The Piper

"The rats were moving towards him!"

Writer: Mark Morris

Format: Short Story

Released: June 2015

Printed in: The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who 12

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

There's a wall in the London sewers that just shouldn't be there. Who put it there? What's on the other side? More importantly, there are metallic rats running around causing chaos. They seem familiar. One sole leftover of an invasion plans to start anew...

Verdict

The Piper was an excellent story to continue my reading of The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who! I really am ploughing through this collection now and I have to say that this one was certainly one of the best ones in the book so far. I thought it was brilliant from start to finish. It was great to have an adventure with the Third Doctor and Jo and we had the rarity of the former incarnation doing battle with the Cybermen! Well, to be more specific it was just a singular Cyberman but the point remains. I really was hoping that it would be them that was behind the mysterious wall that really shouldn’t be there in the sewers and when we got mentions of metallic rats with gleaming red eyes, it just had to be the Cybermats didn’t it? I probably would have been bitterly disappointed if it wasn’t them behind it all because the similarities would have just been too close. Alas, all was well in the world and we had the return of our first major enemy in the book’s collection. I thought the capturing of the era was magnificent and I liked how it was established that for the Doctor and Jo, they’d just come back from the events of Planet of the Daleks. After all that went on there with invisibility and Daleks, a wall in the London sewers that didn’t belong seemed like an easier task. It arguably ended up proving just as deadly! I really enjoyed the writing of the Doctor and Jo and whilst the pair’s characterisation was nailed on, I also loved how their relationship was captured in prose. That was particularly impressive because of how short this adventure was. In saying that though, at 18 pages this particular story ends up being one of the collection’s longest which is just a bit baffling to say! As well as the relationship between the Doctor and Jo being good, it was also terrific to see some bitterness between the Doctor and the Brigadier. They really did have awfully different opinions when it came to the use of alien technology and once all was said and done, the Doctor’s stunned reaction that the Government would be testing the Cyber technology to try and benefit mankind was startling. I really didn’t understand why they needed to do that given all the dangers it had just produced, but I wouldn’t really expect anything different to be honest. The arrogance of government is sometimes astonishing. I liked that we had Benton feature quite heavily and the image of him trying to help as many people as he could when it came to evading the Cyber worms was really good. He’s such a likeable character and his role in this one was exactly what I’d expect of him. I enjoyed him a lot in this one. The little introductory passage with Barry Jenkins being in the sewers and coming up against the wall that didn’t belong was very good and did well to compliment the rest of the story. The fear he invoked despite being incapacitated in hospital was very powerful and a good element of the adventure. The moment the Doctor revealed that he was turning into a machine was superb and I could just imagine it fitting perfectly as a cliffhanger if this were to be a televised story. I thought the Cyber worms were an interesting addition to the history of Cyber technology. The way they were used to convert would-be humans into Cybermen was very gruesome and the idea of them doing it from within was fantastic! The image of them entering through pores was quite disturbing! I just can’t imagine that. I really enjoyed how well described the helmet was, along with the Cyberman itself, and that really did give some credence to this particular enemy. I loved that it was a leftover from The Invasion and it having to deal with being damaged was very good indeed. Incredibly, the Cyberman entered the story halfway down a page and by two thirds of the following one it was dead! That’s what you call an impact. The Doctor cleverly anticipated who or what he’d be dealing with and quickly dealt with the problem at hand thanks to the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor’s disgust when the Brigadier referred to his trusty little device as a weapon was fantastic. A really good moment. Jo having to see the inside of a Cyberman’s helmet and what was left of the human remains was very intriguing as I’m not sure we ever got a clear insight into what was inside during the original Classic era run. The Doctor using the Cyberman to recall all of the Cyber technology was pretty decent and likening it to the method of the pied piper was very good. It was obviously where the story got its name from. Overall, a wonderful adventure!

Rating: 9/10