Into the Nowhere

"It's like it's just appeared from nothing."

Writer: Jenny T. Colgan
Format: Short Story
Released: January 2014
Series: Time Trips 02

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Clara

Synopsis


The Eleventh Doctor and Clara land on an unknown alien planet. To the Doctor's delight and Clara's astonishment, it really is unknown. It's a planet the Doctor has never seen. It's not on any maps, it's not referenced on any star charts or in the TARDIS data banks. It doesn't even have a name. What could be so terrible that its existence has been erased?

Verdict

Into the Nowhere was a very good little story and a great continuation of my reading of the Time Trips series! I really liked the beginning of this one with the Doctor actually pouting about not knowing something. Clara pounced on that and I found it quite humorous how annoyed he was for him or the TARDIS not knowing about the existence of a planet. It had no name. It had no coordinates. It wasn't even reference anywhere and that had the Doctor stumped. So, naturally he couldn't just pass it by without paying a visit. Clara could have really done without it and her feelings were even more felt when she nearly got buried alive in quicksand! One big positive of this adventure was the characterisation of both the Eleventh Doctor and Clara. Individually their likeness were sound and their relationship was written even better. It absolutely fitted right into that era of the second half of series 7 and the time around the 50th Anniversary celebrations. I was very impressed with that. An intriguing element for me was Clara's thoughts about her position travelling with the Doctor. When he later went into her mind and saw her thoughts about him and the TARDIS being something of a mixture, he had to make sure that she was okay. I thought it was lovely how he yearned for seeing the universe through his companion's eyes, but he could not be a burden. And I agreed with him in that regard. Before all that though, the Doctor and Clara endured a tumultuous time on the unnamed planet that the Doctor would partially refer to as Planet Anthony. I doubt that name would stick but he wanted to ensure that this planet remained nameless. The truth of the planet was quite extraordinary with it containing all of the information in the universe. Literally all of it! That's something of an incomprehensible scale but I liked the idea. Etienne was something of an unconventional enemy as he had the appearance and personality of a video-game addicted obese teenager. In fact, that's pretty much what he was. His one quality was hacking though and he'd got so good at his job of doing this that he'd outwitted his employers and gone freelance. He now hid the planet from them and everyone and this was something close to what the Shadow Proclamation wanted, but they did want to monitor it. The Doctor saw that Etienne was duly punished though. His controlling of the planet and specifically the bones of deceased people who'd crashed or arrived on this planet was disgusting. The Doctor was appalled. The ending was a little iffy I felt with the pace good but it didn't leave a lot of room for clarity when it came to the big reveal of what the planet really was. I felt that was only the qualm of an otherwise very positive story. The use of the bones and Etienne being French and the King of Bones was excellent and I liked how excited the Doctor was by danger and new things. Swinging across the gorge by snake was certainly up there with unique moments! The Doctor setting things straight and adding some beauty to the place and a number to call for anyone who crashed there was good and kept things ticking over. He didn't see that Etienne was killed but rather sealed in his own virtual world. Overall, a very good adventure!

Rating: 8/10