Tag: Classic Doctor Who

Posted in Audiobooks, Book Reviews

REVIEW: Doctor Who: Flip-Flop by Jonathan Morris

Posted on by elishasbookreview

*Spoilers Ahead*

Christmas Eve in the year 3060, and the planet Puxatornee is home to a prosperous human colony. 

A space craft has arrived in orbit carrying the Slithergees, a race of obsequious alien slugs. Their home world has been destroyed and they are humbly requesting permission to settle on the first moon. 

And if they don’t get permission, then they are humbly threatening to declare all-out war. 

The future hangs in the balance. The decision rests with Bailey, the colony’s president – but she has other things on her mind. 

Christmas Eve in the year 3090, and the planet Puxatornee has changed beyond all recognition. 

The Doctor and Mel arrive, on a completely unrelated mission to defeat a race of terrible monsters, and soon discover that something rather confusing has been happening to history. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

I have been quiet on the blog recently due to my mental health and feeling burnt out. However, I recently felt like listening to a Doctor Who audio drama so I first listened through Doctor Who: Phantoms of the Deep by Jonathan Morris. I don’t feel like I have enough of an opinion on this audio drama for a full review since it wasn’t very long. However, I will say that I enjoyed it and it was just the thing to get me back to the reading world.

I started Flip-Flop almost immediately after finishing Phantoms of the Deep and I have thoughts about this wacky and weird adventure. There will be spoilers ahead, so be warned. Without spoiling this story, I liked it overall. Thought it was a good story and unique plot. The ending is up to the listener’s interpretation in a sense. Definitely would recommend this for fans of Doctor Who, time travel stories, and science fiction fans in general.

Now to delve into the spoilers. This entire story is about how The Doctor and Mel get stuck in a time loop. They go back in time against their will to “fix” the past so that the apocalyptic “future” won’t come true. Thus, creating a paradox and time loop.

I am somewhat unsatisfied with the ending since there really is no “ending” because it’s a never-ending loop. It’s a time travel story where no matter what happens at the critical point of the president’s assassination, their world is going to be post-apocalyptic. To each version of The Doctor and Mel coming into the story for the first time, they are somewhat aware of the time loop they’re stuck in. The Doctor refers to this as ‘tripping over one’s own footprints’.

One of the possible futures is where the president is saved from assassination and ends up giving their world to the Slithergees or face the threat of an all out war. Since the Slithergees are blind, slug-like creature they end up enslaving the remaining humans and using them as seeing eye dogs.

The other possible future is one where the president is assassinated and all out war is declared on the Slithergees and sends the planet into a nuclear wasteland where the survivors are on death’s doorstep when The Doctor and Mel arrive.

Overall, I liked the story and I think you should check it out. It’s a unique story for Doctor Who fans and I think you’ll enjoy it.

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Posted in Discussions, Movie/TV Reviews, Personal Blogs

DISCUSSION: My Thoughts on Doctor Who: Past, Revival, and Current Re-Generation

Posted on by elishasbookreview

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Ever since I started this blog, I feel compelled to share my love of Doctor Who, however, I feel I’m constantly repeating myself when I’m reviewing a Doctor Who novel or audiobook. So I have finally gathered up my thoughts on Doctor Who in its entirety to share with you.

How I discovered Doctor Who: 

Back long, long ago, my ex-boyfriend told me his brother was watching Doctor Who on Netflix. It took me a couple of tries to watch the pilot episode of season 1 of the “reboot/current” series. But once I got past how the monsters were mannequins (hello another irrational fear) I binged the rest of the series.

Now that Doctor Who isn’t on any of the streaming services anymore, I missed 3 seasons of the show. It was Peter Capaldi’s run of the lovable Doctor. I feel like I didn’t miss too much since I follow the memes and humor on the Internet. As well as the fury about the writers changing things (thank goodness most of those were only temporary), and the downfall of the writing quality overall.

Classic Doctor Who? 

There is so much more of Doctor Who than anyone can keep up with. The show started in the ’60s and they had no idea how huge this small, low budget show would become. Thanks to the Internet, the reboot took off. With the addition of David Tennant and Matt Smith, the show would remain in the mainstream for years to come.

I love Classic Doctor Who and all of its cheesiness. I only just started watching Tom Baker’s Doctor before the streaming services stopped showing Doctor Who. There is so much left to watch, read, listen, and enjoy from this long-lasting franchise.

