Scarlet Empress 2: Electric Boogaloo, AKA The Blue Angel, is miles better than its predecessor. I feel like I have to read this book at least one more time to be able to write a proper review (I re-read many parts to write this, actually); it keeps teasing you with connections between things, but never commits to them. It asks to hold on to 100 different threads, but most of them go nowhere. A lot of it is just plain fun, though. I'm gonna try to review it anyways.

Basically: Deadalus, green elephant man with so many superpowers I'm not even gonna go there, wants to start a war between our universe and the Obverse. The bridge between these two places is the Enclave. Iris Wildthyme (she's back and it's about time) knows this guy of old. She is playing 3D chess here, maybe with Deadalus, maybe against him, but her main goal is to keep the Doctor away from this mess, to stop him from stopping this war.

The setup is great. You can always count on Paul Margs for delivering pretty interesting alien races and settings, and so he does for the Enclave. There are some parallels between the races of the Enclave and some races in the normal Universe. The Glass Men are explicitly said to be like the Daleks, and the Ghillighast (who look like bats) could mirror to the Time Lords. Maybe the Sahmbekarts for the Sontarans, the Steingertrudes for the Ice Warriors? I'm reaching, but oh well. The Star Trek TOS/TNG pastiche with the crew of Federation ship Nepotist was hilarious. I'm a big, big fan of ST, and this felt like some good-natured fun poking. Thank you for the dollar store Spirk, Paul Magrs and Jeremy Hoad! I laughed out loud with Fitz thinking this 'hollow deck' thing sounded awful. If there's anyone that would adore the holodeck, it's Fitz.

The absolute best part of this book is the Obverse, hands down. It's intriguing and it's so melancholic, I've been thinking about it non stop for days now. The Obverse!Eight Doctor is this incredibly sweet, quiet gay man plagued by dreams of our Doctor's life. 'Funny spells', he calls the psychotic episodes he has when he can't tell the two realities apart. His memory is full of holes and contradictions. He remembers kissing Grace is San Francisco, but has he ever been to San Francisco? Fitz and Compassion, or versions of them, are his lodgers in his big blue house. His private doctor (who is the Third Doctor -- don't ask me how) tells him not to worry, ever, and keeps him heavily medicated. So what's going on? Is he insane? Is the Obverse!Doctor our Doctor being drugged/tricked into believing he's mad, being kept there against his will? Is he chameleon arched? He still has two hearts, but he feels cold in a way Time Lords don't. Is he an alternative universe version of him, fully (or more) human? Is he a completely other person that just happens to be played by Paul McGann? The Obverse!Doctor scenes are written in his POV, and it's heartbreaking, he's so lost and confused. If he is our Doctor, we desperately want to save him. If he's an AU version, we also desperately want to help him, to explain, somehow, that the world he dreams of is real.

For my money, I think he is our Doctor. Jane Fonda!Iris, in the normal Universe, says she has 'shunt him along into safety with a harmless little nudge'. He hates being tampered with, but she can't help it; he's safe, she says, confused but safe. Then we get the POV of an undisclosed character, who says in their narration that they know the Doctor has started to want to be more human, to experience things as a human, exhausted after Seven's whole 'Time's Champion' act; was this one of the Irises? In the Obverse, neither Compassion nor Fitz remember how they met, for how long they've known each other, or how any of them 'came here' (do they mean the house? Or the universe?). The Obverse!Doctor has an old friend called Sally (who is Sarah Jane -- don't ask me how), who he's known for years. Her Jack Russell, that he gave her, is called Canine. She's written a scifi book that seems to be the Scarlet Empress and the Blue Angel, minus the Obverse bits. Sally's neighbor is a version of Iris in her last incarnation, and she knows a lot more of what the Obverse is than any of the others. She says the book is dangerous because it contains too much information, and it'll lead the Glass Men to them. The Obverse!Doctor has this same fear in his funny spells, and recognizes Sally's book from his dreams. So I'd say our Jane Fonda!Iris put the real Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Compassion in that universe to protect them from the Enclave war (a war she's playing a big role in starting... maybe mirroring how the Doctor is starting the war with the Enemy?). I assume she somehow made the TARDIS take them there at the end of the book (maybe controlling Compassion?), and created the other people there from the Doctor's memory; that's why Three is his psychiatrist, why he sees Two when he goes to church, why Sally is Sarah but not exactly, why his mum is a eastern European mermaid (do not ask me), why no one objects to calling him 'the Doctor', but his mother calls him Jonny. That other version of Iris is there to keep an eye on things. I guess Jane Fonda!Iris takes them out when the war is over, and I guess we'll never know how long they were there for. The big but is how could Iris do all this. I have absolutely no idea. But it's Iris, so maybe she can. Or I'm dead wrong and it was just a fun little AU.

It was a bold choice to release this book right after 'Interference'. Fitz was remade from scratch at the end of that, but we don't get to see how that's affecting him, apart from a couple of throwaway lines. What he does get is a bi awakening! He's horseback riding down a mountain chased by giant owls, but the question going on in his head is if he should try to leave the Doctor to travel with Iris. He discards the notion quickly, thinking that he 'couldn't imagine not seeing the Doctor again', and that he gets now why Sam had a crush on him. In his own words, he's probably about to die but there he is, considering 'his chances of getting laid by Iris... or even of getting laid by the Doctor'. Nice. I do like it when they fall for him, okay? At least Fitz is a full grown man, not a 17yo like Sam was.

