Quote

"...This is my ship. Welcome to the TARDIS,” said the Doctor, typing on a keypad below a monitor screen.

“It’s like a mad scientist’s lab.”

“Thanks! You can stay.”

📝5/10

Counting down to Whomas 2024, one adventure at a time!

Day 9: it's panto time!

MY SCATTERED AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT NOTES:

This Doctor Who Adventure Calendar story, written by Mark Williams, follows the Twelfth Doctor as he crashes an ongoing pantomime and rescues one of its actors, Ceri, from a group of invading animal-human hybrids. The hybrids are described in a way that evokes Koquillion from The Rescue. However, as a brief story, it struggles to flesh out its characters, setting, or the transformation of the other individuals into various animals. The alien antagonists—beings made of light attempting to invade—also feel underdeveloped. Williams' prose is straightforward, but he doesn't quite capture the distinct voice of the Capaldi Doctor. The story concludes in a rushed and somewhat unsatisfying manner, leaving it feeling incomplete.

That was... fine.... I guess?

Overall there's some fun ideas here: creatures of light that form symbiotic bonds with humanoids, a panto cast getting turned into animals, a historical christmas with mummers (fun fact, I've done mumming a couple of times!).

But then it's all just so rushed and thrown together. The one off companion feels like a mouthpiece for panto jokes more than an actual character, and you never stay in one place long enough to breathe. Sure you can get through it in less than 10 mins, but I've read plenty of other shorts that lasted that long that were paced well.

This feels like someone took a bunch of doctor who-y ideas, and threw them into an exaggerated piece where the plot doesnt' really matter and is just a vehicle for fun. It's just a shame that unlike pantos, it sort of forgets that last part.

Behind You is a short story which appeared on the BBC website in 2014, was written by Mark Williams and features the 12th Doctor.

It's a slight tale of the Doctor and temporary companion, an understudy called Ceri, ending a threat from aliens who have crashed at a theatre and are turning people into animal/human hybrids.

It's very bitty and there's very little development or explanation of the story. Basically some aliens crashed into a Mummers play and they need an audience or something and now giving humans animal heads.

Ostensibly it's set at a pantomime, but there's very little of that in the story which is a shame because I'm a huge fan of panto. A proper Doctor Who story set at a pantomime with characters sourced from the actors playing the dame, principal boy etc would be brilliant. Done properly, it might also dispel the myth that the JNT era is, in any way shape or form, pantomimic in its nature. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, calling the JNT era a pantomime is, frankly, a compliment.

Mark Williams isn't a writer who seems to have done any other Doctor Who and, as a story, its pretty perfunctory and really failed to seem particularly Doctor Whoey or particularly Christmassy.