The Time Machination

Talk to Doctor Who fans about the subject of ‘continuity’, and you’ll get a variety of responses, many of which will tell you that it can end up being a bad thing. In the 1980s, it wasn’t unknown for the series (or ‘classic series’, as it seems to have been re-branded since 2005) to rely heavily on its past. 1983’s twentieth anniversary season used the fact that each story featured an element from the Doctor’s past as part of its publicity drive, and as audiences declined and fandom grew, the show became increasingly obsessed by its own history. The situation only got worse when the show went off air, and several highly successful ranges of original novels were launched – scarcely a book went by that didn’t try to reference past adventures or resurrect allies and enemies last glimpsed on television decades before. Fine if you’re a hardcore fan and enjoy such things, but profoundly irritating when they got in the way of telling a good story.

 

For the last few years, American company IDW Comics have been producing a varied range of Doctor Who titles – Doctor Who Classics, reprinting vintage adventures of past Doctors from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine (of which more in a future blog), and an array of titles featuring David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor. The latest of these is The Time Machination, a one-shot adventure penned by Tony Lee with artwork by Paul Grist.

 

At first glance, this comic would appear to fall into many of the traps described above – incorporating plot elements from several Doctor Who stories, as well as a few from spin-off series Torchwood. The Doctor is joined by old ally Herbert George Wells, English teacher and sci-fi writer-to-be, whom he previously met in 1985’s Timelash. Thankfully for those of us unfortunate enough to have seen that story, this is about the extent of Timelash’s influence, greater influence being exerted by more popular adventures such as the brilliant The Talons of Weng-Chiang, where Tom Baker’s Doctor charged around Victorian London like a proto-Sherlock Holmes, and Tooth and Claw, where the Tenth Doctor incurred the wrath of Queen Victoria, leading to the foundation of the Torchwood Institute - an organisation designed to protect Britain and her empire from alien threats in general, and the Doctor in particular. See if you can spot the other episodes referenced, regular Doctor Who viewers should find several.

 

Happily, despite liberal borrowing from the show’s history, Tony Lee has created an adventure that stands up well in its own right – its background in Who lore enriches rather than detracts from the story, and allows Lee to pull a number of clever tricks. Also, it feels almost unique among other one-shot comics I’ve read in managing to tell its story without feeling either hopelessly rushed or massively overlong. For instance, many seem to be an exercise in mood and style at the expense of the story, but here, story is king. Given some earlier disappointments with IDW’s Who titles, this is very welcome. Paul Grist’s artwork is perhaps not what most readers of Doctor Who comics will be used to – emphasising action and style rather than concentrating on perfect likenesses – but it’s excellent nonetheless, and I hope to see more of his work on future titles.

 

For anyone in the UK, The Time Machination and other IDW Doctor Who comics can be a little tricky to get hold of, as complicated licensing agreements tend to preclude their sale over here. But although availability is patchy, some specialist shops carry these titles, and there are a few online comic retailers who stock them as well. In this case, it’s well worth making the effort to track a copy of this down, as despite its brevity, it’s one of the most enjoyable pieces of Doctor Who – in any medium – I’ve come across in quite some time.