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The Eight Doctors Author: Terrance Dicks Review The Eight Doctors came first up on in the range of new BBC novels to introduce the Eighth Doctor into the expanded universe of Doctor Who from the BBC. As the title suggests, all eight Doctors up to and including Paul McGann are included here, although the main character is that of McGann. The timeframe of the story is immediately following the 1996 TV Movie, so McGann has no companions. For this story, long time Who author and general expert Terrance Dicks was commissioned, likely as of all the authors, Dicks has the greatest chance of getting the continuity of such a story correct. Immediately following his fight with the Master after regenerating into his eighth incarnation, the Master has one last trick to play and the Doctors memories are wiped. He has to revisit all his previous selves to recover his lost memories and this he sets out on in order, visiting his first self. Before this though he visits an old junk yard in London and becomes briefly embroiled in a young girls adventure against a gang of drug dealers. Leaving this scene, he finds his first self in prehistoric Britain and prevents him from killing a caveman with a rock. This meeting freezes time temporarily, and the Doctor regains his memories to this point. He then visits his second self in the middle of a series of war scenarios and helps out. Visiting the third Doctor just after a Sea Devil base has been destroyed, then the fourth incarnation in e-space on a vampire planet. Each time the Eighth Doctor becomes more embroiled in the fixes his previous selves fiund themselves in, while filling in the gaps in his memory. On Gallifrey, the Time Lords are becoming concerned about the Doctor visiting his previous selves, and a faction dispatches a Raston Warrior robot after the Fifth Doctr, but the Eighth Doctor arrives just in time and the robot is dispatched. The sixth Doctor is found during his trial for interferance and genocide, but the Eighth Doctor manages to help and square his lot with the Time Lords into the bargain before rescuing the Seventh Doctor from a spider on Metebelis 3. Having restored his memory, the Doctor visits Rassilon and confirms that he had been guiding the Doctors journey. Borusa is then freed to help with some loose ends and the Doctor returns to Earth to help the young girl, Sam, who then jumps into the TARDIS at the last moment becoming the DOctor's new companion. The Eight Doctors is basically a continuity piece by Terrance Dicks that will probably only really appeal to fans who like to tie up items from the shows past. As a stand along story for a non-fan, the book would be very confusing and probably go completely over the readers head. That said, some of the chosen continuity can be described as ambitious. It seems to me that Dicks looked back accross the show's history and saw places where there could be a better explanation for something, such as the build up to the 1996 TV Movie, or the aftermath of the Sea Devils and expands on this. I am not entirely convinced though this was achieved well enough though, such as the First Doctor being stopped from using the rock to break a cavemans skill in 100,000BC. The most expansive section really is that which surrounds the sixth Doctors trial in the TV serial Trial of a Time Lord, encompasing the whole of Colin Bakers last series as the Doctor. There is quite a bit of depth gone into here, as if Dicks feels this is an era he is unhappy with in the history of Who and wants to fix with this book. Some bits here work, but some don't really. The unfortunate thing is that really, this book occasionally makes you cringe if you are of the same sensibilities as me. Given that I have so far given this book somewhat of a savage panning, the praise that is about to come may be somewhat of a surprise. The realimpression that you get from reading this is that it is just good clean fun, plain and simple. The beek reads well and easily, and doesn't really drag except for one bit during the Trial of a Time Lord section, and the dialogue is spot on and really magical in places. In my opinion, this is really the main factor behind whether a book works or not, and therefore this first book in the new Doctor Who BBC novels works, it really does work. Overall, despite the shortcomings that will make a fan cringe on occasion, The Eight Doctors is a good clean fun romp through the history of Doctor Who. At times the book is magical, at others it is cringeworthy, but above all it really is a fun way to spend a while reading and does stand up quite well to repeated reading. Rating:  |