BBC & Big Finish team-up for 'Time Lord Victorious' project
- Thread starter StCoop
- Start date
Note Genetics of the Daleks is not on this but that is supposed to be a narrative piece for the “A Dalek Awakens” escape room. Something that happens at the very end of this arc.
There are also two Doctors in The Minds of Magnox, Ten and SPOILER, but they don't interact.
The eleventh Doctor, sometime prior to "The Time of the Doctor," visits the Dark Times to make amends for the tenth Doctor's actions as Time Lord Victorious.
I've started TLV, though not nearly all of them. I've done one comic, two audios and Waters of Mars thus far. Will divulge further later on.
Steve Cole's novel The Knight, the Fool, and the Dead was in my shipment this week.
I knew from reviewers that the book was short -- maybe more novella length (ie., under 45k) than a full novel. I don't think I was prepared for how thin the book actually was. The EDAs in paperback were thicker than tKtF&tD.
It's a perfectly adequate book, though it feels a bit insubstantial, and I don't think that's entirely due to the brevity. I think I was anticipating something a little more ambitious, something closer to Pocket Books' Star Trek multi-series events of twenty years ago, and this is a very ordinary, very short tenth Doctor novel.
Cole did a solid job capturing the tenth Doctor. I could often "hear" David Tennant in the dialogue, and I didn't find the Doctor, even at the end when he's driven to find a way to turn the Kotturah's "gift" back on them, to be out of character at all. He spends much of the book being his happy-go-lucky self, and when he turns even a little "dark" it's very much in character for him and not out of line with, say, the ending of "The Family of Blood." Even though Brian serves the companion role and acts as a kind of amoral conscience, Brian doesn't steer the Doctor into doing anything truly un-Doctor-ish, except maybe putting on the robes.
My main problem with the story is that I never had any sense that the Dark Times setting was unique. The tenth Doctor lands on a planet, gets himself involved in an adventure, and the fact that it takes place billions of years ago doesn't affect the telling of the story in any crucial way that I could tell.
I was less bothered that it wasn't what we'd been led to believe. I had the impression that the tenth Doctor, after "Waters of Mars," went to the Dark Times specifically to end death. On the contrary, he just finds himself there post-"Waters" (it's not even clear that the planet he visits at the beginning was the first planet he visited in the Dark Times), witnesses first-hand a Kotturah genocide, and, in true Doctor-ish fashion, goes, "Nope," picking up new companions along the way.
The one interesting touch was the Kotturah. I've heard The Minds of Magnox, so I know that it's pronounced very closely to "Cthulhu." The Doctor and Brian visit the cavern of Mordeela, and there the Doctor reads the alien writing that causes insanity. This made me think of Diane Carey's novel First Strike (the first of the Invasion! quartet) and how the Furies were believed to be the source of the racial memory of demons and monsters, and could the Kotturah be the source behind the stories of the Elder Gods?
Perfectly adequate. I'd give it 6 out of 10.
I knew from reviewers that the book was short -- maybe more novella length (ie., under 45k) than a full novel. I don't think I was prepared for how thin the book actually was. The EDAs in paperback were thicker than tKtF&tD.
It's a perfectly adequate book, though it feels a bit insubstantial, and I don't think that's entirely due to the brevity. I think I was anticipating something a little more ambitious, something closer to Pocket Books' Star Trek multi-series events of twenty years ago, and this is a very ordinary, very short tenth Doctor novel.
Cole did a solid job capturing the tenth Doctor. I could often "hear" David Tennant in the dialogue, and I didn't find the Doctor, even at the end when he's driven to find a way to turn the Kotturah's "gift" back on them, to be out of character at all. He spends much of the book being his happy-go-lucky self, and when he turns even a little "dark" it's very much in character for him and not out of line with, say, the ending of "The Family of Blood." Even though Brian serves the companion role and acts as a kind of amoral conscience, Brian doesn't steer the Doctor into doing anything truly un-Doctor-ish, except maybe putting on the robes.
