DWM 181, Brief Encounter: Echoes of Future Past, by John Summerfield

I commented last time on the shortness of Urrozdinee; this one is half as long. But then, being a Brief Encounter, it's a different beast. Like The Wright Way to Start the Day? it's a vignette rather than an adventure, and that means there's more room to breathe in this two-page story than there was in Mark Gatiss' four-pager. On the other hand, for the first time in these reviews, we have two different incarnations of the Doctor meeting.

Breaking the First Law of Time
In production terms, there was a time when the Doctor would only meet his past and future selves on important anniversaries. That changed with The Two Doctors, and while multi-Doctor stories remained unusual - even after the end of the TV series in 1989 and the explosion of stories in other media - it seemed as if there no longer needed to be an excuse to bring them together.

This is a particularly significant pairing: the early first Doctor and the last, the seventh, both known for being mysterious and manipulative. Their eras bookend the series, and are explicitly linked by Remembrance of the Daleks. The illustrations support this, with a black-and-white first Doctor and a colour seventh on opposite sides of the text. I've not been very complimentary about Paul Vyse's artwork in the past but this time he does a great job, particularly with Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, who looks suitably intense.

One of the problems I had with the continuity of Remembrance was that it implied the first Doctor knew of the Daleks and prepared in advance to deal with them. This quite neatly resolves that particular issue. Having said that, it would make sense for this to happen to the seventh before his televised return to Totter's Lane; but he is wearing his brown jacket from later series 26, and there is talk of him "preparing for the end". The latter can be justified following the events of The Fires of Vulcan, Red, and Dragonfire, as he prepares to take on a more proactive role; the former - while of no consequence for an ordinary person - jars more. Still, this is the best place for him. We are kept at a distance, but his reaction on hearing Susan's name mentioned is touching.

Still, this is a first Doctor marathon, so what of him? The setting is I.M. Foreman's yard in the winter of 1962-3, before the events of Time and Relative; and this story has an affinity with that one, although it doesn't quite match up. The Doctor can't really remember who he is or where he came from, but this is not a punishment for exiles by the Time Lords; rather, it is a result of trying to operate a TARDIS belonging to someone else. Still, perhaps Susan was confused in the novella about the cause of the block on her memories. Again, it can be reconciled. It is harder to make it fit with prior travels, but that is true of Kim Newman's explanation too; in both cases we can say it took a while to catch up with them.

Hardest of all to figure out is another passage:

Strange, though, how he had suddenly developed such an emotional bond with [Susan]. Natural enough, he supposed, after so many years of solitary wandering.

I'm sorry, but what? OK, so there's no real reason why this couldn't be so, but it's a fairly extreme case of the 'TV plus this story' canon syndrome I mentioned last time. (I should note that the story goes on to emphasise that she is nevertheless his actual grand-daughter, so it is not a Terrance Dicks-style reinterpretation of their original relationship; but it still seems a bizarre couple of sentences.) I prefer to ignore this.

So, I've said a lot about continuity, but what about the writing? This is actually rather good. It partly avoids the need to characterise the first Doctor recognisably since he is in the grip of the mind problems caused by the TARDIS, and is the more fearful version from the start of the show anyway; and the seventh is shown from a distance. Despite the continuity issues above, I like it.

Windows on the Past
In the children's bedroom sits a whole pile of DWM issues I have not yet read. While I was casting about for something to review here, I realised that - thanks to my birthday present - I don't have to save up the pocket money to pay for them!

This issue is from 1991, and it's a fascinating glimpse into the past. The first thing to note is how different the balance of content is from a modern issue: in 52 pages (including covers) there are two prose stories, three comic strips of a page or more, and three shorter cartoons (my favourite being 'Auton at C&A'). There are similarities too, of course: we have a poster, news, letters, interviews and an 'archive section' covering a story in detail (in this case, Spearhead from Space).

The news and letters give a great impression of the different mood of fandom at the time. There is a definite sense of doom and gloom, with lots of complaints about how the BBC had treated the show and a report on an attempt to sue the corporation over it! There was some optimism, too: Timewyrm: Revelation was showing promise for the nascent Virgin New Adventures line, it looked like a TV Movie could possibly be out in time for the 30th Anniversary, and narration had been recorded for the soundtracks of three missing stories - including Tomb of the Cybermen! I felt a twinge of sadness reading the reports of conventions with Jon Pertwee being particularly prominent; but overall the present is a much better time to be a fan of Doctor Who.

Published:
Date: 25th December 1991

Rating:
6/10.

Next Time:
The beginning of the second episode, The Talking Stones of Tyron; and as usual it will open with a reprise - of sorts...