Ace of Space

It's a cool, damp day in Elgin. I've been into work on a Saturday because it's the busiest time of year for our department- all internal assessments are colliding at the same time. I used to regularly spend Saturday mornings in school almost a decade ago, when I first came here, and I don't want to fall into that cycle again.It's too easy.

Last weekend, the second season of the Thirteenth Doctor's adventures ended and today, I wanted to review them briefly.
I wrote about Spyfall parts one and two back in January https://somefantasticplace-dougie.blogspot.com/2020/01/worlds-collide-and-days-are-dark.html

The third episode, Orphan 55 was a heavy-handed lecture about climate change and fused Midnight with Voyage of the Damned.I felt we'd seen it all before and it also featured one of the most woeful alien designs I have seen in years.

Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror was educational and handsome, although the Skithra seemed very like the Racnoss from Xmas 2006. I didn't feel emotionally invested at any point, really.
Fugitive of the Judoon began as light alien comedy in the RTD vein and also featured a guest appearance by the roguish Captain Jack. But it slyly concealed the canon-busting elements that would lead to the climax of the season, in the stately person of Jo Martin. The SJW haters probably combusted with a second female Doctor, who was also black.
Praxeus was another good-looking but heavy-handed environmental piece. I was wrong-footed by what might've been a guest appearance by UNIT's Sam Bishop. No doubt Warren Brown's gay romance provoked sections of  the extremely conservative fanbase.

Can You Hear Me? was clearly the Weird One, spanning medieval Aleppo and a captive goddess and a young black man's  mental health issues in Sheffield. It rivalled 2017 It Takes You Away with its bizarre cosmic frog for loopiness.
The remaining episodes formed a trilogy. The Haunting of Villa Diodati was another celebrity historical ( like Spyfall, it trampled on Big Finish canon) with a gruesome murder and fulfilling Captain Jack's prophecy of the Last Cyberman. There was a shout out to 2006's Heroes with "Save the poet, save the universe".

Ascension of the Cybermen portrayed the last humans fleeing absurd flying Cyber-Heads. The survivors' sanctuary turned out to be over the fence from Gallifrey itself, Surreally, the space opera was counterpointed with the strange Smallville-ish sage of policeman Brendan in rural Ireland.
The Timeless Children separated the Doctor from her Tardis Fam and she landed in Space Pokey, but not before the giggling Master and Jo Martin revealed the secrets of Tecteun and her space refugee child. The Doctor's forgotten career with the enigmatic Division was tied back to the production crew Past Doctors, last glimpsed in The Brain of Morbius in 1976.

I wasn't outraged like many Whoovers and I don't think it invalidates William Hartnell in any way.I can remember when Leela and Andred were the Doctor's parents and he was the othering Other in the mid-90s. I look forward to the festive Dalek special where I expect none of the mysteries of the Division and the Timeless Child will be explored.
I feel that this season felt a little more daring than 2017 and in the last three episodes, the Fam finally seemed to be in danger. I wasn't sure whether Jodie would actually be replaced by the new Doctor and that sense of uncertainty makes this iteration of DW feel less like the adventures between the adventures.

I still feel there should be more audio and print adventures for the 13th Doctor, so I was looking forward to At Childhood's End. This is a novel which I got in the audiobook format, by Sophie Aldred, Mike Tucker and Steve Cole. In one sense, it's a bookend to the previous Tucker/Aldred collaboration, Ace The Inside Story of the End of an Era.

This was an insider look at the Seventh Doctor's era but it has the same, sombre tone of defeatism that plagued DW until the end of the Nineties.

ACE is a mixture of 80s urban horror, RTD-style monsters, comic-book aliens and alternate universes. Dorothy McShane, eco-entreprenuer goes on a clandestine space mission with her astronaut ex-boyfriend and encounters Dr.Jodie and her fam.
As the story unfolds, we discover what caused the schism between Ace and the Seventh Doctor and how she became the target of Fenric in the first place.
It's a little long but the imagery is effective. I also wish the centaur aliens were the Udon from Cavan Scott's Ninth Doctor comics (Weapons of Past Destruction.) Sophie's impression of Jodie is very life-like and charming and all the Fam are very recognisable.  (3/5 Talmars)

There are nods to DWM's Ground Zero, Time's Vigilante in the Virgin novels and the Seventh Doctor audios. And there are, at a very rough estimate, nearly fifty adventures featuring Ace, in different strands of the Big Finish audio universe, from adaptation of the 90s New Adventures  to the Hex/Hector stories, partnerships with Raine Creevy and Melanie Bush and various Time Lords.
In the last but one Seventh Doctor release, Dark Universe, the circle that began in Doom Coalition box one is closed.

It's not clear if this predates At Childhood's End- I like to think so- but it explains how the Eleven ( Mark Bonnar) was captured prior to his eponymous introduction. Dorothy is sent on a mission with him, where he unleashed the Dark Citizens and takes over the universe.
The Seventh Doctor becomes his jester as the Eleven fits robots out with his alternate personalities. Guy Adams nods to his Heavenly Paradigm and Quantum Possibility Engine and I'm not sure if the story can breathe in four episodes, given its scope. It seems everyone wants Ace to have a finale on a COIE-style canvas. ( 3/5 Talmars)

I have yet to read Star Tales but I'm interested to see what kind of personality Doctor 13 (pun intended) exhibits there.

Coming soon: could be Neal Adams, Buscema's Silver Surfer and Sub-Mariner or Superman smashing the Klan.Watch this space!

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