Stardust and Ashes - ★★★½☆

This review contains spoilers not only for the title story but also for "An Earthly Child", "Relative Dimensions" and "Lucie Miller/To the Death".

Reflecting on Stardust and Ashes was interesting. Ian Potter is not an author I've heard many stories from, his most notable contribution to me being The Alchesmists, another Companion Chronicle for which I don't have much affection. I only checked who had written this story after I had finished listening, so any previous opinions I had about the author didn't affect my experience this time. And I was taken by surprise.

This is a very perspective-driven story, as Companion Chronicles often are. The structure of the range allows its releases to exist on two distinct layers - the main story, which is being told by the companion, and the set-up story, which sometimes has a metanarrative purpose. It is common for stories to be told by the companions years after their departure. Stardust and Ashes is set in a particular period in Susan's life - shortly after "Lucie Miller/To the Death", the resounding finale of the fourth season of the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller's adventures. There, Susan was reunited with her grandfather, introduced him to her son and, later accompanied by Lucie, they were brutal victims of a second Dalek invasion of Earth. To the Death is a massacre of the regular cast, with Susan and the Doctor being two of the few survivors.

Stardust and Ashes' Susan is a grieving one, completely lost and not quite sure who she is anymore. The setup intertwines with the story she tells, set many years earlier when she was still traveling with the Doctor, Ian and Barbara, in the frustrations she faces. The narrative this time stands out for bringing to light, from her point of view, some contradictions that the character has gained over the years. She patronized at various times, both by her grandfather and by Ian and Barbara, and she points out to the man she tells the story to that she believes that her grandfather and her began to play a role after their departure from Gallifrey. That they both, at some point, began to believe that she was just a child.

It's such an interesting perspective that I also think works on a few levels - it addresses some of the character's inconsistencies, it questions a bit the role that Caroline Ann Ford herself had as Susan in the classic series (Doctor Who in the 60s had surprisingly well-developed female characters, but Susan is often not one of them) and it also, lovingly, shakes her relationship with the other characters. Susan wasn't just patronized by her peers - she was treated that way by the text. Another question arises from this: what else can Susan be?

In the context of this audio, and the future that the character has conquered, she has also become a wife. A mother. And as she herself says, those were two other roles that she learned to play. But in Stardust and Ashes she has lost all of that - David has been dead for years, Alex and Lucie have been killed by the Daleks in a bloody showdown and her grandfather, with whom she had just reconnected, has once again left as broken as she is. From the ashes of all that she has lost, is there any Susan left who can rise again?

The last seven minutes are stunning. Quite possibly my favorite performance by Ann Ford in the role. All of Susan's grief, all of her pain, all of her loneliness comes out. It's heartbreaking and it hurts. To quote my favorite line:

"I miss all of them so much. And what do I got now? A ruined city. Not even my boy's ashes."

"A rebuilding city. You're not regretting let him go?"

"No. No regrets. I needed to."

"So, what's next?"

"I don't know. I'll just have to do what I feel's right. Stop looking back and keep going forward. I've got something to prove."

The stronger part is definitely the setup story, but the story that Susan tells has its merits - it's one of those scenarios where the characters are trapped in a ship controlled by a computer that doesn't want to let them go and becomes a threat. It's not my favorite of this niche in Doctor Who, that title goes to Aquitaine, but it has great characterizations for the regular cast. Several decisions made in the plot felt very true to the spirit of the 60s - there's a scene in particular where the Doctor asks Susan and Barbara to go investigate another place as an excuse for them to leave where they are so he and Ian try to use a dead body to unlock a passage. I rewatched The Daleks recently and this scene reminded me of the moment when the two of them pull the Dalek out of its shell without Susan and Barbara seeing the creature. Here Susan herself points out how stupid it is because they've seen much worse (and it's playing by a sexist point of view that was common in the 60s but don't make much sense with the current background the character has), but it's a touch of characterization that stood out to me.

The threat from the ship is rarely physical, so this is a great opportunity to highlight the characters' naivety. The decontamination scene is really cool. The way Susan "resolve" the plot is also really cool. I think her uncertainty about whether they were the ones who helped the ship or if they were put in situations that led them to do exactly what the ship wanted is interesting, and I like how it ties into the discussion she's been having with Mr. Barryman about wanting to be alone vs. the strength of being together.

