Christian Cawley's Blog, page 99

Reviewed: The Ninth Doctor #2

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

You can’t give Alice X. Zhang enough credit. Her covers (original paintings based on scenes from the TV show) are just so stunning, you can’t help but pick the issue up. This one is sourced from, appropriately enough, The Doctor Dances, nanobots glistening around him. There’s that fascination, amazement, and excitement in the Doctor’s eyes.

Inside, there’s less amazement and more anger from this Time Lord.

You can see why: first off, Rose seems scattered by the time winds in the vortex, then they get to a market full of… well, something that surprises the Doctor but not the reader. Part 2 of Weapons of Past Destruction doesn’t have a huge amount going on, yet it’s brilliantly written and based on a great idea – albeit one that’s probably been used up already in numerous fanfics. Fortunately, we’ve not seen anything like this on our TV screens, so it feels like fresh ground.

As to what that is… Spoilers!

This all seems like new territory for Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor. In issue one, the TARDIS was whizzing around in space; in issue two, we get to see how angry and impulsive this incarnation really can be. Series 1 dealt with the Doctor’s guilt and redemption, but it’s missing a few surges in character development.

That’s what this comic is doing, and it’s pulling it off rather well so far. Often, I worry that dabbling with the core principles of the new series (ie. the Time War and the destruction of Gallifrey) can read too much like fan fiction, but I trust writer, Cavan Scott. He clearly knows the Ninth Doctor, and he knows what Series 1 missed out. He knows what fans want. He knows how to deliver. In short, he knows and loves his Doctor Who.

That means that Weapons of Past Destruction can fit neatly before Boom Town without upsetting the tone or rhythm of the arc.

It also means we get great nods to the audience. We have the Hoix in there, a Slitheen, the blowfish from Torchwood, all mulling around the Fluren Temporal Bazaar. We even have a ‘Bad Wolf’ reference! It all sits so beautifully in context with the show as a whole.

But those little in-jokes and weight don’t overshadow the story. Right now, it’s a pretty simple plot, but brimming with fantastic notions, my favourite being a scorching planet sitting directly below a star going supernova. It’s a wonderful impossibility that reminds me somewhat of The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit. Most readers, though, will be taken with what the Doctor finds at the bazaar (the market reminiscent of The Rings of Akhaten), or just seeing the Ninth Doctor, Jack, and Rose back together again.

They are a great team. It’s especially a pleasure to have that version of Captain Jack interacting with the Doctor: he’s free of the heaviness that accompanies his post-Parting of the Ways adventures in which he can’t die and is somewhat compromised by Torchwood. That dynamic established in the first Steven Moffat-penned two-parter works. I like that Jack knows the shadier bits of the universe better than the Doctor, but is still in awe of the Time Lord regardless.

An excitement runs throughout the story thanks to their bold and assured actions. Okay, so it’s not full of action, but a slower story has its benefits. For one, it allows us to simply enjoy this TARDIS team.

Blair Shedd’s art and colours make every page interesting, even if some of the poses are a little awkward. His studies of Rose are particularly effective: what’s more, they capture her as she was in Series 1. There’s a difference in her depending on which Doctor she’s accompanying, and this is 100% her as a relatively-new companion.

I love the double-page spread where she’s passed out, and the very first page too, which plays with the imagery of the time vortex compared to the intricate structure of the human iris, and parallels the opening page of Issue 1.

I should think next time it’s Jack’s turn to have such an introduction.

Two issues in and this series continues to impress. It might not be a must-read title for its storyline alone, but the exploration of, and indulgence in aspects missing from Series 1 makes it a comic you need to pick up. Because pretty soon, it’s going to be an essential release from Titan Comics.

The post Reviewed: The Ninth Doctor #2 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Debuts at E3 in Lego Dimensions Preview

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

It’s E3 this week, the world’s premier digital entertainment expo, is currently underway and that means a preview of the new Lego Dimensions video game and associated toys, which as you should know includes Doctor Who alongside The Simpsons, Portal, Lord of the Rings, Batman and others.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a glimpse of the Lego Twelfth Doctor in the clip above, but that isn’t what should be concerning you. Instead, spare a thought for the game, which has had a bit of a mauling from Wired, despite there being little in their review to explain exactly why the reviewer was left unconvinced.

