DOCTOR WHO – THE TARGET STORYBOOK / PUBLISHER: BBC BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Hardcore Whovians exasperated by the fact that the last season of the show largely kept well away from its tangled 50-year-plus mythology (a state of affairs likely to change dramatically in the upcoming twelfth season) are likely to find much solace is this chunky new hardback release from BBC Books. Paying homage to the look of the much adored Target Books imprint, which opened up the series’ history to its young fans in the years before VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, The Target Storybook is designed specifically to appeal to those with a labyrinthine knowledge of the most arcane corners of the Doctor’s televised adventures; casual viewers and newcomers will be all at sea here. Across 400-odd pages, fifteen writers – including one or two members of the ‘classic series’ cast – have created new mini-adventures set during the eras of the classic Doctors. Several of them even focus on the Doctor’s companions or even subsidiary characters from televised stories. A degree in Who-lore isn’t strictly necessary for maximum enjoyment, but a scorecard or a Doctor Who encyclopedia might be handy for those not entirely familiar with the minutiae of the show’s chronology.
As with any short story anthology, some yarns here are better than others and the very best at least try to properly evoke the spirit of the era in which they’re set. One or two try to be too clever for their own good. Simon Guerrier’s First Doctor story Journey out of Terror deftly slots in between episodes of the 1965 Terry Nation Dalek run-around The Chase and perfectly captures the lo-tech clunkiness of its televised era. Matthew Sweet’s excellent The Clean-Air Act is a Third Doctor ‘alien invasion’ story with a difference (which also acts as a ‘sort of’ prequel to the later Invasion of the Dinosaurs), and Susie Day’s Punting finally explains what happened to the Doctor and Romana when they were ‘time scooped’ during The Five Doctors. Yes, The Target Storybook is that geeky…
A handful of stories are just too obscure or tedious to strike much of a chord. Una McCormack’s Grounded tells the story of a ‘day in the family life’ of Clive, a supporting character from Christopher Eccleston’s first episode (but with no appearance by the Doctor himself). Jacqueline Rayner’s Citation Needed seems to exist purely for the writer to display her comprehensive knowledge of Doctor Who history, and Vinay Patel’s Letters from the Front revisits his Demons of the Punjab TV episode from Series 11 to little interesting effect. There are some cracking little stories, though, proper Doctor Who romps from Steve Cole (the Eighth Doctor), Mike Tucker’s The Slyther of Shoreditch (the Seventh Doctor), Jenny Colgan’s The Turning of the Tide, which takes us back into the parallel Universe where Rose Tyler lives in domestic bliss with the meta-crisis Tenth Doctor who now, apparently, likes to be called Corin and Beverly Sanford’s Twelfth Doctor story Pain Management, which is fun despite the appearance of the teeth-gratingly irritating Missy. Sixth Doctor Colin Baker’s Interstitial Insecurity is a nicely-written piece set during the Trial of a Time Lord season and Adric actor Matthew Waterhouse contributes a very nice little piece set during the events of 1981’s The Visitation and sees Adric and fellow companion Nyssa temporarily voyaging up the Mississippi and encountering yet another rogue Time Lord.
Legendary Doctor Who script editor and writer Terrance Dicks, who pretty much supported the Target Books range during its heyday and who passed away in August, contributes his final work for the series in the shape of Save Yourself, a typically economically-written second Doctor story set between the end of his trial in The War Games and before his forced regeneration into his third incarnation. Joy Wilkinson’s Thirteenth Doctor story Gatecrashers takes place immediately after her TV episode The Witchfinders and perfectly captures the dynamic of the (currently overcrowded) TARDIS team in a pacey story set in a sinister futuristic shopping mall and even John Hurt’s ‘War Doctor’ turns up in George Mann’s Decoy set deep within the Dalek vs Time Lord Time War itself.
The Target Storybook is, inevitably, a mixed bag but there are, on the whole, more decent little stories here than stinkers and even those that don’t work display their writers’ love of the series and its rich heritage although occasionally to the detriment of telling a coherent and exciting story. But this is a useful stocking filler that literally has something for everyone, even the grumbling misanthropes who still can’t come to terms with the idea of the first female Doctor.