I like to watch my shows in chronological order, so I started with the man who started it all, William Hartnell’s Doctor. He was a grumpy, yet lovable grampa by the time Mr. Hartnell had to end his reign as the Doctor due to health issues.

Next is Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. I feel this incarnation of the Doctor has a lot of “missing” episodes/stories. I do own one of the DVDs of one of the lost stories, so some parts are filmed, and some parts are animated. Mr. Troughton’s Doctor is the one I know the least about personality-wise. He often refers to his “500-year journal” since his regeneration caused him some amnesia. One of his more popular companions is Jamie, a young man from 18th century Scotland. Even though a lot of what the Doctor does and talks about is beyond Jamie’s understanding, Jamie still enjoys the adventures and travels through time and space.

Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor in the classic series is one of my absolute favorites. One of my favorite quotes from him is

“Courage isn’t a matter of not being frightened, you know. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.”

I’ve seen similar quotes to this, but this one struck a chord with me because when I first heard it I was going through a tough time and it helped me realize not every choice is an easy one, and no matter what you still have to make a choice.

Doctor Who Reboot

I have two main favorite doctors in the reboot/current series so far. Right now those favorites are the 9th and 10th Doctors played by Christopher Eccelston and David Tennant respectively. What I really enjoyed about these Doctors was their personalities, Mr. Eccelston and his sarcasm that he brought to the character was charming. Even though his stint on the show wasn’t long, he is still my Doctor. Mr. Tennant has a great sense of humor and adorable quirkiness. You can see his love for the franchise throughout his run. These two doctors were probably the most unique and interesting Doctors I’ve seen so far.

The Future of Doctor Who:

Right now as far as the current Doctor, Jodie Wittaker is a good actress, especially for the mediocre writing she’s been given, now that’s not to say that the current writing is very poor, but it leaves a lot to be desired. My favorite episode from the 11th season is The Demons of Punjab. The plot is:

The Doctor and her friends arrive in the Punjab, India, in 1947, as the country is being torn apart; while Yaz attempts to discover her grandmother’s hidden history, the Doctor discovers demons haunting the land.

This is my favorite episode because the story was interesting, the writing was better, and the cinemaphotography was gorgeous and made 1947 India a place to visit.

Going forward I’d like to see better writing and better use of the companions in each episode, for example, a companion getting tired and The Doctor brings them back to Earth for a break. Also, three companions seems a bit much for an hour-long TV Show.

Side note: My fiance thinks the audio mixing needs a bit of work, you can’t really understand much of what’s being said without a high-end audio system. Gotta make it work on All systems, ya know? -Alex Dickson (Fiance who loves his woman so very much he will surprise her on her birthday with something special, now with what, he doesn’t know yet, but he’ll figure something out.)

Read My Reviews of Doctor Who Novels and Audio Dramas HERE not all of these I realize are not Doctor Who directly, but other novels that remind me of the show.

Posted in Audiobooks, Book Reviews, Novels

REVIEW: Doctor Who: The Holy Terror by Robert Shearman

Posted on by elishasbookreview
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*No Spoilers*

The TARDIS lands in a forbidding castle in a time of religious upheaval. The old god has been overthrown, and all heretics are to be slaughtered. Obviously, it isn’t the sort of thing which would happen there every day – just every few years or so.

And when the Doctor and Frobisher are hailed as messengers from heaven, they quickly become vital to opposing factions in their struggle for power. But will they be merely the acolytes of the new order – or will they be made gods themselves?

An evil destructive force is growing deep within the crypt. And the pair soon finds out that they will be lucky to escape their new immortality with their lives.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I am still learning about some of the Classic Doctor Who Doctors. I am not familiar with the 5th-8th Doctors yet. However, I still enjoy reading their spinoff stories.

This audio drama was very interesting. I could imagine the whole story as if it was an actual episode. It was well-acted and written.

My favorite character was Frobisher. He was full of good humor and took a major roll in this story. I was a little disappointed when it seemed like Frobisher was overshadowing the Doctor.

One of the instances where I felt Frobisher was overshadowing The Doctor was when the other characters in the story put him into Kinglike and Godlike power over their Kingdom, with that, I found it to be surprised that they didn’t put The Doctor in that position instead since The Doctor is always the main focal character of most of the stories.

With everything that happened in this story, I found it to be well written and the ending wrapped up quite nicely with no loose ends.

If you are looking for a good Doctor Who story, this is your audiobook. I would also recommend this novel for lovers of science fiction and short stories. This audiobook is about two hours long, so it’s a quick listen if you need something to listen to while waiting on another book.