We’ll let you read the link to work out just why Wired was left nonplussed.

Lego Dimensions is released September by developer Traveller’s Tales and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360. Let’s hope it is better received by the video game buying public!

The post Doctor Who Debuts at E3 in Lego Dimensions Preview appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Michelle Gomez: “Playing Missy Is A Dream Come True”

David Power is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Michelle Gomez, who lately was announced to be reprising her role of Missy from Series 8 of Doctor Who, spoke recently about how acting in 2014’s thrilling finale Dark Water/Death in Heaven made her feel as a fan.

She told the Daily Express:

“It’s a dream come true actually. There I was, a wee skinny lass hiding behind the sofa from the Zygons, and now in real life I’m running about with the Cybermen. Very surreal.”

Intriguing is Michelle’s mention of the Zygons, famous foes fresh off their return to television in 2013’s The Day of the Doctor, who were announced to return yet again in an unnamed two-parter written by Peter Harness (Kill the Moon) which, as far as we know, Missy is not a part of.

The mysteries continue, as in regards to Missy’s apparent resurrection and her role in Series 9’s opening two-parter The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, Michelle chose to feign ignorance:

“Heaven knows what Missy is up to this year. I am a loyal fan and will not spoil the fun.”

Lastly, on the topic of  her interactions with Doctor Who fans in America, she stated:

“There is a big Doctor Who fanbase over here, so I’m stopped for that quite a bit.”

In a previous interview, she said that showrunner, Steven Moffat “writes [Missy] beautifully, and so this year I got to have a little fun with her again.”

Michelle is currently publicising her new online comedy show, Heather’s American Medicine.

The post Michelle Gomez: “Playing Missy Is A Dream Come True” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Out Today: Titan Comics’ Ninth Doctor #2!

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The second issue for Titan Comics’ miniseries, focusing on the adventures of the Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Captain Jack Harkness, is out now!

The five-issue series revisits a period between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town, with Christopher Eccleston’s Time Lord piloting the TARDIS.

Weapons of Past Destruction is written by Cavan Scott, with art by Blair Shedd, and here’s what this second part is all about:

Get dragged into the Time Vortex as the Doctor and his friends uncover time-lost Gallifreyan super-weapons being sold on the black market!

Who are the cosmically-empowered Lect and Unon – and can the Doctor help stop an all-new Time War before it starts?!

There are three covers available: the main one by painter Alice X. Zhang, a photo variant, and another by Shedd.

When we reviewed The Ninth Doctor #1, we said:

“Scott really has done solid work: Weapons of Past Destruction is full of intrigue, action, and knowing nods for the audience. Whatever happened for Jack’s squareness gun? You’ll find out inside. Otherwise, there’s the Doctor mentioning he’s used weapons before – and Jack’s reaction to this. I get the feeling the dynamic between this TARDIS team will be seriously explored and revelations will come to light across the next four issues.”

The Ninth Doctor #02 is available from all good comic book stores (and a few dodgy ones too), priced $3.99 (that’s about £2.80 in the UK).

The post Out Today: Titan Comics’ Ninth Doctor #2! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Reviewed: The King of the Dead

Alex Fitch is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

On Radio 4 this morning, there was a discussion of a new immersive theatrical performance taking place in North Greenwich (i.e. near the Dome) in London. The presenter of the segment asked the creators of the performance to explain just what it was that was being staged (some kind of exploration of relationships and infidelity called ‘Heartbreak Hotel’) and how the audience interaction with the narrative might work.

Certainly the news article implied this kind of performance still seems like a novelty to many people and as someone who has been to a handful of examples of immersive / interactive theatre in London (mainly performed by Shunt) it seems like a relatively new art form to me, also. The fifth of Big Finish’s new Short Trips range sees the early Season 20 team – the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan – tackling a deadly alien presence that’s materialised within the set of an interactive theatrical experience in the 1980s; I welcome any Kasterborous readers who know of early immersive theatre events from 30 years ago to pass the info on, as I’d be fascinated to find out more, but in the context of The King of the Dead, it seems incongruous to have this kind of theatre production taking place that long ago.