TARDIS report #1: I want to quote another moment that stuck in my head:

"Can you still do that? Y'now, travel back into the past."

"Only in memories. And stories. Now I only travel to the future like everyone else does. Moment by moment, day by day."

TARDIS report #2: I have some continuity notes. This story is set after The Sensorites, since the sensesphere is mentioned by the TARDIS team. Susan stated at the end of the story that shortly after the events narrated, she left the TARDIS during the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. So it's a little further ahead in the timeline. The setup story probably takes place shortly after Lucie Miller/To the Death, but before Susan joined the Time War.

TARDIS report #3: Obviously this story agrees and disagrees with various previous characterizations of Susan as is often the case. This is a version of the character that suggests she is much more mature and capable than some other versions. Older, too. But perhaps the most glaring discrepancy is the implication that her joining Coal Hill School was the Doctor's idea; usually the stories agree that it was Susan's.

TARDIS report #4: it's GREAT to have the Companion Chronicles back. Such a wonderful range. Some of my favorite stories ever in Doctor Who are Companion Chronicles. Hope they stay around.

The Daleks - ★★★½☆

When it comes to introducing Doctor Who's most important villains - and the most frequent ones, too - it's hard to treat this story as anything other than how iconic it is. There are two main points that stand out: the visuals and the development of the characters. Having left the prehistoric Earth wherein they were trapped, our group of protagonists - consisting of the First Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and teachers Ian and Barbara - land on a strange planet. Its forests are petrified, there is no sign of life in sight and the entire place looks like it has been devastated by a nuclear bomb.

The main driving force of the story is, of course, the characters. The First Doctor is still, at this point, stuborn and arrogant. Overcome by curiosity about the city they saw from afar, he drags the others on a fake search for mercury, pretending that the TARDIS is faulty. This is because everyone else, like any sensible person, wants to get away from there as quickly as possible. What none of them realize is that the radiation levels on the planet are very high and that the lost city they want to explore is still quite inhabited - and so they are captured by the Daleks.

The Daleks is a story in three acts - the first part is quite enjoyable, with them exploring the planet. There are several imminent dangers, the radiation being the most glaring, but the episode is much more marked by a heavy and scary atmosphere than by a physical enemy. In parts two to four, much of the time is devoted to the characters' escape from the Dalek city, while in the last three parts they must return there and, in the process, rid Skaro of the plague of salt shakers. Each has its merits - I particularly like the tension building in the scenes where the characters venture through Skaro, whether in the first part or when they traverse the local jungle in the second half of the story.

Ian Chesterton is the MVP this round. All of the regular cast have good scenes, but overall he is the one who commands the story and steals the show. A highlight is the moment when he enters a Dalek carcass, in order to pretend to be one so that they can escape. The Doctor has an interesting role, which highlights both his worst traits (after all, he puts everyone at risk) and shows more pleasant glimpses of his character - despite several disagreements, he ends this story on a much friendlier relationship with Ian and his role in the plot during the second half of the story makes his scientific spirit shine.

Both Barbara and Susan have at least some agency in this story, and stand out in contrast to the female Thals - who are terrible. The First Doctor era is marked for me by surprisingly strong female characters for the time, but the writing is still, at times, misogynistic. Although in The Daleks this doesn't spill over into the main cast - Barbara is as much a part of the story as Ian - the Thal women are either background decoration or a disservice. I particurlaly like how Barbara agrees with the Doctor at times; them siding with each other against Ian and Susan even if at the moment Barbara is not close to him at all. It highlights a bit of her moral complexity while also establishing that they're not so unlike each other after all.

The most important element of this story, and one that has a lot of repercussions from now on, is all the text and subtext surrounding the Daleks. Doctor Who starts airing in the middle of the Cold War, so the reason Skaro is the way it is becomes pretty self-explanatory. It's the unconscious fear of the threat of the atomic bomb taking shape in the horrors of science fiction. Another key aspect is the scene in which Ian explains to the Thals why the Daleks would attack without provocation - they are driven by hatred. By intolerance. This is an idea that isn't explored much in this first appearance of them, but it comes to the fore in later ones - especially in their next story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

If I must point out flaws, there are two. I really like two Thal characters in this story - Temmosus and Alydon -, but they are by far the most annoying part of it. It always irritates me a little when they show up again. It's no wonder that they are an element that has been somewhat forgotten over time. Worse than that, I think their existence works against the author's intention because they are a very idealized vision of the white man and are placed almost on a pedestal. The other problem is a matter of pacing. I love the scenes of the characters' journey through the Skaro jungle in the last parts, but you could probably trim the fat a bit and speed up the escaping bit in parts 2-4 and voila, you've got one less part. Turning this into a one-hour story is crazy, you'd be losing a lot - especially good character interactions - but I do think there is a hypothetical slightly sharper version of this script that is also a little shorter.

