Potential Energy

"She was only dying because Peri had infiltrated her house in order to save her life."

Writer: Jacqueline Rayner

Format: Short Story

Released: June 2015

Printed in: The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who 10

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis

Today is Peri Brown's wedding day and she's not too happy about it. Her would-be husband was a bit loud and she wasn't keen on that. The Doctor is fixated with Zoe, his new tablet which supposedly has all of the answers. Can it deal with the Potentialiser though?

Verdict

Potential Energy was a very fun little story to continue along my reading of The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who very nicely! After a recent burst of modern era stories, I was glad to be returned to the Classic era of Doctor Who with the brilliant pairing of the Sixth Doctor and Peri. They work so wonderfully well together and I have to say that Jacqueline Rayner captured their relationship superbly well. Her writing of the pair was tremendous it has to be said. I loved how effortlessly she harkened back to the era of 1984. Setting the story in the Regency period was great and it was a huge amount of fun having Peri on the verge of getting married! She didn’t seem too impressed with her potential husband though. She’d much rather someone who wasn’t loud or who didn’t shout or didn’t shoot people. That seemed pretty fair enough in my eyes! They weren’t traits that were exactly pushing the boat out when it came to marriage. I felt a little sorry for her there. However, she was never really going to get married and it all turned out to be a pretty humorous little ruse orchestrated by the Doctor to flesh out the Potentialiser. I loved the name of that would-be villain, but it turned out that draining a person of their unused and unusable time energy didn’t kill them! So, Jayne was dying because of Peri! That was a fun revelation because in her efforts to doll herself up for Peri’s sham wedding, she’d reacted to the face cream and that was actually her true course of death. Well, I credit anyone who managed to see that one coming! The Doctor talking to Peri of our modern times and how there’s the World Wide Web and DVDs was fantastic and I liked how that was used as an explanation for why he didn’t have to give Peri one for what was truly going on. She just wouldn’t be able to understand it in the terminology she had available to her. That was quite an intriguing thing to play on and I felt it worked very well. The Doctor having Zoe at his disposal was a great deal of fun as well. No, it wasn’t Zoe of Jamie and Zoe but it was actually a tablet from 2015. I’d love to know when the Doctor managed to purchase one of those online! More importantly, what address did he get it delivered to? So many useless questions! But you bet I want to know the answers. I do think there should have been a little more clarity on what exactly the Doctor and Peri were up to from the start, but the mystery did create some added interest. I probably would have liked a bit more time with the Potentialiser as well because it would have been good to know all about its background and purpose other than just feeding to stay alive. I quite liked Peri acting in accusatory manner when she initially didn’t believe that the Potentialiser taking the potential from a human was not the cause of recent deaths that it had been around. The Doctor seemed to be letting Peri be in charge and in control of events which was good, but she was more than happy to utilise that as she endured that the Doctor got rid of Zoe. She was a fun addition to the story though and I loved that the Doctor had her because he wasn’t content with knowing just nearly all of the facts! Zoe allowed them all at his fingertips which was very good. Of course, Zoe even picked Peri over herself to stay with the Doctor because the American was a lot prettier than her and I found the Doctor mildly agreeing to that without really saying anything quite a surprise! Did the Doctor think she was? Surely no opinion. The similarities to The Time of the Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor’s relationship with Handles were good and I can only imagine that the Sixth Doctor would have got frustrated with Zoe as time went on. Overall though, a very fun little tale!

Rating: 8/10