24 June 2023

Books: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: The Knight, The Fool And The Dead by Steve Cole (2020)

“The Doctor travels back to the Ancient Days, an era where life flourishes and death is barely known. Then come the Kotturuh – creatures that spread through the cosmos dispensing mortality. They judge each and every species and decree its allotted time to live. For the first time, living things know the fear of ending. And they will go to any lengths to escape this grim new spectre, death. The Doctor is an old hand at cheating death. Now, at last, he can stop it at source. He is coming for the Kotturuh, ready to change everything so that Life wins from the start. Not just the last of the Time Lords, but for everyone else.”

Time Lord Victorious was multi-platform Doctor Who story released in 2020 and was told across audio, novels, comics, vinyl, digital, immersive theatre, escape rooms and games. The genesis of this idea begins after the events of The Waters of Mars episode, where during his visit to Bowie Base One in 2059, the Doctor came to believe that, as the last of the Time Lords, he should be in control over the Laws of Time. He demonstrated this by breaking a fixed point event in time to rescue three members from The Flood on the station. Adelaide Brooke, who was supposed to die, is angry with the Doctor after she and two others are saved. After the Doctor confirms her suggestions that he was effectively omnipotent and unstoppable, she decries the implications of his actions as "wrong" due to how "nobody should have [such] power.”

Following Adelaide's subsequent suicide, the shocked Doctor, sees a vision of Ood Sigma (from the episode Planet of the Ood) and returns to the TARDIS, pondering the omens of what he now knows his forthcoming regeneration. But the change to history created a Time Fracture, where the Doctor uses to flee to the Dark Times. There, he seizes the opportunity to end death by infecting the Kotturuh with a modified version of their own infection, believing he could completely rewrite history for the better.

In the early years of the series revival, you got a sense with the Ninth Doctor that he felt guilty for the events of the Time War and his part in it. As the series approached its 50th Anniversary in 2013, we got a brief glimpse into motivations of the Eighth Doctor, who tried at first to stay out of the battle between his Time Lord race and the Daleks. But all too soon, he realized the only way to stop the battle, was to get involved with it, regenerating into the War Doctor. Afterwards, he became the Ninth Doctor and carried the guilt with him. By the time the Tenth Doctor arrived at Bowie Base One in The Waters of Mars, and what those events triggered, is the basis for two short novels.

It’s a clever story, with Cole capturing the voice of the Tenth Doctor very well. Much like the Daleks, the Kotturuh are evil creatures and much like the Classic serial Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor is given a choice to eliminate an enemy at their rise –with the idea of saving countless lives and worlds. But here, we don’t really know if the Doctor is going to do it. We see him slightly doubtful, and once again, struggling with the notion he must give the Kotturuh a choice and whether he should. But, again, he has declared himself the "Time Lord Victorious", claiming that his word was eternal.

It’s an effective story, serious and sometimes hilarious, with a shocking cliffhanger that actually makes me want to read the second book –which is up next. 

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