That said, immersive theatre is an environment that offers all sorts of narrative possibilities in terms of how one might describe an encounter by visitors not knowing what was going on if they stumbled into a performance of this kind in media res. In this case, not long after the TARDIS arrives, Tegan recognises what is going on and explains the status quo to her fellow travellers, which somewhat diminishes the potential of the set-up. However, Nyssa still finds it challenging throughout the plot in knowing when someone she encounters is ‘in character’ and when not, which helps recapture the frisson of their environment.

The 1980s setting of this story is mainly so that another character with a grudge against the Doctor can be in the right place at the right time, and as ‘Earth Who’ is a place where there is a lake at Carbury and a giant robot can terrorise Victorian London without anyone remembering, perhaps we can forgive the anachronistic use of immersive theatre to facilitate the plot (although if the travellers had landed in an episode of ‘The Adventure Game’, that might have worked better and served a similar purpose). As well as the offbeat setting and the character with a grudge, there is a creepy alien presence – translucent giant spiders that cling to ceilings – and elements of alien technology that have ended up hidden as props in the play.

This smorgasbord of environment, unusual juxtaposition and surprise would be a great mix for a two-part Doctor Who story, whether as a standard dramatised serial or Companion Chronicle, but unfortunately as a short story, it does feel somewhat like an overegged pudding, and listeners may wish that writer Ian Atkins had chosen a smaller number of dramatic elements to combine (an alien presence in an immerse piece of theatre would have been a good enough plot alone, for example). Atkins isn’t a stranger to the short Who story format, having contributed to Short Trips collections both in print and on audio. The previous audio tale he penned – The Doctor’s First XI, free for subscribers whose sub included the March 2010 release, The Architects of History – was a simple but elegant tale of the Fourth Doctor and Romana using cricket to help a colony overcome their invasion traumas.

However, The King of the Dead is exploding with ideas, in a format that needs to be simple to succeed. The author is a good writer, and Sarah Sutton reads the story well (performing a great Tegan impression when needed), but like many of the Short Trips in this series, it’s overserved by an abundance of riches.

Overall, this half-hour production is well worth the download price, but might frustrate the listener that the confluence of disparate plot elements hadn’t been pruned or given more room to breathe.

The King of the Dead is available as a download for £2.99 from Big Finish now.

The post Reviewed: The King of the Dead appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Why DVDs Still Rule The Roost For Whovians

Billy Garratt-John is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Forbes contributor Dade Hayes recently published a piece about why DVDs aren’t about to go extinct. Now, as Doctor Who fans, many of us pride ourselves on our comprehensive DVD collections and cringe whenever a visitor picks a disc of the shelf and opens the box too far back so it warps the cover that you spent so long lining up so the spine looked right on display. Anyone?

The point being that no matter what format these stories are released on, we as fans will always clamour to get them in the best quality regardless of how many copies we already own. For example, I possess three different versions of Spearhead from Space: two DVD releases (the original 2001 version and the 2011 Special Edition which came boxed with Terror of the Autons) and the 2013 Blu-Ray. Now, the reasons for this are two fold; firstly, I am a completest for the Doctor Who DVD range only and there is nothing else in my life I grant this honour to. The second reason is because each release grants a step-up in quality and indeed value for money. These are represented as either a brand new, clean transfer of the older tape or as “VAM” (value-added-material, aka special features).

I can’t think of another DVD range that delivers the sort of loving care and attention to detail that 2|Entertain gave to the Classic Series DVDs (the only other one that instantly springs to mind are the Red Dwarf releases which are blisteringly superb). It is because of this dutiful and boundless love shown to the DVDs that we flocked to the shops every month or so to pick up the latest release. As we look to the state of the DVD shelves now, however, there’s not much to be thankful for. Firstly, it is clear that DVDs are not in the forefront of publisher’s minds when they wish to bring their product to the masses. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. These are the figureheads for media consumption in the 21st century. It happened to VHS and it happened to…well, erm…

Physical media has had a massive resurgence in the last two or three years. Take vinyl records for example; defunct and largely unwanted until around 2009. Suddenly, everyone was buying them as bands realised that nothing sounds like a 180g record blasting out the triumphant ending to The Beatles’ Abbey Road. Digital media can’t replicate the ageing and weathering sustained by years of over playing and rewinding and scratches. There’s something far too clinical about endless streaming and torrenting. It’s too easy for me. I like to be challenged by my VHS player. There’s no “tracking control” on Netflix and that makes me very sad.

