Salad Daze

"This court has found you guilty of eating vegetables."

Writer: Simon Furman

Format: Comic Strip

Released: October 1986

Printed in: DWM 117

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis

Peri Brown has put the Sixth Doctor on a strict healthy diet of vegetables and fruits in order for him to lose weight. Accidentally activating the Doctor's personal reality warp, Peri finds herself having to deal with vegetables on another level entirely.

Verdict

Salad Daze was an excellent comic strip adventure to continue along my reading of The World Shapers graphic novel in fine fashion! I will admit that I was a little sceptical prior to reading this one knowing that it was just a one part story, but it turned out to be the best adventure in the collection of stories yet! I thought the era of the Sixth Doctor and Peri was captured brilliantly and I think I actually enjoyed that Frobisher wasn't around. This pairing is definitely one of my very favourites, but I am not used to blogging with them in comic strip format so that was a refreshing change. The characterisation was terrific throughout and I loved how Peri was trying to get the Doctor to eat salad and get on a better diet. I'm not sure I agree with the running gag if the time of the Sixth Doctor perhaps being slightly overweight, but this fit the era that it was in and that's where I liked things. The mention of Frobisher without him actually being there was good and kept the continuity strong and I wonder if what he was up to will feature at all as part of one of the remaining stories in the graphic novel. It doesn't matter either way in my opinion. The use of the Personal Reality Warp was magnificent and I loved the whole concept behind it! It was almost like a dreamscape that could be based upon anything the user wanted. That is something very exciting and I really wouldn't mind one of those myself! The imagination runs wild. The possibilities are endless. In Peri's case, it involved her entering her own world of the Alice in Wonderland omnibus. I've never actually read the books, but I have watched the recent Disney movies so I know all about them and they're actually pretty darn good. I loved the image of the Doctor being a rabbit and her journey through the familiar elements of the story was brilliant! The reaction when she admitted that she had eaten carrots despite one of those she met being that very vegetable was just fantastic. It was comic gold whilst being incredibly serious! That is a fine line to balance but it was done perfectly here. I think this story also had the potential to drift into the realm of being a bit silly, but it did tremendously well to avoid being the case. As my quote might suggest, it was a bit barmy but that's the beauty of Doctor Who sometimes. That is especially so in the comic strips. What I explicitly loved was that the Doctor told Peri not to use the device because she wouldn't be able to handle it, and low and behold she was so grateful when she was brought back down to reality by his returning to her presence. She was almost killed, in her head, by vegetables and didn't want another one in sight. Instead of eating salad, she was intending on making hamburgers now and that was something the Doctor would be more than agreeable to. The little look in the last two panels was just gold and it would appear that the Doctor might just have planned the entire thing. He really is quite the genius and will go to incredible lengths to avoid eating salad! I thought that was a terrific note to end on for what was a superb little adventure. For one part comic strips, this was right up there. Overall, brilliant!

Rating: 9/10