Tense, oppressive, with beautiful scenery and full of good moments for the regular cast, The Daleks does have lots of merits that justify its impact on the future of the series.

TARDIS report #1: I feel a little mean saying this, but the scene where Ian accidentally crushes the flower Susan was showing because Barbara screamed always makes me laugh.

TARDIS report #2: that moment when Ian and the Doctor take the Dalek out of its shell, without us seeing what they're seeing, is my favorite scene. I get chills every time it cuts to the tentacles coming out from under the blanket as they're leaving. The story never shows what they look like, but just the suggestion is terrifying.

Quinnis - ★★★½☆

Fair warning that this review contains spoilers not only for Quinnis itself, but also for the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller adventures - season four.

This is truly a great horror story. Still traveling alone through the universe after fleeing their home planet, the Doctor and his granddaughter, Susan, ended up in a parallel universe – more specifically, in a village on the planet Quinnis. Parallel universes tend to be a trap in sci-fi stories like Doctor Who because there’s nothing you can tell in them that couldn’t be done in your main universe; oftentimes this takes away a bit of the weight of the world you’ve been building up and the apparent novelty ends up disappointing. In the same way, there’s nothing in Quinnis that couldn’t happen in the series’ main universe, but the direction, acting and script do an impeccable job of characterization and world-building that makes you feel like you’re actually in a place where the rules are different.

This is true in many ways, but perhaps the most interesting is the cultural aspect. The people of Quinnis are marked by absurd levels of superstition and are devastated by a drought that seems to be going on forever. The most precious thing anyone can have in a place like this seems to be, from the start of the story, water. At first, the arrival of the Doctor and Susan there is seen with great disdain, as a bad omen. At a certain point, this changes, when the Doctor jokes that he could make it rain without any difficulty and is taken seriously. He is soon co-opted by the leaders of this city, but this turn of events never seems optimistic. Susan becomes more isolated than ever in a hostile environment; the favor of these people is as fleeting as the wind and there is always danger lurking. As the two realize in the first few minutes, the man who was previously responsible for making it rain was thrown to his death when he seemed to have become of bad luck himself. It is under these circumstances that she befriends a local girl, Meedla, played by Tara-Louise Kaye – she is the only character in this story that Ann Ford does not voice, if I'm not mistaken.

It's been dry too long. The rains are late, but they will come soon. And that's when it all changes. The land will burst with hungry life. The misery will tear the world apart, and no one will tell the tears from the rain.

Meedla is a disconcerting character, it’s clear from the first moment she appears that there’s something wrong with her. She’s probably my favorite version of that old trope of the weird kid from horror stories. It’s easy to predict that she’s a Shrazer, a kind of local monster that people believe brings bad luck, but that doesn’t bother me – the fun of the story isn’t who the villain is, but how she's tormenting Susan. One of the elements that are explored in the TV series about Susan is precisely how she felt alone and wanted real connections, she wanted friends. And that’s exactly what Meedla takes advantage of as Quinnis unfolds. Susan’s loneliness and how easily she trusts people. One of my favorite moments in the story is at the end of the first part, when the rain finally reaches Quinnis – and even that turns out to be a bad omen, with the town almost being flooded – and Susan realizes that she’s being followed by the Shrazer. At one point the monster is captured by one of the traps that were set up there, but when Susan turns around it is Meedla who is trapped. She helps her friend, disoriented, but it is no use – she is swept away by the rain and, although it does not take long for her to realize who she really was, Susan carries a certain regret for her “death” until the end.