Then we have Compassion, who's only just joined the TARDIS. We know next to nothing about her, especially away from the Media and the Remote. There's something off with her that's not explained: she can drive Iris's TARDIS. I'm thinking it was Iris herself that sent her the signals (or maybe even controlled her?) to do so, as both times this happens were in according to what Iris would have want. The Doctor is sus. He says he's going to get her a sort of signal filter. I wonder if this is gonna be brought up in the future. Compassion was also feeling out of place in the Obverse, probably because she could see a bit through the 'illusion' of it all. She doesn't have a single funny bone in her body, has a strange moral code, seems allergic to fun, and does not trust (nor likes) the Doctor and Fitz yet. I'm loving the potential for Drama.

I'm talking too much already. Let me wrap it up: my problem with this book is that I wanted to know more. I'm not used to this Murakami style magical realism weirdness in my Doctor Who books. But the more I think about this book, the more I like it. It was a fascinating read, that's for sure. Did I mention the Doctor gets pregnant, in the leg? If I had a penny every time this happened I'd have two pennies, which is not a lot, but it's weird that's happened twice.

Writing my review here for both Book 1 and Book 2, seeing as they are really one story that had to be divided in two books for logistical reasons.

Okay. Lawrence Miles is clever, that's for sure. Like in 'Alien Bodies', there's about a billion interesting ideas in these books. Although the writing is very engaging, you could easily cut 30% of the text and still come out with a full story. Or kinda, since, by design, there are quite a few loose threads that are supposed to lead to future plotlines. I really like how alien he makes the Time Lords/Gallifreyans in his works. I said the same on 'Alien Bodies', but here you can tell the Doctor is not just a guy with two hearts who is very hard to kill for real. He's made of maths, and isn't that a cool concept? Feed me that with a spoon, I love it.

The Doctor is once again knocked down to the ground in this story. He's imprisoned and tortured within an inch of his life, and is heavily implied to be mentally compromised (as he tells Sarah he's 'already out of his mind' when she rescues him). I honestly hadn't realized until it was heavily implied in the text that the prison he was in was on Earth. This newest imprisonment is the other side of the coin to his 3 year stay in Ha'olam. While that prison broke him by being a nice and humane place he could not rebel against and by having a probe in his mind that frustrated all his escape plans, this Saudi Arabian prison broke him by beating the sh*t out him with no rhyme or reason. He can't escape because he can't think. And here we have to wonder: surely the Doctor can escape a 90's Earth prison that has minimal security. He can pick the lock, he can trick the guards, he can dig a tunnel. The reason he doesn't is that Miles wants to make a point about how things work in the real world. The Doctor, a powerful being made of equations, can't escape the horrors of simple human brutality. He has saved this planet hundreds of times, but he's still going to be killed by these people for no reason. In his (wonderful) conversations with his fellow cellmate Badar, he's confronted with the hypocrisy of his interference (ha!) in a number of other worlds, bringing down corrupt governments, while he turns a blind eye to the corruption of Earth governments. He gives the standard Doctor Who explanation: the Earth is a nexus point, too many fixed points in time depend on it, and messing with them endangers causality, endangers the Web of Time TM. The true reason is closer to this: he doesn't interfere because it will be noticed, and he's afraid of the consequences to himself if he's caught. Bringing him down to the real world and making him confront and suffer what he, by not interfering, is allowing to happen, was very interesting. He promises Badar he will interfere and I.M. Foreman tells him how he can do that do that in a less obvious, untraceable manner: feeding the goose, Sam.

He's preoccupied with Sam's future while in prison. Since she was made to be his perfect companion, either by Faction Paradox or by himself, inadvertently, what happens when she stops being his companion? Does she get to live on, or does she disappear? In a way, his gross manipulation of her by telling her the future of Earth and planting the idea of acting against it in her teenage mind, he makes sure she has a purpose beyond traveling with him. I guess that since her future is anchored to that moment, to him, her continued existence is also anchored.

Goodbye, Sam! It was actually kind of funny to see how badly she handled Compassion's questioning of her principles and morals. After being exposed to the Remote for going through the trauma conga of living through horrible scenarios of 'sacrifice' for their benefit, I hope she has learned something about the type of society she wants to build. Sarah is going to make her a sort of apprentice, apparently, which was a bit frustrating to me. Let her go on her own! Let her do things on her own!!! Anyway. It's done, it's over, Sam survived, amazingly. I was ready to bet 10 quid on her dying for real this time. Good for her.

In a story where everyone, sans Sarah, is psychologically and/or physically tortured, Fitz takes the cake. I spent half the book going from 'Kode is Fitz' to 'no, the last of the Remote is Fitz' only to be doubly right, or doubly wrong. Crazy to think the real, original Fitz is only in there in the first pages of the book. There a parallel somewhere between the Doctor wanting to pretend his new car is the same as the Bug he destroyed in 'Unnatural History' and him re-building the original Fitz from Kode with the help of the TARDIS. 'It's not the same!' said the note. The original Fitz, Father Kreiner, goes on to live an incredibly miserable life, with an incredibly miserable 'death' (not quite). It's 'The Girl Who Waited' times a billion, and it's so so so sad. We know the Doctor can't go back in time and save his original self after having met Kode, but damn does it hurt. I'm very curious to see the fallout of this in the next books.