Anyway, here are Dade’s reasons as to why it will always be that we need physical media and how they relate to us as Doctor Who fans:

1) The kids need it – in Dade’s piece, he bemoans the lack of Wi-Fi hotspots in rural areas and links it to a necessity for online connections to keep kids amused on Netflix during long car journeys and holidays. For us big kids, I take this to mean that Netflix UK only has the New Series up to The Name of the Doctor and the episodes selected for sale on iTunes are, frankly, mind boggling. At least they have The Web of Fear and Enemy of the World, mind.

2) The industry’s own marketing says so – Hayes highlights UltraViolet here, a system by which when you buy the DVD, you get a code which allows you to download the film to a device of your choice. So you’re not only getting the disc, but also a rather nifty file that you can stream on your iPhone. Great. The UK doesn’t really have that in abundance – though you do get it from time to time. The closest parallel I can make here is getting a free Top Trumps card with a Series 4 volumed release. Whoopie.

3) Specialization favors it – in other words, DVDs are easier to shift. And yes, this is very true. It’s much easier to advertise a brand new repackaging of Series 1-7 on DVD than inform the entire fan community how BitTorrent works and tell them to get the episodes from there. In addition to this, I suppose you could stretch this to mean that iTunes would be more prepared to allow the Tennant 2009 Specials on their store than a bundle of Doctor Who Night 1999 with More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS (a personal fantasy of mine). It works both ways.

4) Blu-ray still the best viewing experience – a key point to be made here; why have we only ever had one Doctor Who Classic Series Blu-Ray release? The easy answer is because the film negatives from Spearhead from Space exist and the high definition element comes from the transfer of the original print. The more convoluted answer: because…why? It’s not like making the jump between DVD and VHS. Obviously DVD provides more options and a crisper image. But while 35,000 people in the UK are still watching TV in black and white, does anybody really care that they can see the joins even more clearly on a physical format that looks identical to DVD before you even stick it in the player? The very fact I had to buy a Blu-Ray player to want to see Spearhead From Space is a testament to the fact that not everyone wants and can see Blu-Ray level definition.

5) It’s the collector’s choice – see picture of gormless article writer surrounded by DVDs.

6) For a lot of Americans, it ain’t broke – bingo. It’s the best and most affordable way to watch anything. It’s portable and works almost anywhere. It’s less clunky than a cassette tape, and less fiddly and non-existent than iCloud. DVD is the best way to watch anything.

Just don’t place them on a tabletop shiny face down, or you’re screwed.

The post Why DVDs Still Rule The Roost For Whovians appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Sir John Hurt Diagnosed With Cancer

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Sad news today, as Sir John Hurt has revealed he’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. However, the actor said he remains optimistic and dedicated to his work.

He told the Press Association:

“I have always been open about the way in which I conduct my life and in that spirit I would like to make a statement.

I have recently been diagnosed with early stage pancreatic cancer. I am undergoing treatment and am more than optimistic about a satisfactory outcome, as indeed is the medical team.

I am continuing to focus on my professional commitments and will shortly be recording Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (one of life’s small ironies!) for BBC Radio 4.”

Hurt played the War Doctor in The Day of the Doctor, but was already well-loved and respected before that for his numerous roles in films like The Elephant Man, Alien, and V For Vendetta, and TV shows including Merlin, The Naked Civil Servant, and The Gruffalo, as well as his theater and audio work.

We all wish him the very best and hope for a fast recovery.

The post Sir John Hurt Diagnosed With Cancer appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Daniel Rigby: “I’ve No Idea Where Twelfth Doctor Rumours Came From”

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Cast you mind back to August 2013. Matt Smith was leaving Doctor Who, and everyone was speculating who would take over from him. One name being flung about was Daniel Rigby, a man who most called “the guy from the BT adverts” but also gave a truly incredible performance in Eric and Ernie. Oh, the papers really thought it was him.

