In Search of Lost Time

"How do you know about my daydreams?"

Writer: Una McCormick

Format: Short Story

Released: June 2015

Printed in: The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who 08

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor

Synopsis

Tilly is having some strange dreams. They stop when she grows up, but that is until she meets a strange man with a bow tie and tweed jacket who claims to have built the wardrobe that led to Narnia. Can he help her with the dreams?

Verdict

In Search of Lost Time was another excellent story to continue my reading of The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who! I expected good stuff from Una McCormick and she certainly didn’t let me down with a terrific little tale that was barely ten pages long! It really is some task and achievement to produce such a wonderful story with such a short amount of space, but alas she prevailed. The idea of playing on the Chronicles of Narnia and going into a wardrobe of sorts, experiencing so much, and then coming out and returning to exactly the point when you went inside was very good and I liked how there were obvious similarities and differences to the famed tale. The reference to The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and our Time Lord proudly proclaiming that he’d actually built the wardrobe from Narnia was wonderful and very apt for the story that was being told. It fitted in effortlessly and absolutely was not a throwaway line. Tilly was a magnificent character and based upon her giggling at the start of the story, I was very surprised to later find that she was in fact a grown woman rather than a child! We had a lot of harking back to her days of youth and finding out that the dreams hadn’t only just started which was good. Tilly had experienced one problem in life though - she grew up. That was a stark reminder of just how quickly life goes by and it’s almost worrying me now that I’m 23 and out of university, in a job and no sign of time going any slower! It just doesn’t stand still and whilst that’s exciting, it’s also a little scary. The Doctor realising here that Tilly had simply become a teenager and then older to be ousted from the bandwidth of these strange Dream was good, but I was questioning a little how her daydreams could be so powerful to knock the TARDIS off course! I bet that once he found out, that occurrence excited the Doctor terribly though. I thought the arrival of the Doctor into the story was good and he was just wonderful with Tilly throughout. The characterisation of the Eleventh Doctor was sublime with all the little traits of Matt Smith more than evident. The coffee shop setting had a big part to play in that and I adored the Doctor’s reaction at the fact he was actually doing coffee in a chain store. Him! Well it was unheard of. His desire to have one of those big biscuits was just perfect for this incarnation’s personality and I found it quite funny when Tilly told him he could have whatever he wanted because he was paying, only for her to find out that he very much wasn’t. She was a kind woman though because she did get him that biscuit! Surely he’d have wanted a frostino instead of a coffee though? Assuming they were at Costa of course. I’m sidetracked. Anyway, the ending of the adventure was really interesting as we discovered that Tilly’s dreams were actually memories of a people long gone now. I think some linkage to how that impacted the TARDIS through Tilly was needed, but it was still a good revelation for sure. The little sidetracks into those memories for some paragraphs of amazing places was brilliant and the vibe this story had was just marvellous. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Tilly wanting to make sure that she didn’t forget about those she’d dreamt about was poignant and I really liked the line where the Doctor differentiated between her not forgetting and them not being forgotten. That was splendid. Tilly getting to go in the TARDIS with her pram (surely a first!) was a good moment and I liked the wonder she had. Everything suddenly felt very real. She would go on telling the simple story of those she’d dreamt of and experienced and that was just really nice. Some people lived and they were happy. There can be such beauty in simplicity. Overall, a terrific little tale!

Rating: 9/10