The Fifteenth Doctor #17

'Dance Till You Drop' (2025) from Doctor Who Magazine 614.

While it's cute that Doctor Who Magazine host a children's contest to include their monsters or characters into the stories, it simply doesn't result in a very good story with this comic here unfortunately. It's a lacklustre entry to the solo-15 canon, and I wish we could have had a three-or-four-parter during this gap between Season One and Season Two, but the inclusion of this strip here explains that that wasn't possible and instead we'll likely be seeing another one-shot 15 story next month as well.

The Thirteenth Doctor #14

'Gatecrashers' (2019) from The Target Storybook.

Feels like a story that fits in well thematically with Series 11 as well as with other short stories of Thirteen's already. Disconcerting that she really feels like she's killing people left and right though. So tonally jarring for her happy-go-lucky character.

The Thirteenth Doctor #13

'The Witchfinders' (2021) from Target Books.

Again another nice entry into the modern Target novelisations. These two Thirteen novelisations may be my favourite of the nine I've read thus far. Perhaps it's because it's been a couple of years since I saw the episodes, rather than only 6-12 months like for Fourteen and Fifteen. But still, great stuff here. I enjoy all of the additions to the original story and I feel like significant time has been spent with almost each companion.

The Thirteenth Doctor #12

'The Greatest Movie Never Made' (2019) from Doctor Who Adventures Special.

Feel like next to no effort went into this. Very disregardable.

The Thirteenth Doctor #11

'Kerblam!' (2023) from Target Books.

Very pleasantly surprised by this. Although, I was already somewhat of a fan of Series 11 (definitely more than most), so a novelisation of almost any episode from that series would have been a pleasant surprise to me regardless I feel like. I enjoy The Doctor and Yaz, both as individuals and as a couple, a lot more in this as well. They both get some good moments of internal understanding that can clearly only be read into here because it was added after the fact. Still, fun story, with nice additions - although the episode itself is rather far from recent memory now. The Doctor killing somebody towards the end reminded me of moments like Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and Deep Breath. Not sure if it fits with the character they were trying to give Thirteen.

The Thirteenth Doctor #10

'Einstein and the Doctor' (2019) from Star Tales.

A pretty standard Doctor Who historical here, which feels like the sci-fi aspect is kind of stuffed in with the rest of it. Sort of comparable to Vincent and the Doctor here, and not only in name, with Einstein seemingly being a bit crazy (I can't say I know anything really about the real guy), and his fears becoming real-life phantoms harming people in the city, but they're actually ultraviolet jellyfish feeding off of imagination? I enjoy the Graham and Ryan side-story, and the idea of The Doctor almost bumping into a previous incarnation. The Einstein stuff just feels a bit doo-lally and unfocused for me, but it's still firmly Doctor Who.

The Thirteenth Doctor #8

'Where's the Doctor?' (2018) from Doctor Who The Official Annual 2019.

Another story here which doesn't seem to be on Tardis Guide as of yet, and that's unfortunate as it's quite a good one. Mainly because it canonises Queen Elizabeth II as being a great big lizard - aside from that it's more of a collage of all of The Doctor's incarnations all being present for her coronation. Not really much of a focus on Thirteen.

The Thirteenth Doctor #9

'The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street' (2018) from Twelve Angels Weeping.

A nice little story focusing on a young girl in Dublin who comes across a "rhino" hiding in a hologram-protected neighbour's house. Works well as a character study for her and seems to come from a very truthful place, personally relating with me with its seemingly autistic representation. I wish The Doctor was in it more, which I could say about a few of her EU stories so far unfortunately, but her brief appearance towards the end is cute.

The Thirteenth Doctor #7

'That's All Right, Mama' (2019) from Star Tales.

Really interesting and nicely done concept here. The idea of Elvis calling his mother throughout his life, and she's recieving all of the phone calls on the day of her death, is really touching and feels very truly Doctor Who. I could easily imagine this story taking place in the televised show. The way that The Doctor explains Elvis' morality here doesn't sit quite right with me, as she approaches the situation mostly purely from the angle of solving the time-space issue. Which is still a very Doctor-like thing to do, and definitely something that Twelve would have done. But considering that her character is meant to be a continuation of the kindness and giving nature of Twelve towards the end of his life, this only feeds into my issue with her writing in the show which kind of makes her a harsh and unapproachable character. Her letting Elvis go on one last trip to actually see his dying mother was nice though, but you don't really get any time to see her and Elvis interact regarding that.

The Thirteenth Doctor #6

'The Warmonger' (2019) from Doctor Who Magazine 531-534.

Very much starting to see the corporatisation of warfare cropping up as a theme in almost every DWM story that I've read so far in my Doctor Who extended media journey. I'm not against it, it's just interesting to mention how often it's occurring. A neat idea here of a kaiju-type fight taking place in a real city that's getting decimated, all for the enjoyment of some kind of virtual reality sensory experience? When the curtain starts to get pulled back in these types of stories, the payoff tends to not secure the concept as well for me. Nice to see Graham and Ryan having some fun in the mix though - wish there was more of that here.

The Thirteenth Doctor #5

'Chasing the Dawn' (2019) from Star Tales.

Despite being more of an Eleven story, it's quite a nice one to see re-experienced through the eyes of Thirteen. Both of them are captured well, and I enjoy Thirteen's relationship with Yasmin here. The Amelia Earhart story is nice although the antagonist concept is a little thin. Altogether a decent little story however.