Doctor vs Doctor

"You're probably right about everything normally, but just this once you're out of your depth."

Writer: Gareth Roberts 

Format: Short Story

Released: September 2005

Printed in: Doctor Who Annual 2006

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

Dr Carr seems to be the man who can solve the unsolvable mystery. But when strange happenings continue at a guest event, the Doctor and Rose arrive and question the theory of the all knowing doctor...

Verdict 

Doctor vs Doctor was a very good short story to open the 2006 Annual and its canonical content! I really liked the atmosphere of the short piece of prose with the murder mystery theme and I also really liked the 1920s setting, though with the entire adventure indoors in one location that didn't matter too much other than a few comments about the people within the manor not being able to understand the truth about what was going on. The backdrop to Dr Carr was excellent and I liked how he was almost like a male equivalent of Agatha Christie, who of course appeared in The Unicorn and the Wasp. That TV story is undoubtedly the easiest one to compare this short story with and I really liked the similarities. Same sort of premise and aim but a completely different resolution about what just was going on. Ransom was a fantastic character and I really enjoyed how much of the story seemed to be from his perspective. His perception of the Doctor and Rose on their arrival was intriguing and I liked the use of historical setting with the companion's clothes being referred to as "boy's clothes". Oh how times have changed! Gareth Roberts, a very good writer of stories usually much longer than this one, nailed the traits and personality of the Ninth Doctor with ease. Just by simply saying "nope" instead of 'no' was more than enough to grasp this short lived incarnation of the Doctor. I say short lived but we did get 10 television stories with him, that's two more than Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor, eight more than Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor (don't you dare forget The Night of the Doctor!) and a whole nine more than John Hurt's War Doctor. I was actually recently thinking about things regarding Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. He seems to be slowly being forgotten, more so since the arrival of the Twelfth Doctor to our screens. Naturally the War Doctor will be forgotten over time with just the one appearance and exclusion from the numbering - and even the Doctor's own memory as best he can - but without the actor being a committed fan of the series people are forgetting the Doctor that brought the show back to our screens. Even in the States, the Titan comic series only features incarnations from the revived series but the Ninth Doctor is not one of them. It's a shame really because even in this short story, the quality the incarnation possesses was evident! After problems with the TARDIS, he was angered by the cause seemingly being from interfering aliens in 1920s England who shouldn't be there. So he just casually turned up and wanted to save everybody without them getting in his way. I liked how clearly he enjoyed having Rose around and it was evidently the same vice versa - she loved being around him as was seen when she jumped and wrapped her arms around him before being teleported into the ship that was causing all the murder. It was discovered that the crew were dead and the ship's systems were acting on automatic attempting to get the ship going again and unstuck from the plane it was stuck in. Unseen from the reader, the Doctor did do so, as you might expect. Dr Carr wanting to know all the facts in a rather aggressive fashion was very good! He couldn't handle not knowing everything! But what he did work out about Rose was frightening! The Doctor however proved to be difficult. He couldn't solve him and wouldn't as the TARDIS pair left in their police box just before the real police arrived. 

Rating: 8/10