Poor Third Doctor was put in the middle of an EDA and was horrified. Yeah man, this is what waits you. 1000% more blood than he's seen in his life. And he dies! No 'Planet of the Spiders' for you! I really want to see what all this FP meddling is gonna do. So far, the only thing that's really happened was the Doctor losing his shadow, but I'm sure more sinister consequences await us.

I.M. Foreman and their increasingly f*cked up incarnations was a very cool concept, and a very cool timeloop. I stupidly though the blind man was the Doctor when he first appeared, so point for Miles for getting me with that one. The universe in a bottle thing was, again, a cool concept.

Lots of cool concepts going around. But it's far from perfect. The structure of the book is infuriating on purpose, jumping in time and in POV. You do not want to take a break between books 1 and 2; half the plot points will just slip through your fingers like sand. The Remote's motivations go back and forth, as they literally change their minds on their own plans many times. Fitz's timeline is hardest one to follow, as he's in the future but also in the relative past of Guest's gang. One thing that annoyed me was that Sam kept trying to put things together and kept being wrong, so I felt almost betrayed for believing her. The metaphor for the media dominated society began as interesting and thought provoking, but became more and more heavy handed as the story progressed. At the end, we're just going 'yes, I GET IT'. Although I really liked the bit were they flat-out say stories are supposed to inspire us real people to take action in the real world. Llewis sure was a character, but I'm not sure why he was given so much focus.

Some other assorted things I liked: Sarah Jane, my beloved. The 'script' parts of the book were great fun; the whole atmosphere was fantastic, specially the visual of the Cold. Giant Seal of Rassilon space coin bomb coming to destroy the Earth. The Eleven day Empire. Male characters breaking/losing their arms like Grandfather Paradox. The iconic 'I'm not sure I've even been a man' line from the Doctor. The nice Ogron! K9: 'Master' - The Doctor: 'Where??'. The Doctor writing time equations on the floor with his own blood while half delirious!!! Stealing himself and Sarah from time!!! Super cool. RIP Saudi soldiers lost in the TARDIS.

Things that made me go 'Ohhh': the Doctor assumes the Giant Seal of Rassilon space coin bomb was heading for the Enemy's home-world. It was, in fact heading for Earth. HMMM. Who was the arm-less shadow that talked to Fitz in his FP initiation? It kind of spoke like the Doctor. Is new!Fitz still initiated in FP? Can he become Father Kreiner again? Is this why Griffin also wanted him as a specimen in 'Unnatural History'? Who took the bottle universe? Obvious guess is the Doctor, but who knows. Did I.M. Foreman shag the Doctor on that hill??? Second book in a row I'm having to ask this! In the same note, his romantic nature (or at least his higher need for companionship) was acknowledged as a side effect of his half-human-ness. Interesting. I already know Compassion is staying for a while. Curious about how that's going to go. I can't see her being a very chummy companion.

Do I even need to say it?

Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:10 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra in 'The Scarlet Empress', leg broken + slapped around by giant tentacled monster in 'The Face-Eater', stabbed 3 times in 'Unnatural History', electrocuted in 'Autumn Mist', broken arm + more here)
Torture:4 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I', 'Unnatural History', by God, this one)

Easy breezy read, weirdly enough, given this one is set in WW2. The TARDIS once again refuses to leave Earth and drops the team in the middle of the Herbstnebel, the Battle of the Bulge, a real WW2 offensive in the Ardennes. BUT! There's also fairies.

I don't have much to say about this story. The bits with the real life soldiers, their conversations with Fitz, Sam and specially the Doctor were the highlights for me. But the sci-fi part of it all with the Sidhe was just so boring. These sci-fi elves/fairies exist on Earth, but on other dimensions, meaning they don't actually interfere with humans unless they wish to. However, a dimensional rift (what caused this rift, actually?) between dimensions allows the war to affect their realm as well, so they want it closed. Well, the queen, Titania (ha) wants it closed, but Oberon (haha), her counterpart, is making things worse by working with the Americans, who are kinda working with the Germans, planning to... somehow use the Sidhe's power to phase between time and space like they do. It's not a plan that holds under scrutiny, but okay.

Sam, once again, doesn't get to do much herself, and mostly just has things happen to her. She right out gets shot in the heart and dies. She's brought back by the Sidhe so they can gain the Doctor's favor. She's quite shaken, understandably. This is what, her 3rd death, as she also dies in Beltempest and Janus Conjunction (from the top of my head). In the end, she finally, finally realizes enough is enough, and tells the Doctor that next time they land on 90/2000's Earth, she's leaving. After solving the dark haired Sam plotline, there really isn't much more that could be done with her character, so it makes sense for her to leave. I say there's not much that could be done because Sam just doesn't have an interesting enough character or dynamic with the Doctor and Fitz to justify keeping her around for much longer. What could be done has been done. She was there for the Doctor when he needed her after 'Seeing I', when it would have made sense for her to stay on Ha'olam. But he's better now and he has Fitz, even though it's not the same. She has to get under his wing to become herself, at this point. Unless there's a big overhaul in her character, she's done her bit as a companion. Her proper farewell is still to come, but this is the beginning of the end.