The sound work is impressive. I love the rains, it really seems like the city is about to be devastated, that you too will be swept away by the water. There is no way to characterize the monster visually, of course, but this is compensated by the noises it makes. It's chilling, with Meedla's voice mixing with the strange sounds of birds. Every time there is a chorus of a crowd, you can feel the depth of the sound; be it in a more ritualistic scene or after the death of a character, when the women of the city come together in collective mourning, wailing loudly. And although I can't explain why, there is something very effective in a nightmare scene with Susan, in which she believes that the Shrazer has invaded the house she is in. All these elements, bit by bit, build a very vivid image of Quinnis, almost like a cursed city in which you are trapped alongside the characters.

Meedla ends up being a remarkable character not only because of the horror setting but also because of the effect she has on Susan, who, even as an adult, according to the narration, seems to harbor some regret over the circumstances of this friendship – it is debatable whether Meedla had any genuine affection for her, but that does not prevent Susan from feeling pity or wanting to help her, despite everything. Almost against her own instincts, at several moments Susan helps her or prevents her from getting hurt even when she already knows Meedla is the Shrazer, that she is a murderer and that she was feeding off all the misery that was tormenting the city and Susan herself. And in these touches of characterization, this is a story that says a lot about who Susan is. Another positive point about Quinnis – and one that is common with another Platt story featuring the two of them for the Companion Chronicles, The Beginning – is that the script balances the Doctor and Susan's screen time well and in the end, although you have a very psychological story focused on the companion, you also feel like you've discovered a little more about her relationship with the Doctor.

There are also some cool little details about this story; the first is that Susan mentions in one of the first arcs of the first TV season some places she and her grandfather have visited, one being Quinnis. I find it fun when these little lines are expanded upon in the supplementary materials; the same thing happened with a band she listens to in An Unearthly Child – John Smith and the Common Men - in a much later Fifth Foctor story. The second is the setup for this release, which is structured as Susan talking to her husband, David, who has already passed away. Interestingly, both the real plot and the setup are well positioned in the timeline; the first takes place right before she and the Doctor go to London, 1963, when she enrolls Coal Hill School; while the other takes place between An Earthly Child and Relative Dimensions, stories in which she – and her son, Alex – meet the Eighth Doctor. Not only that, but a little fish she gets from her grandfather in Quinnis ends up being very relevant in that second story.

Perhaps my only problem with this audio is precisely the characterization of the Doctor and Susan regarding their trip to London. The Doctor says, twice, once at the beginning and once at the end, that Susan needs stability and friends her own age and things like that – I never felt, on TV, that this was a feeling from the Doctor but rather a desire from Susan, but in this story the behavior of the two is reversed. Evidence of this is his lack of goodwill when she threatens to stay alone in London during An Unearthly Child and that his arc throughout the travels with her is precisely to realize that she has grown up and needs to leave the nest.

I really like Marc Platt's writing. He disappoints every now and then, but as a rule a story of his is almost always a guaranteed good story. Quinnis is one of them.

The Alchemists - ★½☆☆☆

The Alchemists is a historical episode set a few years before World War II, during the rise of Nazism, that I would define as an unfocused political thriller. The Doctor and Susan land in 1930s Germany and decide to visit one of the local scientific centers where they meet Fritz Haber, a real historical figure who was important for developing a process for synthesizing ammonia that, although initially of interest for agriculture as a fertilizer, ended up becoming a key element for the production of explosives during the World Wars. Things take an unexpected turn when, during this visit, the Doctor is kidnapped and Susan now has to rescue him. A very good premise but one that I don't feel was well developed.

Susan's wanderings through the streets of Berlin are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I find the direction very atmospheric and evocative of the social tensions of the 1930s, especially with regard to Hitler's rise to power and the naturalization of barbarism. This is palpable, for example, in the way several characters demonstrate a certain ambivalence towards Haber; an apparent moral contradiction – from the point of view of these CHARACTERS, I want to make it clear, not mine – between him having played an essential role in Germany's development in the previous years but being a Jewish man. The white characters constantly expect him to betray the country, a lack of character that they assume is inherently racial. Likewise, there is a refinement of cruelty in this story when, after receiving help from a group of children, they guide Susan to the Brownshirts, a paramilitary organization. In the specific case of the characters we see here, they're Hitler Youth who wants to take control of justice on the streets of Berlin into their own hands – the real story of the Brownshirts is a little more complicated than that, but that's how they are characterized in this story.

