A Big Hand for the Doctor

The First Doctor #16

'A Big Hand for the Doctor' (2013) from 11 Doctors, 11 Stories.

Despite The Doctor's inner-monologue being more in line with the modern incarnations and rather out of character, I still enjoyed having a very Doctor-focused story here, and the Peter Pan-influenced plot is plenty fun. The fact that the hand that The First Doctor has in his whole televised run is a replacement one that's slightly too big is an amusing concept, and The Doctor evaporating all of the Space Pirates at the end is so brutal despite their crimes. Nice to see this level of darkness in a children's story.

(Originally written on TheTimeScales)

Alright let’s get this out of the way. This is not a 1st Doctor story.

Oh sure it’s a story that features the Doctor that is described as Hartnell’s incarnation that travels with his granddaughter Susan that takes place before An Unearthly Child but a story that takes place during Hartnell’s run this is not. No instead we get a Doctor that jumps through rooftops, fighting off Soul Pirates, can see visions of his future self (which I don’t think has ever happened in the show but whatever) and spouting off pop culture references. This characterization feels more in line with the new series Doctors. This is not to say that the story itself is bad, far from it. Its actually a pretty fun, energetic story about the Doctor trying to save Susan and some kidnapped children with a comical lobster hand due to his other hand being cut off by the Soul Pirates. These guys are a genuinely fascinating foe for the Doctor to go against. A species that harvests the limbs of humans to mend themselves, that’s the shit I want to see more of from this show. There’s also the kinda cute ending where the author for Peter Pan gets inspired by the events of the story to where he writes… well Peter Pan.

Take away that this is supposed to be a 1st Doctor era story and it’s honestly a good bit of fun. Younger readers (since that’s what these short stories are aimed for) would get a kick out of this.

5️⃣⏬ = MIDDLING!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“DOCTOR WHO AND THE PIRATES?”

I’m listening to this story as part of the Fifteen Doctors, 15 Stories audiobook release.

Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series, writes this adventure for the First Doctor and Susan. His tongue-in-cheek writing style isn’t one I’d usually attach to this Doctor. And the entire plot here is so silly that it's almost too much. The Doctor has lost his hands to Soul Pirates and needs a new one, and he goes looking for one in early 1900s London while simultaneously tracking down Susan, who’s gone missing. The style of the story seems to mix Colfer's usual style with a Douglas Adamssian take on sci-fi.

Colfer’s characterisation of One feels very off. He should be grumpy, a bit selfish, and quite alien at this point, yet he thinks, acts, and speaks much closer to his later self. There’s also a lot of action here that doesn't fit this Doctor. Susan barely appears in the story and isn't given anything substantial to do.

The Soul Pirates harvest body parts from people across the universe, and the Doctor has been hunting them across time and space (unlikely, at this point in their lives). They are simple, almost Ogron-like creatures, mostly played for laughs. They feel a bit too left-field for Doctor Who, and this comes from someone who found the little pesky goblins in the latest Christmas special perfectly fine!

The epilogue is perhaps the biggest takeaway here, but also a slightly forced final twist: how this adventure inspired J. M. Barrie to write Peter Pan.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

Wait, so the Doctor suddenly has visions of their future incarnations?

I get some Church on Ruby Road vibes from the pirates and the pirate ship.

So the first Doctor lost both hand and is bitching bout the robot hand which is kind of funny, Susan is also missing, hes on a quest to find Susan and find some new hands. He goes to a surgeon named Aldrige who does the doctor a favour if he becomes a surgeon assistant for a number of days.

I found it hard to get into this e-short, the Doctor on the hunt for the soul pirates who took his hands 20 years ago. Its a lot of information like that thrown at you in a short amount of time, like Susan has to save some children but we don't hear about that till after she talks about it. So i did feel kind of lost unknowing whats going on.

I like how its mainly a 1st Doctor story on his own I feel most of the stories so far have had Susan be the focus its nice to see the leading man pave the way forward with him fighting a guy with a sword. With the incarnation being the first Doctor is a funny vision.

The best part of the e-short is the Doctor imagining his mother and calling Susan an adult, its so good because even though he treats Susan as a kid there hints on him knowing shes a grown up. The Doctor envisioning his mother adds a layer of childishness to 1st, because we do forget that he may be wise but he is still the youngest doctor.

but yeah overall this is a small dud in my opinion, nothing extremely worth it here. Its very hard to follow it seems to do the "and then another thing happend and..." style of story telling.

A novella which purports to be about the First Doctor encountering some aliens in Victorian London, but is largely an excuse to claim the inspiration for the story of Peter Pan.

This kind of 'it was the Doctor all along' story is hardly rare, but in this case I found it to be very forced. I also found the characterisations to be a bit off, with the famously distant and grumpy First Doctor getting all soppy about the thought of losing his granddaughter. What follows is a lot of running, jumping, and sword-play, which almost seems as if it was originally written for a 21st Century Doctor. While all this is going on, Susan herself does practically nothing except get immediately captured and spend the rest of the story asleep.

Overall, I feel that this is a bit of a missed opportunity. The story of Peter Pan is already strange enough that it would fit a much more engaging Doctor Who story, and this tale seemed an odd choice for a First Doctor story. I'm tempted to think that this story was written for another pairing, such as 10 and Rose, then hastily converted when the publisher realised they needed a First Doctor story.