Endgame

The Complete Eighth Doctor 

Comic Strips Volume One

01: ENDGAME








4 parts (DWM 244 - 247) 23rd October 1996 to 15th January 1997

Writer: Alan Barnes, Pencils: Martin Geraghty, Inks: Robin Smith / Robin Riggs

The TARDIS materialises in Stockbridge, but the Doctor finds that the people have been replaced by living dolls. The Doctor’s old friend, Maxwell Edison, and Max’s friend, a young sci-fi fan named Izzy have stolen an object called the Focus, which is sought by Marwood, a Knight Templar, who pursues them with his human/hound hybrid henchmen, until they are confronted by the Celestial Toymaker, who has replaced the real Stockbridge with a toy version. 

When the Toymaker captures Max, the Doctor and Izzy travel in the TARDIS to the real Stockbridge, where Izzy explains that she's adopted and doesn’t know who her real parents are. 

Caught in the Toymaker's games, the Doctor hands over the Focus to save Izzy. It's a vital component of a mirror engine called the Imagineum, which the Toymaker uses to create a toy Doctor who attacks his real counterpart. 

The Doctor is eventually able to persuade his doppleganger that the Toymaker will dispose of him when he gets bored, and the while the toy-Doctor attacks the Toymaker, keeping him distracted, the real Doctor uses the Imagineum to create a toy Toymaker. The two Toymakers are trapped when the toy Doctor destroys the Imagineum.  

With Stockbridge freed from the Toymaker’s dimensional pocket, the Doctor says goodbye to Max and takes Izzy with him as his new companion.

Endgame makes for a confident and polished start to the 8th Doctor's comic strip adventures, maintaining the high quality streak the DWM comic strip began in mid-1995 with one-shot Up Above the Gods, and the Ground Zero storyline that began with 5th Doctor adventure The Curse of the Scarab.  By October 1996 it was probably reasonably clear that the series would not be coming back to TV, though perhaps not so much when this would have been planned and written. Either way, the decision was obviously to (even if only temporarily) reconnect the 8th Doctor's new adventures to DWM's strips of old, with this first story (ostensibly) taking place in Stockbridge, and reuniting the Doctor with Maxwell Edison. Indeed, featuring the Celestial Toymaker as the villain allows for a story that has licence to flirt with The Tides of Time territory. Its TV equivalents then are clearly Robot and Deep Breath - stories wherein a new Doctor is surrounded by cuddly familiar elements to cement him in continuity. 

With The Tides of Time as its touchstone then, it's not hard to see the sense behind taking the earnest urgency displayed by the 8th Doctor in the final third of The TV Movie and marrying it to the headlong adventuring of Steve Parkhouse and Dave Gibbons' 5th Doctor for this evocation of the 8th. Whilst I would always think of Scott Gray as the best writer the 8th Doctor strips had, here Alan Barnes' script is brought to life by the Gibbons of the era: Martin Geraghty. Obviously it's his first attempt here so he hasn't quite got to grips with the likeness yet, not yet fixed on the angles of a moveable model he's completely comfortable with. Nevertheless, he's only ever as wide of the mark as Gibbons may have been with his first few panels of Davison, so there's certainly no shame there. 

Geraghty's reproduction of Maxwell Edison is damn near spooky and the other characters, particularly the strong work on new companion Izzy and the Celestial Toymaker, are very well served too.

Izzy is sketched in and given the opportunity to show some pluck to earn a place aboard the TARDIS, though in '97 the "geek chic chick" didn't feel quite as plausible as she may do on re-readings. It's good then that there's other shades to her, and there's no cause to fear that being adopted and never having known her parents might be setup for anything too cheesy. At this stage it's just as likely to be thrown away and forgotten as anything else. 

The story itself is a respectable first foot forward and all in all; a strong debut for the 8th Doctor, though perhaps not one that really justifies 4 parts, as lovely as it is to spend time in the environs of Stockbridge once again, nor one that completely avoids the pitfall of a fantasy-world story ultimately feeling a little inconsequential. 

6.5/10

02: THE KEEP

2 parts (DWM 248 - 249) 12th February & 12th March 1997
Writer: Alan Barnes, Pencils: Martin Geraghty, Inks: Robin Smith 

The Doctor and Izzy follow an SOS to 51st-century Earth, which has been abandoned by those rich enough to take to the stars. 

The warring nations left behind wage battles via transmat, and the only safe haven is the place the source of the SOS: The Keep. 

