Doctor Who at Christmas: Ten Days of Christmas

Doctor Who: Ten Days of Christmas
by Steve Cole

Longtime readers of my blog will know that every year since 2011, I have read a Christmas-themed Doctor Who book around Christmastime. I keep thinking I am done with this project. Last year, for example, I had no book to read, so instead I read a bunch of Christmas-themed Doctor Who short stories that had never been collected. But BBC Books keeps finding a way to extend the duration of this project; this year they released Ten Days of Christmas, a new short story collection (and early next year will release the novelization of the 2023 Christmas special, giving me something to read in 2024).

Published: 2023
Acquired and read: December 2023

The title Ten Days of Christmas has a double meaning: it contains ten stories of course (though really nine, as there's one story split into two parts), but also they are all stories about "Ten," i.e., they all feature David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor. This means you have a bit less variety than in any other of BBC Books's Christmas collections; the main choice there is for the writer is which companion the Doctor will be traveling with. (There's two stories with Rose, one with Donna, and one with Martha, though some of the stories where the Doctor is alone feature other returning characters.)

The book also suffers from a lack of variety due to its single author. Now, the previous two Doctor Who Christmas books were also the work of a single author... but it should come as no surprise that Steve Cole is not Dave Rudden. Most of these are generic Doctor Who adventures compressed into thirty pages, with little of the tone, style, or theme to make them into any kind of meaningful Christmas story; usually, Christmas feels tacked on. Or, if not tacked on, forced. There's one set in a toy factory, so sure, that's Christmassy... but then it's not really about Christmas presents in any kind of meaningful way, and it turns out to be what every Doctor Who fan wanted for Christmas, a sequel to The Android Invasion!

Well, maybe not.

There were just two stories that worked for me. The first was "The Eternal Present," which didn't really have anything to do with Christmas, but was a well-told character-focused story about an Englishman before World War II who goes on an expedition into the South American jungle with the Doctor and Rose and ends up discovering something amazing and dangerous. (It is, for some reason, a tie-in to Black Orchid, but you can ignore that.) Good sense of voice and some creepy scenes. The best story in the book is "Saviours," about a human space colony where vampires crash on Christmas day. This is the one story that captures something of what I think of as the Christmas vibe, the feeling of holding back the darkness with our love for one another. It's also creepy and well told, alternating between a child protagonist and a mysterious narrator. If they'd all been this good it would have been an excellent collection but alas.

I read a Doctor Who Christmas book every year. Next up in sequence: The Church on Ruby Road

Review: Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown

Published: 2020
Acquired and read: November 2020

Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown

edited by Steve Cole

This slim anthology collects Doctor Who material created or published during 2020's coronavirus lockdown; some of it was for the Doctor Who web site, some of it was released as part of the series of tweetalongs organized by Emily Cook, some of it is original to this book. I always like a good Doctor Who anthology, and this is a great one. Steven Moffat explains what the terror of the Umpty Ums is as the Doctor faces down the DeathBorg known as Karpagnon; Russell T Davies gives us a glimpse into the way the Time War could have ended if Paul McGann had regenerated straight into Christopher Eccleston; Neil Gaiman reveals an incident in the life of the Corsair; Pete McTighe discovers that the Doctor also enjoys watching her past adventures; Paul Cornell revisits both Daughter-of-Mine from "Human Nature" and Bernice Summerfield; Mark Gatiss reunites the Doctor with her granddaughter. All this and some great illustrations, too; my favorites included Valentina Mozzo's of the Doctor fist-bumping a Judoon and Chris Riddell's of the Corsair.

It reads briskly but it reads well. Moffat shows that he can always craft an engaging Doctor Who story by mixing the fear of a child with the solace of the Doctor and yet always find something new and fun to do with it. Plus, of course, good jokes! Davies's closing pages of a faux Time War novelization are an utter delight, firing off more great Time War ideas in ten pages than Big Finish has in ten dozen box sets. 

I really like Paul Cornell's "Shadow" trilogy: three linked stories of the Doctor coming to doubt that her punishment for Daughter-of-Mine in "The Family of Blood" was just, though the best one is probably the one that has the least to do with that premise; "The Shadow Passes" focuses on the thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Graham, and Ryan spending time in a bunker on an alien planet. Cornell has a good grasp of the voices of these characters, especially the Doctor and Yaz, and make them likeable. I like the Doctor and her companions well enough on screen, but I feel that series 11-12 haven't done a great job using them. In fact, I think all of the authors here render a pretty great Doctor: Chris Chibnall, Moffat, Joy Wilkinson, and Gatiss also really shine. The promise of the thirteenth Doctor was, I think, a light of compassion burning in the darkness. The tv show struggles to make this work, often giving us a Doctor that seems ineffective and a "fam" that just stands there, but Adventures in Lockdown plays to her strengths, with Whittaker's compassion echoing off the page in a time where we need it most.

