I found this strip to just be very confusing and odd. That is, until I read the accompanying article explaining how Beatie and the Hypnotising Cat came from a children's competition, and that the strip was partially written at a convention, taking audience suggestions. With this context, the strip is fine. It's nothing too special. The concepts are a bit odd and slightly incongruous, but, combined with some nice artwork, the strip is alright.

It was a fun read but at the same time I was like this is a bit bad isn’t it 🫠

A perfectly fine comic about the Doctor meeting an evil conquering alien who challenges him to a dance battle. There's also a talking cat that he seems pretty non-plussed about who just vanishes out of existence at the end of the story. It's hard to have a killer six page comic honestly. Looking forward to another full-length story starting up with Belinda.

I love when children design aliens, they always create the most horrifying ones

A fun but very slight story, not much plot over 6 pages but it has a surreal and psychedelic charm and is an amusing side step. The talking cat I particularly love.

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

“DANCE TILL YOU DROP: A TRIPPY BUT SHALLOW COMIC DETOUR”

Dance Till You Drop is a six-page Doctor Who Magazine comic strip featuring a solo Fifteenth Doctor adventure set in 1970s New York. Accompanied by a talking, hypnotising cat, the Doctor must outdance a group of one-eyed, yellow, dance-inducing giant potato aliens in order to save the world. If that premise sounds bizarre, that’s because it absolutely is.

The story’s main gimmick is that both the cat and the aliens were designed by children as part of a magazine contest. While this is a fun idea in principle, it results in characters that feel incredibly one-note, with little in the way of depth or development. The short format doesn’t help, leaving no room to explore them beyond their initial quirks.

A TALKING CAT AND MINION-LIKE ALIENS

Doctor Who has had its fair share of memorable talking animals—Frobisher the shape-shifting penguin being one of the most beloved—but this hypnotic cat fails to reach the same heights. It feels like a weaker version of the Cheshire Cat, all self-confidence and smug remarks but without much else to make it stand out. Meanwhile, the potato-like aliens are an odd mix of goofy and unsettling, coming across as off-putting rather than entertaining. Their design evokes comparisons to the Minions, but without the same level of charm.

A TRIPPY BUT DISJOINTED EXPERIENCE

The story itself is as wild as its premise suggests, but it doesn’t quite come together. The art is serviceable, capturing the psychedelic, disco-infused setting well enough, but the dialogue is stilted and doesn’t quite capture the essence of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor. His usual energy and charm don’t translate well onto the page, making his characterisation feel slightly off. The New York setting is also largely wasted, serving as little more than a vague backdrop rather than a fully realised environment.

📝VERDICT: 4/10

While Dance Till You Drop is an amusingly surreal concept, it ultimately feels too shallow and disjointed to be truly memorable. The characters lack depth, the story never fully embraces its potential, and the Doctor himself doesn’t quite feel like himself. A fun but forgettable detour in Doctor Who Magazine’s comic lineup.

The Fifteenth Doctor #17

'Dance Till You Drop' (2025) from Doctor Who Magazine 614.

While it's cute that Doctor Who Magazine host a children's contest to include their monsters or characters into the stories, it simply doesn't result in a very good story with this comic here unfortunately. It's a lacklustre entry to the solo-15 canon, and I wish we could have had a three-or-four-parter during this gap between Season One and Season Two, but the inclusion of this strip here explains that that wasn't possible and instead we'll likely be seeing another one-shot 15 story next month as well.