There, scientist Crivello has created a prototype plasma sun called the Cauldron, into which his robotic servant Marquez throws the Doctor! Inside, he makes a psychic link with the living sun, surviving due to his Time Lord abilities - Crivello aged sixty years in six seconds when he tried to communicate with it, hence Marquez sending the signal that drew the TARDIS here. 

The Doctor launches the Cauldron, providing humanity with a new home in the Crab Nebula. As soon as the Doctor and Izzy depart, Marquez kills Crivello, the scientist having outlived his usefulness to Marquez's hidden masters... 

There are pleasing, but not overbearing, references to the 51st Century trappings from The Talons of Weng Chiang, as well as transmat technology from The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment here, but the Keep and Crivello's Cauldron are distinctive enough to sideline those references. There's a great grotesque in Run Run Hsui Leng with his Homunculous - more akin to Salacious B. Crumb than Mr. Sin - and an intriguing and ethereal sympathy figure in Crivello, but the one to watch is sinister robot Marquez, whose last minute treachery serves as the platform for the epic battle to come. Izzy's first trip to the trek to the stars plunges her straight into danger, and her sci-fi geek referencing stays the right side of the quirky/irksome divide. The 8th Doctor is pretty much fully fledged already, with Alan Barnes having nailed McGann's voice very well without resorting to simply aping TV Movie mannerisms. At only 2 parts it's an entry that doesn't outstay its' welcome but has enough depth to avoid the ephemeral throwaway nature of oneshots or other 2 parters. This is, no doubt, helped by virtue of its being a prequel to Fire and Brimstone, but even so The Keep is a satisfying tale in its own right.

7.5/10

03: A LIFE OF MATTER AND DEATH

1 part (DWM 250) 9th April 1997
Writer: Alan Barnes, Artists: Sean Longcroft / Martin Geraghty

The Doctor and Izzy find themselves on what appears to be a stairway to Heaven when the TARDIS explodes, atop which they face trial in a celestial arena, with witnesses from the Doctor's (DWM comics) past, including General Ironicus, Josiah Dogbolter and Beep the Meep! 

They're rescued by a hooded lady in grey, and learn that they are in the TARDIS memory banks, their real selves unconscious in the console room as the TARDIS is under attack from a parasite in the vortex. The Doctor calls on old friends Sir Justin, Sharon and the Free-Fall Warriors to beat the monster, which the Doctor eventually does using Sir Justin's sword. 

The Doctor and Izzy awaken, without finding out the true identity of the grey lady... it's the TARDIS herself. 

As a story to celebrate 250 issues of DWM and its comic strip, A Life of Matter & Death is a nostalgic jaunt through a parade of the long-running strip's characters, but sadly not one that sticks in the memory nor particularly well serves the memories of those classics. 

I think that's largely down to their poor rendering by artist Sean Longcroft. Working to his own script, he delivered the beautifully elegaic Doctor Who and the Fangs of Time, for issue 243, with a scruffy style that lent that one-shot a loveable warmth. Here, the artwork just seems rushed, though in fairness that does deliver the required energy, and it's nice, amongst the many classic characters to see a few more recent figures such as the Silurians' Chimera from Final Genesis and one of the Kalik from Train-flight.  

5/10

04: FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

5 parts (DWM 251-255) 7th May - 27th August 1997

Writer: Alan Barnes, Pencils: Martin Geraghty, Inks: Robin SmithFollowing the events of The Keep, the Doctor and Izzy arrive at a satellite orbiting Crivello's sun, just in time to witness an attack by Daleks, who are planning to use the sun to eradicate their powerful counterparts from a parallel universe. 

Also aboard the satellite are agents of the Threshold, hired by the Time Lords to destroy the Daleks. 

Their plan fails, and the Doctor and Izzy are able to defeat both the Daleks and the Threshold by persuading Crivello's sentient sun to go nova.

However, as the Doctor and Izzy escape in the TARDIS, a Threshold agent appears to taunt the Doctor that the Threshold will be back...

The first out and out classic of the DWM 8th Doctor strips, packed with inventive touches, from the Dalek contagion carrier to the parallel universe Spider-Daleks, and the very welcome return of the sinister Threshold, here revealed to have links to the Time-Lords.

As always the Daleks bring out the best in a Doctor. By now Geraghty has his 8th Doctor nailed down, allowing for some lovely panels and Barnes is able to inject steel to this previously more breezy incarnation. 

