CHAOS

"CHAOS was here to stay."

Writer: Eric Saward
Format: Short Story
Released: March 2004
Printed in: Short Trips: Past Tense 03

Featuring: Sixth Doctor. Peri

Synopsis

The Sixth Doctor and Peri are experiencing chaos everywhere they look. But is this even the Doctor's sixth incarnation? Could it be that it's his predecessor? Is this all just the result of a bang on the head... or is there something more chaotic at work?

Verdict

CHAOS was sadly a quite poor continuation of the Short Trips Past Tense collection of stories. It's such a shame as I had incredibly high hopes for the consistency of this volume but it seems like it may not live up to my expectations. I hope this is just a blip, and I am somewhat confident that it might be. I was further disappointed by the standard of the story given the fact that Eric Saward was the writer! His televised serials are often favourites of mine with Resurrection of the Daleks, Attack of the Cybermen and Revelation of the Daleks particularly standing out. Specifically that middle one. It's one of my all time favourites. After reading his recent interviews in Doctor Who Magazine, I got excited to be reading something of his ahead of the prose releases of his two Dalek adventures but I hope this is not anything to by! Not a lot happened and it was just a bit of a mess really. The whole story was chaotic and not in a good way. It was tough to follow, and that's not just because of my tiredness following an incredibly early rise to witness my glorious girlfriend graduate. I certainly won't let this put a dampener on what has been a wonderful day. Thoughout the story, I was never overly sure which incarnation of the Doctor was actually featuring. It seemed as though this was definitely an adventure of the Fifth Doctor but just as the story is coming to a close, the last page reveals that it's actually his predecessor and that he's in the TARDIS with Peri. I thought the concept behind CHAOS could have been great and the bits it was included did sound pretty interesting. I'd definitely like to know where the ending goes with the Doctor's brain being infiltrated without him knowing it, but as stated that's a story for another day. I thought one particular passage of this story was plain awful. I fully appreciate that at barely eight pages, this particular story did not have a lot of room to play with compared with those it accompanies in this book, but describing the events of a story rather than actually explaining it just didn't sit well with me. I couldn't quite believe what I was reading. It was horrible! It's just not enjoyable when something you don't know the events of is told in what was basically a recap. The initial prospect of a Fifth Doctor and Tegan story would, to my knowledge, be rather difficult to explain in TARDIS ins and outs chronology, but I'll do my best to let that slide as it was in the Doctor's dream. I found the reveal that all of what we read was just the results of his concussion from being knocked down in America was very poor indeed. I did find his reaction to realising he was concussed to be the highlight of the story and a quite brilliant moment. There was something to take away at least! Because this really wasn't a historical story it all. From the perspective of the Doctor and his companion, this wasn't in the past at all which was a big shame. Overall, a moment or two but quite a poor bit of prose.

Rating: 4/10