Fitz was delightful as always. Giving 'James Bond' as his name for the American soldiers was the Fitz-est thing he could have done. Loved that little bit where the Doctor just breaks down laughing at it. There were two points that I wish had been explored more: Fitz's feelings as he, the son of a German and born during the war, has to pretend to be a Nazi officer, and seeing the Beast again, which will lead to his mother's death in '63. Oh, well.

A side rambling about our companions, since Sam's leaving soon. Sam's not very highly regarded as a companion by the fans, from what I found, while Fitz is very well liked, to the point where I don't think I've ever heard anything bad said about his character. Fans constantly call him a loser, but that's always said with a lot of affection. Fitz is Sam's polar opposite in terms of character, and also in terms of how the narrative (usually!) treats them. The comparison in inevitable. In this book, for instance: Sam is saved by the Americans, is being taken to safety, but then they are intercepted and she's killed. Fitz, on the other hand, has to disguise himself and infiltrate the Nazi troops, and escapes on a stolen motorbike after releasing their Sidhe prisoner. See what I mean? Sam loves to think that she's unaffected and in control, and that she understands everything that's going on. She's a character that notices things, a character the other characters talk to and explain things to. However, she's not nosy enough to be much of a detective, and tends to take a more passive position. She learns all she can and reports back to the Doctor, acts as a liaison to the aliens. Fitz is more open about being scared, but he can think very fast and can come up with insanely dangerous plans that nevertheless are good plans. Is he internally going 'shitshitshitohgod' the whole time? Yes. But that makes him so endearing and entertaining and real. Very different characters, very different approach. I'm excited to see where they go for the next companion.

Back to the story. The whole third act was a big mess to me. Needing 200 tons of metal to seal the rift felt incredibly arbitrary. I get that Oberon's whole thing was not having a proper motivation, but damn, the guy really doesn't have a proper motivation besides being a bit jealous of the Doctor. That makes the ending feel quite flat. The side characters were nice, but nothing to write home about. The scene where the Doctor and the boys steal a tank was cool, but I gotta echo Fitz: bit dark for you, eh, Doctor? I guess the WW2 backdrop made him accept the necessity of death more readily than usual. And to be fair, they were killing literal Nazis.

Should I add the electrocution to the List? He recovers pretty fast... after screaming a lot... Fine, it's on the list.

Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:9 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra in 'The Scarlet Empress', leg broken + slapped around by giant tentacled monster in 'The Face-Eater', stabbed 3 times in 'Unnatural History', electrocuted in this one)
Torture:3 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I', 'Unnatural History')

Final thought: did that fairy enchant and shag him!???? Or did she just enchant and snog him? I need to know for this police report I'm filing.

Lovely, lovely, lovely serial. I wouldn’t change a single thing. It really has it all: the maggots are disgusting and frightening, the main villain is silly, but menacing, and all side characters are great. Amazing moments for my dear Mike Yates, a couple of funny moments for Benton as well, and the Brig is a delight, as usual.

I already miss Jo. I liked her immediately, much like everyone else that interacted with her on screen since her first appearance. She folded the Doctor like origami with her immense charm and earnestness, and this serial really shows just how much he came to care for her. We can tell from episode 1 that she’s ready to move on, but the ending is still so bittersweet. She’s happy, Cliff Jones is a good man, but ouch, the look on the Doctor’s face at end… I was very glad he never came across as adversarial towards Cliff, even though we could see he was jealous. Jo knows it’s time to move on with her life, and she’s never been one of the “let’s see the universe and the future and the past” type of companion. The Doctor can see that, but still has a hard time accepting it, because he just enjoys her company so much. Sigh. What a simple but powerful companion exit.

I love you, Jo, and I’ll miss you forever. Thank God I already know the next companion will not disappoint.

Fun and sweet! I mean, it's Susan!!! And a great-grandchild for the Doctor!!!

The story is nothing groundbreaking, and I'm not sure I like that a) Susan almost causes an alien invasion by naively asking random aliens for help and b) the way the xenophobes end up kind of having a point, as the aliens that answer Susan's call really are there to enslave and oppress them. Nevertheless, it is a much, much, much better reunion for Susan and the Doctor than the EDA 'Legacy of the Daleks', which is also based on the premise that the Doctor gets a distress signal from Susan and goes to 22nd century Earth to investigate.

They mention Susan looks older than the Doctor, so I guess she could somehow control her aging process? I was gonna say Alex is too bratty for my taste, but from his perspective, it really was a lot to take in: famous parents, dead dad, influential politician (?) mum, he gets manipulated by the xenophobic alien haters. Suddenly there's also this weird guy that keeps following him and saying strange things and that he knows his parents, and the guy's an alien! The xenophobes want him to shoot the aliens, but his mum calls the guy GRANDFATHER meaning his mum is an alien as well, making him HALF-ALIEN! And great-granddad has a time machine, and mum wants him to go to space college in their planet... Oof. I'd freak out as well.

Looking forward to seeing Susan and Alex again!