The only thing that didn't work for me is that seeing the script for "Rory's Story" is pretty pointless; that segment only worked for the novelty of getting to see Arthur Darvill play Rory once more. And though I did like "Shadow of a Doubt," it definitely loses something in not being read aloud by Lisa Bowerman.

Audio Catchup: Professor Bernice Summerfield Season 5

written by Jacqueline Rayner
directed by Gary Russell
released July 2004

starring
Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield
Stephen Fewell as Jason Kane
Steven Wickham as Joseph the Porter

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Grel Escape (#5.1)

After the harrowing events of Life During Wartime and Death and the Daleks, it’s apparently time for some lighthearted events in the life of Bernice Summerfield. And so Jacqueline Rayner makes a welcome return to the range, having previously penned most of the (almost) uniformly excellent adaptations in the first season, not to mention the novels The Squire’s Crystal and The Mirror Effect. And even better, it brings back the Grel!

The Grel originally appeared in Paul Cornell’s New Adventures novel Oh No It Isn’t!, but truly obtained life in Rayner’s audio adaptation of that novel. They’ve been chronically underused since, though they are the only (I am pretty sure) monster to originate in a spin-off and make it into the parent series, having fought the Doctor and Charley in The Doomwood Curse. They’re simply a delight to listen to (so good choices for audio, then) as they travel the universe looking for facts. “Find facts! Find facts! Find facts!” It’s a nice change of pace to the run of four “monster stories” that preceded this one; we have a monster from Bernice’s own history, rather than an attempt to boost sales by pulling in something from the parent show.

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written by Simon A. Forward
directed by Edward Salt
released August 2004

starring
Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Bone of Contention (#5.2)

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Bone of Contention is the sixth Bernice Summerfield audio drama in a row to feature a “monster,” but like The Grel Escape before it, Bone of Contention switches things up by not featuring a monster that appeared in the classic Doctor Who television series. Rather, The Bone of Contention features one of the alien races Big Finish created itself: the Galyari, who previously appeared in The Sandman with the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn. Bone of Contention is even written by Simon A. Forward, who created the Galyari for The Sandman.

Bone of Conention sees Bernice hired by the Perlorans to visit the Clutch, a convoy of ships traversing interstellar space, on their behalf to recover a precious artefact from the Galyari. Of course, the Galyari claim to not have the artefact, and Bernice soon ends up sidetracked by Griko, the deformed son of Commander Korschal of the Security Directorate. In a move that surprises no one that has ever experienced another Bernice Summerfield story, the plight of Griko turns out to be related to the artefact, and Bernice is quickly brought into conflict with the Galyari.

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written by Stephen Cole
directed by Edward Salt
released November 2004

starring
Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau (#5.3)

Okay, so this season, Benny has faced two monsters from the spin-off media: the Grel and the Galyari. For the third release of the fifth season, it’s a monster from the parent show, but perhaps not one you’d expect: K-1, a.k.a. the Giant Robot. Appearing in just Tom Baker’s debut Robot, the titular character was not one of a race of evil conquerors, but a lone and lonely creation, destroyed at the story’s end. Nevertheless, Stephen Cole brought back the Robot for Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau, where she runs afoul of one after crash-landing on an alien planet.

Despite its seemingly-goofy premise — the Robot’s limp wrists and skinny legs didn’t exactly put it at the top of the monster pantheon — The Relics of Jegg-Sau is actually a fairly grim story. It opens with Bernice imprisoned by the Robot, as she tells the story through flashbacks. And those flashbacks begin with her crashing on an alien planet, rescued by two very strange people: the explorer Kalwell and his daughter Elise. Despite have been trapped on the planet for years, neither is in a hurry to be rescued.

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written by Stewart Sheargold
directed by John Ainsworth
released March 2005

starring
Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield
Harry Myers as Adrian Wall

Professor Bernice Summerfield in the Masquerade of Death (#5.4)

“You can’t have a good climax without some effective shouting!”

Bernice and Adrian are in Spring, where there’s been a murder. Only the Queen of Spring can’t quite tell who’s been murdered. Also Bernice and Adrian are sleeping together. And a mysterious Player has decided to dissect Bernice to prove to everyone that’s she’s fictional. And the dialogue is strange.

The last instalment of Professor Bernice Summerfield’s fifth season, Professor Bernice Summerfield in the Masquerade of Death by Stewart Sheargold, includes not a single returning monster and makes up for it by being one of the most original releases in the series ever. Unfortunately, “original” seems to largely translate into “completely baffling”. I mean, you eventually find out what’s going on on a macro level, but there are lines of dialogue and whole scenes even that still don’t seem to mean anything by the time you get to the end. I don’t mind working to enjoy something, but I do want to know why I’m working, and I don’t think The Masquerade of Death ever gives me a reason.

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