Needless to say, it wasn’t.

Peter Capaldi is our Twelfth Doctor. But what did Rigby think of these rumours? In an interview with BT, he revealed that the speculation seemed to come from nowhere:

“I have no idea where it came from and I have no idea whether I was anywhere near a list for a meeting. I didn’t meet anyone for it and it all seemed to happen within the space of a week.

I was doing a play at the time up in Edinburgh and my own sketch show. All these acts in the sketch show kept coming up to me and talking about it and one of them. One of them put £300 on me and I kept saying, ‘I’m not! I’m not’. And they all just said, ‘Oh you would say that’. I couldn’t convince them.

It was a massive compliment to be linked to it though.”

It sounds like he’s a fan, so perhaps he’ll be up for appearing in the show if the right part comes up…

At the moment, he’s busy publicising a new show in which he stars opposite Jonathan Creek star, Sarah Alexander: he calls Undercover “a high stakes comedy with bits of weirdness”, in which he plays a police officer out of his depth as he goes undercover in a vicious Armenian family. It also stars the beautiful Yasmine Akram, perhaps best-known as Janine from the third series of Sherlock.

Undercover starts tonight at 9pm on Dave.

The post Daniel Rigby: “I’ve No Idea Where Twelfth Doctor Rumours Came From” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Do YOU Think Captain Jack Is The Face of Boe?

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

“When I was a kid, living in the Boeshane peninsula, I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe they called me…”

And with that, the jaws of a nation dropped.

Could Captain Jack Harkness be the Face of Boe? Really?! That heavy hint was thrown in, seemingly last-minute, into the 2007 finale, Last of the Time Lords, perhaps to clear up some questions, or more likely just to put the cat amongst the pigeons. We officially met Jack in The Empty Child, but we might’ve already seen him in The End of the World. How? Why? Is it even possible?

Okay, so Jack was brought back to life by Rose Tyler as the Bad Wolf, but, as stated in Utopia, she couldn’t control it. She brought him back forever. This would explain why the big old boat race is alive and well in the year 5.5/Apple/26, and had knowledge of the Doctor’s future: “You Are Not Alone.”

But actually, this poses more questions than it answered. Because the Face of Boe was always a little mysterious, capable of contacting the Doctor via great distances over time and space on the psychic paper. It was feasible he’d know about Professor Yana: he spoke telepathically and had lived for thousands of years, after all. Since Yana was found as a child on the edge of the Silver Devastation, where Boe supposedly came from. That the two met and that Boe quietly found out the truth by, I don’t know, telepathically scanning the fob watch, works. That’s the link. It seems this “the Face of Boe they called me” thing was just to set fandom alight. It worked. I think that’s partly what grates me about this situation. It makes very little sense, but was flung in there because… Well, because. That’s why.

Ignoring this, let’s examine the evidence for and against.

For: he said so. Jack could live that long, and something must happen to him in order to become a huge head. He admitted that he still ages, so his body might wither, but he’d still carry on. Cheers, Rose.

Movie Pilot pondered over this science, noting that the Lady Cassandra was also basically only a face (splattered onto stretched skin), with her brain remaining in a jar. Maybe, in the future, science has perfected a way of getting rid of all those fussy excess parts we’re all dependent on – the heart, the lungs, the digestive system, et al., and the Face of Boe and Cassandra are just different examples of these extremes. The article also mentions a favourite fan theory: that the Headless Monks were involved. Or perhaps…

“ As is so often suggested in other sci-fi franchises, radiation of the gamma, beta or otherwise harmful kind is rumoured to be able to alter DNA. It’s not hard to imagine the sometimes stupid and often risky antics that Jack could get up to in his spare time, and if one of them happened to expose him to radiation? WHAM, he’s just got zapped into a giant. What the heck he did with the rest of his body I have no idea. Donated it to medical science? A modern art installation called ‘The Body of Boe’?

Another option is that the natural process of ageing turned Boe into an immobile blob. Maybe all humans would melt into an overly-huge head if we got past the age of one million? Perhaps the dude got so many wrinkles he seized up, only speaking with his mouth for special occasions such as telling the Doctor “You are not alone”- as he speaks telepathically, if at all, before his final appearance.”

