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 50^th 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. 

Books: Doctor Who: At Childhood's End by Sophie Aldred (2020)

"Once, a girl called Ace traveled the universe with the Doctor – until, in the wake of a terrible tragedy they parted company. Now, decades on, she is known as Dorothy McShane, the reclusive millionaire philanthropist who heads the global organization A Charitable Earth. But Dorothy is being haunted by terrible nightmares in which she’s abducted to an alien world. Nightmares that begin just as scores of young runaways are vanishing from the dark alleyways of London. Could the disappearances be linked to sightings of sinister creatures – part man, part rat – lurking in the city shadows? Why has an alien satellite entered a secret orbit around the Moon? And how has Dorothy become a target for the victors in an interstellar war? Investigating the satellite with Ryan, Graham and Yaz, the Doctor is thrown together with Ace once more. Together they must unravel a malevolent plot that will cost of thousands of lives. But can the Doctor atone for her past incarnation’s behavior – and how much must Ace sacrifice to win victory not only for herself, but for the Earth?"

The fate of companions that leave the TARDIS after many adventures is always open for fans to interpret. The classic series generally left the fate of those characters up in the air, mostly never mentioning what happened to them (beyond the ones that have died, obviously) after they stopped traveling with the Doctor. Still, some companions left impressions and fans over the years have written stories and novels that dealt with the aftermath of their departures. During the franchises “wilderness” years –between the 1989 end of the TOS and 2005 reboot- many original novels were released that revisited some of them. And while Sarah Jane Smith became one the most well-known characters to get a life after she left the Doctor, one of most popular later ones of the 1980s was left behind.

The character of Ace has been cited as the first "modern" companion for the Doctor, one a lot of working-class viewers could actually identify with for the first time. Ace suffered traumatic events in her childhood, including a bad relationship with her mother Audrey. Adding on to that, she witnessed a racially motivated firebombing of her friend Manisha's flat when she was 13. Needing to lash out, she burned down a local abandoned Victorian house named Gabriel Chase after sensing the presence of evil and was put on probation. Consequently, Ace covered up her own fears and insecurities with a streetwise, tough exterior. So Ace was written to be more realistic, more three-dimensional and to grow as a person throughout her run on the show and Sophie Aldred’s performance help elevate the character even more. It was also clear that Russell T Davies based a lot of Rose’s personality on Ace, which is probably why the modern series succeeded so well.

Now thirty-years later, the fate of Ace is finally resolved (or one version of it, as these novels are not considered “canon”) as actress Sophie Aldred (in collaboration with Steve Cole & Mike Tucker) gives us At Childhood’s End. Before the series was canceled at the end of 1989 after twenty-six seasons, work had already begun on season twenty-seven. One of the stories planned was going to be Ace’s swan song, a serial called Ice Time, which would’ve resolved Ace’s arc and the Doctor’s manipulation of her. For the Marc Platt script would’ve seen the Doctor enrolled her in the Academy on Gallifrey to become a Time Lord. In this novel, Ace’s departure from the Doctor was much darker.

The book is okay, starts off great and gives a lot of fan-wanking nods to Doctor Who past, but I found the whole rivalry between Yaz and Ace a missed opportunity. I find it fairly out of character of both Ace and Yaz having issues with each other –it falls into the silly trope of because Ace is a woman, Yaz has to be jealous and thus compete for the Doctor’s attention (I didn’t like it School Reunion as well). One of the other reasons Ace (and Sophie Aldred) worked so well was her chemistry with the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy). While script editor Andrew Cartmel, along with writers Marc Platt and Ban Aaronvitch, tried to make the Doctor more alien towards the end of his TV run, the two still had this workable chemistry -but the interaction with Ace and 13^th Doctor is lacking here. There is too much awkwardness (some fans have been critical of Jodie Whittaker’s less than warm feelings) and unlike other companion reunions, Ace and the Doctor barely seem to know each other –so that’s disappointing.

But for long time Doctor Who fans, especially the ones who adored Ace, At Childhood’s End is fine, quick read.