Not terrible by any means, but pretty uninteresting after the first two episodes. It didn't really offer anything new, and I've never cared much for stories involving the Thals. I would complain about Latep's instant crush on Jo, but she's just that lovable, I can believe a guy would fall for her in 12 hours of meeting her. Amazing fashion from the Doctor, a couple of very good lines about courage and about war. Jo's motormouth explanation to the Doctor of being saved by a Spiridon has THE funniest line: "it was terrible, and then I rescued by this bowl!!!" (since the Spiridons are invisible, and the bowl he was holding all she could see). Wait a minute, did she actually think Wester was a floating bowl? I'm very that the next serial is her goodbye, but I am super excited to see Sarah Jane next season.

What a wild ride. The TARDIS team goes to San Francisco to investigate some time weirdness. The find out that the Doctor's regeneration and the Master's meddling with the Eye of Harmony during the TV Movie left a nasty scar in space-time that is attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Sam falls into the scar is turns into the alternate version of herself we found out existed in her biodata in 'Alien Bodies', a dark-haired Sam that's a junkie and general nobody back in London. The Doctor uses the TARDIS to contain the scar while he figures out how to bring blonde Sam back. This is really, really, really bad for the TARDIS, though, and she'll die if she stays there too long. To make things worse, Faction Paradox is there, and there's a scientist from a higher dimension that wants to pin the Doctor, Sam and Fitz like butterflies, and also a Kraken. Yeah.

Dark-haired loser Sam, you're a star. Like, from her perspective, she's is told she has a 'good twin' who is best friends/maybe more with a hot time traveling alien, and he wants his Sam back. For that, she has to basically die, to 'change' into this blonde Sam. She gets her past rewritten many times, and tries to hold onto her sense of self with all her might. It's not even that she's a better character than our Sam (although the contrast really makes our Sam, blonde Sam, seem really boring and too much of a goodie two shoes), it's more that the conflict she's put into is more compelling than anything that has happened to our Sam in a long time.

It's a story about identity, about how and if your past really defines who you are. The ley lines and the scar are actually the Doctor's exposed biodata (hi, 'Alien Bodies'!), his history, his everything, vulnerable to 'edits' just as Sam's. Faction Paradox is here, but their presence, in the shape of an annoying as hell little boy with a knife, is not that threatening: he's mostly keeping an eye on things, being a nuisance, and stabbing the Doctor. The real danger to the Doctor's and Sam's biodata is Griffin, the higher dimensional scientist that wants to 'make sense' of them, prune the bits of their biodata that makes them too complicated.

For the Doctor, this means straightening out his conflicting backstories. Remember the 'I'm half-human on my mother's side' bit they did in the Movie? Well, it's one of his backstories now, it's the one Eight apparently believes is the truth, and the one Griffin sees in his biodata. And if his past was altered to make him half-human, if that was changed by someone, well, how would the Doctor even know? The Faction Paradox boy taunts the Doctor with this, and the Doctor's answer is a very good 'I don't care, I am who I am now, it doesn't matter if I was different yesterday or not'. I can't not think of the Timeless Child story arc, which resolves similarly when Thirteen (after considerable more angst than Eight) realises she doesn't want or need her memories from before the First Doctor to know who she is today. The whole 'conflicting backstories/memories can be due to malicious agents editing biodata' is a great concept overall, pretty much an in-universe retcon of retcons. A DeRetcon gun.

Dark-haired Sam speed runs Blonde Sam's 'crush on the Doctor' arc: she goes from 'he's insane' to 'still insane, but hot' to 'still hot, but too dangerous and alien to shag'. The Doctor takes it in stride, almost like he expected it. In the back massage scene (which was wooow, go Sam, get him), he's a little bit confused at the beginning, then just goes with it ('Defender of the Laws of Time, Protector of the Galaxy, and the biggest back-rub slut she's ever seen'). When she kisses him, he calmly slows her down and says he's very very old and very very dangerous, and that she should actually be afraid of what might happen to her because she's with him. She lets it go once she reaches the 'still hot, but too dangerous and alien to shag' bit of her development, after Kyra is killed. She ends up connecting (and sleeping) with Fitz then, who is just very human. He thinks that's not a great reason, but it is! She's not talking about biology, obviously. She's talking about emotional reactions, which Eight in particular has been known to 'miscalculate', in a sense. He cares, but he also moves on at breakneck speeds. It's why (spoiler for his BF audios) Charley leaves him. Fitz is a caring, vulnerable guy, and at that moment that counts for a lot.

Poor, poor TARDIS. The Doctor using her to plug the space-time-biodata scar is going to destroy her; it's so sad that he knows and did it deliberately, because he had no alternative if he wanted to save Sam and San Francisco. We're told he can hear her anguished cries of pain and confusion and betrayal throughout the whole story, and that just hurts my heart. If he lets her dies inside the scar, chances are she'll heal it and everything will be alright for the city. It's not 100% guaranteed, though. The Doctor ends up considering long and hard what his life would be like if he were to be stranded in SF in 2002. He can visualise a life, kind of similar to what he had during the UNIT years, with Sam and Fitz, with Grace. He thinks about how he considered it for a hot second in the Movie, when Grace asked him to stay with her. How it would be nice to really know a place completely, to go local like Prof. Joyce, to care about the small things. The idea is not wholly abhorrent, but it doesn't sit right with him, how 'easy' it would be. Moreover, the TARDIS is not just a ship. It's his home, his friend, part of him, as we were just told in 'Dominion'. So of course he wants to save her. The whole scene of them rushing to the alley in the Bug to be with her in what could be her final moments is painful. RIP to the Doctor's purple VW Bug, which gets knackered by the Doctor's absolutely unhinged driving. You were a good car.

