The Therovian Quest

 I think it’s fair to say that the TV Comics stories are unlikely to blow anyone’s mind.  These are, after all, fairly simple straightforward stories written for a young audience.  Yet, it’s hard to not be impressed by the ambition in this story. In the space of just twelve pages, the Doctor and his grandchildren visit three different planets, meet two alien races, fight two different monsters and help cure a serious illness plaguing a world. In modern comic terms, a story of this scale would probably take at least three times as many pages to tell the story.

Right from the start, the story subverts the reader’s expectations.  You assume that Grig, the squat bald-headed alien who points a gun at our heroes is going to be villain only to discover that he’s on a urgent mission to save his entire planet from a illness that is sweeping through the population. It’s actually the inhabitants of the ice planet Ixos that are the real villains as they look to exploit the Theorvians plight for their own ends.

Characterisation in this story is fairly one-note.  Once it’s been established that the Ixons are the villains they slip into cliched villain mode.  John and Gillian feel very much like background extras in this, doing nothing of note.  The Doctor, however, comes out of this surprisingly well.  I do feel that the unknown writer of this story has really managed to capture his character.  Most impressively, the Doctor escapes from the villains by using his brain rather than resorting to violence or relying on someone with a gun to save him.

One final thing that I’ve only just realised: the TARDIS spins as it flies through time and space. Nothing particularly noteworthy about that, you might think, except that I don’t believe we see the TARDIS spinning on screen until the 1970s.  So it’s nice to see TV Comic getting ahead of the game in that respect.  Who knows, maybe TV Comic was the inspiration for how the TARDIS’ travelling through the vortex would later appear on screen.