Izzy remains likeable if a little companion-by-numbers, but in such a sci-fi epic that's probably right insofar as there's little opportunity to find emotional connections for the girl out of time. That said, Izzy is far from a spare part, playing her part in the reveal of the Threshold and providing a delicious moment of chagrin when she's initially pleased to see the Daleks, echoing Ace's relief at being "saved" by the Cybermen in Silver Nemesis.  

There's very rewarding story development as the groundwork laid in The Keep, and indeed the Ground Zero story arc, appear to come to a head, only for the Threshold to steal away, promising a rematch. 

For that to work as a satisfying ending, without any sense of feeling cheated, demonstrates how unmissable the 8th Doctor strips became in only a matter of months. My only minor criticism would be that I don't think Geraghty handles Daleks quite as well as Gibbons or Lee Sullivan. It's testament to the staying power of the Threshold that the Spider-Daleks come close to stealing the show from them, but don't quite manage it. 

A muscular and unusual Dalek story, where they are the main threat, but the sinister Threshold steal their thunder, and keep on rolling... 

8.5/10

05: BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

1 part (DWM 256) 24th September 1997

Writer: Scott Gray Artist: Adrian Salmon

When the Doctor takes Izzy to Tor-Ka-Nom, her head's buried in a book about its history instead of experiencing it for herself. 

Irritated, he takes off on his own, entering a jam shop, where a madman with a hook for a hand has killed the shopkeeper. 

The killer knocks the Doctor out, and when he wakes, he's surrounded by police, lying next to a dead body with the murder weapon in his hand. He is charged with this and 6 similar murders, and when Izzy catches up with him he’s been sentenced to death! Izzy is arrested too, but is able to use her one phone call to send an anonymous tip to the police so that they can catch the real killer and release her and the Doctor - the answer was in her history book all along! 

A whimsical tale with a slightly cheaty solution but harmless knockabout fun that allows Izzy to show her smarts. Disposable but fun, particularly as brought to life by the wonderful Adrian Salmon, whose work with Alan Barnes on The Cybermen remains peerless. With some odd stylistic choices imposed on him, Salmon isn't able to meet his usual standard, but even so it's a unique outing, with a fresh take on the 8th Doctor & Izzy. For me, Scott Gray's at his best on more dramatic stories, and particularly ones that allow for greater depth of character; this one's more forgiveable for developing the bond between the Doctor and Izzy.

6/10

06: TOOTH AND CLAW

4 parts (DWM 257 - 260) 22nd October 1997 - 14th January 1998

Writer: Alan Barnes, Pencils: Martin Geraghty, Inks: Robin Smith

In 1939, louche eccentric Varney welcomes 4 visitors hoping to sit out the forthcoming World War on his island in the South Pacific for a price. 

Actress Sabine Snitching, Canon Pincock, and Templar knight Marwood (an ancestor of the character from Endgame) all provide their host with a unique gift. That of Fey Truscott-Sade, art-detective, is a whistle that summons the TARDIS. 

The Doctor has met Fey before, and knows she's an undercover British secret agent. 

After dinner and champagne, Varney tells his guests the legend of his ancestor, the mad pirate who made a deal with the Devil, and whose blood, which has not clotted in the passing centuries, resides in a chalice in his dark chapel. That night, Izzy finds the body of the pilot of the plane that brought Varney’s guests to the island next to the empty chalice. Varney's monkey butlers blow up the seaplane trapping them all their till the killer is caught. 

Fey and the Doctor find a secret laboratory - British intelligence has been aware for some time that Varney has been developing biological weapons for the Nazis - and discover, too late, that their champagne was spiked, and Sabine is already beginning to change...

With everyone but Izzy (who didn't drink the Champagne) dead or transformed, Varney reveals that a Curcubite lives in the lake; a living alien spaceship which feeds on blood, but it's needed human blood to be treated with the chemical agent to transform it into the fuel that the ship requires. Varney takes his place as the ship’s pilot and prepares to feed on the Doctor, he injects himself with one of Varney’s toxins, which spreads through the Doctor’s blood and into the Curcubite’s engines, causing it to explode. The survivors are cured, but the Doctor is still dying from the toxin, so Fey and Izzy must take him to Gallifrey for help... 