As the plot gets closer and closer to a catastrophic end (as in, imminent Kraken attack), the Doctor gets ruthless. He can't sacrifice the TARDIS, getting her out of the rift and putting all his chips in the much riskier plan of using Griffin's collector's box to seal the it instead. Fitz is distraught that he'd chose to put so many people in danger just so he doesn't lose his freedom. The Doctor's answer is a chilling 'I will not be pinned down to one place and time. And I will not lose another friend. I don't have to. I'm the Doctor. I win.' Hi, Time Lord Victorious, good to see you so young! Dark Sam's internal comment to this line is that she's not sure if that means he did it in a moment of strength or a moment of weakness. Nice stuff. He also reduces FP boy to tears in his cold fury. And at the end there, with Griffin and the box? Did he say 'number 18' knowing dark Sam wouldn't know what it was and would have to change into blonde Sam (pretty much kill herself, eh?) to save the day? I honestly think he did, yeah. Cold. In the end, blonde Sam is back, with only a few memories of her time as dark-haired Sam, and the lesson of 'you are who you are at the moment, and you can make your own future'. Plus, she and Fitz are probably not going to go into the romance territory again, thankfully.

While this book was a great time, I do have some problems with the plot. There's always lot going on, a lot of getting captured and escaping, back and forth, a lot of problems jumbled together. It's the scar, it's FP, it's the Henches, it's Griffin, it's the goddamned Kraken. The whole thing with Prof. Joyce (who was this guy? He says he's not a Time Lord, but...) and the stabilizer gadget was a spanner in the works that was too (in)convenient and 'mysterious' too me.

Ah, and don't think I haven't noticed, Blum and Orman! Why did Griffin want Fitz as well as Sam and the Doctor? What was it in his biodata that didn't conform??? I'm also wondering if the reason the TARDIS tried to get rid of Sam in 'Dominion' was to avoid being hurt in this story...

The List of Pain is back! I'm gonna count what he goes through in this book as Torture and as Serious Injuries, as he gets stabbed like 3 times (2 by FP boy, another at the end by Griffin -- at least that's what I understood from all the blood in his shirt).

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:8 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra in 'The Scarlet Empress', leg broken + slapped around by giant tentacled monster in 'The Face-Eater', stabbed in this one)
• Torture:3 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I', goes through a lot in this one)

The story picks up immediately after 'Revolution Man': Fitz is going back to Sam's room to apologise after their fight over his and the Doctor's role on Ed Hill's murder. He gets there just in time to see her and her whole room get swallowed by a vortex, as the TARDIS has been attacked by something. The Doctor manages to land and get himself and Fitz out before she goes straight into recovery mode (complete with turning back into a grey cube!), locking them out and stranding them in Sweden, 1999.

Sam's away for half the book. We get her POV in part 2, but frankly, I don't think the story would have changed at all if she'd just showed up at the end. The one thing she does is stop Itharquell from killing himself, a scene what was not really necessary. I don't dislike Sam, but this is book number 22, and I can only say I really liked her in maybe 8 of them. I guess she's just... boring, at this point. Reacts more than acts, follows more than leads, obeys more than questions. In any case, she's sidelined here to make room for Fitz and his relationship with the Doctor to develop more, as it is only his 4th book as a companion, and he was off the TARDIS for two years during 'Revolution Man'.

The Doctor is neurotic and disoriented for this entire story. Part of it we can assume is due to Ed Hill's murder, another part due to losing Sam and the TARDIS so suddenly. The TARDIS is so broken he can't even feel her in his mind, which we are told is Very Bad, and makes him 'incomplete'. He's not talking about her resources either, he's really talking about his ability to be himself, to be the Doctor. Huh. He freezes when they're attacked at Björn's farm and is told to use his gun to protect them all. He freaks out when he's taken into custody by UNIT/C19; he developed claustrophobia in 'Seeing I', but even so, he's been locked up a few times since, and in worse circumstances, and has managed to keep his cool better than he does here. He gets pretty panicky when he can't immediately figure out who's behind the kidnappings, shaking his fist at the sky, at a point in the story where things are nowhere near as dire as they tend to get for Eight. Basically, he's flip-flopping wildly between the man you can trust with your life (the hero) and a guy making things up as he goes with no back-up plan. Dr. Lindgard's death in his escape attempt is the encapsulation of this, an easy-peasy situation in any other circumstance, botched horribly. His state of mind being this strange is intentional. Thing is, I don't mind seeing the Doctor in a vulnerable position at all; I welcome it! But he was on the verge of looking incompetent, which is a step too far. He gets better as book goes on, though, and is in much better shape by the end of it.

Poor Fitz just got back from a year of being brainwashed by the Chinese government and is thrown into this mess. He gets to play investigator for a bit, is Kerstin's caretaker for most of the story, and (unlike Sam in most of her stories) gets to do big plot relevant things and makes his own, character-driven decisions. Good for him. He does have a tendency to develop instant crushes on every girl he meets, though, but he thankfully keeps most of it inside his own head. Sam being away means that for over half the book he's the Doctor's only companion. As the Doctor is acting off, Fitz (and Kerstin, to a lesser extent) is on a roller coaster of 'it's over' and 'we're so back' in regards to his trust in the Doctor and his ability to save the day and keep the moral high ground while doing so, and also in regards to whether or not he's going to keep traveling with him or not. 'Trust the Doctor' wins out, as the Doctor saves him, Sam, Kerstin, and the T'hiili from certain death, specially when he realises his own original plan would have actually killed the T'hiili, due to his ignorance of their biology.

