Never Seen Cairo

I would strongly recommend you read Last Christmas before Never Seen Cairo, as this refers to that short with some thoughtful connections.

So, after complaining about Paul Cornell, Christmas Treasury, and really feeling a little off about this anthology after the last three shorts I reviewed (A Yuletide Tail: Part One; Spookasem; & Christmas Special), I suddenly have to veer in the other direction after finding Never Seen Cairo near perfect.

As much as Cornell might have made some strange decisions regarding some of the other stories in this Treasury, when it comes to World War I stuff, that really seems to be his wheelhouse. This is the second story in the Treasury to take place in WWI trenches, this time featuring the Fifth and Seventh Doctor. It's a pretty clever take on something where we are not only revisiting a historical time period but one doctor's story is actually playing off anothers in a thoughtful way.

Never Seen Cairo not only fits nicely with Last Christmas, but has me looking at it in a new way and better appreciating how well these two stories kind of fit together. Suddenly it feels like the Seventh Doctor is dealing with the fallout of the Fifth's trip to World War I during Christmas across these two shorts.

Overall, it is very effective, well written, and nicely works with the anthology as a whole much better than some of the other stories I've reviewed, even if there isn't a ton of substence to the story other than the Doctor just talking to this guy Edward for a bit. This is all the more impressive coming from Darren Sellars as a writer, who seems to have only ever written one other Doctor Who short. One might argue that Doctor Who has visited the idea of the Christmas Truce in WW1 a few too many times now, but I would counter that this was published long before it was covered in Twice Upon a Time, for example, and so I can hardly fault Never Seen Cairo on the matter. This short is a solid contender for my favourite of the Christmas Treasury as a whole, but we will have to see.