The Alchemists is set in 1933, just a year before the Night of the Long Knives, when political tensions between internal factions in Nazi Germany culminated in the purge of political rivals, including prominent members of the Brownshirts. It was therefore an important group in Hitler's rise but its power was quickly stifled when it became an obstacle to the Third Reich. The cruelty, of course, lies in the naturalness of the whole thing and in these characters, all children, being used as political pawns. Not only that, but this entire hostile environment that takes over Berlin is closely interconnected with the famine that gripped the country after World War I; an element not so present in the script but still subtly represented - whether in the children following Susan in the hope of earning some money, or in the resentment that characters in the adult cast demonstrate for the German defeat, blaming the recession that followed in the rest of the world and, mainly, on the Jewish people.

Just as much as I find the atmosphere very well constructed and immersive for the historical context in question, I find the unfolding of the events in the particular narrative of The Alchemists weak and the acting questionable. I found it bearable now, after listening to the story for the second time, but the German accent of some characters, especially Strittmatter, was very irritating at first and kept distracting me. As much as Susan's wandering around Berlin raises all the positive points that I discussed in the previous two paragraphs, it is also pointless. It may even be a realistic approach to how Susan would be lost in a situation like that, but as character development it is a big no-no. All the resolutions of the plot are independent of her, she is just being carried here and there by the characters that really matter. And the worst thing is that I find this easy to solve.

In the final minutes of the story, it is revealed that a shopkeeper that the Doctor and Susan met while exchanging their coins for German coins was the one who kidnapped the Doctor. This is justified by the fact that word had spread among society that Fitz Haber was studying a way to transform materials into gold, supposedly to boost the German economy – or perhaps he was going to give the secret to enemy countries?! The shopkeeper, Strittmatter, jumps to conclusions when the two idiots show up with brand new and perfectly preserved Roman coins – because they are, they are coins that they obtained when visiting Rome on previous trips. Obviously, no German in 1933 would imagine that he had met two time travelers, so the conclusion he comes to when the two go to visit Haber is that the scientist has found a way to produce gold. I think it is a very clever plot developed through real historical facts – Haber did in fact try for years to find a way to extract gold from the sea. So when Susan returns to the store with more coins to exchange for more money and ends up kidnapped too, I think it's a shame that the story doesn't make this intentional on her part. She's very intelligent, smart, she could have deduced who the kidnapper was from previous dialogues – as she realizes shortly after – and come up with a plan to save her grandfather. Voilà, a tiny change in the script and she gains a much more active role in the resolution of the story.

Another problem is a character I haven't mentioned yet, a double agent named Pollitt who also wants to discover the secret to producing gold and whose main interest seems to be profiting from the impending war. I think he's a character who fits well into the worldbuilding of 1930s Germany, but I feel like he doesn't have much of a role in the plot other than being a villain who's a bit more threatening than Strittmatter. It's no wonder I described the entire story of the audio in the previous paragraphs without mentioning him. I wouldn't eliminate him from the plot because in my correction of Susan's role he would be important for her to deduce who kidnapped her grandfather, but I admit I don't know what other additions I would make to the character to make him a bit more important. But maybe that would be enough, since his confrontation with Susan and the Doctor at the climax of the story is, perhaps, my favorite moment of it.

The final scene in which the Doctor comforts Susan with the prospect of better years awaiting the world after the War is well-intentioned and it's understandable where it comes from, especially from the outside perspective of two time-traveling aliens with a moral system naturally different from ours, but it is too complex an idea to be discussed in such a short scene and so it feels somewhat insensitive. Millions of people died in the war, heinous crimes were committed. There is no such thing as looking on the "bright side" of a tragedy of this magnitude. Hunger, hatred and death are not, and should not be, tools of progress. I do not think, again, that this was the point of this ending, but it does feel insensitive.

Unfortunately, for me the negative elements have a much more significant weight in the story and my conclusion is that, what a shame, I really don't like The Alchemists.

Time and Relative - ★★★★☆

Time and Relative is very unique; a story that stands out even within the timeframe in which it's set - just before An Unearthly Child, when Susan and her grandfather are already in Totter's Lane, London. It is narrated in the first person, from Susan's point of view, with the book simulating a diary. And it is not unfair to look at the narrative as a children's adventure, in that 80s and 90s movie vibe. It is a coming-of-age story from several perspectives, too.