A mixed bag, albeit an atmospheric one, drawing heavily (perhaps too heavily? though of course, Doctor Who is far from being a stranger to pastiche) on elements of the Island of Doctor Moreau and its ilk, with its period island setting, vampire monkeys and cast of misfit murder suspects/victims. The curse of the pirate's blood is hokey stuff, and the ultimate alien threat is perfunctory at best, but there's the usual sterling work from Martin Geraghty, and some serviceable cliffhangers, and a great tease of an ending. I'm not a fan of stories where the Doctor is too easily 'taken over' or 'infected', though here this forms part of the solution, and does serve to push Izzy centre stage. 

On first reading I wasn't sure about Fey Truscott-Sade, though her story line becomes more satisfying as it develops. She's a good foil for the Doctor but it's hard to take to someone with a ready-made history with the Doctor being shoehorned in and then outstaying the story that was supposed to serve. 

Again, that seems to be setup for another story, though - without her Izzy would not have known, or been able, to pilot the TARDIS to Gallifrey. It's just another niggling element that makes this seem like half a story, the pay-off to which is being withheld for now. As such, it's quite unsatisfying.

6.5/10 

07: THE FINAL CHAPTER

4 parts (DWM 262 - 265) 11th March - 3rd June 1998

Writer: Alan Barnes, Pencils: Martin Geraghty, Inks: Robin Smith

On Gallifrey, the Doctor's mind is placed in the Matrix while his body heals, but an Academy dropout, Xanti, who believes that only the Doctor can save him from the secret society of the Elysians arrives, bringing the creatures in his wake, and they try to kill the Doctor. The Matrix agent Shayde arrives and guns down one of the Elysians, but the others capture Xanti, and take Izzy as a hostage. 

Within the Matrix, the Doctor confronts Rassilon about the box given to the Threshold in Fire and Brimstone. 

Rassilon then warns the Doctor that the High Evolutionaries have all experienced visions of a militant Gallifrey that rules all Time and Space, and sends the Doctor’s mind back to his healed body to face the threat. 

A secret society called the Final Chapter, who planned to overturn Rassilon’s principle of non-interference grew an army of clones to seize control of Gallifrey, and Overseer Luther, the eyes and ears of the Capitol, plans to use not only the clone army but Xanti - in fact a living link to the Eye of Harmony - in the heart of his Watchtower, a TARDIS which he intends to pilot back to the start of the Time Lords’ history. 

The Watchtower will materialise around the old Gallifrey and replace it with a new world run by a military quorum, and Luther will rule the Universe. Xanti is able to use his telepathic link with his clones to turn them against Luther, and turn the Elysians against Luther. The Doctor opens up the doors of the Watchtower, but as Luther is sucked out into the Time Vortex, he flings his trident through Xanti’s chest, killing him. Without a living time brain at its core, the Watchtower cannot return to the present, and the Doctor realises he’ll have to take Xanti’s place. But Shayde then arrives to pass on the Matrix Lords’ thanks for the Doctor’s sacrifice, and the Doctor asks him for a favour... 

Moments later, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, sets the co-ordinates, and then distracts Izzy and Fey. When they next turn around, they see the Doctor on the scanner screen, telling them that he’ll see them in the present. 

He then connects himself to the Watchtower and pilots it back to present-day Gallifrey, but the stress of the journey is apparently too much, and Izzy and Fey emerge from the TARDIS to see the traumatically injured Doctor regenerate into his ninth incarnation... 

Another story that plays to the strengths of established DWM strips in harking back to the representation of Gallifrey given us by Parkhouse, Gibbons et al., but one not afraid to stand on the shoulders of those giants to tell a new story. 

Sadly, it's not really able to add much that's innovative, despite some great work in the portrayal of Gallifrey and its various inhabitants from Martin Geraghty. With dull Gallifreyan cults and a power grab from a would-be despot, this is a muddled story that tantalises with an important confrontation with Rassilon and the Higher Evolutionaries as seen in The Tides of Time, but portents of doom and a one note zealot as a villain do not a Deadly Assassin make. 

As such it drags over its 4 parts, even with a welcome return for The Tides of Time's matrix agent, Shayde, and that's before you even get to the controversial ending. While the fake regeneration makes this collection vastly greater than the sum of its parts, it was a development that, on publication, I absolutely hated with a passion, and seriously considered giving up the strip and DWM as a whole. What made it all the worse at the time was the choice to base the "Ninth Doctor" on a shoddy, cringeworthy fan production with an execrably poor characterisation of the Doctor. 