My main problem with the story is that I never had any sense that the Dark Times setting was unique. The tenth Doctor lands on a planet, gets himself involved in an adventure, and the fact that it takes place billions of years ago doesn't affect the telling of the story in any crucial way that I could tell.
I was less bothered that it wasn't what we'd been led to believe. I had the impression that the tenth Doctor, after "Waters of Mars," went to the Dark Times specifically to end death. On the contrary, he just finds himself there post-"Waters" (it's not even clear that the planet he visits at the beginning was the first planet he visited in the Dark Times), witnesses first-hand a Kotturah genocide, and, in true Doctor-ish fashion, goes, "Nope," picking up new companions along the way.
The one interesting touch was the Kotturah. I've heard The Minds of Magnox, so I know that it's pronounced very closely to "Cthulhu." The Doctor and Brian visit the cavern of Mordeela, and there the Doctor reads the alien writing that causes insanity. This made me think of Diane Carey's novel First Strike (the first of the Invasion! quartet) and how the Furies were believed to be the source of the racial memory of demons and monsters, and could the Kotturah be the source behind the stories of the Elder Gods?
Perfectly adequate. I'd give it 6 out of 10.
Thanks to COVID, it took several months for Una McCormack's All Flesh Is Grass to reach American shores. Yes, it's been available as an ebook for months, but I'd ordered the print edition through work, and so I waited. Last week it arrived, and I finished it off night before last.
I'm not going to really review All Flesh; much of what I said of The Knight applies, but McCormack's prose is superior to Cole's. She adopts an almost C.S. Lewis-like tone, and there's more characterization. It's more space opera than Doctor Who, and not just because the tenth Doctor commands a starship instead of his TARDIS. It feels... not-quite-Star Trek-y.
Instead, I'm going to ruminate on the thoughts the book left me with about the project as a whole.
I think I was about halfway through All Flesh Is Grass when I realized I'd made several mistaken assumptions about Time Lord Victorious. Primarily, it's not a tenth Doctor event. Secondarily, the Kotturuh aren't the villains; they're (mainly) the plot Macguffin.
I think of the line Idris says in "The Doctor's Wife" about how she takes the Doctor where he needs to go. James Goss' short story "What the TARDIS Thought of Time Lord Victorious" basically gives it away -- she's taking three Doctors where they need to go. But who's the one that needs to be there the most?
It's the eighth Doctor.
Look at it this way. The Daleks in the eighth Doctor's "present" have concocted a plan to take a saucer back to the Dark Times and destroy Gallifrey before Time Lord civilization can arise. (What the Strategist gets up to once they arrive in the Dark Times is beside the point. The Commander had his orders and was willing to indulge the Strategist if the Strategist's mad scientist routine didn't disrupt his orders.) The TARDIS takes the eighth Doctor to a place where he can thwart the Daleks' plan, but the eighth Doctor is going to need help. He can't do it alone.
The TARDIS can't really pull a Doctor from the past to help; this would be in their future. The next incarnation, the War Doctor, has his own struggles with the Daleks. The one after that, the ninth Doctor, is a scarred and broken man who needs to learn to be carefree again. And after that, the tenth Doctor, who has a bit of a god complex that needs to be tempered. They both need to be taken to places where they'll get involved in an adventure that will lead them to the eighth Doctor, because ti's the eighth Doctor that really needs to learn something, too -- that a day's going to come when he's not going to be able to run anymore, and he's going to have to put it all on the line.
But even then, the Doctors aren't the ones who actually solve the problem. Instead, someone else takes care of the Daleks in the Dark Times, and it's only because the Doctors brought that person together with another person. (All Flesh has one of those plots where the ostensible main characters aren't the ones who solve it, and are incapable of solving it. Instead, they put the guest character who can solve it in a position to solve it.)
I don't know if this is what kicks off The Last Great Time War, but it certainly moves the needle much closer, now that the Daleks have attempted an attack on Gallifrey in the Dark Times.
