casino Royale are referenced- even in the exciting theme tune ( my favourite since Jenny) with its echoes of John Barry and Peter Gunn.


The second half of this box set is less successful as the adventures lurch into convoluted parody- some very shaky Scottish accents and a script by radio writer and fellow Glasgow Arts Centre alumnus Donald McLeary. The Sontaran-and-sharks story Portrait of a Lady is just a hot mess, as they say. Nevertheless, I would like to hear more of Christina- maybe in an encounter with River Song or Osgood. ( 4/5 Talmars)




Possible posts for the final weeks of this year and the first of the next could include: Aquaman, Miles Morales, Dracula, the Ray and Thanos.