I'd be kind and suggest that it was deliberate to give us a Ninth Doctor so poorly conceived (we're seriously talking on a par with the kind of fundamentally wrong pre-conceptions about what makes a Doctor that led the press to think the likes of Paul Daniels would be a contender for the role eventually taken by the scruff of the neck by Christopher Eccleston) that every last reader would weep with relief when McGann's 8th Doctor returned, but there's more than a whiff of 'jobs for the boys / uberfanwank' in using Nick Briggs' Audio Visuals Doctor. Don't believe me? Listen to the Big Finish story Minuet in Hell and check out his Gideon Crane for a taste of what we'd've been subjected to if that'd been for real. You won't thank me, though. So yeah, either uberfanwank or Barnes & Geraghty were being particularly unkind to Briggs by holding his up as the distillation of the worst possible way to 'do' the Doctor. 

Well, thank the great space goat that the Fanwank Doctor definitely does NOT count! But yeah,you got me, you clever bastards. 

Denouement (or rather, cliffhanger) aside, it's just a story that doesn't really grip, though it's fun to note the now familiar (on TV) trick of the Doctor sending his companions away by trickery. Perhaps cut down by a part or two, more like The Keep to Wormwood's Fire and Brimstone, this would be more enjoyable, but as it is, were it not an essential part of a brilliant and long-running arc, though, this would be one to avoid.

4/10 

08: WORMWOOD

6 parts (DWM 266 - 271) 1st July - 18th November 1998

Writer: Scott Gray, Pencils: Martin Geraghty, Inks: Robin Smith 

The TARDIS arrives in Wormwood, a midwestern American village circa 1880 - on the Moon! It's also home to the Threshold. 

Their leader, Abraham White, is irked by the TARDIS seeming to dematerialise by itself before he can examine it, and sends the still shocked Izzy and Fey to the heart of Wormwood. 

Here, Threshold agent Chastity reveals that Fey was implanted with a Threshold transmitter after first meeting the Doctor. Fey is furious; she and Izzy take Threshold rings and split up; Izzy tries to find the Doctor, while Fey pursues White.

According to White, the Threshold is finally ready to step out of the shadows after 3000 years. He transforms into a shadow creature called the Pariah, and back again. 

While a young man in 19th-century Arkansas, White stumbled across the dying Pariah, a superweapon that had been expelled from Gallifrey after trying to overthrow Rassilon. White bonded with the Pariah, giving her a new body with which to heal herself while she plotted her revenge. Inspired by Ford’s assembly line, White had the Pariah reproduce herself by fission, and set the mini-spheres in a dimensional void. He then recruited employees who weren’t afraid of the power he offered to them, and transformed them into living conduits to the spheres, and these people became the agents of the Threshold. 

Izzy finds herself in the centre of Wormwood, where a young Threshold agent named Gracie Witherspoon is heading for the “Eye of Disharmony”. Gracie spots Izzy following her and captures her... 

The Eye is activated, transforming every quantum particle in the vacuum of space into an entropic hole, turning space into a minefield and killing every living being outside a planetary atmosphere. 

White then takes the appalled Doctor to his transmission centre, where he intends to send out a message to the entire Universe. First he must tear the Time Lords’ gift of universal translation out of the Doctor’s brain; this is the prize they should have earned for wiping out the Daleks. The Doctor points out that his newly regenerated brain is still unstable, and that since Chastity looked into the box before dropping it, she has the gift which White needs. White thus tears out the protesting Chastity’s mind instead, and then transmits a public service announcement to the entire Universe. Since travel in space is now impossible, only the Threshold can move between planets, and they intend to charge for their services. 

Gracie arrives with her prisoner, but the Pariah realises that “Gracie” is an impostor, and “Gracie” is thus forced to reveal her true identity - she is really the Eighth Doctor, disguised by a personal chameleon circuit. 

The “Ninth Doctor” is likewise revealed to be a disguised Shayde. 

White transforms into the Pariah, who attacks Shayde; Shayde’s psychic bullets have no effect without the will of his Time Lord masters behind them, but he still attempts to hold off the Pariah while the Doctor takes Fey and Izzy back to the TARDIS. 

There, he shows Fey that the TARDIS manual she used to pilot the ship to Gallifrey is written in an alien script; when she told him what she had done, he realised that it must have been translated for her by an implant in her brain. He and Shayde thus staged the “regeneration” deception, and Shayde kept the Threshold distracted while the real Doctor explored Wormwood, disguised as Gracie. 