And so we turn to the argument against this startling coincidence. I call this argument: “Coincidence.” Yep, so they called him the Face of Boe during his Time Agent years. So what? In The End of the World, he shows very little interest in the Time Lord, and yet you’d think there’d be some want to converse with the Northern bloke he first ran away with. At the very least we’d see him looking at Rose’s bum. But this seems a bit of RTD retconning. People liked Boe, so Russell rightly brought him back in New Earth. Even in Gridlock, he shows no sign of recalling the Doctor back in his TARDIS-travelling days.

Oh yeah, and he died. If Rose brought him back forever, how the heck did he die?

And finally: he gave birth. Just look at The Long Game. He gave birth to Boeminas. I don’t know how a giant face does that, but it’s probably best not to go into details like that. Children may be reading, and I’m eating a Wispa bar. Nonetheless, I’m not sure how his reproductive system could alter so much so that it’s located solely in his head.

Of course, some mind transfer could be involved – similar to that seen in New Earth – but then again, this would be the equivalent of killing the original Face. Would Jack do that? I’m not sure. He took extreme measures in Torchwood: Children of Earth, but he doesn’t seem that desperate to live even longer either…

Hmm. This is a confusing one.

And so I turn this over to you, dear readers. Is Captain Jack the Face of Boe? Why? How? And if he’s not, what do you think happens to Jack when his body reaches a ripe old age. Let us know below.

 

The post Do YOU Think Captain Jack Is The Face of Boe? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Reviewed – The Ninth Doctor #1

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The Ninth Doctor is back. That, in a nutshell, is what’s so awesome about Titan Comics’ new miniseries. But it’s not the sole reason this opening issue is awesome.

Part 1 of Weapons of Past Destruction straight away opens with Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor looking into space from the threshold of the TARDIS. We know the era so well, and here it: back at last. This scene doesn’t just emulate the 2005 tone, but heightens it, doing what comics can do so brilliantly. Sure, we see ships tunnelling through space on TV, but comics can go in-depth.

It’s a tone set over ten years ago now, and we’ve not heard much of this incarnation of the Time Lord since The Parting of the Ways. A brief snippet in The Day of the Doctor, and less than a mention in Doomsday – and that’s why we’re desperate for more. Writer, Cavan Scott is giving us plenty of time with the Doctor, paired with a Series 1 Rose Tyler and a pre-Torchwood Captain Jack Harkness. Boom Town hinted at such wonderful adventures for the trio, yet few have fleshed these out.

And it’s a joy.

The Doctor is taking them to Excroth, one of his favourite planets – only it’s not there. It’s been destroyed. Add to that a giant ship, giant robotic battlesuits, and giant explosions, and you get a gorgeous-looking comic. Oh, and metallic centaurs. Can’t forget those!

Scott really has done solid work: Weapons of Past Destruction is full of intrigue, action, and knowing nods for the audience. Whatever happened for Jack’s squareness gun? You’ll find out inside. Otherwise, there’s the Doctor mentioning he’s used weapons before – and Jack’s reaction to this. I get the feeling the dynamic between this TARDIS team will be seriously explored and revelations will come to light across the next four issues.

I normally hate it when a hole is blown in a spaceship and the crew aren’t automatically sucked out (or whatever), but here, Cavan pulls it off beautifully.

Speaking of beauty, the art by Blair Shedd is appropriately fantastic. I was sceptical of Shedd’s illustrations on IDW’s Tenth Doctor title, but I was wrong. It’s a pleasure to look at. You can see reference material has been used throughout – the first shot of the Ninth Doctor is taken from The Parting of the Ways, when he looks up and sees the Emperor Dalek for the first time since the Time War – but I like that. Sure, people might take umbrage with it, but the fact is, we all do the same facial expressions sometimes. That’s who we are. It’s not as if every panel is a rip-off of a Series 1 episode! It just makes this more authentic, realistic, and believable.

The plot is just warming up. This is the start of an exciting new tale. The story may be, at this stage, relatively unremarkable, but to have the Ninth Doctor back around and fighting the good fight certainly is special. You don’t want to miss this.

The post Reviewed – The Ninth Doctor #1 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.