Terror on Xaboi

"There appears to be a malfunction of the site-location console, and damage to the X sensor. In short, no idea at all..."

Writer: Paul Crompton

Format: Comic Strip

Released: September 1979

Printed in: Doctor Who Annual 1980

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana I, K9

Synopsis 

After some flight problems with the TARDIS, the Fourth Doctor and Romana arrive on the snow stricken planet of Xaboi, home to extremely primitive life forms and a monstrous beast.

Verdict 

Terror on Xaboi was a terrific little comic strip adventure with a pairing that I'm increasingly having an improved opinion on. During the Key to Time season 16, have to admit I struggled to get to grips with Romana's first incarnation played by Mary Tamm. I liked the idea of the Doctor travelling with a Time Lord to search for the Key to Time segments but after Leela's brilliance I struggled to warm to the new companion over the six inter-linked serials. And I think my opinion on Romana I is pretty poor because her replacement is my favourite companion of all time in Romana II played so beautifully by Lalla Ward. The pairing of her and the Fourth Doctor was just perfect from the word go, as we saw in Destiny of the Daleks and would see later in pretty much every serial that followed with the pair. City of Death being a major highlight! But now, after delving into other formats as is the case here and with my relatively recent listen of The Auntie Matter, I'm getting to like Romana I more. This comic strip was your typical Annual story but the classic ones are presented so much better than the revived series yearly releases which are horribly targeted towards the much younger fans. There really should be some give and take. I blog this story having been incredibly lucky in purchasing the 1980 Annual for a mere £3.50. It's an absolute gem in my collection and I can't thank Savannah Moon enough, such a brilliant shop! The Annual itself is instantly better than any of the revived ones with it just being a little collection of short stories and small comic strips which is exactly what I think they should all be. I can't tell you how happy I was to purchase my first classic annual! The Scribd app has been helpful to me in the past but redding one in proper paper format right there in front of you is splendid. A lucky and pleasing purchase in which I also picked up the Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin Target novel! Anyway, as usual these comic strips are pretty short at six pages, so my general talking has made the blog look longer than it would have been! The relationship between the Doctor and Romana was good here and I liked the similarities to An Unearthly Child with the extreme primitives. However, I found it intriguing that these people seemed to be even less evolved than Za and co as these people were still grunting having not come up with even a basic language. So communication was hard for the Doctor and Romana as you can imagine! The description of the planet was pretty good and I liked the use of K9 for his brief scenes! I loved the quality of the artwork illustrations, I really was impressed and adored the style! The story behind the beast creature was pretty minimal but that's always going to be the case in the length of a story like this but a shocking moment occurred! Despite the fact Romana was fearing for her life, I was very surprised that the Doctor killed the creature stone dead! Literally destroying it. The way the Doctor loathed his actions was outstanding. He really wasn't himself and wasn't happy or sure about what he'd done. A tremendous aim to a great little story!

Rating: 8/10