Navigating the complicated feelings of school life in Coal Hill, life in London takes a sinister turn for Susan when a species from Earth's past awakens from a deep slumber - and intends to reclaim the planet and start a new ice age. This plot manifests itself in a simpler, magical way at first - it is almost April and it is still snowing in London. And the snowman in the schoolyard just moved.

There are two worlds in Time and Relative, which stood out to me the most while reading. There is a playful reality, which comes from the youthful, innocent and intense perspective of the main characters. And there are glimpses of a crueler world. This manifests itself in several ways - in the several mentions of harassment throughout the text; in the racism committed against Malcolm, a six-year-old child who Susan sometimes babysits; in the domestic violence that Susan's best friend at school, Gillen, suffers from her father. In the absolute fear that Gillen has of him, and in the neglect of all the other adults around her.

But it is also in the imperfections of its protagonists. Susan memory of her past life is incomplete and she does not yet feel free from the influences of the old-fashioned beliefs from that past. Like anyone, she wants her friends to like her. When a boy looks at her with admiration, she cannot tell if it is reciprocal. At several times she is hurt by the people around her, no matter how much she understands the circumstances. And all these feelings and sensations are completely new.

In the same way, Gillen wants to be more of an adult than she is. It's a way of trying to escape the violence at home, both metaphorically and literally. This whole subject is very sensitive to her, and there's a moment that I found particularly raw when she gets angry with Susan about what would actually be the "right thing" to do in their situation - relying on an adult. Her relationship with her father has made her lose any trust in authority figures, and all the characters seem bent on proving her right.

On the other hand, John has an admiration for his father that borders on the irrational and also reveals an unpleasant side of these relationships with authority figures - when the massacre begins and the situation calls for the intervention of an adult, the boy's father shows himself to be completely useless and alienated. At this moment, the hierarchy of the relationship practically reverses, with John assuming responsibility for his father's safety. The entire universe of Coal Hill School is built to amplify the flaws and shortcomings of adults regarding these children and the feelings of injustice, loneliness and ostracism that are not very uncommon in this phase of adolescence. It is no coincidence that the main drama of the three protagonists involves paternal relationships, the most central of which is Susan's relationship with her grandfather.

The conflict between those two also exists in two worlds, being a metatextual conversation about the unknown past of both. Especially in the terms in which this was presented during the First Doctor's era in the 60s; just like the audience at the time, Susan does not know the name of their home planet, or even if it was actually a planet. Her memories are trapped, hostages to History itself. And the Doctor is also trapped in the mold of the classic series and the non-interventionism that marked this phase of the character.

In a way, I find the conclusion contradictory to his development from now on; as much as letting the Cold kill all the humans on the face of the Earth was not an option, I have my doubts as to whether this isn't exactly what the First Doctor, at this point in his life, would have done. And not because he is still under the effects of a Time Lord brainwashing, as the text suggests, but because it is in fact the philosophy he believed and preached at the time. Or, if he would've intervened, it would be to preserve the status quo - they know of Earth and humanity in the future, letting it go extinct would contradict their own personal timeline. Despite this caveat, I think it is a very satisfactory conclusion to this story in itself, using the imagination and childlike innocence that guided the narrative as fuel for the construction of a better world.

What the characters often saw as flaws or immaturity is what saves the day - and guides the First Doctor towards the slightly more heroic figure he would become in the distant future. If I disagree with the circumstances in which this is presented in this story, I equally approve of the first driver of this change being the wonder of a child's mind - nothing could be more authentic to the Doctor. This coming-of-age fable is also his.

The conclusions for Gillen and John are not so pleasant, with both of them distancing themselves from Susan at the end of the story - which was natural after all the negative feelings that manifested amidst all the violence faced by the three, including enormous paranoia on John's part and even a death threat on Gillen's part. With his father's death, John goes to live with his mother; and Gillen plunges even deeper into precocious maturity, trying to leave behind the events of the last few days. Despite being much more alone than she started the novel, Susan comes out more confident than ever in who she is, the person she wants to become and that her trust in her grandfather is not in vain. It is by far one of the best stories the character has ever had.