I have to discuss Kerstin Bergman. I feel so, so, so sorry for this girl. Boyfriend kidnapped by aliens, boyfriend returned only to be 'Alien'-ed right in front of her eyes, goes to another universe, is the only reason the Doctor manages to save the day, as she's the one that opens the TARDIS for him, goes through a whole internal journey of grief and growth in the span of a couple of days, realises she wants to travel with the Doctor, asks to stay...... AND IS TOLD 'NO'. He looks the girl in the eyes and says that she can't travel with them, that she's gonna have a good normal life, that she needs to process her grief. Rich, considering how Fitz came on board! I'd be absolutely, utterly devastated if this happened to me, asking to be a companion and getting a 'no' so callously. Big, big ouch.

The Dominion as a setting had some interesting ideas, but I'll be damned if I understood the mechanics of the sky-sea things and the interconnected caverns. I also kept confusing which aliens were the Ruin and which were the Bane. Sam's whole 200 page journey there didn't do much for me, and it's honestly ridiculous how Fitz ended up getting so much more to do there in only about 20 pages: he meets the queen and invents fire, for God's sake! The most interesting thing about the wormhole is that the Doctor mentions that the TARDIS 'wanted it' to affect her, meaning she let herself be breached so Sam would be snatched up. Hmmmmmm. Prof. Nagle and Major Wolstencroft were the tired old 'mad scientist that refuses to see the danger of their experiments' and 'military that distrusts aliens (particularly the Doctor) and science in general'. Even the Doctor says something to the effect of 'why does every military lock me up when I need to fix the Problem Machine of the Day'? I quite liked Inspector Nordenstam, but he vanishes completely from the plot after Johan's death by 'Alien'.

Nothing for the List of Pain this time. The Doctor gets shot (in a very 'what are you gonna do, shoot me?' *gets shot* scene), but it's only a tranquiliser gun. What he does get is 02 kisses!!! He kisses Fitz out of pure joy when he sees Fitz is alive, and is kissed by Sam when they were about to maybe die at the end of the story. It's very funny to me that Sam's the one kissing him in all their 3 kisses ('Longest Day', 'Seeing I' and here), while he's the one to kiss Fitz. It's like Eleven with Amy and Rory! Another funny thing is how multiple people include in their internal monologue how beautiful Eight is. They are, of course, correct. I liked the Doctor's conversation with Björn, when he uses his often forgotten Future Sight (which is soon proven to be unreliable), and pretty much all of Fitz's conversations with Kerstin. I also liked how he has a couple of moments of being a bit envious of the Doctor: once when he manages to get Kerstin to open up to him almost instantly, and another at the end when he saves them all and 'gets all the glory'. It makes sense, since Fitz has moments of feeling inadequate even without a Time Lord to compare himself to.

After the fun of 'Demontage', 'Revolution Man' is a slap in the face. In the same fashion as Paul Leonard's 2 previous EDAs, 'Genocide' and 'Dreamstone Moon', this is a quite bleak adventure, and probably the darkest of the three. The story begins very fast, no time for fun and games: the Doctor detects an anomaly in the vortex rooted in the late 60's, changing history. Unless they put things back into place, the Earth will be destroyed in an atomic WW3. It's a pretty simple plot, actually, and effective. A group of (mostly?) well-meaning flower-child revolutionaries got a hold of a mysterious plant in Nepal. The plant, Om-Tsor, gives them near unlimited, god-like power, including mind control. The group, under the lead of the 'Revolution Man', start using these powers to attack major powers, leading to world to the brink of war as everyone starts blaming everyone else for the attacks. The book uses this to be very critical of the revolutionaries of the 60's and their naivety and unfocused, self-centered efforts.

All this right up Sam's alley. I like the way Leonard writes her, as he actually does something with her political beliefs and activism. These traits are the core of her character, and it's good to see them appear prominently in the plot and drive her actions. She's deeply dismayed by the methods of the Revolution Man and his followers, and annoyed by their aimless and rash protests. Sam's quite in control here, which is a nice change.

The Doctor is almost a specter in the story, giving Sam and Fitz directions, but staying out of the center of things, mostly just showing up for major rescues and the big finale. I'm pretty sure he stole that motorbike, by the way. Dick move, Doctor, I hope you payed for it later, at least.

A big theme going on here is the Doctor's different relationships with Sam and Fitz. He and Sam have been traveling together for so long now that things come easy, and her trust in him is absolute (more on this later). Fitz is still very much the new guy, and he's a needy guy to boot. He's feeling a bit left out, and unsure if he actually wants to keep up the life of danger of a full-time companion. He does trust the Doctor and relies on him, and is rewarded for this when the Doctor brings Maddie back from the brink of death, but he's still not full on on board.

