The Cruel Sea

"The sea is alive. Every drop of it... And it's screaming with pain and shame."

Writer: Robert Shearman

Format: Comic Strip

Released: August 2005

Printed in: DWM 359-362

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

It's the 22nd century. Mars has been cleaned up, dusted off and turned into a leisure planet. The rich sail the artificial seas and drink cocktails. But... the sea is hungry. The Doctor has once again landed himself in trouble and his companion is in the middle of an intergalactic dispute... and a wedding with very disturbed guests.

Verdict 

The Cruel Sea was a superb story and is certainly, so far of what I've read anyway, the best Ninth Doctor and Rose comic strip! We finally get a feature length story spread across four issues which is in my opinion the ideal length to tell a great story, and that's exactly what we got here. It began well with some typical Doctor-Companion humour with Rose all space suited out expecting Mars to just be a rock. Instead it'd become a tourist destination, of sorts, for the super rich. Now, the concept is certainly a striking one and perhaps contradictory to some Ice Warrior stories set past the 22nd century but I actually liked the idea. A beautiful sea, apparently made from cranberry juice, and artificial air. To me, this story was a kind of cross between Turn Left and The Curse of the Black Spot despite it being released some time before each of those stories. But you had the whole idea of beings coming through via reflection, as in the latter mentioned story, and then we saw remnants of an alternative life for Rose had she not accepted the Doctor's offer to travel with her back in Rose, which was excellently referenced and flashbacked to. I loved how this alternative direction in life shown was actually derived from the nightmares of Rose Tyler herself. She has fallen in love with travelling in the TARDIS, seeing the wonders of the universe, and it seems clear she's ever so grateful that the Doctor returned a few seconds later to tell her the TARDIS can travel time. The rest is, as you know, history. But this led to me thinking that did Rose use this experience as inspiration during the above formerly mentioned story? I rather like to think so. Here, she doesn't like to think of her life without the Doctor and in Turn Left, she's horrified thinking of a universe without him. The guest characters were intriguing all named as basically numbers following the word 'wife'. How can a guy at the age of 143 have been married well into double figures amount of times? The women's mental health certainly has to be questionable, especially with one who crawled into the mouth of her ex-husband. Yes, that happened and it was horrifically brilliant. The threat of permanent divorce was a humorous concept I thought and just showed how pathetic these women's lives had become. Keeping a guy alive for money basically. Is it really that important? The 'reflectors' taking over the Doctor's body was fantastic. Excuse the pun. But I liked how it was the undying trust between the Doctor and Rose that ultimately prevailed and stopped the evil Alvar. Overall, a wonderful comic strip but I was just hoping, seeing as the story was set on Mars, for an Ice Warrior reference. Sadly, we didn't get one. 

Rating: 9/10