TARDIS Report #1: The names Gillen and John are a nod to the First Doctor's lunatic comics, in which he traveled with two new grandchildren with those names. Inconsequential, but cute.

TARDIS Report #2: I found it curious that with two books in the Telos Novellas with the Doctor and Susan pre-An Unearthly Child, one of them is extremely focused on the Doctor and the other on Susan, to the point that the other barely appears or is more of a shadow cast over the narrative.

Losing the Audience - ★★★☆☆

A historical set in the fifties that tells Susan and the Doctor's encounter with two radio actors, Max and Maxine, a divorced couple that are still friends with each other. It's a story that deal with the world post World Wars and the PTSD of the survivors - through Max. But it's also one of those conspiracy narratives that unravels terrible secrets lost to time when fan of the Max's show start to disappear... They're being murdered. The culprits are aliens that alied themselves to Britain against the nazis with the promise to get a part of India, but were betrayed and imprisoned up to the day the right frequencies at the radio station made it possible for them to escape.

These are aliens from another dimension, one with physics different to ours, and they are affected by sound, radio, waves. That's how they were imprisoned, and that's how the Doctor saves the day, killing them all. Honestly, my only problem with this story is that I though this should be longer. An two hour audio or a regular book. There are a lot of good ideas that don't have enough time to breath and reach their true potential.

It's really easy to picture how it would work. Part one of four would be an horror piece focusing on the public of the radio show being killed while Max tries to make sense of what's happening - maybe Susan goes with him, behind her grandfather's back. There is enough room in a longer story for other people to believe it was Max who killed these people, which this story briefly implies could've happened. You could make him doubt himself, and link it to very obvious untreated war PTSD. One of the cliffhangers could be the Doctor and Susan in the audience just when a murder is about to happen.

There is some really interesting implications about the aliens in the story. They are not necessarily malicious, even though they don't follow anything akin to our moral code. They are killing the audience believing they are nazis, since they didn't figure out yet that they were betrayed and it has been years since the war ended. Are they truly in the wrong here? Most incarnations of the Doctor wouldn't say so. Not One though, not at this point, and that's why I find his cruel atitude towards them in the end very in character. I honestly believe the only thing in his mind in this situation would be to not disturb Earth's history; he would be picking sides, which a kind of cruelty by itself.

That's implied in this story - the characterisation is on point -, but a longer story could elaborate on this dubious morality of the First Doctor and perhaps even built some conflict between him and Susan.

This story has a lot of potential - but as it is, it's a nice 6/10.

An Unearthly Child - ★★★½☆

"Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?"

The first episode is a character masterpiece. Susan's introduction is eerie and haunting, there is something in her eyes and demeanor that let you know, far beyond her words, that's she is otherworldly. Ian and Barbara are charismatic from the get go, and I think it was a smart decision to tell this story from their perspective. It sets a tone about the role of a companion throughout the series that is true to this day. And of course there is the Doctor, which is truly the antagonist at the beginning. It sets up character development that we will see flourish in The Daleks and The Edge of Destructions; but also brings up some beats that go on long game.

There is a longing in his words as he tells Ian and Barbara that he and Susan are exiles from their home that is not usually associated with the character. He is not yet the adventurer he's bound to become, and it's impossible to negate Ian and Barbara's role in it. And of course, we'd see more direct consequences of running way later in the series. Susan doesn't want to leave London 1963, says that the last six months have been the best of her life. It's a glimpse about the kind of life she longs for herself and the stability she can't have with her grandfather. Susan is almost never, in TV, as opinated as when she tries to tell the Doctor that if he leaves he'll do so without her. Of course, it doesn't work in her favor. Ian at one point claims the TARDIS is alive, which will be relevant soon enough.

This is not an amicable version of our longterm protagonist. Not yet. He is arrogant, dismissive, selfish. He makes choices for his own amusement that put the others in the danger, including the granddaughter he swears he is trying to take care of. He is cold and he can't admit when he is wrong. And that's the side of him that shows itself the most in An Unearthly Child. He is also the first character in-universe (by release date) to say "Doctor Who?". It's not what's implied, but I think I prefer to have Ian and Barbara unintentionally giving him his name than some of the alternatives.