It's crazy convenient that they pretty much randomly meet Maddie, the one person who can tell them more about Om-Tsor and Ed Hill. Even more convenient is how Fitz immediately attaches himself to her, basically just because she's pretty. If he hadn't decided to pursue her, the Earth would be in shambles, I guess. In an incredibly hasty decision, he leaves the TARDIS to stay with Maddie, a girl he met 1 day ago. And he stays gone for two years! I don't think this was necessary at all for his development as character, but okay, I guess. The only reason we get him back is because, since he stayed behind to be with Maddie (who he literally just met!!!), who is deeply involved with the Revolution Man, the Doctor leaves him with a special call card to the TARDIS (I've never come across this call card business before). When Fitz and Maddie go to Nepal to track the source of Om-Tsor, he gets kidnapped by the Chinese army, and is brainwashed, I believe, for a whole year. Maddie calls the Doctor, and agrees to help him and Sam investigate the Revolution Man cult, gets brainwashed.

The TARDIS keeps skidding around in time because of the mess in the time vortex, so whole team (Sam, Fitz, Maddie and the Doctor) only really get all together for the grand confrontation with Ed Hill/Revolution Man. This is where all goes to sh*t. Both Maddie and Fitz are still out of sorts due to the brainwashing, Sam's being held back by Ed's followers, and it's 1 minute before the bombs hit and WW3 begins, and ends everything. The Doctor needs to get to the Om-Tsor, but Ed, all powerful, won't let him. Ed's messing with the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS, which adds another layer of 'the Earth will be destroyed if we don't stop him now'. Then he's in Fitz's face and is 100% going to kill him, so Fitz shoots the guy in the face. But he's still in god mode, only making even more of a mess because, well, bullet to the brain will mess you up, won't it. There's seconds to go. So the Doctor takes he gun and shots Ed in the head again to finish him off, takes a looot of the drug, and saves the day. I guess he stops the bombs and contains the damage to the TARDIS. The news reports in the following pages indicate that he does not erase the Revolution Man from history, but all international powers somehow calm down enough to not go into war anymore.

But yeah, let's go back to that point where the Doctor shoots a man in the head to save the day. Like, wow. He's very distraught at this, of course, and it really seems like there was no alternative, but damn. Moving to the real world for a sec, this was bold choice for Paul Leonard. Let's not delude ourselves: we've seen the Doctor kill plenty of people before. But like this, gun in his hand, point blank shooting a guy, blood splattering on his face, 'there was no alternative'? Oof. Thankfully, he is very affected by it, along with Sam and Fitz, even in the next book, 'Dominion'.

Back to the finale, Sam's in shock, angry at the Doctor, and he's trying to rationalize things, to explain, rambling, mostly to make sense of things for himself. Paul McGann would have acted the sh*t out of this scene, by the way. A while later, in the TARDIS, she's discussing this with Fitz. While the Doctor is clearly very upset about what happened, apparently mopping somewhere in the TARDIS, Fitz is more defensive. He shot Ed because he was on him and he panicked, and while he's not happy about it, he can't really regret it either. Sam's interesting in this scene. Ed's murder shocked her, but when she starts yelling at Fitz we can see that the crux of her issue is actually that Fitz made the Doctor finish the job. Fitz argues that she can't put the whole blame on him, because the Doctor did have a choice in the matter. But for her, the Doctor 'is a hero, and he never never never does anything wrong, you don't understand!', so blaming Fitz completely is the easy way out. Sam Sam Sam, careful with that absolute trust and devotion! Fitz, on the other hand, is shaken and isn't sure if he wants to really go back to traveling in the TARDIS. This was not a fun time for anyone. There's no happy moment. Even Fitz's normal year with Maddie is tainted. There's a point where someone offers Sam a pistachio ice cream, in Rome, and she declines. No happiness whatsoever.

So, did I like it? I'm not sure! I liked Sam, I liked Fitz (even though I don't see why they chose to give him this timeskip, as he just joined the team). The true alien origin of Om-Tsor is never revealed, and I don't really see how exactly the Doctor puts things to right after the geopolitical mess the Revolution Man caused. And Maddie just goes bonkers at the end. As I said, the Doctor is in the background for most of the story, and mostly in control, and then shows up and kills a guy. I think it was interesting and shocking. I've already read 'Dominion', the next book, and I do think what happens here is a big influence on how he's acting there, so the ending wasn't just for shock value, which I appreciate. It also served to highlight both how Sam's got the Doctor firmly on a pedestal (worrying!!!), and how Fitz's opinion of him is still uncertain. So, all in all, it's interesting and well written book, and I was engaged throughout. Let's see how things develop from here!

This serial had the obvious problem of the Doctor and Jo being captured and escaping way too many times. However, it was a lot of fun and the political intrigue was compelling. Jo is great in this one, specially in their escape from the Master's cell in the ship. Then she resists his hypnosis! And escapes using a spoon!!! It was part of the Master's plan, but still she one ups him by stealing the mind control thingy. I just really like Jo. And hey, the Master's back! Very good to see him again, and I love the twist when he shows up, and the twist that he's working for the Daleks (gasp!)

Some other minor comments: loved the look of the Draconians, loved the cliffhanger of having the Doctor call the Time Lords for help at the end (we know it's serious when he calls Gallifrey). They used the building of the Brazilian national congress as a stand in for the Earth Presidential Palace and wow, that was a huge surprise for me, as a Brazilian. It really is a very cool looking building.