One Fateful Knight

Within the first page of "One Fateful Knight," a guard says the following while overhearing a woman giving birth: "Every day I thank God on high that I wasn't born a woman, and it's moments like this that spur me to do so."

It was a solid, amusing little line that I wish better set the tone for One Fateful Knight. The second story to feature the Eighth Doctor in Quality of Leadership, and apparently taking place in the early days of this incarnation during a visit to Camelot. In service of a sort of sequel/prequel to Battlefield in the show, I'm starting to worry too much of Doctor Who tie-in media does stuff like that, to its own disservice. It leaves you in a position where you really ought to watch Battlefield before this, and doesn't stand as well on its own because of this choice.

I like writer Peter David, I know his work quite well from the many, many Marvel/DC comics he's written. He's a pretty middle-of-the-road comic book writer in my opinion, but still, it is interesting to see his writing in a different setting. He does a great job capturing the spirit of both Doctor Who and the Eight Doctor in particular, but the tie-in to Battlefield feels a little unnecessary and doesn't add much to the experience other than some fun details around time travel here and there.

The characters aren't quite as strong as the preceding story of From Little Acorns in this anthology, but aren't terrible, either. It sometimes just reads as a lesser version of From Little Acorns, but One Fateful Knight is still fun enough and far from a miserable experience. The doctor helps a woman give birth and that's well written, and makes the story worth checking out on its own. And, at one point, two "Merlins" (really Time Lords) debate the nature of order and chaos while competing to control the history of Camelot, which I really enjoyed. King Arthur meeting the Doctor was handled well too, at which point the story has some really cool ideas of the whole Kingdom getting used to the Doctor stopping by on occasion over the years. Sadly, due to the uneven pace of this short story, not a lot gets fleshed out or explored as much as it should, as there are a lot of really cool ideas here I wish were better explored.

As a story within a larger collection focused on leadership, this feels like a weaker entry thematically, too. I understand why the Doctor might choose to tell this story first to Mihal in From Little Acorns, that makes sense to the narrative itself that it would appeal to that character's perspective, but we never engage in Arthur's leadership of Camelot, only ever seeing the effects of it on the fringes. And that is a bit of a problem for the larger anthology and its place in it, but also reflects the weaker aspects of this story.