The Pariah arrives, mortally injures Shayde before their eyes and steals the TARDIS. While Fey tends to the dying Shayde, the Doctor sends Izzy to ion control with a baseball bat and sets off to confront White and the Pariah. To White’s horror, the Pariah uses the TARDIS to drain all energy from the Threshold grid, killing all of their people and overloading the Eye of Disharmony. The Pariah reveals that she intends to fulfil her destiny as the ultimate weapon by destroying everything in the Universe, but when White realises this, he deliberately separates himself from her, knowing that they’ve been bonded for so long that neither can survive for long without the other. Before the dying Pariah can kill the Doctor, Fey arrives, having bonded with Shayde to provide him with the willpower he lacks to repair himself. 

“Feyde” shoots the Pariah with psychic bullets now armed with Fey’s willpower, while Izzy smashes the ion control centre to bits. 

The Doctor, Fey and Izzy retreat as ion control short-circuits and destroys the Moon (Doctor Who - killing the moon since 1998!). When the Eye of Disharmony is destroyed, space returns to normal, and the Universe is saved. 

Fey departs to come to terms with her new state of being, and the Doctor and Izzy set off for new adventures... 

Wormwood is a powerhouse finale to the Threshold storyline begun three years ago with The Curse of the Scarab, the crowning jewel in which is of course, that panel, the final page of part 4, when we get the killer reveal that the Fanwank Doctor is actually Shayde, and the 8th Doctor never regenerated at all. 

The fake regeneration is probably something that could only work in the comic strip and this is a perfect example of Scott Gray's genius for stretching the format of Doctor Who via the medium whilst keeping the feel of both the TV series and past eras of DWM's strips, which is a feat not to be underestimated. 

As mentioned, at this point I'm sure I wasn't alone in considering ditching the DWM strip altogether. Disconnecting from the Virgin New Adventures continuity after Cuckoo and The TV Movie was just sensible, but after only 2 years of the 8th Doctor, fans were by no means ready or willing to say goodbye to McGann's incarnation. 

Furthermore, bar a few of the usual hipsters pushing to the front of the DWM letters page to bellow about how cool they are for accepting something first, they were certainly not willing to welcome the low-rent bag of tawdry quirks of the "Ninth Doctor" we appeared to be having foisted upon us. Many on that same letters page were absolutely up in arms and Gray, Barnes & co. must have patted themselves on the back at the success of what nowadays would no doubt be labelled as "epic trolling". I just felt... dismay.  

But of course it was all just a giant master-stroke, a sleight-of-hand fakeout that had to take us to the depths of despair before the 8th Doctor could come storming back in all his glory. 

As a 6 parter, it's clear that we're getting a proper old school finale here, with the stakes as high as they could be - all space travel rendered impossible, the entire universe at the mercy of the Threshold, their true nature as being derived from a living Gallifreyan superweapon revealed at last -  but if we're honest, this could probably have lost at least one part. Even so, it's undeniably a classic. 

Granted, it depends heavily on knowledge of all the story threads it's pulling together, so this does lead to a fair amount of exposition at times, particularly when White explains the Pariah and the Doctor's plan, but even so, this is enormously satisfying and rewarding. 

We get to see Izzy crack the secret of "Gracie"'s identity (no small coincidence surely, that the 8th Doctor uses the name of his 1st companion as his cover identity?), Fey finally show her worth as she rescues the life of Shayde by merging with him, and the 8th Doctor to make good on the promise he made in his former life to take the Threshold down. On that note, maybe it is a little odd that there's only a very small call back to the price paid at the end of Ground Zero, particularly as it's one with very little emotional reaction from the Doctor.

White is perhaps not the villain you'd have expected, but the Pariah, as the monster at the heart of the shadowy organisation, with its secret Gallifreyan origin, is a great creation, wonderfully brought to maliciously evil life by Martin Geraghty, it's somewhat reminiscent of an Adrian Salmon drawn "Aliens" style Xenomorph in appearance, whilst being scripted by Gray as kind of bitchy Time-Lord Venom. 

A barnstorming rollercoaster ride then, on a suitably grand scale, not a dimension spanning epic journey like The Tides of Time, but its own story, a new type of story, that takes a Doctor who began in the cosy surroundings of Stockbridge and points him in the direction of adventures new in some considerable style.

9/10

TTFN! K.

Coming Soon: The Glorious Dead