The Koturruh, save for Inyit? Just a Macguffin to get the tenth Doctor involved and keep him involved. The giveaway is that they're a faceless threat. There's no characterization there. They're just something to keep the tenth Doctor occupied. Their title, "Bringers of Death," is more interesting than their reality.
Essentially, then, Time Lord Victorious is a prelude to the Time War that also involves two post-Time War Doctors. And it wouldn't surprise me if, from the tenth Doctor's point-of-view, it leads directly into "The Day of the Doctor." (In other words, he leaves the Dark Times and arrives in Elizabethan England.)
Overall, I'd say it was fine. Some parts I enjoyed more than others. I don't feel that I wasted my time on any of this.
I'm not going to really review All Flesh; much of what I said of The Knight applies, but McCormack's prose is superior to Cole's. She adopts an almost C.S. Lewis-like tone, and there's more characterization. It's more space opera than Doctor Who, and not just because the tenth Doctor commands a starship instead of his TARDIS. It feels... not-quite-Star Trek-y.
Instead, I'm going to ruminate on the thoughts the book left me with about the project as a whole.
I think I was about halfway through All Flesh Is Grass when I realized I'd made several mistaken assumptions about Time Lord Victorious. Primarily, it's not a tenth Doctor event. Secondarily, the Kotturuh aren't the villains; they're (mainly) the plot Macguffin.
I think of the line Idris says in "The Doctor's Wife" about how she takes the Doctor where he needs to go. James Goss' short story "What the TARDIS Thought of Time Lord Victorious" basically gives it away -- she's taking three Doctors where they need to go. But who's the one that needs to be there the most?
It's the eighth Doctor.
Look at it this way. The Daleks in the eighth Doctor's "present" have concocted a plan to take a saucer back to the Dark Times and destroy Gallifrey before Time Lord civilization can arise. (What the Strategist gets up to once they arrive in the Dark Times is beside the point. The Commander had his orders and was willing to indulge the Strategist if the Strategist's mad scientist routine didn't disrupt his orders.) The TARDIS takes the eighth Doctor to a place where he can thwart the Daleks' plan, but the eighth Doctor is going to need help. He can't do it alone.
The TARDIS can't really pull a Doctor from the past to help; this would be in their future. The next incarnation, the War Doctor, has his own struggles with the Daleks. The one after that, the ninth Doctor, is a scarred and broken man who needs to learn to be carefree again. And after that, the tenth Doctor, who has a bit of a god complex that needs to be tempered. They both need to be taken to places where they'll get involved in an adventure that will lead them to the eighth Doctor, because ti's the eighth Doctor that really needs to learn something, too -- that a day's going to come when he's not going to be able to run anymore, and he's going to have to put it all on the line.
But even then, the Doctors aren't the ones who actually solve the problem. Instead, someone else takes care of the Daleks in the Dark Times, and it's only because the Doctors brought that person together with another person. (All Flesh has one of those plots where the ostensible main characters aren't the ones who solve it, and are incapable of solving it. Instead, they put the guest character who can solve it in a position to solve it.)
I don't know if this is what kicks off The Last Great Time War, but it certainly moves the needle much closer, now that the Daleks have attempted an attack on Gallifrey in the Dark Times.
The Koturruh, save for Inyit? Just a Macguffin to get the tenth Doctor involved and keep him involved. The giveaway is that they're a faceless threat. There's no characterization there. They're just something to keep the tenth Doctor occupied. Their title, "Bringers of Death," is more interesting than their reality.
Essentially, then, Time Lord Victorious is a prelude to the Time War that also involves two post-Time War Doctors. And it wouldn't surprise me if, from the tenth Doctor's point-of-view, it leads directly into "The Day of the Doctor." (In other words, he leaves the Dark Times and arrives in Elizabethan England.)
Overall, I'd say it was fine. Some parts I enjoyed more than others. I don't feel that I wasted my time on any of this.