We do see a glimpse of another side of him, though, in parts two and three. He is sincerely sorry for getting them captured by the tribe and putting everyone in danger; and while he is still arrogant and unhelpful at times he does recognize Ian's value and tries to help Barbara calm down. It's not enough to change his demeanor towards them, not yet, and him trying to kill Kal only to be stopped by Ian is a step back. But there are other nice moments for the TARDIS team, as when the Doctor proves that Za killed the old woman or when Ian recognizes the Doctor as the leader of their tribe.

Parts two to four are a letdown from part one though. I have watched An Unearthly Child many times by now; the tribe's politics was not an aspect that grabbed me the first few rounds but that have grown on me as a pretty decent plot. So what's the problem, then? For me it's the acting. It's not bad by any means, but most of the characters that are not our regulars, if not all of them, are highly unlikable and a very cartoonish take on "caveman". All the maneirisms in the dialogue are honestly tiring at times.

There is also some signs of the screamonger Susan will become. It's somewhat justified, but it'll become irritating fast. In contrast, Barbara also have two dispairing moments in this story, but it feels truer to her character because of three reasons; one, it's her first trip in the TARDIS; two, it doesn't become a staple of her character and three, it's followed by her deciding they must help Kal, acting for the first time as a moral compass for the characters.

I don't love the caveman part of An Unearthly Child, but it's a really good pilot for a series I love that already shows many reasons why I love it; one of its strongest traits being a fantastic cast of recurring characters. It's ★★★½☆ for me.

The Time Witch - ★★★☆☆

Brimo, the titular character, have a lot of potential. It's not the intention of this story to do so, and therefore that's not the perspective that I look at The Time Witch; but it's easy to read the openning pages and question if her punishing was fair. It doesn't seem so. Anyone in her position would have gone mad. There is a longer version of this comic that put the morals at the center and builds an engaging character piece; but that's not the version that exists.

It's innofensive.  Imaginative enough, given its premise, and very fun to read; but in my opinion we see a better realised version of this concept later on DWM publication, with a much stronger character conflict played out (that chapter in The Glorious Dead, if you ever read it you'll get the comparison). I still love the art and my favorite part is the guardian of Brimo's dimension; I love his design.

This is the start of doom for Sharon. On its own the decision to age her could lead to interesting stories; but I know that what follows is just weird. The weirdest "coming of age" ever.

Indian Summer - ★★★★★

I love this short trip. It's a tale about Suresh, a Indian boy that just started working in a hotel that has a haunted table at its restaurant. We see his life throughout the decades and many of his meetings with the ghost; as well as a mysterious girl that appears every few years looking for her grandfather, but who doesn't seem to age.

It's a character piece, primarly. It has a lovely protagonist and his relationship with the hotel itself is heartwarming. Suresh loves his life and it's contagious. I also adore the relationship he develops with the ghost, even before they can talk. Every scene is a just a little snipet in his long, wonderful life, but it tells us so much about who he is.

Obviously the ghost is the First Doctor. He and Susan got caught in some time and space shanenigans and now he is lost in the flow of time. He's holding himself to the big events, and that's why he only appears when someone is close to death. I love the atmosphere of the story before we know that's what's happening; it's pretty obvious it's the Doctor from the get go, but what if whatever happened to him is the cause of all these deaths?

Susan has a small role in the story, but this time that doesn't bother me. Even if she doesn't appear much, she has a more active role. She doesn't solve anything, sure. But she tried!

I love the characters. I love the plot. I love the writing. I love the setting. I still have a lot of short trips to go through, but I can't see any beating this one for me.

Bide-a-Wee - ★★½☆☆

It's barely a story, but it had potential to be a great one. We see the Doctor and Susan taking a vacation from their travels on Earth. Susan is out with newly made friends and the Doctor is enjoying his time in a local inn.

We find out, just as the Doctor, that one of the guests have been messing with time and the town is perpetually stuck in the 1933 when a couple from the 1999 arrive, shocking the guests with their marriage (and child), since the man is white and the woman is not. Their little boy seems to be the only member of the family to notice there is something wrong going on.

It has a very small scale though, and the solution is very simple. Not that I wished to overcomplicate this, but there was potentional for this one to be a full fleshed out story focusing on the ill effects of being permanently - or so it seems - out of your time. It seems like hell.

Plus, the antagonist - we can barely call him that - may or may not be the Monk.