These were never intended as a single story, but the ever-inclusive Andrew Kearley of The Complete Adventures
site has combined all the ones that aren't basically versions of
televised adventures into a "travelogue-style" story, so I dug out the
DVD of The Web Planet and took a peek - only to discover that it
only had the Vortis one, which falls into the excluded category.
However, the tube that is you allowed me to see the rest as well, though
it was too tricky to sort it out so that they appeared in the "right"
order.
First impressions are that this is very much in the TV Comic style. The
companions are Iananbarbara, but John and Gillian would be more
appropriate. I've only seen a couple of the comic strips, but they seem
to match up with this - and I know enough to have decided not to pursue
that particular thread of the program when the time comes.
Here we have such features as a dinosaur that shrinks as the TARDIS
(sometimes called simply 'TARDIS', almost as if we were in Pete's World)
moves forward in time - because they became extinct! And you can't take
diamonds in the ship because they will disappear! It's a fantasy world
of pure magic, where logic and consistency have no place - and perhaps
the most fantastic is the Dalek thanking the Doctor and his companions
for attacking some annoying insect pests...
It's often been said that the beauty of Doctor Who is that it can
do anything, and that's a good thing; but sometimes this means it'll be
doing things that I can't really be bothered with. I would class this
as parallel universe material - 'Doctor Who Unbound', if you will - and
I'm not going to try to fit it into my chronology of the Doctor; or
indeed rate it.
Canon
I almost said "my personal canon" in that last sentence, a much-debated
phrase. And since this is an extremely short review I might as well make
use of the space to lay out my stall.
Let's start with the basics: what does 'canon' actually mean? I don't
need to expend any effort on this, since Paul Cornell has explained it
all clearly here.
Read it? Good. So you now know how not to use the term (unless you
disagree with his argument, of course, which is your right). All that's
left is for me to dust down the stage, stack the chairs, and turn out
the lights.
Weeeellll.... not quite. Because there's one thing I like to do that
Elizabeth Sandifer, in particular, isn't keen on; which is to use terms
loosely, if they seem appropriate to me. That makes sense: Dr.
Sandifer's critical training means that she can (and should) be precise
on her blog, whereas I am a mathematician who reserves his precision for
other arenas. I talk about "suspending my disbelief" when that's not
really what I'm doing, and similarly I have a "personal canon". Which
has nothing to do with canon. Because, for Who, that doesn't exist.
There. glad we got that straight.
Next Time:
A sidestep into the fannish land of Action Figure Theatre...
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