We’re in the company of the 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory.  I love this TARDIS team, with Rory easily in my top 5 favourite companions of the entire series.  This IDW comic is very much about the team with the historical setting being less important than the dynamics being explored between the Doctor and Rory – Amy’s boys – as the title attests; The Doctor and the Nurse.

Amy decides that the Doctor and Rory need time to bond and leaves in them in a pub in 1814 to do so, whilst she goes off to explore the sights.  The Doctor and Rory are less than keen and the Doctor suggests they hop back the TARDIS and jump forward a couple of hours.  Of course, it doesn’t go to plan and they find themselves lost in time.  With the TARDIS running out of energy they eventually materialise in Cardiff to ‘gas-up’ on the Rift, only to be taken prisoner by an army of Cybermen.  After a brief spell on the moon whilst the TARDIS finishes its renewal, they finally get back to Amy – who has, inevitably, been having problems of her own.

Amy’s story is really the bit that is set in 1814, what with the Doctor and Rory rambling through all of time and space.  Amy, showing in rather unbelievably indepth knowledge of early 19th century fashion, spots a man out of place – because he is dressed in a Victorian outfit a few decades too early.  I’m not convinced Amy would spot this, but fair enough, because the other clue that he is not what he seems is the fact he is wearing an eye patch as seen in The Wedding of River Song, indicating he is an agent of the Silence.  It transpires that the agent is there to ensure a fixed point in time occurs as it should.  Why it shouldn’t is never explained, so presumably the Silence causing it are part of that fixed point, not necessarily putting right something being meddled with.  The event in question is the London Beer Flood.  This is, indeed, a real historical event which occurred around Tottenham Court Road in October 1814, killing at least 8 people.  Beer vats in a brewery exploded, sending gallons of liquid flooding through nearby streets and buildings.

Of course, if the Silence are so aware of the importance of this event and when it happened, why is their agent not wearing contemporary clothes?  Surely, as experienced time travellers (which this implies) they would have access to the correct resources.  The Doctor himself recognises the name of the pub they initially settle down in for their bonding session – the Tavistock Arms, but only realises later why the name rings a bell (it was destroyed in the flood).  Quite why this event (which I had never heard of before reading this comic strip) would be considered so important by the Silence, or be something the Doctor had a working knowledge of, goes unexplained and this is further complicated by a scene where Amy declares that only the flood itself is fixed, not the people who died, so she can go and save them.  This part seems awfully throw away because we never see her save anyone aside from a mother (which is what makes her realise she can save people) before she is reunited with the Doctor and Rory, angry that they haven’t been around to help her.

One other little historical appearance, not tied to the 1814 setting is when, on their jumping through time, the Doctor and Rory rescue James Bond creator, Ian Fleming from a bomb damaged building in 1940, and ‘off-screen’ become the inspiration for his spy creation.

The artwork of the strip is a little stylised and cartoony, and the regulars don’t really look a great deal like their real life counterparts.  Rory, in particular, is rather generically drawn.  However, it does suit the slightly light-hearted feel of the strip, particularly the scenes of the Doctor and Rory ‘bonding’.

It’s a fun comic and its interesting to have a rather obscure historical event, but some vagueness in character motivation and maybe a slight caricaturing of the relationship between the Doctor and Rory detract a little from the overall impact.

This story is a lot of fun. Basically Amy forces the Doctor and Rory to spend some male bonding time together, and they end up getting lost in various time periods trying to return to her. There's not a great deal to the story, but it's a great time with the Eleventh Doctor and Rory Williams - and what more could you ask for?